Kakistocracy VII:So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

Happy new year!

Or at least let's hope so. It's far from a certainty at the moment. Within minutes of posting my most recent Kakistoracy blog (the Christmas one) I read a friend's post on Facebook about London & the SE being placed in tier four. I had no idea what that actually meant but I tuned in to the BBC where I waited for what was trailed as a "big announcement" by Boris Johnson about what tier four is, what we can do, and what we can't do. 

It's been caused by a new strain of the Covid virus. Not a more deadly one, not one that makes you even more (or less) ill, and not one that the vaccine won't work with. The danger of this new variant is, quite simply, that it spreads easier - and quicker. Possibly 70% more. Travel around the country over the festive period, which already looked inadvisable, was starting to look potentially deadly.

So, three days after Johnson had mocked Keir Starmer, the "smarmy lawyer", for supposedly wanting to cancel Christmas and said it would be "insane" to do so he did, in essence - for many of us, just that. It's been said that any government would make mistakes during a pandemic of such huge proportions but it seems the government of Boris Johnson keeps repeating the same mistakes. Less forgivable.

I had a troubling day the next day trying to do the right thing, trying to interpret the rules, and trying to decide what was best for my family, my friends, my work, me, and the nation's health. Whatever I did somebody was going to be disappointed in me, it was a lose-lose situation, but eventually I decided I'd not go into work. Tier four rules stress that you're not to stay overnight at somebody else's house (and I would have had to) and you're not to travel out of your area for work (which I would have been doing).

I felt guilt about my decision but my parents and all my friends told me I shouldn't feel guilty and that I was doing the right thing. I think I did make the right decision but I'd not blame people for making different decisions - so unclear was the messaging regarding tier four restrictions. Some said they were exactly the same as those applied in tier three but a "big announcement" by the PM himself and his two top medical advisors Whitty and Vallance (the old gang was back in town) to announce that nothing at all was changing seems avant-garde even by the standards of this improv government.

The situation felt like an almost perfect embodiment of Boris Johnson's personality. I was being made to feel guilty for his failings and those that voted for him were the ones making me feel guilty. You'd think his supporters would at least support him but it seems, as ever with Johnson, that behind every announcement there's a nudge and a wink and a knowing aside which tells you can just ignore what he's saying, he doesn't mean it really, and that, specifically is what his supporters like about him. As with the soon to be gone stone cold loser Donald Trump, as with social media sites, Boris Johnson enables you to be the worst possible version of yourself.

Huge tailbacks of lorries formed in Kent (with gardens reeking of piss as their drivers relieved themselves into plastic bottles and lobbed them on to grass verges) as several nations banished visitors from the UK with the not incorrect belief that the new strain of Covid was spreading out of control. Over fifty thousand new cases reported in the last three consecutive days (even with increased testing that is astronomical) and 964 deaths yesterday (981 the day before) suggested they were right to do so.

We're sixth on the grisly table of global deaths right now (behind the US, Brazil, India, Mexico, and Italy) and some of the tabloids are celebrating because we finally got Brexit done. With what most experts are describing as a very thin deal. We shall see about that but one thing's for certain. Brexit will remain divisive. It was designed to divide and, in that, we must say Brexit has already been a huge success.

Whilst wife beater Stanley Johnson applied for a French passport on Brexit eve and others celebrated getting "our" fish back (whatever that means) everyone whose intelligence I respect mourned the loss of a freedom to travel around the nations of Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Malta, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Cyprus, and Bulgaria.

A thin deal ensures, most likely, a slow puncture of the British economy over the next few years and decades, which will be blamed on Covid of course, but a no deal would have been a blow out so it could have been worse. But the fact that Brexit enabled Boris Johnson to become PM and put together a cabinet of incompetents, liars, cronies, and buffoons has lead us to having such a disastrous result with coronavirus. Why would they handle the difficult forthcoming economic challenges any better than they have done a deadly pandemic?

We can enjoy the Tory infighting (Priti Patel criticising Tobias Ellwood for breaching Covid rules) or we can be outraged by their lies (Patel, again, claiming the government has been consistently ahead of the curve in proactive measures during the pandemic), their cronyism (the banker Peter Cruddas giving Boris Johnson £50,000 to buy himself a seat in the lords - an act that was not even hidden, a commission was formed twenty years ago to prevent such blatant buying of political power but Johnson simply over rode it) but we're stuck with this disaster of a government for a few years yet.

I'll keep writing about their untruthful, immoral, and lethally negligent behaviour but to dwell on it permanently would damage my mental health and this pandemic has taken a huge toll on many of us in that respect. The run up to Christmas and the gap between Christmas and New Year saw many of my friends report an increased sense of anxiety (as well as, in other cases, an increased sense of boredom).

I was no more immune to those feelings than I am the virus. I had a few days where I felt low and disengaged with news and social media more than I normally would. I'd describe it as a heightened anxiety more than a full on depression but it still wasn't much fun and I hardly helped myself by over imbibing, eating poorly, and sleeping very badly. But my friends helped pull me out of those doldrums and though Xmas was not what it should, or could, have been and nor was New Year, there was such kindness around in my friends and my parents that I didn't spiral when I feared I might do.

I was disappointed Kunt and the Gang's Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt didn't make Christmas number one (but eight's not bad) and sad to hear of friends who were having a bad time of it but I was lifted in spirits by walking in Peckham Rye Park, very briefly and at a social distance - of course, with Bec, with regular video chats with Michelle and my new god-daughter Evie (I am VERY proud), others with Darren, Cheryl, Tony, and Alex and phone chats with Vicki, Simon, Shep, Adam, and, surprisingly - not seen her since 2011, Julia. As well, of course, as ever with Mum and Dad.

Zoom/Kahoot quizzes remained fun (thanks to Dad, Carole, and Sanda for setting them and Ian for hosting) and on New Year's Eve, last night, we had a Zoom get together in which Sanda hosted the final quiz of the year, Tony won it, we laughed out loud at the fun we had (we needed to), and there was even a small disco at the end. It was lovely. If not quite the same as getting to hug your friends as the bells of Big Ben chime in a year that cannot fail to be full of further anxiety.

With the approval of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, which doesn't have to be kept at anywhere like the very very cold temperatures of the Pfizer-BioNTech one, there is hope on the horizon. Of course it needs to be rolled out, and taken up, as quickly as possible. For that we will need it to be overseen by a competent government and if you've read this far you'll know my thoughts on that subject.

While we wait for these vaccinations, and other preventative measures - some of which are in place - some of which should be and are not, to take affect and slowly ease us out of this dystopian nightmare (and that extra £350,000,000 going weekly to the NHS as promised should help) we will need to go easy on our friends and family. There will be times they say and do things from a position of fear and anger and their actions and words may even hurt us. But, so much more than that, they will be there for us at times when our leaders probably will not be.

Love can't beat a virus but love can help us come to terms with living with it. To the EU we have now departed I quote Douglas Adams and say "so long and thanks for all the fish". To the year we have now departed I say "so long and thanks for fucking nothing". To the people I stayed close, or grew closer, to during 2020 I say, quite simply, "thankyou so much".