Re US death rate. I don’t see what that’s got to do with it. You said that we had outperformed the USA. We haven’t. If you want to talk about geographical advantages, last time I checked we were a relatively small island, and we had two weeks to watch the virus tearing across Europe towards us. Two weeks Boris spaffed up the wall.
On not voting. Yes, fair point. But I don’t think democracy is served by voting whatever. If all the choices are shit, choosing not to vote is legitimate.
If my choice in the aftermath of the Iraq War was to vote labour or Tory, or not vote. It would have been a hard choice between holding my nose and voting blue, or not voting.
What you don’t do though, is use your vote to endorse a catastrophic series of actions that has led to so many deaths.
And I don’t think Labour‘s performance under Starmer is worse than killing 100,000 British Citizens. To suggest it is is a bit bonkers. I’m not sure it’s actually possible to get much worse than that. I’m struggling to think of a Government that has had quite as devastating effect on the country.
Reassuring to know that the tories will probably call for Johnston’s resignation for breach of the ministerial code with the same fervour as they call for Sturgeon’s.
If Major’s Government had enjoyed the same lack of scrutiny and lack of public engagement that Johnson’s government has, they could have killed the golden goose, dragged its corpse through the street and pissed on it in front of a primary school, and they’d have got another term.
These publishing deadlines were self-imposed by the government at a time when there were less than a third of the volume as there has been in the last 12 months. I suspect that the government will simply amend the period to push it out to 90 days, or something like that.
I don’t know the circumstances of what Johnson said but if he’s misled Parliament as stated he’ll need to apologise.
Kind of expected when you hear that the NHS budget has been sliced for £9bn when the need for greater funding is needed. And yet we’re all happy about it. 2021 has been utter garbage so far
I thought Boris was saying he wanted to turn away from austerity. He’s obviously under immense pressure from within. hanging on by the skin of his teeth is my interpretation. What do you think?
The both disappointing aspect is they have behaved in such a disingenuous, cynical, manipulative manner. It goes beyond lying, being economical with truth or political point scorning. As a party they coordinate a false narrative. Create a false reality. Amplify it through the media, play to peoples fears and prejudices, while simultaneously adding a couple of spoonfuls of Britannia and WW2 spirit for good measure.
Its about as subtle as a Union Jack being prominent in every interview a Tory does from his office. From turning Twitter into a cesspool of disinformation through to attacks of traditional media.
It’s like someone has looked at the Russian playbook. Deny, distract, and show dismay. It’s ugly and it’s coordinated.
Unless it gets called out for what it is. The government will continue to win its battles. With the support of the public. The majority of which only care about newspaper headlines if that.
It doesn’t really only come from one place. Labour need their opposition to be carried by the media so people actually see it. The media are unable (given the news is dominated by Covid) or unwilling (the main newspapers are owned by self-interested billionaires who strongly back the Conservatives) to provide Starmer a platform. And you have the trend over the last ten years that now I would say a majority of people take their news exclusively from social media, and I shouldn’t need to explain how dangerous that is to democracy.
Also we need to bear in mind that Starmer has to tread very carefully in opposition around the pandemic, as it would be very easy for that opposition to be painted as opportunistic or insensitive. Boris Johnson is getting away with murder (or more accurately state led manslaughter, as I think the BMJ put it) because Starmer is in the position of being fucked if he opposes and fucked if he doesn’t.
I think Starmer’s strategy is quite sensible, as despite our argument there isn’t an election tomorrow. There won’t be one until 2024, by which time the pandemic will have run its course and we should gas had an inquiry into the governments handling for Labour to build off. Polls this far out from a GE really don’t matter. It’s more important for Labour to sort out it’s internal fighting at this stage.
What disappoints me is that Johnson should not be enjoying a resurgent poll bounce after taking personal responsibility for killing 125,000 people. Labour should be gaining just by not having killed 125,000 people. Suggesting there needs to be devastating opposition for the British People to understand that is I think indicative of a very deep problem in our democracy.
Anyway, yeah, I’m thinking The Chalk and Cheese Party?
As said above, it’s a sensitive time and it could backfire badly on Starmer if he is seen to ‘play politics’ (hate that phrase) during a national crisis.
I know I keep going back to this point, but a healthy democracy needs a functioning media. We don’t have this. Half the population are taking their news from self-interested Billionaire owner right wing newspapers and the other half from social media echo chambers. The BBC used to do a job but the Government have it by the balls.
