Beginning to See the Light: Power, Corruption, and Lies Redux

 

‘Save some face,

you know you’ve only got one

Change your ways while you’re young..’

 

For those of you expecting to see mention of the Harry, Meghan, the royals, and racism, there you go, I have mentioned it!

I see little point wasting my thinking time of two half-wits, and dysfunctional families airing their dirty laundry in public. For anyone in doubt, I would dispense with the monarchy tomorrow, as for racists, there are too many of them out there.

The big winner in this is Boris, who has seen his latest disgraceful acts buried by the antics of the Windsors.
 

‘two half-wits, and dysfunctional families airing their dirty laundry in public’

 
Last week I wrote of the governments financial incontinence, questioning how, after they had squandered £22bn on a test and trace system that wasn’t fit for purpose, they could be trusted with the public purse. It would seem they are determined to push on with this failed project, so much so that they are allocation a further £15bn, taking the overall loss to £37bn.

This extra £15bn wasn’t found behind one of Boris’s new £10,000 sofas but came from a ‘special £55bn Covid reserve’.

As an entrée to where this is going let us consider what our PM said in a video on Twitter after he left hospital last April; he had witnessed the ‘personal courage’ of hospital staff on the front line and said that two nurses (Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal) stood by his bedside for 48-hours at the most critical time and named several other hospital workers who cared for him this past week that he wanted to thank.

He said NHS workers ‘kept putting themselves in harm’s way, kept risking this deadly virus. It is thanks to that courage, that devotion, that duty and that love that our NHS has been unbeatable.’

Whilst the Tory fawning media lapped it up, others remembered what happened in 2017 as Conservative MPs in the House literally cheered as they voted down a proper pay rise for nurses. Included in this bunch of cheering idiots were the likes of Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Matt Hancock, and the rest of the current cabinet.

Of course, Johnson’s heartfelt gratitude last year was typical of him, talk is cheap, in this instance, free. In addition, it promotes a pseudo-selflessness, his words and all that clapping your ‘‘the healthcare heroes’ persuades voters that he cares.

And, if talk and clapping doesn’t work, there was always the pathetic attempts at blubbering offered up by Hancock, a man so useless he couldn’t even cry properly.
 

‘Hancock, a man so useless he couldn’t even cry properly’

 
Johnson was so overwhelmed that nurses are being offered a 1% pay rise, £3.50 a week. In fairness, when you have chucked £37bn Dido Harding’s way that was probably all there was left!

In real terms, i.e., after inflation is factored in, this is a pay cut. Now I will apologise for my insensitive sense of humour but, after reading that Nadine Dorries, the minister for mental health, said that she was ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the proposal, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was overdue a stay in an institution!

The fact that she compounded her obvious stupidity by adding that she believes ‘nurses are about more than superficial soundbites, I think nurses love their job. They do their job because they love their job,’ shows that a long-stay would be required.

As the song said, ‘money can’t buy me love’, but it does pay the mortgage and bills, and feed hungry kids.
 

‘money can’t buy me love’, but it does pay the mortgage and bills, and feed hungry kids

 
This is about priorities; this is a government who insists that a proper NHS pay rise is unaffordable, whilst spending £65bn on the first phase of HS2, an unnecessary extravagance that is projected to total £107bn. Two-thirds of the entire NHS annual budget on a train.

This issue of priorities was effectively confirmed when the DHSC said that any higher than 1% ‘would require re-prioritisation’,

I wanted to put into context the situation nurses find themselves in financially, and the following was sourced from ITV News, December 2020 ⁽¹⁾.
 

• 39% of nurses have skipped meals to feed their family or to save money.
• 61% of nurses from an ethnic minority background admit to missing meals owing to money worries.
• 64% of nursing staff admitting to working overtime to pay bills.
• 57% admitted to using a credit card and 29% to borrowing money from friends to pay essential bills.
• 11% nursing staff have missed a rent or mortgage payment in the past twelve months, the survey showed.

 
It is hardly surprising that 30% of NHS nurses say they plan to leave the profession in the next 12 months citing mental health issues and a poor work/life balance as the most common reasons.

Yet, we still find the frankly pathetic Matt Hancock suggesting that a decent pay rise for nurses could lead to an imminent fiscal collapse.

What is relevant is this: in 2010, adjusted from inflation, nurses’ pay was £2,500 higher than today, paramedics were on £3,330 more, and porters £850.
 

30% of NHS nurses say they plan to leave the profession in the next 12 months

 
In 2010 the perpetrators of austerity didn’t suggest that the problem with the public finances was overpaid frontline NHS staff, they talked about pay freezes, culling backroom staff while protecting the lowest paid.

Pragmatism and prioritisation is a decision made by government, Johnson and his mob have decided that their priorities lay elsewhere.

Also, they are using nurses as a political punchball. If there is to be industrial action by nurses Labour will be obliged to support it which, the Tories have correctly called, would be ‘uncomfortable’ for Labour.

This is confirmed by the fact that the shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, has only hinted that he’s in support of nurses. The fact that Conservatives view this as an easy win, shows just how much contempt they have for the country.

Perhaps this will prove this governments Achilles heel, there is only so long the NHS staff will accept this, we have a backlog of C.10m elective surgeries, with 30% of staff already feeling pushed towards the door the government may yet find its 1% offer a financial sleight-of-hand too far.

Nurses have been in the front-line of the battle against C-19, and they are typical of the section of the population most at risk from it.

The disease thrives on deprivation, crowded accommodation, poor diet, job insecurity that make it harder for people to self-isolate or take time off work for convalescence.

Lockdown has had a polarising effect on the population; some have saved money from hoarded salaries, whilst others have spent meagre savings and run up debts to stay solvent. ‘Lockdown has been most expensive for people who could least afford it.’
 

‘Lockdown has had a polarising effect on the population’

 
It is expected that those lucky enough to have saved money will now spend to satiate their pent-up consumption. Johnson’s hope is that this economic bounce will deliver flattering growth statistics, the reality is that it will leave millions behind and further exacerbate inequality.

This plays well with the Tory cult of self-reliance and immunises them against the fact that their policies create a very unequal society.

Whilst, during the pandemic it is harder to describe unemployment as a self-inflicted penalty for idleness, the Tories can turn to the myth of collective sacrifice and talk of ‘hard choices. We are all in it together, only some aren’t. it is all so much easier with money in the bank.

Johnson will see his epitaph as a hero, a winner, a country pulling together against the unavoidable pandemic, with the tides turned by the orderly roll-out of the vaccine. A victory that shows he was right to champion leaving an EU that is still coming to terms with vaccinations.

Cue, teary-eyed hordes straining to reach No.10, as Vera Lynn blasts out of conveniently located speakers serenading drunken revellers.
 

‘he is genuine and wants to help those without; the only proviso is they have vote Tory’

 
I should not mock Johnson, he is genuine and wants to help those without; the only proviso is they have vote Tory.

I suspect that he has made the calculated gamble that front-line NHS staff don’t, and that his bribes, sorry money for levelling-up can be better used elsewhere. This would explain why he is accused of a levelling up ‘stitch-up’, as the £4.8bn regional deprivation fund appears to prioritise richer areas with Conservative MP’s.

The fund works by taking the 93 English regions placed in the priority group of three tiers to receive money.

31 of the 93 regions included are not ranked top-third most deprived places, as measured by the average deprivation score.

Of these 31, 26 have Conservative MPs, with the others having at least one Tory MP. One of the remaining five, Canterbury, is a highly marginal Labour-Conservative seat.

Four places are in the top-tier for funding despite being ranked in the bottom third of English regions by deprivation score, all have Conservative MPs.

One area is Richmondshire in North Yorkshire, where the local MP is Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, whose own department is leading work on the fund.

This is among the top fifth of most prosperous places in England by the average deprivation score.

Labour described the way the fund was allocated as ‘divide and rule’, with one MP, whose area was excluded from the top tier, calling the decision ‘a stitch-up’.

Sunak also announced £1bn in extra money for an existing towns fund, intended to help struggling areas. Of the 45 new grants unveiled this week, 39 will go to towns with a Conservative MP.

Finally, a community renewal fund, with a total spend of £220m, will also benefit Sunak’s Richmondshire region. In all, seven areas represented by cabinet ministers are among the 100 areas targeted for help.

When I was thinking trough this article, and before putting ‘pen to paper’, I was thinking of the adjectives I would use to describe the government; there were my tried and trusted incompetent, evil, etc., but none seemed appropriate.

Instead, I concluded that words such as sad, pathetic, pitiable, unpatriotic, and power-mad were more appropriate.

They are indeed a sad bunch, many if not all of them are pathetic, and the way they cling to power is pitiable.

It a truly sad state of affairs when nurses are used a political punchball’s, by a PM who made such worthless statements in praise of them. It is pathetic that have wasted £22bn of a test and trace system that doesn’t work and in sheer desperation conjure up a further £15bn that will no doubt be squandered, and still pretend there is no money to provide a meaningful pay increase for nurses.

It is pitiful that the PM prioritises a fast train that no one really wants and costs the bulk of the NHS’s annual budget.
 

‘the PM prioritises a fast train that no one really wants and costs the bulk of the NHS’s annual budget’

 
It is both sad and pathetic that the government use levelling-up as a way of benefitting and rewarding those that vote for them whilst pushing others, statistically more in need, down the queue, all so they can stay in government. This isn’t power, it is the systemic misuse of it.

And, finally, I will turn to unpatriotic. Which, I hope, will turn any Tory voters reading this puce with rage.

Sorry, it takes more than draping yourself in the Union Jack, loving her maj, and being jingoistic to be a patriot.

The definition of patriotic is; ‘The quality of being patriotic; love of or devotion to one’s country.’ ⁽²⁾

Country is inclusive not exclusive, it isn’t just the parts where those who vote for you reside, its everyone irrespective of political allegiance.

But, you see, it’s all about priorities. The Tories priority is to remain in power, in government, nothing else matters. That’s why they are sad, pathetic, and pitiable.
 

‘The power to dream, to rule

To wrestle the world from fools

It’s decreed the people rule’

 
Notes:

1. https://www.itv.com/news/2020-12-17/revealed-nurses-forced-to-use-food-banks-as-covid-and-financial-pressures-drive-many-to-brink-of-quitting

The exclusive figures from Nursing Notes and Nurses United survey asked more than 3,000 registered NHS nurses across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland about conditions over the past 12 months.

2. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/138903?redirectedFrom=patriotism

 
Philip’s preamble usually gives a flavour of what to expect and the fact that he swatted away Harry and Megan as ‘two half-wits, and dysfunctional families airing their dirty laundry in public’ whetted our appetite.

It is at such times DIY’s decision to go ex-directory looks solid, as Piers may prove more readily employable courtesy of being mates with Andrew Neil et al.

I was then fortunate enough to have a conversation with our treasured contributor, and before I’d absorbed his latest offering may have suggested that he’d gone a little soft on Boris and his inglorious band.

Well, how wrong could I have been, and in the eloquent way Philip presents it, who could fail to be struck by the juxtaposition of the banality of the Sussex’s carping and Oprah’s cringemaking ‘they said whaaaaaaat’ with the plight of nurses being offered a pay cut and a government out of control spaffing £37bn on a worthless version of Asda’s ‘Scan and Go’ wand.

Want to know how bad it looks? Well, bad enough for the government to send Grant ‘Two Planes’ Shapps/Stockheath/Fox/Green out on a charm offensive declaring it a roaring success. Unfortunately even the spivvy little snake oil salesman couldn’t polish this particular turd.

The nurses’ plight is appalling and it must feel like having salt rubbed into wounds created by ill-fitting PPE sourced from Tory donors, allowing Nadine Dorries, who was forced to register £82,000 profit made by her company after a ruling by the parliamentary standards committee and pay back £3,000 in claimed expenses, to deliver the ‘good news’. That we know you don’t do it for the money, even though you can’t afford to eat.

However many times the ordure hits the agitator, Boris seems to come up smelling of Rose’s (nice girl), but there are those that believe that NHS pay may prove his undoing; however, based on past experience it is either something that he can package up for Rishi to own, or be seen to crash in and overturn. Whatever the outcome it does rather make Boris’s fulsome praise of the NHS after his brush with the Reaper feel rather less than sincere’

The theme of inequality is loud and clear, and becoming louder and more clear, but much to Philip’s understandable chagrin, Boris’ star is burning bright, with Keir Who forced to applaud the roll out of the vaccine as the EU picks fluff from its collective belly button.

Time to level up then Boris? Not a chance, it’s time to shovel as much of the Regional Deprivation Fund to as many of your chums as possible; trebles all round.

A couple of corking tracks – for fun only; The Killers and ‘Smile Like You Mean it’ and Patti Smith with ‘People Have the Power’. Hmmm, enjoy!
 

 

Philip Gilbert is a city-based corporate financier, and former investment banker.

Philip is a great believer in meritocracy, and in the belief that if you want something enough you can make it happen. These beliefs were formed in his formative years, of the late 1970s and 80s

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