Don Adamson writes from Yorkshire on the latest mayhem which contributes to our Britastrophe.
This week’s quotes: “Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda is ailing and listless, a casualty of Johnson’s lack of seriousness … Few doubt the new chancellor’s intellect but he swings between genius and idiocy … an attention span of four seconds … The Chancellor rattles the Treasury … the Treasury needs good advice more than ever … may not be enough to avoid a downturn … None of this bodes well for the public finances. Yet the government is expected to announce tax cuts … Having got their woman into Downing St dodgy financiers can look forward to … deregulate their businesses yet further … Kwarteng should be able to get his ideas through with less sense checking from experienced officials…. However resounding the next crash the sound for friends of Kwasi wil be ‘kerching’ … Department of Health and Social Care is proving shy about efforts to claw back billions of pounds from underperforming suppliers … progress on suspect suppliers is close to bugger all …Priti Patel put former Australian Foreign Secretary (who helped create Australia’s harsh anti-refugee system) in charge of ‘independent review’ of her Rwanda scheme … leaked files showed guards hitting children or demanding sex from female inmates in grim camps in Papua New Guinea … If Downer could not detect abuse in Australia’s infamous offshore camps it seems unlikely he will spot it in Rwanda … Chris Philp, new appointment as Chief Secretary to the Treasury … why pay any tax at all when they can simply fold their companies when owing hundreds of thousands of pounds to Revenue and Customs … It was refreshing to hear a Labour Politician unapologetic about opposing Brexit, clear about the palpable damage was doing … Sept ans plus tard qui peut pretendre que le Royaume-Uni a beneficie du Brexit (Translation – after seven years who can pretend that the UK benefits from Brexit) … the answer is next to nobody. The tragedy is that the few who do pretend are sitting round the cabinet table, living in la la land imagining that Brexiters who ‘knew what they were voting for’ knew that it was bankers getting bigger bonuses … many of Thick Lizzie and Kwarteng’s plans are detailed in an economically illiterate pamphlet they published ten years ago … Britannia Unchained … unremarkable, badly researched, cherry picked data using taxi drivers’ anecdotes as ‘evidence.’ … evidence is thin … lifting the ban on bankers’ bonuses … even Johnson retreated on this idea … the authors without a science or maths degree between them or any sense of irony … one of the most illiterate parts of the prospectus is the notion that we will all have to work harder … in fact British workers put in longer hours but productivity remains low … the obvious change is more training, investment and better management … if you don’t believe ‘Britannia Unchanged’ the pamphlet has the evidence to convince you … the opinions of taxi drivers … the authors are terrible at maths, economically illiterate, ignorant of science and engineering and completely unaware of how to research a book or write well … smug, selfish, self satisfied, lacking in empathy, ignorant of facts and believing in their own fantasy economics …unfortunately they are now running the country …
Pip Pip
Don Adamson, Medway Delta (Retired), Saboteur and Brexorcist First Class
The Queen is dead. God Save the King. My first thought on hearing the news was about Prime Ministers. Churchill, love him or hate him punched a hole in history. Eden is remembered for a grave error after years of respectable public service. He should have listened to the diplomats. MacMillan dragged the Tory Party kicking and screaming in the 20th century. Pity the effect was temporary. Douglas-Home was unlucky with his timing. He presided over an exhausted and accident prone government. You could say the same about Brown. Wilson, Heath, Callaghan and Major could have achieved more but for the lunatics around them who p****d in the soup. Blair tried to drag the Labour party kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Pity the effect was temporary. Cameron May, Johnson and Truss were/are worse than useless. These Tories do not learn from their experiences.
We now have Charles III. He experienced the longest apprenticeship in history and his best years are behind him. I wish him well but I cannot help feeling that if it is necessary for the monarch to submit meekly to Tory lies then the Monarchy has outlived its usefulness.
HMQ visited NZ in 1977 for the Silver Jubilee. NZ is a realm so Government House took the lead. I was tasked to approach the NZ Post Office to arrange for mail to be collected and delivered to the Royal Party. I went over there and found this old fossil with a pile of documents on his desk. He pointed at the pile and insisted the information was all there. He would have it all sorted in time for the Royal Visit. I reported this through the proper channels. It was getting rather close to the visit when I got a telegram from London saying that they really needed that schedule of postal delivery and collections. I returned to the NZ Post Office and found the same swivel eyed loon staring at the same pile of papers.
I suggested that we needed to match the visit itinerary with daily times when the Post Office closed their mail bags and sent the bags on their way. It was fussy, detailed work and easy to make a mistake. It was certainly not rocket science. All you needed to do was concentrate and check your findings carefully. According to the itinerary HMQ would be in a certain town on a certain date. Ask the Post Office to collect and deliver mail in accordance with existing schedules. It took about an hour. I made two copies of the draft, left one copy with NZPO and took the other back to my office to incorporate into a telegram. A few days later we got a reply along the lines of thanks chaps, this is what we need but may we suggest one, repeat one, very minor repeat minor amendment. I phoned the swivel eyed loon in the NZPO who went ballistic: how dare I criticise the splendid work he did. I called him down and he agreed to the one, repeat one, very minor adjustment. I later learned that the swivel eyed loon was decorated for his efforts. That is right. Somebody else got the medal for the work I did. I might have been angry if I had not been laughing so much. Besides: one hour of uncomplicated work hardly merits a medal. Such things happen. The captain of a destroyer was awarded a medal for his heroism at Dunkirk. Later investigation revealed that the captain had been on leave that week. The medal should have gone to the first mate. You expect incompetence from the army and air force but higher standards are expected of nautical types.
There were two security incidents. Cops had to intervene to rescue somebody saying nasty things about HMQ. Badmouthing the Brits was one thing but being nasty to the Queen was another. While HMQ was in Wellington we got a package for her from London. I never knew why that went through British channels rather than NZ channels. The office car took me over to Government House. There is a two tier police system in NZ. You have traffic cops who deal with vehicular crime and regular cops who deal with anything else. There were 12 traffic cops at the gates of Government House and 6 regular cops. Behind them there were three soldiers from the NZ SAS. The Kiwi SAS differs from other SAS units in that they wear the maroon beret of the airborne forces not the sand coloured beret favoured by other SAS regiments. The kiwis did wear the standard winged dagger cap badge worn by all SAS units. What I found interesting was that two corporals carried automatic rifles while the one officer wore a sword and belt. Perhaps this was to kill the bad guys quietly so as not to upset the Queen. I delivered the package to the Queen’s Private Secretary who suggested I leave by the back gate. There was no security at all on the back gate
2001 was an important centenary for the Australians. They wanted to celebrate it style. They asked that we should stop the traffic for half an hour one afternoon mid week so some Australian dignitary could lay a wreath at the Cenotaph. Some idiot of an MP had to kick up a stink about that. I felt there were two relevant points. 1. Laying wreaths at the Cenotaph meant as much to us as it did to Australians. 2. If this was only a once in a century event then it seemed churlish to disoblige the Australians.
The Australian army sent a contingent of troops to stand guard over the Royal Palaces. I passed them once or twice. They were alert and looking for trouble. I could almost feel sorry for anybody who meddled with the Queen while these guys were on sentry duty.
Nothing is as it seems in Buckingham Palace. I remember being summoned to a conference at the billiard room in Buckingham Palace. I naively wondered if I might squeeze in a game if I asked nicely. It was not to be. They had moved out the billiard table and replaced it with a conference table; Chiz!
I always enjoyed the Christmas parties at Buckingham Palace. How I wish my mother had lived to read that sentence. They were held in the Palace Mews. Traditionally the “Mews” is the accommodation for horses and horse drawn vehicles. I assumed the party would be a barn dance or a hay ride; no such luck. It was just an ordinary room where people drank wind and nibbled canapés. In the event HMQ died of natural causes and at a great age. This indicates that the officers responsible for her safety were top of the range.
We went to Welham Green for the weekend. We wanted to see Rohan and I would take the day off to join in the anti Brexit protest in London. The protest was cancelled; which was a scunner. The good news was that I got to see more of Rohan. I may need to go south again in a few weeks when they decide to hold the delayed protest. Have you noticed that Monarch’s only die when there is a Tory government in office? What is the reason for that?
I don’t really think that Boris Johnson deserves more than one minute to reflect upon his legacy so I made several videos in less than one minute on this subject. In fact James O’Brien summed up the detail so well that I don’t feel i could better that. In summary we are talking about:
Broken promises on Brexit (It is NOT “DONE”, it will consume a lifetime of wasted time and money to continue the pretence). To read the full history, read Private Eyelines – Have I Got Fake Brexit News for EU and Reboot Britain – Strategies and skills to change minds on Europe and Brexit. Remainers and Rejoiners seriously need to up their skills if we are to win the next battle with the populists. Never forget that we lost two elections and a referendum, however inconvenient that fact is. Yesterday I delivered copies of these books to Sir Alan Sugar, Richard Branson and James O’Brien. I wish to send them to Hugh Grant next if anyone can help with this.
On Brexit, COVID and lies
Outright LIES on COVID (Johnson was late to the party when others were listening to experts. He conducted an experiment with genocide by placing infected NHS patients into care homes, causing 10’s of 1000’s of unnecessary deaths). The list goes on. These were political CHOICES and not inevitable. Johnson has been lying ever since he was born. Why would we expect any different from him?
On COVID, care homes and unnecessary deaths
On Brexit, Kettles and gold wallpaper
Industrial levels of distraction or dead cat politics, the latest one being the “kettle”. Even the kettle story is not correct. If you want your kettle to boil faster, descaling and using the correct amount of water will make bigger impacts on your bill. £20 is of course not even significant when compared with the actual energy price rises, but Johnson assumes that people cannot add up.
I don’t believe the Tories will call an election in order to lose their majority but if they do, we’ll need to do better than sharing memes on fb. The Daily Maul has set another dead cat loose on this subject today. Preparation is better than regret. Learn the skills to persuade people outside your bubble to change their voting behaviour here.
I don't believe the Tories will call an election in order to lose their majority but if they do, we'll need to do better than sharing memes on fb.
Preparation is better than regret.
Learn the skills to persuade people outside your bubble to change their voting behaviour here.
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) September 3, 2022
Join us on Monday September 12 at 8 pm on ZOOM to build momentum to remove the Brexit beast from our lives and build a better Britain in a better Europe for a better World.
I had a chance encounter with a Labour Councillor the other day whilst at gay pride in Rochester. We know each other from many years back and I like and respect him as a solid campaigner for Remain within the Labour party. He approached me because he recognised me from behind, as I had my ‘offensive swimming bag’ with me, pictured below.
Brexit-Watchers
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, he raised the issue of Labour’s strategy for Brexit. Here is what he told me:
“In our first term we will join EFTA.
In our second term we will have a referendum to rejoin the EU”.
He claimed that Kier Starmer could not argue about ending Brexit at this time, due to his need to hold on to red wall seats at an election. I dispute this position:
If Kier Starmer continues with the strategy of ‘making Brexit work’, he will be accused, quite rightly, of being a liar after being elected. This is the very thing that he has accused Boris Johnson and the Conservative party of doing and is therefore morally bankrupt.
Everyone knows that Starmer is a Remainer and therefore there would be no great loss if he were to remind us of this fact. Boris Johnson reminds Keir Starmer of his EU / Remain credentials on a weekly and sometimes daily basis in parliament, so there is very little currency in the Daily Excess, Son or Maul revealing this ‘secret’. Opinions about Brexit are changing rapidly, with Lord Sugar the latest person to call for Brexit to be reversed.
The Labour Party seem to be terrified of the right-wing media, yet they themselves have a media machine. Therefore, they ought to be able to put up a valid defence of his position if they needed to. The Labour party somehow believe that their own media machine is inferior to the Tory party’s. Perhaps Labour need to read my books as well.
My sense is that Keir Starmer is even more scared of the hard left element of his own party than the Conservatives and that this is driving his avoidance of the Brexit issue. You have gotta love Mick Lynch’s ability to stand up and speak truth to power, but let’s not forget that Lynch is also a relic of the militant tendency from the 1980’s in terms of his wish to shut the borders and return us to Little Britain via Brexit myopia.
Let’s suppose that Starmer decided to ignore the hard left in his party. It is indeed possible that he would lose some votes in red wall seats. Let’s guess that this may amount to 10% losses of seats in those areas. However he stands to gain anything like 20 to 40% of Conservative seats in other areas. Labour are allowing the militant tendency to dictate their strategy for re-election and this makes them no better than the bluekip Tories. I cannot recommend that any remainers vote for them under these circumstances, except where their candidates have a more enlightened view about Brexit.
My Councillor friend put it to me that Starmer simply cannot say the Brexit word at this time. Respectfully, I say this is horseshit. He can say that Brexit isn’t working and has not delivered what was on ‘the brochure’ in 2016. He can also point to clear evidence to support such statements at this time, coming from UK in a changing Europe and our own work at Reboot Britain. The Labour Party has fallen into the trap of believing that a poll in OK Magazine or the results of the latest focus group should dictate party policy. This is not leadership. Silence is assent and Starmer’s position is a clear demonstration of putting party before country, what Tony Blair describes as putting ideology before pragmatism. I expected better from a clever man and I must conclude that, like the Tories, there are people who they are afraid of behind the scenes.
As regards Labour’s long-term plan, there are many flaws with this:
The EFTA countries are a small club of nations: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland who value collaboration over competition. It is unclear as to how such a club would wish to invite an aggressive competitor with a track record for wanting ‘cake and eat it too’ from its relationships with other trading partners. Brexit Britain has demonstrated a complete lack of regard for the role of international law, breaking deals made with others and riding roughshod over nations that it considers to be inferior to itself. These are hardly the kinds of elements of a compelling psychological contract to join a new trading bloc. Joining EFTA also means accepting the four freedoms of the EU. How will this be put to the knuckle dragging red wall Brexiteers?
The assumption of a second term in office is also questionable, particularly if it becomes apparent that Starmer lied to get into power. This makes him equivalent to Johnson and the mainstream media would certainly weaponise this. The second doubtful assumption is that another referendum would be desirable or indeed practical. Brexit has divided the nation and I very much doubt that the nation will look back on 2016 and want to repeat the exercise with all that it has brought. It is entirely possible that, by this time, many people will have forgotten most of what Michael Gove glibly called ‘bumps in the road’ and will not wish to open up the debate again. The longer we leave this question, the more difficult it becomes, as divergence will be complete and the damage to lives and livelihoods will be complete.
My friend assumed that the binary ping-pong politics model remain resilient into the future. This itself is questionable. Brexit has of course unleashed a disruptive influence on British politics, with a number of parties now standing for anything but the current system. Within the next few years we will see the emergence of Gina Miller’s True and Fair party, the possible resurgence of the Lib Dems in the South, the departure of Scotland from the United Kingdom and the emergence of other single-issue parties such as the Rejoin party. Under such circumstances, I’m doubtful as to whether ping-pong politics will remain the norm. My friend tried to deal with this with me by saying that if I didn’t vote Labour I would get the Tories. My reply was simple. I stated that I cannot vote for a Brexit party and that Labour must do better than this.
I am not sure whether the Labour strategy was given to my labour councillor friend in order to appease him or for him to use to appease me. Although miracles are sometimes possible, the strategy he presented has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese banned by Liz Truss. He is a very good chap and I wanted to believe him. But I ended up with the feeling that he himself may well be hanging onto unicorns and trying to ‘believe harder’.
Check this video out that we made today in a sauna. The deception that the will of the people is still for Brexit is under extreme question, considering that this research was conducted in Brexity Kent. Watch the sauna video – it’s just two minutes long!!
Check also our World Wide Wednesday masterclass on Rejoining the EU below:
To get hold of the books ‘Reboot Britain’ and ‘Private Eyelines’ please go to Rage Against The Brexit Machine or write direct to me at reboot@brexitrage.com
The recent news that Trump is under investigation is yet another point on the curve towards improved world leadership. To misquote the band name : Populism will eat itself !
In world that needs collaborative leadership to face complex problems such as climate change, famine, war, migration and so on, we seem to have opted for more didactic leaders with catchy but meaningless slogans. In the UK we have Brexit populism. In the US we have Trump’s version of isolationist politics, and so on.
This is why I coined the phrase ‘Brexorcism’ to change minds in the UK about Brexit. The skills involved are just as applicable in other theatres of populism.
Last week, I was asked to speak on the need to turn back from populism and discuss the contributions from psychology, sociology and therapeutic approaches to wake people up to more long-term and global outlooks on our politics. You can view the masterclass below.
I also spoke on the role of satire, humour and catharsis as a way into the most closed minds on political issues, based on our book Private Eyelines.
To get hold of the books ‘Reboot Britain’ and ‘Private Eyelines’ please go to Rage Against The Brexit Machine or write direct to me at reboot@brexitrage.com
Whilst shopping in Tesco yesterday, a man approached me and whispered in my ear “I love your T-Shirt”, almost as if he dare not say the word Brexit in public !! Given this Twitter thread below, part of me understands his reticence. Yet we must not allow Brexit to be airbrushed out of the lexicon by the Tories. This is why I wrote three books on Brexit. Check the books out on ETSY. Our latest edition of Reboot Parliament explains more. Watch it below:
Update on "our Ken" – the ex Met Police officer who sent a threatening letter, placed rubbish in the garden, then escalated to spray painting the property and wielding a knife. His complaint? Having anti Brexit stickers on my dustbing pic.twitter.com/asKcOuKMXd
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) August 7, 2022
“Actually it’s 178 x more but I’m a Tory and I lied”
This reflective piece comes from stalwart campaigner Don Adamson on the occasion of his move from Kent to Yorkshire. I am proud to know Don.
We rose at 8 bells in the Middle Watch, which is 0400 for landlubbers. The moving men said they would arrive at 0500 and be gone by 0600. In fact they arrived at 0530 but were gone by 0600 so it balanced out. We then spent a long and dull day waiting for word to come thought that legal and financial matters had been completed satisfactorily. This was tiresome since there was so much to do at the Bradford end. Eventually we got the phone call that all had been satisfactorily completed and we could go.
We stayed the night at a motel in Newark. In our younger days we might have made the journey in one stage. Besides June’s knee was giving trouble so I had to do all the driving. The M62 is a pain in the neck. Rush hour traffic is heavy and there are navigational problems that our Satnav struggles to overcome. Before very long we will be familiar with it to the point of boredom but right now the M62 is the Bermuda Triangle of motorways.
June had gone to a lot of trouble marking the packing cases to indicate in which room in the new house each package should be placed. They could have got it more right than they actually did. Since then we have been unpacking. I am a great believer that slow is steady and that steady is fast. June has been planning this for three years. The Pandemic was a major complicating factor. With every day the house looks more like a well organised home. My role in this has been heavy lifting while June got things organised.
A few weeks ago we took the car for the annual Ministry of Transport roadworthiness test. The mechanics could only find one thing wrong with it: the tyres were showing signs of wear, no immediate action was necessary but the tyres would need to be replaced before winter. We decided to leave that for when we got to Yorkshire. Somewhere on the journey we got a nail in the rear offside tyre. We got the spare tyre fitted and, at the first opportunity, we had the worn tyres replaced. It could have been worse. If we had immediately changed the tyres we would have collected a nail in a brand-new tyre. What is interesting is that we had four standard tyres on the road but the spare was an emergency tyre that was all right for emergency use but not standard use. We had that tyre put back in the boot of the car as soon as we got the 4 new tyres. The mechanics reported that our brakes were showing signs of wear and advised us to be careful. I find it odd that that worn brakes were not mentioned by the mechanics that did the MOT check.
Next door to the tyre place where we got the new tyres fitted there is an “Adult Store.” I suspect that “Immature Store” would be more appropriate. The window displays were full of degenerate underwear for dubious ladies.
William is delighted to have two more willing slaves. The house is fairly new, barely 20 years old. It is on a hill and a bend and that makes reversing into the drive a pain.
William’s school has broken up for the summer holidays. He and I went to Knowles Park where the local council laid on events for children. This being Yorkshire cricket was a favourite and I was amused to see little girls batting balls all over the park. There was synchronised disco dancing in which William took no interest. There was a bouncy castle, a rock face that youngsters could climb so long as they wore safety harness. William and his friends had a wonderful time. I just wish I could spend more time with all my grandchildren.
Brexit has failed and has been seen to fail. Every day produces more evidence that Brexit is slowly throttling the economy. That can only get worse. Starmer talks loftily about “making Brexit work” but he does not say how he will do that. That is just as delusional as anything Johnson said. Starmer has nailed his colours to the mast of a sinking ship. Whoever becomes PM, either as a result of this idiotic Tory selection process or in the General Election in 2024 will preside over failure and fiasco.
This week’s quotes: “Britain is in a dangerous state … it is poorer than it imagines … it could stumble into a crisis … with Johnson’s departure politics must become anchored to reality … Tories are ill prepared to fix the damage … whoever succeeds Johnson will inherit a monstrous in tray … a deeper question: is the Tory Party still capable of governing … the exhaustion may be too deep and the rifts too many for the party to recover … It will take years to get clean … a list of parliamentary scandals reads like a concupiscent ‘Cluedo’ … more details will only deepen the mystery … In the Corporate world good employees will quickly leave for other firms, consumers will boycott tarnished brands. Neither force operates in Westminster … Theresa May reinstated two sexual predators to win a vote … nobody’s reputation could survive contact with Johnson … That Johnson is a serial liar and lacks the self discipline to apply himself was well known … the extent to which Johnson has poisoned the reputations of those he works with is less appreciated … consider some of the people tarnished by exposure to Johnson … politicians sent out to defend Johnson’s integrity only to find their own impugned … at best such politicians look like idiots … reputations for honesty and competence were irradiated by Johnson … Steve Barclay was feted as a fearsomely efficient manager … a few weeks with Johnson and he had as much grip as a tea tray on a ski jump .. a parade of people with distinguished reputations were infected … Simon Case was meant to be the brightest and best civil servant of his generation … now he is just a guy who partied with Johnson … Johnson’s misconduct and tolerance of it in others leached straight into body politic … Johnson is not the cause of all that ails Britain … his flaws tarnished good people … they poisoned the government and the country…
Join us Monday 8 AUG 8 pm to plot the destruction of the Tory party via ZOOM
This week’s quotes “Tory brought a major realignment of economic relations without considering the strategic implications … Brexit saw the exacerbation of foreign policy errors; particularly not listening to expertise that does not align with ideologically dominant views …. genuine experts were ignored and individuals with no experience were elevated to positions of high influence … two emerging themes of US Foreign Policy; neither of them valuing the “special relationship” with the UK as in the Blair era … Britain needs to forget the extreme ideology of Brexit … Johnson will go down in history as the most dishonest, most corrupt, most incompetent, most disgraced PM of all time … they think Brexit is going badly because it is not radical enough; all the evidence points to the opposite … but that is what they want and that is what candidates for Tory leadership will give them … the idea that the fall of Johnson will lead to a better Brexit is for the fairies … little to do with economics … just another Brexit fantasy … reckless… government excuses are ridiculous … we need certainly and a blind man on a galloping horse can see that we do not have it … government’s claim is rubbish … Government signed the Northern Ireland agreement knowing what it meant and wants to rewrite for political reasons … Government is breaking international law, damaging the country’s reputation and opening itself up to action by the EU; which is not going to sit idly by … government is walking into a sea of troubles … it is almost as if the EU did not trust UK government to keep its word or think the PM’s signature was worth anything … it is the hardest of Brexits. The one the ERG dreams of but which strikes fear into every sensible economist, politician, firm and business in the UK … UK is rapidly approaching a recession which is expected to make it the worst performing economy in the G20, except Russia, this is economic lunacy … this is the policy that will win the Tory leadership … If you think getting rid of this PM would make Brexit better, wait till you see the next one … every serious economist is aghast … government budgets face a painful crunch. Tory leadership hopefuls seem oblivious … none of the candidates has given a credible account of how they will finance their giveaways … this is an especially bad time to be increasing government giveaways … Tory claim is based on a tentative official forecast of the economic outlook. To erect your fiscal policy on it is reckless … expect a final attempt to heave some benefits of Brexit … turning the role of the PM into a rotted presidency … MPs do not have a monopoly on wisdom; they often lack it … party leader can have the support of only a minority of the party and still be PM …
Labour activists thrust Jeremy Corbyn on an unwilling Party twice; misery ensued … there is no point in backing somebody good if you know they will be beaten by inept rivals … it is not right that members of Richmond’s local Tory Party decide who gets handed the nuclear codes … a dereliction of duty by MPs … a recipe for constitutional stress … competing mandates poison the British constitution … Brexit turned into a mess … number of people ill enough with Covid to need hospital treatment is sharply on the rise … PPE, ventilation and filtration equipment … unable to stop transmissions … NHS and Care Staff are contraction Covid (again) leading to severe shortages and increasing their risks of long Covid … Omicron is far from harmless … currently 6.5M people are waiting for NHS treatment and an estimated 117,000 died while on a waiting list last year … NHS clearly needs more capacity and staff and less Covid … no honest or sensible person would count these as new hospitals … the pledge was bo****s from the start … government seems unlikely to give it much thought … SureScreen diagnostics was big hope for ending UK dependence on China for lateral flow tests … a turnover of £7.8M became £151M thanks to government deal … accounts show an unusual level of financial disarray … lack of documentary evidence … major winner for testing contracts was Randox Laboratories … made a jackpot … much of the bunce has headed offshore … Tory donor Lord Ashcroft has had a bountiful pandemic … both from Government Covid contracts and poor government policies post pandemic … Impellam did well from government mismanagement … bad news for the nation but good news for Lord Ashcroft … donated another £50,000 to the Tory Party in February … abroad and at home Johnson stands revealed as failed, petulant, shabby and arrogantly heedless of the defeat to which he is taking his party … ‘look on my works, ye mighty, and despair’ … Starmer, who happily served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet) came over censorious about ministers who served a leader who was unfit for office … Cabinet was a ‘Z-list of nodding dogs’ … David Davis rubbished Johnson’s integrity … period 2004 to 2019 was the weakest for growth of GDP since 1919-1934, and that was before the shocks of Brexit and the pandemic … Brexit throws an awful lot of sand in the gears … until Tories stop using Brexit as a test of political purity, its economic costs will grow … ‘Charismatic Mr Johnson’ … charisma used to be understood as an exceedingly rare characteristic of leadership .
If the word can be applied to Johnson then it has truly lost all meaning … Johnson might be a good case study of failed leadership but not of charisma … Britain’s political climate is another problem … scale matters … A standoff between Britain and Brussels over Northern Ireland has jeopardised Britain’s involvement in the world’s largest research and development programme … Britain’s stock market has accounted for less than 1% of the capital raised this year … largest firms in London have been dwarfed by those choosing New York or Hong Kong … Liz Truss was raised by nuclear disarmament activists … she turned right at university … her critics see in her a bizarre tribute act to the Tory party’s most deified figure (Thatcher) … these tepid reactions bode ill for party unity. The contest is bitter and personal. Whoever wind, their share will be the lowest of anyone since Ian Duncan Snot in 2001 … Johnson is an accomplished storyteller who could disguise the holes in his agenda. Neither of the candidates to replace him is as skilled … John Stuart Mill once labelled the Conservatives ‘the stupid party’ … when asked to explain why he support Sunak one Tory grandee highlights Sunak’s tendency to read policy briefings … sounds like praising somebody for putting their trousers before leaving the house. But it would be an improvement on the current occupant of Downing St … stupid policies are needed to win the support of the stupid party … with the Tories wandering towards defeat the soundest, cleverest politician would struggle … With her plans to ramp up borrowing to pay for £300B in tax cuts – supported only by “an economist,” Patrick Minford who said Brexit would improve the nation’s finances to the tune of £135B per year Liz Truss shows a conveniently flexible view … surely she understands that being voted Tory leader by 0.3% of the population and being advised by one of the more swivel eyed economists does not give her a mandate to tear up economic principles … Rishi Sunak cited Brexit as giving opportunities on the necessary scale … he cited Teesside Freeport … ‘that is the type of radical thing we can do’ … er, not quite General Electric had pulled the plug on plans for a wind turbine plant … Sunak might want to check if everybody is as fired up as he is by his answer to Britain’s economic woes as he is … Huge fire in London – source discovered (a pair of Johnson’s pants) … a joint editorial by British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal argues that living without Covid preventative measures other than vaccines is killing the National Health Service … a George Cross will not compensate for this … without sufficient clinical and care staff in good health there will soon be no viable NHS or social care system … at no time in the last 50 years has the NHS been so close to ceasing to function effectively … even if measures had been introduced a year ago the NHS would still be in crisis. It was clinging on by its fingertips before the pandemic, after a decade of austerity … because of staff shortages many work so hard they do not get regular food and drink breaks. Many have got badly dehydrated and suffered urinary tract infections during the pandemic … ‘we were so overloaded I did not realise that one of my patients was one of our nurses until she died. I was devastated. … Frontline staff are usually the first to notice serious problems, too often their concerns are ignored or they are vilified for raising them … staff are under huge stress and are unable to deliver high quality care … ambulance trusts have been doctoring their data to cover up failure and avoidable deaths …
Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Saboteur First Class
Available to buy direct from the author via ETSY. Also on Amazon at a higher price.Re-Boot Britain is a practical methodology on changing minds about Europe and Brexit. Find it on Amazon or buy direct from the author via ETSY
I met a Latvian anti-Brexit sports therapist in the sauna today. Got a free consultation and some very good advice on my rehabilitation after the near death experience after hitting a lorry travelling at 50 mph on my bicycle. As well as the advice on my recovery, we had a wonderful conversation about the sheer stupidity of the British people and the gentle art of Brexorcism. I live in a 70% Brexity area. Racism is high on the list of reasons for voting Brexit and a good number of my ‘clients’ are in a state of ‘Bregret’, although some do not know quite how to say it, especially if they are high testosterone overweight males. The sauna acts as some kind of non-secular confessional box.
The social contract in a sauna prevents escalation of difficult conversations with Brexiteers in my experience. Quite a different setting to a pub or cafe. Once again, I’m finding that being nearly naked disarms even the most ardent Brexiteers in my area. I have had lots of difficult conversations with some of them this last week whilst healing my broken bones.
DISCLAIMER : The cover picture is not representative of the clientele in the sauna in Strood! Nor will you meet Johnson naked in my local sauna!
To find out how to Brexorcise your friends, family etc. read the books – now available on ETSY. For a masterclass on the topic, join us at WorldWide Wednesday on Wed Aug 03 7.00 pm via ZOOM.
Available to buy direct from the author via ETSY. Also on Amazon at a higher price.Re-Boot Britain is a practical methodology on changing minds about Europe and Brexit. Find it on Amazon or buy direct from the author via ETSY
We wish to fight the next election. Support our campaign via Patreon, Paypal or GoFundMe.
As Liz Truss becomes more desperate to win the election, her measures become more desperate. But the Janusian confusion in “Trussian” thinking continues. The key question is “Do you trust Truss?” We depicted the question in the Queen song “Now I’m here” in the attached video “The Two Minds of Liz Truss”. Famously, Freddie Mercury sings “Now I’m here” from one side of the stereo field and “Now I’m there” from the other side. Truss is all over the place – even surround sound could not cover Truss’ ever changing moods !!
We made the video to leaven Truss’ chances of winning. A Prime Minister with no real majority will find it hard to enact radical policies and the ideal ironic election result would be 52 : 48.
Available to order direct from ebay – click to view. Discounted copies available direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com. Also on Amazon at a higher price.
Re-Boot Britain is a practical methodology on changing minds about Europe and Brexit. Find it on Amazon or direct from the author via reboot@brexitrage.com
We wish to fight the next election. Support our campaign via Patreon, Paypal or GoFundMe.
