Hhh-hancock

When I detected the signs of the feeding frenzy over the Hancock malarkey I thought at first they had discovered some more old tapes in a BBC backroom. But in this case, the boy himself is not the esteemed but tragic Tony, it is in fact the creepy Matt edition. But, seriously, who cares? I commented recently on how individuals in the public eye dare not say a word unless it has been scrutinised and sanitised by media advisors at any hint it might be weaponised. Thus it is little wonder that people are getting excited over nothing.

Covid, schmovid, as far as I’m concerned. Nobody is getting any of those days back and we can't resurrect the dead. And in any case, flu-like viruses have always taken away the elderly to their often overdue rest, and will continue to do so. Hancock is not in government any more, every country in the world seemed to struggle to cope with the pandemic and the really important thing to remember now is that everybody is an expert after the fact.

Not me, though. I claim no expertise in pretty much anything. In fact the more I learn the more I recognise what I do not know, to the extent of realising that my unknown unknowns exceed by an incalculable amount the sum of everything I know I know and everything I know I don’t know. Donald Rumsfeld, eat your heart out. Apart from playing the utterly pointless, bird-flown, horse-bolted blame game what is to be gained from this rather uninspiring ‘scoop’?

Sometimes I think the collective press needs to pack up and spend a few years living among the people they write about. They would find that real people are neither ‘amazed’, ‘astonished’ nor ‘incandescent’ about very much at all. The emotive words used by reporters to make what is often a non-story into some sort of scandal is at best childishly naïve and at worst fomentive of unrest in people who were otherwise disinterested.

So I genuinely don’t care about the trillions of  words in billions of WhatsApp messages; messages that would have been sent, ad-hoc, in the heat of the moment, between people I know little about and respect even less. Of course there were fuck-ups; and many of them. We hear today that Dominic Cummings had to explain percentages to Boris Johnson, but really, is anybody surprised? Project Boris was always about the aggrandisement of the straw-barnetted buffoon, but he would have got away with everything had the pandemic not struck and had Brexit ever actually happened.

Surely nobody, by now, expects any better from the UK government? After years of mocking the Italians and the Belgians and their corrupt ways is it any wonder that we find the exact same farces being played out over here? Haven’t commentators across the centuries warned that you simply cannot trust a single person who actively seeks power? Until the professional politicians are replaced by a meritocracy based on actual competence in the areas that matter we can expect no better.

Just a little prick...

The areas that matter? Oh, you know, just the minor things. While world leaders argue about pronouns, science none of them understand, global economies beyond the power of politicians to influence positively, journeys to the stars and whose god is top god, we little people busy ourselves with the almost trivial matters of eating, working, keeping a roof over our heads, not dying… little things of little consequence. Not that the media will ever notice.

Get Me Out Of Here

 Matt Hancock going on I’m a Celebrity is not just an example of an elected official being tone deaf, it is an outright insult to his electorate and evidence, if evidence were needed, that politics has become a joke. Some are justifying this appearance as a modern-day stint in the stocks – for sure he is going to be regularly voted to perform like a clapping seal – but what have we become that this sort of action can even be seen to be acceptable?

Politicians have long had to live down the strong public notion that they are only in it for what they can get out. This sort of clowning only helps to demonstrate how shallow some MPs can be and how little they appear to care about those they nominally represent. The Tories in particular are seen as the party of corruption and back-handers. Such public displays of frivolity will do nothing to quell that image.

Following the row after Nadine Dorries’ appearance one would have been forgiven for imagining that said appearance had put paid to this sort of nonsense. Boris Johnson notwithstanding we don’t want our public figures to make displays of themselves, and Hancock has none of the charisma of the bumbling blonde bombsite. He is going to make an utter twat of himself, isn’t he? But does that even matter?

The sort of audience that these shows attract might have spectacularly short memories, and they are unlikely to have had a great deal of engagement in daily politics. So, there is a chance that Hancock might, bizarrely, gain some support. There is even talk of ‘the next phase in his career’, whatever career that may be. But if this does, indeed launch him into another means of making a living, what an indictment of our national psyche.

For all the talk of politics and political ideology that I encounter, because I seek it out, I am aware that very much the majority of the population are left cold by it all. A well-placed headline, fact or fiction, will enrage them for a minute and some will cleave faithfully to the mast of whichever ship they have chosen, based entirely on prejudice and ignorance. That such people get to choose who is in charge has always baffled me.

Humans exhibit an incredible range of ability, from almost entirely useless and lazy, to incredibly gifted, talented and dedicated. Only the best of us should really be involved in the business of making it work for all. The average human being would be entirely unequal to the task. Please don’t tell me that Matt Hancock is among the best.