education fiasco‘That the people have the power
To redeem the work of fools
Upon the meek the graces shower
It’ s decreed the people rule…’

 

The blame game continues as the Johnsons’ mob lurches from one disaster to another with their government by trial and error approach the the bodies of his civil servants pile up around them.

On Tuesday it was Sally Collier, chief executive of the exam regulator, Ofqual, who quit amid continuing recriminations over this summer’s A-level and GCSE grading fiasco.

On Wednesday, his department’s most senior civil servant, Jonathan Slater, was forced out on the day news emerged of yet another last-minute handbrake turn: after days of insisting that children didn’t need to wear masks in schools, they will now be compulsory in some circumstances after all.
 

yet another last-minute handbrake turn

 

Slater is the fifth senior mandarin ousted in under a year, following the permanent secretaries of the Foreign Office, Home Office, and Ministry of Justice, plus the cabinet secretary, Mark Sedwill.

This is no reflection on the civil service, it is as Tory grandee Nicholas Soames said, the ‘worst cabinet in my 36-years [in parliament]’ finding a way of covering up its own inadequacies.

This is crafty and underhand behaviour, creating scapegoats and heading-off calls for any public inquiry into what went wrong in the early stages of the pandemic; the message is yes, mistakes may have been made, but the guilty party has been safely taken out and shot.

Remember, populists love a scapegoat, it sates the appetites of those foolish enough to vote for them and covers up their own failings.

Underlying this callousness is the true issue; the government is incompetent, the only requirement to serve is total commitment to Brexit.

This, rather bizarrely makes Michael Gove more odd than usual as, in a recent gave a speech, he sought to explain why so many voters have ‘a deep sense of disenchantment’ with the way they have been governed:

‘Faith in conventional political parties… has been broken’ by incompetent leaders who lost the trust of the public with ‘failures of policy and judgment’, generating a ‘crisis of authority’ that was ‘compounded by cultural condescension and insulation from accountability’.

The public was entitled to expect better from the government of which Mr Gove is a senior member. ‘Politicians like me must take responsibility for the effect of their actions and the consequences of their announcements.’

Presumably, he was speaking personally, and not in his capacity as a member of the mob, who seem to base their behaviour on  from Dominic Cummings, i.e. be hyper-aggressive, never appologise or concede, and we are never wrong.
 

hyper-aggressive, never appologise or concede, and we are never wrong

 

This was wonderfully displayed when Cummings was neither sacked or made to apologise for his lockdown-busting excursions, he and Johnson have torn up the conventional rules about accountability.

Despite this, the polls are beginning to show what the brighter people on the Conservative benches now acknowledge; power without responsibility is a poisoned method of governing that will rebound on their party.

Mistakes are one thing but refusing to take any responsibility for them will eventually fall foul of the electorate. The latest opinion poll by Opinium, shows that in the five months since the full lockdown was imposed by the prime minister Labour has drawn level with the Tories for the first time since last summer, before Johnson was leader.

At the time Johnson’s personal ratings were also very positive, now he is consistently behind those of the Labour leader, Keir Starmer.

Adam Drummond of Opinium said: ‘Since Boris Johnson became prime minister the Tories typically had a double digit lead, peaking in March/April this year when they were seen to be handling the pandemic and lockdown fairly well while Labour changed leader. In the five months since that peak, the lead has gradually declined from 26% to 0% now.’

Charles Walker, the vice-chair of the 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers, told the Observer that a recent string of U-turns had left many colleagues in despair, with some struggling to support and defend their government to constituents. Governing by U-turn in this way, he said, was unsustainable.

Walker, a firm Johnson loyalist, said: ‘Too often it looks like this government licks its finger and sticks it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. This is not a sustainable way to approach the business of governing and government. ‘It is becoming increasingly difficult for backbenchers now to promote and defend government policy as so often that policy is changed or abandoned without notice. Whether this approach is by design or by accident, the climate of uncertainty it creates is unsustainable and erodes morale.’
 

‘Tell you straight, no intervention.
To your face, no deception.
You’re the biggest fake…’

 

Whilst the government clearly isn’t fit for purpose, it harbours ambition to govern totally. For this accumulation of power to happen, they must first destroy its rivals centre of power, e.g. the judiciary, the civil service, academia, broadcasters, local government, civil society. Once these bodies fall, they become an extension of the governments’ own authority, controlled from the centre, and deprived of independent action. This accumulation of power is, of course, all undertaken in the name of the people.

They are supported in this process by a sympathetic press that filters the governments arguments and creates outrage against its rivals.

Whilst this is the role of Dominic Cummings, the infrastructure required to replace the civil service with the power of money is not new to the UK, it has been slowly growing since the 1950s.

The model was developed by two disciples of Friedrich Hayek (3), the father of neoliberalism: Antony Fisher and Oliver Smedley.

They knew it was essential to disguise their intentions, when they founded the Institute of Economic Affairs, the first of the thinktanks created to spread Hayek’s gospel.
 

strip down the state, curtail public welfare and public protection, and restrict and undermine other forms of social cohesion

 

This and other lobby groups Fisher founded honed the arguments that would be used to strip down the state, curtail public welfare and public protection, and restrict and undermine other forms of social cohesion, releasing the ultra-rich from the constraints of democracy. Unsurprisingly, some of the richest people on Earth poured cash into his project.

It is this work which formed the basis for the revolutions of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

Another disciple of Hayek, Madsen Pirie, founded the Adam Smith Institute, and describes in his autobiography how, using funds from 20 of the UK’s biggest companies, he helped to chart the course that Thatcher took.

Every Saturday, while she was in opposition, staff from the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs sat down for lunch with Conservative party researchers, and leader writers and columnists from the Times and Telegraph, to plot out her rise to power.

They ‘planned strategy for the week ahead’ and would ‘co-ordinate our activities to make us more effective collectively’. Pirie describes how he devised many of the policies that defined Thatcherism.

The lobby group that Boris Johnson’s government uses most is Policy Exchange (‘PE’). While PE claims to be a neutral educational charity, it was founded in 2002 by the Conservative MPs Francis Maude and Archie Norman, and Nick Boles, who later also became a Tory MP.

Its first chairman was Michael Gove. Its proposals and personnel have been adopted by the Conservative party ever since.

The PE has played an important role in shifting power away from rival institutions and into the prime minister’s office, e.g. they are building a case for curtailing the judiciary, and from preventing citizens suing the government to uphold the law.

This right allowed campaigner Gina Miller to oblige Theresa May to seek parliamentary approval for triggering the Brexit process and, last year’s reversal of Johnson’s suspension of parliament.
 

they place power into the hands of government whilst taking away the checks and balances required for democracy to function

 

This shows how dangerous these bodies are, they place power into the hands of government whilst taking away the checks and balances required for democracy to function.

Without this the law will be whatever Boris Johnson says it is. What it should be is legislation passed by parliament and interpreted by the courts. Both the Miller cases restored powers to parliament that PM’s had seized.

The PE’s aim is for the PM’s office to have greater powers ‘to develop and direct policy change’ through the civil service, and to appoint leaders of public bodies whose ‘culture and values’ align with government’s aims.

The only difference between this and Hitlers Enabling Act is that it is being contrived with more subtlety.

Another consequence of this is free speech, there have been numerous attacks on left-wing views in academia. Its recent report on academic freedom rather more resembles a ‘McCarthyite attempt to suppress left-leaning ideas.’
 

he is either mentally unstable or thinks that voters are

 

Within this cronyism is rife, e.g. last year the PE published a polemic that claimed the Extinction Rebellion is led by dangerous extremists. What they omitted to say was that the report and the PE had received funding from the power company Drax, the trade association Energy UK, and the gas companies E.ON and Cadent, whose fossil-fuel investments are threatened by environmental activism.

And from the stealthy accumulation of power by Johnson and his cronies we turn to the US where the end game is the same but the process somewhat more confrontational.

Comments from Trump this week highlight that he is either mentally unstable or thinks that voters are. On Monday he alleged that people in ‘dark shadows’ are controlling Democratic rival Joe Biden.

He continued making a mysterious claim about ‘thugs’ in ‘dark uniforms’ flying into Washington and compared police brutality against African Americans to golfers cracking under pressure.
 

‘A flask I drink of sober tea
While relay cameras monitor me..’

 

Before this, his speech at last weeks’ Republican Party Convention was a tissue of lies lapped up by his adoring public. Despite this ‘liar of the week’ goes to Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who, in one chilling sentence summarised right-wing politics today.

Joe Biden, Gaetz explained, ‘would empty the prisons, lock you in your homes, and invite MS-13 to live next door. And the defunded police aren’t on their way.’

The US election is about order, threats to public order are being fought by conservative leaders are an authoritarian populist strategy founded on fiction.

The sole purpose is to marginalise movements for racial and economic equality, portraying them as a terrifying force, a shadow regime that will spring forth and dominate the instant the Democrats are elected.

As this rubbish proves Trump will say whatever it takes be re-elected.
 

Trump will say whatever it takes be re-elected

 

For every voter that is appalled by Trumps behaviour when Portland’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, accused him of encouraging the kind of violence that erupted in the city overnight when a reported member of a right-wing group was shot dead, there are many that applaud him.

Wheelers’ sentiments were echoed in a statement by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in which he unequivocally condemned violence on all sides, while accusing Trump of ‘recklessly encouraging’ it.

‘He may believe tweeting about law and order makes him strong – but his failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict shows just how weak he is,’ Biden’s statement on Sunday said.

The shooting seems to be linked to the that broke out as some from the procession of about 600 vehicles, many flying large ‘Trump 2020’ flags, revved and honked their way through narrow downtown streets on Saturday night.

Trump further exacerbated the situation with Tweets, such as; ‘The big backlash going on in Portland cannot be unexpected after 95 days of watching and incompetent Mayor admit that he has no idea what he is doing. The people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer. The Mayor is a FOOL. Bring in the National Guard!’

The chaotic scene came two days after Trump invoked Portland as a liberal city overrun with violence in a speech at the Republican national convention as part of his ‘law and order’ re-election campaign theme. The caravan marked the third Saturday in a row that Trump supporters have rallied in the city.

And from Portland to Wisconsin, where Kyle Rittenhouse, a ‘Blue Lives Matter’ fanatic, Donald Trump supporter and militia member, has been charged with murder.

It is alleged that having travelled from Illinois to Wisconsin to point his assault rifle at unarmed protesters, he shot two people dead. He was later heard claiming: ‘I just killed somebody.’
 

‘Ten guys jump one, what a man
You fight each other, the police state wins..’

 

While the Trump campaign quietly disowned this enthusiastic supporter, the president himself defended Rittenhouse, saying he appeared to have been acting in self-defence.

Message boards such as Reddit and 4chan are humming with commentary supporting Rittenhouse, and the Christian right has already raised $250,000 for his defence.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the comments of right-wing celebrity journalists took proceedings to a new low. Ann Coulter, the infantile shock-jock of American reaction, said of Rittenhouse: ‘I want him as my president.’ Tucker Carlson of Fox News, a more doctrinaire far-rightist, offered an emotional defence. ‘How shocked are we,’ Carlson said, ‘that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?’

For these ideologues, law and order in Kenosha would be legitimately upheld by a white paramilitary who guns people down in cold blood for opposing the racist murder of black people.
 

These paramilitaries, are condoned and indulged by the police allowing them to roam around with guns out

 

These paramilitaries, are condoned and indulged by the police allowing them to roam around with guns out, attacking Black Lives Matter crowds.

In Kenosha, police were recorded handing out water to a crowd of white militiamen, telling them: ‘We appreciate you being here.’ The chief of Kenosha police has defended the role of white vigilantes in the protests. Police allegedly declined to arrest Rittenhouse after he’d just shot two people, was pointed out as the shooter by several witnesses, and was walking towards a police vehicle with his hands up.

Trump has done as much as he can to mainstream the violent far right, from his declaration that armed Charlottesville protesters were ‘very fine people’ to his defence of armed protesters in Michigan, and his exhortations to right-wing paramilitaries to ‘LIBERATE MINNESOTA’, ‘LIBERATE MICHIGAN’ and then ‘LIBERATE VIRGINIA’ from Covid-19 lockdown.

Something that was new to me is the QAnon conspiracy theory (2) that Trump is yet to reject. According to this ‘theory’, he is saving the world from a ‘deep state’ conspiracy of liberal, Satan-worshipping paedophiles, and hastening the ‘storm’ (a day of violent reckoning). Whist its supporters are deemed a domestic terror threat, the American far right thrives on the prospect of annihilation, and the ‘end of.

Movements such as this work on the margins of a culturally mainstream phenomenon. Whist this fantasy of ‘regeneration through violence’ isn’t new, it is the first-time so much of the country has been caught-up in it.

They believe they are choosing between good and evil, with the traumas and disappointments of their lives are part of revenge fantasy-cum-death wish, as depicted in the series ‘Left Behind’. This thinking reverberates through a network of institutions, including white evangelical churches, Fox News and the Republican party itself.
 

Trump has always tried to depict victory for his rivals as a gruesome apocalyptic scenario

 

Trump has always tried to depict victory for his rivals as a gruesome apocalyptic scenario, which is now expressed as liberals wanting to ‘enslave’ Americans, steal their freedom and turn the US ‘into a socialist utopia’, or comparing the Democrats to ‘communist China’.

Notably, the convention paraded a white couple arrested and charged for waving guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, who claimed that the Democrats would abolish the suburbs and let the criminals move in next door.

It should be noted that as with previous right-wing leaders he is anti-communist, saying that Black Lives Matter protests are led by Marxists, ‘left-wing extremists’ and others out to destroy ‘the United States system of government’.

I have always harboured a deep dislike and distrust of the US, due mainly to the self-righteousness and ‘god bless America’ shit.
 

in both countries hard-right governments are trying to undermine democracy and the freedoms we have come to regard as the norm

 

They roam around the globe removing, or, as in Vietnam, trying to remove, governments that meet their displeasure. In Vietnam the people supported the VC (communists) this didn’t suit the US so they invaded, just as the Russians did in Czechoslovakia. The only difference was we were told the US were the good guys.

Whilst this may appear rambling the point is simple; in both countries hard-right governments are trying to undermine democracy and the freedoms we have come to regard as the norm.

I readily accept that Johnsons’ mob pales into insignificance when compared to Trump, but therein lies the true danger. Trump tramples all over freedom whereas Johnson sneaks quietly round the back, ultimately the result is the same. Total control.
 

‘This is Joe Public speaking
I’m controlled in the body, controlled in the mind..’

 

Notes:
 

  1. Adolf Hitler, 1925, Mein Kampf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie#:~:text=If%20you%20tell%20a%20lie,military%20consequences%20of%20the%20lie.
  2. ‘QAnon’ is a baseless internet conspiracy theory whose followers believe that a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and billionaires runs the world while engaging in pedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children. QAnon followers believe that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against this cabal and its ‘deep state’ collaborators to expose the malefactors and send them all to Guantánamo Bay.
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

 

A really powerful piece from Philip – it starts with a quote from Mein Kamph, and then gets serious; the callous way in which Johnson’s administration is taking complete control is a complete affront to democracy, but it’s happening across the board.

However, ‘governing by U-turn’ and the antics of Cummings et al appears to be coming home to roost as Labour pulls level in the polls and Starmer is consistently ahead of Johnson in terms of personal approval.

But if you think we’ve got it bad, boy, look across the Pond; some of Trump’s antics beggar belief and scenes of gun-toting teens in vigilante groups is truly terrifying.

Lyrically we have some tracks that mirror the anger of the prose; some may be offended, but we are living in turbulent and aggressive times. Electronic submissions only please upon fears of a second spike.

First ‘in the 70s this was as close as it got to poetry’ – three points for the artiste, and bragging rights for Patti Smith and ‘People Have the Power’; next ’80s synth pop at its best and one of their biggest hits’ three for Eurythmics, three for the very apt ‘Would I lie to You?’. There’ a bonus three for the name of the band the singer was with previously.

Thirdly, ‘Bristol ‘trip-hop’ at its best three points for identifying the excellent Massive Attack; next, and only the description has been censored, ‘LA punk at its best’ three for the very angry Dead Kennedys and three for ‘Nazi Punks F*ck Off.

Last but not least ‘from the west coast to the west way, this weeks gimme, it had to be this song’ could there be a more appropriate track – one for The Clash and one for ‘Complete Control’. Enjoy, just don’t listen to these tracks just before bed!
 
The Tourists


 
 

Philip Gilbert 2Philip 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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