010 - Johnson's anti-government
Aug 15, 2021 · 4 minute readTags: 100DaysToOffload
Words: 1061
There are no policies to solve actual problems, only to stay in power.
It's odd to look at Johnson's government, or rather, lack of government. They don't seem to be interested in actually solving any real problems. Rather they seem intent on creating new, or imagined, problems, that then have a simple solution.
I challenge you to think of their policies for solving the major issues that exist:
- the Climate Emergency and every policy decision surrounding it,
- Brexit, except of course, the Tories caused it,
- COVID19 pandemic, and appropriate responses that don't result in the 150,000 people dead, with a lot of them due to last Christmas' lack of lockdown - oh, another Tory/Johnson (lack of) decision,
- Child poverty,
- Structural inequalities between the different regions of the UK,
- Tensions in the 4 countries of the UK,
- Overcrowding in prisons, lack of funding in the judicial system, lack of access to the legal system for poor people,
- ... and the list goes on.
Johnson, himself, seems to make decisions based on the following criteria:
- will it make somebody else money and thus gain him something?
- can he throw a dead cat on the table? Again, for fun?
- will it keep him in power?
And that's basically it. His whole shtick seems to be about this. And the rest of his cabinet either are the same (well, he did choose them), or are just spineless and want to keep their jobs.
I've come to this conclusion based on what Johnson actually does, rather than what he says.
You can take any policy area and realise that the Tories will choose the wrong thing to actually start to solve the issue. They'll say things, possibly blame someone, make an announcement, but not actually do anything.
It was Jonathan Lis, in the Byline Times that described him as The Anti-Prime Minister, and summed him up:
Johnson wanted to become Prime Minister but never to be Prime Minister… For him, power is about breaking precedent, cheating the system, scoring the con to end all cons.
And:
Life under Johnson can feel like an out-of-body experience. Everything you see and hear is up for question. What you remember happening did not happen. What you know the Prime Minister did was done by someone else or not done at all.
I think the most pertinent example for me is that there are (probably) going to be serious food shortages in the coming months. It's essentially the result of Brexit (but with COVID19 thrown in for good measure).
“We've seen a massive exodus of non-UK labour during the pandemic and we don't know if they are able to come back.” source.
But what is the government policy for dealing with it? [Crickets]. Actually, this is the response. If you read it you'll realise that they are saying things that won't make a difference right now. More training doesn't solve the crisis. But I suspect, the government - and Johnson - doesn't really care.
It seems pretty clear that, at absolutely no point, does he consider whether the decisions he makes actually has a negative effect on other people. In fact, I'm not sure whether he actually acknowledges other people at all. I'm not saying he is a sociopath. Rather that he's been brought up simply to not care about little people; we are completely inconsequential to him.
Lis, also feels this way:
It’s not that Johnson wants to harm people – it’s that the concept of harming them barely enters his imagination.
Of course, what is really perverse, is the idea that large numbers - around 40% of the voting population on a fairly consistent basis - still want to vote for him despite the twin disasters of Brexit and his handling of the COVID19 pandemic. But again Jonathan Lis put it better than I could:
The notion of caring in any meaningful way for people who aren't him, in a way that doesn't relate to him, is alien. The public knows this. When, during the 2019 General Election campaign, Johnson was asked about honesty or empathy, people jeered and laughed: this is a game we are playing too.
Of course, it's really annoying for the 60% of us that won't vote for him or the Conservatives, or anybody right-wing. That's a reality of our FPTP1 voting system, and that can't be solved until a majority of MPs in parliament will vote for Proportional Representation like any other mature democracy. We don't need a Progressive Alliance. We need a Proportial Representation Alliance or even a "I'll vote for anybody that isn't a Tory candidate" Alliance.
It's just all so depressing.
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