Look at those shiny round objects! Don’t look at government spending!

How beautiful! How wonderful! You couldn’t find a better example for government and their attached MSM producing shiny round objects to draw  our attention away from more vital issues than this morning’s headlines. They’re only about Christmas, about how there will be “Twelve Rules” for the five days for which we’re receiving a tarnished, so-called ‘freedom’. It’s perfect: distract us peasants with some bread, ahem: Christmas cake, so we won’t pay attention to the ‘serious’ business of government, the “Spending Review” which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Rishi Sunak, will today present to the HoC. 

Following the tradition now customary some of the content was leaked to the MSM, before our peacocks get to hear and see it. Never mind – since the HoC has turned into a ghostly, ghastly chamber of semi-present MPs and huge screens of sat-at home MPs  this hardly matters nowadays. After all, it’s only about our money.

First, some unavoidable covid news, regarding those tiers and Christmas. To make sure “we” all understand, the ‘rulz’ about tiers are accompanied in ‘Our MSM’ by the usual outcry that the rise in ‘case numbers’ is only due to us neo-feudal serfs being irresponsible and not observing said rulz. It is all so tedious, it is all so ‘they would say that’ when we read that the SAGEs are already warning of a 3rd wave early next year. We know where that is coming from, recalling that the WHO ‘envoy’ has already cautioned us about this 3rd wave. 

Moreover, to nudge us into the correct attitude about vaccination, The Times has a helpful ‘World Report’, stating that ‘the next battle’ will be against the ‘virus of anti-vaxer mistrust’ (link, paywalled), listing the attitude of people in various countries to vaccination. How that ‘battle’ will be fought becomes instantly clear when you read the introductory paragraphs:

“Surveys suggest that substantial numbers of people in many countries are reluctant or even determined not to have themselves inoculated. In some, this contingent of the unwilling could be big enough to undermine herd immunity. This is partly down to the strength and dogmatism of a global antivaxer movement pumped up with lies, misinterpreted scientific evidence and wild conspiracy theories. The rise of a right-wing libertarian streak of political populism hasn’t helped — promoting an ideology that the state has no business in family affairs and limiting individual choices.” (link, paywalled)

Amazing, isn’t it, that there’s now a ‘global antivaxer movement’, suddenly risen out of nowhere. Amazing also that ‘herd immunity’ suddenly does exist and isn’t a ‘dirty word’. And that word ‘global’ – ah, haven’t we heard that recently, when ‘global’ figures like those populating the WEF talk about the necessity of a ‘Global Reset’?

Connections are being made between ‘antivaxer mistrust’, libertarianism and ‘right-wing populism’. The ‘battle front’ is clear: anyone who thinks that we, not the state, should decide about what concerns us and our families, about our own affairs, especially in something as important as our own health, is a ‘libertarian ideologue’, a right-wing one at that, and must be fought.The Times carefully hedges its bets though when they add that this ‘antivaxer mistrust’:

“[…] also reflects the particularities of local politics and a number of understandable concerns about the haste with which some of these vaccines have been brought to the regulators.” (link, paywalled)

Perhaps those ‘orrible “right-wing populist global anti-vaxers” might have some reason for their mistrust? Btw – one country in that list drawn up in the article is conspicuous by its absence: China. I do wonder (not!) why that is … As always, if you want a good round-up of the latest covid-government covid-shenanigans, check out this morning’s Lockdown Sceptics Newsletter (link).

And so to that “Spending Review”. As expected, the Treasury mandarins have fully domesticated their new Chancellor in the year he’s been in office. It will come as no surprise then that Rishi has clearly forgotten that he’s handing out our money, money which we will have to earn first. 

“We” will be allowed to celebrate Christmas in our own irresponsible way of going on that permitted ‘spending spree’ because right now we won’t be scared by announcements of tax rises. Those will come in the Budget at the end of the financial year – just right for the time when BJ believes we can all be released from the covid prison. 

Today, we’ll be told that it’s about ‘creating jobs’ and supporting job seekers – surely a necessity for the post-covid times. The ‘pay freeze’ for public sector workers will apparently go through, the howls of the Trade Unions notwithstanding. There’s one interesting snippet which has escaped the eyes of the MSM editors. It shows clearly for whom and on whom our money is being spent:

“Public service spending is on course to reach 60 per cent of GDP this financial year, a level not seen since the Second World War, with the cost of Covid predicted to rise to £400 billion by the end of the year.” (paywalled link)

Ah well – in this ‘war against covid’ none of our money must be spared! Never mind that this surely must make even the high earners inside the Westminster Bubble think again. Never mind that this demonstrates how we’re drifting into a neo-feudal society where we, the serfs, work for ‘our betters’. “We” have been given our ‘bauble for today’ – no worries!

Then there’s the proposal of cutting back the foreign aid budget, from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5 GDP. This was and is the favourite item of our former PM’s and ministers to virtue-signal on the international stage, so it’s no surprise when we read that:

“Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major have called on the prime minister to rethink the plan to cut the target from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent of gross national income. Sir John told The Times that the plan was morally wrong and politically unwise. Mrs May is understood to have made clear to colleagues privately that she is opposed to the measure. Mr Cameron and Mr Blair made a joint intervention last week, warning that cutting the foreign aid budget would be a strategic mistake. Mr Brown has said that it risks destroying Britain’s international reputation.” (link, paywalled)

Why it’s ‘morally wrong’ to help our own people, here at home, our people who face unprecedented hardships thanks to covid Lockdowns – well, one’s gotta be a ‘former PM’ to understand this. It’s only going to be a ‘brief’ cut, for one year, but some Tory MPs are also up in arms. Lawyers, I’m sure, will note with interest that ‘missing’ the 0.7 ‘target’ can apparently only apply retrospectively and that therefore Dominic Raab might face a ‘legal challenge’ if this cut is declared in advance. To get around this, a new law might be needed:

“Whitehall sources confirmed that the Treasury had asked lawyers to assess whether legislation may now be required in order to prevent the cut being judicially reviewed. […] The Chancellor has also privately conceded that MPs may have to be given a vote. The disclosure prompted a last-ditch attempt by moderate one nation Tories to try and persuade Boris Johnson to shelve the plan, warning that he would face a major backbench rebellion if it needed approval in Parliament.” (paywalled link)

This raises the delicious prospect of BJ’s government dying in a different ditch, with virtue-signalling Tories and of course Labour voting for continuing the spending our money on foreign aid rather than here at home.

On that subject, Douglas Murray has written a coruscating article in the DM. He mentions the staggering aid we still give to China – yes, that China which has profited from the pandemic it let loose on the world. Murray has choice words for that as well as for other jaw-dropping examples of government waste – do read the whole thing! – but this, for me, sums it up:

“The stupidity, greed and wanton wastefulness of Whitehall — where accountability seems to be unknown — must make every taxpayer sick to their stomach. The fact that the majority of the British public diligently pay their taxes is the only reason the Government has any money to shell out at all.” (link)

Just so! It’s our money, hard-earned, with many sacrifices thanks to covid lockdowns – and Rishi, the treasury and government are spaffing it up the wall! Sir John Redwood’s measured Diary entry this morning (link) is more concerned with debt – but surely even he must ask himself and his colleagues why necessary and indeed possible savings are, as usual, ‘impossible’.

I leave you with an extraordinary statement by ‘Our Health Czar’, Matt H. He told the HoC Select Committee on ‘Health and Safety’ that, since we now have those fabulous mass testing facilities, “we” ought to use them post-pandemic, saying that:

“he would like to see an ‘if in doubt, get a test’ approach become the norm for anyone with flu-like symptoms. For too long Britons’ natural instincts have been to ‘soldier on’ and go to the office even when they are unwell, which doesn’t happen in other countries, […] Mr Hancock claimed the Covid-19 crisis had highlighted how problematic this behaviour can be for older, vulnerable employees, adding that it was ‘going to have to change’.” (link) 

Like taxes which will never be scrapped once they’ve been created, “we” must now use ‘testing’ because ‘it’s there’. Best prepare ourselves for a health dictatorship then, where we’ll be told to ‘get a test’, even for sniffles, ’just in case’. Perhaps the quarantine rulz should be used as well? Rishi will be delighted when the economy tanks because people won’t ‘soldier on’ because ‘the test’ tells them they’re sick. We can all guess who’ll make the most use of that latest Hancock proposal, can’t we!

Perhaps even some Treasury mandarins might wake up when the economy never recovers, thanks to Hancock’s “skivers’ charter”. Perhaps though they’ll think that spending 80% or even 90% of the GDP on the public sector is perfectly fine and even desirable.

KBO!