The Tory government

The Hancock debacle has simply highlighted the rotten philosophy at the core of this Tory government. Misconduct seems to be the order of the day since Boris Johnson became leader – no surprise there. His personal and political hobby is littered with misbehaviour. Through a series of lies, deceit, evasion and rhetoric, he ploughs on as if nothing has happened, leaving the public mesmerised and helpless. So why has this state of paralysis come to exist and what mechanisms protect him from public outrage? I guess that there are several factors at play, some covert and others overt. The former is the most dangerous and lethal.

One such factor is “nationalism”, which clouds the mind and diverts attention away from the important issues to an obsession with national fervour. It’s a political tool known as: “the displacement theory”. In the 1930s Hitler postulated a blind nationalism, which ended in disaster.

Boris Johnson is more subtle and presents “nationalism” as “patriotism”. There lies the important distinction. The former cultivates a fanatical and blind emotional loyalty for the ulterior motives of power and loyalty. By contrast, the latter encourages an intelligent discernment of the relevant information for the best outcomes. Remember the Prime Minister’s failed attempt to prorogue Parliament and lying to the Queen in the process. As I write the Tories are putting forward a bill to thwart public protests. These are dangerous routes to autocracy. But these are only some of the numerous occasions on which he deceived the public.

Notably he frequently reverts to “nationalistic” jingoism to cover a multitude of sins under the guise of “patriotism”. As John Bercow said: “Boris Johnson has only a nodding acquaintance with the truth”. He was sacked twice for lying. Let’s not forget that he was an avid supporter of the EU all his life and prepared himself to jump on the most likely winning bandwagon to further his leadership ambitions. Even David Cameron was gobsmacked by his sudden conversion. Covid has, of course, shielded him from the exposition of the consequences of Brexit and the poor are going to pay the price. This, however, was completely consistent with his history of following the crowd to fulfil his own ambitions and it has characterised his responses to the pandemic. It is no way to govern. The man seems to be devoid of any moral compass. We must also challenge the Johnson thesis that private life should not be brought into the public sphere. Surely a person’s character is vital to suitability for public office, and one always mirrors the other. Honesty and reliability ought to be the fundamental criteria for our leadership.

Otherwise we are effectively endorsing a free-for-all which lacks any moral direction. A media which is largely controlled by the Tories’ feeds into this flawed narrative and dupes the minds of readers and listeners. It is in this environment that “nationalism” can be used as a powerful tool to deceive the population. I do believe that the current regime has surpassed all its predecessors in this regard. It is its “modus operandi”. Moreover, covid has provided a great shelter for deception. The Prime Minister has enjoyed an almost total monopoly of the media vis-a-vis the opposition leader. Even the dodgy issues surrounding the pandemic such as contracts for friends and donors, PPR for health staff and carers, the protection of old people in care homes, the dithering and confusion of the lockdowns have been largely lost amid the fears of Covid itself. Much of this activity has been further clouded by ministers’ use of home emails to do the business which can’t be traced in any subsequent public inquiry.

His failure to sack misbehaving and incompetent ministers merely endorses a regime born to rule for the few at the expense of the many. How can we ever trust this man? Remember the attempt to interfere inappropriately by Robert Jenrich the housing minister in a planning application to save a Tory donor £50 million in tax and not forgetting Boris Johnson’s business favours to his mistress Jennifer Arcuri. I suspect that thousands of such deals have been done that simply haven’t surfaced yet.

All this amounts to a form of state-legitimised fraud and has been endemic in the Tory party throughout my lifetime. The only difference with this government is that they don’t seem to care if it becomes known because they have finetuned their responses to drown out any proper scrutiny or accountability. While we welcome the rollout of the vaccine, the real praise must go to the existence of our NHS and the fantastic commitment of its workers and volunteers. Any leader would have sanctioned this rollout.

Yet he is milking all the praise, appearing in hospitals and vaccine centres daily as if he is personally responsible for the effort. Perhaps he should be spending more time with the Brexit fallout and acquiring authentically better trade deals. But the questions surrounding his management of the Covid crisis are manifold. Significantly, he has refused an official inquiry to commence now and report prior to the next election.

We can only hope that vast swathes of our population begin to question his rhetoric, in particular that relating to his “nationalistic” nonsense, which he uses to dupe the public.

It is a poisoned chalice. Let us choose genuine patriotism instead.