The latest Johnson COVID slogan comes from “Moonage Daydream” and illustrates the shameful practice of misappropriation of Bowie’s lyrics in a limited and specific way:
It’s quite clear that Cummings got hands, face and space from this. Others have verified this point from Cummings reading of the song and books on superforecasting such as 1984 …
Then, from Ashes to Ashes, we find the phrase that won Johnson a landslide victory in the general election 2019 …
“My mother said, get Brexit done
You’d better not mess with Major Dom“
The Thin White Duke even advised Johnson from his grave on the matter of singing English patriotic songs at the last night of the Proms giving us a foretaste of the Brexiteer riots to come:
“Rule Britannia is out of bounds” – Life on Mars
“Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man, look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy“
I have it on good authority that the latest “Build, Build, Build” catchphrase came straight from Cummings mouth on the road to Barnard Castle to check his eyesight, on hearing “All the Madmen”, a song depicting “a world so bereft of reason that the last sane men are the ones in the asylums”. The dystopian vision fits the narrative of the Brexit condition under Boris Johnson. Build, Build, Build is clearly a cheap derivation of the confusing Bowie lyric “Zane, Zane, Zane” from “The Man Who Sold The World”. Somewhat strangely I have been performing this song at street events for the last four years since Brexit. Sorry David.
Cummings and Johnson have been playing Diamond Dogs on continuous loop since 2019 with their crack cocaine inspired Brexit. This album most perfectly describes the dystopian future or self harm, fear, loathing and blame that Brexit offers us if we chose this pathway.
Will you see that I’m scared and I’m lonely?
So I’ll break up my room, and yawn and I
Run to the centre of things
Where the knowing one says
I guess we could cruise down one more time
With you by my side, it should be fine
We’ll buy some drugs and watch a band
Then jump in the river holding hands
I’d like to have your predictions as to where Cummings and Johnson will go next for a catchy slogan …
As long as there’s the Sun
Britain has abandoned a £75 million plan to make vital items of reusable protective clothing to guard against a second wave of Covid-19. The plan had been drawn up in negotiations between the Cabinet Office – responsible for key government policies – and industry after criticism in March that the government had failed to build up stocks of PPE. Shortages of gowns and related items in hospitals and care homes were widely blamed for the rapid early spread of the virus, leading to a high death rate of more than 41,000 (in all probablility more than double that due to changing the metrics and slippery accounting). which made the UK fifth-worst in the world,
As well as meeting NHS needs, the plan had two ambitious and beneficial goals:
In addition, a centralised UK programme would have ensured compliance with rigid quality standards which cheap overseas suppliers have too often failed to meet. Orders for foreign gowns have proved to be sub-standard and unusable, causing unanticipated shortages. But 3 months of talks between industry and the Cabinet Office have ground to a halt after officials failed to agree the details of the scheme. The discussions ended after officials realised that, following protracted delays , many health trusts had placed their own local orders for gowns, reducing the need for the project. The Government has not announced the ending of the talks.
The cancellation of the project has been heavily criticised by industry. Adam Mansell, chief executive of the UK Fashion & Textile Association, representing manufacturers, designers and suppliers, said:
“There had been a fantastic opportunity for the government to tap into Britain’s technical expertise on textiles to set up a sustainable supply of reusable gowns made in the UK. The way the government has handled this project has been poor and says little for its commitment to help UK manufacturing.”
Yvette Ashby, chief executive of the Professional Clothing Industry Association Worldwide, added:
“The people working on this [in the Cabinet Office] appear to have little understanding of how the textile industry works. Their approach has sometimes appeared chaotic.”
Japanese textile maker Toray – which would have made most of the material for the project in a plant in Mansfield – said the Cabinet Office had been “slow and indecisive”. Had the government committed to the project, Toray said it would have been ready to increase investment in its UK plant.
David Stevens, chief executive of the Textiles Services Association, representing laundries which would have recycled the gowns (by washing each one 40-100 times) said the plan would have made “a lot of sense from both an environmental and economic perspective”.
Heathcoat Fabrics, with a big factory in Devon, said the failure of the talks was “a huge opportunity missed to not only eliminate any future supply issues but to also help the domestic textile industry at a time when jobs and unemployment are going to be a key issue”.
Officials may have had problems with the proposal to spread manufacturing around the country, preferring it to be concentrated in a few places. If so, this seems to be more a case of “Dressing Down” rather than “levelling up” poorer regions by Johnson’s Government, (where many of the UK textiles businesses are distributed). But the main factor was that while the talks were dragging on – with no sign that officials were close to a decision – many of the over 200 individual health trusts around the UK opted not to wait for the outcome, but instead placed their own orders, to avoid being caught out again by a second wave of the pandemic. Cabinet Office officials failed to foresee this result of their dithering. This has enabled the major suppliers of gowns from overseas to continue to dominate a market which British industry could have reclaimed as its own, The Cabinet Office under Dominic Cummings has failed to provide a sustainable and reliable supply of PPE equipment, of sufficiently high standards to meet NHS needs and providing badly needed employment to our textile industry.
In this post, Wendy Nowak outlines the real issues facing those of you on medication if we allow Brexit to happen.
Believe it or not many of you will be affected by medicine shortages if Brexit happens come 31st December 2020. Here I explain why I’ve been extremely worried for the past two years.
As soon as I heard rumours about shortages of medicines, alarm bells started ringing in my head. They are ringing even louder these days. I’m Type 2 diabetic and am prescribed insulin to control it, which is sometimes the case with Type 2s. Without insulin the complications of uncontrolled diabetes are dire
By the way, Type 1 diabetics are totally dependent on insulin for survival. Only about 0.5% of the insulin used in the UK is manufactured here. It is also animal insulin which not many diabetics can take. The rest comes mainly from Denmark or Germany, from the big manufacturers Novo Nordisk and Sanofi Deutschland. The other issue with insulin is that, being temperature sensitive, it is not easy to stockpile. Before the last Brexit deadline the government promised they would buy loads of extra fridges and engage a wonderful ferry company to ship over our meds. Remember Seabourne? They didn’t actually have any ferries. Another government scam, which made me fear for my life even more.
Editor’s note: This has been the case for many years. In my early years I worked at Wellcome who used to make much of the supply of beef insulin. I worked on the breakthrough treatment of human insulin with Novo Nordisk. A proud moment in my life, only to be thrown away by a government that only understands money rather than quality of life and lies systematically to make us forget the meaning of life.
A group small group of us, one of whom is a retired medic, got together online to organise demos and die-ins, along with FB posts and tweets, to raise awareness of this issue. Considering the fact that this is a life or death issue the response from the British media and public has been appalling, which also worries me. Despite numerous requests, the British media have more or less ignored us, up until fairly recently anyway. Comments from the public ranged from brexiteers who basically don’t care if they or their relatives die as long as they get their blue passport (which isn’t actually blue!) to those who don’t quite understand the extent of the chaos we are facing. That could be down to lack of coverage in the media. There was also disbelief when faced with the hard facts which we laid before them, ie. The repeated warnings to the government from the medics and the pharma industry about shortages.
Are you prepared to see loved ones die for a blue passport?
Three quarters of our med supplies come from Europe. That figure is quoted in the government Yellowhammer report. It’s not just about me and it’s not just about diabetes. It affects thousands of patients, including those suffering from cancer, those on dialysis, asthma, epilepsy, glaucoma, rheumatoid arthritis, many immune deficiencies and many more. Anybody could be diagnosed with any of these conditions at any time.
The UK is pulling out of EURATOM, which guarantees our supply and ensures the safety of nuclear materials. The radioisotopes necessary for cancer treatment and diagnostic scans are at risk. They are also imported from Europe, are extremely time sensitive and cannot be stockpiled. Cancer patients are already being told that they will not be prioritised for treatment because they are over a certain age. Are you OK with that?
Many veterinary medicines are also imported. These face the same issues as our own. Brexit has also caused a shortage of EU vets (as indeed it has among our NHS staff) who have had enough of the hostile environment which now exists in the UK. Not only are our pets at risk, but these vets also monitor our farm animals and help to uphold our food standards. Once again the warning went out a couple of years ago when we staged the Wooferendum marches. Once again, not enough people listened.
We had a stockpile of medicines (well, at least of those which can be stockpiled) as a no-deal contingency. The pandemic has eroded these away, which leaves us in a dire situation in the event of no-deal. This is before any second COVID wave hits us.
I have a bit of a dilemma. As a diabetic I have to ensure I don’t catch the virus, but if I sit back and do nothing I face severe illness or death from med shortages. My risk assessment is that I can take precautions against COVID, such as wearing a mask, social distancing, hand-washing, but there’s nothing I can do if my meds run out. I go out protesting, socially distanced of course! As I’ve been told many times ‘the government doesn’t care about you’. To everyone who thinks it’s okay to say that and then do nothing I say, ‘get out there’. We the oppressed people of the UK need to show the government that WE care and we are willing to do hammer home that message. We are not willing to endure medicine, and indeed food shortages (I and many others need a healthy diet), enabled by their deception and corruption.
Write to your MP using this as a basis for your arguments. Ask for Brexit to be suspended.
Get out on the streets as Wendy suggests. It’s not too late to stop Brexit. Join us at Rage Against Brexit.
The theme for our weekly roundup is “indecent proposals”. No, not the movie, but the continuing stream of outrageous law breaking, morally reprehensible behaviours of our ruling elite, moral hazard and cronyism.
We begin with a question. What would you be prepared to do in order to earn £175 000 for two days work per week? Seriously? Ask Boris Johnson.
Brexit has spawned a culture of mistrust amidst politicians and a response to “Take Back Control” through an assault on all the checks and balances that exist to prevent politicians acting as dictators. Last year we had the pro-rogation of Parliament when Boris Johnson could not get his own way re Brexit. This year there are moves afoot to suppress the power of judges. These are the behaviours of a banana republic.
How happy are you to know that we have left the EU only to find that our Government is now controlled by agents of Vladimir Putin? This has been brilliantly articulated by Garry Lawrence who has sent 34 Tory MP’s a white feather in the post as an award for cowardice.
Hunt the rapist
The Tory party still refuse to take action on the rapist MP in their midst. In all other walks of life they would have been suspended. Whilst we understand that the law must also be allowed to take its course, in the specific example of public figures, the problem of not taking action is two-fold:
“Dishy Rishi” Sunak may soon no longer be the Tory poster boy, after it was revealed that he plans to raise taxes to pay for the Corona + Brexit Britastrophe.
Our correspondent in Winchester was gobsmacked when she found out that the investigation into Cambridge Analytica has been called off by the ICO. This is the latest in a series of failures to respect democracy, the very thing that Leave voters say they voted for.
In our continuing culture wars, we were astonished to learn that a key advisor appointed by Dominic Cummings suggested that Police use live rounds on Black Lives Matter protestors.
Yesterday Boris Johnson withdrew the withdrawal agreement. Let’s remember that he won an election primarily on the idea of getting Brexit done. He also then persuaded his party to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement. Today Theresa May has just cut Boris Johnson into tiny pieces over the WA.
It occurred to me that, although, I don’t want Brexit, Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement could be considered to be the high water mark of Brexit deals. All subsequent deals have been a considerable watering down of Theresa May’s achievement. No wonder she is angry about the wilful destruction of one nation Conservatism by Dominic Cummings.
Take the example of a plumber or builder. There are only two circumstances when you would have to not pay your dues or not deliver your work to the required standard. The first would be if you were fixing to die the following day. The second would be if you were planning to retire and live on a remote desert island so that nobody could call you to account. In the case of the UK, we are not fixing to die or live in splendid isolation (or are we?). We need the trust of other nations in order to secure future trading relationships.
In the modern world we have systems such as Trust Pilot to rate businesses for delivery and trustworthiness. If the UK plc were a plumber or builder, its Trust Pilot score would now be at minus 3000. Any future post-Brexit trading partners will doubtless include North Korea, Syria and Venezuela to name a few.
Our Government have resorted to putting lots of dead cats in the way of the real news about Brexit, COVID and so on. So this week, we have resorted to providing a whole front page dedicated to dead cats and the other to news.
Today Boris Johnson begins the next stage of his march towards the 4th Reich, by installing what I’m calling “People Versus People”. In other words, asking people to snitch on their neighbours for breaking lockdown rules in a move taken straight from the Stasi playbook. Of course it matters to limit the spread of COVID, but there are better ways to do this and this move is yet another piece of classic deflection and gaslighting by Johnson’s Junta.
So, instead of snitching on your neighbour, snitch on your Tory MP. It’s the noble and morally right thing to do. The UK Internal Markets Bill is the modern day equivalent of The 1933 Enabling Act in Nazi Germany. We must stop the sleepwalk into a dictatorship. If your MP voted for the UK Internal Markets Bill, here’s what you can do for your country and your community:
Check to see if your MP is a barrister or solicitor via They Work for You.
If they are, report them to the SRA and the bar standards board.
The forms are fairly easy to use. I recommend just using their name and MP as the title. Use their local MP office as their address which you can easily find via their personal website. Use the letter below as the basis of your complaint. Emphasise the legal consequences of their decision to back the bill. Ask for their removal as a barrister or solicitor.
If they are not a barrister or solicitor, simply write directly to your MP via write to them using your own version of the letter below. Please also ask others to do the same using a different version of the letter. Template letters are often rejected so please use this letter as a basis for your own.
There is a list of Solicitors and Barrister MP’s below. Don’t just limit yourself to these people. Go forth and snitch!
Dear xxx,
I write to you to ask that you withdraw [MP name] from the register for voting for the UK Internal Markets Bill, currently passing through Parliament. The bill breaks international and domestic law and represents a new low point in our reputation as a great nation.
You will be aware that great figures such as Theresa May, Lord Howard, Sajid Javid, Lord Lamont, former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox QC have raised serious objections to the bill as well as six former Prime Ministers on all sides of our politics from Sir John Major to David Cameron. It has also gained international condemnation from world leaders across the globe, for its similarity with the 1933 Enabling Act.
I request that you remove [MPs name] from the register as a member of your profession for breaking the law. This move threatens the credibility of the justice system and therefore your institution and the UK’s reputation as a standard bearer.
Yours sincerely
etc. etc.
Dear xxx,
I write to you, to ask you to vote against the UK Internal Markets Bill, currently passing through Parliament. The bill breaks international and domestic law and represents a new low point in our reputation as a great nation. Of course, your own reputation as an MP and that of your party goes hand in hand with this.
You will be aware that great figures such as Theresa May, Lord Howard, Sajid Javid, Lord Lamont, former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox QC have raised serious objections to the bill as well as six former Prime Ministers on all sides of our politics from Sir John Major to David Cameron. It has also gained international condemnation from world leaders across the globe, for its similarity with the 1933 Enabling Act.
I ask you to restore trust and decency in politics and pull back from the brink of this Cummings inspired initiative. Dominic’s end game is the destruction of democratic politics in the UK. Is that what you really want on your Wikipedia page as a legacy?
Yours sincerely
etc. etc.
Steve Barclay
Siobhan Baillie
Jake Berry
James Brokenshire
Fiona Bruce
William Cash
Simon Clarke
Alberto Costa
James Daly
Jonathan Djanogly
Natalie Elphicke
Kevin Foster
Peter Gibson
Helen Grant
Robert Jenrick
Gareth Johnson
David Jones
Greg Knight
John Lamont (Scotland)
Brandon Lewis
Alan Mak
Anne Marie Morris
David Mundell (Scotland)
Will Quince
Dominic Raab
Tom Randall
Shailesh Vara
Victoria Atkins
Suella Braverman
Robert Buckland
Alex Chalk
Robert Courts
Sarah Dines
Michael Ellis
Natalie Elphicke
Laura Farris
Lucy Frazer
Jerome Mayhew
Huw Merriman
Guy Opperman
Victoria Prentis
Edward Timpson
Michael Tomlinson
Theresa Villiers
Gavin Robinson (Northern Ireland)
If he is a barrister in Northern Ireland, go to Northern Ireland
If s/he is a solicitor or barrister in Scotland, go to Scotland
If you have six women in your life, it pays to make a law that includes them all to avoid anger, in a specific and limited way. In this article we consider the “joy of six”.
The Pound sustained a six week low as news of Brexit shambles reached the markets.
Six Londoners were either totally depressed about Brexit or optimists in a specific and limited way, for example, if you are a trader who can make money out of other people’s misery as well as their success.
Sir Keir Starmer had six tests for Brexit in 2017. He appears to have forgotten them. We haven’t. He now says that Brexit is done. It is not. See Suspended Animation.
A travel trade group identified six ways in which your travel will be affected by Brexit.
We have now had six rounds of trade talks with the EU. We have achieved nothing. In fact it’s worse than this. The high water mark of Brexit trade deals was Theresa May’s deal. Everyone agrees that, the deal has gradually been eroded since that time.
But Johnson gets to shag six women in a Boris Bubble, so that’s OK then?
Sunday 30 August : Today I must waste more time arranging protection for my wife and family, having spent several hours yesterday reporting a threat of violence to the police from a person pretending to be a neighbour (apologies in advance for the bad language).
The person behind this has been collecting stickers from all over my town. It must have taken them ages … and has been placing them in my garden to remind me that “I am being watched” 
On Saturday they got braver and posted the letter through my door. A horse’s head has yet to arrive … Obviously they don’t realise that there are many people placing stickers and protesting in smaller and larger ways across the country. As the most prolific and visible protester in the area they have singled me out for “special attention” when there are notionally at least 16.4 million of us, and currently at least 57% of the population do not want a damaging Brexit for their children’s futures.
What’s odd about this is that the Brexiteers “won”. In my many cafe conversations I have never met a more unhappy bunch of “winners” however. if democracy were a one time project, women would not have a vote, bear bating and hanging would be legal. Democracy is a process and we have a legitimate right to express concern, fear and anger about what is to come if we continue with Corona + Brexit as a Britastrophe.
Wednesday 02 September : I have now surveyed various items to allow me to continue with my activism. A CCTV system for the house, a new back gate with a more secure lock, a personal dash cam for my bicycle and a personal alarm for my wife to share. If you wish to support the costs of continuing, please find our crowdfunder at Let’s Re-Boot Britain.
Paradoxically, we were told on the street by some reasonable Brexiteers on Saturday that the main benefit of Brexit was “freedom”, yet somehow I don’t feel free with all this tech to terrorise my life. Like most Brexiteers, I simply want to live what remains of my life in peace and in the knowledge that my children’s futures are well managed by the Government of the day. The version of “democracy” portrayed by this person is not one that I recognise, apart from in places like North Korea, Belarus and Russia.
I have already faced violence several times over the last four years as one of the more visible anti-Brexit activists in the area. The most notable incident was when I arranged to meet the head of the European Movement in a train home but he then said he could not be bothered to meet me as his leg hurt and he did not want to move carriages. I decided to go one extra stop to meet him in Rainham but then missed him at the exit gate. On my return home I was attacked by angry Brexiteers because they did not like my t-shirt and given two black eyes.
Like Gina Miller, I wish to meet the person who is doing this for a dialogue. I find that, once we can recover someone’s “story”, all somehow notice just how we are not really that different. Bizarre ideas that all Remainers are lefties, all Brexiteers are racists and so on can be put to one side and we concentrate on what connects us and where important differences lie. Just last week I spoke at length with one angry man who was on the edge of violence to begin with at a street protest. Once we got past “the dialogue of the deaf” we both agreed that there was much to be fixed in Britain. We also agreed that it was not the EU that had “dun it” in the vast majority of cases. And that all political systems had their faults. We even discussed some areas where EU reform was needed. In one hour of patient listening and dialogue, we gained a common understanding and agreement on many things.
To learn how to conduct what I call “Brexorcisms”, read our book “Let’s Talk About BREX .. it“. It takes skill, patience and time.
Aside from this, our street events continue with great success. Join us today at Parliament Square, then Sheerness this Saturday 6 September and Rochester on Saturday 13 September.