The second covid year is coming to an end. There will be the inevitable ‘look back’ covid reviews and opinion pieces which by now have the Nation bored to tears, but the main theme with which the Westminster denizens hope to ‘frame the narrative’ for the New Year will be money.
‘Money’ will be instrumentalised to drive agendas which have been simmering for some time. These agendas are usually pre-defined by various Think Tanks which then push their ‘latest’ research to justify their existence. Some MSM editors happily take such Think Tank reports to fill their pages because, just as with covid, they don’t need to do their own research. Take for example the latest ‘shock-horror’ report in this morning’s DM (my emphasis):
“Families face a ‘cost of living catastrophe’ next year thanks to soaring energy bills, tax increases and the highest inflation in 30 years, a report warns. It predicts that 2022 will be the ‘year of the squeeze’, with households facing a hit of at least £1,200. With inflation projected to reach 6 per cent in spring, wages next Christmas could be no higher in real terms than they are today, the study by the Resolution Foundation think-tank forecasts.” (link)
That’s pretty horrific, isn’t it, but it provides a nice background for another go at dismantling our parliamentary system of governance, the abolition of the House of Lords – this time for financial reasons. The DM howls: “Lording it up! Peers claim £15m in expenses in a year, fuelling calls for the second chamber to be replaced” (link) and goes on to quote an opinion poll undertaken in November this year (link). What took them so long to write about this report only today?
Perhaps this poll only became ‘important’ now because, suddenly, there’s a politician, an MP, who demands the HoL be abolished ‘because of costs’? Perhaps it’s because a certain political Party collected those numbers? That party is the SNP and the MP is Mr Peter Wishart.
I wonder if there are any Think Tanks investigating how much Blair’s devolution policy has cost the Nation. Are there Think Tanks asking if paying for the Sturgeons, Dripfords and Khans and their ever more crazy policies is ‘fit for purpose’ and provides any value for money at all? Would the Westminster MSM even publish such research findings?
Dripford has now ‘advised’ his Welsh civil serpents to ‘ban’ the use of words like ‘Brexit’ and ‘Her Majesty’ (link). Dripford and Sturgeon have imposed the strictest covid measures on their hapless populations. Perhaps the MPs and Javid should not only demand that those two publish the covid numbers on which they base their covid prisons sentences (link) but demand a general, proper accounting for the money sent them from Westminster.
They as well as other MSM editors in the Westminster MSM might take notice of a well-researched opinion piece by Madeline Grant in the DT where she labels Dripford’s covid restrictions “a bundle of pettifogging contradictions” (paywalled link). She has choice words for the Dripford-type politicians, describing them as
“[…] public officials who have rarely if ever interacted with the private sector during their career. Devolution’s additional layers of government have offered disproportionate influence to many average Joes with little prospect of finding it elsewhere.” (paywalled link)
Why, one wonders, have the covid tsars, why have the MPs who are supposed to scrutinise how our money is being spent, not taken note of:
“[…] Welsh Labour’s historic mismanagement of the NHS. Despite a higher per capita health spend, Welsh citizens must endure a median wait time almost double that in England. Long before the pandemic, the devolved government was frittering vast sums on vanity projects like Cardiff Airport, while neglecting education, health and other areas where Wales has fallen behind. Such historical pressures have helped to leave ambulance services still relying on the military nearly two years into the pandemic.” (paywalled link)
After all, when an SNP politician can demand the abolishment of the HoL “because: money!” they surely can look at the mismanagement of such important issues like Health in Wales or indeed Scotland and that Khan fiefdom? Ms Grant remarks:
”Nicola Sturgeon may be an infinitely smarter political operator than Drakeford, but there are many parallels in their political style – the same victim mentality, the same black holes in the budget, the same “I’m not Boris” policymaking and infantile approach to criticism.” (paywalled link)
Indeed, and Ms Grant’s observation regarding Khan are also worth quoting because they point out the underlying political malaise caused by devolution:
“Any kind of devolution seems to result in similar pettiness, and differentiation for its own sake. Given a lever, you can be sure they’ll pull it. Even London Mayor Sadiq Khan pre-emptively cancelled the capital’s annual NYE fireworks display well before there was any mention of omicron.” (paywalled link)
Let me hasten to add that this by no means absolves all Tory local fiefdoms from such criticism! Pettiness and tinpot dictator attitudes seem to be an occupational hazard everywhere elected politician rely on local civil erpents, all formed in the Common Purpose mould. I agree with this analysis:
“The overall picture is one of failure, but also a fragmented, patchy style of politics. […] While financial costs and the nuances of decision-making are outsourced, political capital accrues at home. With luck, these real-time experiments will remind voters at the Westminster polls that Left-wing politics, even when paid for by other people, ends in disaster.” (paywalled link)
The theatre that is the HoC and the lefty MSM who delight in bigging up Starmer because ‘he ain’t Johnson’ should take note. It’s too simplistic to blame devolution for the ills and the money-wasting policies in those devolved entities. The blame accrues to the ‘leaders’: all Labour or Labour-like politicians who are supported by national and local MSM. Those leaders are the product of entrenched, decades-long Labour policies, of Common Purpose fiefdoms which thrive in that Labour-engendered political swamp.
However, there remains the question why, when ‘devolution has marooned millions of UK citizens with leaders they don’t deserve’, voters go on voting for them. I humbly suggest it’s because of the continuing outcries about ‘money’. They’re already being planted in the MSM and I suspect that the customary lefty bleating about ‘the rich’ will become ever louder.
Of course, those bleaters never demand to reduce the eye-watering sums paid for NHS head honchos or Whitehall Mandarins, never mind the money wasted on middle-level civil serpents, ‘devolved’ or not, who have turned out to be the mini-tinpot dictators supporting the absurd policies of their Labour overlords.
Why is it that the Westminster MSM editors are so keen to support Starmer and his crew ‘because he ain’t Johnson’? He won’t produce the green uplands they dream of but will be costing them even more eye-watering sums of money through ever higher taxes for an even more dysfunctional administration. Doesn’t he Welsh example demonstrates that their precious Sacred Cow won’t be saved by Labour but will become a bottomless, dysfunctional money pit, a warning, live example for “levelling down”?
Perhaps that’s what the creator of ‘Devolution’ had in mind, all those years ago!
Tell us Viv, are you unfortunate enough to live actually in Wales? Or is it on the border, where you are forced to venture into that poor ‘land’?
Any way, you are quite right about Blair and his wretched devolution policies.
We know Heath started the rule of the TRAITORS. But surely Blair outstripped him in the competition to be the biggest traitor to this country, ever!
Well, I actually live in the Welsh Capital, Cardiff. I love Wales and I love the people, with the exception of the Welsh Labourites.
Agree fully that the MSM are not asking the right questions – but hey, they are never to be trusted and we don’t have to tune into their airwaves or buy their papers.
As for the political leaders of UKs parliaments is there really a fag paper to put between them in respect of cronyism, careerism, big goverment, safetyism, worship of the NHS, and incompetence?
Well Madeline Grant certainly hit the nail on the head. Whatever happened to the bonfire of the quangos? Nothing to see here everyone back on the bus. As for covid, this sign days all you need to know .
The sign doesn’t seem to work will find another way.
Basically the sign said The unvaxxed are 100% unlikely to have any side affects from it and 99.8% unlikely to be ill with covid. I’ll take those odds.
After a few visits to Neil Oliver’s sofa (no, behave yourself) on GBN, some of his common sense, innate logic, clear observations and decency must be catching. But Madeline should beware; she has become so sensible she now looks rather out of place at the Gates’ funding recipient Telegraph. I expect someone will have a word with her shortly.
Lisa. If it is the same one you linked yesterday I’ve just looked and it is super!
For the safety of our customers, vaxxed and non vaxxed, No politicians allowed in here!
Posted above but thanks Pauline.
Quite a powerful short video looking at vaccine deaths and many of the politicians mentioned above appear in it.
“Vaccine deaths”
https://rumble.com/vrkug6-vaccine-deaths.html
2022 will be all about money but the paltry sum we pay the House of Lords will pale into insignificance compared to a wave of defaulting debt in a world sick with debt.
Well, you didn’t think that the party would go on forever did you? We print money to pay to keep the economy running while businesses and jobs are destroyed by lockdowns, not to mention a rapidly increasing population while industry has been offshored for decades, the numbers don’t make sense but I suppose in a world with a dumbed down population nobody notices.