Brexit and politics

On BBC Newsnight (26-05-20) [1] a note from Danny Kruger, Conservative MP for Devizes, was read out. It said, with respect to Dominic Cummings: “Appreciate the inbox and press are horrific but the PM is signalling (as he did with the sacking of 21 MPs last year – which appalled some people in the parly party) that he’s serious. BJ and DC together are why we won the 2019 election and them together is the only way to GBD [Get Brexit Done], level up the regions, and fix Whitehall – the only things which will win us the next election too. An arguable minor infraction of lockdown is totally secondary to that. Also, No 10 won’t budge, so calling for DC to go is basically declaring no confidence in PM.” Mark these words. They lay bare the inexorable logic of a government determined to achieve Brexit, whatever it costs. Cummings, by his act of extraordinary arrogance, has forced an issue that was intended to remain firmly behind closed doors, into the full glare of public scrutiny. The sin...

Things seem very precarious. With Cummings and Johnson, the right-wing have a stranglehold over normal politics. What can we do? Perhaps The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui has something to tell us in these depressing times? It was written by Berthold Brecht in response to the rise of Hitler. He wanted audiences to understand the mechanics of dictatorship so that it could be opposed. Well, there is no direct equivalent of Arturo Ui in our government. Ui is a Chicago gangster and represents Hitler. Our prime minister is not of his kind, thankfully. He would be too cowardly to pick up a tommy gun and spray bullets around. Neither does he have the primitive shrewdness of Ui, as his handshakes with coronavirus patients testify. So, we are unlikely to be liquidated, wacked or fed to the fishes by him. The machine gun route to dictatorship can stay in the play. Ui though is an opportunist. Here we see a similarity. He did not plan every move from the beginning. He only needed to wait ...

Deadening death Having wasted months during which the government could have built up supplies of testing kits and PPE and could have organised tracing teams, it has instead indulged in a chaotic and reactive game of catchup. The mainstream media (MSM), with the notable exception of Channel 4 News, have been unwilling to hold the government to account. Instead, we endure the unedifying spectacle of the daily briefing, which serves only to demonstrate how woeful our journalists are. Obvious questions, particularly relating to PPE and testing are not asked, or not as brutally as needed, or when they are asked, the question is usually surrounded by less difficult questions, which of course get answered instead. My point cuts deeper than just the obvious ineptitude. The output of the MSM has become so bland that we fail to register the tragedy. The numbers of dead have become a grisly contest with other nations to see who has the best curve. By using military metaphors and other diversio...

The future after Coronavirus is dangerously in the balance. While there are opportunities for an end to populism and cynical politics, the fear remains that they become even more embedded. I want to show that the threat of such a slide is real and that we should waste no time in understanding what faces us. What will happen next? In spite of the astonishment of news outlets each time Coronavirus cases rise by a "record amount", the virus obeys simple mathematical rules. The curve is different for each country but it never fails to follow a steep up-phase followed by a down-phase. In countries where preparations have been poor, the peak number of cases overloads the health service of that country. Spain and Italy have suffered very badly. The UK and the US look set to follow. In most cases governments have been forced to impose social distancing and other measures to prevent or minimise overloads. In the US, in what could prove to be a national disaster, Trump has preferred...

With Coronavirus cases rising exponentially, the UK response seems muted and complacent. Here is my post on how we could be walking into a catastrophe. Apologies to those of a squeamish nature. Suddenly there are experts everywhere. From being the least trusted individuals in public life, thanks to being rubbished by Gove and other believers in faith over facts, the government now prefaces every statement with "on the advice of scientific experts". But there is something deeply disturbing about what they are saying. "Herd immunity" has become the latest fashionable talking point. What does it mean and what does it really mean? The idea, if taken at face value, is to take advantage of your immune system, which on being attacked will generate antibodies to resist the attack. Once the body has learned how to defend itself it should have an immunity against future attacks by the same virus. By allowing the virus to pass through the herd (population), the virus is su...

It is chilling to note that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill passed through the commons with nothing more than a whisper. Where did all the hot air suddenly go? It seems to me that this brief period of calm is an illusion. The government, more specifically Dominic Cummings, is adept at fanning the flames when it wants to and then calming them down when people should look the other way. These conjuring tricks, so obviously perpetrated, seem to be doing very well in beguiling the unquestioning masses. My view is that the tricks we are seeing are part of a roughly worked plan. It derives from a government that seeks to win by changing ideas more than it does by having coherent policies. Brexit, in these terms, is the Trojan Horse. It may have arisen haphazardly from a rightwing loathing for the EU, however misplaced, but it has become the main vehicle for bringing in the ideas needed to coerce a rightwing victory of ideas. I make this point explicitly because it makes sense of what most pro-...

Following the General Election, Labour is in disarray. While it eats itself alive, I am thinking about how it became unelectable and whether this was avoidable? If we listen to the crashes and bangs of the current row, two distinct arguments can be heard. On the one side we have the Corbynistas, who claim Brexit decided the result; and on the other we have the Remainers, who claim Corbyn decided the result. Who is right? I think we have to see behind the shouting match. Taking Corbyn first, in my view it is obvious he contributed to the defeat. He is the public face of the Labour Party. His persona is what people associate with the party. You can make the same case for Johnson and the Tories. Corbynism reached its peak after the General Election 2017. His popularity has been on the decline ever since. He entered the 2019 election with horrendous personal ratings . Multiple polls back up this assertion. Given that his popularity was undeniably poor, the question becomes more about ...