Start of Summertime

Today is a nice day. You can tell as much as the incessant breeze isn't as annoyingly cold on your skin, particularly around the neck. What a blessed relief.

Winter is a difficult period at the best of times. Even more so at the worst. Our leaders don't care of course, insulated in their ivory towers they pass the time by burning money and generating energy from laughing at us. What's the latest scandal? The scarlet woman! And she's American, too! Tory voters won't blame Boris, despite philandering and financial irregularity being his MO, they will, through ingrained cultural misogyny, blame her. She led him astray, a married man! The hussy! I have no doubt that will be the narrative played out. A man who wanted, then, to be PM with such a lack of self control he cheated on his wife and paid thousands to keep the mistress sweet. We're back to the days of Tory sleaze once again. Last time it was the PM shagging that Currie creature, now it's Boris' turn. These people are repellent in every way. 

But the Tories stand by each other. It's nothing virtuous; birds of a feather and all that. They only do it to keep in power, a lesson Labour hasn't learned. They won't, we have the dismal, repeated spectacle of Jess Philips bemoaning the state of the nation (correctly) under this government, yet shockingly oblivious to her part in it, as someone who's spent four years carving away at her own leadership. Publicly siding with the enemy to air her hatred, actual hatred, for Jeremy Corbyn. No wonder Mogg thought it was amusing, the sad part is that she clearly doesn't recognise the class warfare being perpetrated. She can't possibly have thought she was winning them over. They ain't your friend Jess, and they never will be. Labour are massively tanking and will do disastrously in the elections. Then, wither Starmer?

Lockdown restrictions somewhat ease today. Meaningless really, how many working class even have access to affordable or free outdoor facilities? I guess it's ok if you're a wealthy enough to pay for access to a tennis court. Besides which, people have been meeting outdoors throughout; this is meaningless. Kids hang around together constantly. No one stops them. People regularly hang around outside the cafe getting their takeouts. All this is just performative. Still it generates some prime middle class copy for the likes of the Guardian. Those struggling with no support continue to get ignored.

End of Wintertime

Aka the start of Summertime. Born in cold wind and rain. I guess the same as it ever was. Now with a backdrop of desperation as police, hapless, turn to violence. As ever. Directed by the state hiding the legislation they fear they need under the hood of pandemic control. Insidious, this forces those of us who care about the health of the community, to question the idea of necessary measures. But the truth is governments always use crises to slip through policies they know to be unpopular. So it is now. 

This isn't just unpopular legislation, it's the means of an increasingly desperate government to retain control in the coming period. Things are falling apart. We've seen them turn to jingoism, an invisible war based around waving the most flag. They compete with each other while slowly dripping this nationalist poison into the public psyche where it will find willing purchase in the minds of their loyal subjects. If only the protesters had a sense of national pride they'd be happy with an authoritarian policing bill preventing dissent. Protesting the right way becomes the wrong way. Then there is no right way.

Just a thought.

Weekender of the Second Year

So far, our vaccine rollout has been stellar. No credit to the government of course, since it's the NHS that is in charge here. Not the dodgy private sector whose pockets the government lined throughout 2020. However have we overreached ourselves? We know the vaccine, the full treatment, requires 2 does. Have we sacrificed the future for short term gain? The EU seems to think so and is, perhaps chillingly, warning we will struggle to make up that shortfall. I hope that's not a threat, but it could just be the stark reality. After all Boris is myopic; looking for popularity in the now.

It feels more and more as if we're on a knife edge. There will be covid present in the community for a long time to come. A live spark always waiting to catch light. The so-called freedom lovers in the anti lockdown movement won't like that truth, because ignoring it is what incites it. Then we have to lockdown, again. This seems to be our only strategy. Bump from pillar to post in the covid pinball machine, like a drunk trying to walk home. No one seems to want to adopt policy to deal with this. As more things threaten to open it is inevitable the spark will flame somewhat. 

Our society is simply incompatible with pandemics. I would certainly agree endless lockdowns aren't the answer. Even the experts agree on that. Lockdown was never meant to be the default. But the government, through its actions, seems to disagree. The fundamental crisis revealed by covid can only be resolved through the removal of the capitalist mode of production and its class system. We need power over our lives at a time like this, but instead we're told greed is good. This is the voice of desperation. A party with no ideas resorting to nationalism and jingoistic dick waving. It's pathetic; the paucity of ideas from the monied elite. 

This crisis isn't going away anytime soon, and certainly not with the heat.

Year 2, Where We Are

With even a small, relatively speaking, amount of Covid in the country any amount of unlocking is going to be problematic. The question is how much can the Tories get away with versus how much they'd like to. We know, from experience last year, that there is a tangible point that comprises "too much". Can that be reached before sufficient people are vaccinated? There is no doubt going to be a ton of pressure from the cranks to unlock as much as possible.

What of the vaccine? Do we know how long it lasts or its efficacy in stemming transmission? Unfortunately the only way to find out is in the grand social petri dish. Finding out the hard way, but that may well end up being too late. But eventually we will vaccine everyone, hopefully. Then it's a case of how long will the vaccine last? It seems agreed that boosters will be needed regularly, applying those will likely take as long as the vaccine initially. That's an assumption, but everyone will have to go through getting a shot again. That is, as we've seen, quite the task. This means those initially protected will find they become vulnerable again, and so it could be a rolling, endless, task of vaccinating people. Can we really keep the virus suppressed in the meantime.

The problem with that is if you give people an inch they will, as the saying goes, take a mile. We know that, as soon as restrictions lift, people will go out en masse, like a violent exhalation. We also know that means an increased number of people not obeying the rules. I've seen it on the bus in the period before this lockdown; people closing the windows because it was cold (not an issue now), taking masks off to scoff, etc.  All of this will happen, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.

Year 2

Another night with protest in Bristol. One has to ask: if not for the presence of the police would there have been trouble? I think not. The only time there has been trouble was in their presence, because of their presence. This isn't the 'thin blue line', protecting us from a great scourge. Keeping us safe in our beds and production units. It's enforcing the will of an increasingly tyrannical state. Yet its defenders are those who appeal to the one thing we stand to lose as the means to show our approval. They also seem to think that, once we've 'had our say', we need to obey. This is sinister. Firstly politicians are meant to be public servants. No one really believes this of course. But they aren't put there to rule us. So if we don't want our rights taken from us, who are they to do so?

There is no mutual concept of rights. These things we call rights are only ever taken. We aren't 'given' them by a government. They sometimes lend them to us, repealing them when it sees fit with no accountability. This is why there is struggle. Rights that secured the means for the one taking them away right now to vote to do so. The real problem is the media and its process off what Chomsky calls manufacturing consent. They even seek to co-opt the protest to this end: "these riots prove exactly why we need the legislation". Why does no one question so transparent a lie? There are already laws to stop smashing windows and punching cops (assuming that happened). If there weren't what then would the problem be? This bill doesn't seek to address that, it just seeks to criminalise protest entirely, leaving it at the whim of a racist institution to decide what working class people can and can't do in their own streets and communities. 

This summer will be decisive. The government pledged to roll back the lockdown; that the direction of travel would be one way. But something has changed in recent days. Not just the heavy handed provocations of the police, but to the virus. Europe faces a serious third wave and where Europe begins, Britain ends. So it is likely that it will strike here, led by a variant created through our government's mishandling of the virus. Turns out it wasn't China that weaponised a world wide plague; it was Britain on Plague Island. Through our own clownish arrogant leaders. Whether or not the vaccine will make a difference is the great unknown, but we stand on a knife edge. Johnson's tone of recent days seems to hint at the inevitability of this third wave. But will he dare to open too much up? Of course he will. THe problem is, whilst the virus is still present - and it is - there will always be the threat of too much. Schools seem for now to be ok, but add to that shops and hospitality, indoor meetings and sports etc. Somewhere along that line there will have to be a limit. What that is only time will tell, but there is no doubt we aren't ready for everything.

The End

I'm not observing a minute's silence today. Or rather, I didn't. Not because I din't care about the dead, but because the government doesn't. This is just a top down authoritarian attempt to divert people's anger which no doubt will be rising at this time, like a possible third wave. A year of corruption, incompetence, and ultimately death. All of which the government will respond to by saying "now isn't the time". That's why I won't be silenced. The best way to mourn is the make sure there aren't more.

The world has changed. There is no return to normality. This is the new normal. Some people struggle to adjust, blaming scientists because...reasons. They are all evil/in the pay of that nefarious mastermind, Bill Gates. He's a billionaire so he's evil - but don't you dare criticise capitalism, the system that put him where he is. That is the real enemy. It's what allows people to gain cruel power over others. Making excuses for that system by blaming individuals (incorrectly, as it happens) is no different than being told to observe the silence, for the same reasons I just gave.

Who knows when this will end. It's highly likely covid19 will remain for a long time in the world. Of course it doesn't have to be that way. A concerted - socialist - effort could address it, but the world's powers are afraid of that. Certainly the US won't. It's legislature is a lost cause; they'd rather have a broken health care system and the freedom to believe masks are antithetical, and so they die.

Our leaders continue to abuse and exploit us. Interviews do not hold them to account, but instead soft soap and fawn while they parade their sickly credentials in the form of flags. Increasingly it has become performative. Meaningless, given their actions clearly belie the values they, erroneously, ascribe to the flag. Values that every self described patriot, in every nation, identifies with such that it becomes meaningless. We aren't special, we are a small, fading, island increasingly ruled by tax despots, cranks, and tyrants. A broken piggy bank, hammered apart by the drug addicted parent. It can only get worse. There is only one direction Brexit can take us, so we will double down on the authoritarianism, the jingoism, and the bigotry. A tiny pathetic little island permanently stuck in some haughty past that was far from ideal. Especially if you aren't a member of its racist sexist elite.

I don't know how we can win the argument. I think it just comes down to numbers, and we'd better hpe ether are more of us than there are of them. Arguments fail in the light of social media which allows people to simply walk away rather than address the failings of their position, Try and explain to people that the riots don't make the case for the policing bill they were intended to fight and they simply double down. Yet there are already laws that deal with smashing windows and assault (if that's what happened). These people, complaining, don't realise that the means by which they'd prefer protest be conducted are threatened by the bill itself. If you fall for the Tories narrative then the only thing left will be illegal means.

Last year a racist's effigy got dunked. It's time the rest of them got a soaking. We cannot let these Tories ruin us, and they will. Democracy means nothing to them, Parliament isn't democratic anyway. It's a giant book of spells; rituals to confound the common will. What else is the House of Lords if an abuse of power. Unelected unaccountable and highly manipulated - just stuff it full of cronies, rewarding them for services rendered. A few of those sitting in power now, making awful decisions, will no doubt end their days within. The rest will want to.

This is the future that awaits us, under the guise of emergency legislation. I have no time for the cranks and their tedious anti scientific nonsense. Backward thinking that only divides. Emergencies such as this may require exceptional measures, but not from sources that we have no power over. Whatever means are put in place must be able to be repealed. Not used as an excuse to assault women for example. 

We have a long road ahead of us and it has just started with 365 steps. Thank you for reading.

This Is (almost) The End

Technically, though I can't be bothered to count, I will now have done 365 blog entries, of varying quality. I started on March 23rd, day of lockdown last year. Tomorrow is the anniversary; the day the world changed. What happens after tomorrow, I do not know.

For now, there have been riots. Not in celebration of my achievement in talking shit every day for a year. But in response to heavy handed policing in Bristol. I had no idea what was going on until I read about it on Twitter. How very 21st century. I don't live in the city. I do support the protest and here's why:

The media response will always be biased and never positive. There is never going to be a successful protest that the media will accept. A few sandwiches in Hyde Park on a summer's day is one thing, but it will achieve nothing. That is the paradox of protest. The fight for women to get the vote, now seen as universally (almost) a good thing, wasn't peaceful. Opinions change over time. Protest shoudl not be concerned with what's popular; the Tories are always going to push this bill through. That isn't made more likely because of last night, no matter how the media wilfully spins it.

It is therefore all the more dismal to see the massed ranks of the capitalist class align on this. From left to right the message was the same; vigorous pearl clutching and pretend shock. As if years of heavy handed policing, austerity, and class war, hadn't and don't exist. We expect this from the Tories, but when Labour hue and cry it shows that they either don't get it or want to be part of the capitalist class and don't recognise the reality.

Some people complain and say that this is just doing the Tories' job for them. This is dangerous and circular reasoning. They argue that it makes the case for the bill, when in fact it doesn't: smashing up cop shops and cars is already illegal. Do people not know this? Why are they arresting people then? What would they charge them with if it wasn't a crime? The problem is that protest is going to be framed negatively no matter what you do. It also conveniently ignores the role of the police in this. The protest had been happening throughout the today, peacefully. Then, when the riot goons wade in the mood changes. So who's to blame? 

This isn't about whether I should condemn or condone the actions. I have no interest in a polarised simpleton discourse. I see what happened as an inevitable expression of an oppressed society, treated like shit by the state and its agents. You won't read about that in the media, you'll just be treated to reportage designed to shock and make you angry. That's all the media exists to do. Billionaire media barons aren't your friend.     

Back To The Final Weekender 2

"Freedom". That's ally my twitter feed reports when I dare stare into the face of the denial abyss. People don't seem to have a coherent argument; it's just emption. A cry for freedom, but from what? They don't want to be free from government, state oppression, nor capitalism. They champion the cops and argue that they are all on the same side. This is of course false; the cops are only your 'friend' when they want something from you, or when you move on from being merely a nuisance. For now the government just thinks you're all cranks (except the ones already in government of course).

This exhortation, this demand, seems to come from somewhere deeper. What is required is guidance. These people lack awareness of what is happening. Or, if they have heard the explanations, they dismiss them as 'cultural Marxism' or something lefty they have been told, repeatedly, to reject. But again, who is there to question those sources? They are educated by our toxic media which is not run nor owned by friends of the working class. Freedom isn't something they want to give you, it's a concept they weaponize to win you over. After all, what is freedom during this pandemic? Who would choose to risk hospitalisation and death? Even 60,000 cases a day are not enough to persuade people who believe lockdown is calamitous because it's having a negative effect on health care. This is precisely the double think so pervasive and so emblematic of the problem we face today. The idea that we should reject healthcare because it's deleterious to health care.

It is meanwhile looking grim across the continent. The winds of disease blow uneasiness in the people as more restrictions not fewer are forecast. If trends follow the previous waves of this virus then it is only a matter of time before we follow suit. How likely this is depends I guess on the virus. But we are in the process of moving toward opening, the thing the anti crowd want the most. We can only imagine their reaction if infections start rising again. I don't know why they don't believe the official figures; disbelief requires the existence of a vast infrastructure of conspiracy, endlessly synergistic. The more you have to consider, the bigger the lie that has to be manufactured, believed because they simply cannot accept the more mundane alternative. 

Therein lies the problem. The fantastic is more appealing, on some nightmare level, than the truth. It's like 911: the mundane reality, that the state apparatus, byzantine intrusive, unfriendly, dropped the ball when it came to monitoring the hijackers. So it is here. The reality is one that belief cannot control; an unpredictable virus blew out of nowhere, in conditions caused by the very system they have been raised to believe nurtures them. That government incompetence, elitist politics and class based disdain - even racism (see Trump) - fed into a situation that allowed a dangerous corona virus to become a global pandemic. It didn't have to be this way, and to the deniers, it isn't. Instead they are privy to a reality they can control, if only through denial and counter productive protest. They call it freedom, it isn't. It's just an appeal to restore the previous systems of control.

Still at least Corbyn isn't in charge, eh!

Back To The Final Weekender 1

 Right now, the local football little leaguers are out in force. They seem to be enacting repairs/maintenance. I don't know what, they are a tedious outfit. When they play they eff and blind like a docker's pub. I find them annoying. But then I would. I don't like loud displays of macho nonsense. Weirdly they have marked out the pitch as if they are going to play. I took a look at the Corona unlock roadmap and it doesn't seem they can play before at least the 29th, and even then I don't know how much activity is allowed - all just in time for the end of the season anyway. 

Thing is the lockdown is schizoid right now. People are, as they have been, have been meeting and buying takeout all over the place. If anything it resembles a bank holiday, with people out and about. There is simply a level the government is completely ignorant of. Kids after school hang out as they would normally, pouring over the swings and play areas, the older ones have come to treat the place like a rubbish bin. Litter is everywhere, with some vandalism. It's sad; I can understand they must have found this period difficult, everyone has. But where are their parents? Where is the discipline? You just can't behave like this during this crisis. 

Infections are rising in that there Europe. Summer holidays will of course be encouraged because capitalism. Given how slack we have been in dealing with international travel it now appears we have become the sick old man of Europe. Spreading our special, flag shagging, variant across the continent. They must be so grateful; literally sick of us. I can't blame them, but the fault lies with our toxic government. 

Meanwhile the antilockdown crowd are, once again, out protesting. I sometimes think they'll be out protesting after lockdown lifts. They will never understand the science and why it matters, and that's just sad. So far the cops haven't cracked down on them, but that's because they aren't seen as a threat to the capitalist hegemony. I doubt any of them are socialist or anti capitalist. Quite the opposite; many will be the anti-antifa types, ready to take a bullet for a statue at a moment's notice. That isn't to say they aren't dangerous, after all fascist flags were unfurled at an earlier protest. 

Tragically there is more impetus among these people, a collection of misguided cranks and desperate believers, than across the moribund electoral left. That ought to change

Back To The Beginning 19: Another Back To Work Enterprise, Another Waste of Time

I decided to kick Fedcap into touch. I'm tired of dealing with these organisations honestly. There has been no communication from them in a month so I sent an email asking if there was anything to report ahead of today's appointment. Given that no response was forthcoming I decided to cancel it, and them. They clearly aren't able to give me what I need. I'm sure the person with whom I'd been dealing is a nice guy but he has no idea how to help and so what is the point. He'd asked for some of my music with the impression he was going to talk to 'experts' in some form and see what they could suggest. That clearly hasn't happened. I din't expect it to; he isn't an expert in this field at all. I don't expect him to be, but then what's the point if they can't help. There has been no communication built with these people. I've given them every opportunity but rapport never came.

I'm not overly upset. It is frustrating, but it's mainly just predictable. None of these organisations have ever lived up to the promise. That itself isn't really the problem, though it is a problem. The real issue is that this is how the system believes one ought be helped. This is all you get. So if it doesn't work, guess who the system, i.e. the government, finds fault with? Yet I'm not the one paid thousands on behalf of people like me, to do this work. It's just an exercise in mediocrity; none of these organisations have the ambition nor the means. Sure, if I'd been someone just wanting a CSCS card or a pair of work boots, things would have been different - easier. Anything creative, anything that society can't easily commodify or exploit, and it's a different matter. Yet the irony is that's exactly what I am for these types of organisation. I am exploited for them to make a profit; if it weren't for out of work people (people not exploited elsewhere) then these companies couldn't succeed. That's just how it works; classic Marxist exploitation. I'm not saying my advisor(s) are exploitative people, but that's how their service works (has to) under capitalism. So within that they will look for the best return: the cheapest service they can provide, the least they can do. Again that's not on an individual advisor basis. I don't bear these people any ill will. The problem is systemic. Until that is addressed this entire industry is never going to solve unemployment (regardless of why the individual is out of work). 

I'vs said it before: what is needed, to really help, is a revolutionary approach. Organisations like this need to develop an awareness of class relations, of capitalist exploitation, of why and how structural unemployment exists (it is necessary for capitalism). Then they need to link up to support our side in the class war, because denying that war exists is at best naive; surrender at worst.

The real tragedy is that the money paid to these businesses could be given directly to individuals. That's not going to be for everyone and for some there are probably better ways to be helped. Furthermore I don't doubt Fedcap has been helpful to some, even though their testimonials don't accurately show that. The problem is just the paucity of vision that capitalism allows. Of course this is a gravy train; like everything the government invests in. No different to dodgy PPE contracts given to your mate who runs your local. Or some Tory donor. I have no idea the relationship between Fedcap and the Tories, and I allege nothing. It's just how this system works. It should change.

Back To The Beginning 18: Games Without Frontiers

In a world that is increasingly unlikely to see the kind of horrific mass warfare that could (in)conceivable necessitate a nuclear strike, it is obvious corruption for the government to buy more of these awful weapons. A toy that can never be unwrapped. 

The contempt with which this government holds us is naked: they tell us they have no money for nurses during a pandemic, but they publicly endorse spending more on Trident. A folly that will never be used. No war, moving forward, will be fought similar to the wars of old. Future conflicts will be limited, guerrilla, technological. They will blur national lines making it impossible to pick a target. They will be clandestine and fought with cyber attacks and digital forfeiture; erase assets at the touch of a button. Far easier than blowing up a bank. Who then gets the nuke? Always the innocent.

It wasn't a nuke that stopped the Japanese war machine either. The purpose of the two atom bombs wasn't to force their surrender, that was already on the cards. Instead the west slaightered thousands just to send a message in the burgeoning cold war. Don't fuck with us, as we atomise innocent lives.

Now our nuclear arsenal just comes across as a decrepit anachronism. A fool's errand that only a fool would employ. Who are we going to nuke? The EU for snubbing our fish? Certainly not our friends in Russia; the corrupt oligarchs we are increasingly welcoming into our legislature? Syria? Some mad mullahs in a tribal backwater too busy propping up the global drug trade? 

No, this is simply a sop to the arms industry. The Ministry of Defence (lol) is just a blank cheque. It's a well oiled, well armed, gravy train. It just exists to keep the elite in clover. Grace and favour properties for the minsters and generals. Croquet on the lawns of Eton. Meanwhile squaddies, conscripted out of dubious (and increasing) nationalism are housed in squalor if at all. Those that return from the misadventures those elites send them on often end up on the street fighting PTSD and alcoholism. No support at all. The money hasn't money for them anymore than the health services forced to patch them up, but it has money for guns and bombs. An open wallet for the death dealers it regularly hosts in urban arms fairs and conferences. This society is a sickness. The government doesn't care, and if we don't we will lose more than a few nurses.

Still at least we, as an increasingly Napoleonic little island, can threaten large powers with nukes we will never deploy. They know we will never deploy, and so forth. Pathetic.

Back To The Beginning 17: Britain Minus

So the policing bill got over another hurdle. This is no surprise; the Tories have a huge majority and will always stick together. There might be a few rebels here and there, but they don't amount to much. I suspect the party tolerates a little dissension because it's good to be seen as tolerant. THey are of course anything but, especially under this nasty little creature, Priti Patel. She is the worst politician of my lifetime; way worse, in my view, than Thatcher. God knows how much worse she'd be if she became PM. A grasping populist with no moral centre - formerly a tobacco lobbyist. Happy to shill on behalf of actual cancer in order to make a buck. Says it all.

It's all just part of the ever rightward drift this sinking island is heading in. Brexit was the key to all this I think. Hopefully it will be their undoing, because nothing else is. Not even, once again, starving kids. Twice.  The real enemy here is the media. Through manufactured consent, through the constant framing (and by extension frames created by ignoring issues or comments or policies), and the faux outrage of so called 'woke' culture wars society has been conned into believing people like her will rescue society from...something. Travellers and protesters it seems. Now nebulous guidance that could lead to disturbingly severe consequences is welcomed - all at the hand of a migrant woman who wouldn't be where she is if it weren't for exactly that kind of protest. Meanwhile soft targets like gypsies are of course targeted, as they have been for decades, probably centuries, by the establishment. All because they live in a way that threatens the values of the prevailing paradigm: a group of unseemly folk, dangerously vagrant. Where do they go? Are they after my lucky charms? Now they need passports? 

This from a party that likes to argue for a smaller state and greater personal freedoms. Liberty! But in truth it wields the political cudgel of law and order to its own ends. Particularly effective in this period of late stage capitalism. It is in this period that fascism rises, through insecurity and insularity as people turn to demagoguery and ultra nationalism. It would be incorrect to label her a fascist, but she is happy to use the tools that pave the way. This is destructive but she isn't smart. If she were she wouldn't need to bully people. I'm not really interested in psychoanalysis or character assassination, but it is clear she represents the worst aspects of Tory politics. Small minded and cruel.

But this is the child of Brexit. A divisive campaign rendered by powerful elites who care only for their own enrichment. A gutting of communities and a government willing to facilitate this leaves us a hollow society. It is within that vacuum that poverty and misery breed fascism. All of which people like Patel and her disgusting slob of a boss (who thinks it crazy to oppose this bill, while he breaks international law), enable willingly. We are greatly diminished as a society and the only route left open to us is to go further down that stygian channel. A sad lonely little island full of fulminating misogynists increasingly raging at an ever distant world whose population, typified by the EU (in their view), are responsible for all our problems. All despite our newly reacquired sovereignty. What a joke,.

Back To The Beginning 16: Pictures of an Exhibition

Pictures circulating on Twitter show Met cops standing 'on guard' around a statue of Saint Churchill. He must be a saint of course, why else would anyone deserve such protection? Certainly not the potential victims of male cultured violence, by which I mean women. It's laughable. What are these people so afraid of? That a statue built as a bulwark of the British institution, in all its shameful glory, be knocked over or somehow attacked? So what if it is? That's the unthinkable though, isn't it. If that were to happen it would clearly prove, in the minds of roasted gammon across the land, that we had descended into the ninth circle of hell. That we'd be living in anarchy (if only), or there vision of it. Utter nonsense, but you can't reason with these people. Churchill has been elevated to the level of cultural messiah to these people, who refuse to accept any facts or analysis of his power and position. He was PM, there was a war, we won the war (we, in this case, means far more than simply Britain), ergo Saint Churchill.

So a detachment of the brave and the bold is sent to stand a sad vigil around a statue because statues are now seen as the new flashpoint. I suspect no one at the actual vigil, the one that mattered, gave a second through to the statute; probably had more important things on their minds. One wonders if this was performative: if you send the cops out, take pictures and post them, then it sets in mind that there was a real threat. No smoke and all that. Insidious.

What the pictures do of course is far more instructive. You aren't seeing cops defending women, keeping them safe at a vigil to campaign for greater awareness of institutional misogyny (and police violence). You are seeing the state's sheriffs depending that which commemorates and thus reinforces the violence of the state. Not a war hero, but a ruling class icon who willingly propped up and used its worst elements. They are defending the institution of the state and by extension the British ruling class, and with it the means by which the victims of institutional violence continue to suffer. It's a slap in the face to those protesting.

But I guess that's the point.

And at long, long, last the weather is turning. Oh let the good times rock! Or at least vote against our nasty thicko home secretary's disgusting police bill.    

Back To The Beginning 15: More Tory Bullshit

Apparently it's a psychological loss when you're invested in a horse festival enjoyed by and for the ruling class. If you're a rich horse owning cunt then we have sympathy for you not being able to have a massive festival of the exclusive. Notsomuch if you're a pauper. Then you get nothing. You receive nothing, sympathy least of all. This year, no Cheltenham festival. However will the rich cope. The poor dears. Sickening.

As we edge closer to a time of reopening (again) I wonder how things will be. Adjusting to change isnt' easy or the neuro diverse, and I am no different in that. I hope the government will allow people a period of readjustment. They won't, of course. People struggling to cope, for whatever reason, will remain without support. They will be abandoned to the expectations that have always been there; the demands of the DWP and, more broadly, the capitalist system. Get back to work, you proles. Whether there is any work is another question entirely. One they will not bother to ask.

This week Parliament plans to vote to allow the government to lock up people for defacing statues for up to ten years. They also plan to outlaw protest. They'll win. They have an eighty seat majority and none of them will vote against this because that's how the Tories operate. We have snoozed into a totalitarian nightmare. Hoping that there will be an opposition is a wast eof time, The Labour party are feeble. There is no answer through the system because it is the problem.

Have a nice life. I don't have much to say today

Back To The Beginning 14: More Shit Policing

In a spectacular own goal, the Met arrested some completely non-dangerous women just for the temerity of attending a vigil against, essentially, misogyny. It's not really an own goal; this is standard operating procedure for the state. In particular it's sheriffs. You can point to the existence of emergency Covid legislation but anyone with a clear mind can see that the attendees posed no threat of viral transmission. It was outdoors ffs. 

Instead this protest, although that isn't the correct word really, was a stand against the institutional misogyny that the Met represents and defends daily. It's all part of the mechanism behind the ruling class. Misogyny, like all forms of prejudice, are integral. If it wasn't why would we still endure it? If it didn't, somehow,. benefit the ruling class to maintain the toxic systems (such as patriarchy) why would it still exist? There is, at the very least, no profit and no benefit for the ruling class to tackle these systems. Including the systems that drive the police to respond with force and to arrest working class women for speaking out against that which injures them.

They were never going to behave differently and expecting different would be a fool's errand. This is, once again, what they are. They are not our friends, they do not help us and they certainly do not represent class interests. They stand with the state enforcing its oppression. They could have let this go. They could have stepped back. They could even apologise and say it was a 'mistake', except that would all be false.

Maybe we are at a tipping point, now. I would like to think that with so many of our institutions falling short so publicly that maybe people are seeing them as truly inadequate. Reform isn't the answer. None of this can be fixed from within. It requires revolution. Anything else is a betrayal and a waste of time, Expecting our elected representatives (they aren't) to do anything is equally foolish. I note the government have of course empathised with the cause (in other words, just words), but they won't do anything. Of course not; they need the Met. They're the only ones that do. At this point it's all theatre anyway. Nothing will really change without revolution.

Back To The Beginning 13: Toxic Masculinity

Although I identify as straight white and cis male, and have never felt any need to question that, I have long felt that traditional male stereotypes and behaviour, as far as I understood them, were problematic. For many years I could not articulate why; I just didn't get them. Didn't like the things men are 'supposed' to like. That's not unusual, but it does make life just that bit more difficult, even as someone who comes from the dominant social group and has no identity issues that garner oppression. 

Gender norms affect everyone, but they clearly affect some people even more. Women for example have a unique and depressing experience at the hands of toxic masculinity that is still brushed under the carpet. It is difficult to understand these things and I am by no means an expert in gender theory nor feminism. However I have come to recognise that capitalism props up - and in turn is propped up by - what is often called patriarchy. Trying to question its values is one of the most socially difficult and necessary things we have to do right now.

What has always surprised me is just how strong these norms are. Even something as trivial as not being a sports fan, specifically a footie fan, marks you out in the eyes of some who seem genuinely to think you are in some way deficient. It's assumed that you support X team, or at the very least you like a sport of some (acceptable) kind (i.e., not curling or synchronized swimming). So often these norms are taken for granted and the stereotype of the 'jock' and the 'nerd', from American school culture, is very real. If you like 'nerdy' stuff then you are lower in the social hierarchy; you aren't an alpha male. As if being one, in our society, matters a jot. I'm not fighting the other apes for prime feeding territory, I'm filling a basket in Tesco ffs.

The response of the moment, when oppression rears its ugly head, is to deflect and deny. Hashtags variously claim all lives as being equal (they aren't, that's the problem) and that not all men (or whoever) are the problem. These are trite and cynical attempts at avoiding the issue. Of course not all men are rapists, but the ones that are don't identify themselves as such. They don't wear horns and cloven feet. So there is a collective responsibility on us, as men in this case, to question the culture that is presumed upon us. We have to start rejecting it otherwise it will be all men. Patriarchy isn't just toxic for women either, though undoubtedly they suffer the most. Fans of toxic masculinity, fancying themselves as intellectual, will try to argue that, for example, men suffer. They point to the dreadful phenomena of male suicide, but only serve to defeat their argument. Why are men endive to suicide if not because they feel so catastrophically inadequate in our patriarchal culture? Gender norms must be justified otherwise they must be rejected, and it's clear, as our understanding of identity and the freedom people have (relatively speaking) to express their identity broadens, that toxic masculinity has to be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Back To The Beginning 12: Moron Free Speech

This clip by Owen Jones whose hair is suffering more than my mental health at this time (which is to say not really that badly, I just like moaning about it because it's cathartic) is instructive. Cleverly he inserts a valid criticism of Churchill, the media's favourite racist. He's a war hero because...world war 2. He didn't fight, his class left that to the working class. He wasn't in danger. He took no chances. Laughable.

Of course his interlocutor spectacularly misses the point and launches into just that kind of defence. Churchill is a sacred cow, a mythical figure none of us alive have ever met. He was also a violent defender of the ruling class, with all its vile attitudes. Our victory in WW2 is irrelevant. The point being made is that if you care about free speech you shouldn't have a problem with criticism of Churchill - especially when it's factual. But Owen didn't actually criticise Churchill, his interlocutor infers this. All that was said was that Churchill played a part in the Bengal famine. This is factually correct. It's matter of history. These are the people who cry "facts don't care about your feelings", except for them that is entirely false. Consequently speaking this truth about Churchill invariably stirs the passions of those whose only outlet is violent threats - which they want to defend as free speech.

Everything has become contorted in modern society. It's quite simple; saying stuff has consequences because we live in a society and you're talking to people. Crying that you should be free from those consequences isn't an argument for free speech, it's exposing the hypocrisy of your claim that others are doing exactly that. 

There is also a power dynamic that the 'free speech' brigade always ignore. It's easy to argue for free speech, against the 'woke' crowd (whoever they are) when you're the rich white male host of a TV show. Less so when you're the representative of a marginalised community just trying to defend yourself. You'd think that the former would have a greater responsibility to the truth, but they don't care about that. In the name of free speech they'll punch down and perpetrate oppression. Then, when the victim responds, they'll cry 'free speech'. An entitlement that doesn't justify being an ass. 

So what can the victim (don't use that word!) do except move to 'cancel' people? This isn't the terrifying totalitarian tactic people think it is. People have a right to speak, they don't have a right to do that anywhere they please. I can't go into your house and shout the odds. Likewise universities and college campuses have to invite people, which means they can uninvite them just the same. How ridiculous would it be, how free would people be, if, having invited someone, you were just not allowed to change your mind. That isn't being cancelled. It just means you aren't being invited anymore. Tough luck, try again another time - or perhaps examine yourself and reflect. But self awareness isn't seen as a virtue by these people. They want everything their way and anyone else who doesn't like it is a crybaby snowflake.

Welcome to 2021.

Back To The Beginning 11: The Unbearable Whiteness of being Piers Morgan

So Piers Morgan steals the show, once again it's all about him. That's the thing with the so-called free speech crowd. They have a brand to build. Particularly in an age where there is a ready market for this crap. Lots of dark money swilling around, ready to support this agenda. New TV stations are being planned, ready to broadcast a steady diet of confected outrage to both comfort and confound the privileged. These are victims of a narrative that at once tells them they are entitled, and then berates their opponents for thinking they too are the same. Aren't they? Careful, your privilege is being checked, and that's all it is. Society evolves, attitudes grow with acceptance, becoming tolerance. But for some that is a change too far. Like bendy bananas and metric measurements. All problems created by powerful elites (Farage) to con you (Brexit).

I've no idea if Morgan staged his walkout, pending a better offer with Murdoch's new broadcast venture, but I've no doubt that's where he'll end up. Given a comfy chair and a platform few others will enjoy, least of all those representing a minority, he'll spin the aforementioned narrative to an audience far removed from that privilege. All of whom will lap up the barely credible stories of hypocrisy and liberal entitlement, delivered with a straight face. That's all he does. It'll probably strive to be an interview show because he's made a name as a 'tough journalist', especially during the pandemic, having confronted the paper tigers of government.

It's easy to see that as substantive. It isn't; it's merely performative. He asks questions that are obvious, any journalist with a brain could do the same. This is easy when your targets are so obviously and transparently corrupt. But the reality is that it's just shouting and bluster. He isn't interested in answers nor learning or exposing anything. Anyone subject to his asinine belligerence will be more likely to retreat and polarise, rather than open up and admit any wrong doing. Especially when they are already as shameless as the Tories.

Of course he doesn't care. It might seem easy to believe given that he appears to be standing for the common person. Yet we can see where his true allegiance lies; like all these people they are fiercely centrist neoliberals who rail against any change to the status quo as a step too far. How dare a black woman speak out. Despite being implausible, given how our society views mental health, it is more likely, to him, that she's lying. I find it rather telling that he drags Prince Philip into the conversation, as if to say she was saying these things to hurt a sick old man. By the way, he's 100 years old and has lived a life of untold unearned privilege. Most people that age aren't in the best of health. Most will never know the kind of health care he will get, and most aren't virulent upholders of a vastly racist institution, nor as racist as he is. I have little sympathy for him nor Piers' argument that one cannot criticise institutions because,.,rich old man is old. That's disgusting, but that's what he does.

The worst part is that he's trying to make this into a free speech argument. Which it isn't. he chose to walk off set. Freely. He only did so when a person of colour, a colleague, called him out. When confronted with the truth of what he represents, as a privileged wealthy white man, he threw his toys out of the pram. That scene is instructive, it should be to many who sadly won't see it for what it is. That's a shame. Instead they'll likely see a black guy speaking too far. Poor Piers, a victim of bullying. Nothing of the sort, despite how he'd like to frame it. He cancelled himself. It is heartening to see just how many complaints ITV received in response to Piers' tone deaf reading of the Harry/Meghan situation.

I have no dog in that race. The monarchy is a horrendous anachronism and the sooner it's gone, the better. But the discussion isn't about them specifically, it's about the relationship with power. If even a successful mixed race woman is treated badly by a powerful institution then what other evidence that institutional racism exists in Britain. It comes from the top, the royals are seen as exemplars (not by me ffs). That's how they are marketed; representative of the character of our community. It's time that character, and its apologists, changed.

Back To The Beginning 10: Royal Flushed

Apparently the royal family are racist. Who knew! Everyone, but the media has been covering it up for years. They aren't like us, they are allowed to behave badly because they are the royal family. Our betters. But it's just another expression of hierarchical power that justifies itself through circularity. There is simply no reason for any self aware and self respecting person to defend these people. Even from their own. Lest we forget Harry dressing up as a Nazi back in the day, or his racist language while in the army.

But he dared to marry not just an outsider, but a mixed race outsider. Double trouble. They couldn't haev that, and now it's all coming out with the wash. Like worms under heavy rain, the institution's grotty sycophants, who are themselves just as hated by the monarchy, appear above ground. Scurrying across the grass of the mainstream media they make excuses and offer denials. It all amounts to the same thing: the rouyal family can get away with whatever, because they are the royal family.

I'm not sure how much longer their facade can last. Even with the media in full defence mode this is undeniable. The parallels to Diana are oddly disturbing. Nothing ever changes in this fucked ip society and so people will refuse to see what is right in front of their noses, same as it ever was. It's the 21st century can we not do better than this ludicrous spectacle. Parasite landowners whose existence is used to justify class hatred and class warfare. All of it needs to go. Ironically, it's already claimed its first scalp: cretinous and belligerent bore Piers Morgan walked off GMB, cancelling himself. A man whose stock in trade is to whine endlessly about "woke culture". All these people, feet of clay.

He'l be ok though, no doubt lined up a cushy job over at Gammon FM or Murdoch's latest TV bullshit festival. Perhaps he'll work for LBC where he'll field a welcome array of curtain twitches. The perpetually angry and perennially perplexed. People who rage against ghosts, desperate to believe things can be better yet utterly unwilling to be accept they've been lied to. The terminally gullible that keep the media outrage machine forever in print. Suckers, all. Probably happy to support Harry when he was calling foreigners whose country his army (literally) had invaded 'ragheads', but less supportive that his mixed race wife is the target of institutional prejudice that has driven her to feel suicidal - because of course she'd make that up! No one makes shit like that up, not even privately, so great is the stigma of mental health. This is institutional gaslighting and it's been exposed for what it is.

Back To The Beginning 9: Back To The Beginning Of The Year?

This from the Guardian; alarming.

So now that everyone's been conned into believing that schools will not spread the virus (and hopefully that will prove true), and after almost three months hard sacrifice from real people, Boris calmly tells us that shit might get worse. The chief medical officer also doesn't preclude the possibility of Wave 4. Like this is some endless shooter game. Progressively harder waves of enemies to shoot, all to achieve some score. The only score here is the one that adds sterling to the coffers of corrupt party donors. This is unbelievable. If we go back two months in terms of the numbers I swear the streets of this country will fucking burn.

"“Of course, there will be a risk of increased transmission, that’s inevitable if you open up schools for millions of kids across the country. That is going to happen,” he told a Downing Street press conference."

Perhaps don't open schools then? If it's risky then maybe wait? Perhaps until after Easter since the holidays are a fortnight away anyway. Nope. Get the kids into school and damn the horses. At this point it's beyond even gaslighting. What on earth does Boris hope to gain here? Is this just to appease the Crank Recovery Group (nee ERG). We cannot go back to how it was. Realistically that's unlikely, given the effect of the vaccine roll out, but still. If the numbers start climbing it will be a massive kick in the nuts. The other problem is that it will just force the schools to shut. He doesn't seem to grasp that this is all interconnected; you can't just have an increase in the virus - taking it on the chin -  and keep schools open. There's no cost/benefit ratio here. If the virus spreads everything is affected, even with vaccines. 

Perhaps it's just as well I got a temporary Twitter ban, because after reading this,..  

Part of me wonders if the plan to open schools two weeks ahead of the holiday was both to appease the headbangers, and to encompass a built-in circuit breaker in the form of the Easter fortnight off. I doubt this is actually true, it's far too convoluted. But who know. We are in the twilight of lockdown; people are thinking that because they've been vaccinated they can do what they like, or that because they sense (perhaps incorrectly) an imminent end they can again do what they like. I don't think it works that way.

Regardless of what the government does or does not, certain measures will need to ebe in play for a lot longer than I think a lot of people expect. This can only lead to more bad behaviour. This article says it all. Particularly this quote, from a bus driver:

"I don’t feel valued. During the first lockdown, I really did. It was scarier, but people were appreciative, they knew we were doing our best to get them to work. We find young people are really good. "

Back To The Beginning 8: Social Media

 And the day ended with me getting ANOTHER seven day ban, for calling a fascist on Twitter a cunt. Naughty words alert the algorithm instantly. None of this is decided by people. I have a huge problem with this. Social media, in this lockdown period, is vital, more so than ever. That's a sad state of affairs perhaps, but we're indoors. We can't socialise, and, while Twitter can be a giant cesspool whose moderators allow big names to say whatever they like because of the ad revenue (capitalism!), it is also an outlet. Now that has been removed for seven days while I sit on the naughty step. While I think there are (obvious) behavioral restrictions that are necessary, the power this corporate behemoth wields is excessive and frightening. There needs to be a better way to provide social media in an age where social media is, essentially and hopefully not hyperbolically, vital.

Now we can have a conversation about what is acceptable behaviour, however I do not consider the deploying of, admittedly strident, public shaming to be unacceptable. It is a necessary and acceptable consequence in a free society to behaviour we don't approve of. It is not the curtailing of free speech because free speech doesn't mean free from consequence. If you use social media to advocate fascism, which Twitter seems to have no problem with, then being called out on that is not only perfectly reasonable, it is healthy. It's what should happen. Particularly if Twitter, a vastly powerful private corporation, takes no responsibility for what happens on its platform. It doesn't, by the way. Banning me for a period for calling a fascist a cunt is just an example of their inconsistency. It's also not why they banned me because they claimed doing so was threatening someone, even though it wasn't in a tweet that was directed at the person, instead in response to another comment about the person. Thus all I had said was "I think this person is a cunt". That isn't a threat. It might not be a nice thing to say, and it's not meant to be, that's the point, but it isn't a threat. So Twitter are not just inconsistent, but they muddy the waters to problematic levels.

The real issue however is the power entities like Twitter hold. Whether we like it or not, this is the age of social media. We live our lives online, particularly during a pandemic. This isn't about popularity or ratings either, it's about an unequal power relationship. These services need to be publicly owned. By all means maintain standards as the need for them isn't going away anytime soon, but do not make my case depend on a powerful unaccountable profit machine, and do not be inconsistent. This the biggest problem with social media; if you have rules against posting certain things then, while obviously those rules should be sensible and reasonable (no hardcore porn, for example), apply them consistently. The failure to do so is what gives right wing con artists and outrage peddlers, like Laurence Fox, the in they need to the discourse when otherwise they'd be laughed out of the room. 

Back To The Beginning 7: The Least Cunning Fox

Abused dildo and professional outrage merchant, Laurence Fox, is pretending to run for London Mayor. He has no policies nor political experience - which no doubt endears him further to those that fear the spectre that is 'woke'. He has a political party as well, based on 'freedom', which is to say the freedom to expose yourself and others to a potentially deadly/debilitating disease. Needless to say, he's a con artist, whether he knows it or not. What he's selling is a lie and my concern is who is funding him. Who is fronting the money no doubt required to stand for high office. I doubt I could afford it, even if I was a nobody actor with a penchant for singing badly (that I can do!).

Realise taht people like this, rising now from the fertile febrile soil of late stage capitalism, are not interested in your wellbeing. This is a grift. There is no doubt dark money behind Fox, just as there is behind other troublemakers and psyche-botherers, for example Farage or Stephen Yaxley Lennon. In fact Farage has just decided to stand down, again. He'll return; he's as consistent as an Ozzy Osbourne farewell tour. Their act is one of permanent heckling, where they sit on the periphery. free from responsibility, all the more able to criticise while offering no solutions. No skin in the game, yet funded by god knows whom.

Fox won't win. He's an idiot. He isn't even very good at the 'free speech' grift, where he rocks up across the mainstream media. Given a voice that you and I will never know, all just to complain about how he (and by extension straight white men) is the real victim. It's false of course. This is just the voice of aggrieved privilege; a status quo afraid of challenge, of losing its power. For this to be a concern would require a justification for that privilege. Meanwhile the real victims of that privilege are the minority representatives, BAME LGBTQ+ etc, who face daily oppression from the cohort Fox wishes to defend. Of course to go along with this he has a funding stream; a patreon you can subscribe to. You can join and make yourself feel special while in reality being fleeced.

It is sad that this is happening. It is worrying that these are the times in which we live. A postfactual state of affairs. It doesn't matter what is real, it matters how you feel. Not simply in the trite reductionist 'facts don't' care about your feelings' motif (beloved of people like Fox), but in the sense of basing our views on evidence. Feelings are important. No one who is a victim of structural oppression would disagree, it would be inhuman to deny that part of ourselves. We are not machines. However it is not real to argue that while people are the most oppressed minority just because you feel it to be true, or because a chance encounter with, for example, a Muslim challenged your assumptions about social hegemony. This is reactionary politics and it must be deconstructed because it is based on a lie. 

Back To The Beginning 6: Strike A Match, Burn A Government

There's a clip from PMQs of Boris openly putting down Ian Blackford of the SNP. This isn't surprising, but it is concerning. This is because Boris' behaviour was not challenged by the Speaker, or Deputy Speaker, in this case. Symptomatic of where we are: the largesse and arrogance of power allowed to go unchallenged. A metaphor for how the media has failed the working class; failed to hold these sociopaths to account. For this reason, Boris is allowed to behave like this. As he has no doubt throughout his life and career. Indeed he's been rewarded for it now that he's the PM.

The Tories are openly waging class war. They simply do not care any more. I don't believe they are acting in some planned strategic manner. That might be possible, in the world of special advisors and parliamentary jousting. But I don't really believe it, nor do I think it matters. What is important is their behaviour is not challenged. They can get away with their awful policies because of this. The lack of scrutiny doesn't reveal the details, the small print, of their policies. That's where the devil lies. Without that scrutiny they will continue to prove popular. Though I hope their poll ratings are emblematic not of an increase in support directly, but a falling away of support for the opposition. Consequently, until people can be persuaded that supporting the system is not the only option open to them, they will feel obliged to vote for one or the other. "You've got to vote for someone." Says who?

This is where the revolution has to start. People have got to realise that the Tories are not the only option, when faced with a dissolute, insipid, bland Labour alternative. This clip showed me something. Rather, it confirmed what I've been saying all along: the Tories are waging class war. Vast cuts - austerity 2.0 - is most certainly coming. When all the pandemic 'benefits' (and for many that amounts to £0.00) expire, as they will this year, sooner or later, there will be a vast cliff edge that many will face. Unlike the ruling class, the precariat and the vulnerable (which could include you and me) will be driven by the inertia of poverty. They won't be able to stop from going over the edge, and it seems that inertia is only going to be accelerated by this government and it's vast affluent chancellor. They will deploy the feeble rhetoric of simpleton capitalists: the John Galt paradigm. Bootstraps and self made men. Except none of them are; they have privilege, luck and wealth. We have nothing, and we're going to get even less. It starts with the nurses, we need to make sure that fire, being ignnited with this puny pay 'rise' starts a blaze that burns through the working class. An injustice to one is an injustice to all. Now is the time. 

Back To The Beginning 5: Cold Weather, Raging Fire Against the Right

Winter lingers. Cold is more than a memory at this point. It's fingers are wrapped tightly around my psyche. I have become especially vulnerable to the cold. Most likely because of lockdown. It traps you and the conditions of lockdown make a bad situation worse. Getting out would be just the tonic on any other day, but getting out is the problem, because it's still so damn cold. It's ridiculous to complain about it, I still have no control over the weather, but this is how the stress of our situation is manifesting for me. An inability to cope with the cold. Hopefully I won't have to for much longer. Spring surely must be coming. 

Schools open next week. It is hard to believe that won't have a negative impact. It would be foolish to believe everything will be okay. But the problem isn't so much a rise in cases, it's that it will be obfuscated. The government will say, if such a rise happens, that we should "wait and see". That of course would be disastrous. They could have waited until after the Easter holidays, which start a mere fortnight after the opening. Why is the 8th so important? Take an extra couple of weeks, make sure schools really are safe and make proper arrangements for the kind of testing that's needed. Of course none of that has happened. Instead of making it mandatory, the government can place the blame for any outbreaks on the schools (and their no doubt lefty Marxist teachers) themselves. "We did our part" they will say, and in so doing shore up support for themselves against a traditional ideological enemy. It's all about image, just as the egomaniac in number 11. It's hard to believe there won't be a rise though, our numbers, impressively reduced, are still way higher than when schools opened at the start of the academic year. 

To get to the point: the government are shit. 

A 1% pay rise to people working to keep us alive is risible. Obviously. I'm sure there is some byzantine explanation, enslaved to numbers, attempting the justify this. Don't be fooled. This is political. It could be a long game: maybe the Tories plan to relent all along, hoping to somehow land Labour into a trap if they make some bold spending claims. Either way the  Tories have an 80 seat majority. They can, literally, get away with murder. People will excuse them. There is no media scrutiny; the journalists just want a seat with the ruling class. That means not holding them to account. It's a club, and you aren't in it (to paraphrase George Carlin). 

Somehow we are through the looking glass in this society. Nothing makes any sense. Just a permanent sense of gaslighting. People are so unwilling to question capitalism that they will rationalise this abuse. They argue that because others have no income at all, having lost their jobs, nurses shoudl be grateful for this laughable pay rise (never mind how much MP's receive each year, including last year iirc, and this, no doubt). This is stunningly bad thinking. This shouldn't be a race to the bottom; a rising tide lifts all boats. A dying health service ensures that things like lockdowns last for as little time as possible.

But then we live in LBC Britain.

Back To The Beginning 4: Caution

It seems the budget was designed to encourage spending now; stimulate that economy don't worry about the after effects. Don't worry about the austerity that will follow. Reportedly Sunak plans to cut four billion rom departmental spending. That's our money he's keeping. Where does that go if not on the public services it's intended for; isn't that the point of taxation? Instead the Tories want us to believe it's going into some imaginary conservative piggy bank. Saved for a rainy day. But the only time it rains is when the rich need money, and they'll get it. Piggy bank indeed.

The uplift will last for another six months and so is correctly being reframed as a benefit cut. At which time people in receipt of working tax credits will receive a £500 windfall. Everyone else gets nothing. Legacy claimants and Universal Credit claimants both. The message is clear: these are for working people. The struggling newbie Tory voters in the red wall. Will it be enough to paper over the cracks, especially post Brexit? Quite probably, some of these people I'm afraid are easily swayed. Besides who can afford to thumb their nose at £500!

Our local Butchers was hit pretty hard by covid apparently. Yet still the local teenagers (shakes fist) hang out en masse as if it were any normal year. I don't know whether that's naivete or indifference. I find myself wondering if their parents even give a damn. This period hasn't been easy for them, or anyone, but the outbreak in the local shops demonstrates how easily this virus can strike. Somehow someone bought it into the shop with or without caring. They may well have had no idea. All it takes, one slip. Lives could well have been lost. So far that doesn't appear to have been the case, but it still could. They still have staff self isolating.

As far as I know we have been lucky. Or at least I, too, have been ignorant. No one I'm aware of has had this disease. There have been no (other) outbreaks. Naturally you don't think it will happen in your neck of the woods, but clearly it can. Here, or anywhere. Despite the roll out of the vaccine, and the speed with which one, apparently quite effective, jab has been given, we are not out of the woods yet. That will come with time, but unfortunately a long time. As long as a trace remains, we are not safe. We may well be vaccinated, but we can't risk having it spread. Perhaps the vaccine has rolled out too quickly. That sounds bizzare,  but my concern is whether people's sense of perspective and responsibility is matching the pace of the rollout: whether people will take being jabbed as an opportunity to go out and party thinking they are now immortal. Or whether they will correctly choose caution for now.

Back To The Beginning 3: Uplift For Some, No Lift For Many

It looks like, while the £20 uplift has been extended for another 6 months, legacy claimants are again shafted. This has made me extremely angry; it is a real injustice. Completely arbitrary political bullshit; the Tories at their cruellest. Again. I'll be ok, it's not life or death for me. It is for some, for many struggling invisibly against not only the pandemic but the indifference of the callous ruling, monied, class. Sunak doesn't care, he's a fantastically wealthy banker married to a billionaire. He's also ignorant of how our economy really works. But that isn't a justification for extending the uplift; parity at the very least is important. This is just sickening.

This is a man, a performing clown, who will tell you that hard work matters. It doesn't. Sure, by all means, work, but what they mean is work longer. Everyone thinks they work hard, while everyone thinks their neighbour doesn't. That's divide and rule. That's Brexit Broken Britain. We live our lives surrounded in false ideology, like a religion. Nobody questions it. They fear the economy will somehow collapse like pulling the thread of a fragile rug.

They tell you that, if you do work hard you'll get the big rewards. You don't. This is demonstrated every day in every country. If people only had to work hard, nurses would be living in mansions not bankers. They aren't. Sure some people get the reward, but it's as if pot luck. Besides capitalists don't want you working hard. That implies working more efficiently - getting more done in less time. They want more out of you in terms of surplus value. All they want is more production. That's all that matters to them. That's all Sunak cares about.

Do you want to live like that? Then, when a crisis comes, be on the wrong side of the Tories and who they value in society. It is an odd decision to pretend to care about some claimants. I can only assume the decision to exclude legacy claimants is simply one of expediency: it's cheaper to pay some rather than all. I can't imagine it motivates people to apply nor do I believe that's what they want. They'd rather no one claimed anything, but for all I know there's perhaps a more sinister purpose. Besides all the advice I've seen (from not-Tory sources knowledgeable on welfare) is don't apply - or at least don't move over unless you have to because Universal Credit is still a shit show. Though of course what choice do potential claimants have? I can't believe this is an inducement.

So there we are; the disabled are once again the invisible. Forgotten and ignored at a time when they need the government (if we must have one, even this one) the most. Who stands for us? No one. We really are on our own in this society. The hand of support, compassionate conservatism (they have to put the qualifier in because there is nothing intrinsically compassionate about conservatism), pushes you away. All for the sake of twenty bloody quid.

Back To The Beginning 2: In The Shadow of Winter

 As I suspected, Winter is fighting to reassert dominance as it always does at the season's end. Winter's hated last gasp. I've had enough of it. I have become uncomfortably numb. I have learned that I simply cannot abide winter. perhaps I've got the wrong blood temperature or something. Being in lockdown doesn't help, if that is indeed what is still happening.

It seems utterly extraordinary to me, that, a year in, our government are still chasing their tail. Despite spending billions on a test and trace system, supposedly showcasing the best of the private sector and its ideology. In reality just another cosy ride on the gravy train for the favoured. Here we are chasing down the rogue testee (that doesn't sound right) bearing the Brazilian variant. Now the papers are saying that it can "evade" up to 65% of the protection offered by the single jab.

All they had to do was quarantine people. All they had to do was stop such frivolous travel. Who on earth is coming in to this country from Brazil anyway? I hope it was essential travel. I have no idea what the chances this person has spread the virus, but all it takes is one person to see it and... a week before the return to school as well. Any plans to curtail school in the area affected (they reckon it's the "south east")? Of course not, creepy Gav will not agree to that.

Things could get very dicey indeed. It's groundhog day alright. We go around the misery go round yet again. At least if we must all get the Brazilian (that doesn't sound right) we might as well do it when the weather is, hopefully, nice.

Tomorrow is the Day of the Budget, which I shall watch with great interest. That is of course a horrendous lie, however it would also be a lei to suggest I won't be paying any attention. This will be his first stab at long term austerity, testing the waters for the pain sure to be inflicted in the post Covid economy. We already know he plans to end the £20 uplift. So will he offer Universal Credit claimants a 'generous' £500 windfall? Or will that prove to be the same vaporous rumour that was floated last summer with the £500 helicopter money the papers were mooting? More importantly, will he give that to people on legacy benefits. We've already been denied parity with this uplift, and the Tories simply can't be bothered to operate with any justice here. I think they don't care and just can't be bothered with it. So I don't hold out much hope, if indeed this £500 windfall does materialise, it will be shared equally. Disgusting politics of course, but who will stand up for us? Certainly not Labour. They are too busy arguing amongst themselves. They can't even get behind the uplift, even ust for Universal Credit claimants. 

What a rotten state.

Back To The Beginning 1: In The Shadow Of Spring

And so March returns. Not as immediately spectacular as the weather of past days, but respectable nonetheless. I have, in a supreme act of tempting fate, retired my portable heater for the season. It is a surprisingly powerful one as well, but it's good to get it - literally - out of the way. Hopefully I won't need it until next Winter, but you never know.

In celebration, the Brazilian variant, the menace from Manaus, has made landfall. I thought it was already here, fighting for airspace amid our own homegrown variants. You can't come here stealing our mutagens! This is one foreigner we can all happily disapprove of. Of course, like all things this crap government does, it will be one they let in happily, probably riding on the back of some tycoon's briefcase. Ready to do a special kind of business.

Despite thousands dying, and despite the risk of this new variant (despite the border controls), Prince Philip the Racist continues to defy the Grim Reaper. Can you imagine what the media will be like when the old boy finally goes? Monarchism on steroids at a time when we need it the least. Vaseline smeared over more pressing relevant news than the inevitable demise of an extremely elderly extremely privileged extremely bigot. Could it even overshadow covid?

Whatever happens with this Brazilian variant, and the person unaccounted for testing positive (who didn't provide contact details, bizarrely), there is only one direction now. Forward. I'm not saying that's the right direction. In the coming weeks reality may provide stiff opposition, but the doors are open now. People have stepped out. They aren't going back anytime soon.