I was listening to Johnson doing his cheerleading today. The man is a fool. He thinks we are all fools. He believes that he can put everything right with a bit of empty enthusiasm. Everything is world-beating, brilliant and going to solve everything – only it never does. He makes it all up on the cuff without doing his homework, consulting anybody or having a clue. We’ve had a string of them from PPE, track and trace, apps and money for the NHS. He lies about money going to the NHS, how much Europe is costing, and oven-ready deals.
None of it ever works out!
He uses the Goebbels theory – repeat a lie often enough and people believe you.
His latest wheeze is Build! Build! Build! To that end. he is pumping money in and relaxing all the laws.
The result is that all the wealthy profiteers will say ‘thank you very much’, pocket the money and start building on places they shouldn’t be.
I’m all in favour of grand schemes to get people working. I’m not in favour of relaxing legislation to give the wealthy a bigger slice. It’s a con-trick.
Covid has shown him up for what he is. When the second wave comes, the job losses start piling in and people see through this veneer of enthusiasm they will see that there is no substance there.
The three stooges – Trump, Bolsonaro and Johnson – populist fools who have conned everybody to get elected. They lie, cheat and feed the right-wing.
Perhaps one of the good things to come out of this pandemic is that their bubble has burst. Three lying scoundrels exposed as utterly incompetent.
Good riddance.
The death rose by another 176 and there were still over 800 new cases. All over the world there are lockdown as spikes and second waves follow relaxing of restrictions – but we blithely go to open pubs and pretend it’s all gone away.
Today I went for a walk up my hill under cloudy skies with mud underfoot. But it was a good walk.
Yesterday they harvested the peas in the huge fields by the side of the path. Five reapers came in. Tractors transported the peas to lorries and the lorries trundled off to the factories where those peas will be frozen in minutes. The whole business is an industrial action. They started at first light and by lunchtime, the last pea was gone.
I watched one of the reapers disgorge trillions of peas into a tractor wagon. The machine had somehow gone along the rows of plants, cut them off, separated pods from plant and, amazingly, mechanically opened the pods to release the peas. Who devised a machine as skilful as that? How many people did it replace?
The five machines worked over many acres of plants.
I have been watching those plants. The ground started as brown earth. The seeds were planted. They all sprouted on the same day. They all flowered on the same day. They were all ready for harvesting on the same day. It was a mechanical process that was far removed from what my ancestors would have recognised as farming.
So strange to watch that waterfall of peas being projected in a stream into the wagon. In the field next door a tractor was out spraying pesticide.
There is something unpleasant about it all.
I came back and put on White Stripes – Death Letter Blues – a good old Son House number.
In a hundred years time, when everything is mechanised and all the work is done by A/I, and there is no nature to wonder at with awe, I do not know what people will do with themselves.
Covid makes you think doesn’t it?
Stay safe!!