This UK Conservative government may be out of ideas,
talent, energy and decency but like an old circus freak show it can still make
you goggle.
The current state of play is ineffectual
firefighting of fires they started – and expecting credit and/or gratitude
from a weary public.
Listening to weekend reports of the holiday backlog
on the Dover to Calais route you could be forgiven for imagining that many folk
and even more ‘news’ readers have never heard of Brexit. You could be further
forgiven for assuming that Remainers didn’t warn that exactly these scenes
would follow from the madness of leaving our largest/closest trading partner. It
may be comforting to forget that the rampant rabid xenophobes and those
powerful entities sweating in anticipation of regulation-free UK where anything
went, didn’t deny in the most barefaced fashion that all these problems would
be minor and fade away like mist. Instead its a permanent smog.
But this is just one of the self-harms Britain has
inflicted on itself and just one of many coming home to roost.
I could site the state of the rail network which has
become unaffordable for many while sucking up more in public subsidy than when
it belonged to the nation – while acceptable standards of service and
reliability are things of the past.
Or more recently I could point to the ridiculous and
cruel Rwanda policy still defended by lunatic Suella Braverman. Rarely is it
mentioned that part of the issue with the over-crowded and unsafe-for-children
hotels the government has resorted to – which exorcise many gobby right wingers
– is caused by the governments lack of a grip on asylum processing procedures.
Plus – having no plan or policy for those arriving in boats seems to be the plan.
The privatised utility companies are a disaster.
Scottish Power now owned by a Spanish conglomerate – is one of the least well
performing and expensive to domestic customers but reported an increase in
profits of 3.6% in 2022.
Privatisation of the utility companies and all the
predictable/predicted failings that follow when profit trumps investment, is
nowhere more clearly born out than with England’s water companies.
Whether you choose to join up all the dots i.e. the
inevitable deterioration of water infrastructure as chairmen and shareholders
bag millions - or whether you look at very recent history and Boris Johnson's
government voting to allow raw sewage dumps into England's waterways, it's a
mess.
The pre-local election panic Sunak announcement that
the privatised water companies in England may be subject to unlimited fines (if
the under-funded Environment Agency can find the staff to follow the stench) is
proof we are now in an age where almost all of government is about shaping
turds of their own making. Both figuratively and literally...
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