"We are Britain and we have one dream. To unite all people in one great dream. Our nation survived through many storms and many wars. We've opened our doors and widened our island's shores" - One Britain One Nation.
Leaving aside that the lyrics aren't even true (we haven't opened our doors and we haven't widened our island's shores - quite the opposite), One Britain One Nation - the song that Tory politicians hoped all school children could sing to celebrate OBON Day (a made up celebration) even though Scottish kids had broken up for the summer holiday's - is a clearly terrible idea.
We've already got a (terrible) national anthem. We don't need another one - and we certainly don't want to pressgang children into singing it like North Korea or something. Former West Yorkshire police inspector Kash Singh who wrote the song seems to have had good intentions but the fact it was backed by Gavin Williamson, Brandon Lewis, and Lord Tebbit should be enough to tell you what an utterly shit idea it was.
Kids would be better off singing the Funky Chicken at school - at least they'd enjoy it. The government seem to genuinely think people love them so much they will sing songs about how good the country, and - by implication - the government of that country, is. The government of bullies, serial philanderers, liars, cronies, and incompetents.
Obviously, like everything they do, the reason Singh's idea was taken on was because it was divisive. While some, quite reasonably, stated that it reminded them of Nazi or Soviet propaganda, Williamson said that it was "amazing" and that it was "incredibly important" that schools took part. A rare occasion in which the Education Secretary took time out to think about schools.
Instead of properly funding the NHS, or giving doctors a nurses a long overdue and deserved pay rise, or helping kids in poverty whose education has suffered during the pandemic, what have the government proposed spending taxpayers' money on?
A yacht. A fucking yacht. In 2003, after England had paraded the Rugby world cup they'd just won around central London, me and my friends Billy and Andy were having a pint in The Toucan bar in Soho when a man sidled up to me as if he recognised me. "Do you yacht" was his opening gambit? To which I replied "no" forgetting to add "because I'm not a cunt". The keen, and refreshed, yachtsman returned to his friends and launched into a medley of racist songs about people from Pakistan.
That's the kind of person that likes yachting and so it's no surprise to find that Boris Johnson too is a fan. His suggestion was that we could buy a massive yacht, call it Prince Philip, and float it around the world. To what purpose it is unspecified. I can only assume to prove to everyone we're a complete bunch of cocks with a very muddled sense of priorities.
Even The Queen wasn't having it. Other divisive ideas Johnson has stoked up to keep himself and his party in power have been suggesting making Dido Harding, who presided over the test and trace debacle - according to Polly Toynbee "the most notorious public administration disaster in living memory", head of the NHS and refusing to condemn those that boo England players for taking the knee. Priti Patel went further on this until Johnson backtracked. But not until he'd used it to cause a bit more division.
He's also refused to even allow a vote about lowering the amount of money given in international aid (something that even Tories like Teresa May and David Davis - DAVID DAVIS - consider to be both cruel and ruinous to Britain's global reputation). He's also floated the idea of letting the 'UEFA family' (for which read a bunch of freeloaders) fly into Wembley, without having to isolate, to watch the final of the Euros under threat of UEFA who have hinted they could move it to Budapest (despite Hungary having the second highest Covid death rate in the world, stadiums there are packed).
But all of this has, of course, been overshadowed by what Matt Hancock has been doing with his cock and who with. The man who has been telling us all not to hug our grannies or visit our friends, it turns out, has been shagging his aide Gina Coladangelo all along. As well as paying her with taxpayers' money, appointing her without due process, and lying about it all along.
Boris Johnson, of course, refused to sack him (the only thing Johnson will sack you for is competence or disloyalty - which in a Johnson administration are almost the same thing) but Hancock fell on his (pork) sword and has now gone (though remains an MP - much to many of his constituents' disgust). Replaced by Sajid Javid which is actually not as bad as it could be or as I feared.
Though still not great. But Hancock's resignation, necessary though it was, doesn't address a much deeper problem. Why did he not go for presiding over one of the world's worst Covid results, for moving Covid patients in to care homes and then lying about 'protective rings', for giving contracts to his mates down the pub, or for the many many other lies he told the country. Why did Boris Johnson not sack him?
Clearly, Boris 'let the bodies pile high in their thousands' Johnson doesn't give a fuck about public health and never has done. The new Tory technique, a Johnsonian classic, is to call anyone who points out governmental errors 'Captain Hindsight'. Even though the people they are calling this have, in most cases, made these points before but were shouted down by Johnson and his boorish chums.
Boris Johnson is on record as calling Hancock "totally fucking hopeless" so why keep him in position as Health Secretary during the most serious health crisis in a generation? Some would say incompetence, some would say because Boris Johnson is cruel and/or vain but the smart money says it's all three.
John Bercow, the former Speaker and Tory MP, clearly thinks so. A fortnight ago he crossed the floor to join the Labour party and left with a withering attack on Johnson who he called a "lousy governor" who presided over a party that have become "reactionary, populist, nationalistic and sometimes even xenophobic".
What took you so long, John? There is hope, elsewhere, too. The voters of Chesham and Amersham rejected Johnsonism in shocking numbers. I think the media considered the odds of a Tory victory so likely the story was barely covered but Sarah Green of the Liberal Democrats took 56% of the vote (the Libs took just 26% in 2019) and the Tory candidate Peter Fleet only 35% (down from 55% for Cheryl Gillan in the 2019 election).
It shows how many people are sick of Boris Johnson's lies, incompetence, hypocrisy, divisiness, and cronyism, his endless culture wars, and his constant pandering to the basest of some of his voter's desires. As the Tories, bizarrely, continue to knock down the red wall, it seems the blue wall of the home counties is in danger of falling too. A progressive alliance between Labour, the Liberals, and the Green Party would be the best way to ensure this but I just can't see Labour, sadly, getting on board with that.
I cling to these positives as surely as I cling to the hope that the pandemic is, if not ending, at least abating. The postponing of lockdown easing makes sense bearing in mind the spread of the delta variant (previously called the Indian variant and, to some, known as the Johnson variant as he did so much to help spread it by not putting India on the red list until way too late) but, so far, though cases are rising rapidly, hospitalisations and deaths are not on the same scale, or anywhere near it, as they were over the winter period or at the start of the pandemic.
Caution makes sense but steps must be taken to come out of this. It's a difficult balance and unity will help us more than division. The government only have division so you can be sure they will make things worse but in the rest of my life, at least most of it, there is unity, there is friendship, and there is even joy.
It's been twenty-six days since I last wrote one of these Kakistocracy blogs and in that time I've been surprisingly busy. I've chatted on the phone to Mum, Dad, Vicki, Michelle, and Adam and I bumped into my friends Gareth and Bec and their new, and tiny, baby Etienne. I've watched England v Croatia in The Roebuck in Hampstead with Ian, Mike, Chris, and Sanda (to say some of us got more drunk than others would be a massive understatement) and England v the Czech Republic with Ian and Mike in The Priory Tavern in Kilburn.
Other than football I've watched The Pursuit of Love, and attended Skeptics in the Pub - Online talks about babies and the meaning of life (much better than it sounds, honest), evolutionary pscyhology, bad medicine, and cancer as well as a slightly disappointing London Fortean Society talk about twins. I've physically visited exhibitions by Jean Dubuffet, Charlotte Perriand, Ellen Gallgher, John Akomfrah, and Matthew Barney and, best of all, the walks have continued.
TADS finally kicked off their 2021 season with a walk from Rye to Camber Sands and last weekend we took a lengthy wander along the Wandle. This Saturday we're off to Canvey Island and I can't wait. Next month we're finishing off the Capital Ring and I'm off on holiday to Wales where I will see my god-daughter Evie for the first time since February last year. I can't wait for that either. One other thing I can't wait for, though, is for Boris Johnson to join Matt Hancock and fuck off.
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