Words are important!

 

 

Still no indication of when I am going to be vaccinated.  My group has been prioritised in so far as we are told that efforts are being made to vaccinate us, but we have also been told to be patient we are at the younger end of the tranche.  Which of course, I am.

     The galling thing is that, had I still been in the UK, I would have been vaccinated by now.  I always told myself that my probable jab date would be in April, but it looks likely that my first jab will now be next month.

     I do have an alternative: to go to one of the mass vaccination centres and I did get as far as filling out an on-line application, until I found that the nearest centre is rather further away than I am comfortable with.  But, I have also decided that if I get no indication of my chance of a jab by the end of the week, then I am filling out the form and going wherever I can get one.

     Next month also sees the relaxation of national State of Emergency rules and even now, people are behaving in a more relaxed way, and given the low rates of vaccination that seems foolhardy to say the least.  It therefore follows that to be safe, it will be worth a boring car ride to some centre outside the region to start to get at least a putative 60% protection from the influx of visitors that we are bound to get as the weather gets warmer.

 

I watched PMQs today and saw Liar Johnson have a whole series of anger management problems with the clinical questioning of the Leader of the Opposition.  Keir was viciously glacial in his contempt for Johnson’s bluster.  And, as usual, I watched the Prime Minister’s performance with a mixture of shame and loathing: shame that such tawdry liar could get to the highest office in the land; and loathing that the burbling semi-coherent venom he spat out abused the language in which I delight.

     When teaching Paradise Lost, especially Satan’s great speeches in Book 1, I always said that politicians could learn a lot from the way that Satan use the form of what he said to cover the truth in what he said.  The Heroic cadences of his words almost masked the reality of defeat.  The speech is magnificent in the way it sounds – but it is all lies, a series of empty rhetorical gestures.  Johnson didn’t even rise to an interesting rhetorical gesture in what he said – but what can you expect from a moral vacuum?  Johnson should read Paradise Lost – not Satan’s speeches, he will never rise to those linguistic depths of mendacity, but rather to read about what happens to someone who tries to live the lies he spins!  Unfortunately, Johnson is clinically and morally incapable of what Satan experiences,

“Abashed the Devil stood

And felt how awful goodness is”

Since Johnson is incapable of feeling shame, there is not even a slim chance that he will ever be “abashed” and as he finds it virtually impossible to appreciate “goodness” without seeing it as weakness, there can be no moment of recognition of a force greater than himself.  He has no moral compass because he is his own loadstone.

     I am not, by the way, comparing Satan with Johnson.  Satan in Paradise Lost is a literary construct, a humanized embodiment of evil and therefore the purity of the depiction is compromised by the very humanity that makes his character able to be appreciated by the reader.  But the concept of the character of Satan is a very useful example to use when comparing what he says and how he says it with the way of looking at and listening to the techniques that politicians use to duck answering questions or to rewrite disaster as victory.

     Time after time, I come back to the failure of the “delete all and insert” technique of formal debate from my time in college, when clever debaters used to think up amendments to motions using the “delete all and insert” to try and completely change the original motion to its opposite.  Sometimes this worked or should I say ‘worked’ and the amended motion was passed, but then it failed when reality came into play and the thing had to work in the real world outside debate.

     Words are tricky things and you play with them at your peril.  In the graveyard scene in Hamlet when talking with the gravedigger who plays linguistic games with what Hamlet is saying, Hamlet says, “How absolute the knave is!  We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us.”  Johnson, Gove and the rest of the third-rate lickspittle lightweights with whom they have surrounded themselves are playing the gravedigger and hoping to “‘scape whipping”

     I would remind those worthless attendant lords that Hamlet does not end well and neither will they.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 70 – Sunday, 24th May

Firstly, may I urge you all to sign the petition on change.org calling for the resignation of Dominic Cummings?  Of course, he shouldn’t be given the opportunity to resign, he should be fired, but the person who would have to act with alacrity, authority and some moral force is the Blond Buffoon, so no luck there.

     It does seem rather like indulging in an unsavoury blood sport to attack Matt gi’ us a job Beckett, the man whose moral compass can be turned between meals without ruining your appetite, who after attacking the randy professor for breaking the distancing rules to welcome his mistress to his house had to do a 180 degree turn and justify Cummings breaking of the rules. 

     Cummings we should remind ourselves had symptoms of Covid-19, whereas the Randy Prof was symptom free, and the Prof’s tryst did not involve a 600 mile round trip, with stops, to spread the infection.

     The press-ganged ministers forced to humiliate themselves (except for Gove, of course, who probably ‘means’ what he says, which speaks volumes for his despicable character) by enthusiastic professions of support for someone they probably hate and fear were just as predictably weasel-wordedly vile as you would have predicted – though, from an English teacher’s viewpoint, transcripts of their ‘support’ would make a fascinating portfolio for the student of linguistics, social linguistics, politics, morality, truth, doublespeak and so on.

     As a kid I used to wonder at the articulacy of politicians who, after a second’s thought when faced with a poser of a question were able to speak in connected sentences, give a rounded performance, ending in a burst of applause and have said nothing at all!

     I was obviously a good student because, during one public meeting I was called on to give an answer to a question that, had I been forthright would have condemned the person sitting next to me.  I got to my feet, I spoke and, when I had finished I was thanked for my explanation.  An explanation that very carefully gave no useful information at all – and I had my round of applause!

     Having done it oneself, it is easier to discern in others and indeed, bemoan the inexpert way in which most politicians now fail to master the technique.  To be fair, questioning is not as reverential as it was in my youth, but ministers do have aids who prep them for the obvious questions that they are likely to encounter though as with for example, the Blond Buffoon, preparation is only as good as it is thorough and the Buffoon, as is known, is not famous for his application!

     The Goblin Gove is a ‘person’ who seems to thrive on difficult questioning, but this is only because he is able to disassociate himself completely from past history, truth and accountability in his answers.  The latitude of what might laughingly be referred to, as his moral compass must afford him the smug luxury of expansiveness in his fluently empty rhetoric.

     As Sunday morning progresses, so we are finding more people condemning Cummings’ breaking of the lockdown and even Conservative MPs are calling for his resignation – though I still think he should be sacked, by the Blond Buffoon who needs to get more acclimatized to U-Turns, especially as we get nearer and nearer to a no-deal, hard Brexit!

     As the day wears on the situation with Cummings appears a little clearer.  Only 7 conservative MPs have thrown their careers in the party down the loo by coming out against Cummings and urging his sacking, while over 50 Conservative MPs have expressed support.  As one commentator pointed out although Cummings obviously did something wrong and against the rules that he helped frame, the ministers who tried to explain away his crime are even worse as they have jettisoned, or at least called into question, the whole governmental strategy for the saving of lives by concentrating on saving a single career.  As another commentator pointed out, this ministerial circling of the waggons is also an expensive squandering of governmental authority.

     My concern is hardly dispassionate as I regard this government as a travesty, but at a time of national crisis I am also acutely aware (as the government signally isn’t) that any mismanagement will result in even more deaths.  I sincerely hope that Cummings is consigned to the scrapheap, but while his political demise would be a bright spot in the darkness of the rule of The Blond Buffoon and his Cabinet of No Talents, I am much more concerned about the efficient management of the Covid virus and eliminating it.

     But a little political blood is acceptable!

I have just watched the Blond Buffoon’s performance in the daily press conference and I feel slightly sick.  Johnson was asked questions that he could not, or chose not to answer.  He asserted that Cummings behaved honourably, but was unable to draw any clear distinction between similar cases where individuals, at great personal cost, had followed governmental guidelines unlike Cummings.

     Johnson provided us with a shoddy performance.  It was unconvincing and positively degrading to watch.  He insulted the intelligence of his audience and he devalued the government that he leads.

     In future press conferences it would be more seemly for Mr Cummings to take the podium, as he is clearly the person in charge and not the buffoon who fronted today’s fiasco.

     Johnson drew distinctions that did not exist and he asked us to exonerate Cummings behaviour by repeating his perceptions of its moral worth rather than giving any concrete explanations about how what was allowable for Cummings should not be taken as a general rule.  If the ‘guidance has not changed’ how can Cummings’ selfish behaviour possibly be right.

     I now feel that the resignation of Cummings is almost irrelevant.  Johnson is the one who should be considering his position because, as a prime minister he now has, in a phrase that I loved when used about the much missed prime minister May, having “about as much authority as the 'Do not tumble dry' instruction on clothes”.

     R.I.P Premiership: Johnson, May, 2020.