No.177 - I'm Beginning to Feel Sorry for Boris.

Dear James, 

I’m beginning to feel sorry for Boris. First he takes on the Mayor of Manchester. Then he attacks the Mayor of London on totally false grounds. Then he gets his party to vote against Marcus Rashford’s call for the extension of free school meals until next spring. Add to all this his divide and rule tactics and the division of our nation into different levels of danger and support and, hey presto, without even trying, Boris has managed to alienate at least half the population just by being Boris! It seems he has lost whatever plot he ever had but especially the one about ‘levelling up Britain’. And you James, in your unwavering and cringing support for him, are helping him every step of the way. 

At PMQs on Wednesday Boris lost it completely. He accused Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, of having bankrupted TFL where the fact is that it was Coronavirus and Boris who closed down tube travel and therefore took away 70% of TFL’s revenues. He says that we should not pander to celebrities such as Marcus Rashford when the latter very reasonably asks for the extension of free school meals to underprivileged children. He quibbles over £5m pounds with Andy Burnham just to make his point that the power is his and not the mayor’s. Boris and Cummings seem set on destroying whatever cohesion still exists in the UK. Actually it is much simpler than that. Boris and Cummings are lost. They have no idea where they are going or what they are doing. The PM mouths the usual Tory bromide of being a ‘One Nation Conservative’ while steadily breaking the Union and England into many small pieces. To many he would seem to have declared war on Britain itself. Consequently Britain is responding with a guerrilla war against Boris. Today Marcus Rashford is receiving mailbags full of support for his free meal campaign. Boris is not the most athletic of persons and, on the field against Marcus Rashford, he has yet again scored another massive own goal.  

And it is not just Boris. Until recently, the Chancellor, Mr Sunak has been playing the dutiful heir apparent, but this week he showed he is not much better prepared than his boss. On Wednesday it was revealed that the UK’s total debt had risen above £2tn and now represents 103.5% of GDP the highest since 1960. The nation has usually only gone to such levels after major world wars. Britain went from 270% of GDP after World War Two and it took until 1973, almost 30 years, to get it down to 55%. Sunak has many options to reduce the current debt. He can inflate, he can cut spending, he can raise taxes but what is sure is that, whatever combination of these he chooses, Mr Sunak’s collision with reality is still to come. 

The fissures opened up by Coronavirus, exacerbated by Brexit and set on fire by Boris/Cummings determination to impose their centralizing rule rather than trusting the nation, will be hard to repair. Scotland and Wales have gone their own ways. The Labour Party is asking why Boris ignored the September 21st advice from SAGE to go for a short, circuit-breaker option for a couple of weeks. But Boris blunders onwards making up policy on the way. Yesterday Mr Sunak was clearly in panic. He had had to magic up a broad range of extra financial support for Tier 2 and the North. This was a U-Turn in disguise. Without admitting it he has acquiesced to Andy Burnham’s demands. Why didn’t he do it in on Monday? 

The shambles of this week’s decision making and the damage it is doing to Brand Boris and Brand Britain is causing him to lash out. He wants to keep the economy going but the economy will not keep going if those who work in it become infected. Of one thing we can sure though. The experiment of the short ‘firebreak’ lock downs versus the regional, ‘whack-a-mole’ system will soon be revealed by Nature herself. Yesterday, the ONS reported that infections have risen by a quarter to more than 35,200 a day in England. Sooner or later, Boris will have to defer to whatever decision Nature makes!   

Meanwhile, it goes from bad to worse. In the absence of strategy from the top, the country is attempting to fill the massive hole from the grassroots. Yesterday Liverpool Mayor, Joe Anderson, announced he is providing meals for 19,800 pupils in the city, Simultaneously, Hillingdon Council, in Johnson's own constituency, confirmed free school meals to eligible children during half term. So what does Boris do? He announces that the government is going to cut 80% of the promised laptops for disadvantaged pupils.  Oh boy, does this man know how to pour petrol on fire!

Kind regards,

BH – Your Concerned Constituent