[Listening Soundtrack: The Revolution Will Not be Televised – Gil Scott Heron ]
It has been a funny old week. I mean, it’s been a funny old year, what with the whole global health pandemic and everything; but this past week has been particularly odd. My feelings are in a constant state of flux between incandescent anger and resigned defeatism. I am mostly trying to find some humour in it all.
I am not sure exactly what I want to say though. I know I want to say something; my head is filled with extremely annoying thoughts. I really wish it wasn’t. I think I am just going to puke up up the contents of my brain and let you deal with the mess. Frankly what comes next will be as much of a surprise to me as it is to you. So strap yourselves in, in this is going to be next level tedium.
Let’s start with a few dictionary definitions.
- Privilege
- COUNTABLE NOUN – A privilege is a special right or advantage that only one person or group has.
-
- UNCOUNTABLE NOUN
- Metropolitan
- ADJECTIVE [ADJECTIVE noun]
- Elite
- COUNTABLE NOUN
I’ll just leave those there for now. They comfort me.
All news and social media for the past week has been completely dominated by a funny Gollum-like creature with a sly smirk and a surly attitude called Dominic Cummings. Until recently none of us had ever heard of the man, but there he was in the rose garden of No 10 giving a press conference. Did I miss a meeting? Is he in charge now? I don’t get it. Isn’t that the place where Prime Ministers are supposed to make great announcements. This really needs unpicking.
Dominic Cumming is Chief Advisor to the Prime Minister, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. He is an unelected employee. He has his fingers in all of the pies, regardless of whether he qualified or not to do so, and he isn’t short of an unpopular opinion. The more unpopular the better. It would appear our Dom is, what we used to call at school, a bit of shit stirrer. It would also appear he has been a naughty boy and was now in the place reserved for the PM giving a press conference to and angry press pack. Why?
On the 23rd March, following several weeks of vague and confusing guidance, the Government announced we were to go into lockdown. The message was STAY AT HOME. Work from home if you can; only go into work if you an essential worker and provision is in place for you to work safely. Scary stuff, but the right thing to do. It would have been even better if we had done it three weeks earlier.
Four days later we saw the rat-like Cummings scurrying out of Downing Street. It was later revealed that a number of things then happened.
- Both he and his wife started to develop Covid symptoms. They then did what anybody else would have done in this situation (!!!); they jumped into the car with their child and drove 260 miles to Durham, where they planned to self-isolate in one of several spare properties on Cummings’ parents farm.
- Rule breach number one
- During their stay in Durham, Cummings child became unwell and had to be taken to a local hospital by ambulance. Both Cummings and his wife accompanied their son, as you would expect, exposing medical staff in a provincial hospital, in a part of the country with some of the highest Covid 19 rates, to the virus.
- Rule breach number two
- On the 12th April, his wife Mary Wakefield’s birthday, the Cummings family packed themselves into the car and took a trip to Barnard Castle. According to Google Maps this is an hour and half round trip. This was, he said, to test out his eyesight prior to driving back to London. He had been suffering with an eyesight problem since being in Durham, so the obvious cause of action is to put your wife and vulnerable child into the car and go for a nice drive.
- Rule breach number three
In a final act of contempt, he sat behind a table in the rose garden and told us all of this with a straight face. Explaining that it was all well within the Government guidelines and any public outcry was a result of the Media creating a mountain out of a molehill because they don’t like him. The sub-text – it is all our fault, not his. This is the classic distraction tactic; Cummings makes himself the story to divert attention from the shit job the Government is doing.
The more important question is, why is the PM, a man with more important things to do than attend Cobra meetings, putting himself front and centre to defend Dominic Cummings? Why are the entire Cabinet doing like-wise? I mean the obvious answer is they are a bunch of shit-weasles, which is true but doesn’t really get us anywhere. I think the answer is simple. Cummings is the rock upon which Johnson has built his house. The narrative that keeps this cult alive is that Cummings delivered Brexit; Cummings delivered a landslide victory for Johnson.
I don’t have the mental strength to unpack either of those things in any detail, but neither really bear scrutiny. How Brexit happened is the subject of much opinion and conjecture, but it is clear Cummings, amongst many other nefarious parties, exploited a feeling in the country to deliver a result. The election victory wasn’t a huge challenge. Whatever your feelings on Corbyn, and mine are mixed despite him getting my vote, it is clear that he was toxic to too many people. It was never going to present a major challenge to a snake like Cummings to exploit that and deliver a victory.
A constant theme of Brexit and the last election was that it was a vote to rid ourselves of the malign influence of the privileged Metropolitan elite. Hmm… hang on a bit, give me five minutes on google.
- Cummings
- Educated at Durham School & Oxford
- Lives in London
- His father in-law is Sir Humphry Wakefield, who owns Chillingham Castle and has some unfortunate views on genetics.
- Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
- Educated at Eton & Oxford, member of the Bullingdon Club
- Former mayor of London
- Earliest recorded ambition was to be ‘world king’
- Gove
- Educated Robert Gordon’s College & Oxford
- Notorious member of the’Notting Hill set’ alongside David Cameron
- Mired in one scandal after another; fiddling expenses, snorting cocaine, a book case containing books by holocaust deniers and books linking ethnicity to IQ
- Rees-Mogg
- Educated at Eton & Oxford
- Made fortune in investment banking; forthright defender of off-shore tax havens. Old money.
- Vehemently against same sex marriage.
White, privileged, Metropolitan, elite. I think they fit the description to a T.
How they have managed to convince a majority of people in this country that they are a viable alternative to the ‘old guard’, whilst being exactly that is genuinely beyond me. I guess a modicum of intelligence, combined with utter ruthlessness and a shit load of money can achieve great things.
The message extremely clear. Them and us, and they are in charge. They can do whatever they like without any consequences. The laws count for very little anymore. Divide and rule is the oldest game in town. Those of us not part of the privileged Metropolitan elite are reduced to serfdom, encouraged to climb a ladder with no end kicking everyone out the way on our ascent. It is all pointless of course; our names are not on the guess list, we are very much bared from entry.
The handling of the current pandemic is a case in point. the statistics speak for themselves; highest death rate and infection rate in Europe. So now would be the ideal time to start easing restrictions, right? The message once again is clear. The old, the vulnerable, those from a BAME background are the most likely to become infected. Simply put, those who may be considered a burden on the state or simply disliked by our overlords. Who cares if there is a bit of collateral damage, its just a convenient way to thin out the herd right?
Fuck it. I am just ranting now, like a manic street preacher after two many Special Brews. Still, it’s out of my head and locked in here now, so I can sit outside in the sun and count me blessings. Apologies if I have spoilt your Sunday.
Stay home if you can, stay safe, and fuck the Government.
I will try to be less ranty next time.
...and Here's Tom With the Weather 