Life Support

An interesting shift occurred in this week’s battle for political control; let’s go for the care home angle. It’s Brexit, Mk II, isn’t it, with pretty much the same players? And in many ways it is like a real war. Let us attack on this front. Oh yes, the hated enemy is reeling. Take that, you hateful morons; you didn’t know what you were voting for, did you? A few skirmishes in the trenches and when it became obvious that not only did we know what we were voting for, we’d do it again in a heartbeat, they went for the bus.

“You were stupid enough to believe a lie on a bus!” they jeered. Er, firstly, what ‘lie’? An aspiration, a suggested possibility and suggested by a campaign group, not a political party which would ever have the power to enact it, does not amount to a promise. Unbelievably, some of them are still pursuing that same, long discredited attack line. The people making this argument were the ones who held up signs saying “We welcome refugees” yet would not, personally, take any responsibility for housing and feeding them.

We got ‘xenophobic little Englanders’ and we got flat out racism levelled at us and all the time the EU and various world leaders were complicit in the attacks. Even our own government of the time, the soft Tories of Cameron’s cabinet joined in. Britain could not survive on its own they said, despite the vast period of history disproving that lie. In any case it was never about closing the borders and hating foreigners, but about healing the harm done to our nation by years of ‘progressive’ politics and interference by unaccountable powers.

Even after the deed was done and the long-argued and legally-challenged issue of Article 50 settled they would not back down. It was as if they were so offended by the idea that ‘the little people’ could by the effrontery of exercising their vote, compel a government to do their bidding that it must be resisted at all costs. They dreamed up conspiracies, fabricated acts of fraud and deceit and attacked the majority of those who voted as gullible, simple, poorly educated and beneath contempt. They regularly and openly called for the vote to be nullified.

Even now, they are using the coronavirus outbreak to try and further delay our separation from an organisation which has proved itself toothless and impotent in the face of that same pandemic. But worse than that, after four years of fighting against the electorate and frustrating attempts to hold a general election they are so incensed that, once again, we voted ‘the wrong way’, they are using the deaths of thousands as a political tool to seek power.

By calls for a so-called ‘government of national unity’, which would be anything but unified, through questioning the motives and actions of the elected government at every turn. By deploying activists posing as honest brokers in media interviews. By politicising what was originally a spontaneous round of applause for the NHS. By accusing the government of bungling at every turn. But even as unfounded accusation after unfounded accusation has been refuted, still they bay for blood.

From the problematic issue of testing, calling for lockdown, calling for the end of lockdown, challenging the PM’s illness as a hoax, apparently exaggerating the situation with PPE they are now applying pressure on the sensitive and emotive lever of care homes. This is not compassionate concern for their residents; it is the cynical exploitation of their plight for political ends, aided and abetted by the bloodthirsty adversarial media. And it is truly disgusting.

If anybody has a handle on what is happening it is the UK government and its advisors. Keeping an eye on international developments, watching how other countries’ strategies are working out, while all the while doing ‘whatever it takes’ to manage the situation over here is exactly the right thing to do. As issues, like care homes, are brought into focus they will be dealt with, but everything takes time and money and thought, none of which is helped by the obstacles the same old suspects insist in throwing in their way.

The British Media... RIP

When it is all over – and it will be all over, before too long – I hope that the people who put their trust in Britain, those who voted for Brexit and Boris and a return to the simplicity of governing for the national interest first will see the charlatans and opportunists and the baying mob for what they are. The same press which daily attacks the government on whatever spurious grounds it can is also fighting for its life as sales dwindle. It is time to switch off life support.