This New Eidibus Martiis?

Here we are in the early part of the 21^st century and at the dawn of, what will be, one thinks, for little engalnd, a most defining commencement to absorbing consequences of tainted hasty ill-founded decisions, done not even relying on the hackneyed adage “we know what we know and don’t know the unknown phases of what we don’t know, - a leap in the dark and if you believe in it, a ‘unsound faith’ that all will be well. As semi rational observers of consequences should know, experience is the most effective tutor of not engaging in rash action without a sound foundation of where one is in relation to viewed changes and in most scenarios “events” will always attempt to trash the best miss applied vacuous assumptions. In this one can say, with a great deal of prejudice that just now the demise of the UK is in the hands of individuals that form one of the most incompetent cabinet / governments that could be assembled into the role of an elective dictatorship.

 Back in 2017 on the 29^th March, Maybot set that date to abscond from the EU. Three years on it is only at the 31^st January 2020 did the penultimate event occur to be possibly concluded at 2021. There was not in January any proffered great celebrations; no bell ringing, fireworks, street parties, dancing, exuberating ecstatic carousing. It was, as supposed country festivities go, a much muted affair particularly in London and practically none existent elsewhere in the country. This was almost as if the Brexiteers having got their way suddenly realised that they had no real idea of what it was they were supposed to be in celebration of and decided to scuttle away, in shame. There were a selective number of lit candles from those who could place the mourning light, to recall the lose. (1) But in a most peculiar way, perhaps unnoticed by many was a poignant film epitaph, the showing on Sony Free view on that night of the 31^st January; V for Vengeance, a dystopian unintentional simile which could be harmonised to elements of current english political charlatans and activities in play now. It was quite disquieting to see the attachments that can be made with actors in it and the set scene processes, especially when the chief inspector standing on a roof top and looking over the London sky line, asks of the unknown action which V was about to unleash. 

"Tonight is your big night; are you ready for it, are we ready for it?"

It was the blowing up of the houses of parliament!  Someone has a sense of the moment to have placed this in the late evening programme time for this date. Was it not a coincident? But Glorious! This especially as the parliament building is to have spent on it some £3.5bn to £5.6bn > to save it from perilous neglected deteriorations which may take 14 o 40 years to correct, in which time it may come to pass that this will be a spectacular waste of money, time and effort when a new location and building ought to be established elsewhere to avoid the great Thames flood.

Fawkes may yet arise; however for now, having tenure of just over two months of the building, BoJo and his quislings are trying to make moves to stifle the influence and experienced advice of civil servants in all departments of administrative government. To have them overlook evidence of policy implications, accumulated knowledge and accept without question the script of the pliant minister in charge of those departments in the belief that civil servants have been and are a hindrance to governmental direction. At the same time, bullying to bend the civil services to compile formulated ‘evidence’ to support and justify the ministers’ assumptions to strengthen enforced policy direction. This is happening in all departments but most obviously in the Treasury, Home Offices, Defence, Environment, Transport and DHSC. The recent resignation by a senior civil servant from the Home Office and his public statement to the effect that his minister (Ms Pretty Patel) is lying and the bullying by her of staff has caused a stir but also combines with a media view that she is incompetent and out of her depth, never the less BoJo being Pussy-whipped (2) says he has complete confidence in her, so far!

In addition to his busy agenda he is surreptitiously devising (Unchallengeable) ways to curtail the supreme court role in the application and interpretation of legitimate laws (This as a result of BoJo’s failed action to illegally prorogue parliament) and although moving to rig the House of Lords with more cronies; as the government has a large parliamentary majority, fighting off the Lords is not a problem for it now as the House of Lords may seem to have been, but BoJo wants to see it moved out of London.

Having intimated some vague promissory aspirations of spending programmes funded by the budding “magic money tree”, one cannot ascertain any obvious easing of the austerity intent already in play but there is a maybe definite agreement to continue with the first stage project of HS2 fast/slow train build from London to Birmingham and then the second stage onto the deserving counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire – maybe. At a cost of £100bn for the first stage and IF the whole scheme is completed, a sub £200bn price tag may not be avoided. This is a project that some analysis suggest, has no economical functional useful purpose beyond the initial capital spending, to the hinterland it passes through, or the “left behinds” with the majority of the UK population never getting the opportunity to need to use it, or afford to.

Never mind; BoJo has agreed to resolve the contentious issues of renewing trident, from the USA at a cost of £41bn; to a £200bn whole expenditure including the Dreadnought subs so all the “left behinds” can sleep peacefully in the beds hoping this expenditure is another good example of trickledown economics and not a waste of tax payers money.

Not even fresh into the new years when the anticipated increase in rainfall and subsequent over flooding of rivers and banks into built on flood plains, has had a salutary wake up affect in that it is happening on a much wider area and for prolonged periods, particularly in places that have not been affected for over a hundred years in places like Shropshire, Worcester, Wales, Lancashire, Yorkshire etc destroying property and negating any chance of further insurance cover. One wonders why no one has examined past planning application where building has taken place on  the areas affected by water flow; they are sure to show that in circulating application for comment at the time of application from interested parties, there will be a mention from one of the utilities that development is taking place on a “one in a hundred years flood plain!” Allowing plans to proceed could well have now raised some historic liability to the Local authority, developer and undisclosed facets of a legal search conveyance. Notable in this period is BoJo’s absence from the affected areas, ‘no photo ops’ and probably hiding from probing electorates scrutiny just like he and his ministers are forbidden to be questioned by the BBC or strenuously tested by any other reporters. BoJo is in a Prime Ministerial position but clearly not in power, with primacy being bequeathed to his compliant ministers and chief Mad Spad behind whom BoJo can secrete himself seemingly wanting to be acting like a CEO or ostensible COB by delegation; his lack of comprehension of responsibilities, attention span and grasp of scenarios is evident.

So we start the march with the hyping of the “climate emergency” a niece cliché that does not actually compete with what is becoming a slow burn of limited action by nations. Some can take a dichotomy of positions re business as usual and ‘O’ let’s not go overboard about it – doing too much or too fast will be terribly difficult and expensive but events are irritating. Like: the uk has signed up to the Paris Accord climate measure and put in place the first national ‘legal’ law stipulation on meeting emissions control and low and behold the proposed new Heathrow Airport runway permission that the Maybot government passed through parliament, has been found to be illegal by the supreme court, as it does not attend to proper environment concerns as laid out by the Paris Accord and Parliaments own created law. BoJo was against the extension and with his promise to be flattened by a bulldozer to stop it taking place to bolster his ‘London popularity’, managed to also originally skip out of the vote in parliament to oppose it; duplicitous dummy that he is but he is now saved by the law made by a ‘sovereign parliament’ which will have extensive effects on likely future infrastructure projects. Unfortunately for him the sponsors behind the airport extension  are not going to give it up so he can expect a great deal of persuasion to bend the strictures of the environmental controls but it also could bring into the firing line the whole HS2 + and any potential strategy of regional development infrastructure plans to aid the left behind counties.

And just to add to his opening tenure in office, there is the spread of the new virus Covid 19 that came from Chinas peasants ‘bush tucker’ inclination, consuming infected animal meats. It is sporadic around the world and although it is being treated like influenza, there is no cure yet. The tack is to attempt to stop it from becoming endemic and a seasonal re-occurrence. BoJo was doing his bit by ‘self isolation’ and standing behind his health minster however it is instructive to note the effect of this new viral outbreak  is having on the fall of world stock markets, the difficulty countries are having  in containment and the somewhat slow implementation of  countermeasure. At the start of the China outbreak, the reality that this was a new virus crossing over from animal ingestion and its infection of people was hidden and slow to be acknowledge, with a low infected prognosis, high recover and a low death rate, countries relied on China's containment. As it spread mainly by close contact and later in some cases by an unknown vector it was treated as a flu outbreak by countries and they did not initially put in place rapid controls. Now it has taken a hold in most countries, those with an effective health controlled system are able to take steps but the greater problem is within those countries that do not have and this may exacerbate the spread of it and offer a long term incubation reserve for re-ignition. It is now falling under the management of traceability and containment and isolation with hygiene advice to self protect. Although the disease has flu like symptoms from which many recover it is still a serious problem for anyone with underling health issues and as there is no cure death is a possibility. Countries like the UK are awaking up to the fact that this disease is having an economic affect and have stepped up tracking and containment with the possibility of limited hospitalisation, home or localised selective or larger scale isolations. The game now is to operate a ‘delay phase, move to containment, treatment and eradicate, hopefully. Once this fails there may be a retreat tack to play down the effect on the population to place this contagion into the 'seasonal flu' scenario and accept it is just another 'less' harmful virus the healthy bodies can cope with providing suitable recuperation is taken. This probability may be reasonable if a death rate of 2% - 5% is acceptable based on those with weakened immunity but were it to increase to 10% + and hitting younger healthier humans then stronger contingency plans would have to be enacted. One vainly is in hope “lessons will be learnt” for the Big One.

Action so far is underplaying the importance of this outbreak. This is a new cross over disease for which there is no current cure and it may take a year to establish a definitive one. Also like the influenza its mutation ability speed is unknown. The hope is that with warmer weather the disease will be stopped and no reoccurrence but if there is a hidden reservoir anywhere, what then? This may not be ‘The Big One’, a rampant biological or viral infection but what it does show is the lack of national / global speedy controls and the inability of containment or localised selective treatment by say, the UK, of handling high volume infections. Its health services are under resourced and ineffectively prepared, a possible systemic problem exacerbated by Austerity. The cover now, is principally whatever happens do not allow the economy to suffer however the reality of this with Brexit is made it irreducibly stark; the interrelatedness of the UK economy and economics overall is quickly sensitive to global events and of course the Cons historically are not known for their willingness to intercede with banking or private sector business support. So even if it plays into causing a delay to the next Brexit date, keep the population borrowing / spending or not panic! The contagion prognosis pathway is unstable but hopefully containable. China is to at last introduce some food safety standards; standards et al. which  BoJo wants to reduce to get exciting new free trade deals – with the usa, China, India, Pakistan, Korea; anywhere but the EU. BoJo’s in charge with COBRA on this now to add to his heavy stressful work load, which should not interfere with his weekend retreats.

Which brings one to the March Brexit; All that can be said has been said about it so far but it is a word which is now banned from future governmental dialogue or publication as it is a “Done Deal” and is no longer worth mentioning however no tangible trade deal or terms are yet agreed. Negotiations are to start this first week in March with the current ‘March hare’ cabinet minister M. Gove, stating that unless by June a good deal is given by that EU, the government will “walk away”. One is not quite sure to where but this must mean a satisfying hard Brexit the crazies have wanted all along by the end of the year. This does not of course allow for the problem of a delayed timetable for Brexit that the existing Covid19 may be called into play.  BoJo being one of a prime instigators of this historic chapter has unusually bad judgement in the direction he is moving, allowing so far the denigration of the civil services personnel with the sanction of his ‘Mad Spad’ and the laxity of control bestowed onto inexperienced pliable ministers; shows probably he is finding it difficult exercising any leadership skill set (doubtful he has any) or comprehensive policy judgments (too facile minded) that also requires absorbingly responsibility for decisions he or subordinates take. Because for the first time in his life, he has to reconcile his parody antics to damaging consequences and cannot pantomime / bumble his way out of a situation just to advance his career, he is where he wanted to be, all blame and faults now flow to him.  

O but events, events; like the Environment, Covid 19, Cold Economic Reality, USA Election, Turkey-Greece-EU-Migration Conflicts, Investment Flight, Fragile Currency, Feeble World Economic Growth, Stock Market Rout,  No Deal etc. may all point to the nuisance of the ‘Ides of March’ and limp into the uk’s own end of days?

(1) See: Ian McEwan https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/01/brexit-pointless-masochistic-ambition-history-done.

(2) Pussy-whipped: Someone who is too attracted to seeking female attachment probably sexually and gets subtly or overtly inhibited by the females charms.

See: Eidibus Martiis  XX1X. Or on the Ides of March? +14 2017

© Renot

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