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Corruption now runs through this country like a stick of rock.

vice.com/en_us/article/…
The government has used the pandemic to give vast amounts of money to corporations, partly through a scarcely-monitored bailout, partly through lucrative contracts for PPE to unqualified companies.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Meanwhile, in the midst of this corporate welfare splurge, parents can scarcely afford to feed their kids, public services are stumbling and the state's capacity is cut to the bone.
I worked in Indonesia during the Suharto dictatorship, in Brazil when Sarney and Collor were in power, and in Kenya during Moi's autocracy. So to me, this is an entirely familiar pattern.
Starve the people, starve the state, give lashings of money to your cronies.
As soon as Johnson was out of the blocks, it became clear that we would see levels of corruption in this country unprecedented in our lifetimes. But I didn't expect it to unroll so far or so fast.
doubledown.news/watch/2020/30/…
And all is happening before the end of the transition period, before a US trade deal, before the deregulation of the planning system, before the government has had a chance to explore the full possibilities for sleaze and graft.
Our informal constitiution is so weak, and our democracy so ragged that if Johnson wants to, he could take it all the way. As in Lebanon, we could end up in a situation where "corruption is greater than the state": in other words, subsequent govts will not be able to contain it.
People get shocked and angry when I use the word "corruption" to describe transactions in the UK. Surely that's what happens in other countries? But it has long been ingrained here. We fail to see it not because it is so small, but because it is so big.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…
Several people have expressed disbelief about this photo. But yes, it is genuine pic of Richard Desmond, former porn king and the property developer at the centre of the Jenrick scandal, pushing Boris Johnson's swing.
While all this is going on, the government, ably assisted by the BBC and the billionaire press, tries to persuade us that the real crisis this country faces is a few hundred people arriving in small boats.
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George Monbiot
@GeorgeMonbiot
The way we think is the way we exist.
Yet, though we rightly emphasise the importance of learning, of experience, of acquiring skills and building relationships, we talk very little about the importance of thinking.
As a result, we are in danger of stumbling blindly through life, absorbing other people's ideas and using other people's words, but not thinking it through for ourselves. This makes us easy to manipulate and easy to deceive.
We talk a lot about autonomy, independence and freedom. But these values are meaningless unless we think our own thoughts.
Of course we are products of our societies and cannot exist alone, But independent thinking is also crucial to our humanity.
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George Monbiot
@GeorgeMonbiot
Just as there has never been a normal person, there has never been a normal time. Normality is a concept used to limit our moral imaginations. We live in abnormal times. They demand an abnormal response.

This week's column.
@GretaThunberg
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
As @SteB777 points out, we've been induced to believe that everyone else wants more growth and more consumption. As the polls consistently show, this is a lie.
A small group of wealthy people and the politicians they fund want it.
Most of us want to get off the treadmill.
I've always disliked the idea of normality. In the village where I was brought up, the adults called me "that strange boy". I saw this as their attempt to enforce a normative set of beliefs and behaviours.
Now the notion of "normality" drives us towards planetary destruction.
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George Monbiot
@GeorgeMonbiot
I started working with @DoubleDownNews partly because I see them as the future, and partly because BBC News and Current Affairs won't touch these issues (and will scarcely touch me).
Now many of these videos are getting bigger total audiences than *any* BBC NCA programme.
.@BBCNews inhabits a fairytale world. You must suspend disbelief to enter it. In this world, government policy represents the will of the people, the billionaire press represents public opinion, and power resides in Parliament. In reality:
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
More than any other media platform, the BBC contributes to our political dysfunction. The bigger the idiot, the greater the airtime: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
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