I released a longer video some time ago in which I talked about international trade talks, the NHS and in particular US trade talks and the practice of negative listing. That’s the idea that unless something is specifically listed as ‘off the table’ in trade negotiations it most definitely is to be considered ‘on the table’.
This week our conservative majority government, including my own MP, Mark Jenkinson voted not to protect the NHS in this way. They could have made it illegal to sell the health service in whole or in part to foreign concerns out to make a fast profit from our taxes but they didn’t. They actively chose to keep our national health service vulnerable to predatory private health providers.
Ah, you might reply, but at least it’s a British decision from the British parliament made via British sovereignty. But you’d be wrong.
You see, they also voted to extend their own impotence. Tory MPs, including my own, voted once again to ensure that the government doesn’t need the approval of parliament to make far-reaching changes to our constitution, to our system of government, to our democracy and to the institutions of state.
If your MP is not a cabinet minister then you have no representation in parliament because the tory MPs used their majority to give it all away.
When Covid19 first made it into the news I was as concerned as most people but not dismayed. I had faith in the government to do what’s right and in fact, didn’t criticise the shower of shit we have in Downing Street until April. I saw my role as a good citizen to get behind the government, propagate positive messages abut hand-washing, social distancing and generally support the national effort to keep people alive and not too worried.
I did criticize a bit but that was reserved not for Boris and his cabal of criminals but for hoarders and spivs. Not until April did I start openly criticizing the way the government was handling the pandemic, putting British lives at unnecessary risk by ignoring the advice from the rest of the world.
Even then though, my regular blog posts and videos were aimed more at ludicrous conspiracy theories about mobile ‘phone signals and unsubstantiated claims about Boris not really being unwell, after all. I’m still uncertain about that last one, mind. Then the Health Minister, Matt Hancock delivered a message that I’m afraid really did get up my nose. He claimed that the reason we hadn’t enough PPE to keep ourselves and our patients safe at work was because we were over-using it. The chance would have been a fine thing.
The reality was (and is) that 10 years of Conservative government failures to prepare for the inevitable contagion, a contagion that the government’s own exercise highlighted was not sufficiently prepared for, has left us woefully under-resourced to meet the challenge. My own MP, Mark Jenkinson (more about his spurious attempts to discredit nurses later) insisted there was no problem. As his more senior colleague (everyone’s more senior than Jenky), Matt Hancock had claimed it’s our fault, we nurses for actually using the stuff we’re given. Of course we’ll run out if we use it… and only once too! That’s what ‘disposable’ means, Matt. It’s to do with infection control, a rather important aspect of dealing with a pandemic like Covid19, as it happens.
A large part of the reason why we went into this crisis so unprepared is because of 10 years of conservative cuts on the health service.
A large part of the reason why we went into this crisis so understaffed is because the tories have spent the last 10 years abusing the workforce. A workforce that now, after risking their lives to care for the sick and the dying are expected to pay for the shortcomings of this despicable bunch of bastards. As if we haven’t given enough already.
A large part of the reason that we went into this crisis so under-resourced was because when everyone else was buying up PPE, ventilators and other equipment we were still being told to sing happy birthday by our Prime Minister who made a song and dance about shaking hands with hospitalised Covid-19 patients. What an example to set!
Then, to add insult to injury, Jenky hired people to travel 35 miles during lockdown to go door to door posting his pointless propaganda like so many typhoid Maries merrily spreading the virus as they went. It seems that nothing can get in the way of a tory MP’s self-agrandisement – not even the risk of killing his own constituents!
And it was Dominic Cummings who stole the headlines in early June with his now infamous ‘Durham Dash’. Conservative MPs across the land frantically toed the party line, desperate to placate constituents with thinly disguised platitudes and non-sequeters, posted en masse without the slightest thought or apparent concern for the impact such patronising authoritarianism might have on their recipients.
Needing a distraction and still ignoring scientific advice the government began a new offensive. This time they were attacking the teachers, hoping to make them the next scapegoat because of their reluctance to return to over-crowded classrooms full of covid19. Unfortunately for them, the nation had already seen through the same tactic when Hancock tried to blame health care professionals and were having none of it. The clear message was that the government didn’t care a jot about children, despite their protestations. A decade of abandonment, not to mention their recent decision to cut off lone child refugees in Calais showed just how little concern they have for anyone’s children but their own (well, except boris who doesn’t even know how many kids he’s got). No, this was all about the money – about freeing up parents to get back to work and die of Covid just so long as they can keep their betters in profit.
Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education has messed up big time. Not because he used coronavirus to unfairly disadvantage working class kids but because he got caught doing it. So he may be the next government scapegoat for Boris and his handler, Dominic Cummings to hide behind.
But Gavin knows a lot of embarrassing secrets and he may not go quietly.
Is the Covid-19 getting tired from all that globetrotting? Will Dominic Cummings pass his hearing test? What’s going on with Priti Patel’s new name? When will Boris step out of the fridge? All this and more in this week’s round-up of Stu’s news.
This weekend saw a huge protest in support of Black Lives Matter. The protestors were highlighting a range of issues, of course but with one central demand so far as I can tell. They want the British government to grow a set of bollocks and forthrightly condemn Trump’s administration for allowing, even inciting the murder of black people on US streets. They want the killing to stop both here and abroad and they want our government to stand up and be counted as part of the cure – instead of passively negotiating trade deals with a country whose record on human rights abuses is so blatantly bad it isn’t even surprising any more.
Boris has finally realised just how dependent the UK is on European workers. It’s about time! But there’s a problem… Of course there is. In fact, there are several problems!
Yesterday some men and women whose children won’t return to their private centres of education until September at the earliest, told the plebs to send their kids back to school. This is so that the plebs can return to work so that business owners can continue making money from the sweat of other peoples’ brows. Money for the wealthy is much more important than the lives of a few thousand oiks and chavs, after all.
Between Covid19, Brexit, the ERG, Jacob Double-barrelled-snooty-name and Johnson’s irritating habit of breaking his word whenever it suits him the United Kingdom really is monumentally f%¢£€d!