The Biggest Threat to Public Health is the Conservative Party
It was in 2020 I spoke with a Conservative voter whose name I cannot recall, and he used the worst possible analogy to describe opposition voters.
This isn't apocryphal - it's anecdotal.
This individual said that people in opposition who criticised Boris Johnson were essentially passengers in a burning jet, and each of us were hoping that the pilot crashed.
It is a bad analogy because on the contrary, you have been given a job [or given an 80-seat majority] and at that stage, it is your job - your voters have implored you - to land safely; whether we like the pilot or not.
[So please do so]
The problem is, the pilot has locked the door, shot his inflatable co-pilot, and while you were taking panic breaths sucking the oxygen he provided - and euphoric, and often speaking in glossolalia about Brexit - some of us could judge from the cacophony of gibberish he was speaking through the incessant and unplanned announcements that he was also most likely drunk.
By all accounts, it seemed to us that rather than hoping the pilot crashed, we desperately needed to kick the door in because we were noticing through the windows that the horizon was 90 degrees in the totally wrong direction.
It was rather difficult to not notice, actually - actually, the inflatable co-pilot agreed that we needed a new captain from the start.
But then I suppose some [or the 12,000 or so people that still voted Conservative in the North Shropshire by-election or persist in electing Louie French in Old Bexley and Sidcup] have been ignoring it for approximately two years now.
There people are the euphoric ones, and contrary to their analysis that many of us - throughout the pandemic have been doing nothing to help, actually, many of us were rather worried.
Judging by the past few weeks - years even; earlier than even the Owen Paterson scandal - I'm sure those people would agree that we had a right to be worried.
The other day I pointed at how the Conservatives have created this utter mess for themselves and the only reason they don't get rid of the behemoth [Johnson] at this stage is because there is nobody else.
[No, really. There isn't. However much people like the newly-promoted arch-Remainer and signatory-of-
£94 million-hit
-to-farmers-trade-deal-with-Australia Liz Truss attempt to
position themselves
; and with much
speculation
surrounding the newest photo of Johnson having
been taken from No. 11
and leaked to the media via Rishi Sunak's team, too]
The truth may be even more obscene than that, though - insofar as by keeping Johnson, the Conservatives believe Britain has learned nothing since 2019.
Irrespective of whatever transgression, the Conservatives still believe Johnson to be a 'vote winner' that has an irreplaceable dynamism with the public [a celebrity politician; a joke] that cannot be emulated by any other politician they have within their party.
Even as his popularity tanks…
Oof…
Crikey…
…And it’s determined that he is more distrusted than social media.
Fundamentally then, the Conservatives still believe the British public are idiots, too, who - rather than look at the substance of Boris Johnson, are still enamoured by the trivial; the superficial 'image politics' he offers where a speech about Peppa Pig to the CBI can be laughed at - it doesn't matter if it fills business leaders full of dread, because all can be forgiven.
"Ohhh Boris; silly Boris. The hair; oh what a laugh… - he’s doing a great job."
They're relying on voters who don't even know what the CBI is. The disillusioned. The disenfranchised. The indifferent. Those who fell for Mr. Blobby inspired memes like this…
And those Three. Simple. Words.
And think back to 2019 [Jan-June] or even further back to 2016 or 2017 - their party was on the brink of collapse almost every single day until Johnson came along; and he saved the party at the time.
As such, the Conservatives without Johnson face an existential crisis. They can't live with him. They can't live without.
But then as Johnson begins to lose his lustre with the British public, ultimately, we begin to see just how fragile the party really is - and has been for many, many years - which is probably the reason why they'll end up keeping him for a bit longer.
Because ultimately, they know what happens next when they select somebody else.
It’s not about Brexit - it isn’t. It really isn’t… oh, alright, maybe just a little bit
Fundamentally, as we've seen over the last few days, it is still Brexit setting the course - to a degree. Although this article - the last of the year - isn't about that, because suggesting “it’s all to do with Brexit” is reductive.
The shock-horror resignation of Lord Frost has shown the fissures, and the hilarious fallout we witnessed in the form of the Tory Party meltdown via WhatsApp where Brexit priapist Steve Baker 'cancelled' Nadine Dorries exposed the fissures further.
Is Johnson going soft on Brexit? Did he keep the ERG at bay and appoint some tungsten-carbide tipped Eurosceptic to 'stick it' to the EU on Northern Ireland?
No! He appointed arch-Remainer and ConservativeHome favourite Liz Truss!
And this is where the lustre rubs off almost completely for Johnson; because with the resignation of Lord Frost go the 'sunlit uplands' - England’s regression into a rosy retrospective, 1920’s, Rutland Boughton fantasy of green and pleasant land exceptionalism - and with that, the realisation that 5 years on, Brexit may not really have been a very good idea after all.
Either that, or like the ERG, there are those who still worship at its altar, and anything beyond its blinkered vision of, essentially, “whatever Brexit is” - certainly not deliverable in a way that sought to please anybody - evidently, was a lie.
But Covid…
What this article is about though, is 'those' Conservatives - the 'Brexity' ones - many of those from within the 'Spartan' cabal of Brexiters who are also those who voted Johnson down on public health measures just last week.
The ERG, CRG, NRG - it's all basically the same nefarious group of halfwits that wanted [and still want] a catastrophic Brexit, not contented with the damage they’ve already inflicted, and want to infict, are unconcerned about the risk coronavirus provides to public health, too.
Can you imagine if they were 'actually' in charge rather than hanging around in the ether in the corridors of the 1922 Committee offices like some toxic plume of carbon monoxide fresh out of Time Bandits?
These are the people Johnson is trying to keep 'onside' and yet they're essentially a bunch of sociopaths - although at risk of applying complex psychopathology, you could probably just as easily get away with calling them arseholes.
Monday’s cabinet meeting, for example.
For 3 hours Johnson was engaged with cabinet members and came out - to address the threat of Omicron and the risk it poses to the NHS - and he said basically nothing.
And yet he knows - just as his cabinet knows - what SAGE is urging him to do; like, right now. This second. He knows what the science says; it says ‘new year is too late’.
But he won't do anything. Because he's paying heed to the halfwits. People like Esther McVey.
And when McVey says "backbenchers", she's referring to people like New Forest MP Sir Desmond Swayne - this is a man who resented offering an apology for suggesting that numbers for hospital admissions were being manipulated, and for telling a group of anti-vax/anti-lockdown campaigners to "persist" with their campaign against COVID restrictions.
Or Jacob Rees-Mogg - now leader of the house and prominent backbencher during Theresa May’s tenure as Prime Minister - who - in a fraternal and convivial spirit - has yet to re-introduce remote voting as a measure to ensure democracy continues in line with safety.
Why not? Because he simply doesn’t take it seriously - just as none of those from the so-called ‘libertarian’ wing of the Conservatives do; frequently in Parliament without masks, and frequently hypocrites with a selective view of what ‘authoritarianism’ actually means - or when it suits them.
Johnson’s mistake - just as Theresa May’s - is in listening to these idiots, and without realising that nothing - unless you give them everything - will please them.
So why bother listening to them at all - not just on Brexit but on coronavirus, too?
Moving forward
Moving forward into 2022, it seems that the United Kingdom is still at the mercy of these idiots - as Johnson is; he fears them, rightly, for they have all the capacity to unite and depose him - as they did with Theresa May.
Indeed, Steve Baker has unquivocally stated, “enough is enough” [see above] to Johnson’s loyalists - other idiots like ‘Dead Cat’ Dorries - and what arrogance from these backbenchers, too.
But it’s arrogance that has been vindicated by Boris Johnson’s attempts to appease them - by the way of Brexit; where Theresa May failed with her deal, Johnson found himself wandering into No. 10, discovering a pair of her infamous leopard-print shoes, putting them on and saying to the so-called “Spartans”, “…because I make this look good.”
And with this, those backbencers felt listened to - for the first time, they actually felt as though the management was listening to them - on Brexit, and on public health, too.
At whatever cost.
Cost, moving forward, is where it matters most though - as a cabinet split develops and Rishi Sunak ‘makes the case’ for the lockdown sceptics - at least in the short-term until ‘new data’ emerges; he previously assured the 1922 Committee that he ‘had their back’
By having their back, as discussed previously, he backs the interests of the corporations, the donors, the venture capitalists - and where the NHS is concerned, there is some concern over why he spent a trip to California [whilst the hospitality sector fell into limbo] talking to US healthcare company Grail, owned by Illumina - for which, suspiciously, and of particular note following the fallout from his involvement with Greensill Capital, David Cameron is an investor.
“Likely to be overwhelmed”, states a leaked NHS report - relating to the threat of Omicron; and where backbenchers seem unconcerned, obviously, they have Rishi Sunak, a Leave-backing, pro-privatisation, opponent of lockdown ticking their boxes where the Prime Minister may be seen as going soft on both - and with the threat of both openly on the table.
Maybe in Rishi Sunak the ERG, CRG or NRG see the only man that can save them and keep the anti-EU/anti-lockdown flag flying when the voters of North Shropshire indicate that the lustre of ‘Brexit’ [as a concept] has worn off.
Maybe in Rishi Sunak it isn’t the Conservatives the ERG, CRG and NRG are trying to save; rather, themselves; their own existence.
And so if Johnson goes, once again, the United Kingdom falls into the hands - not of another hapless Prime Minister that doesn’t put the interests of the country first, but rather the interests of a small band of sectarian, laissez-faire Conservatives organised by Koch-backed, Mercer-backed, Steve Baker - and broadly overseen by the presence of Daniel Hannan.
I reflect back on the man spoken about at the beginning of this article - I’d love to know, moving forward, is if this is what he actually voted for and if as a result of his vote, his life is any better.
I wonder where he is now - how he feels about defending Boris Johnson for so long, and so blindly, only to find out that that Boris Johnson was… well, Boris Johnson all along, just as we all pointed out right at the beginning.
Alas, men like these - people, anonymous commenters on social media - they drift through life and wander through the raindrops and frankly, probably can’t tell the difference. They probably don’t care too much.
I would love to know, however, how he’d feel with somebody other than Johnson in charge - or whether or not they’re happy with what Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss [or others in the wake of Johnson’s inevitable departure] may plan to do with this country in 2022.
Of course, before they did anything, they’d have to find out whether or not the British public approved. That requires a mandate from the British public - not the Conservative membership.
Just to let readers know that this will be the last article on this page in 2021 - following a solid month of bad news [including two close family bereavements and a bout of Covid spread across my entire household].
At risk of going into personal details - which I don’t presume to think anybody is interested in - I’m taking the decision to have a break from writing for a couple of weeks if you’ll permit me.
I shall return in the New Year and in the meantime I wish you all the best over the Christmas period and I hope to see you all again soon.
Take care, Marc/NATB :)