Now what?
Looking at the news online is a risky business these days. You have to be ready to encounter some of the stupidest people in the world. And they're all in the UK.
People like Neil Gaiman who thought it was okay to fly from New Zealand, one of the safest countries in the world right now, to take refuge in Skye where a care home for the elderly has been taken over by the NHS in an attempt to stop residents dying. Gaiman's argument is that he's a UK tax payer. Yeah, amazingly, we are too, Neil, but you don't see us behaving like this, do you? But then, we don't all own several houses and we're not all not self-absorbed, heid-up-yer-arse celebs, are we?
Or there's the numpty who turned up at a 'freedom' protest in Glasgow without any form of PPE, demanding to exercise his rights to do whatever he wanted. The 4 year old boy he brought with him didn't have a mask either. But he's just a child and has no rights. I can only hope the police and social work were watching and taking note.
You can also find yourself watching some of the thickest politicians on earth. There's Matt Hancock, a man so out of his depth he doesn't even know he's already drowned, ignoring what everyone else in Europe is doing, and contradicting the World Health Organisation - and himself - in every interview, on one occasion 4 times in a row.
It's really now a matter of wondering what new madness will come out of the mouths of UK politicians. Hancock is not going to get much help from his boss, a serial moron who is apparently getting spirit messages from another moron who doesn't even have the benefit of being elected. It's also scary to hear the names Johnson and Trump in the same sentence. You just know who's in charge and that he'll push Johnson under the bus to save his ratings. Any time.
The Westminster 'tactic' (feel free to laugh) for dealing with a bad press for the UK government is to make useless colleagues disappear, so Pritti Patel, who was only appointed because she's a yes woman and who brings new meaning to the expression 'hardline eejit', can be disappeared for weeks and months at a time every time she puts her foot in it. Which is every time she says anything in public.
One cabinet minister after another has been trotted out in front of the media and the voters, makes a complete mess of things and leaves the stage, to be replaced by another nonentity in an apparently endless stream of inadequates posing as statesmen.
And yet it was only last weekend, after months of lying, that Good Old Boris (he's a laugh, isn't he?) found his popularity ratings dropping below 50%.
I do opinion polls (for money) and have completed two in the past few days asking my views on Johnson's leadership. But don't think that means the Tories plan to dump him. They're just going to work on a new media strategy. And even if they did dump him, there would be another inadequate waiting to replace him.
It's not Johnson that matters here. The issue is much wider:
How did so many stupid people end up living in the UK?
No, I'm not serious, although sometimes that's how it feels. I'm pretty certain the population of the UK is no more stupid than that of any other country.
What we are, firstly, is badly educated. Education is whatever school you can afford to buy or lie your way into for your kids. It's the certainty that lots of people have university degrees and still can't make a decent wage so some people don't bother trying. And anyway education has been priced out of many people's wage bracket.
So now we're certain that what matters is money, not education.
It's the celebrity culture you can buy your way into by imitating the clothes, hairstyles and morals of the rich and famous.
And we don't bother voting. What's the point? All politicians are millionaires. Corrupt. In it for what they can get.
What matters is getting to do what you personally want to do - and to hell with everyone else.
The law is whatever you can get away with. The government will rob you blind - just get your retaliation in first.
Freedom means the right to go to the pub or to go clubbing. Work is some pointless job where you at least have clean hands. The only reason to work is that it enables you to panic buy in the supermarkets if you need to and fly off a few times a year on a Ryanair flight to a place where there are more pubs and clubs.
This is the end result of Thatcherism. Thatcher was the politician who told us there was no such thing as society. It looks as if in some cases, that attitude has won. There's an element of people in the UK who have no sense of community, except when they turn up to clap the NHS or a wee old man walking round his garden or treat everything as a charity event, usually led by the BBC.
Thatcher led the party that now dominates the UK government. Johnson's party. And if you don't like it, how are you going to get out of it?
People like Neil Gaiman who thought it was okay to fly from New Zealand, one of the safest countries in the world right now, to take refuge in Skye where a care home for the elderly has been taken over by the NHS in an attempt to stop residents dying. Gaiman's argument is that he's a UK tax payer. Yeah, amazingly, we are too, Neil, but you don't see us behaving like this, do you? But then, we don't all own several houses and we're not all not self-absorbed, heid-up-yer-arse celebs, are we?
Or there's the numpty who turned up at a 'freedom' protest in Glasgow without any form of PPE, demanding to exercise his rights to do whatever he wanted. The 4 year old boy he brought with him didn't have a mask either. But he's just a child and has no rights. I can only hope the police and social work were watching and taking note.
You can also find yourself watching some of the thickest politicians on earth. There's Matt Hancock, a man so out of his depth he doesn't even know he's already drowned, ignoring what everyone else in Europe is doing, and contradicting the World Health Organisation - and himself - in every interview, on one occasion 4 times in a row.
It's really now a matter of wondering what new madness will come out of the mouths of UK politicians. Hancock is not going to get much help from his boss, a serial moron who is apparently getting spirit messages from another moron who doesn't even have the benefit of being elected. It's also scary to hear the names Johnson and Trump in the same sentence. You just know who's in charge and that he'll push Johnson under the bus to save his ratings. Any time.
The Westminster 'tactic' (feel free to laugh) for dealing with a bad press for the UK government is to make useless colleagues disappear, so Pritti Patel, who was only appointed because she's a yes woman and who brings new meaning to the expression 'hardline eejit', can be disappeared for weeks and months at a time every time she puts her foot in it. Which is every time she says anything in public.
One cabinet minister after another has been trotted out in front of the media and the voters, makes a complete mess of things and leaves the stage, to be replaced by another nonentity in an apparently endless stream of inadequates posing as statesmen.
And yet it was only last weekend, after months of lying, that Good Old Boris (he's a laugh, isn't he?) found his popularity ratings dropping below 50%.
I do opinion polls (for money) and have completed two in the past few days asking my views on Johnson's leadership. But don't think that means the Tories plan to dump him. They're just going to work on a new media strategy. And even if they did dump him, there would be another inadequate waiting to replace him.
It's not Johnson that matters here. The issue is much wider:
How did so many stupid people end up living in the UK?
No, I'm not serious, although sometimes that's how it feels. I'm pretty certain the population of the UK is no more stupid than that of any other country.
What we are, firstly, is badly educated. Education is whatever school you can afford to buy or lie your way into for your kids. It's the certainty that lots of people have university degrees and still can't make a decent wage so some people don't bother trying. And anyway education has been priced out of many people's wage bracket.
So now we're certain that what matters is money, not education.
It's the celebrity culture you can buy your way into by imitating the clothes, hairstyles and morals of the rich and famous.
And we don't bother voting. What's the point? All politicians are millionaires. Corrupt. In it for what they can get.
What matters is getting to do what you personally want to do - and to hell with everyone else.
The law is whatever you can get away with. The government will rob you blind - just get your retaliation in first.
Freedom means the right to go to the pub or to go clubbing. Work is some pointless job where you at least have clean hands. The only reason to work is that it enables you to panic buy in the supermarkets if you need to and fly off a few times a year on a Ryanair flight to a place where there are more pubs and clubs.
This is the end result of Thatcherism. Thatcher was the politician who told us there was no such thing as society. It looks as if in some cases, that attitude has won. There's an element of people in the UK who have no sense of community, except when they turn up to clap the NHS or a wee old man walking round his garden or treat everything as a charity event, usually led by the BBC.
Thatcher led the party that now dominates the UK government. Johnson's party. And if you don't like it, how are you going to get out of it?
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