Category: Politics

What is it with islands and tories. Firstly Thatcher declares war on Argentina, and now Johnson is trying look hard by sending 2 gunboats to face off a few French fishing boats.

having failed to negotiate with Norway’s fishermen it is the turn of Jersey and the French. My right wing friend tells me that the Jersey Government is just enforcing a treaty that already exists. Everything I have read disagrees with this. They are talking about the 13 miles of water between Jersey and France, common sense would imply that negotiation was necessary. The French were also wrong to threaten the islands elecvtricity supply (95% from France).

Number in North Somerset down tp 11.6 with only 3 of the 20 or 21 areas having 3 cases each and 16 spread across the other areas with less than 2 in each. My second jab tomorrow morning.

Just when we need a confident government with both humility and humanity, we get these bozos. Cutting funds to world wide family planing, from water aid. Do they really believe the world does not exist outside the UK?

Perhaps this is the biggest obstacle to be overcome in the next decade. Forget the TNC’s and globalisation at our peril. Climate change is the greatest threat to humanity. Population growth is a huge part of this, and poverty a major part of population growth. To cut rather than improve the efficiency of our input is wrong. Simple.

The climate change challenge requires vision, determination and strength. This government has none of these.

How many have heard the comment ‘I would not have liked to be Prime Minister for the past 2 years”. Well I would!

Is that how you spell it? he won’t resign as any decent human being who had made such a crass statement would. He is confident that he has surrounded himself with such incompetence that there is no one who could readily replace him. Rumours that the Daily Mail is plotting to get Gove seem unlikely.

Did he say it? Probably as it fits his character, engaging brain before speaking is not his forte! there a lot of people who are anti the lockdowns, so maybe the damage is not so bad? In some ways the meeting about the ESL is more damaging voter wise? Especially in the northern former labour seats. Basically the red wall voters do not care about sleaze as it is sort of expected from politicians, and Johnson sort of gets away with it through humour. Climate change will see him having to adopt a much more intelligent role.

Firstly, recent demonstrations of both left (Stop the bill) and right (Stop the restrictions) have turned violent. Both have shown scant regard for others with little mask wearing or social distancing.

The government has shown gold medal winning brilliance at selfishness with contracts to mates. And yet we see the polls giving Captain Blunder a clear lead? When their only success is the roll out of the vaccine by the NHS and volunteers (and armed forces?) why are people still fixated on themselves and what they can do next? During the first lockdown people were genuinely helping each other, and looking out for the less fortunate.

This does not bode well for the future when a crisis of much greater proportion really starts to bite. Would anyone other than a fool really trust this government to make a positive impact on climate change. As evidence of their lust for greed we have the permission for a new coalmine in Cumbria, new road building, no back track on Heathrow extension – please Johnson, do as you promised, and go and lie infront of the bulldozers! The Stanley Johnson clause that allows travel to property owned abroad, but not family?

Whist in Germany the lead in the polls is taken by the Green Party. Sensibly they have a proportional representation system which elects a coalition government. Oh how we need that in the UK NOW! And before people revert to the vaccine argument for the competence of the government it is worth noting that Germany still has way fewer deaths than we do. Yes they have their bonkers fringe in Eastern parts of the country (Which I am not really understanding – why do the right wing parties do so well in the part of Europe most ravaged by right wing extremist parties in WWII?

And then our weird relationship with home ownership. For those who own property the last 15 years has seen its value rise at about 5% our year, whilst wages have been relatively stagnant. My house has doubled in worth in the last 20 years, I am not sure how much wages have risen in this time, but for those starting out in life or with uncertain income, it has been a pittance of this. Who owns property? Predominately the white, middle class and middle aged/old. Basically the young are disenfranchised by politics which are weighted in favour of these people (like me!).

I guess the bubble may burst – it seems to go against economic theory that house prices can keep rising ad infinitum. Oh supply and demand – I wonder if this is correct? 126000 more people have died from covid over the last year than would have otherwise have died? Most were old. So does this mean that potentially there are at least 50000 more houses o the market? Most will be in the poorer parts of town, but an impact? Will the UK become less popular now that we have left the EU and have stricter immigration, thus lowering the numbers of people moving in (and probably more moving out). Will London’s property bubble burst as people move out (I suspect that many are renting their houses rather than just selling up)? If the bubble does burst we could see a fall in property prices that becomes very geographical?

Well Johnson versus Cummings; everything to lose versus nothing to lose.

The problem with this issue at the moment is a) it probably is not illegal (even if morally wrong); and secondly most people do not care.

Senior government officials have stated that 2-10% of positive tests might be accurate (Cock up number 1 as this was likely), it is being rolled out for free for everyone (cock up number 2 – well actually it might be more of a fraudulent process?), then Johnson says he will consider relaxing the self quarantine imperative (Cock up number 3 – don’t consider it – just do it).