The Virus Years 5: The Big Reset Button

I've been looking into what social enterprises/schemes for the unemployed/mentally unwell (etc etc) exist. Some of the usual suspects are still around. By usual suspects I mean organisations I've dealt with before who talk a good game, but don't actually help and, at worst, engage in whole sale gaslighting when you discover this fact.

Some of them are still operating, but only remotely over Zoom. How this addresses the current and forthcoming state of the labour market I do not know. My experience with local groups is not positive and having been gaslighted by these people, essentially blaming me for their failings to provide a service (despite all the funding, compels me not to engage further. Essentially it all seems to revolve around trying to get you into the quickest outcome possible. Tick that box, get that funding. This amounts to little more than a push to do voluntary (doesn't seem very voluntary then) work. I can't imagine there's too much of that at present, not if the local charity shops are any indication. They're all shut.

The past is a foreign country now. The virus has pressed the big reset button. Perahaps this can be a good thing; a change that allows a break from old baggage. Who we are after we emerge from the existential lockdown, the presence of covid (whenever that will be), will be for us to define. Society will reflect this. Hopefully we can resist the desperate attempts of the ruling class to compel us back to old normality; back into offices and restaurants, with vouchers and failures.

Today sees the government pause it's haphazard easing of lockdown. What lockdown? That went out the window a couple of months back, rubber stamped by Gollum's visit to the opticians, I mean castle. What we'e had since then has been largely self defined. Do what you like is the only conclusion one can draw from perhaps deliebrately contradictory messaging. It is Doublethink: the Orwellian ability to hold two opposing views simultaneously. In the end it allows the government, through whichever we choose to follow, to trap us. You didn't follow the rules. How can we succeed?

Don't forget this is all to get us back to work. Back to profiting the bosses at our own expense. That's why there's a rush to get back to schools and pubs. Get children out of the house to get the parents out of the house and into the work place. How can we be sure this is healthy? What may be ideal isn't necessarily in our best interests in the presence of Covid; the defining factor of the now.

We are alone in all of this. The media isn't our friend. The government isn't our friend. The truth is a weapon to be used or denied as the government sees fit, perhaps both at the same time. The opposition - Labour - isn't our friend. They are careerist centre bound with no care for the working class. All Starmer wants is to be a safe pair of hands for big business, and he will be. 

Doesn't make him our friend though

Even the government can't keep up. How can we? How many weeks will this go on? A schizoid society at war with itself may be what Cummings and Gove, the real prime minsiters, want, but it just breeds a dangerosuly unhealthy society. While the virus attacks the body physical, these people attack the body politic. What's left for the crows?

The Virus Years 4: Teacup In A Storm

Trump has decided, once again, to throw his toys out the pram and declare the election null and void.

Wait, that's the election due to happen this November? 

He thinks he's going to lose so of course he preempts this to try and save face or salvage what's left of his business career, which is all his political career ever was. This is after pouting on TV that nobody likes him because of his "personality". That and the fact he's a spoiled simpleton without a shred of compassion or tolerance.

Sound familiar?

Looks like the western world is going to face a reckoning this winter, which, amid the gloom, will certainly be interesting. Albeit grimly. Our very own spoiled simpleton, along with his handlers (Cummings and Gove), will risk driving our economy further off a cliff and into the darkest pits of penury in the name of Brexit. Meanwhile Corona will be cheering on, possibly, though hopefully not, resurgent. Emboldened perhaps. Stuffed on our stupidity and shortsightedness.

I watched brief BBC bit on the current vaccine situation. Despite promising outcomes thus far the word on science street is that it will be a year from now at the earliest before we can get that bad boy into our bloodstreams. It's fair to say the boffins haven't really said otherwise. It's really only been the media spinning and spewing false hope, along with Boris offering a Christmas cure because, fuck it, it's panto season or something.

People will of course be persuaded by this ox faced human pasty. That's the tragedy of the moment.

We are going to have to adapt. This, right now, as I sit uncomfortably warm in the summer heat, half dazed, could well be as good as it gets. This might be the eye of the storm. Artificial God knows I hope not. What's depressing most of all is the thought of who's in charge. Like Corona, they don't seem to be in a hurry to piss off, and, in my view, are just as unwelcome.

Can we really tolerate another year, at least, of their malfeasance and incompetence? When the economy finally gives up the ghost they will bail out, leaving us to hold the horse. Mogg and company will escape to their respective tax havens, sunning themselves in comfort while the working class continue to face the increased austerity this disaster will surely bring. That's the only response the Tories know how to enact. Capitalism 101; make the other lot pay.

The question is: will we let them make us?

The Virus Years 3: The Fear Centre

The tension builds within me. I feel compelled to expand my boundaries, take a trip into town. But I'm profoundly, even existentially conflicted. The reality of covid is uncertain: I don't know how safe it is, though the numbers speak one way my heart speaks the language of, currently, fear (curse my ventricles).

Then I feel bad for giving in to fear. But weighing up the pros and cons for what will ultimately be a quick visit to town at full bus fare (and that will almost certainly increase in the coming months) it just isn't worth it. That doesn't make me feel better either. This situation is irreconcilable it seems.

I also need a hair cut, if fashion is any concern (it isn't). Seriously though, I do. Very seriously. Oddly the barbers weren't accepting card payments, only cash. I didn't have any. They also wanted me to sign in. I guess that's going to be the case for any place like this I visit. This is of course for tracking and tracing purposes, so it's good to see them taking it seriously. But it made me very uncomfortable. I did not get my hair cut. I will have to, probably with another hairdresser anyway. I'm not a fan of blokey barber shops, but having to sign in - which will be the case everywhere I should think - caught me off guard. I'm not saying it's a bad idea at all, but I do not like paper trails and this just hit me. I will simply have to put on my big boy pants though because this is the new normal. 

The world changes in little ways. 

And so my focus returns to next Monday's Work Focused Interview. A phone call that makes no sense to me. What services are operating at this time? I can't imagine many and given my current travelphobia is ti reasonable to expect people to take the chance? Given how empty the buses look these days, clearly I'm not alone. What questions will I face regarding my own efforts; can they really expect much from us given the last 4 months? My appointment with the Asperger people has been postponed indefinitely, that isn't going to change. What else can I do? I have no idea when I'll be called in for another WCA. Normally this period would be when, as that's what it was last year (despite them taking two years and behaving irresponsibly throughout), UI don't even know if and when my benefits will migrate to Universal Credit.

Sure I can, and am, looking on the DWP Find A Job website. But there is nothing on there anyway, except a strange (though explicable, see yesterday) preponderance of experienced medical jobs. Lots of care work, if you have the transport. Not much of anything else. I don't see that situation improving. 

So the prospect of a potential DWP interrogation (it could go either way) doesn't inspire confidence given how little there is to talk about. But that's how it is with them, they aren't exactly intelligent about this, but they just have to keep checkging on you. They call it help. It isn't.

The Virus Years 2: The Uncertainty Principle

I think the government's Find A Job database (the latest iteration of their jobseeker database) just adds jobs regardless. Doing so simply to make it look as though there are more jobs than actually is the case. For instance, they list vacancies for serious careers like doctors and surgeons. No doctor or surgeon is likely to look for work through this database, if at all. Instead they will use private contract services or the NHS' own systems. So who is Find A Job aimed at; is the average jobseeker likely to have years of medical experience and training? Unlikely.

Yes, I'm keeping an eye on the latest vacancies. Oddly now seems like an apposite time as there are fewer vacancies to track. Of course there are way more people chasing them, but that's another discussion. So many of these vacancies are for work in the medical community. These are clearly being copy-pasted onto the governments JC+ site. Someone is clearly being tasked with this, and it only serves to make the labour market seem more impressive, to suit DWP efforts to cast jobseekers as lazy simply for being jobseekers.

I would posit, with no disrespect intended, that no one signing on is going to be qualified for these jobs. These are experienced skilled positions. Everything from midwives and community nurses to radiographers and anaesthetists I have seen. People looking for such work, and I'm sure there are those, will not be using this site.

At the time of writing I think I am correct in saying that Work Capability Assessments are still on hold. That could change at any time. I am unfamiliar with how this process works under Universal Credit: how, if one is sick, one claims UC on that basis, and whether a sick note (or fit note as I think they were made to become) is required. Never mind how that will work if you are quarantining under presumption of covid or sick from it. Certainly there are going to be a large number of people claiming and so the WCA backlog will be increasingly large. Again, assumption. So who knows if and when (certainly not if!) I'll be seen again. But, as we've discussed, one of the more pernicious aspects of this system is the uncertainty. I don't know when that will be, which makes planning ahead a luxury out of reach of people like me. 

I don't even know if one is granted UC before a WCA occurs anymore. It used to be, on legacy benefits (which I am currently on, ESA), that you would send in your fit note and the claim would start. Then you would be tested and your claim would persist if the test went favourably. So essentially they gave you the benefit of the doubt. I have to assume that's still the case for UC otherwise a lot of people are going to learn the hard way about UC, and that would not be good!

A lot of people are going to get that lesson soon anyway, when the find out they have to wait not only weeks for the claim to be processed, but to even get any money at all. Then, as far as I know, it's monthly payments. I do not know if that's changed. 

As for me, on legacy benefits, I am due, like everyone else in that position, to be 'migrated' over to UC. This could well happen anytime. It could be happening now. It's been an ongoing threat for years. Again, the government doesn't tell you - do they even themselves know? I have to assume I will find out only when I don't receive a payment for a month - at least! So again I have to budget accordingly with the small income I have. I am fortunate in that my circumstances aren't as oppressive as others, but for many this kind of uncertainly is destructive. However if it's any longer than a month then problems start to occur. 

The perverse thing is that this stops people spending their money, circulating it back into the economy (the approach the government should be taking with helicopter money). That is the best thing anyone can do with their benefits, at least for the economy. In reality, thanks to capitalism's short sighted outlook, it doesn't happen. People are rightly fearful of spending in case of disaster or sudden need, so what choice do they have.

It's a contradcitory self defeating system, this of course helps no one.

The Virus Years 1: Obese Oblge

I have lived since 1973. Now in 2020 a new period has been created. The virus years. How long will it last? Will it be years or months? Is this the course set now for the remainder of my own years? Is this it?

Meanwhile there is talk of a second wave beginning. Of course there was always that talk. People travelling on holidays for jolly days abroad seems ridiculous to me. Why on earth where we letting on essential travel happen? It's not as if people couldn't holiday in Britain. Why risk it?

Once again: big business. The airlines spoke. The holiday industry spoke. It's the same old story. We will never, it seems, shift our society away from this toxicity. It's killing us. This isn't about the fun police, nor is about restricting people completely. Surely there are alternatives to trips to the Costa Del Lager for people who want a vacation. I have no problem with people having a holiday, never have. But do you really think Big Dave's stag crew or Shazza's Hen Party are going to quarantine on return? Is it even going to be enforced? Of course not, how can that happen (Vietnam managed it months ago). Will returning sojourners be tested by our "world beating" systems?

We here in the west seem very good at causing not solving problems. Now it appears a fucking cat has the disease!

Each night the world encroaches on my dreams. If I have ever caught this disease then it has taken up residence in my subconsciousness, filtering through in fever. Sleep is difficult and troubled. This period threatens no end. Adjustment requires that which our government refuses to give us.

Now they are telling us all not to be obese because the idiot in power went and made himself sick. How this is revelatory eludes me. Obesity has long been a marker for ill health. Your metabolism is broken which means your body is fundamentally compromised. I don't believe in fat shaming, but our sugar-saturated society refuses to see reason and accept the reality. We are governed by big business; sugar pushers take over the discourse. It's no wonder people think having a processed meal cooked in industrial processed grease instead of real natural fats and served with sugars and carbs is a treat. This is perverse thinking. That people need a break from eating properly because doing so is intolerable. The truth is what people are taught comprises eating properly isn't. They call it 'rabbit food' and they are correct. But this isn't healthy. Eat real food: good healthy meat and fat with some leafy green fresh (as far as possible) veg on the side.

Instead the idiot government is informed not by actual science, but by junk food science. We must cut out not just sugar but fat and salt. Hang on, what does that leave? Everything comprises some of the three macro nutrients: carbs, protein and fat. You can't do without both carb and fat, you'll starve. Fat is better than carbs, it produces stable consistent energy. Carbs just become sugar, that's all they are. A diet high in carbs leads to energy and sugar crashes. That's what happened to me. Eating whole foods and having hypoglycemic episodes and getting obese.

But will our government be brave enough to reject sugars and starches in favour of good quality food. Look at a cut of meat, it has protein and fat. This is natural. Carbs come from some veg, you can have some. But the body crashing amounts we eat now are not natural. Processed wheat, refined breads and cereals are unnatural and unhealthy. Eat what you like, be happy, but just look to nature, look how food occurs before it's subject to human influence. The rest takes care of itself. We don't need government meddling in food, that will lead to nothing good.

PS here's your Rishs Sunak meal voucher, have a happy meal on us!

Weekender 19: No Country For Ordinary Kindness

As Novara media wryly, and accurately, pointed out, Labour, this week, has spent thousands to put its own problems front and centre. Spectacularly eclipsing the more vital scandal of the Russia report. The latest in the dismal and long line of Tory...bullshit. I spent minutes trying to think of a more eloquent term, but fuck it. Bullshit will do.

This is in response to the latest episode of the never ending saga of antisemitism which has gripped the party because of the establishment's unwillingness to accept Corbyn. Now, for the record, there are cranks out there. Some of them are on the left, espousing an underdog victim mentality that fails to separate Israel from Jewish experience. There are also some people that are just racists.

You can find them on the left and the right because you can find them, unfortunately, throughout society. But there is nothing within left wing poltiics, even politics less radical than my own (which the Labour party certainly represents as it hurtles back toward the centre), that is intrinsically anti semitic. All of this is bound up in the position of Israel in world politics: who runs it and who it aligns with.

Furthermore, while such people do exist within the party's membership, it does not come close to the anti semitism rife among the far right. That is the sort of anti semitism (there is no good sort) that kills people. That sees them marginalised and subject to genocide. There is a fundamental difference.

So the Labour party has given in to establishment bullying, whether through ignorance or design I do not know. If it thinks this will resolve the matter, it is mistaken. The goal here is simple; to drum Corbyn out of the party. Labour paid off BBC journalists following what appears to be a hatchet job that it could well have defended in court. It has settled and so ther is a possibility, though I think it unlikely, Corbyn will defend the position, or perhaps himself, in court. He's far too mild mannered for that.

However people have decided to offer him support should that happen. I think that's a positive thing. Some mistakenly believe that, because he has money himself, he shouldn't. This is nonsense. Another smear. He didn't create the project, someone else did, while others have freely chosen to give. THat is a positive gesture.

The bottom line is this: the establishment seeks to destroy a fundamentally good man. He's clearly not the messiah, he never intended to be. I don't even think he's a very good leader. Especially given he doesn't fit the requirements for leading today's vicious hypocritical political institutions. In many ways he's better off out of it, but he's there, as an MP now, because he was democratically returned, over decades. That has to count for something, even if the system is a joke. He is being bullied and it must be resisted. This isn't even about him, it's about the system crushing opposition. They want to send a message: get back to business as usual, Labour, or be smashed.

I don't think that should be allowed to stand.

Weekender 19: Fuck Foodbanks

Fuck them.

I'm done with the expectation that, because of some narcissists with their eye on climbing the greasy pole, I should be grateful for this piss poor 'safety net'. That people destroyed by the capitalist system and its monstrous ruling class should be grateful for a parcel of dreadful quality nasty food, donated only because it's so cheap, not because it's healthy. Stop tugging the god damn forelock. We are human beings with the world and its abundant riches, food air water etc, as our shared birthright.

Why should I be grateful that corporations have stolen those resources and found ways to package their produce up into deliberately portioned, addictive, and mass produced, industrial muck. That in turn, should I need it (as we all need food), I should be grateful that a fellow citizen - no matter how well intended - has seen fit to spend a few pence extra on his weekly shop to grant me such a boon.

No one should live like this.

Look at the ongoing (it will never stop) spectacle of Tory and establishment grandees taking selfies at foodbank openings and events. As if this so called charity was a spectacle. But that's what it is; these people - and I don't mean the volunteers who are, largely, good and kind - are there to further their careers. At best they are propagating the system that foodbanks exist as a pressure valve for. If there was no alternative there would, quite rightly, be rioting. No one wants starvation, that's the point. But without this there would be civil unrest. That's the purpose of the creation of the welfare state. After WW2 the state recognised it couldn't countenance veterans coming home to poverty. The public wouldn't stand for it.

It's no surprise the Tories love them. Their existence allows them to claim social victory: that they are encouraging a 'big society'. All the while maintaining the very systems that keep people in need of foodbanks. Maintaining the systems of poverty and telling everyone to rely on charity while appealing to some religious dogma that justifies their existence. Jacob Rees Mogg finds them 'uplifting' while voting against measures that would improve things systemically. Though of course these measures are still within the system and thus problematic. We are supposed to have a welfare system and that should take care of people, but it's been dismantled and foodbanks, unfortunately, have contributed to that. Ultimately we need to dismantle the entire system so that there is no need for a welfare state. In the meantime, spare me the spectacle of 'uplifted' Tories.

Fast forward to now and it's selfies with scumbag Tories, preening before a Usual Suspects line up of the local great and the good. Arseholes that can't see all they are doing is propagating the problem while deigning to offer their gifts to the local paupers. All of whom should feel unceasing and fulsome gratitude to receive such kindness. A package of limited support that is neither comprehensive, sufficient, or ongoing. As if a few days, maybe - if you're lucky (or unlucky!) enough - weeks, to subsist on. Meanwhile the implicit unspoken assumption is that, by some miracle, your circumstances will change and you won't somehow need food anymore.

So be thankful ye paupers. Be grateful that the Tories and the ruling class and everyone propagating this dreadful capitalist system are willing to throw some cardboard crumbs your way. Cry your tears into your bowl of powdered milk that you may enjoy a ration of sugar coated corn syrup infused cereal. Don't ever look at the ingredients though. None of them are what the human body needs.

Ultimately even the welfare state is problematic for the same reasons. But it is part of the state and as such Tories use foodbanks to cut these systems. I'm all for a world without a welfare state, but that can only be part of a society where resources such as food are made freely available and shared without fear or favour. That humans have to go cap in hand to those who have engineered and maintained a protective hierarchy is abhorrent and unnatural.
Charity indeed is a cold dead hand.

Premature Relaxation 5: Masked Edition

Mask Day!

I bought one from the shop, had to wear a mask to get it though. Fortunately it now means I no longer have ot use a tatty piece of fabric cut out of an old t shirt.

A few kids tried to get into the shop without masks. Pleasingly they were soundly rebuffed. They should have known better at their age; 16ish I assume. I get the impression they were chancing it. If so that's a bit troubling. Some builders parked up and went into the local bakery. They didn't bother with masks and I guess the bakery either didn't care or didn't care to cause a fuss. Can't really blame them as it's the workers that will bear the brunt of this policy. That's inevitable and it once again demonstrates the exploitative nature of capitalism.

Still, wear a fucking mask yo.

My MP, John Penrose, wrote back to me a couple of days ago. I'd quarantined his response because....you know. Kept it in my satchel which has been outside for the last 4 months. Feels safer that way. I'd contacted him in regard to people facing the possibility of sanctions during the lockdown (and indeed beyond). Here are some choice aspects of his vapid response. I didn't expect anything better.

"As you'll appreciate it was important to act quickly to avoid putting jobseekers and benefits claiants (or staff!) at risj duing the lockdown"

The risk you caused by your ineptitude and intransigence. However these are vulnerable people, as such we have always been at risk. Perhaps not of a virus, but we stand, collectively, on the very brink. The breadline isn't just an arbitrary line on the ground, like a chalkmark. Instead it's the edge of a cliff and the weather is treacherous. The virus has just highlighted this, but it has ever been thus.

"But now, as the economy starts to re-open and we're taking small but steady steps back to normal, it's important to get back to getting people into work (particularly given the extent of job losses that the pandemic is likely to have created)."

Ultimately, again, it isn't the pandemic that is responsible. All it has done is show up the system for what it is.

The extent of job losses is actuall two problems in one: first it's an increase in unemployed people who thus need support. Secondly it's a decrease in the number of vacancies available. A fact the Tories always miss. Getting people back to work is therefore going to be exponentially harder because of this. The more people that are rendered unemployed in this crisis, the fewer vacancies there will be (if any) for them. It isn't as if our cosiety has grown by the same number of people, but the labour market has remained at least the same. So where are these people to find work. That is the real question and the answer is going to be dodgy schemes and programmes that will be used under threat of sanctions. Business as usual.

"I hope you'll agree that it wouldn't be fair on taxpayers to expect them to fund a 'something for nothing' system that didn't expect or require people to make a decent effort to find work. I'm sure you'll remember the fuss about the 'something for nothing society' when Gordon Brown was Prime Minisiter, and nobody wants tot ake the country back to those days"

You mean forward, right?

You lot have bypassed the late 2000's (conveniently given it was your mates, whome you represent, that crashed the economy) and taken us back to the days of the poorhouse! Humility has never really been a Tory strong point. Gordon Brown is no hero of mine but international capital was happy with his handling of the crisis and the economy was picking up again right at the time of the election. Something the Tories variously take credit for or ignore. Either way it's largely irrelevant, I'm not a supporter of capitalist New Labour nor Gordon Brown, just someone that cares about truth. I have no ide what his comments were regarding 'something for nothing society'. This is just a tedious capitalist trope that doesn't address need or poverty.

Look, this idea that people should be required to make a "decent" effort is just a media cliche. It has no inherent meaning and shifts constantly in accordance with how angry the media is that week. Whether there's been a few people caught refereeing footie matches while on the sick etc. Meaningless pablum intended just to wind up people with a view to persuading people to vote a certain way. Propaganda.

In reality most everyone is happy enough to look for work. I don't know what constitutes a decent effort since that is never defined by the state, and, again, is subject to the same propaganda. Universal Credit was introduced under the notion that looking for work should be a 'full time job' (just not one that pays a full time wage, obviously). BUt most people would want to contribute to a decent caring society. Doing something socially usueful under reasonable conditions. But even that is still to tuge the forelock to the capitalist system. The whole concept of a wage is a capitalist mechanism and exists as a fraction of the value you create for your employer. He doesn't hire you if you can't create value and from that value he extracts, like a vampire, his profit. It isn't a fair contract either, as many apologists argue, because the alternative is poverty.

I don't want to go back to the days of New Labour any more than I want to go back to the days of the workhouse and Dickens. I want to move forward. Unfortunately you lot will never understand this.

Premature Relaxation 4: The Shape of Things to Come

I chanced upon an article about Santander. It mentioned changes to some of its accounts come October, referring to cashback and a type of bank account that I don't use. These amount to an increase in costs. I hadn't thought of this, and on reflection it is hardly surprising, but we can expect all the banks to follow suit, increasing charges. An aspect of the coming financial hardship we'll all face as there is no way the service industry, in all its forms, will not pass on costs to the customer. Us.

Banks are an especially troubling prospect because everyone has to use them. Especially now when cash is less favoured due to the pandemic. Of course this hits the poorest hardest. There may even be situations where some will lose access or may have the accounts frozen or closed. Hopefully this won't happen but we must be prepared for every possibility. Uncertainly is the only certainty right now.

From tomorrow face masks are compulsory in shops, unless you work there. That doesn't seem to make much sense, but it isn't an argument against wearing masks. You should still wear one, as should the staff. Many of them probably will, I hope. Hazy and confused rules aren't their fault, even though it will be them, minimum wage essential workers on the front line (again), that will be left to police this because you just know there will be the inevitable contingent of trouble making arseholes. The sort that seem to exist just to push people's buttons for no good reason.

Now the press are reporting the Army are massing plans to deal with what could well be a new winter of discontent. Tasked with dealing with a synergy of virus and Brexit. All topped off with economic misery. Is this the first sign that Cummings and Gove (the real power in Britain, not that lump of human coal, Johnson) would consider using the army against protests or unrest? Sound familiar? It happened before under Churchill. He sent the army against miners.

These are unusual times. The pace is hyper accelerated. Things will change quickly, possibly snowballing. Problems will mount and synergise and that is where the danger lies. How do we defend against increased banking tariffs or a curtailment of access to finance services - perhaps our own money? First Bus has announced a profit warning. This isn't a surprise: the buses have been running on empty for the past few months, they cannot sustain that but if they go down how do people get around, to work?

This is the shape of things to come.

Premature Relaxation 3: Survival of the Richest

What can capitalism do to survive when the people cannot or will not consume? Make people spend money? Give people money to spend? That latter is probably the biggest (it is sad to say) incentive, but of course they don't do this. At least not yet. Maybe they will, but for now they best they can offer is a ridiculous meal voucher. As if Greggs' supernova fuelled sausage (and I use that term loosely) rolls can sustain our economy for the foreseeable.

Is this what has become of humanity: driven to the brink by capitalism. Then, at the last minute, we pull back from consumerism, but only because a disease threatens us if we go shopping. Retail biological warfare. Our system requires us spend. This is the ultimate contradiction of capitalism: workers don't have enough money to pay for the things they make, putting them out of work. Crisis. Bust.

Now we are facing that again, but made worse by people, if they could otherwise afford it, choosing not to consume for safety reasons. Can the ruling class survive this; what will they do in order to survive? That is the real question. How much more can they sell off, how many cuts can they make? They've just promised a pay rise to (some) essential workers. This is a bribe. Is it even sustainable? I wouldn't be surprised if it never came to pass, and if it does who will they rob to pay for it?

We have crossed a point of no return. Society has shifted whether we like it or not. Change has been foisted upon us by events, dear boy, events. How that shift plays out is up for grabs. It is certain, according to all learned observers, that economic hardship will follow. At the very least a smaller retail market, as we are now seeing, will contribute to recession if not depression. How this will play out globally is another matter, an important question.

One thing is for certain there is no room for exceptionalism. Britannia may have ruled the waves once, with gunboats and racism, but no more. We have isolated ourselves according to the demands of racists and thieves, exploiters and idiots. We have fallen for their lies without seeing a bigger picture. At a time when we are going to need allies, regardless of the capitalist nature of the EU,  it seems our leaders are hell bent on driving us off a cliff. One wonders if they cannot see what is happening, or whether they simply don't care.

Or how much they stand to £££.

Premature Relaxation 2: Terms and Conditions

Don't really know why there's such a kerfuffle about the Russian report. Surely no one actually believes that the government will allow anything juicy to come out. I haven't read it, I won't read it. What's the point? Russian oligarchs have long bought the Tory party as well as much of the affluent ruling class. They are busy buying up London (and property beyond I should imagine). This isn't going to stop because of this report. Business as usual will continue as usual behind the scenes.

Meanwhile the Tories have voted another power grab. Now Boris can sign off any trade deal he likes with no oversight whatsoever. We won't even know about it until we are directly affected by it. They also rejected an opposition clause to protect the NHS from the rapacious nature of these trade deals. So that is another step closer to the eventual, seeming inevitable, demise of our health service.

How this will manifest is furtive. The NHS will remain in name only. Most people will still be able to see a doctor and get help. The problem is that help will be from private companies who will cherry pick the best/easiest/most profitable cases and the rest get minimal service and put at the back of increasing waiting lists - and that's after the damage done by the Covid crisis.

What effect this might have on provision of a vaccine, if and when one arrives. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Boris seems to think Santa is going to provide this by Christmas. I think he's entertaining a fantasy more nonsensical than Santa's existence. This of course will not marke the end of the crisis. It has shaped our lives irrevocably and the all clear will be a long time coming. We have never successfully vaccinated a corona virus before. Of course if capitalism didn't get in the way of humanity we could, and should, be working together. I'm sure the medical community of the world (that part not driven by profit) would welcome this. That's how we should live.

But that's not how we actually live. Instead we have a world filled with people whose healthy mistrust of government is manipulated by people that have some power. They will refuse a vaccine. Thus weakening herd immunity to one degree or another. We have to recognise this is not in our interests.

A bit like the pay rise that public sector front line workers (some) are getting today (assuming it doesn't rinse out in the fine print). Of course we should welcome anything that helps the working class. But we must also be mindful of where and who it comes from. This is a cynical ploy; these people are being bought off. They shouldn't feel guilty at all for receiving this, inf fact they deserve more (like the endless pay rises MP's award themselves all the time). But this is happening within a capitalist system. While I share their joy, I am mindful that it mst not be allowed to distract from the real enemy: the system.

Rest in power, Michael Brooks

Premature Relaxation 1: Unmasked

In defiance of the idiots running this country, the Guardian reports promising early signs for Imperial College's vaccine efforts. Fantastic.

In non-defiance of the idiots running this country, the Guardian reports that, because she doesn't kiss Dominic Cummings' arse, Ruth May is excluded from Covid briefings. She's only the chief nurse.

He doesn't care about the pandemic, which means he doesn't care about us. Our health is irrelevant. This was already demonstrated in the Barnard Castle debacle. Our health is partisan to these people. Either you are on board with their fundamental reordering of society, moving further to the right, or you can die. Either way, you can die. The working class does not benefit. We all kbnow, or shoudl, that this is an opportunity to sell off the rest of the family silver.

And the desperate voted for this.

If only they knew it.

Why are people so afraid of wearing masks? Have they never had an interaction with a doctor, surgeon, or dentist? I find it hard to think that, if this had happened in place of SARS (which was serious elsewhere just not here) folk wouldn't have had this reaction. Something has happened along the way to infantilise people, brainwashing them into strange notions of freedom. Perhaps the result of years of austerity and hardship - from all parties, let's be honest. But instead of placing the blame correctly - on the shoulders of the ruling class - people have fallen for divide and rule. Punching down, not up. Now they blame each other because they think being told to wear a mask somehow prevents them from, quite literally speaking. Even if that were true it doesn't prevent them from airing their views on social media. Views that probably reach more people than spoken in person (because the only people they interact with are the right wing echo chamber).

Over the weekend, in Hyde Park, a bunch of these people had a protest meeting. Mistakenly believing that the government is going to listen to them. Did any of them really believe that was ever going to happen? Of course not, it's just an exercise in reinforcing their sense of persecution, which is what they thrive on. Without it they would have nothing.

Don't misunderstand, the government is persecuting all of us. As it always does. But that's a macro view; it just so happens wearing masks is in our interests at this time.

But congregating, without any protection, in the midst of a virus whose presence among them is uncertain and invisible makes utterly no sense at all. This is what has become of our society now. People so twisted up by the exploitation but lacking a real analysis of the powers at work. They just assume every authority is bad, even if it can be justified. Understand: the order to wear masks isn't based on ruling class dogma, it's based on science. Acquiescing to that doesn't make you a "sheeple". It is following a justified claim of authority, even if, in the case of the £100 fine proposed, it comes with coercion.

That's the best deal we have right now. All of this sucks. I don't enjoy wearing masks any more than I enjoyed lockdown. But we are where we are. Flying in the face of that serves no one but the virus.

Weekender 18th: Tight Spot

Apparently we've signed a deal with the Russians for them to make the vaccine we, hopefully, are developing. So probably not a good idea to accuse them of interfering in our elections and all the other shit they are likely guilty of. What a fucking mess we've made of this world. The rest of suffer while these elites play us like pawns in their games of financial and political war. Actual war as well, such as the one Trump seems to be agitating for with, of all places, China.

We are in an asylum run by arsonists so what do we do? Hand them the matches it seems!

We seem to be in a very tight spot. Things could continue to improve. When you consider all the reckless behaviour we've seen (beaches packed, VE parties, pubs opened) things could be much worse. But it could all change, especially when flu season kicks in. We never handle that well. Even though vaccines exist people still die, people still end up in hospital. We have a culture that has trivialised winter viruses. Fortunately we have been able to get away with it so far (except those that haven't), but this year will be vastly different and the NHS faces armageddon. I have zero confidence our leaders will address that; three billion quid is a paltry sop. Says it all really.

Problem is in our capitalist society work is treated as something you throw yourself into. Everything we do must be done with !110%". It's wasteful and excessive, but if you don't "give it your all" then you are automatically deemed lazy. This is why people become susceptible to such illnesses, and then they spread, particularly on things like buses and trains - enclosed spaces with poor ventilation in the winter. A recipe for disaster.

Instead we should be distancing ourselves: people that are sick can work from home, this should be encouraged. Or, if not possible, then take a few days off. That way the workplace is safe and you're only out of action for a short time, rather than an office with an ongoing depleted workforce constantly swamped by sniffs and sneezes that never recover. That is the danger.

Weekender 18th: So Many Weeks!

Are we ever going to return to normal?

We have been in this situation for 4 months now. This is unprecedented, and yet everything has the same veneer. Just wearing a mask. Despite how I feel about the anti mask conspiracy clowns, it does feel strange wearing one. Seeing and wearing masks just reminds you of the reality; as if you can wish it away by refusing to participate. Perhaps that's why those people hate them so much.

Calling them muzzles though is a deliberately provocative and political statement. It's also pants on head stupid.

I have been more strongly considering travelling. I have not left the local boundary in all these months. I cannot think of a comparable time. Yet it is as if there is an invisible barrier preventing me - or maybe those weird beach balls that rise up from the sea in the Prisoner. I am not a number, but I'm certainly not free of the virus. The local area has quite a high infection count: 421 cases per 100k people. There are about 200k people hereabouts. 4 new cases this last week. 1 more than the previous week. That doesn't sound a lot does it, but...is it? It's hard to know. I could be quite safe travelling - I hope. But you just don't know. Uncertainty has been bred into our social DNA now and it's going to be a long process extracting that. Despite how much our useless lump PM wants us all to go to Greggs or Pret.

It simply doesn't feel safe and, without an absolutely essential reason (I don't think socks counts), it also feels frivolous. We may never be free of the virus; it may remain, lurking here and there, threatening the flare up. This is the reality we must adjust to. Unfortunately the people doing the adjusting are monsters still hell bent on driving us off a cliff come December.

You might think that, given the crisis and its effects on the economy, that the Brexit headbangers now populating government (the rest got purged) would at least postpone Brexit. That's reasonable, right? But nope. They are hell bent, it seems, on pursuing this to the bitterest and most severe end. No deal, no future. It won't be them that suffers either, be sure of that. Nobody elected Dominic Cummings and so he will face no consequence.

Meanwhile there's cricket on the green, kids playing in the river (gods' I didn't have the strength to tell them about Lyme disease) in the heat, and the play areas open again. It's like the summer holidays begun early, except framed in disease. A Covid Constable.

Nothing except everything is different and it is very confusing. You?

Outbroke Britain 5: Winterval

According to the doom laden, worst case scenario, report released a few days ago, there could be a second spike starting in the Autumn and peaking around the new year. It predicts 120,000 (more) deaths. Of course the Prime Minister hasn't read it, neither has Boris Johnson.

This is, naturally, deeply fucking distressing. He has promised (meaning: it won't happen) three billion for the NHS. That hardly sounds liek enough. Even during normal times the NHS faced a greater shortfall. It's been a gaping wound for years; kept that way because it's politically convenient. The NHS ins't a health service, in thsi context, it's a political football. Of course it shouldn't be.

I don't think the government understands the problem that winter presents. I think this because, right now, they are pushing for people to return to work. Evne considering how effective working from home can be in general this is not the time.

In winter there will be, alongside Covid, all the usual viruses and bugs, including the latest seasonal flu. Perhaps they could start by offering everyone a free flu jab. Yeah, I know, won't happen. The problem is this: in winter people are indoors where it is less well ventilated. Outdoors, in summer, we risk lulling ourselves into a false sense of security because we're outside where it's relatively safer. When the bugs return we are inside, cooped up. Consequently everyone, in their offices and work spaces, risks spreading these diseases. Only hiding alongside these bugs, with which we have learned to live, will be Covid.

What happens when you turn up for work sniffing and sneezing? One of two things:

1. Your boss thinks "stop moaning and get to work". If homeworking isn't an option you risk spreading what could well be Covid and not the winter sniffles.
2. Your boss thinks "he could have Covid" and tells you to self isolate. You then have to manage for two weeks. Your workplace may well end up closing because everyone is in this position. Without testing your boss can't tell the difference.

There is no positive outcome here and I see nothing from the government even considering this. Fortunately there is no evidence to suggest the virus gets stronger in winter, it is just the conditions caused by cold weather forcing people indoors that is the problem, along with other viruses. Those we can deal with, not so with Covid. Hopefully a vaccine is coming, but I doubt it will be ready for this Winter. That seems highly unlikely.

Shovelling more money into the NHS isn't something I resist. But it doesn't address the underlying problem which is systemic. Given who oversees that system I'm deeply sceptical we'll be ready if - if - things get worse again.

Hopefully they won't.

Outbroke Britain 4: He Didn't Read the Report!

It was on my desk, I didn't look
I did my best, your vote I took
Now here I stand, in power and wealth
With privilege grand, I ruin your health

A second wave, I certainly could
But I'm not brave, or else I would
Profit or loss, it's a difficult choice
I side with the boss, but I say I'm your voice

When the fall appears, it could get worse
Amid leaves and tears, my name you'll curse
But a year before, you ticked that name
If only you'd thought, give him the blame

The liars in charge, don't care about you
They're still at large, and yet they are few
Promises are lies, will they ever get caught
The scale and the size, he didn't read the report

The Russians be hacking our cure
Our government is sacking the poor
To reveal the truth
Redacting the proof
Will only make us more sure

Class War goes weekly

Outbroke Britain 3: Midweek, Midsummer, 2020

Once again the Tories divide Britain. While Michael Gove shops for food without a mask, it's once again the working class that will bear the brunt of Tory obfuscation and muddle. It won't be Boris Johnson that irate 'freedom' loving mask-avoiders will attack, it'll be those on minimum wage working on the shop floor. People already risking their health to serve. All we are asking is give disease no chance. Wear a fucking mask. That said, providing them - as they have in the far east - should have been a priority. All this should have been addressed months ago.

It depresses me to no end, when considering our government, just how far short of the mark they measure. If this is the best Britain's ruling class has to offer then we are fucked. How can anyone support these clowns. Of course those that do are either tribal, loyal out of ideology not reality, or benefiting from the Cummings and Gove (the real government) gravy train. We see crisis, they see opportunity - to give their mates the contracts that could save our lives. The DNA of this rotten system should be laid bare. but, once again, the media is on hand to defend, attacking anyone for thinking 'incorrectly'. That's why we have arseholes like Hitchens; rallying the delusional that think more of themselves than is earned.

Johnson of course hasn't read the report that came out a few days ago; something else to depress me infineitely. The report modelled a worst case scenario that sees a second wave begin late September and peak early next year. Coinciding with the annual Tory-unsponsored NHS crisis caused by the other corona viruses. The ones we can just about deal with. Wonderful. You're only the PM, you fucking lazy twat. You're only the man leading us through a nightmare. But by all means, if it's too much trouble and you need help with the big words, then give the job to someone else (not that I have much faith Labour will help the working class, that ship has long since sailed).

Of course he'll be indignant. I don't watch PMQ's. I won't have anything to do with the anger-porn that is Parliament. It's a total waste of time. Johnson just treats it like school days; jolly japes with Winker and Bodge in the quad. It's not reality, it's just performance art mixed with boarding school nightmare. Daliesque politics where the melting clocks are the lives of people in Britain. Sliding over the edge and into the abyss in the heat of incompetence. This is as good as it gets folks, rejoice.

He says he's taking steps to prepare the country for a second spike. I'm sure they will ber very effective in creating one too: opening pubs, encouraging people to eat and drink, not bothering to enforce and provide masks (and PPE in general) until the end fo the Summer. Yes, in this he's doing a bang up job. Winker and Bodge will be proud as they dare you to steal from the tuck shop, and then back to the dormitories for a crafty smoke of that strange smelling Jamaican stuff. This is a terrible fever dream. I will wake up like in that Twilight Episode, Midnight Sun, where the Earth moves slightly closer to the sun and everyone is burning up, only to find that it was a dream and in fact the POV character was ill and woke up to a world the other way around and everyone was freezing half to death.

Or something. I'm afraid I have no time to make sense today. I've left it too late.

Wear a mask. It won't steal your breath nor will it stop you speaking. Though in the case of those that think like this, it'd probably be a blessing it if did.

Outbroke Britain 2: Keep On Working!

Yesterday a brown envelope arrived. Wafted through my door on a breeze of indifference. The machinations of the DWP are immune to Covid. Of course I didn't need X Ray vision to tell what it contained; a sixth sense has been honed over the years. Not the bite of a radioactive spider, more the kiss of death.

Even descending pandemic and subsequent economic upheaval do nothing to deter the bureaucracy of the rulgin class. There is no escape from their attentions and so in three weeks an appointment - albeit over the phone (something at least) - will materialise. Conjured into being by people whose expectations seem...bizarre. What exactly do they expect to discuss? Have they been somewhere else these last few months? I can't even complete my assessment with the Aspergers people, booked at the start of the year, because of the situation. I have no idea what they can reasonably expect people to do in the current environment.

Maybe they will relent. The person could just be ringing me up because that's what he has to do. That's the best case scenario but it all it does is demonstrate how profoundly out of touch they are. You might think it reasonable to just leave people alone for a while, perhaps even a year, while this virus thing resolves (hopefully!). But no, even a pandemic is no respite.

Ok enough histrionics. The reality is that I knew this was coming. I also know the DWP is a crushing bureaucracy that isn't built to help people find work; it's purpose is to mitigate as many claims as possible while maintaining the reserve army of labour intrinsic to capitalism (whether or not the DWP understands this is another matter). However, let's be pragmatic: what on earth can this achieve? Yes there are jobs to be had, but there's also looming recession and virus. Can the jobcentre really guarantee my safety? Ought we not be focusing on keeping people safe? I can't imagine there are too many work programme type schemes currently active, and if there are where are they? How do I get there if I can't even get an appointment for an Aspergers diagnosis?

It would be strange priorities that health care provision is (understandably) compromised - but the mechanisms to coral the unemployed into providing acceptable results continue regardless. I don't know if that's actually the case, surely not?

Outbroke Britain 1: I will not survive Covid

Society will not survive Covid.

In the case of the latter, it shouldn't. Exceptionalism from imperialist global society is informing utter ignorance and driving it towards oblivion. The freedom not to wear a mask isn't a choice. You could choose safety and health over not. Of course there are no guarantees. Of course masks, lockdowns, and social distancing, are not perfect nor are they intended as cures. They are steps. You should choose to follow good advice. This isn't happening across the world.

In the case of the former, I must not survive. I, as I am; a person moving into middle age is passing out of this broken society. It isn't my place and it isn't my world anymore. It will be for the survivors: the generations to come who will inherit the misery left behind in the wake of our disastrous handling of this crisis. One that, globally speaking, is far from over. The economic effects have barely begun.

And that's before the crisis of climate change (and Brexit!).

This world belongs to the generations that will inherit these terrible remains. They have been cursed not blessed. The dinosaur elites have made sure of that. For this reason, and many others, we must support nascent voices of long standing outrage. BLM should absolutely smash the statues, and we should help them - at the very least not arrest them.

The greatest opponent to this change is the cancerous monolith, the media. The dull witted dolmens of the fourth estate who refuse discussion of change, refuse to countenance criticism of this rotten system, and are members, largely, of the ruling elite. Look at how they have managed to convince people, enough to vote against their own interests (again), that a decent bloke was a terrorist adjacent advocate of gulags and financial ruin. That's Jeremy Corbyn, obviously.

It isn't a secret. Look at the guy; he keeps an allotment, makes jam, has a full career supporting positive causes. Speaks against racism. Yet somehow, despite all this evidence pointing to a humane character - whatever you might think of his policies - the media has created cognitive dissonance such that he can't be what he so transparently is. The notion that he hates Jews and supports terrorists is basically false. Is he perfect? Fuck no. Is he an Etonian racist, thug, and professionally incompetent bullshitter? N.O.!

Look at his reception visiting the Grenfell victims compared to the dismal awkward spectacle of Theresa May looking shifty and escorted by the police! Consider that the people smearing Corbyn, who appeared with warmth and obvious empathy, are those responsible for the conditiosn that led to the disaster.

This is how they play us.

Tomorrow I'll discuss the letter from the JC that arrived today informing of my Work Focussed Interview, three weeks hence. Fortunately it's by telephone!

Weekender 17: Running Out of Things To Say

Not sure what to say today.

Maybe just that.

I should type something interesting because otherwise it'll look like I'm just padding out in order to appear like I've been consistent.

After all I would hate not to have blogged every day.

We are on the cusp of severe economic contraction, but it doesn't really feel like it. The sun is shining, the shops are open (sort of). At least here there doesn't appear to be any poverty, but then poverty is always kept behind a facade. Even when you can see it, a homeless person on the street, you don't really see it. You filter the reality: some people will have their filter set to 'blame the poor for their lot' because they read tabloid bullshit. Others will filter it because it's painful. We all have a filter. Byt which I mean, I have a filter and I wish I didn't. However, we're all products of society and its conditioning. Years of austerity and victim blaming as well as endless Tory-led gaslighting.

There is rampant corruption at the top. It's always been there, but somehow it has managed to break through. Yet people still don't seem to register. For many they've become so used to it that they think it's the normal function of government. This is dangerous because it's precisely what enables people like Dominic Cummings. Unfortunately the electorate gave him a blank cheque and the keys to the gunpowder stores. They will detonate a bomb in December called Brexit. It may also be a dirty bomb.

We are led by people too stupid to realise how wrong they are who have hoodwinked people into supporting their lies out of desperation. A client media state facilitates the abuse of power (one might say power can only abuse) through lies and hyperbole. It compels people to rage without focus or goal. Get angry at this thing that's happening. Get angry because you're white and your privilege is being called into question - as if one should never question what one has or one's place in society. Is that then not the very definition of unearned privilege? Where is the humility, especially in dealing with those demonstrably worse off. Particularly at the hands of the sheriffs of your society.

In the end this is the fabric into which our lives are woven. The prison into which we are born. We are not free, and we should be.

And that is all I have to say today.

Weekender 17: Howzat

Cricket! It's back in season, although I don't remember the announcement. Why should I when I've no interest in it. But what Middle England wants, it gets. So out on the local cricket pitch it's game on. As you might expect, on a fine Summer's afternoon, there are lots of people out watching, picnicking and doing all the things they do when watching cricket. Not one instance of social distancing that I could so. Nor any masks.

The problem with normality is that it dulls the blade. If, and I hope it's only if, a second wave happens necessitating a retreat I think it will be a hard sell. How quickly everything is forgotten, even though the virus hasn't really gone away. It's still there and will remain there until it can be cured. If it can be cured. Winter is coming, to coin a phrase.

I was even planning to travel. I haven't caught a bus in four months. Five months ago, if you'd told me that was going to happen I would have laughed. I can't think there's been such a period since the day I caught my first bus as an adult. Unthinkable. Yet reality.

I didn't, I haven't. I might do, I'd like to. There's a lot of useful stuff I'd like to buy, but then I think about what the shops will be like. Ironically the buses seem much emptier which is always a good thing. As for what it's like in town...I have no idea. It could be 28 days later, or the 28th of December (that didn't make much sense). I don't at all object to the added social distancing and limits placed on behaviour as a shopper, it's just the unusual nature contributes to my reticence, in the same way that seeing people in masks makes you think of the virus.

I don't know if this feeling will ever disappear. Perhaps one day, when the virus is no longer a threat. It's more likely I will have to make a decision prior because this isn't going away anytime soon. The ultimate risk assessment. Life has always been full of them; crossing the road to catch a bus is no different. It's just tripping over in the middle the highway isn't contagious, however unfortunate. Sooner or later I'm going to have to go out. That decision may well be made on my behalf if I'm called in to the Job centre for a Work Focused Interview - assuming they are still happening. Given that the DWp seems to be operating business as usual I think that likely.

This is our world now. We are dancing in the ruins.

The Summer That Never Was 5: Clapped Out

When the opposition says it wants the government to succeed, it means that it shares the policies and values of the Tory government. It just wants them not to be shit at it, because Johnson and his bloated cronies are thick as shit mince. This is not a virtuous position to hold: the opposition has returned to Blairite Red Tory centrist/centre right pro capitalist nonsense. This will get us nowhere. They have had precious little to say about this rubbish mini-budget. If you can't make capital out of the fact the government's response to capitalism's inability to cope with Corona, then you too are thick as shit mince.

Nothing changes. Unless we change it. We certainly can't rely on Starmer and his authoritarian 'soft' (at least nominally) capitalist party. This was demonstrated when he kicked out Rebecca Long Bailey. Her inability to defend her position, for whatever reason, didn't help either. There is, now, no opposition.

The local shop posted to Facebook that they'd like everyone to wear masks. So I go up there with my sliced up T shirt wrapped around my face. Of course I'm the only customer wearing a mask and don't I feel like a clown. So much for community spirit, or even common sense. It's not much to ask, no matter how daft we may feel dressing up like this!

The Guardian is reporting the Government wants to take back more direct control of the NHS, following the great reforms-that-were-not-reforms of the early years of the Coalition. No doubt so they can sell it lock stock and barrel to their mates in private healthcare (ie the Americans). Once again the NHS is a political football. That's all it will ever be. That's all clapping has achieved unless we fight. The NHS is nothing but a pawn in the games played by these political operators. It doesn't matter how many compassionate anecdotes you reel off, how many old soldiers perambulate (remember that?), nor how many charity records get made. All the NHS is ever going to be under a capitalist neofeudal government is a political football.

To emancipate it is the struggle to emancipate the working class entirely. The two are not separate.

Does anyone else think that Johnson wearing a facemask looks like a drunk Hannibal Lecter?

The Summer That Was 4: The Milky Bar's On Me!

Boots are closing stores, putting 4000 people out of work. That's their announcement, I guess we'll see whether that transpires. I guess also that the chance of making four million quid from the Chancellor's scheme wasn't enough incentive. My money's on them hiring a bunch of underpaid 'apprentices'. This will net them 2000 per placement. They won't be on full pay and probably not on full time hours. Theirs will be work structures that 'regular' people (ie not kids) cannot afford to do. Cheap labour, iin other words.

Still those people replaced will be able to take console in a tenner off a meal between Mondays and Wednesdays in August. Who knows maybe they can eat 3 meals a day during that period at the government's expense. So nothing to complain about there. I have no idea how anyone thinks such a stupid scheme is ever going to be any kind of economic boost. But once again the Tories' mates in the hospitality industry get a boost. That is what I think this is all about. I can't explain so lacking a policy any other way. Never mind that a few pubs have reported having to close since Saturday (not even a week) because of the appearance of Corona amid the punters.

This, frankly, is a worry. This is where a second spike could begin. After all how did the virus get here in the first place: a few people, here and there, unwittingly spreading it around. Of course things are a little different now, we are aware and, hopefully, the tracking system, though not ready and woefully failing to meet its targets, should help. Still, it's not unlikely that there will be more pubs closing and more people having spread the virus unknowingly slipping through and furthering the rise of a second wave. I hope that I am wrong. We will not know straight away, and that's the danger. By the time we realise there's a problem following the pubs opening it may be too late. The sistuation is, broadly speaking, getting better, but...

The Summer That Never Was 3: The Money That Never Was

So that didn't happen. No big bonus for me, or you. No surprise there then. That was about as likely as finding a Tory with a functioning soul.

What did we get? A load of blather about unemployment. Meaningless since the Tories haven't supported people, ever. I don't need to hear the usual gaslighting nonsense about employment under a capitalist system. It's predicated on exploitation.

Companies get a grand if they don't sack someone. I don't really see how this will help, if their business isn't viable and they have to let people go then what use will a couple of grand be? 

They also get two grand if they take an an apprentice (young Skywalker!) under the age of 25. So cheap labour then. For this to work it will have to be worth their while. By using the term and category of apprentice it just means these kids will be paid fuck all with no expectation of a permanent job prospect or career at the end. So when things get a little better, throw them out the door. Also, will this work with the above: can people fire staff and then get 2 grand back (net profit for them, even if they miss out on a grand for retaining them) for replacing them with an apprentice? Is that too cynical?

The hospitality industry (not alcohol apparently) gets a VAT cut. Whoopee doo. I don't intend to be visiting the zoo or cinema.

Finally, and bizarrely, throughout August, people eating out (as all Universal Credit claimants do) get a 50% discount. "Eat out to help out", this has to be the dumbest slogan ever. What a feeble idea. I guess if you're a Tory then eating out is what you do. It's also only for half the week! So stay at home the rest of the time because we ain't that generous. They all do for free in Parliament anyway. I can't see this helping at all, and if it does fetch everyone to the local cafe (assuming they participate) the law of unintended consequences might kick in...if you catch my drift.

I am underwhelmed and unsurprised. Typical Tory lack of vision.

Meanwhile the Johnson refuses to apologise for calling out care homes and carers because of course he did. Blame them, blame everyone but yourself. This is the essence of what it means to be a Tory; everyone else is at fault. Everyone else is inferior. Never show weakness - to admit one's mistakes and correct oneself is just that. What a blueprint for society.

The Summer That Never Was 2: This Medicine Kills Fascists

One piece of good news: Jair Bolsanaro has had another test for Covid after showing apparent symptoms. Oh, that's not good news. Look, I don't really want human beings to suffer, but sometimes the only way some people - particularly fascist scum - learn is the hard way. Plus a little schadenfreude, not going to lie!

Still regardless of how much of a heartless lefty I am, I'm not in control of the situation. Thanks to their intransigence, macho ignorance, and capitalist stupidity, neither are they. The people we should really be sorry for are those suffering under them - and the use of the plural is deliberate. Trump is exactly the same. He cares only for himself, as ever, and his chances of re election (assuming he doesn't take his ball and go home...to the luxury private golf club...again). He refuses to wear a mask even though his administration says everyone else should thus inspiring people to do likewise.

It's the same pattern across the capitalist west. Our leader, the useless lump, is no different. They are the victims, mostly of their own stupidity and ignorance. We pay the price. Now Johnson is blaming care homes, because of course he is. It's always someone else's fault. We all knew that, if things go south (again), he won't bear responsibility. Everyone else will.

Meanwhile in Brazil, Comrade Cornona has done us a solid. I know I shouldn't - again - joke, but now it turns out (this blog is nothing if not live) Bolsanaro has the disease! There are few people I loathe more and let's just leave it at that. Except let's not because his arrogance has liley put others lives at risk. I guess we'll see if and when others in his cabinet/coterie show signs of the disease. One way or another I would love to say the "ex-president" Jair Bolsanro.

Trump next please, before he lands us into world war 3 with China ("The China Virus", it sounds like a seventies disaster movie ffs). These world leaders are practically begging to be infected given how they behave. Still the downside is that if these monsters survive, as Johnson and Cummings did (most people seem to, thankfully), then they will be insufferable!

More insufferable, that is.

The Summer That Never Was 1: The New Money?

At this point it's pretty clear that social distancing is dead. Today looked like it could have been the first day of the regular summer holiday in a normal year. The play areas were never officially reopeed, people just decided to start using them and let their kids play all over them. I guess it's fortunate locally the case rate is so low.

I just feel completely restless now. It's like being a prisoner when, somehow, the door is unlocked and the prison open. Nobody seems to be on hand to say whether or not you're free to leave and your fellow inmates are all making for the door, in a large congealed mass of covid possibility. Do I join them, or will the authorities nab me and make me pay a higher price?

The government has abandoned publishing the number of individual people being tested for Corona virus. After five weeks of failing to do so.

They just gave up. Can't be bothered. This is typical Johnson. It's too hard, where's matron, mater wipe my fat entitled arse. Can't be bothered. Five weeks during a fuciing pandemic. Oh well, I guess data isn't important. I'd say this is unbelievable but if the last few months have confirmed anything, it's that it isn't.

The track and trace app still isn't ready. Our leaders are beyond incompetent; they are lazy and don't give a shit. It's just a school test, get one of the freshmen to take it for me. I've got a date with some stolen wacky baccy with Spugger and Bodge behind the tennis courts. Fuck's sake. It's a joke to these people. Life is some permanent boarding school jape. That's what these places breed; a mutant who will grow up to doom us all and not care.

One article of interest, in yesterday's Guardian, was the possibility that Rishi Sunak will introduce helicopter money. Apparently he is 'mulling' the notion of giving people several hundred pounds. It wasn't clear who this could be spent, or what form it would take; there was mention of 'covid affected businesses' (which would presumably be all of them). It's a bold idea, but, given that he's a Tory, I would be very surpsied if this ever came to pass. The media I'm sure, even now, would not be in favour.

But then these are strange times. I certainly won't turn my nose up at several hundred quid! Finally some new socks

Dry Weekender: Wet Weekender

This morning the news announced the government announcing that they intend to announce recruiting a bunch of frontline Jobcentre staff. This is because of the impending unemployment spike, characterised by the Prime Ministwat's statement that "many people will lose their jobs". Unfortunate one of them will not be him. He's comfortable; safe like reaching the final's in Bullseye.

So that means both the following will be true: more people out of work, and, fewer jobs. Correct?

It also means that the majority of those will not be hired in this position because the JC+ (and by extension capitalism, look up the concept of the reserve army of labour) needs customers. If the government hires everyone rendered unemployed by Covid then who will they be advising or, as they put it, mentoring.

You see, it's all a facade. This is how unemployment works under our system.

The fundamental issue is this: where are the jobs going to come from even the government is admitting there will be no jobs? What is the point of hiring advisers who, essentially, cannot do anything by virtue of the situation that necessitated their existence? By the way, that doesn't begin to address the systemic abuse unemployed people face, because you can be damn sure their job will include the threat - and deployment - of sanctions and punishments. So again, just like in the bad old eighties, people will be pushed from useless pillar to ineffectual post; cycled through the fake profiteering welfare to work industry to achieve no greater end. Because the jobs won't exist.

If they did, you likely wouldn't need these extra work coaches. That's the nonsense of it all. The media will portray this in the usual way: the government helping people. This is how the punitive sanction system is sold: a thing that helps people. In truth it destroys them. But now how can any of this cause anything but misery? People are going to know there aren't jobs - the people hired are going to know this. What can they expect people to do? How can a 35 hour a week jobsearch operate in a pandemic world? Answer: they won't care and the media will cover it all up. Just as it has for the last decade.

Surely there is a better way to do things, but that necessitates a better way to run things. A better system.

These aren't people taken on to cope with the added backlog of processing claims. I hear not a peep about that, so expect these frontline 'work coaches' to bear the brunt of their class allies' frustration. This is the ultimate expression of divide and rule. We have to watch this space.

Wet Weekender: Dry Weekender

Today's the day the Tories and Blairites have their picnic. At the local Tory sponsored watering shithole. If you do down in the pub today... well they're closed. So that's that! My local, so to speak, isn't opening until August, according to the sign the put up. I think that's smart. As for the other two around here, who knows. Maybe they'll open up this evening. To everyone's credit, there weren't hordes of thirsty tradesmen banging on the door gasping for a pint. It's as if it's been a dry county these last months since beer is on sale everywhere else anyway.

I'm sure somewhere, no doubt broadcast on the news, there's some stupid people doing stupid things. Who knows. I can't be expected to keep track of all the stupid in the world. There's only so much my brain can take. Right now it feels like it's bursting at the seams. The world has gotten noticeably smaller and my ambition is getting bigger. That is, something needs to change. I'm feeling more and more restless.

This mirrors just how incompetent this situation has been handled. No can argue otherwise. I'm not suggesting people getting itchy like me should be listened to over the science. I'm saying that had things been handled consistently and, fundamentally, had we a system that coudl cope with this crisis things would be different, at least by now. We've done everything wrong and thousands have paid the price. Hundreds are still dying; 137 yesterday. That's about a thousand a week. The figure is coming down, but it's going to be a while and the process will be fragile, like giving birth to a whole new normal. That baby is fragile, and all it'll take is carelessness to set everything right back to square one.

The lockdown deniers cannot argue that letting things operate normally would have worked, regardless of what you might think of our government (not much). We can see this from the medical disaster that America is turning into. This will be the stuff of Hollywood in years to come, which is a rather cheap way of looking at things, but no doubt accurate. They are counting tens of thousands of new infections while the rabid red right scream blue bloody murder at the prospect of having to wear some cloth over their faces. God knows what they would have made of wartime London, or living in the Blitz. I recall kids having to carry gasmasks and freedoms curtailed, policed by wardens. Yet these precious little snowflakes hue and cry at the prospect of having "their breath taken away", of being "muzzled". God gave them freedom, a word so ubiquitous in the US that it has lost all value and meaning. What is freedom in the context of a pandemic? The freedom to get sick? Fine, knock yourself out. Problem is what about everyone else's freedoms? That's where the logic fails. These people are selfish. Never mind believing that god decreed they be free - free from the virus he created. Nice one.

Eye of the Storm 5: Chin Chin!

A chilling thought: Trump (the Dim Reaper) faces electoral oblivion (hopefully) and has stated (again) the vaccine's a-comin'! Does this mean he will use this as electoral leverage. I doubt he'll go as far as selling an actual snake oil product, bringing it to market just in time for November. Although little else would surprise me at this point. But instead he'll point to something that "will be available by Christmas/Thanksgiving" in such a way as to be equally mendacious. All the desperate, by then infected, Republican red staters in covid hotspots will be persuaded that he's necessary for their deliverance. They want to cut red tape - in other words no matter how unsafe or unethical the vaccine or its creation may be....Consider this from his propagandist in chief (3mins20 in):

We're living at a time, here in the UK at least, where our children are leveraged against us, as the working class. Get them back into schools that weren't built with neither social distancing nor pandemics in mind - or we'll impoverish you. If you cannot see that is an act of class-based aggression then, my friend, you're blind.

The pubs open tomorrow - at 6am! Apparently this is to prevent pubs throwing their doors open at 12 midnight tonight. Is that how sad we are? So desperate for a drink that we'll run the corona gauntlet to find an open boozer at so early an opportunity you'd go in at midnight! Where does that take us moving forward. Once the pubs are open, that's Pandora's booze box. Why is this even happening? To my mind the drinks industry, with all respect to those making a living in it, is the last place that should open. Obviously staff should be taken care of; that's a separate concern. It's pretty obvious this is because Boris is chums with the Brexiteer owner class; people like Tim Martin. A small faced buffoon. People that have always opposed the lockdown, caring only about their bottom like. Well, bottoms up!

This entry is a bit shorter. I'm starting to get restless. This period is wearing on me - on many of us. The government have completely massed this up and so what is there to look forward to in regard of restoring society or easing the lockdown. Well the lockdown got fucked by Boris's stupid mate, you know the guy, he's the real PM. I don't know how this will play out but I'm pretty sure something has to give. Sadly it'll be us.

Class War

Eye of the Storm 4: A Fined Mess

Is this really the best we can do?

The world is literally on fire. The environment is lashing out at us while we blithely spread a virus around the world that can cripple economies. It didn't have to be this way. Except, with no challenge to the hegemony of capitalism, that's exactly how it had to be. We were never going to be lead by visionaries or 'innovators', despite how much our stupid leaders might want from us. Where is the innovation? Strangled by austerity.

There is no vision under capitalism. Only a short term concern for immediate gain. Long term planning doesn't gel and so preparations for, and indeed the very notion of, a pandemic is ignored. Throughout there has been no leadership, only profiteering. Tracking facilities given to Deloitte insurance. Not trained medical staff. By all accounts this service will be up and running by the winter. By accounts of those operating it, that's unlikely.

They call this strategy "whackamole". How ironic, considering that is a phrase intended to describe a state of desperate fire fighting. Like the old fairground game, the moles keep popping up and you desperately try to keep up until you can't. How apt a description then. Certainly not one that seems effective.

This pattern is replicated, like a virus, across the world. Everywhere capitalism has a bootprint, it has the stain of infection. That's before factoring in conspiracy theories, which proliferate among those capitalism exploits the most. The tragedy is, in the most extreme cases, they lash out when this is pointed out, even unconsciously. Look at the Trump fans risking their own health to cheer him on - his own voter base comprises those most at risk!

Finally, the governmorons have proclaimed everyone send their kids back to school come September - on pain of financial deprivation. What a ridiculous situation, but capitalists cannot understand this. The only way capitalists can do anything is through such means. This is just bullying and of course counter productive; how can it help achieve any goal to impoverish people? If your goal is laudable then should it not stand on its own merits? This does nothing to allay peoples fears which, obviously, arre the main drivers for reticence on the part of parents. It speaks nothing to the question of whether schools are in fact safe at all. In fact confusion abounds still.

Like so much from the Tories this past three months. If nothing else has been demonstrated, it is that our self entitled self aggrandising ruling class are woefully short of the mark. I hope people can realise now that will not change. Ever.

Class War

Eye of the Storm 3: Hump Day

Apparently it's not compulsory to mask up on public transport. That was only a temporary thing, for some reason. I'm not entirely sure why since it ended the day the shops opened. Well done.

Unfortunately getting people, now, to wear masks will become impossible. Like so much the government has left too late. People find it alien, understandably, but the response is childish. As we can see in America where people think masks are going to steal their breath and somehow stifle their freedoms. Funny they don't moan during the winter about hats and scarves; pragmatism always swims out. Pandemics, notsomuch.

It appears the government has been engaging in more malevolent incompetence. This time, as Leicester faces a lonely isolated lockdown (good luck making that work), it turns out the government are only making half the picture available. Not all the data is being released, including to local governments having to deal with such outbreaks. At the same time a few northern towns are facing the possibility of isolated clusters appearing.

This is because the twats in government gave the contract to an insurance firm (before it gave the PPE contract to a pest control firm with minimal assets). Said firm were not required to pass on this information. S

This ain't good is it!

The situation in Leicester, to put simply, appears to revolve around places like textile factories who have been engaging in shabby business practices. They've been staying open when workers are present with infections, they have also been accused of fiddling furlough claims; cooking the books.

This is only possible because of capitalism. This whole situation could be and should be managed better, but that is not going to be possible while we are beholden to a vampiric economic model. You could reasonably argue that the government could step in and sort these places out. You'd be correct. Indeed the Tories would like you to believe that capitalism doesn't have to mean exploitation and poor treatment of workers. Except that's rubbish. It absolutely does if business want to remain profitable - and that's what these factory owners will argue. Where we are is precisely where we were always going to be. There's no alternative reality wherein capitalism works out just fine. There's this world and the systems in it. Those systems breed this. People aren't born nasty; they are made that way.

How else do you explain a scumbag like Jeremy Hunt, advocating regular testing for Covid among healthworkers - and then voting against it! You can't so don't even try, it'll only cause a haemorrhage. This is the world we're in right now. Yesterday I was feeling more positive. Today I read that, while Trump sleeps at the wheel tweeting rather than leading, the US has over 40,000 new cases! This is a disaster! Over here our government is in complete disarray: how are we not testing health workers, still!

What else?

Class War