GLEN OWEN: So you’re feeling fully recovered, Prime Minister?
JOHNSON: Braaaah! Phwaar! I can jolly well show you if you like!
How on earth does an interview with the PM at a time of national crisis & what should be national mourning, end up with @BorisJohnson doing press ups?
Bumbling is his strategy.
“He put on a buffoon mask to become a celebrity, & now he can’t take it off.”
(J Lanchester, 2008)
“He seems to know that if we’re chuckling at him, we’re not likely to be thinking hard about his agenda, or doing anything to counter it.” (J Coe, 2013).
"He covers up crime with scandal & covers up malice with incompetence...
They want to project an image of being inept, instead of as having a cruel & well-defined plan.”
On 23/4 - still not knowing her figures - she was sent back for more humiliation
The fact the govt maybe covering up malice with incompetence doesn't mean that they aren’t also incompetent.
The PM admitted he doesn’t read the scientific papers & this footage, taken on his return from 12 days in Kent, hints at a worrying lack of grasp on the unfolding crisis.
The PM & Carrie set off for their stay in Chevening on Valentines Day.
@JCalvertST told @C4Dispatches that “a number of people in Downing St were concerned the PM just wasn’t taking a lead. We were told that aides were told to cut down documents or he just wouldn't read them.”
Bumbling can hide ineptitude but it is also being used to mask the #HerdImmunityScandal.
The heart of this scandal is a #COVID strategy whose main focus is avoiding harming the economy (short term) & using it as a disrupter to reshape the UK (long term).
In May, confusion around the govt’s new Stay Alert advice meant other proposals buried in the 60-page document went unscrutinised.
These include the “rapid re-engineering of govt structures & institutions” & building “new long-term foundations for UK”.
"Shall I tell you a terrible truth about politics & human nature & the way we live our lives? You can probably make a good case for almost any course of action.”
This 2013 interview gives a chilling insight into Boris Johnson & into what is happening in Britain now. #COVID19
Just as an eccentric & bumbling PM is far more palatable than a scheming one, so an incompetent govt is more palatable than a malevolent one.
But ineptitude is only the first part of govt strategy.
The next part will be an efficient rollout of 50m tests.
Hannah Arendt says “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule are people for whom the distinction between fact & fiction & the distinction between true & false no longer exist.”
It is vital that journalists & our media keep pointing out these distinctions.
@JohnJCrace wrote: “That means we could have paid him £1bn to stay at home, doing nothing but watch TV & mowing the lawn, & still have been £2bn better off.”
The PM’s ex-boss at the Telegraph, Max Hastings, explains the PM’s bumbling act isn’t all an act.
“Boris isn’t pretending to be chaotic he really is utterly chaotic. Getting him to do his expenses, or fill in pieces of paper sign or sign forms for as almost an impossible task.”
The PM’s sister reveals her brother realised that being chaotic could be an advantage when he was in a school play.
“He hadn’t learned his lines so he hid behind a pillar & read them out, which was obviously much funnier than if he’d learned them perfectly.” #BumblingStrategy
This background becomes relevant now as it helps explode the widely accepted narrative: that part of the reason the UK was so inexplicably under-prepared for #COVID19 & the reason that so many fatal errors were made, is that the PM is “bumbling” & his cabinet are inexperienced.
If that narrative is exploded what do we put in its place?
I’ve been trying to work that out for almost 5 months & making progress.
My starting point, on 5 March, was the #HerdImmunityScandal. It has provided clues to piecing together the bigger picture.
The good thing about incompetence for leaders & their cabinet’s, is that it doesn’t carry any legal sanction.
“We are just weeks away from school reopenings & the looming fall flu season, which the aborted plan had accounted for as a critical deadline.” vanityfair.com/news/2020/07/h…
"Where on earth is Boris Johnson in all this? No one denies that he's entitled to a holiday, by the country is entitled to a Prime Minister." @skynewsniall asks @NickGibbUK (via @KayBurley)
1/. “It is the greatest mass-killing in recorded history; & it goes on daily, hourly, as regularly as the ticking of your watch”
Arthur Koestler’s 1944 essay expressing frustration at the failure of the world to acknowledge Nazi atrocities resonates today wethescreamers.com
2/ “There are a few of us…yelling at you in newspapers…Now & then we reach your ear…But it only lasts a minute. You shake yourself like puppies who’ve got their fur wet; then the screen again descends & you walk on, protected by the dream-barrier which stifles all sound”
#Gaza
3/ Koestler notes maniacs lose contact with reality so “perhaps it’s we, the screamers, who react in a sound & healthy way to the reality which surrounds us, whereas you are the neurotics who totter about in a screened fantasy world because you lack the faculty to face the facts”
“They got me!” Liz Truss tells far-right kingpin, Steve Bannon, before going on to explain that, to have effectively tackled “the deep state” that runs Britain & its institutions, she would have “needed a bigger bazooka”! #LizTruss #BritanniaUnchained
"I was just saying it like it is & that’s what people respect me for"(!)
Liz Truss’ compares her premiership to a one night stand & says she was just “fattening the pig” for slaughter & that she should have gaslit the public like Rishi Sunak is doing (!)
"I faced the most almighty backlash...from the usual suspects in the media” Liz Truss
“Truss's decline is simultaneously tragic & horrifying but the claim that the media conspired against her can't go unchallenged. There are front pages praising her to the rafters” @mrjamesob
As the 2nd module of the #CovidInquiry begins covering “core UK decision-making & political governance”, comes news that Rishi Sunak - like Boris Johnson - has also fail to fully comply with the order to hand his WhatsApp messages
“The govt needs get professional IT experts to recover these messages”
Charles Persinger who lost his wife & mother to #COVID, echoes the call of @CovidJusticeUK’s lawyers calling on the @covidinquiryuk to commission experts to retrieve Sunak & Johnson’s ‘lost’ WhatsApp messages
Twitter's new privacy policy takes effect on 29 September
It gives X the right to use your posts - including DMs - & all your data - including phone, email, biometrics (e.g. face scans & eye scans) to train their AI & to share with any partner X wants👇 twitter.com/en/privacy
“I do not accept that Twitter has deteriorated in any way since Elon Musk took over”
A week before Twitter’s change in privacy policy, some questions for @elonmusk
1. What biometric information will be collected & what are the intended uses?
How will X ensure that that the data of X’s 530 million users isn’t used for unlawful purposes? mashable.com/article/x-twit…
1/. “I am often asked why the UK doesn’t have a successful far-right populist party. My answer is: because it doesn’t need to” @julie_renbe
Far-right politics are becoming mainstreamed in:
Italy
Finland
Sweden
Greece
France
Hungary
Poland
Germany
Spain
UK theguardian.com/books/2023/jul…
2/. The far right is being increasingly mainstreamed in both European & US politics
Last October, Giorgia Meloni - head of the Brothers of Italy party, which has historical roots in the post-war neo-fascist Italian Social Movement - won Italy’s election nytimes.com/2023/07/31/pod…