It is a truth universally acknowledged that starting pieces with the phrase "it is a truth universally acknowledged.." is tired, hackneyed and bad writing. It's also fairly widely acknowledged that one of the most overused, and misused words in the tiring, tear-inducing forever war that dominates online political is "Orwellian." Generally by someone who a) is unaware of the the low-wattage of their personal intelligence and b) has never actually read any Orwell.
Something something vaccines? Orwellian. Something something right to protest? Orwellian. Disagree with something the state has done? Orwellian Outraged that the state hasn't done something you wish it to do? Orwellian. I'm not much of a one for both-sidesing arguments, generally being of the opinion that there is a right side to most issues, but both sides sling the O word about with gay abandon, and generally entirely wrongly.
Well, I have read a bit of Orwell (and I am entirely in concurrence with the late, great Anthony Bourdain in my view that Down and Out in Paris and London has some of the best writing about restaurants in literature), so I use the word advisedly when I say that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson's closing speech to the Tory Party conference was some Orwellian shit, namely the dread quote from 1984: "The party told you to reject the evidence of your ewyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
We're all used to Alex gas-lighting the nation, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be noted (I'll get onto that in a bit), and as he stood up there, spinning the fantastic lie which has just occurred to him, I felt a familiar, lurching feeling, as he asked me to disbelieve what I see on a daily basis.
For the current troubles that the country is experiencing, far from being the deleterious fall-out from a disastrous, ill-thought out, poorly executed Brexit. They are, apparently, the growing pains of of an economy which is transitioning to a new, shiny, high-tech, high-wage future.
Which would, at least, be some sort of a plan, if he believed a word of it. As on the same day that the UC uplift stops, plunging thousands into poverty, Alex stood up there, cracked his jokes, made his non sequiturs and trotted out his wearisome fifth form gag show patter for the part faithful to lap up, he was, as he so often does, simply making it up as he went along.
The wage crisis for HGV drivers, far from being a disaster for HMG, has been a godsend, as all of a sudden they're able to claim that this was the plan all along, this is the whole point of Brexit, to lift wages across the economy. Which would be fine, if it was remotely close to the truth.
It is not, of course.
If the Tories were remotely serious about "transitioning to a high wage economy" (a meaningless phrase which helpfully glosses over questions like "Who's going to do the shit jobs" and "who exactly is going to pay for this" and "if everyone's wages go up, won't that lead to rampant inflation") then they have a number of mechanisms to do so at their disposal already. They could raise the Minimum Wage, for starters. And if you really want everyone to have relatively more money then why have you just raised National Insurance (a tax rise which disproportionately affects the less well off). It's garbage. Like he has done his whole career, Johnson's grasped at the idea like a drowning man holding onto a floating, bloated corpse, because it means he gets to keep going a little longer, until the next lie he needs to tell
All the talk before Brexit was of deregulation, of less interference from the state, of a dynamic economy shorn of red tape. Well, I've got a little bit of news for those red in tooth and claw capitalists which is: people with good wages tend to demand better working conditions, too, and that....well, that generally means regulation.
The Conservative party, mired in bad news about fuel shortages, price rises, labour shortages, food rotting in the fields, not enough vials for GPs to do blood tests has suddenly found a narrative that it can cast in the light of being a Brexit benefit, and it's going all-in, which is a little odd, because isn't lifting up the workers a...socialist idea?
And as he stood there and lied about this, and lied about "defending our history from cancel culture" and how Churchill wasn't racist (anyone with even a passing knowledge of Churchill knows that he absolutely was, even some of his fellow Tories found his views on other ethnicities beyond the pale, doesn't mean he doesn't deserve respect for WW2, does mean that he was most certainly a massive racis) and lied, weirdly, about Otters "returning to streams for the first time since the Tudors" as he stood there and pretended to be all things to all people it was just so tiring.
I've often wondered if it's a deliberate tactic. Trump used it effectively, you spend so long countering the lies that you wind up exhausted, and starting to doubt yourself because the tidal wave of bullshit is just so relentless. Youve just debunked one when a fresh outrage needs dealing with, and it's exhausting.
But it does need to be fought, and called out, and we can't stop doing it. Johnson has lied, and lied, and lied and it's worked for him. He's lied on the side of a bus, lied to the public, lied to his wife, lied to the Queen, lied to Parliament. This is not up for debate, this is demonstrable fact. His new lie is, for him an excellent lie, it allows him to keep dancing a little longer, maybe something will turn up, and if it doesn't, then he can think of another lie.
And yes, it's absolutely tiring. But you do need to believe the evidence of your eyes and ears. That empty shelf, that queue at the food bank, that fight on the garage forecourt, that discharge of sewage into the stream, that skip full of dead pigs, that field of broccoli blown over and dug pack in as there was no one to pick it, that chaos at the hospital, that wait for an ambulance, that postponement of your operation. They are true, and they are real and they are his fucking fault.
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