By. Daviemoo
Boris Johnson has bound the hands and feet of the nation. His slavish allies have picked us up, and carried us to the altar of his ego. Today Johnson is set to slit our collective throats on the altar of populism. Our lifeblood is set to be spilt into the foetid grounds of populism, and thousands of people will die… to save Johnson’s tenure in office… Do you think the deaths of thousands who wouldn’t have died had we kept mandates in place is a worthy sacrifice for a less than mediocre politician to stay employed?
Look to the social media of any prominent scientist and watch them, agog in horror at the behaviours of the conservative government and the wet eared cowardice of their supporters who simply cannot bear another moment of coronavirus restrictions. It’s been so hard to follow the guidance they say, as if they ever did. Selfish people cackling about you wearing a mask in the fruit aisle of Tescos, who never stopped visiting relatives for Sunday lunch and who look down on you for following scientific advisors’ dire warnings. Maybe you do it because you lost someone, or more than one someone, to covid. Maybe you had the virus and it frightened you just how sick you got- or maybe you’re just a decent person who realises that the world didn’t slow to a crawl for almost 2 years for no reason, no insidious plot of replacement theory to be seen except in the rheumy eyes of these freedom fighters who didn’t show up to protest against literal human rights being debated in parliament.
Today I signed an open letter Professor Christina Pagel is advertising, to hear experts like her speak about the lifting of restrictions.
Experts like Professor Pagel have, the entire time, erred on the side of caution because she, like most decent humans, believes that everyone deserves the chance to live through the pandemic. But today, Johnson is revealing his plans to “live with the virus”, which involve payment for testing, obfuscating numbers and allowing those infected to be able to wander around positive without any mandate for staying home. Boris Johnsons’ plans for living with coronavirus will kill people. Hundreds, thousands of people, who will die because he has become a populist fundamentalist, who seems to think you are free to become a vector of mass infection if you want to, and the cherry on the cake is that we simply won’t even know it’s happening because he refuses to even keep tabs on it.
Why has he done this, you may ask? Because it distracts us from the sheer, unquestionable fact that Boris Johnson is terminally inept (quite literally), selfish sheister, a terrible PM, a man who is more vacuously obsessed with his ability to keep reflecting back British law like the flesh of a Y incision so he can carve out the still weakly shuddering heart of British democracy and hold it aloft as a prize before losing interest and casting it off.
Since Johnson took power in 2019 he’s appointed someone who committed something tantamount to espionage as our Home Secretary, a man who wants to repeal the human rights act to justice secretary, a woman who was surprised people use YouTube to learn (what did you think it was for Nadine?), has had a doctored report on racism produced which stated it consulted with experts who were shocked to see their names included. He’s presided over the worst death rate in Europe, lied about the EMA’s capabilities of stopping vaccine rollouts and taken credit for the NHS’ stellar job in the first deployment- speaking of the NHS, he’s continued to slowly pare away funding for it and has thrown GPs to the wolves to distract from his role in covid mismanagement. Whilst many of us were burying relatives by zoom or saying goodbye to people we love via FaceTime he was throwing back Moet with colleagues, convinced by virtue of political party or class that they were exempt from the rules they themselves created.
He’s presided over the most disastrous outcome for Brexit, and rather than face up to that has circled the wagons of the British press to disseminate distractions about trans athletes in bathrooms or other such nonsense, instead of showing 12 hour queues to drop off goods- he blamed COVID for Brexit issues, Brexit for COVID issues and not once through all of these debacles, not at one time- has he ever said “It’s us. We’re sorry, we made mistakes”.
Whilst Hancock and he were breaking the law with PPE procurement, he never once paused to wonder if this was the wrong thing to do, the wrong way to act. Because to Johnson, the job of PM is simply a badge of honour, the next “to present” on his CV. He doesn’t care about decency, the rule of law or any freedoms but his own. Our highest office, the most vital political job in the UK will be used as fodder for dinner parties down the line. He’ll sit, clutching a designer glass of designer champagne telling people about the time a billionaire oil baron shook his hand and he came away richer than he was before, skipping over the shambles he’s left the country in. No matter how poor, or miserable or sick you or I or our friends or family get, Johnson’s future is writ large: as long as he can continue his decadence we could all die tomorrow. It won’t change a thing for him.
Now as we all walk, open eyed into a country with no covid restrictions some of us see three lions, strutting down the street proudly as the “winners” of the pandemic. But others see vectors of infection, a populace strolling sullenly into the maw of the beast, wondering who we love will die or become disabled now because the libertarians amongst us think that’s a worthy sacrifice. The sad thing is, people genuinely believe that it’s worth people dying for them to be able to go into Tescos without a bit of cloth on their face. This is where the poison of populism has gotten us to – everything is the enemy. Masks, vaccines, Corbyn supporters, the left, the woke, everything out to stop people living how they want- but the people who deeply believe this don’t seem to realise that we don’t live how we want – because of them. This imposition of their imaginary freedoms has now stretched to being a climate denier- the seriously bad weather was the enemy this week, how dare that woke storm stop me from… doing what? It’s cold, wet and rainy, just stay in the house and antagonise social justice warrior on twitter like normal you losers- but they didn’t did they. Just to spite the weather(?) people went on walks and got blown over, and that’ll show… Mother Nature I suppose, that these people can’t be stopped from their stupidity. Michael Gove said we’re “sick of listening to experts”. Apparently we are, but we have an unending zeal for listening to absolute morons.
Johnson stands as leader on the cusp of a potential war. Look at the outcome of brexit- more expensive goods, a cost of living crisis unprecedented even when the country’s covid debts are already repurchased, lower world standing, worse quality of life. Look at the outcome of covid- worst death rate in Europe and still going, a stalled vaccine programme, no attempts to even mandate safety via healthcare workers and literal capitulation to anti vaccine terrorists (I’ll use that word even if the press won’t). If Johnson remains in charge for war I suspect the country will suffer untold levels of misery there too, starving in the street as our pleura fill up with covid pneumonia fluid, homeless because we couldn’t afford the rent- and still the Johnsonites will cry “but imagine what it would be like under Starmer”.
I normally urge people to stay safe, to wear their masks, take their vaccines, to social distance- but it’s actually reached the point where I don’t think it’s pointful. Too many people have become inured to death and misery and just do not want to try to avoid it. Some even take a strange and perverse pleasure in being as obnoxious as possible. So I suppose now I must change my signoff from that to – I hope you survive, dear reader.
viemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.
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