Boris Nero Fiddles While London Burns

You have to congratulate Boris Johnson on his success to continue the policies of his predecessors in creating significant harm to the country for wild political objectives while telling the cheering population that all is wonderful and soon will be so much better.

Note that your correspondent did not say that Boris is solely responsible for what has gone wrong in the UK. He is just following in the paths laid down by Blair, Cameron, May and other fellow politicians from both sides of Parliament, edged on a by the few large and powerful media companies that rely on lascivious and degenerate stories to enrich their owners and their political mates… 

They all claimed that the  UK will become a “global power”, “unfettered by the EU”, a “global financial powerhouse”, a “lightly regulated economy like Singapore”, and Great Britain will replace the EU’s trade (some 54% of their exports) with new trade agreements with the USA and members of the Commonwealth. 

Their exports to the EU have now fallen to 40% and there are no significant trade agreements, London’s financial position has been seriously weakened, few  regulations have been removed, and the EU and Ireland especially view Boris & Co. with deep suspicion after he renegaded on signed agreements. The UK has seen a fall of some 15% in GDP as a result of Brexit. 

It does not take a genius to compare Boris to Nero or more modern-day heroes like Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Putin, Xi, and “leaders” Venezuela, Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Belarus, North Korea, and many more who faded away like Tito, Honecker, Ceaușescu, and Idi Omin. None of them started out to be despots but most of them failed to put their foot on the brake.

To call them leaders is rather obtuse because people normally attribute that word with positive developments. We all want to vote for good leaders who believe will deliver policies that will improve our lives and not the opposite.

Looking at the above list of failures you can see so many common characteristics:

1. These leaders, like Boris and Trump, lie or do not tell the people the truth when they know or at least should know, what they are doing.
2. These leaders mostly live in relative luxury without worrying too much about the law of the country – some, as we know, can murder opponents, imprison the opposition, deal harshly with ethnic groups, attack or threaten neighbouring countries, stuff their pockets with cash, or just do little nasty things flouting covid restrictions. They are generally above the law because the army, the police, the judges and the media report to them!
3. Large parts of the media are controlled by them or their mates… Fake news is pumped out and dressed up like facts from serious looking announcers with military parades and lots of shiny medals.
4. Religion and sport also fall into the category of voter manipulation – at the extreme the president becomes a deity with huge pictures of his smiling face posted on walls and placards. Thank goodness Boris has avoided this fate!
5. The practice the dumbing down of politics to the masses who must be satisfied with their lot and the promise that things will get better… The extent of dumbing down varies and at the extreme there is usually a Big Brother stick to keep the people quiet. Today they use cameras and digital face recognition, before the bosses had to depend on informants. 
6. The security folk can get nicer homes, better salaries and better food and plenty of other benefits so long as they bash the opponents of the state with batons and do not complain about the brutality. The stronger the strongman the harsher the punishment they meet out, like in Belarus, where they started with water cannons and ended up with Russian troops shooting steel bullets into the crowds.
7. They even use words like free and fair elections where people are allowed to vote but where the voting boxes are filled or emptied to ensure that the glorious leader gets his 51% to 95% depending on the size of his slush fund! Slush funds and political contributions have become common in the USA and in the UK. The results of these growing sums are worrying for western democracy for obvious reasons as described above…

Bad leaders can only be at their best when the die or when they see the ways of their errors and retire. In Europe we often see Prime Ministers and Presidents move on or be moved on when voters get fed up with their antics. That would be a good move for Boris now…