Shambolic

There was a moment, yesterday, watching the television news, where a journalist was in the west Midlands - Wolverhampton to be precise - asking Tory voters about this latest scandal to embroil the government. The moment was when all three interviewed started their replies to the obvious question with, 'I don't think Boris has done a bad job' or 'I'm not really that bothered about the parties...' and 'It's a shame...'

No. It's shameful. You have to be some cold, uncaring individual to think that it wasn't.

The problem with trying to have an argument with someone over COVID isn't too dissimilar to one on Brexit, people, as I often repeat myself, have their beliefs and few change them. We've had 150,000 deaths from the virus, except we haven't, because a lot of people think this is an inflated figure, possibly to suppress us with fear or to control us. Apart from the fact that we're pretty much controlled anyhow and it was a lot cheaper to do without a global pandemic, just makes ideas like this sound silly. Why lie? No... that's the problem isn't it? We all know that Boris lies now. Even his supporters. So why believe it's 150,000? Why not believe then that every other country in the world is also prefabricating its death tolls, therefore suggesting that our own 3rd largest per capita on the planet might only be 8th or 9th or 90th?

You see, this is the problem. People have so many divided and diverse beliefs about COVID that a race began before it peaked to try and return to normal and accept that a lot of people will die before it becomes a flu-threat level problem - endemic. Most capitalists don't care about human life if it gets in the way of profit and their shills follow suit, many of who are politicians able to enable. So, when you have people who view the virus as, say, an opportunity or a means to an end, you're always going to put people at risk.

But let's imagine some of the doubters are correct and we haven't really had 150,000 COVID deaths, it's probably closer to 20,000, not much worse than the flu [it is] and this has all been a waste of time. Does that make 20,000 deaths okay then? And if it does, how can you possibly justify that and think of yourself as a human being?

Few people with enough brain cells are now denying the existence of the virus, so by accepting it exists I presume they accept that it can kill people - any people and not in a selective way? Even if the risk to individuals is small, is it worth taking that risk, for the sake of other people's lives? You know, the risk of mixing with people who might be asymptomatic.

The problem is, when you have to impose rules on the people for their own protection and to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed, because you've underfunded it for a decade, you don't take that decision lightly, nor do you do it without the knowledge that it will have some effect on the population, one that is especially used to its freedoms. 

You know outlandish conspiracy theories? Like the moon landings or the flat earth? You know how in over 50 years not one single person who worked on the Apollo missions, at NASA, at all the other companies connected, not one of them has come forward and said, 'The moon landings were fake, they were filmed by Stanley Kubrick at Shepperton Studios.' It doesn't matter how much 'proof' you want to believe, the fact no one connected to the project, not even someone on their death bed has even hinted at it, should make you realise that it's stupid not to believe it.

I use this as an example because unless Dominic Cummings' team - as clever as they allegedly were - and Boris's lackeys - as stupid as we've witnessed - knew that all of these parties would eventually become public knowledge and didn't give a shit about it, or they believed that every single person who attended every single party; every single police officer working at Downing Street and every single civil servant there would have kept their mouth shut for fear of losing their job and I can't believe anyone would be that conceited (and yes, I know, but conceitedness doesn't equate to stupidity) to believe they thought they could get away with it (unless they didn't care)... 

Yes, maybe this was just one of the many bits of info Cummings took with him to fuck Boris up in the future, in a true Machiavellian way, but it doesn't excuse the fact that after all that money was frittered away on mates' dodgy PPE or spreadsheet track and trace systems, or that some of the government's ideas of kickstarting the economy also kickstarted the second wave of COVID, or those deaths, whether it's a fraction of 150,000 or maybe more; after all those people who lost so much, loved ones, parents, siblings, children, friends, who died alone with just the comfort of strangers - all these things happened and your government was quaffing wine and cheese and probably knocking someone up in a cupboard. The people who lost businesses, jobs, money and their minds and just about every single community in the entire UK has been affected by the last two years and the Conservatives thought they could regularly party and no one would know, or care, because, you know, these political people work really hard (obviously much harder than doctors, nurses, health care professionals, shop workers, etc).

So when people say they feel sorry for Boris, have they considered that he really doesn't deserve any sympathy. He loves that you love him, that's what narcissists are like, but he can't really see that he's done anything wrong and that's what sociopaths are like. Yet people seem to think he's a decent chap, like they thought Farage was (and still is) a decent chap. The fault, I'm afraid lies with us. Maybe not the people who didn't vote for him, but those that did. For the second time in five years the British public cast a vote that would have dire consequences on their future. We only have ourselves to blame and if I've learned one thing in the last ten years, the British [English] haven't finished with the self-flagellation route, just yet.

This isn't really about Boris, because he's just the totem that the rest of the Tories follow. This has to be about all Tories, whether they're politicians, councillors, activists or just voters. It's time to stop pointing fingers, using whataboutery (like the Daily Mail has this morning trying to justify all of No10's parties because they have a photo of Obi Wan Keir drinking a glass of wine at a social event in April 2021) and trying to prove to people that they care about anyone other than themselves. The Tories have proved year on year that they look after the rich and the privileged and they gaslight you into thinking all the problems in the country are caused by those with the least amount of influence, and you buy it, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. 

How to Save the World

Switch the internet off?

I Believe

A Random Example:

The subject: Scottish Independence.
The statement: "If Sturgeon gets her way there will be double yellow lines on every road in Scotland, you'll be charged for breathing just to pay for it."
The response: "You don't know that; no one has said that will happen."
The reply: "You can't prove it won't happen and I believe it will..."

And there in lies the rub. Anyone who stuck with these blogs during their most prolific period will know and vouch for the fact I've been calling Belief Politics out for about five years now. The people who won't let a good fact get in the way of what they believe. It's how we ended up with Brexit and a nation almost split down the middle, because just about half the country trusted the data and just over half BELIEVED in fairy tales and lies and many of them still do. COVID19 has been a godsend for many of the devout anti-European politicians, because you can't nail all the problems onto Brexit, even if the overall data suggests leaving the EU is much worse than it might have been.

The British way to deal with politics now is to ignore the problems created by it by comparing it to something someone else has done rather than deal with it. Politicians are trained in the art of deflection; steering you away from one subject by having histrionics about a lesser, trivial problem and the press play along. Need a scandal covering up? Let's tell everyone they're not playing Land of Hope & Glory at the Proms and get every hot blooded British (gammon) person shouting at the political correctness of it all. Get the newly appointed Tory Director General of the BBC to play along with it by saying 'Land of Hope & Glory will remain at the Proms or he'll chain myself to the railings at Epsom and die for the cause...' When of course the song was never dropped from the Proms but it gave the Gammons something to strain their necks about and spit raged soaked saliva over their children while something else happened that the press conveniently ignored. A bit like some of the injustices taking place in the country at the moment that you'd be hard pressed to find even a mention in any of the newspapers or television news programs.

People believe that there are thousands of illegal immigrants queuing up at Calais ready to jump into dinghies to break into Closed Britain™ and steal jobs, take benefits they're not entitled to and generally put excess stress and strain on what's left of our public services. People believe this despite having voted for the most racist, xenophobic and antisocial bunch of politicians since the North Koreans went it alone. People want to believe they voted for the party who got Brexit done and have their own interests at heart while simultaneously accusing the same government of giving illegal immigrants the benefits they fight tooth and nail not to give ANYBODY! People believe these dinghy people are being housed while there are 40 million homeless British war veterans who have to sleep in piss-soaked sleeping bags under bins in the street. They must believe it because they post enough memes about it on social media and then get angry with people when they're told it's not true. I was told to get off an ex friend's Facebook page because I proved his racist meme was just that - a racist meme perpetrating a lie. He didn't want truth, he wanted justification of his racist beliefs.

Tonight, the BBC News interviewed a butcher in Lincolnshire who said, 'People are fed up with wearing masks, it's going to cause confrontation and anger in the streets.' Personally, I think that's a tad irresponsible for the Beeb; it's like giving idiots ideas. I'm sitting in my lounge utterly bemused that people can risk their health and the health of others because 'they are fed up' with something. Can you imagine London in 1941 with people confronting air raid wardens and telling them they're fed up with blackouts? Better still, can you imagine a zombie apocalypse? I once heard someone suggest events in The Walking Dead couldn't possibly happen because people wouldn't be that stupid... Really? We still have nurses and health and social care workers refusing to have a vaccination (AND I STILL DON'T REALLY KNOW WHY)! Health reasons, I get that. Religious ground, I sort of get it. Thinking it's some kind of governmental control, 5G conspiracy or an infringement on your rights - sort yourself out, you selfish pricks.  I don't wear a mask, I have a lanyard that says so, but I also keep a visor handy, because, you know ... twats. 

Let's not forget the conspiracy theorists; the barking-at-the-moon loonies and the people who will put any kind of illegal drug or MacDonald's processed shite in their bodies but not something that can protect them and other people. If I'm transmitting personal data or helping to power 5G because of my vaccinations, I'm completely unaware of it. I mean, I have been receiving more spam than usual, but I blame that on the Labour Party for having their list of past and present members hacked. Conspiracy theorists were very much the looney minority before the internet, mainly because their platform for promoting the bonkers ideas they believe to be true was so limited, but now with the internet any cockwomble with a half baked idea can gain traction and get half a country believing them, because, you know, it fits in with how they want to believe the world works. 

One of the biproducts of belief is where it was once the domain of the ultra religious zealots it's now a political tool. Donald Trump, for all of his unbelievably idiotic musings, used belief to win a Presidential election and then lose one with almost more votes than won him it. People are believing anything now, especially if it panders to their own disillusionment. Politicians have made people think that their problems are caused by anything but politicians. The NHS and social care isn't in a mess because of underfunding, it's a mess because of doctors, nurses, porters, illegal immigrants, the EU and uncle Tom Cobley - if people will believe that the reason they can't see a surgeon is because of Ahmed in a immigration holding cell in Dover rather than the health minister stealth privatising the NHS or because of Brexit and our willingness to kick out of the country all the people who did the shitty jobs, then you deserve what you're getting. It was always going to be Ahmed's fault because he's brown, owns an iPhone and might be Muslim. I mean, it's obvious it's his fault...

Or how about 'concerned British citizens' preventing the RNLI lifeboats from rescuing immigrants in the channel? Actually physically stopping them from doing their jobs to prevent people from gaining asylum. Surely this is attempted murder at the worst, but not in these peoples' eyes. They're doing the country a service, albeit in a slightly psychopathic way. The fact we're not sending the police down there to deal with these wankers says more about our country now than most other horrid things. Most of this has been created by a succession of home secretaries, two of which have been women and one is the offspring of asylum seekers. You really couldn't make this shit up and it be believable...

The frustrations begin when, as I said at the top of the blog, people refuse to believe facts over what they believe. Cognitive dissonance isn't a modern phenomena but it's definitely a growth industry and what is happening now is the argument of 'it's a matter of opinion', which is one of the most cowardly and lazy retorts you can imagine because if you have facts versus beliefs, opinion has fuck all to do with it. NOTHING. AT. ALL. If one person says the sky is blue and another that it's red, that isn't a topic of debate or a matter of opinion, it's an excuse to ridicule the idiot. So when people, for example, tell you that there are thousands of homeless veterans missing out to illegal immigrants, it's not opinion, it's bullshit and if any of these believers went to the proper places they'd discover that apart from the two things being as different as going to a pub or having a bath in phlegm and also not true, but they don't want to because 'being wrong' is now obviously a sign of weakness. Opinion is like offence, it's a personal thing, pertaining to the individual; an opinion is what someone thinks or believes not a written-in-stone fact that cannot be disproven. An offence is something that offends an individual not something that should be made a capital crime; both are personal BELIEFS and not a consensus, regardless of how many of your equally ignorant mates click 'like'. 

I had a discussion with someone I know recently about the COVID death toll and he believes 100% that the UK is the only country in the world that is being truthful about the number of people who have died of the virus (Yeah, I know...). He believes that EVERY other country has suppressed or lies about its death rate and that when this is all over the UK won't have the third highest death rate per capita. I mean, as conspiracy theories go it's at least on the possible but highly unlikely scale rather than the WTF scale, but how do you prove to someone they're talking bollocks when the basis of their argument is everyone is lying so no one knows the real truth? I mean, I know idiots who think the moon landings were faked and yet over 50 years since they happened there hasn't been ONE SINGLE PERSON who has stepped forward to say, 'they were faked; Stanley Kubrick filmed it all at Shepperton Studios, I was there, here's the contract I had to sign under the punishment of death to keep my mouth shut.' I mean, when over a quarter of million documented people worked on the Apollo missions and no one of them has even, for a joke, said, it was fake, what you need to consider is why hasn't someone come forward to expose this lie? Just one person, who isn't certifiably mad, coming out and saying it?

But then again, there is an army of wankers that think billionaire philanthropist George Soros is essentially bankrolling all the 'lies' out there to keep decent folk oppressed. I mean, that in itself is crazy, but no more so than idiots posting memes suggesting that if Jeff Bezos, who's personal wealth is something like $177billion, gave every human being on the planet $1billion he'd still have $170bn left. Seriously, how some people believe this bullshit even if they have no fundamental understanding of how maths works is staggering. He could give 7 billion people a dollar each and still have $170bn; that's how maths works and I appreciate the preciseness of it can be confusing, especially to people who so desperately want to believe everything they think is true.

The crazy thing about the world, especially over the last 10 years, is how it's started to look like a satirical disaster movie serialised across a number of seasons. Brexit was the first proper example of belief over common sense and this was followed by magnificent events such as Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, COVID19, billions squandered on crap PPE, politicians so woefully out of their depth that if this really was a TV show people would be switching off because it simply stopped being real. "Have you seen the latest season of Earth? It's getting a wee bit far fetched what with the wankers running the asylum and the apocalypse happening while people argue about face masks. I'm going back to Strictly..."

One has to wonder if the erosion of facts and the replacing of them with beliefs is some kind of long game plan to undermine peoples' trust in everything, making them easier to manipulate, easier to do the bidding of our dark overlords? Yes, I know that sounds a wee bit mad, but I'm being ironic, facetious, sarcastic. I can see the difference between barking mad swivel-eyed ridiculousness and the fact that many cars run on petrol and not the dreams of unicorn's poo... 

In conclusion, I don't think things are going to get better; not for a long time and many people will die. We're seeing it already with the UK allowing 100+ extra people dying PER DAY because of a virus we're all fed up with is now acceptable losses, despite evidence suggesting that economies always bounce back but dead people don't unless they're in an AMC TV series. At some point in the last six months, the impatient people decided they'd rather risk the lives of their vulnerable friends and family because they were missing going to a night club or the gym. I accept that lockdown wasn't good for many people, but part of me - the scared bit - thinks that death is far worse than not being able to see a gig.

Now we have the Omicron variant; what I expect is serious by the way the powers that be are frantically altering their narrative. This isn't the first variant and it almost certainly won't be the last or the worst. Part of me thinks COVID is actually an extinction event, it's happening slowly, but will gradually kill off 90% of the world's population by the time we get to the Zeta variant; this will obviously be down to a nasty virus but a lot of it will be down to nasty people fed up with being restricted or told what to do to save the lives of others. Who knew the 21st century would end up being the era of selfishness?

But hey, since when was common sense regarded as good advice? Why concern ourselves with blaming the people responsible when we can blame everyone else. Two years ago teachers, nurses and doctors were heroes; now they're enemies of the State because... well, because someone in some press department decided people needed to blame someone they could shout at and get away with it, but not the people responsible. The same press that struggles to hold the government to any semblance of blame. But, I've seen the Daily Mail run a letter in 2018 from a concerned reader complaining that the then opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn hasn't done enough to solve the Brexit crisis... Never mind the actual people 'negotiating' it, someone managed to blame someone with absolutely no involvement. A bit like people stopping the RNLI from doing their job because it's obviously their fault all these asylum seekers aren't allowed to drown in the channel.

That's what kind of people we've turned into. 

However, there could be people out there reading this who think I'm just a leftie twat talking out of my arse trying to hide the truth behind reasonable thinking. What a bastard I am? I should not be allowed to speak plain truths because it upsets all the lies people have invested in. In fact, I see more and more idiots shouting at and shutting down people telling the truth because if you suppress the truth the lies are much easier to believe. 

It isn't the End of the World, but it is Going to Change

This is just the start of it.

Already there's a sense of panic spreading through the streets of the UK. Things like this don't happen to us. This is something that happens somewhere else. But let's buy lots of toilet paper and penne just in case.

There are going to be shortages in all kinds of crazy things. I reckon by the end of April there will be a bog paper shortage; the shops will fail to keep up with demand. There will be loads of shortages; everyday things that are rationed to prevent bulk buying and this will be because, at some point, we're going to stop getting deliveries from abroad. There is already a partial world wide travel ban and you can bet that before this blog sees a week in the world that it will probably be globally enforced. Countries will isolate; businesses will be destroyed and lives will be ruined and all with a background of a deadly disease cutting a swathe through humanity like it isn't really there.

Brexit may well have been a utopia considering what we're facing over the next few months. At the moment we're seeing a limited number of deaths - not even 10,000 or so, but that is going to grow exponentially over the next month and then even faster during May. I am going to be lucky to see this year out, especially with my underlying health issues. If I do, I'm going to see a world turned back almost 500 years in some cases - yes, the technology will still be there and it will be used, but trade between any country will become difficult; borders will be heavily guarded; deadly force will be used. Everyone will become the enemy, even if they come bearing wanted gifts.

It seems unlikely now and that might seem a tad melodramatic, but get used to your world for as long as you can because it is going to change. Hell, it's even going to change for the people in charge. Until COVID-19 is done with - and there's no threat of a COVID-20 - the countries of the world will quickly isolate from each other. If people are involved in physical transactions, it will stop or slow down to a snail's pace, at best. People will starve; diets and nutrition will be obliterated - we will eat what is available and learn to accept this because people we know will have died and many of us will be scared, literally to death.

All the while, people who haven't caught it will be panicking they will. There will be a weird self-isolation that will involve people mingling with each other on streets and in shops without wanting to share the same planet. Running the gauntlet of others will become generational. The young will disobey directives and they will find whatever means they can to circulate with each other under the knowledge they probably won't die. But for older people, paranoia will become a deadly form of reason and we won't fail in touching each other, whether in love or anger - everybody will be viewed as someone who might have come into contact with a carrier.

The safety of people will be forgotten about when mob rule takes over in isolated communities. When you limit who is allowed in or whether you'll be allowed back. The future is fucking scary.

There will be no entertainment except repeats; the film industry will dry up; it will shut down until it's safe not to. TV will be affected, as will the radio. Entertainment will become automated and regurgitated. No sport; no music events or festivals, no sitting in the park, no meandering round town window shopping, no going to the pub and subsequently places like pubs, clubs, venues, etc will shut up shop; close down, lay people off, adding to the problems. More work will be done from home; less emergency plumbing, heating and lighting will be done and everything will become slow, painful and fearful. Something going wrong will go from a minor inconvenience to something potentially very bad. Will a plumber want to come into your 'space' to fix your problem when you might infect him and he might infect his children or his elderly mother? Paranoia will become an excuse for lethargy, self-absorption and fear of the unknown person being worse than the known one.

Then perhaps a siege mentality will set in and many isolated areas with no sign of the virus will shut themselves off; only allowing deliveries while drivers still work. Because what if it got so bad there wasn't enough people to work in public places? Supermarkets that manage to stock enough might find they have no staff or no willing staff to face potential carriers by the truckload. People will self-isolate even if they have a cold and could end up self isolating until they actually catch it. Nothing will get done very fast and everything will begin to crumble. Even if the government throws enough money at it, people are shit scared and you need people to be involved in the usage of that money.

If 1% of the country die from it that's 700,000 give or take. If that figure rises to 3% that's over 2million people. The government's own health experts believe 80% of us will eventually catch the virus between now and probably the spring of next year. There are a lot of people who fall into the risk, high risk and very high risk categories and at least half of those won't make it. I have a lung condition, I'm high risk. My brother has high blood pressure, a heart condition and is nearly ten years older than me, he's very high risk. My other brother is a cancer survivor, he has a compromised immune disease; he's in his early 60s, he's fit and he's likely to get it first; he's still high risk like me, but of the three of us, I fancy his chances the best. I know too many people who fall into all three risk categories and that scares the shit out of me.

The other thing is, if the country effectively shuts down, like Wuhan was, not only will we struggle for everyday items and potentially large swathes of staff and a massive number of businesses shutting down; there will also be the boredom for the population. There will be utter financial turmoil and stock markets will be wiped out and a global recession like no one ever imagined will begin, which will last the length of the virus and about a year after. The knock-on effect of the virus's ability to instal fear and panic will be the dismantling of the world's economic value and causing a lot more deaths through association. Our NHS is not equipped for a pandemic and even if it was, what about all the other patients who need treatment; the people in hospital to get better, recovering or the ones who will need hospitals in the future, when the virus is at its peak? What happens when nursing homes are affected even if they're not infected, or retirement villages or anywhere that requires people to be helping other people with anything from occupational to physical.

The country will begin to look like those grainy black and white pictures of the Soviet Union with people queuing for bread rations, but with added paranoia and at least six feet between each person. and that is because society, for all it is built on is just dominoes. That's what society is. It's a precarious and complicated set of dominoes with failsafes built in to ensure there isn't a catastrophic collapse. Something like this doesn't acknowledge the failsafes; they don't exist as far as the coronavirus is concerned. Politicians might survive; businessman might get through this; but for the very average life's about to get very fragile and very very unsafe...

My Latest Conspiracy Theory

Anyone who regularly reads this column will know that from time to time I've been forecasting a war. It seemed to be the logical outcome to all the madness and the rise of the Right, a group not renowned for being peaceful, caring types. However, over the last few months, the chances of war seem to have receded; not necessarily disappeared, just pushed back into the cold area of war rather than the blisteringly hot deadly version.

The thing is the world hasn't improved - regardless of what you might hear from the Union Jack flying geeza down the pub - it is still growing in divisions, inequality and is no longer a very safe place to be and that could be what a lot of the powerful world leaders want...

It's a long game. One that might benefit the children or grandchildren of your Johnsons and Rees-Moggs, but for the rest of us it will seem like the 2010s were the last good years any of us ever had. That long game, as I said, no longer involves war - it's just too complicated and there are far too many variables in wars; they're difficult to control and today's modern Right, like to control things.

What we do have is a growing worldwide population; a continuation of people living in specific places, increasing that problem exponentially. It has always been that the ultimate outcome of a war has been mass population decrease, but without wars how do you do that? How can you regulate society and its numbers?

How about spreading a virus - controlled - throughout the world, that will essentially kill off as many old, infirm and chronically ill people as possible with no one really taking the blame for it, even if we can blindly point the finger at the Chinese...

That appears to be what the Coronavirus or Covid-19 seems to be doing. From humble beginnings in Wuhan to full scale emergencies in Iran, Italy, cruise ships and isolated places that seemingly have had no contact with infected people or areas, this latest virus appears to spreading across the world like some apocalyptic novel by Stephen King...

Ask yourself a question: how many of you have seen a film or TV series or read a book about a plague? I should think there are a few of us. What is the underlying lesson that is steadfastly ignored? Make sure your quarantines are just that and make sure your plague stays in one place and not allowed to move all over the world. With Ebola, restrictions were so high that the few people allowed out of infected Africa were literally wrapped in plastic and kept in isolation wards, so isolated, that the experts treating the infected were literally boiled to ensure they were sterilized. The thing about Ebola is it doesn't discriminate - old, young, well or unwell, if you get Ebola then there's a pretty good chance you'll be dead or very ill for a long time with consequences to your long term health. With the coronavirus, it appears that the healthier you are the less chance you have of contracting it; so that makes me an obvious statistic if it continues to run rampant across the world killing more and more people.

Why then, for example, has the UK government been flying people out of China and stuffing them in a not-very isolated building on the Wirral (quite close to Liverpool, a constant thorn in the side of most Tory regimes)? I mean, if you had plague would you be housing the infected in a 'containment' unit as close to a large populated area or would you be saying to these people, the country it started is best placed to look after you, sorry, but the risk to everyone else is too great?

Yes, that sounds heartless, especially if you know someone who might be affected, but the UK government allowed Coventry to be obliterated during WW2 to ensure the Nazis didn't realise we'd broken their codes. The war might have gone a much different way had we defended Coventry and allowed the Germans to develop another code that we couldn't break...

The thing about disease is we know it mutates; it changes and develops in a way that confounds scientists and doctors; so the logical thing is NOT to pack loads of Brits on a plane, fly them home and then stick them on a coach and ship them to a place near a load of unaffected people. If that happened in a film, you'd be screaming at the screen saying 'don't be so fucking stupid!'

Now, I'm not suggesting this is a massive conspiracy perpetrated by the leaders of the world's biggest regimes, but we live in an age where a huge amount of us believe any old shit that's put in the papers or on TV. We live in an age where a failed supermodel can say her kid got autism from a vaccine so a huge amount of people would rather believe her than 99.99% of all health practitioners. We live in an age where people believe the moon landings were faked, despite all the thousands of people who worked on them never once letting slip they were paid or were threatened with their lives if they revealed the truth. The problem with any conspiracy theory is a) people want to believe them because they're either too stupid or lazy to research it themselves or b) once you start to question the logistics of one you realise that it's more about your personal belief than actual science fact.

Take flat earthers for starters. Personally, I think flat earthers are just people who want NASA to offer them a free trip into space. I know a flat earther and boy is she beyond barking mad...

But... spreading a virus around the world is actually less of a conspiracy theory and more of a 'look out of your window' kind of thing. It doesn't need hundreds and thousands of people to keep a secret; it involves one or two people working in a lab in a place like China or Kazakhstan, with access to all manner of nasty things. In a world where we have an awful lot of borderline psychopaths simply wandering the streets, what odds that one of these 'well, he seemed perfectly normal' people could actually just literally drop a bombshell in the form of bacteria?

Every day the coronavirus appears to be killing off more people, infecting new areas and, if the press is anything to go by - and they're usually not - it's now appearing in isolated places and could well be mutating, the way the flu has a habit of doing. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 killed between 20 and 50 million people worldwide... Just think about that: 20 to 50 million. The population of the UK is only 66 million and the Spanish flu hit the planet when the population of the entire world was less than 2 billion; we're close to 8 billion now...

Personally, if I had my way I'd shut all of our borders and stop people from coming in - not in a Brextremist kind of way, more in a let's protect our citizens until someone comes up with a vaccine way. Films might often be far-fetched nonsense, but in general they do moralise about the incompetence of mankind in situations such as this; it appears that we are indeed more stupid than we're portrayed in films.

The problem with Jeremy...

For someone who isn't going to vote for Jeremy Corbyn (or the Labour Party) at the general election, I seem to be banging on about him an awful lot.

Well, it's got a lot to do with the fact that despite my Scottish and Welsh roots, I was born in England and I do care about my friends (and some of my family) and what some of them might face with the prospect of an electorate being conned into voting for the same old shit.

The thing about Corbyn is now quite simple; he is the Marmite candidate. You either like him or dislike him. All kinds of reasons are given on both sides, but few people are ambivalent. As a vegetarian, Marmite is something I look at with fondness as a flavour enhancer; as a way of giving a soup or a stew an oomph; a depth that sometimes is lacking in certain veggie dishes. I could never have it on toast, or in a sandwich or however straight Marmite eaters have it. No way, Jose.

Corbyn barely registers on the same middle ground and over the last few years, where there has been those ambivalent about him, but cared about the Party or a fairer society, they have been gradually eroded, one way but most likely the other. This election for me, won't be remembered for the early running gaffs or blatant lies, smears and US Presidential-like insults; it will be remembered for this and various versions: Yes, but Corbyn.

Look, it doesn't matter what I or any other person says to people who use that phrase. It's simply a case of personal expression, belief and taste, three of the main things that make up opinion and the opinion of Jeremy Corbyn among some is that he's bad for the country, even if there isn't really any verifiable evidence to prove this. There are those who view him as the second coming; mainly down to the belief that a properly-run left wing government will not repeat the mistakes of their Third-World counterparts; a fairer society for all means a happier society - it aint rocket science.

Those who sit in the middle, the very small amount now, don't really give a fig about him, per se. He's just the bloke who, if elected, would instruct the rest of his team to get on with running the country. Regardless of what people think, while many things have to pass over the PM's desk for approval, a good PM delegates without impunity to the ministers he trusts - provided, of course, they don't make any universal blunders.

People sometimes want to know what a political party is going to do for the country as well as themselves, despite the fact we're learning very quickly how not to care. If Corbyn was PM, what part of him wanting a fairer society for the 99% doesn't include you? Personally, I think it's a terrible indictment of our society at the moment that the man who is offering HOPE is dangerous and the man who is literally offering us BLAH BLAH BLAH is a hero. History may well look back on this era and wonder what on Earth we were thinking or how it came to be like this.

But back to Corbyn, because I have a strategy that he wouldn't touch in a million years. A way of maybe winning some of the idiots onto his side. We know that banging on about policies works to a certain point, but there's a ceiling when you start meeting resistance from the 'Yeah, but...' loose-affiliation. They don't care if you were offering the country free sex, so trying to persuade people who ignored economics in the Leave the EU vote thing aren't going to be swayed by common sense and maths now. Are they?

Corbyn needs to ditch the nice guy act, mainly because his nice guy persona isn't believed by the cockwombles. They believe his refusal to entertain 'political pop culture' questions is a sign of his weaknesses. The logic behind he doesn't sink to his rivals' levels means he must have even more to hide simply wouldn't wash if people hadn't already been brainwashed about what a threat to society a 70-year old nice man with an allotment is. What he needs to do is start going on the offensive in a personal way (and we all know he won't and he'll lose). He needs to start saying stuff like, 'If I was a terrorist sympathiser would MI5 let me run a political party?' or 'Since when did a member of the Privy Council also have terrorist links?' or 'I was part of the team that helped forge the Good Friday Agreement; was I supposed to do that without meeting all sides?' ... But he probably won't.

He needs to start calling out the BBC for its apparent bias.
He needs to start asking questions instead of answering them; like why isn't the press talking about Tory Islamophobia? Why is there never any real evidence given of antisemitism - just the constant allegation without ever any substance or examples?
He needs to start pointing out some of Johnson's lesser credentials; mention his 'illegitimate' kids, his record in office, especially during the downfall of May, the money the man wasted as London mayor, his dodgy dealings in the FO, his racist-tinged journalism, his colourful metaphors to describe anyone who isn't a Tory voter.

The mud is being flung all from one direction, it's time to start throwing it back. The electorate probably could get behind a good fight; let's have Labour fighting back against bias and smears. Let's have them stop TV journalists from stopping them from ever finishing a point; shut. them. down! Point out that they do not interrupt the Conservatives, so pay them the respect they deserve. Don't stand there looking like you want to explode but sticking with the policy of defend and don't attack back. That doesn't work; idiots think you're hiding something!

He needs to start asking members of the public the questions they sometimes stupidly ask him. If some gammon in the Question Time audience wants to know if he'd push the nuclear button if everyone else is; he shouldn't try to reason with him, he should simply say, 'Yes, I'd make sure that you and all your friends and family would be wiped out just as quickly as everyone else as we destroy the planet. Is that what you'd like? Is that what you want from a PM? To destroy the planet so you can feel safe on it?'

It's time they said bollocks to playing fair and go for the goolies. This is probably going to be the end of democracy as we know it if the Tories get in again. Enjoy voting while you had the chance; there'll be no point crying about it when it's taken from you.

Anyone But Corbyn

I've made it clear since I moved to this part of Scotland that voting Labour is going to be a wasted vote. Dumfries and Galloway is firmly split between the sitting Tory MP and the SNP, whatever happened to Labour in Scotland after Gordon Brown and before Jeremy Corbyn has pretty much killed them in all but a handful of places.

But, at heart, I'm a socialist and even the SNP's brand of socialism is more palatable than voting for someone else, even if my heart isn't really in it.

In my social media bubble you'd think Labour will win a landslide election, but the reality is much different, because one thing stands in the way. The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a most divisive of character, but if you can actually get 'floating' voters to tell you why they will vote for anyone but Corbyn, usually the answer is quite unfathomable or based on the kind of Chinese whispers you expect the right wing media to be right behind. After all, the right wing media turned people against the EU without using a shred of actual evidence, but by pressing all the buttons a disgruntled, confused public will get behind. The Tories and their media have branded Corbyn many things. He's a racist. He's a communist. He's anti-semitic. He's incompetent. He's stupid. I mean, if people said, he's old, he's got a beard, he's a bit scruffy, he's got an allotment, it has as much meaning, except much of it is absolutely true; all of the shallow, callow accusations aimed at him are essentially bollocks. But it doesn't matter; the press has done its job and people simply don't like him. In a world where we no longer really like being told what to do, a lot of people have been told what to do and they're in danger of doing it. Free will? In your dreams.

I don't expect anyone who reads this and isn't voting Labour will be swayed by anything I say, after all, it's just my opinion and there are far more cleverer people out there, who know what they're talking about. Except, I haven't got a vested interest. Life will, one way or another, continue for me as it will for everyone else as it did before on December 13th. That's, in a way, quite depressing because those people who won't 'vote Labour because' are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Yeah, I know. You had to do it. 'Anyone but Corbyn' you'll cry without realising that you'll have been conned for a second time in 3 years, but that doesn't bother you because no one is going to tell you how you should vote; you're voting for what's best for Britain, while actually you're not... But it really doesn't matter what I say, you'll always come up with another reason. The sad thing is you might as well say, 'I don't want a bearded PM' because it's as logical as the reasons you give, but in many ways less more honest.

There's a few memes floating about, one preaching to the converted about only people over £82,000 a year will pay more in tax and that if an extra £20 is taken from these people, how will they survive? The other is how any working man can look at the promise of more services, a shorter working week and free wifi as somehow less important than ensuring the rich who don't pay any tax continue to pay no tax. Like it's a good thing that we have money hoarders and an even better thing is we have homeless children because, directly or indirectly, of these money hoarders. What kind of person will dismiss a manifesto geared at making as many ordinary people happy as possible as stupid, but think a PM who thinks maybe building actual bridges - like one from Northern Ireland to Scotland - might be better? Johnson calls Labour's plans 'crazy' and yet he wants to divorce us from our largest trading partners in the hope we'll get a better deal from Rwanda or Cambodia. We'll be all right for yams and noodles all year round!

I can't convince anyone that they're voting the wrong way, because it's your vote and you do it the way you see fit; but at least be honest with yourself. At least be comfortable with the fact you're okay and you don't really care about those who aren't.

What's that? Most people on benefits have only themselves to blame? They're all on the fiddle; they all play the system. Benefits fraud totalled £2.6billion in 2017 - that's a shit load of cash; you could save the NHS with that. It's an awful amount of money and one that needs to be addressed, in a fair way. However, and all these figures are available by searching the internet for reputable sources, were you aware that almost £60billion was not paid in taxes, the vast majority of which was by overseas companies, who treat their employees like Victorian slaves? Your Amazons, Facebooks and Microsoft pay less money in tax than someone on £150,000 a year.

Yes, but I could be poor and those dole scroungers are making it difficult if that happens.

Surely, you'd want it fixed so you can get what's entitled to you and people who fiddle don't? I would. I wouldn't punish everyone because some, probably a step or two ahead of the DSS Fraud squad, screw the system and I'm sure that most people would feel the same way; but maybe they wouldn't. You see the whole Leaving the EU thing has meant that hate is now out of the closet and is being allowed  to take centre stage. We have at least a third of the country despising politicians to the point where they will do all the hard work for them at the virtual hustings and then become the turkeys who voted for Christmas.

I know you won't, but ask yourself this: if you vote Conservative and help them win, will they really do what they can to help improve your life? Or will there be more cuts, more deaths as a result and less accountability? I know you don't care about that because the nasty things always happen to someone else or in those dirty stinky cities, with their metropolitan, pan-sexual weirdos and Somalians. But what if you're a working class person who votes Tory in the North East because you think they'll fix all the problems they started; do you really, honestly believe that? Will you be able to look at yourself in the mirror and feel clean. especially if someone you know or love suddenly becomes one of those 'statistics' you think is left wing bullshit?

You only have to look at places like the Financial Times - not a Labour paper by any stretch - and see the fiscal deficit now stands above a trillion pounds and is 86% of GDP and compare it to when Labour 'left us in a real mess' to see these Tories really can't be trusted with the economy. Look at it this way; if 1 million seconds equals 12 days and 1 billion seconds equals 31 years, what is a trillion seconds? Now apply that to money. A billion is a thousand million, a trillion is a thousand billion.

If you think Labour represents the unions and unions are bad things; remember that Thatcher removed the teeth of the unions and got it built into any EU (EEC) agreement that unions will not have the same power again. Also remember that without unions you wouldn't have 90% of the benefits you get working somewhere that has a union, or that life will be much different without those benefits. But most of all, remember that even if you despise unions with a passion and blame them for many things, you still get the same benefits if you weren't in a union, and without them? Good luck negotiating that 1% pay rise on your own.

If you think austerity was needed, but now complain that your bins aren't being emptied enough or the street lighting is poor, or the potholes on the roads are worse; that wasn't Corbyn's fault; just like it has never been Corbyn's fault that the Leaving the EU bill has never got through our viciously hung parliament; he's in opposition; it's his job to stop the party in power from damaging the country, even if a third of it thinks he's a traitor for doing so. If it was the other way around and Boris trying to do what he can to stop a bad Labour deal, how would you view it then? If Corbyn was trying to give you what you voted for but Boris, like he did with his own PM at the time, voted against it; how would that make you feel? Would Corbyn be so bad if he was doing all of this in power?

The problem with Corbyn is unless you're a tax dodger, or a Tory with vested interests in low taxes, no services and a lack of workers' rights, you're helping tar a human being with a brush loaded with lies. The other thing you're letting happen is turning a monumental decision into a popularity contest, or, as it seems, an unpopularity contest. The 'whataboutery' has been ramped up to 11. Boris won't tell people how many children he has, but what about Corbyn? He's been married three times and had an affair with a black woman. Boris lies and lies again; says whatever he thinks, even if it's rather distasteful and borderline racist/sexist, but Corbyn is promising the impossible. Or worse still, those people who now think that politicians are corrupt and that is now a good thing. In the 1980s, Cecil Parkinson lost his job on the Tory cabinet for having an affair that resulted in a child (one he was always going to look after if the need arose); 30 years later and we have an adulterous PM, with a questionable number of children and relationships; one who has the police called to his home because of fears of domestic violence and no one bats an eyelid.

Now, ask yourself this, if you dare; why is it safe to believe that attacks on Boris are left wing conspiracies that you believe almost without a doubt, but anything you hear about Corbyn must be true? Even if some of the stuff you hear about Corbyn was true, surely, by the law of averages, some of the accusations leveled at Johnson must also be true? Why do you have so much trouble believing a truth is a lie and a lie is a truth?

Why do you think this is some kind of Presidential race and that whoever wins will do all the work? I don't get this, anti-Corbyn people think that if JC was PM he would make all the decisions; he would be in sole charge and his cabinet would just be turning up for coffee and their wage cheque. That would be impossible to do, especially for a man of his age, and it's why we have a chancellor, a defence secretary, a housing minister, a leader of the House - they all have their jobs; they all have a certain amount of autonomy.

Ask yourself why Sajid Javid says he wants to bring a £10 minimum wage in by 2020 and Tory supporting newspapers say that economists reckon this is a great thing, yet ten days earlier, John McDonnell was saying the exact same thing and it was going to bankrupt the country? It's because they know that if you read a Tory supporting newspaper you'll believe any old shit they tell you and what's better is you'll convince all your mates who don't read the paper to think the same way. How many lefties reading this will nod if I suggest you've met people who don't read papers, don't watch the news, don't go to political rallies who all know that Corbyn is an evil stupid man? Ask them what it's based on and you get outbursts that would shame a 6 year old. The internet is full of people who stick their fingers in their ears and go la-la-la-la-la-la very loudly whenever you suggest otherwise. It's like people want to suffer; it's like subconsciously there are people out there who feel we should have extra pain; feel more injustice and widen that net to get even more victims of today's society.

Just be honest. Your opinion of Jeremy Corbyn is based on hearsay and what you've heard others say. If there's never smoke without fire, then apply that rule equally or you might as well take up golf so you can cheat at it every game.

This is too long and no one voting Tory will have got this far; so lets up the ante a bit. I know someone who won't read the Labour manifesto; wouldn't vote for Corbyn because he reminds him of Tom Hanks and he really can't stand Tom Hanks and doesn't care if his family starves as long as we leave the EU because the country is overrun with foreigners, says a man who claims to have a Pakistani Britain as a best friend and uses the Polish deli down the road, almost as much as he's in the bookies. He's also been one of the dole scroungers and if looked at in black and white would fit the profile of a pro-Remain Labour voter...

I know a man who won't vote Labour because his grandfather got screwed over by the unions in the 1970s and a friend who got screwed over by them in the 1980s. They both saw hardship as a result and for some reason that has stuck with them, despite living through 16% interest rates, British industry being sold off and a proliferation of food banks - just three of the things we can say the Tories gave us. It's like Labour (or their associates) can only fuck with us once; but the elite aristocracy, shit, they're allowed to do it repeatedly. I know my place.  And that is, in many ways, why this election should be about the PARTY that offers the most hope going forward; not one that is offering nothing and claiming everyone else is crazy. It might sound like the Tories are just advocating realism, until, that is, you factor in that these same people are the ones who were in power when all this madness began. If nothing else, let that fact sink in. You've done no good with them for 9 years, what evidence is there to think it won't be more of the same?

The voting landscape is inhabited by unpaid trolls sowing vague seeds of doubt - the most easy to germinate - and like collaborators during the wars, they live for the now. It's uncool to care; unhip to help; it's okay to be vile and hateful because you can hide behind an anonymous icon and think you're balancing the books. With politics there is no better place to do the bidding of the people who convince you that you're better off under them while doing nothing for them at all. It's probably why spam still exists; there's always some mug who'll fall for it, despite every warning under the sun.

Finally, why not 'anyone but Boris?' Why not 'What's to lose with trying something radical and different?' We can't sink any lower than we are and as the same people who say 'anyone but Corbyn' will remind you, we get a chance every four or five years (usually) to pick a new government; if Labour screw up then vote the Tories back in or their yellow buddies, but don't dismiss them before you've had a chance to see if their ideas work. Or are you that far beyond taking a calculated risk? Because if you think you have a better chance of surviving the coming storm with who have been in charge for the last 9 years, then you're already dead.