Isolation XX:Anarchy In The UK.

"I am an anarchist. Don't know what I want but I know how to get it. I want to destroy the passer-by" - Anarchy in the UK, The Sex Pistols.

My mate Rob Uriarte always used to claim he'd like to live in a land with no laws. It was a contention I countered by suggesting that though some laws are, indeed, stupid - no law at all would be worse. It would give a green light for people to do whatever the fuck they wanted and in a land like that the greedy, the vain, the selfish, and the corrupt would prosper.

The debate was academic but now we're seeing what happens when the anarchists do take over. In the last week Boris Johnson stood in front of the nation and delivered patent, and bare faced, lies about his chief aide, or his boss, Dominic Cummings and Cummings breaking of the lockdown rules that he did so much to shape. Dominc Cummings, simply, was deemed too important to fail and if that meant the rest of us will feel depressed, upset, confused, and angry then so what? We're all insignificant plebs to them anyway.

Most of the general public were outraged by this (non) action and even Tories, the Daily Mail, and the Daily Telegraph joined the bishops, scientists, and celebrities in a chorus of condemnation until Cummings himself felt compelled to hold a conference in the Number Ten rose garden. Turning up half an hour late, like he's Guns'n'Roses or Barbra Streisand or something, just to let us know he doesn't consider us worthy of punctuality he launched into a series of blatant lies, sprinkled with the odd bit of truth to keep us arguing among ourselves, that culminated with his assertion that he went on a sixty mile drive to Barnard Castle, with his kid in the back of the car, to test his eyesight.

The equally contemptuous Michael Gove piled in to announce he had, "on occasion", driven to test his eyesight. Are people who think driving to test their eyesight really qualified to run the country? Or do they not really think that at all? Of course they don't think it. They're lying, we know they're lying, they know we know they're lying and they simply don't give a fuck.

"We did ask the government to join us but no-one was available" is now the catchphrase of Emily Maitlis and she utters it, or a variation of it, on Newsnight almost every single weekday evening. It's not because they're too busy they're not going on. It's because (a) they're shirking responsibility and (b) they don't want us to have clarity. They want us to shout and argue with each other which, of course, we're doing. I've often described Johnson as incompetent but when it comes to shifting the blame his competence is legend. Or has been. Until now.


When Maitlis, admirably, began Newsnight with a powerful debunking of the lies of Cummings she was reproached and removed from presenting the programme the next evening. The government, supported by those on the far left, would like to get rid of the BBC so the BBC, with honourable exceptions like Maitlis and her Newsnight co-presenters, are running scared from them. Just at a time they need to, and people want them to, speak truth to power.

The intention of the government messaging right now, to 'stay alert' or to 'move on', is intentionally vague and ambiguous and the daily press briefings are often handled by ministers so minor in stature that nobody's even heard of them (if it goes on long enough will we all have to take turns? Like jury service or being the school runner?) and that's no oversight either. They know they can't rationally explain why the UK is having such a disastrous coronavirus result so, as with their beloved Brexit, they're seeking to divide us.

Last Friday I had a socially distanced meet up with Simon and Ian at City Hall. Me and Ian continued on to a quieter nearby park (Leathermarket Gardens in Bermondsey). On the way we passed a pub that was, legally, open for off sales and I went in a bought a pint for each of us. Later Ian went back to buy a second round and we took them to the park to drink.

That night on the way home a bus came past and as it was almost empty (just two extra passengers on a double decker) I jumped on it. I wasn't sure if going in a pub (for less than thirty seconds) or going on an almost empty bus was right or wrong so I wrote something, rather carelessly and with the same ambiguity I've been complaining about here and on other blogs, on Facebook and it all kicked off. Some of my very closest friends, and people I hardly knew, piled in both on me and for me. Other friends wrote to me in private to say they'd have done, or had already done, the same thing.

The upshot was that nobody knows what the rules are because the government are making them up as they go along and that I apologised for my actions because retaining dear friendships is important at all times and more important than ever right now. But underlining the exchange of words was the confusion and anger that has been sewn, quite intentionally, by Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, and Michael Gove.

So I've not written for a while because I've been feeling down and repairing friendships and walking in the park have been my priority for this week. I've chatted to Shep, Michelle, Adam, Gary, Darren, Mum and Dad and I've met Pam for two lovely walks around Crystal Palace Park (dinosaurs, sphinxes, the lake where we both saw Pixies play thirty years ago - and ten years before we met) and Brockwell Park (baby swans) and I've played Jo's, Ian's, Owen's, and Alex and Tina's Kahoot quizzes as well as hosting (and then playing) a family one.

Music, of course, has been a salve. I had a lovely listen to Dare by The Human League in its entirety and I even offered up a few African and Latin American selections for my friend Dan's Bank Holiday special round the world show on Burgess Hill Radio. I had a chat with my mum in which she told me about ordering some Mr Kipling marzipan battenbergs and it occurred to me we're all turning into characters in an Alan Bennett monologue. Perhaps if Bennett had co-authored The Plague by Albert Camus.

It'd all be quite funny if the current UK death toll wasn't just shy of 38,000 (globally just short of 360,000) and we're possibly facing a second spike in deaths due to the government's performative incompetence in easing lockdown. Possibly a third. Almost definitely a huge recession that will only be worsened by both Brexit and these shameless scumbags staying in power and laughing in our faces at us for voting them in.

"Move on" they say. Move on from the debate about Cummings, move on from the care homes scandal, move on from the UK having the second highest death rate in the world, move on from holding the people who are to blame up to scrutiny. Don't blame us. Blame each other. Snoop on your neighbour. Shout at people in supermarkets. Do whatever. Just don't judge us politically for politcal decisions.

The one thing we all do need to move on from is Boris Johnson and his toxic, venal, selfish, and now, for tens of thousands of people, murderous form of government. We need to move on from it and move away from it. Far away from it. More than two metres.