THE JOHNSONIAN VERSION OF I'LL BE BACK

Friday 9th June 2023:
It is difficult to know where to begin. The British Prime Minister’s visit to the United States firmly confirming the United Kingdom no longer has the influence it once had on the world stage. It still maintains a large public profile but I am of the view that its influence is waning year on year.

According to US News and World Report (which now operates entirely online and has been publishing news, consumer advice, rankings and analysis for some years) on the overall ranking of best countries, the United Kingdom is at number 8, below Switzerland, Germany, Canada, the United States, Sweden, Japan and Australia. The analysis claims:

The United Kingdom is a highly developed nation that exerts considerable international economic, political, scientific and cultural influence. Located off the northwest corner of Europe, the country includes the island of Great Britain – which contains England, Scotland and Wales – and the northern portion of the island of Ireland. The country’s role on the global stage faces new questions as the nation has withdrawn from the European Union. The Brexit process sets out new rules for how the U.K. and the European bloc will operate with each other. For example, the freedom to live and work between the U.K. and EU has come to an end and U.K. citizens will need a visa if they want to stay in the EU more than 90 days in a 180-day period.

The journal is more on the conservative side in its reporting, so when one see phrases like “The country’s role on the global stage faces new question as the nation has withdrawn from the European Union”, one must take pause.  It is now clear, after Mr Sunak’s meeting with President Biden, that its role has diminished and is in decline.

It is no longer a world banking hub.. The breakaway from the EU has seen to that. It now seeks to be some sort of CAIA or Central Artificial Intelligence Agency and a leader in making electric vehicle batteries, which is nothing more than a mobile phone battery, only several thousand times bigger. Is that going to save the day?

VW's  batteries, rather like a big Nokia battery

As to the United States the ex-President has now been indicted on some more serious charges than payments of hush money. What I do not understand is why it is taking so long for the State Of Georgia to indict him for attempting to pervert an election, and why the United States Justice Department has not indicted him for sedition and inciting to riot. The man’s entire body and skeletal structure is held together by deception, deceit, dishonesty, prevarication, mendacity and dissimulation. I suspect one of the reasons he will not go before a court of law and take the witness stand is that he would commit perjury by simply opening his mouth. His arrogance and narcissism is such that he could probably take a lie detector test and pass  because he believes what he is saying is real. Trump is a walking advert for “Welcome to Fantasy Land”. I’m sure he and Disney would get along very well, particularly in the relationship with Mr DeSantis.

Saturday 10th June 2023

Whiile trying to review the 37 counts in the indictment against Donal Trump, which is apparently detailed in a document of 49 pages, I note that Boris Johnson has decided  to  stand down from Parliament. He has  quit the House of Commons with a Trumpian style narcissistic rant blaming everybody but himself.  He too claims conspiracy against him and cries of kangaroo court proceedings. He complains he has been convicted without a shred of evidence. How could the committee not believe him when he claimed his comments, whilst admittedly misleading, were made on the best advice that he firmly believed what he was saying was true?

Let us reflect. I have never been inside downing street. I have no idea of the layout or how proximate some areas and rooms are located in relation to others, but many members of the committee (the majority of whom are member of the Conservative Party) have been and know exactly what one can and cannot see when in the building or the garden at the rear. Given the photographic evidence and their own common sense over what can or cannot be seen and heard in Downing Street, and assuming that Mr Johnson is not deaf or blind, they  chose not to believe him and his denial of what was clearly obvious. Most of the general public thought he’d got it wrong  on the photographic evidence alone.  Clearly Mr Johnson, like Mr Trump, has no idea of what evidence actually consists of. Statements made, pictures taken and exhibits found, together with eyewitness accounts generally make the case. Mr Trump and Mr Johnson have made so many statements (many of them contradictory and without foundation, coupled with the fact - a word I use advisedly -that they do not read anything of importance put before them or actually listen to advisors) that they condemn themselves by simply opening their mouths. 

What is most astonishing is the number of people who are willing to swallow their farrago of nonsense and tissue of lies.  That some members of the public, as well as Parliamentarians, fail to see through the deception and the braggadocio,  and interpret what they see as charisma, is beyond astonishing. Is it any wonder that fraud and con artists have swelled out of the woodwork to inundate the internet with their poison stealing millions of pounds from the unsuspecting and trusting  individuals who happen to fall for their scams?

The fact that they have achieved high office having duped so many of the electorate as well as political colleagues is shameful. As a result it has created division and mistrust. Their disregard for honesty and integrity has lowered all forms of scrutiny allowing miscreants of all sorts into positions requiring the highest degree of personal conduct. It has created a population growing ever more suspicious of all public servants as well as their neighbours. Who or what can one trust? This is not how we should be living our lives.

The mere fact that Mr Johnson hints in his tirade that he may once again seek public office is terrifying. What is more terrifying is that Mr Trump continues to seek high office and, despite the finding by a jury that he is a misogynist and sexual deviant, despite having been indicted for serious criminal acts of perverting the course of justice and misusing funds, despite all that, he continues to be supported by an astonishing array of politicians and millions of the American electorate who seem to care nothing about loosing their souls. What amounts to a wholesale misappropriation of the constitution of the United States is likely to be achieved through the ballot box. The Republican Party are being led like lemmings over the precipice. The trouble is, the rest of the world will suffer as well. Being President of the United States does carry with it a great deal of global responsibility as well as domestic. That it should once again fall to the likes of  a Trump is nauseating in the extreme.

As to Boris Johnson, we may not quite have seen the back of him; but, with his parting shot, is it not clear that Mr Sunak’s only real choice is to call a general election now?