The slippery eel waddles away!

 

Try as I might, I find myself unable to resist trawling the Guardian for news about the charlatan who is masquerading as the First Lord of the Treasury in the United (ha!) Kingdom.

     As I have made abundantly clear to anyone who will listen to me, I am prepared to pay ready money to anybody who takes the clown to court and presses charges of Corporate Manslaughter against him and his motley crew of degenerate inadequates who make up the Cabinet.

As an integral part of the evidence against the idiot, it would be good to have the crushing conclusions of an independent commission of some sort to bring into court.       The dolt has said that the process of looking into the National Disaster of Covid Unpreparedness will start during this session of Parliament.  And the gibbering loon has further been on the radio and through the usual morass of gibberish he has intimated that the process will actually start in the Spring of next year.  The World At One on BBC Radio 4 managed to find an expert who said that, given the wide-ranging nature of the inquiry it would be unlikely that the final report would be issued for a couple of years.  So, the final report will likely be published, if the corrupt money hoover actually is forced to do so, in 2024/5!  And, of course, as the commission or inquiry or whatever takes its course, the shock-haired charlatan will regard the whole question as ‘parked’ and when the report is finally issued, the nepotistic ethics vacuum will regard the whole question as “past history” – just as he has successfully managed to evade responsibility for the actions of previous Conservative governments over the last decade of which he has been part.

     I am horrified to think that he might actually get away with it – just as he has all the other misdemeanours that have littered his so-called career, both political and personal.

     The results of the council elections show that as long as you keep a straight, or in his case an “engagingly” twinkly eyed face, the electorate will swallow any old rubbish and will, in their droves act like virus voting for vaccine – a truly bad analogy as there the ‘bad’ will be destroyed by their own ignorance . . . oh, wait a minute, the so-called Red Wall voting because they believe the proven liar’s assurances; because they believe that Conservatives actually care for anything north of Watford – perhaps the analogy holds!

     Although I think that politics in England (I stress ‘England’) are rapidly approaching a Through the Looking Glass unreality as logic is divorced from proven actuality, there is always the good old US of A, to show that things could be even worse.  Republicans in Red States are behaving like unsupervised spoilt children wreaking havoc on other children’s sandcastles, except real people are being hurt by the Republicans denial of truth, and the baleful influence of the Floridian Oz is making the Republican Party simply not serious enough to take on the mantle of government.

     Any self-respecting Conservative will (or should) find it impossible to continue supporting a party motivated by a demonstrable lie.  The purging of the party to ensure that all elected party officials are True Believers in the coup inspiring and voter denying Trump means that the choice that Conservative have to make is clear.  If they do not make it, then they will be tainted by association and should be called out and condemned.

     The acceptance and adoption of “illegality” by the British Conservatives in their attempts to preserve power is not something that should comfort democrats (with a small ‘d’) in Britain.  Just as I passionately believe (based on past proof) that the NHS is NOT SAFE in Conservative hands, so I equally passionately believe that the present bunch of unprincipled Conservatives have not and will not be bound by common decency and they will use all the power of their positions to twist, distort and subvert norms and institutions to keep the party in power.

     I think that we are at a pivotal point in the history of the UK: the structure of the country is fracturing and we have a government that essentially couldn’t care less about anywhere other than England.  The small-minded nationalism and the very large lies which fostered the disaster of Brexit are going to be used to justified to change and wreck what we thought might have been solid.  The next few years are going to be a very rough ride!

 

Meanwhile, off to Terrassa for another birthday in the festive orgy of commemoration that is the first part of May!

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 39 – Thursday, 23rd APRIL

 

We seem to be trapped in a never-ending news cycle that endlessly repeats itself: statistics and excuses.

     It is fairly obvious that the present front bench is no longer truly concerned about how this crisis works out in terms of the human cost, but rather in who is going to be blamed for the way in which the crisis has been managed.  They can already see the various paragraphs of blame in the conclusions of the inevitable public inquiry and they are thinking, as always, only about their own survival and that of their discredited party. 

     If I was a member of the group of scientific experts that have had any contact with the Conservative politicians I would be engaging a lawyer now to keep a watching brief for the time that the Tory scum begin to put all the blame for their actions on the selective scientific advice that they will claim that they always followed.

     I think the case for corporate manslaughter charges against relevant ministers is almost overwhelming and I would willingly support a crowd-funded appeal for funds to prosecute the perpetrators of the fatal self-serving dithering incompetence that characterised the management of the crisis so far.

     The story of the PPE supplies get more murky by the second, with the Turkish connection being more akin to farce than competent procurement.  We have utilized the RAF to fly to Istanbul to get a partial cargo back!  The PRIVATE firm that our government has used to store the PPE stockpile has been sold to another firm during the crisis!  You couldn’t make this rubbish up, but is par for the course for a government that can pay millions to a ferry line with no boats.

     All this and Brexit too!  The bunch of third-rate incompetents still have the desire to take us out of the EU with no deal.  Weeping is not enough!

     The papers are taking a little time to consider who might be the scapegoat for the fatal disaster of crisis management.  The obvious candidate is Matt Hancock the man without fixed ethos, who swallowed his previous beliefs for the tempting offer of a seat in the sort of cabinet that he would have shunned previously.  But, what the hell, in the dregs of ability that is the present Conservative Party, he is some sort of star.

     With what has happened so far in the debacle of the crisis he has said things and made claims that cannot all be true.  He has therefore said the thing that was not.  And there is the question of the 100k tests that he has promised by the end of the month which are clearly impossible to deliver.  So that will be a resigning matter.

     With a fragmented cabinet in the absence of the Blond Buffoon and with the in fighting that must be going on, poor old Beckett must be wandering around with a selection of knives sticking into his back! 

     I have zero sympathy for him.

The talk of exit strategies is gaining ground, though we are not getting very much clarity about what they might be.

     Here in Spain I think that the weekend relaxation for the isolation of kids might be a way of the government seeing how well or how badly the population runs with this.  If it is a disaster and people take advantage then perhaps there will be a swift reversion to a stricter lockdown; if it goes well, perhaps it will be a start of a series of relaxations.

     The Scottish parliament is saying that some form of social distancing will be in force until the end of the year, at least for the at risk sections of the population.  We are not dealing with any definite information; there is no way that plans can be made for any events months ahead.  When is flying to and from Spain going to start again?  No idea.  And no idea about when we might expect to get an idea.

At least the sun shone for some time today.  I’m thankful for that.

    

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 18 – 2nd APRIL

Today saw the delivery of a packet of 10 disposable facemasks from China.  I ordered them at the beginning of the crisis and I was concerned about the projected late delivery date.  How innocent that concern now seems!  I felt that the crisis would probably be over before we got a chance to wear them.  How naïve!  Even the Tangerine Tale-Teller seems to be frantically re-writing his own political history and explaining to the American people that the virus that he downplayed as little more than mild flu is now a merciless silent killer and, far from magically disappearing, will be with us for the foreseeable future: Terminator Trump – how many ‘corporate manslaughter’ deaths does he have on his bloody hands?

     The same question could be asked of the politicians in the UK and here in Spain.  One virus expert stated that the key to controlling and understanding the virus was to “Test! Test! Test!”  And we are told that two thousand out of five hundred thousand health workers have been tested in the UK.  How can this be?  And who is to blame?  Every day’s delay means fewer workers in essential services and a greater threat of infection.

It is with something approaching relief that I turn to the crappy weather we are having in Castelldefels.  I have often said that weather in this country lacks the spitefulness of British weather, in other words, the climate in Catalonia usually means that even on a rainy day we have a portion (sometimes tiny) of sunshine.  Not over the last few days: overcast, miserable and wet.

     My circuits around the pool have now taken on a more drunken appearance as I have decided to ‘weave’ my way around the perimeter to add difference to the monotony of a single direction.  To an observer I must look like a robot cleaner with a faulty coverage pattern as I veer one way and then another.  I think that part of my reasoning for variety is based on half remembered memoirs of prisoners who walked around their cells for exercise, but always remembered to vary their direction in their confined spaces because, because . . . I cannot quite remember why, but there was a good reason I’m sure; dizziness, or unequal development or something.  Anyway, it gives a different perspective and that is essential as I go round and round and round.

     The placid surface of the pool acts as a weather indicator: if there is any rain in the breeze then the expanding ripples let me make a decision about whether I continue my walk or call it a day and have another cup of tea.

     I marched around the pool this morning listening to the panel of In Our Time on Radio 4 talking about the gin craze in late C17th England.  Only on Radio 4!  There truly cannot be another radio station like it anywhere in the world.

We have had yet another period of 24 hours here in Spain where the death toll is a new 'record' of 963, and the total figures of deaths has passed 10,000.  The figures of those infected have passed those in China.  We are in a continuing nightmare – even if that nightmare does not really touch us in our parochial confines in Castelldefels.

     We are reliant on news of the ‘outside’ world from the Internet and continue to feel the anger of the frustrated as we watch inefficiency, duplicity and greed define the parameters of the crisis.

     Respirators seem to be the crystalizing concept of futility in the battle against the virus.  Numbers of machines necessary to cope with the projected number of patients are thrown around with politicians manufacturing plenitude with airy words while the hard reality of machines linked to patients seems to be woefully inadequate.  

   We hear of uplifting stories of companies using their resources to design, prototype and get to manufacture machines in an amazingly short period of time; we hear of major engineering works retooling to meet respirator demand – but then we hear of a depressingly high figure of hospitals saying that resources have not got to them, and that a disaster is developing as they watch and wait.

     In World War II, American shipyards managed to launch three Liberty Ships for the cargo conveys for Britain every two days; have we lost the ability to mass produce what is essential to meet the threats of crises in the last seventy years or so?  

   Given the greater interconnectedness of our world are we incapable of working together in a meaningful way to ensure the equitable spread of equipment and facilities?  It certainly appears that we have learned little from each new viral threat to our planet.

     Without full testing we cannot know what the virus is really doing.  The lack of testing in Spain, Britain and the US is the real 'killer' story.  We obviously need to work to get mass testing in place; but the reasons for its delay must be a key questions to be asked when this pandemic is over. 

     Or perhaps it cannot be left until them.  They are questions that need answers now and it needs those people who have obstructed and obfuscated to be removed to save lives.       

     Every time a selfish, inefficient, mendacious politician speaks, people die.   

     Let’s get rid of them now!