To the best of my recollection, without checking two and a half month’s posts, I’ve largely avoided politics here. As I’ve repeatedly said, I’ve stayed away from social media and the news and attempted to find a way through this that minimises anxiety. For the most part, I think I’ve been quite succesful at that.
So forgive me if, just for once, I take a moment to record my astonishment at how the saga of Dominic Cummings and his lockdown-breaching travels has been handled. I’m well used to the insouciant arrogance of the pack of charlatans and chancers that currently comprises the UK government; I hadn’t expected them to close ranks and abandon their entire approach to the pandemic to preserve the career of someone they don’t even like. The inevitable consequence is that, when Cummings finally goes, all the rest of them will stand exposed as the pack of cowardly, arse-licking, trough-snouting grifters they are.
As I write, the situation is still playing out. I should be flabbergasted were Cummings to manage to hold on to his position until Monday–he might already have gone by the time you read this–although nothing would surprise me with that shower of liars and incompetents. The bigger picture of how this plays is much more dangerous, and it doesn’t seem unlikely to me that one outcome of the chaos that is about to engulf England in particular will be a rapid rise in the infection and death rate. I hope not, but it would be foolish to discount it.
I say England advisedly: this is an open invitation to the devolved administrations to take the high ground.
I have a further anger smouldering inside too, not directed at the government, but the appalling waste of four years by chocolate grandad at the head of the Labour Party, too busy fighting internecine culture wars amongst the comrades to deliver the kind of opposition that might have stood a chance at keeping the Tories out, rather than handing them a substantial working majority.
A lesson of this pandemic is that, whatever else it is doing, it is exposing and widening cracks in society that were already forming, or latent. We knew they were there because of the highly partisan and hardline approach to Brexit taken by the Tories, another front from which Jezza was missing in action–he was far away from the front line, overseeing the drafting of composite motions.
The proximate cause of this mess is the Tories, but they were only able to get us to this state because of the uselessness of Corbyn.
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Music: an old favourite. David Byrne attracts attention as the front man, but Talking Heads, and this song, are all about Tina Weymouth.
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