This is from an email thread with my aunt from Jan 2021 (about 18 months ago), I was lamenting the corruption in the current government:
...this government is suffering from too many nasty scandals: the FT had good coverage Robert Jenrick / Richard Desmond scandal, which is a real stinker. However the Track and Trace scandal is even bigger and more serious, there were headlines of "consultants" charging up to 700 GBP/day for a system running off an Excel spreadsheet!? This came to light because they lost data for a huge number of registered covid cases from their spreadsheet-based application, the media focused on that they were running on a serious out-of-date version of Excel.
I don't follow UK politics that closely now: I'm an ex-pat of 12+ years (and about to move from The Netherlands to Spain).
Plus, the UK news is also so depressing; I still fail to see any upside of Brexit; after 6 years, it seems to be a lose-lose-lose situation?
I was visiting my parents in Oct 2021 and caught this shocking story on the BBC1 panorama program
Pandora Papers: Questions over Tory donations by ex-Russian minister's wife
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-58711151
Major Tory donor advised on Uzbekistan deal later found to be $220m bribe
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/04/major-tory-donor-advised-on-uzbekistan-deal-later-found-to-be-bribe-mohamed-amersi
Apparently, senior Tories (including one ex-Prime Minister) have been knowingly courting money from highly dubious sources, something the opposition has been trying to highlight for some time
The public has a right to know which government ministers are meeting with donors who have access to the corridors of power, including what appears to be exclusive access to the prime minister and the chancellor. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/01/labour-calls-on-tories-to-reveal-which-ministers-met-elite-donors-club
Even the more traditional right FT has headlines like "Kremlin ties to 'Londongrad' need to be cut":
Even US officials are reportedly dismayed about the potential of “Londongrad” to derail western efforts. The current Conservative government has come under scrutiny for ties to donors such as the wife of Putin’s former deputy finance minister…
https://www.ft.com/content/33b71405-4885-4bce-8215-9b6e05543919
In the end, it was a sex-pest scandal which brought down BJ, who allegedly has his own problematic history? However, what did for BJ, was that:
(a) he knowingly appointed Mr Pincher (aka "Pincher by name, Pincher by nature" - BJ's sick humour and an epically bad joke with hindsight?)
(b) the BJ told another bare-faced lie about not knowing of Mr Pincher's historical behavioural problems after he was caught red-handed again! The BJ lies backfired again: the cabinet initially rallied around their leader and went out to defend BJ, only to find they had been badly misled by BJ.
This was the final straw and then over about 48 hours, there was an extreme number of cabinet resignations i.e. as predicted last month, the Tory backbenchers had sent a clear signal they wanted BJ out, and it was up to the cabinet now…
However, a Dutch friend asked me
I suppose you are celebrating now Johnson is out. I hope England has learnt its lesson regarding populist politicians, at least for a few generations. I hope England and UK will get some sense back in power.
and my less than 100% optimistic response
I hope so too. But honestly I suspect the next PM will be another crazy Brexiteer. Could hardly be more odious than BJ but might be more effective and harder right wing politics, think Thatcher. But hopefully the Conservative party will see some sense?
I don't really believe in great men theories and the great men of history; apparently, Boris Johnson is a fan of this worldview (apparently his fascination with the "great men of history theory" was formed by his classics studies at Oxford?). As I can tell, it takes powerful teams of people working very well together to build something great, but unfortunately, only a handful of fools to tear all this good work down?
Honestly, I suspect that BJ will be mostly remembered for a mixture of toxic masculinity and corruption...
toxic masculinity
The concept of toxic masculinity is used in academic and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and men themselves. Traditional stereotypes of men as socially dominant, along with related traits such as misogyny and homophobia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_masculinity
the action or effect of making someone or something morally depraved: the corruption of youth was a powerful motif | the word 'addict' conjures up evil and corruption.
No comments:
Post a Comment