Kakistocracy V:I Love Slough.

"Why does the prime minister hate Slough?" - Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, MP for Slough

"I love Slough" - Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson is Britain's most famous and accomplished liar. As the brilliant writer Marina Hyde observed in a recent column "for Boris Johnson, lying is not second nature:it is nature". He lies to his wives, he lies to his lovers, he lies to his colleagues, he lies to his opponents, he lies to parliament, he lies to the country, and he lies to the world.

He lies on the sides of buses, he lies in newspaper columns, he lies about laying in front of bulldozers at Heathrow Airport, he lies about building garden bridges, he lies about building airports, he lies about how many children he's got, he lies about coronavirus testing capabilities, and he lies that he'd rather be found dead in a ditch than extend a Brexit deadline.

But when he lied about loving Slough even his most hardcore supporters, a curious mixture of educationally subnormal buffoons and greedy capitalist scumbags, can't have believed him. As the former MP of the nearby London Borough of Hillingdon, Johnson would, of course, have had some knowledge of the town so it's possible that he's a fan of the former Slough Trading Estate, Station Jim (the stuffed dog on platform five of Slough station), and the fictional Wernham Hogg stationery office from the sitcom The Office.

It's almost certain that Johnson will have enjoyed Slough's most famous culinary export, the Mars bar, on occasions and he's roughly the right age to have attended, like me, the 1990 Slough festival to see Ride, Curve, Slowdive, The Mock Turtles, Thousand Yard Stare, and Soul Family Sensation. It's just that shoegazing doesn't really seem his kind of thing. It seems more likely that the man who once dreamed of being "world king" would have been far more taken with the castle of nearby Windsor than the more prosaic edifices of Slough.

Like David Brent from The Office, Johnson is more of a "chilled out entertainer" than he is a prime minister. But unlike David Brent from The Office who is a mostly harmless fictional character on television, Boris Johnson is a harmful real life character in charge of an actual real country of over sixty six million people at a time of the worst global pandemic in over a century. When he tells a racist joke or does a stupid dance we don't just cringe, we suffer.

As with Brent, Johnson loves toadies and the more slavering and inept they are the better. Johnson's cabinet has no time for Tim Canterbury types (Martin Freeman's character in The Office) and is populated exclusively by Gareth Keenans (Mackenzie Crook) and Keith Bishops (Ewen MacIntosh, seen enjoying a substantial meal) with the odd Finchy (Ralph Ineson) thrown in to keep things nasty. 

You can see a bit of Finchy's nasty boastfulness in the failed Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson who treated the undoubtedly brilliant news that a vaccine would soon be rolled out by announcing that the UK is a "better country" than France, Belgium, or the US (despite the vaccine being created by a Turkish-German team) but for the most direct comparison look no further than Home Secretary Priti Patel

The proven and acknowledged bully (who can neither count nor tell the difference between terrorism and counter terrorism) has recently visited a police station in Bahrain where human rights activisits have been tortured. Your guess is as good as mine as to why she may have made that visit but I can't help thinking that she's probably thinking once we get rid of those pesky EU do-gooders we could learn a thing or two from barbaric states like Bahrain. 

For the role of Keenan or even Bishop look no further than Health Secretary Matt Hancock whose willingness to shill for any of Johnson's ludicrous initiatives (Operation Moonshot anybody?) remains as keen and unabated as ever despite a summer in which, Dominic Cummings aside, he became possibly Britain's most hated man. Hated even more than his boss.

When Hancock pretended to cry in front of Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain it was perhaps the most embarrassing performance seen on television since Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox presented the Brit Awards in 1989 and the most dishonest once since, well since Boris Johnson claimed he loved Slough.

Johnson's latest wheeze, his most recent fit of bluster, bravado, and dangerous bullshit is to threaten to guard fishing boats around the coast of the UK with gunboats. Actual gunboat diplomacy - but without much diplomacy behind it. Even many of Johnson's backbenchers are not happy about this bellicose language. It was foolhardy enough when the washed up old has been Michael Howard suggested we could go to war with Spain over Gibraltar but it's lunatic behaviour to threaten twenty-seven allied countries with what amounts to threats of violence for acts they haven't even performed yet.

Less than two weeks away from a now likely no deal Brexit it's borderline suicidal - and for what? Fish. Fish and the abstract concept of sovereignty. The sovereignty that, five years ago, nobody but a small cabal of hard right Tory backbenchers and Eurosceptics, even knew we didn't have. As observed by many brighter than me, how come when a fish strays into British waters it automatically becomes a British fish but when a human being does, particularly a brown human being, they most resolutely do not automatically become a British person.

I don't even eat fish anyway so I don't give a fuck but even if I did I'd think fishing rights would be a strange choice of hill to die on when so many other sectors and industries will suffer hugely as the result of any kind of Brexit. Another thing I don't eat is Scotch eggs which is more of a pity as if I did I'm sure I'd have been out for more substantial meals than I have in the last ten days.

With the end of what amounted to nothing more than a social lockdown all of England, bar Cornwall, the Isle of Wight, and the Scilly Isles, was placed under either tier two or tier three regulations. Here in London we're in tier two (with talk rampant of being moved into tier three very soon) so we can meet only with household members or those in our bubble indoors and we can only go to the pub if we have a substantial meal.

I met Pam for a walk around Dulwich Park and Sanda for an outdoor coffee and a walk around Covent Garden, Soho, Fitzrovia, and Bloomsbury to look at the Christmas decorations but the only indoor meet I've had has been with Vicki. We went into The Ring pub near Southwark station and I had spring rolls and chips which were very tasty indeed.

Our server told us, beneath his mask, how the new system works. We could order a drink while we decided what we wanted to eat, then there may be a bit of a wait for food (lots of people were ordering it for some reason) so we might need another drink, and then after we'd eaten we could stay and have a drink or two to wash it down. Basically, as long as we ordered food (and we did, Vicki had calamari) we could stay there as long as we liked.

A breaking of the rules, a 'flouting' of them or a bending of them? I don't think so. We were seated a fair distance from the next nearest diners/drinkers and it didn't get silly. A Covid spore doesn't back away because you've got food on your table but, equally, massive drunkenness does clearly make social distancing difficult. Nothing's 100% safe and we all have to make our own decisions and I was happy with this one.

Whatever you do someone will accuse you of doing something wrong. If you stay at home you'll be accused of 'cowering', if you go out you'll be accused of spreading the virus. Everyone's going to find a different balance and I'm trying hard not to critique people for coming to different decisions to me. I was invited out for a meal this weekend that, in normal times, I'd have attended with glee. But I thought better of it. That decision was right for me. Those that went out and had that meal made the right decision for themselves too.

This government have foisted division upon us as a tactic and I'm no more inclined to do their dirty work for them than I am to spread baseless conspiracy theories about Bill Gates (if he wanted to track people's movements why start at care homes? My nan was in one for the last few years of her life and her movements were very limited and very predictable), George Soros, or 5G. Although it's tempting to share the rather weird and excellent one my hairdresser told me about Matt Hancock.

 

That haircut, as well as those catch ups with Vicki, Pam, and Sanda and the regular Kahoot quizzes have been the social highlights for me since I last wrote one of these Kakistocracy blogs. The rest of the time I've been working, walking, writing, watching television (both Small Axe and Industry have been excellent and The Last Leg remains a hilarious tonic), and sleeping a lot.

If we're (us Londoners) not placed in tier three on Wednesday I have plans to catch up with Valia for a Christmas gift exchange and vague plans to hopefully catch up with Ian and Simon over the festive season too. Possibly Shep and Adam when I'm back in Tadley. Other than that, this year, I'll be spending Christmas Day on my own for the first time ever.

Which is fine. It's what I've chosen. I'll be alone but I don't think I'll be lonely. There will be Zoom catch ups with family and with Sanda, I'll go for a walk, listen to music, have some nice food and drink, and the guy who works at my local shop told me he'll be open for a few hours and if I pop down for more booze he'll slip me one. A drink I hope.

I'm quite looking forward to it. I've always wanted to spend at least one Christmas alone and this year seems a very suitable one to do so. My parents will be at home alone too - just the two of them. I won't be needing presents, gifts, or a feast this year at all. The fact that all of my family and all of my friends have survived 2020 and are still alive and well brings me more joy than any material object ever could. Chill out, shall we, please?