What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

Identity politics are not only damaging to the individuals who indulge in them, fostering a sense of victim-hood that simply provides either as excuse as to why things have not gone as they would like in their lives, or a platform upon which to elevate themselves while they labast all of the other members of their society who do not 'identify with the group', but also as an active means by which power and vested interest keep the people fragmented and uncoordinated in their attacks on the same.

It is no suprise that the media (owned and controlled by those very interested parties themselves) does all it can to promote such identity politics, to stoke the grievances of this group or that, be it gay, feminist, ethnicity or whatever, against the society as a whole rather than for a moment let it rest collectively on the scource of the problem - the controling elite who have made the running in our society (albeit behind the scenes) since pretty much time immemorial. Far better to have the people divided amongst themselves than have them turn their collective attention to what are the real problems in our society and begin a proper conversation as to how they may be addressed.

For this reason I say, along with the guys at Double Down News (check out their postings on YouTube) that it is time to turn our backs on the old model and begin the conversation afresh. We need to forget about the (often justifiable) historic grievances that we might have as individual groups - they exist, but they are in the past and cannot help us now - and start to act collectively to achieve real change. It isn't rocket science you know - here it is in a nutshell; give people security of work, income and abode and everything else falls into place. Provide the basic means of existence as a platform for people to launch themselves and their ideas from - this means energy, transport and health. A mixed economy taking the best of socialism and capitalism and fusing them together into a whole that works for the whole of society.

This is not going to be achieved by our existing political parties; they are too mired into the power structure that holds us back as a people, the corporate/elite interests that our Governments serve today and have done so historically with a brief hiatus following the second world war and the reforming activities of the Clement Atlee administration and the establishment of the welfare state. It is time to start a ground-up movement of political thinking in this country - start it in the universities and colleges with the young - a politics for the people. Throw away the partisan and class differences of the past and start to look to the future. Johnson and his near criminal cronies, Stamer and his pseudo-socialist buddies - these people represent the politics of the past and have no place in a progressive constituency based grass-roots politics of the future.

High-blown stuff for the general pages of the Watch you may think...... but every journey must begin with a step, every river with individual drops of rain. The people, once mobilised and motivated, will do the rest for themselves.

[Avatar]

I know my batteries are running bloody flat.

--A

[peter]

What you need Av, is a good walk upon the gorse-clad hills of Bodmin Moor with the spring breeze in your face and the sun on your back. Alas you probably can't go there in the current state of affairs. But then, neither can I - and I only live twenty miles away from them!

[peter]

Very interesting today to note the huge disparity between the coverage given to the many and widespread instances of protest against the lockdown policy and that given to the one that occurred in Parliament Square following the breakup of the vigil for poor murdered Londoner Sarah Everard.

This notwithstanding, it seems that the two streams will inexorably flow together now and the PM and his advisors must be beginning to sweat as they realise the precarious position they find themselves in. It's one thing for the police to be bludgeoning and manhandling protesters to the ground if they are quasi-anarchist lockdown protestors with no-doubt political motivation behind half of them - it's quite another to be seen to be doing same to women who gathered in what should have been a perfectly acceptable manner to mourn the death of a woman, brutally murdered when simply going about her ordinary daily business. So yesterday's backlash against the police brutality on display on the Sunday morning papers, in which thousands of women gathered in front of the Palace of Westminster, was allowed to pass peacefully, with minimal police presence or activity to prevent it.

Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel are doing the best they can to put a brave face on it, sensing the moment and realising that the big stick against illegal gatherings is not going to win the day here. Hence both, rather than condemning the gathering and backing up the police who, lets face it, were on Sunday simply doing the job that their Government had given them (albeit in the ham-fisted and insensitive way that they had developed in dealing with the anti-lockdown gatherings), instead voiced their 'concern' at the methods used on Sunday and effectively threw the police to the wolves. The situation is made even more embarrassing for them in that earlier in the day no lesser person than The Duchess of Cambridge had attended the vigil to make her own (clearly heartfelt) contribution to the event. For an event given such Royal approval to later be broken up by aggressive manhandling of the attendees is embarrassing to say the least and the fault lies entirely with the very two politicians now voicing their "concern' about how the policing was handled. Let us not forget, the police have acted at all times in accordance with the instructions they have been given pursuant to the remit that the Law passed by Parliament gives them. If they have been over-zealous in their prosecution of these Laws, then it is because in the previous expressions of this zeal in respect in respect of earlier lockdown protests, they have been given carte blanche.

But what to do now? It is a given that it is foolish for a Government to pass law that it cannot enforce - and public displays of the egregious breaching of those laws risk significantly eroding to the public perception of the Government, but what can Patel and Johnson do ....send in the army? I don't think so, so all that remains for them is to voice their disquiet about the actions of their police (for which they themselves are responsible) and hope that it all settles down.

It may do...... but it might just as easily not. There is, as I say, a confluence of purpose here where the justifiable anger of the women runs together with the justifiable anger of a population held in check for too long (despite what the media would have you believe). If I were Johnson and Patel, I'd be worried today and I'd be thinking very carefully about what I'd be saying.

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On a different story, (quick comment), watch the mood around the returning of Shamima Begum to the UK change now that she has doffed the hijab and turns out to be a very photogenic young lady. Have a look at the front page of this morning's Telegraph and you'll see what I mean. Ten quid says that suddenly people will start to find reasons why she should be allowed home. (I always thought she should - the clue was in the word 'home'.)

[peter]

Today in the UK press they are blowing the trumpet for the Oscar nominations as being representative of "the most diverse range of selections" made to date. While on the surface this might seem fine I have questions. It certainly would be fine if such a thing has come about randomly, by the fact that no conscious effort has been made to make this so. But if it is not the case that the nominations just happen to be the most diverse ever - then at one fell stroke it negates the value of the observation and that of the purpose of the awards themselves. These are prizes - awards for excellence in the making and participating in films; to deliberately engineer the said diversity is to render the value of being on such a list worthless anyway. If you are on it, you want to be there because you deserve to be; if you aren't, then you want it to be because your participatory role didn't make the grade. End of.

Similarly in the case of inclusion in any body such as the boardroom of a business, where merit alone is supposed to be the defining reason for ones presence, to be included just as a box ticking exercise 'to make up the numbers' as it were, is a pointless and demeaning exercise. If the presence of a particular individual is needed specifically to bring the insight that that person can bring into an area that would otherwise be absent from consideration, all well and good - have anybody who's needed. But if inclusion is supposed to be based on merit, on actually being good enough to be included, then let it be so. Anything else is a pointless exercise, an insult to those undeservedly promoted and in the case of the Oscar Ceremony actually negates the whole purpose for which the exercise is supposedly carried out in the first place.

I think diversity is a great thing. I believe that we are all the better for living in a mix of peoples of different cultures, genders, ethnicities and everything else that makes the world of people such a vibrant place. But I do believe that such diversity should come about naturally as a result of the natural shiftings and flowings of how we are, who we are; the moment it starts to be forced upon people it becomes problematic. By nature we will coexist. Demonisation of 'the other' is something that by and large has to be pushed into us. We saw this with the use of the right-wing media to whip up anti-immigration rhetoric and sentiment for years prior to the brexit referendum; left to their own devices people will find a level - it is only when this agenda of narrow bigotry, or that one of diversity tolerance, is pushed on them that the natural settling process is upset and problems result. At worst this fragments into the identity politics I have railed against above, and no-one's interest is served because society splits into groups of vested interest, each pointing the finger of blame at each other for the respective ills that befall them instead of in the direction that the accusatory digit should be pointed - straight upwards.

Yes there are ills in our society, yes they need addressing. But they never will be while we fall prey to the 'split, divide and conquer' tactics that seek to divide us and misdirect our righteous anger. For make no mistake, those above us who make the running, understand only too well the benefits of keeping us divided. We can address these ills - we can do it - but only once we have joined together in common cause to overcome the greater ill that holds us back, that of the separation of a vested minority who hold the reins of power and exercise Government only in their own interest, from the people as a whole who unrepresented and without recourse to the legislature proper, fall further and further back while their political masters and the interests which support them prosper at the expense of the whole. We must put our differences aside, take aim at this common enemy and once the other side of this battle, then we can begin to truly address some of the issues raised by our differences. And I believe that after we have won this bigger challenge, we will all be surprised at how many of the other smaller ones disappear of their own volition. But absolutely, we can never - will never be allowed to - address any of these issues from this side of the struggle - the struggle we must first unify in preparation for, if we are to stand any chance of success.

(Edit; can I emphasize that this is not a political struggle per se, or even a class one. It is a struggle against corruption; corruption with a small c in terms of the 'graft' of ministers and their underdogs, fattening the purses of their corporate buddies and back-scratching buddies in the media etc; corruption with a capital C in the form of the subversion of the proper democratic process of sovereignty of Parliament, of Government by fiat, of the seizing of the machinery of Government by a small number of self-interested parties with no interest in furthering the lot of the many over the particular interest of the few. It concerns those on the right of our political spectrum just as it does those on the left. No-one is seeking their interest served at present and the rectification of this situation concerns all of us.)

[peter]

I don't go into town much. I didn't do so before the lockdowns - only the occasional foray into the bookshops or to our local games store - but now even less so. My wife however still does have the odd wander through our deserted streets and yesterday we talked about what was going on there.

One of the bigger stores, TK Max, has been closed pretty much for the duration since this thing began and now a year in is still unable to trade. As a pretty large shop with a high square footage it occurs to me that the business rates and other associated costs of running the business will, the chancellor's aid notwithstanding, still have been ongoing and the debt incurred will be significant. Without the income generated by their being able to trade it seems to me inconceivable that this business, let alone any of the myriad smaller concerns that similarly remain closed, will be able to survive the pandemic. Indeed my wife reports that a significant number of the smaller businesses seem to be boarded up, indicative that they may already have been lost to the destruction that the lockdown has wreaked.

Thinking on, it seems to be that one of two things must be happening. Either these businesses must be being supported, with all ongoing costs either being suspended (such as business rates by 'holidays' awarded by the local councils) or waived by things such as rent suspensions for the duration (wage costs are obviously covered by the furlough scheme). The second alternative is that huge numbers have already gone to the wall, but that we are just not aware of how many. If the latter is the case why are we not hearing about it on our local TV and radio output, in our local press? I would have thought that had scores of businesses been lost, people's livelihoods and hard work, their investments of their life savings all been scattered to the winds through no fault of their own and purely as a result of Government policy, there would have been an outcry of epic proportions, a pouring out of anger that would ring through our local media from one side to the other.......

But nothing.

So perhaps these businesses are just sitting idle and their owners sitting at home, taking the payments, enjoying (wrong word but you know what I mean) the rates and rent suspensions, the furlough coverage of wages - and hoping that before long they may once again begin to trade, not so much worse of than when the whole thing started. And it doesn't stop there: because if the rent suspensions, the bank interest holidays and rates curtailment are helping the traders effected, they are certainly not helping the what would be normal recipients of these payments - and in many cases these in turn will have to be turning to the treasury to offset their losses. And if this is indeed the case then the true and full cost of all of this to our economy will be staggering - staggering - and it is impossible to see how it will be born other than by at some point, a huge readjustment that will come in the form of a massive rise in inflation and a collapse in currency value.

I can only imagine that for Chancellor Sunak the spectre of the post war collapse of the German economy looms large in his nightmares. The lockdown policy can only - can only - be pushing us close to the edge of total economic collapse, of hyperinflation and currency tanking that will reduce people's savings their pension pots and investments, toward zero value overnight. And will the policy of lockdown seem so right at that point? It will take all of Sunak's skills (and those of Chancellors the world over in similar economic straits) to navigate us out of the treacherous waters that our panicked Governments have led us into, to allow the damage to slowly ease into the economy without (hopefully) triggering the above described collapse - and I have to say, I don't give much for his chances of pulling it off.

[Avatar]

What you need Av, is a good walk upon the gorse-clad hills of Bodmin Moor with the spring breeze in your face and the sun on your back. Alas you probably can't go there in the current state of affairs. But then, neither can I - and I only live twenty miles away from them!

Ah well, no doubt the famous Beast is enjoying the relative peace and quiet.

While many businesses have indeed closed here, (particularly smaller ones) and many people have lost their jobs etc. (there has been almost no support from government...and of what little there has been, much of it has been ineffective), you would be hard pressed to see it at a glance in this, our lowest possible level of "lock-down."

While quieter than before the lock-downs, nonetheless a surprising level of activity. I personally predict a 3rd wave within another month or so.

--A

[peter]

Indeed in the UK the same predictions are being made, the vaccination program notwithstanding. Proof positive if it were needed, that a new way of addressing this problem must be found.

[peter]

Every year, year on year, around 78,000 people die of smoking. Tens of thousands more develop smoking related illnesses which cause them to suffer severe debilitation until they join the above grim statistic. Yet we ban people from seeing their loved ones and walking our streets before we ban smoking and tobacco related products. Will someone please explain this to me. The only reason I can come up with is that the Exchequer takes something between nine and fifteen billion pounds a year from tobacco (plus all of the collateral benefits of not having to pay pensions to people that die early etc) where as Covid deaths are a net drain on the economy.

Will someone please balance the rationale behind our lockdown policy against our tobacco policy for me in a way that makes sense but doesn't show our Government up in the kind of light that my putative explanation does.

[peter]

You see, the problem with this is that you can't put forward the argument that our continuance of the allowing of smoking is a freedom of choice issue because this is undermined by firstly our policy on drugs of other kinds which are and will remain illegal, and secondly, in the context of the lockdown debate, because if you do then the argument is immediately flipped back at you in respect of the right of people to see their families, walk their streets and yes, protest against the activities of their Governments.

A small detour may be made into the area of Covid being an infectious disease which justifies the Draconian restrictions we now face but this doesn't stack up to any great degree; smoking is known to cause passive damage to non-smokers in the vicinity of the smoker, it places health services under huge strain just as Covid is said to and the cost of treating the sufferers of smoking related diseases is money that would be otherwise available to meet the needs of other patients. So smoking potentially harms others to no lesser degree than Covid, yey it is and will continue to be allowed. I believe it should be - and I believe all Covid restrictions should be lifted immediately as well. They won't be and they are not going to be. Already the scientists are warning that the next wave is in the offing, new variants abound and summer holidays abroad are (we are warned) becoming less likely by the day. (The reason given is that the PM is not going to put domestic freedom at risk by the allowing of international travel, but what is not being said is that an economy that is screwed by the actions of its own Government needs to keep all of its money being spent at home, which of course Johnson's course ensures.)

This is not going to go away. In the scientific literature a body of opinion is gaining ground that Covid is not going to be eliminated, herd immunity is not going to be reached and the disease is going to become endemic like flu. In such circumstances the on/off state of our societies as they go into an come out of lockdowns is a feature of our lives for the indefinite future going forward unless we have the balls to simply get out and live. I repeat, and will continue to do so until the day I die, this needs to be put back into the hands of the medical profession and cease to be a public health issue. Emphasis should be placed upon treatment and education about the shielding of the especially vulnerable. Vaccination development and deployment for the most at risk groups as is the case with flu vaccines should also feature. But that's it. Everything else should return to normal forthwith and restrictions and talk of passports etc ditched.

There is no other way that doesn't obliterate the lives we have lived to date, doesn't tear up the future options for our children, doesn't render life into a pale shadow of what it is meant to be for ever and a day. And the ridiculous thing is that had none of this stuff of the past twelve months been done, had the words Covid and lockdown and pandemic not entered our daily vocabulary - we, the vast majority of us, would never even have been aware that there was a problem at all..... and this is how it should have been.

[peter]

As has ever been the case on the Watch, you know you are probably pretty close to hitting the mark when no-one responds to your posts. I take it as an argument pretty much won!

[I'm Murrin]

I take it as I'm not the only person who stopped reading your blog.

[peter]

Well you read that one Murrin - and you'll read this too!



With over fifty percent of the population vaccinated (one hundred percent of the vulnerable groupings) and infection rates, hospitalisations and deaths down to a fraction of previous levels, there remains exactly nil justification for the continuation of the lockdown policy whatsoever. We were told that the vaccination was our route out of lockdown, so now is the time to make good on that promise. There will always - always - be a reason, be it new variants or infection rates on the continent or whatever, for not biting the bullet and putting all of this behind us, and the jellyfish in our midst will always want to flock under nanny's skirts in their fear of actually getting out and getting in amongst it. But now is the time, if it is ever going to be done, for us to start manning up and regaining our lives. If our Government choose not to do so, then we must ask ourselves why not and confront the possibility that there are other things going on here to which we, as mere members of the British public, are not party. The data is in the right place; the vaccination rollout is in the right place. There remains no justifiable reason for us to remain under lockdown.

[StevieG]

I start reading most of the time. I generally stop if it's about politics or COVID - which is pretty much all the time

But if you write about something else, I'll probably read it! Can't guarantee it, but there's a reasonable chance.

[peter]

If this has become a blog then the fault is not mine. Everyone has the opportunity to post here (or anywhere else come to that; I am just doing my best, in my own way, to keep the Watch alive. The only way I know how to do this is to post. I post in other places on a variety of subjects (look out there - you'll see my posts popping up everywhere) and rarely are they responded to. I look forward to the day when someone else posts here so that I may respond to other people's posts rather than just plugging on with own. It's a shame that you don't read the stuff on politics and Covid StevieG; this is the stuff that is really important today, and the disinterest or disinclination of people to adress it what is killing us. Because this posting does not always or indeed ever agree with your own thinking is not reason enough to reject it; it is only by challenges to your own position that you may establish its worth.

As to whether you or anyone else reads any or all of what I post, I have to admit to little concern in the matter. I am a failed writer. I write because I'm driven to write, and always have been. In a world where things went my way I'd have been being paid to do it and be doing it somewhere else to greater purpose or effect, but this is not that world and so instead I write here. To write is for me an itch that I must scratch; if now and again someone reads what I write, then nice. If not, no matter - I'll write on. If someone else posts in response or indeed with thoughts of their own, I'll do them the courtesy of giving their posts my attention and then responding to them. If they don't, no matter - I'll write on. I'm the first to admit that this is not the true function of the Watch, to act as a chalkboard for failed writers to throw their outpourings onto, but I am not responsible for this being the state into which it has descended. I have been posting here for years, responding to posts that interest me, engaging in discussion and starting new posts on subjects that I find interesting (of many and varied topics, not just politics and Covid). I have visited here almost every day (I'd be surprised if I've missed thirty days in the last what, twelve or whatever years of my membership). It is not me that has changed - or if it is so then it is in response to the changes that have occurred on the site. If it has become a place for me to blog, then so be it. What would you have me do - follow the example of so many other Watchers and wait for other people to post before answering; I'd be waiting for ever and a day and the Watch would die in the process.

A long answer to a short post but as say above....an itch that must be scratched, so in conclusion, my gratitude to you Stevie G and anyone else who ever reads any of this stuff: it's more than I expect or probably deserve, but I can't comment on that. I'll just write on.

[Avatar]

Eh, I skim it usually. I prefer the politics to the pandemic myself, but wry humour most of all.

As for change, well, it's inevitable. We're affected by our environments, and the environment has become passing strange these recent months.

It's not surprising that people are consumed by thoughts of the current global situation, nor that people fear being taken advantage of, nor that they are in fact taken advantage of.

As usual, the real truth probably lies between the two opposite extremes.

And as always, Hanlons Razor should be vigorously applied.

--A

[peter]

I'm getting pretty tired of the pandemic stuff myself to be honest Av. I'm swimming against the current with it and it is way too late to rectify the damage done. As pretty much a last shot, I'd ask anyone with any interest in hearing the other side of the argument so disgracefully neglected by our mainstream media to go over to YouTube and watch the ten minute video of Lord Sumption (ex of the UK High Court and current member of the House of Lords) being interviewed by Andrew Neil. Entitled Johnathan Sumption: Pandemic plans and police overreach, the interview encapsulates everything that has gone wrong with the Government approach from day one of this fiasco, presented with a lucidity and reasonableness that I could only manage in my wildest dreams. I urge anyone with any interest to go take a look. This way at least you will walk onwards through this thing in the knowledge that it didn't have to be this way.

In respect of Hanlon's Razor, one only has to consider the words and actions of current Home Secretary Priti Patel to understand that both may come wrapped in the same parcel.


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You've got to love the front page of today's Star which shows a picture of the keel of the 220,000 ton behemoth wedged sideways across the Suez Canal and the ongoing attempts to shift it which consist of...........a bloke and his digger. But it's alright guv honestly - I'll be getting it sorted in a jiffy. I'm just waiting on me skip!

[peter]

My work mate is a racist. It's nothing unusual in my line of work, hence my understanding of the innate levels down at the 'working class' end of the spectrum that were perhaps not immediately apparent to brexit supporters higher up the social scale.

But this is by the by - the other day I was talking about what books we were reading and he told me he was reading Mein Kampf. Now for all his racism he is not a political animal and I was surprised that he would be reading such a book. His racism is of the casual politically uninterested kind - just the plain old bigotry of a dull mind - and I asked him how on earth he came to be reading such a book. He told me that the husband of another worker in the shop had lent it to him and he was finding it "interesting". The chap who he had borrowed it from in an ex prison warder and from his wifes politics (if you can call it that - she'd voted Tory all of her life because "my father told me to") I can only imagine that he is about an inch away from the BNP in his leanings himself.

I said to my co-worker that I had my reservations about the wisdom of reading such a book and he asked why. I explained that the written word could be a very powerful influencer, potentially much more so than the spoken word, and that in the hands of a subtle and clever writer (I don't know if Hitler constitutes such - I don't care to either) a person's thinking could be led, small step by small step, to places that they wouldn't go to if they were presented in one big jump. Examples of this were such books as Das Capital and The Bible to name just two, and as I knew he was, like me, interested in history, I made him a deal. I would let him have a copy of Bernard Cornwell's Waterloo (he was a great Sharpe fan) if he would stop reading this awful anti-Semitic rant. He agreed and I did so.

Perhaps I was overreacting, but I just can't understand why anyone would want to expose themselves to this monster's outpourings. The idea of my stupid but essentially not a bad person, workmate allowing Adolph Hitler inside his mind was one that made my blood run cold. As for the fool who lent him the book, I'd like to kick his arse. About the least fit person to be a prison guard as you could find I'd think. Say's bucket loads about their ability to screen and select recruits I'd say!

[peter]

At last, some serious clout being lent to the operation to shift the tightly wedged Evergreen tanker that is bringing the world's trade to a standstill. At eleven 'o' clock today (UK time) professional spoon-bender Uri Geller has requested us all to bend our mind's toward unblocking the constipated canal with the power of our collective will. If I could add just a small suggestion, perhaps a few million tonnes of greasy liquid paraffin sluicing down the waterway in the hour before we turn to the task might sufficiently lubricate the canal innards such as to augment the effect of our efforts? I have some experience in the matter of expulsion of tightly impacted boluses (boli?) from the grasping embraces of recalcitrant tracts (no details necessary) and can speak from personal knowledge as to the efficacy of the 'treatment' I recommend

[peter]

The Star newspaper, who yesterday brought us the request from Uri Geller to join forces with him in a telepathic attempt to free the grounded tanker in the Suez, today reports that the ship was indeed seen to move in response to the collective mental powers of all their readers minds, but concedes that the shift was only a small one.

Meanwhile the other papers are throwing their collective hats up into the air and blowing hard about freedom and the glorious summer ahead of us. Can I just get this - I can't sit down with my collective family, I can't go where I choose on holiday, abroad or even at home,I can't enjoy watching my kids go off to Glastonbury or go to a pub without having to prove I'm one of the acceptables. I can't go within six feet of any other person while I'm outside my house, I have to wear a sodden piece of cloth over half my face, I can't go and visit any friend or neighbor in a care facility. I can't communicate with anyone in a shop unless through a glass plexiglass screen, in all likelihood I would not be able to continue in my job unless I submit myself for an invasive procedure that I might not trust on what looks to be three or four times a year going forward, if a business owner I live with the distinct possibility that my efforts may at any time be brought to naught by my Government deciding to slap us with renewed or even increased lockdown measures........

And this is freedom?