There is a street in London with a serious crime problem. It's probably the most crime addled street in the whole of the country. It's only a short street, very few houses, and it's an extraordinarily wealthy one. But over eighty criminals who either live on that street, work on that street, or regularly visit it have received fixed penalty notices for committing crimes recently.
Including its two most famous residents. At number ten lives a man called Boris Johnson and at number eleven lives a man called Rishi Sunak. They are and, quite remarkably, continue to be the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the country. Actual convicted criminals now hold the two most important jobs in the country.
This has never ever happened before. They've not got parking tickets or even speeding tickets. They received their fines for breaking the very lockdown rules they, themselves, set. Which they then lied to parliament and to the country about for months. It seems very unlikely, at least in Johnson's case, that this will be the last conviction and fine he recieves.
Yet Johnson apologists still lurk and, of course, Putin's war in Ukraine has been cited as a reason we can't have a change of PM now. Even though both World Wars, ones British personnel were actually fighting - and dying - in, saw changes at the top. In both cases, general consensus has it, that incompetent leaders were removed to make way for those more capable.
Johnson's incompetence is often overlooked as we focus on his lying, his bullying, and now his criminality. But it should never be forgotten that Johnson is incompetent. He promises the world and he delivers nothing. His wives found out, the country has found it, and, soon enough, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy will find out.
While the likes of Nadine Dorries (continuing to attack Channel 4 while not having the slightest clue about their working model), Jacob Rees-Mogg (who now says all Covid restrictions were "unkind" and "inhumane" - two 'qualities' he's more than qualified to speak about), and Grant Shapps (the uber-loyalists in Johnson's cabinet who know they're screwed if he goes as nobody else would have them) continue to defend him, and his indefensible behaviour, in public some Tories, finally, have had enough.
David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Tredegar, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, has had enough. He's resigned. He seems to understand that having the word 'justice' in your job title actually means something. If only more Tories had the decency to follow his example.
Imran Ahmad Khan, the former Tory MP for Wakefield, was expelled from the party for sexually assaulting a fifteen year old boy. Crispin Blunt, the Conservative member for Reigate - and a man who lends himself effortlessly to the world of rhyming slang, defended Khan which was an awkward position to take for a man who was the chair of the LGBTQ+ parliamentary group.
Are these the people you voted for? Can you live with that? Are you happy with it? Johnson thinks you are. That's why he's been joking about 'partygate' and suggesting that the MPs who handed the letters into Graham Brady calling for his resignation, and even more so those that went on to retract those letters, should try living under Putin.
With him in charge, we're moving ever closer to that. While Johnson is a liar, a criminal, and a complete fucking cunt he's not, yet, a mass murderer like Putin. But that doesn't mean he should be allowed to do whatever he likes. You can't justify doing the wrong thing because someone once did something worse. I had a friend once, no longer my friend now, who regularly abused people and started moving into rape threats (that was the line for me, bye bye). He justified it by saying Adolf Hitler had done worse.
It's not that different to Johnson and his cronies suggesting that Putin is the only other option available to us. The other tactic Johnson and his cronies have used, and it's a time honoured one, is to chuck some red meat out to their more vociferously xenophobic supporters by proposing that refugees who arrive in the UK will be sent to Rwanda to undergo some rather sinister sounding 'processing'.
Rwanda has a terrible human rights record (which won't bother the racists) but also this would be such an expensive plan that, according to Labour's Chris Bryant, it would actually be cheaper to put each and every migrant up in the Ritz hotel. That, you'd imagine, would not be something the nastier elements of Johnson's support, the gammon wing, would be so keen on.
They're more lenient on some immigrants. Non-dom types like Sunak's wife, Akshata Murthy, who despite being twice as rich as the Queen hasn't been paying her tax in the UK because she doesn't officially live here. Perhaps it's because Downing Street, where she does actually live, has such a reputation now for crime she's ashamed to admit she lives there.
Even the actual Chancellor himself had a Green Card in case he fancied moving to the US. Maybe he could see what a complete mess him and Johnson are making the country and wanted a 'get out of jail' card on hand should the general public ever rise up and depose them.
Which, sadly, doesn't even remotely look like happening. The British public are beaten down by years and years of Johnson's bullshit. Like abused partners, they think it must somehow be their fault. That they somehow deserve it. But like most abused partners, they will one day wise up and turn on their abusers. Or at least walk out on them.
Let's hope that day comes soon before Johnson can drag the country, and its global reputation, even further into the mire. In the meantime I'm trying to do nice things, things that keep my mind off this shit (until I come to writing these blogs at least). I've seen a couple of brilliant films in The Worst Person in the World (at the Peckhamplex) and Oxide Ghosts:The Brass Eye Tapes (at the Brixton Ritzy) and I've been to several art exhibitions.
A.R. Penck, Bice Lazzari, Kehinde Wiley, Francis Bacon, Whistler, Paulina Olowska, and a brilliant Surrealism Beyond Borders at Tate Modern yesterday. I went for drinks with my friend Jim in Brixton, went to see Fucked Up at the Scala with Colin, attended a Skeptics online talk about socioeconomic inequality and male violence and an actual in the pub Fortean talk by Gary Lachman about the power of dreams as well chatting on the phone to Michelle and both my parents.
Best of all was the second TADS walk of 2022 that took us from Didcot to the Wittenham Clumps and Dorchester and back. That's how I try to solve my life problems (by seeing friends, going for walks, looking at art, and writing this stuff) but Tories don't seem to see problems as things to be solved. Problems are seen as opportunities. Opportunities to obfuscate, opportunities to empower themselves, opportunites to enrich themselves and their 'friends' (for which read business associates), and opportunities to divide us further. Boris Johnson doesn't give a flying fuck if migrants are sent to Rwanda or not. He just wants you to argue about that instead of focusing on his own criminality. We should send that lying fucker to Rwanda. To a Rwandan prison.
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