2 December 2021

Diary of a Corbynista

Celebrating Success

by Don Urquhart

25 November to 1 December

The Guardian reported President Macron’s response to seeing that the British PM was trolling him on Twitter.

The letter to Macron was sent publicly as a tweet in time for the front pages of UK newspapers.

“I spoke two days ago with Prime Minister Johnson in a serious way,” Macron said at a press conference on Friday. “For my part I continue to do that, as I do with all countries and all leaders. I am surprised by methods when they are not serious.

“We do not communicate from one leader to another on these issues by tweets and letters that we make public. We are not whistleblowers. Come on. Come on,” he said.

However the UK media try to dress it up this was an appeal to the lowest common denominator in the UK.  A lot of people here are happy to see our problems blamed on foreigners.  The latter need shouting at if they do not understand our quite reasonable nationalistic and racist explanations.  How many of us fit this profile?  Well to judge by election results and opinion polls around 35%.  To judge by the gutter press (Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Express) it is around 100%.

The Prime Minister and his pals promote Britain as the best at everything and characterise any scepticism as treachery.

Take Covid-19.

One of the first things we discovered at the start of the pandemic was that the UK was the country best prepared to deal with a pandemic.

Matt Hancock addressed us in January 2020;

 The public can be assured that the whole of the UK is always well prepared for these types of outbreaks.

We would be protected fromCovid-19 because we had a world beating NHS the Prime Minister told us when he began to get interested in the subject in March last year.

Since then we have discovered that only Israel has a better approach to vaccinating the population.

For a week or two we were developing a world-leading test and trace system.

The Guardian summarised it well in June last year:

For months now the government has been prefacing all its Coronavirus briefings as world-beating when the only thing in which we appeared to be global leaders was our mortality rates. But now I’m beginning to think Boris Johnson and his cabinet may have been on to something after all. Because it’s beginning to look more and more as if we are genuine world beaters: if only in total incompetence.

Climate Change

It goes without saying that we are top when it comes to Climate Change:

As the BBC dutifully reported the PM last August:

The UK is leading the way, decarbonising our economy faster than any country in the G20 over the last two decades. 

The UK is already showing leadership with clear plans to reduce its emissions by 68% by 2030 and 78% by 2035, leading to net zero by 2050. 

Brexit

The hyperbole around the misbegotten Withdrawal Agreement has given rise to manifold assertions of perfection.  This is one of the PM’s most felicitous:

 “We’ve got an oven-ready deal. We’ve just got to put it in at gas mark four, give it 20 minutes and Bob’s your uncle.” – November 3rd, 2019

Borders

As reported by UK in a Changing Europe Michael Gove thinks we have the best border security:

Gove went on to say that although the short-term approach to border management would be to turn a blind eye and wave trucks through, these actions “lay the foundations for the development of the best border in the world by 2025”.

HGV Drivers

Just a month ago the PM told us that the HGV drivers problem would soon be solved:

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the country was at a “turning point” and the UK’s “world leading” logistics industry would fix the issues.

Two years ago psychologist Chantal Gautier sought to explain Johnson’s personality in an Independent article:

As a Psychologist I look at Boris Johnson and I worry for Britain

Now, a healthy ego is no bad thing to have for a leader, but it becomes problematic when ego takes over and is put in the mix with power, arrogance, cockiness and the notion of being “seen to be right”. This can trigger blind spots in how we perceive the world around us.

Many people perceive that Johnson displays these flaws, and if he and his advisers really are stuck in this ego-driven “master of the universe” delusion, then we could be in trouble.

Maybe, but I think incompetence and irresponsibility are up there as contributing factors.

Much of my youth was misspent.  Many of my acquaintance when young went on to dark things.  One such was Randy, an American IT guy who washed up as Head of Equities at Goldman Sachs in London.  He could fit me in for breakfast and, believe me, it was an all-day version like no other that had me warming a little to the Vampire Squid.

He had come from an IT background and was enthusiastic about his firm’s approach producing a copy of their Project Management manual for my perusal.

Hmm – pretty standard Randy you start by defining requirements, specify functionality, design and implement solution. 

It was all very detailed and impressive.

No Don you’re missing the most important part of the process, the last page.

And I read:

With everything signed off claim and celebrate project success.

-reasonable I would have said.

Thing is though we undertake the Project Management process in reverse.  Our IT people start by claiming success then undertake frenetic activity vaguely related to the project until they are fired or moved on to something else.

The Government front bench would have fitted in well.