Today we visited Cooling Castle, home of Jools Holland with the Bollocks to Brexit Mini Cooper. Here is a report from our resident maritime consultant and Brexit sea dog Don.
At Cooling Castle
I arrived at the rendezvous at 5 bells in the Afternoon Watch. That is 14.30 for landlubbers and when the big hand is on the six and the little hand is on the two for Gammons and Tories. My fellow Saboteurs came separately. For those who have not been paying attention “Saboteur” is the term of derision that Gammons and Tories chose to refer to decent people who oppose Brexit. The term quickly fell out of favour in Gammon and Tory circles when we pointed out that “Saboteur” was what Vichyites called the French Resistance. Comparing me to the French Resistance is about the nicest thing anybody ever said about me. I took it as a compliment: Vive les Saboteurs! “Vive la Resistance” Merde a Brexit!
Alo’ Vera – Brexit’s Comin’ ‘Ome
The Bulwarks to Brexitmobile led the convoy and we drove around the environs. We set up a stall in Gillingham High Street near the church and our musical director set up his gear and serenaded us with anti-Brexit music. I chose a spot where I could keep a look out for Gammons, Tories and nobbled coppers. We did not hand out leaflets for social distancing reasons. I saw somebody advance purposefully towards our musical director. I thought I might be needed but I did the newcomer an injustice. He wanted to get involved. Took a couple of our flags and joined in the fun.
Nigel Farage’s Garage – one of the songs we performed on the street
A few people gave filthy looks and made vulgar gestures then moved on quickly. For the most part people were supportive, gave the thumbs up and wanted to photograph us. After a while we set off for Rochester. It was much the same there. Some people walked off pointedly refusing to look at us while others gave the thumbs up. By this time my old knee injury was playing up so I decided to call it a day. I can walk for miles and feel better for it but standing around plays havoc with my old injuries.
People in Ashford are unhappy about recent developments. It has sunk in that Brexit is going to cause delays at Customs so this hopeless inept government is setting up a huge lorry park for stranded trade vehicles. The site had been chosen for a new Amazon facility that would have provided employment. Instead they are going to get trucks belching diesel fumes because the drivers will need to run the engines to keep refrigeration plants working. That will not improve the atmosphere at all. This is not the earthly paradise that the people of East Kent thought they would get when they voted for Brexit.
The Brexit Mindset summed up
Tomorrow we go to Tunbridge Wells on a circular tour starting at 11.00:
Route will include London Rd, High St, Sainsbury car park, Mt Pleasant, Town Hall, Monson Rd, Camden Rd, Powdermill Lane, Southboro High St. Then back down St John’s Rd, Mt Ephraim Rd, brief stop at Victoria Place, back up Lime Hill to London Rd.
There remains a possibility to visit Hythe and East Kent later on tomorrow
This week’s quotes: “open goals that Labour are constantly missing … we have had uncaring people in high office before … rarely have they been as uncaring and incompetent as Priti Patel and Sue Ellen Braverman …disaster of Brexit … fake balance has corrupted TV in recent decade … Brexiters and Tory Party … to blame for everything … what does Labour think it is playing at? … Jeremy *unt knows that doctor’s pay has fallen relative to inflation since the Tories came into power … we are losing British trained doctors … go abroad where the pay and conditions are better … raw sewage pumped into English rivers on average 825 times a day …
Frack off …
What the papers say
Lawyers for the Daily Mail successfully argued in the High Court that that the names of Daily Mail journalists accused of crimes should remain secret … Graham Johnson confessed to fabricating stories for the Murdoch press … Gavin Burrows has provided contradictory witness statements to both sides in the Mail litigation … prompted chair of the UK statistics authority to write to the Tory Party to say their infographic was misleading … former Energy Minister Chris Skidmore MP … has been receiving salary of £80,000 a year as an adviser to a company … setting up a business.. Former education minister Gavin Williamson … will be paid £50,000 a year for seven hours work a month … News UK, the company that launched Talk TV lost owner Rupert Murdoch £4M in last financial year … even more than £31M lost by rival GB News…
Cost of living
Britain’s annual rate of inflation is 10% … still stubbornly high and twice that of US … populist economic model is bust … extraordinary … nightmare … reckless economic model … government has treated business with contempt … only bad options left … surging costs have kept the annual inflation rate in double figures … Britain’s post pandemic inflation rate … stubbornly higher than many of its peers … Tories will be remembered as the party who made most people poorer over 14 years and screwed up public services … there are more credible ways to count inflation … NHS is a stressful and poorly paid place … struggles to retain staff … junior doctors choose to work overseas … junior doctors left the profession a huge cost to the taxpayers for training them … something has gone badly wrong … real pay has fallen to around 14% below levels in 2010 …
The NHS
150,000 vacancies in vital jobs across the NHS … method is not working … Australia, New Zealand and Canada are only too happy to employ doctors we have paid £250,000 to 5000,000 to train … overseas recruitment is drying up because word is out NHS conditions are awful … excess deaths and waiting lists already high … UK has fewer doctors per head of population than most comparable countries and worse public health … worst public health crisis in a century … profiteering pack … profits of £78.4 M on income of £468M … extreme profits made by suppliers of PPE and testing kit … multi billion pound extent to which taxpayers were overpaying …
We’re still waiting for the £350 million EVERY week Johnson
Brexit superpowers failing
We have no chance of being the new Silicon Valley and the Tories know it … all such promises will remain hollow … Tory politicians are anti Woke, despise the left wing ‘blob’ of human rights lawyers and civil servants … they want to represent the ‘somewheres’ and not the rootless cosmopolitan ‘anywheres’ … the ‘anywheres’ can take a hint … they will go anywhere to avoid the hate speech the Tories are spouting … what are the chances of UK emulating California … Zero … UK is lagging because we de-industrialised under Thatcher … our education system produces too few teenagers with maths and science skills … EU has agreed to pour in €6.2B of subsidies into semiconductor design … our young innovators are barred …
London is an attractive place for high flyers … in banking … Australia has become a Mecca for UK qualified doctors and nurses … Brexit has seriously damaged Britain’s ability to be part of the tech innovations story … youngsters have to believe that this is a country with a future, not just a past … Richy Scumbag has always been reluctant to talk about Infosys, the Indian IT giant founded by his father in law … government’s own database has shown the company has been involved in £172 M worth of public sector contracts … Scumbag’s wife holds 38.9M shares worth around £89M in Infosys … dividends £12M a year … not liable for UK tax …
Raab C Brexit
Dominic Raas … massively unpopular … more than half his constituents do not want him or his ideology… graceless remorseless death of a desperate man … Raas wrote the least contrite resignation letter of the modern era … Raas told the BBC that civil servants were out to sabotage Brexit, parole reform and overhaul of human rights laws … Tory Peer Lord Marland said exit of Raas … a conspiracy by the civil service … if anything the opposite is true … Raas did not recognise wise counsel when offered it … Johnson claimed ‘the civil service wants to destroy me’ … remorseless attacks on Civil Servants … is deeply corrosive to good government … populist politics … premise that there are simple solutions to complex problems … when the absurdity of this becomes clear the next step is the attribution of blame: the vilification of people supposedly obstruct the popular will … Judges are enemies of the people …
Parliament is unlawfully prorogued … civil servants are plotting against popular ministers … The civil service deserves a gold plated ‘thank you’ for keeping the country running while the Tories have been preoccupied with a seven year long nervous collapse over Brexit, the economy and tribal identify … Raas was one of the worst Foreign Secretaries of modern times (a disaster during the retreat from Kabul) … Underlying this is the weakness of Richy Scumbag … looked desperately for a loophole that would allow him to keep Raas … Scumbag clings to Sue Ellen Braverman ,,, she is a human shield between him and the far right … Scumbag presides over a hung Parliament of factions … just waiting to see how bad the damage is in local government elections … Tory edifice continues to crumble and the country suffers accordingly … Raas … pathetic conspiracy theories are just another manifestation of this protracted decline … a reminder that desperate people really will say anything …
Murdoch
I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the bible and burst into flames … an alternative facts’ media empire … did concede that Fox News promoted 2020 election falsehoods … Murdoch has got away with it … what is $787.5M when you have another $20B to spare … Fox News broadcast of lies … the settlement is tax deductible … Murdoch thought ‘the election is a hoax’ thing ‘really crazy’ … Fox fact checkers considered the promotion of election deniers as ‘dangerous’ and ‘mind blowing nuts’ … hoodwinked outright fools … *ucker Carlson was the fountainhead…stoking ‘white hatred’ … maintaining a toxic workplace … Johnson and Thick Lizzie ludicrously turned up for the dinner at Hillsborough Castle … even he must have felt the coldness of the cold shoulders turning as they saw him loom … qualities of bad leaders ‘bitterness, jealousy and paranoia … the damage Brexit has done to the Good Friday Agreement … change of government in London cannot come a day too soon …
Little Brexit Britain
Britain has been diminished by Brexit …People in France remain baffled why a once powerful partner in the European project has been stricken low by an act of elective impoverishment … Claims that Rejoiners are lying about the true cost of leaving the EU are more absurd than ever … Lord Adonis said in 2016 that the vote caused a nervous breakdown in Whitehall … it is a jump to suggest that this proves the existence of a dastardly plot …. Remainer propagandists like nothing better than to use ‘official figures’ to suggest things are not working …
In Tombsland if figures do not show that Brexit is a triumph they must be the work of a dark conspiracy that supposedly pro Brexit ministers have been deplorably slow to disavow ‘misleading’ statistics … attacks on what he calls ‘dodgy figures’ … make no sense at all … The UK would see income losses of about £57B annually … in fact we are losing £40B annually so the cost of leaving is four to five times higher than the cost of membership and that is only if you count the cost of leaving the single market; just one small part of the EU … Swathes of the UK political and columnist class have lost their sanity over the visit by Biden to UK and Ireland … UK’s strange neediness towards America … “
It hardly seems to be a week ago since Boris Johnson was clapping for carers and the NHS. Just yesterday, it was revealed that NHS workers would have to pay for car parking and Boris Johnson blamed care homes for COVID deaths. Lest we forget, it was Johnson who was sending COVID patients to care homes to infect vulnerable people, whilst supplies of PPE were “in transit” for several weeks according to Matt “Halfcock” Hancock.
In an exclusive interview I interviewed an ancillary NHS worker who answered the call for COVID staff. She had been running a business but saw the call for help and responded to it. Amongst the astonishing trail of events are the following revelations:
She was not paid AT ALL for several months, as management told her that the system was being sorted out.
During that time HR reviewed her job and re-classified it at a lower grade, thus her pay was adjusted accordingly.
Now that she has been paid, they have not paid for weekend working, as “the system has not been updated”.
She has been told that she will get the sack if she has a coffee break at work on her long shifts. As a diabetic, this presents other health risks.
I asked if these were the work of incompetent local management or deliberate policy decisions. She is of the view that it is the latter. I also asked if this was just down to her trust or whether it is widespread. She says she knows others in other trusts with the same treatment so she presumes it to be widespread.
Will Johnson take responsibility for unnecessary deaths?
She now wonders why she bothered. So do I. Whilst Boris Johnson was minting coins and bonging bells, he should have been listening to scientists and experts.
Take Back Control of Brexit Mayhem – click on the picture
In spite the praise heaped by Ministers on nurses and other heroic NHS staff, many of whom sacrificed their lives, Boris Johnson has refused to give them any pay rise as a reward for their long, dangerous hours. This disgrace must be remembered as long as he holds office.
A week or so ago, Johnson was asked whether clapping was really all they merited. He replied “Yes,of course we clap for our NHS – but under this government we also applaud those who make our NHS possible – our innovators, our wealth creators, our capitalists, our financiers.” The last two certainly qualify to be Johnson’s particular heroes. On March 8/9 last year, the Times gave the names of 28 British billionaires who live abroad, mainly in tax havens. These people pay almost nothing towards the NHS. That comes from our taxes. But these overseas plutocrats do prop up the Tory party, eg to the tune of over £1m before the 2017 election, despite a 2009 law designed to clamp down on such contributions. They may indeed be heroes to Mr Johnson and his cronies but no one else has any reason to clap for them.
A Government that knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing
Sadly Sir Captain Tom Moore’s heroic efforts to raise money for the NHS are also not going the help. The NHS is unable to receive charitable gifts. Tom’s marvellous effort of £32 million actually pales into insignificance when compared with Johnson’s promise of £350 million EVERY week. The NHS does not run on charity, nor does it run on applause. Let’s run it properly.
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