Unfortunately I’m in need of displacing this continued bewilderment here. I’ve not watched this programme for mental health reasons (same sort of ban I gave Question Time) for many years now, but I’ve just completed my first state propaganda watch task today, subjecting myself to a torturous broad sweep of national news channels, one after the other. However, I cannot clear the head yet from BBC lackey, Andrew Marr, asking David Lammy MP what should happen next, after the very unsurprising news that Matt Hancock had been found guilty by a High Court judge for unlawful conduct. In essence, for corruption: pocketing contracts for Tory donors, irrespective of any qualification or professional considerations as to whether these individuals or companies paid millions of pounds of tax payers money, could actually deliver what is required during a national emergency, where the UK population has been subjected to appalling circumstances, faced with one of the highest death tolls in the world. In any functioning democracy the callous incompetence that led to the crisis in care homes would at least be investigated through a Public Inquiry, and those responsible would be held accountable. What ensued on a national scale across the UK, should emphatically underline why outsourcing to private firms (and on the hoof) shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the NHS, health and social care, or any other public service, with bent politicians at the helm who have been bought and paid for. Like a true professional, Lammy fudged his reply without actually answering the question, towing the line for Starmer, who won’t now have to face the indignity of providing what he should – criticism of the government – and providing an opposition that gets onto the front foot with a decisive reply to Marr, along the lines of “he should have resigned a long time ago, come on [raised voice, finger pointing, clenched fist thumping the table, some fucking anger!] after NHS nurses were forced to wear bin bags for PPE during the height of the first wave last year. Hancock’s position is now untenable”. That is what I balled at the tv in anger. Lammy instead offered a much softer reply which nevertheless raised an important question, “this is the sort of behaviour you would expect from a banana republic,” he said, with at least a reasonable amount of convincing outrage.
Lammy is correct, but you’d expect him (and Marr) to follow up with other examples of government ministers that should have resigned by now, and questioning what appears to be an insidious, venal culture at the core of Johnson’s administration that is beyond reproach; it’s a very concerning place to be a year after this pandemic broke to witness the suppression of facts in search of truth, where transparency, accountability, and any other remote sign of lingering integrity at the heart of public life, are not callously scorned on and vilified by our state broadcasters and billionaire owned MSM day after day, devoid of any investigative critical analysis that would easily expose these jokers for what they are: a criminal enterprise.
Instead, Marr finishes the interview steering the conversation so that Lammy ends up by saying how “we can’t talk about Brexit.” What? Why not? (Oh yeah… I’m so sorry, I forgot. Lammy could not have been critical of Brexit without the back drop of a huge union jack. Unacceptable. The old *red wall* – you can’t upset that fine balance). For as long as the opposition are a Tory nationalist second tier with careerist politicians shifting to the xenophobic, nationalist blinkered small state fanatical right of right, to continue on £80,000 a year plus, when all they have to do, is avoid offending the *red wall*, then Parliament on both sides of the house is in deep trouble; in fact it’s worse than a banana republic, because there’s no republic! It’s the same old self serving, elitist, Constitutional Monarchy and their obsequious, Privy Council controlled parliamentary lackeys, lining their own pockets at our expense term in, term out: and a fixed term now! No matter what the evidence, the incessantly deluded continue voting for them. And for as long as they do under first-past-the-post, we’ll continue being governed by what dyed-in-the-wool Tory, Quentin Hogg stated in the early 70s, is effectively an “elective dictatorship.”
Marr ended up with providing Hancock with what appeared to be an impromptu interview, without asking him if he should resign, and Hancock obliged without containing his compulsive, nasty streak, and his rather immature inability to refrain from mocking, goading, and wallowing in it, when asked how he intended going forward after the guilty verdict: “its about doing the right thing” he said with a straight face, and a cursory, involuntary laugh at the camera. Johnson’s Tory nationalists make John Major’s administration in the early 90s, and the Nolan Inquiry investigating cash for questions, look positively angelic! That’s how dire it is right now. And there’s no sign of any opposition to this Tory shower of shite.
Ashley Reed
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