SOMETHING ABOUT TRUE GRIT

Is it comforting to know that one is not alone in witnessing the end of American Democracy? After all one has been predicting this for some time, along with numerous others. So is there any satisfaction in seeing it happen?

 

The warnings were always there and had been getting worse during the last four years. No one was able to push back on the lies and gaslighting of the ordinary American electorate. There was a reason Mr Trump claimed time and again that he loved the poorly educated. They were the most malleable individuals in the country and he played on their poor education ad infinitum. The result is definitive proof that the American electorate is the most ignorant and poorest educated group on the planet. They have no idea whatsoever just what the constitution of the United States actually means, and it is crystal clear that general education in the United States has failed on a colossal scale.

 

We see a number of people being interviewed in the media who present opinion expressing shock and dismay at what is going on in the United States, and the effects the current administration is having on the rest of the world.  None of this has any effect whatever and the Trump express trundles on unchecked. It will continue to do so, so long as the citizens of the United States revel in ignorance. Comment and anecdote about the expanding catastrophe of Trumpism is of no import. It is merely repetitive nonsense.

 

I have reached the point of ceasing to listen or watch this continuous show of dismay and outrage at what is happening around the world. Waiting for some push back from European leaders appears to be something they too are waiting for. Each leader seems to be expecting another leader to take the lead, and consequently no one takes the lead.

 

So long as the rest of the world conforms to the premise that the President of the United States is all powerful he will maintain that position. The fact that he is an ignorant psychotic narcissist demands that European democratic leaders should call out the United States and issue sanctions to do everything they can to reign in this fake leader and force the American Public to wake up and get rid of him. It is one thing to show respect and allegiance to the Office of the President, but not when the individual who currently occupies that office is so blatantly unfit to hold that office. 

 

What is perhaps more troubling is the number of acolytes and narrowly educated individuals who support him and are willing to serve in his cabinet. They are the ones who will bend and interpret the law so as to give him immunity from it and thus sanction him to actually decide what the law should be.  If that is not dictatorship and completely contrary to the Constitution and separation of powers I no longer know what is. Not only do they support this blasphemy but they claim to be doing it in support of the Constitution, only it’s an interpretation so wildly skewered it beggars’ belief.

 

Mind you, much the same has been going on round the world, in particular Russia and China. So far as western Europe is concerned one can add Hungary and Austria. In fact the whole of the Middle European shatter belt, or old Habsburg Empire, is a case in point. As to the problems of the Middle East and south east Asia, it is more a matter of rigid religious beliefs that atrophies the mind towards inflexibility, prejudice and violence.   

 

The above was written yesterday and there has now been some reaction to Trump from European politicians. The leading German candidates in the current German general election have made their views felt in referring to Trump. It has been reported:

Christian Democratic chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz strongly rejected statements made by Trump about Ukraine. Commenting on Trump's statement that the government in Kyiv is partly to blame for the Russian war of aggression and could have brought peace itself long ago, the chancellor candidate front-runner told public broadcaster ARD.  “This is basically a classic perpetrator-victim reversal,” he said, pointing out that this corresponds to the Russian narrative of President Vladimir Putin.  “And to be honest, I am somewhat shocked that Donald Trump has now obviously adopted this narrative himself,” Merz added.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday criticized US President Donald Trump for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator.” “It is simply wrong and dangerous to deny President Zelenskyy his democratic legitimacy,” Scholz told the Der Spiegel news magazine. “It is true that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the elected head of state of Ukraine. The fact that no proper elections can be held in the middle of a war is in line with the Ukrainian constitution and electoral laws. No one should claim otherwise,” he added. The chancellor recalled that it was Russia under President Vladimir Putin that started the war in Ukraine. “Ukraine has been defending itself against a merciless Russian war of aggression for almost three years. Day after day,” Scholz said.

 

So it is clear that vying for leadership in this election requires the candidates to show a strong opposition to Mr Trump, raise questions about American support and the possible vanishing of democracy in the United States under a would be dictatorial President, leaning towards fascism. This appeal to the German public from the right and centre right of the German political spectrum is not without its ironic historical edge. 

 

In the United Kingdom one has unfortunately to contemplate the ridiculous adulation of Mr Trump by the likes of Nigel Farage. A dissembler and prevaricator of the worst kind who appears to be appealing to the right and far right of British political opinion.. That such sycophancy should be on display by a British member of parliament and leader of a party, no matter how distasteful, is dispiriting. His laudatory comments about his saviour Trump are sickening

Be that as it may, the British government has its own problem of rapprochement with the European Community and navigating a position which will allow it to deal with Trump in an effective positive manner without resorting to knee bending tactics and placating the narcissistic infantile idiot that is Mr Trump.  If ever strength and diplomacy went hand in hand it is now up to Mr Starmer to show his mettle. This is what true grit is all about.

MATTERS ARISING

 

There are a couple of matters which have surfaced in the recent past including the unspeakable behaviour of most Republican Party representatives in the United States Congress and some rather unfortunate problems faced by management of NHS England. As to that, The Chief Executive of said department, Amanda Pritchard, appeared before the health and social care committee. As reported in the Guardian, just hours before she had appeared before the committee, the House of Commons public accounts committee, or PAC, published a report which accused leaders of the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care of lacking “drive” and “ideas”. In addition, after Ms Pritchard gave evidence, the health committee issued a statement, which said, Ms Pritchard and her team lacked “drive” and “dynamism”. Their quotation marks, not mine.

 

I had posted a blog on Wednesday the 5^th July 2023 (to be found at https://fbuffnstuff.blogspot.com/2023/07/managing-nhs.html)  concerning an interview on the Today Program with Amanda Pritchard. During that interview, Ms Pritchard was asked to comment on a joint statement made by the three main health think tanks in the UK, the King’s Fund, the Nuffield Trust and The Health Foundation, which said that the health service suffered from “insufficient resources to do its job, fewer hospital beds than almost all similar countries, outdated equipment, dilapidated buildings and failing IT”.

 

I was rather critical of Ms Pritchard’s answers to questions, or rather non-answers. I commented that when it was suggested that she could put pressure on the politicians to resolve some of the issues causing the current difficult and possibly damaging industrial action, she again shied away from an answer. She stated during the interview “I’m not a politician, wages and funding is down to the politicians, I’m only the Chief Executive”. In the event she came across as Ms Pollyanna, speaking joyfully of planning for more trained staff in the future and generally looking forward. It sounded all very positive but was, in my view, merely a classic ministerial projection of neverland. She made no mention of the outdated equipment and dilapidated buildings and other basics which make it impossible for the staff to do their job. This was of course at the start of the Conservative Government’s last year in office.

 

My own view, a the time, was that what she should be doing is taking up the report from the King’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation and battering the Minister and government to deal with the failing infrastructure. Hospitals need urgent repair and maintenance. Hospitals need functioning and up-to-date equipment. Hospitals need the latest technology. Hospitals need the best and most efficient IT. Hospitals need staff trained to deal with the latest and best kit available. To train staff in, and with, crap facilities and equipment is counterproductive as they will have to be trained all over again. What reduces waiting and mistakes is effective efficiency. What makes efficiency effective is knowledge and training with the right tools. With effective efficiency you get savings and with savings you get more productivity. To get productivity you need the best staff, and to get the best staff you need to pay them accordingly. Corporations have been going on about this for years (The BBC is an instance in point – they claim they must pay high wages to keep the best talent).

 

Now, under Labour, the Guardian reports (full report can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/11/the-guardian-view-on-the-health-service-the-problems-go-deeper-than-the-boss), “The frustration of MPs on the health committee at what they regarded as long-winded answers was obvious to anyone watching. But Ms Pritchard is not a politician, and one reason for a lack of clarity in her answers was that the publication of crucial guidance, including updated targets, had been postponed by ministers”

 

Effectively, poor Ms Pritchard is in the unenviable position of being caught between two stools or rather regimes, neither of which is providing the actual resources required to provide the NHS with the fundamental equipment, buildings and medical personnel needed to make it progressive and efficient. So, having a go at management is all very well, but if there is no real added value to manage, what’s the difference?  The Guardian article added, inter alia:

 

 “While MPs, like voters, are understandably impatient for improvement, the expectations of the people with operational responsibility for the health service should be realistic. Given funding constraints, and the fact that NHS England’s structure (with its 42 integrated care boards) is still bedding in, it is unclear what demands for transformation really mean – beyond a wish that things were better than they are. Julian Kelly, Ms Pritchard’s deputy, explained that most of the £10.6bn increase to the organisation’s budget in 2025-26 will be absorbed by salary and national insurance rises, inflation and the £3.5bn allowed for rising costs caused by an ageing population and new treatments…..

Sorting out the confusion should be a priority for the new permanent secretary of Mr Streeting’s department, who is due to be appointed shortly, along with a new chair of NHS England. The filling of these two vacant posts means Ms Pritchard is likely to find she has less room to manoeuvre; the high level of autonomy granted to NHS England by the Conservatives is in the process of being reduced.”

 

So, in reality we are no further along than tinkering with changes of management as opposed to actually dealing with the nuts and bolts of the service which are necessary for management to be able to do their job; therefore, what was the change of government about?

 

I have, recently, become one of the more active patients of NHS England and can only speak glowingly of the treatment that I have received.  Whilst there have been minor hiccups, the overall dealings I have had with Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts is superb. To allow it to deteriorate would be an abomination. There are of course glaring abnormalities to be found and which make very distressing headlines, but given the numbers being cared for and the size of the organisation these anomalies are a small percentage of the overall performance. Nonetheless it is extremely disturbing such problems exist at all given the tragedies that can result. Striving for 100% efficiency and effectiveness in the NHS is to be lauded. It is hoped it can and will be achieved, but it will be at some cost.

 

Another matter involves the lies being told to courts by the security services. This is mainly done in order to maintain the standard response by security personnel “I can neither deny nor confirm whatever it is you want to know”. Legal actions involving the security service are often, and usually are, conducted in secret hearings behind closed doors, with the participants having been granted security clearance. More often than not, plaintiffs, witnesses and sometimes their lawyers are not admitted to such courts, nor can they be told how or what led to a court’s decision.  Given the rarity of such cases it has always been assumed by the Judiciary that public government servants (which is what security agents are) do not lie. That is a fiction which has been debunked, or rather a fiction that has finally caught up with what we all already knew. Spies tell lies. It is what they do because they are trained to do so. It is the nature of the beast. The current revelations and admissions by MI5 that its agents had told lies in court is not new or shocking. What is shocking is that justices and concerned persons profess to be shocked, which I find just as mendacious.

 

As to other matters arising in the United States, there are too many to mention. Elon Musk giving a press conference in the Oval Office, with Trump sitting like some side-line observer, whilst Elon held forth with his small son on his shoulders as if he were in complete control, and wasn’t it cute and fun to have the kid there, by the way. He did not seem to defer to, or acknowledge that Trump was even there, or even had any part in His Department of Government Efficiency. He was being transparent. Everything he was doing was out in the open. That no such Government Department is actually authorised by Congress or the Judiciary is, to him, of no consequence. The only thing that was open was that he was acting without any proper legal authority. How he was going about it was not at all transparent. Only his outrageous decisions were out in the open. Since when does he have the power to delve into personnel files, hire and fire and close down government activity?

 

There are also various congressional oversight committees to question heads of, and permanent staff of, various legal government departments and to approve the various presidential nominees to run some of those government departments.   To watch and listen to those hearings is a never-ending state of disbelief. The divisions on display are deep and run along the slimmest of margins. That Trumps Republican Party can claim a mandate through some sort of maniacal allegiance to Trump claiming adherence to the constitution and the democratic process is horrifying. The giving in to executive orders and unconditionally appalling acolytes as his cabinet, is beyond comprehension. The complete absence of so called checks and balances no longer exists. Unless Congress reasserts itself as an equal branch of government, American Democracy is no more and the Empire, that is the United States, will expire.  Its disintegration is already apparent in the ludicrous fantasy of the new middle eastern riviera on the Mediterranean. You can already see a new Trump Tower with Casino, spa, boutiques and west facing balconies to watch the sunset, all funded by his crypto currencies. Bye Bye American pie.

HOW DO WE LIKE IT SO FAR?

There is too much to be going on with. Many of the world’s leaders seem to be lining up to either make deals with the United States and their President, or resist the barrage of questionable decrees, both domestic and international in scope. Those seeking to make deals must somehow find a way to ingratiate themselves without appearing to be too accepting of his bullying and arrogant nature so as not to alarm their own countrymen. Others go full on with effusive flattery, thereby gaining his full attention, whilst relying on their countrymen to recognise the irony in their approach. It is as if they are indicating to their citizen’s “Hey, watch this. This is how you deal with and egotistical idiot”. This is certainly the approach used by Putin since Trump first come on the scene, back in the day Trump first applied to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

In the United Kingdom, much criticism has been laid at the doors of David Lammy and Peter Mandelson for their presumed volt face in their current appreciation of Trump. Their prior comments about him seem to indicate a level of unacceptable hypocrisy; yet, how else is one to make an approach when faced with having to deal with the current American President and his advisors. To date the UK Prime Minister seems to be in favour with Mr Trump, although it seems clear that no one, and I mean no one, least of all Keir Starmer, knows why.

There are other opinions which suggest that, despite the brouhaha caused by the second election of Mr Trump, there is nothing really to be concerned about. The United States has always been a questionable influence throughout the world and has often violated international law in many respects. It has indulged in covert operations around the globe since the establishment of the United States of America. History is littered with instances of American interference and skulduggery. The continued existence of Guantanamo in Cuba, and the uses to which it has been put, is clearly evidence of that.  So no real change with regards to Trump and his open braggadocio of America First. It has always been America First. In effect, the current President is just the same old same old with a bit more exaggeration.

Despite this truth being universally acknowledged, there are certain American citizens and their elected representatives who still believe in the Constitution and the separation of powers that it supports. It is, for some, a strongly held believe. You can see them all over YouTube expressing opinion and dismay at the doings of the present administration, strenuously attempting to take Mr Trump’s nominees for public office to task for their inexperience, bias and adherence to Trump’s lies and conceits. They do this in the full knowledge that it is to no avail given the slim majorities of the Republican party in both houses of congress. The Justices of the Supreme Court have long lost any influence as the Court has clearly been corrupted.

So what is a citizen to do? The Press, most notably the White House Press Corp, no longer challenges the administration as it should, nor does it highlight the misinformation and continued propagandist style of the Press Secretaries proffered by Trump.  They have lost any integrity they might have had. The repetitious “I will always tell the truth” doesn’t cut it anymore.

Is it now just a matter of sitting tight for the next four years and hope it will all right itself in the end? There are many caring citizens in the United States who should not forget that there is a very slim majority who have voted in the current administration and it should not take much to form an effective opposition. Executive decrees are limited and can be struct down by the courts, as some already have been. There have been rather forceful solidarity movements around the world that have made differences in government. This should not be overlooked.

In any event, it would seem that the world economic situation will be going through some rather up and down frenetic activity in the light of tariff wars and other cascades of Mr Trumps irresponsible disruptions. For him, this is just another episode of the Apprentice show. “How will everybody react if I do something really stupid?” He does all this between rounds of golf in Florida. How is that in anyway serious?

The tragedy of Trump in the United Kingdom is, unfortunately, far reaching. Quite apart from a labour government finding itself in a situation having to adjust its very basic principles to deal with a Trump, it is also in the throws of attempting to reconcile those very principles with an economy very much geared to the marketplace. It is all down to affordability and the necessity of raising sufficient state income to provide the kind of welfare required for the nation. Without growth, no increase in taxable income. Hence the refrain of growth, growth growth. How does one cope with an essentially socialist outlook, with making deals in the marketplace, and in making those deals, cope with providing public services without selling out those services to private enterprise.

Public utilities and public transport have already been auctioned off and we can clearly see the results. Water companies have made their executives and shareholders rich and have only succeeded in polluting rivers and shorelines, whilst claiming they have to increase their pricing to fix the problems of antiquated systems they claimed they were going to fix when they first took over running the utility. They failed and are asking the public to pay yet more. Electricity and gas are equally claiming the need for increased payments. Refuse collection has been farmed out to private enterprise and collections have deteriorated. They are now fewer and the supposed emphasis on recycling, although necessary, is hiding the fact that the service once provided is painfully inferior to what it once was.  Train services have deteriorated considerably since privatisation, despite additional support from the taxpayer over the years and the fares still increase. These are just the UK’s domestic problems.

What price doing ‘deals’ with other nations in the world markets?  Mr Trump will be more than happy to organise a trade deal with the UK so long as it contains a pass for big pharma and numerous insurance schemes to get their claws into the NHS. This would be the final straw that killed off the NHS entirely.

Marina Dunbar, a young journalist and a Guardian newspaper fellow, in an article published on the 22^nd January 2025, reported, inter alia:

Within his first 48 hours back in office, Trump has signed several executive orders that threaten the healthcare of millions of Americans…

Those orders are expected to affect the medical insurance coverage for upwards of 20 million people in the US…

“The consequences of more people going uninsured are really significant, not just at an individual level with more medical debt and less healthy outcomes, but also has ripple effects for providers,” Sabrina Corlette, a research professor and co-director of the Centre on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said.

Commercial insurance has proved difficult to navigate for millions, as people with insurance have been almost as likely to experience medical debt as those who are uninsured. In fact, people with health insurance may now represent the majority of debtors American hospitals struggle to collect from, according to medical billing analysts.

“Premiums go up for the people who do have health insurance. For the people without health insurance, it’s financially devastating,” Corlette said. “The result is medical debt, garnished wages and liens on people’s homes because they can’t pay off their bills.”

This is the prospect the British public is likely to face from a ‘trade deal’ with the United States, under the stewardship of Donald Trump and his cronies. The United States already has taken over certain digital services with their program ‘My Chart’ which is now being used by Guys and St Thomas Hospitals. The same program is used across the whole of the United States. All of our medical history, current treatments, appointments and prescriptions are available on this site. Why has the NHS app effectively been abandoned? None of this bodes well.

I do not think I am being alarmist. You cannot trust anything that man says or does. The last eight years of continuous lies, narcissism and infantile behaviour is brutally demonstrated by his first term in office, and during his last four years continuous rant about stolen elections and how hard done by he has been. He is a convicted felon with yet more criminal charges to deal with once out of office. They should be revied and dealt with once his supreme court immunity is gone. Whether that will be the case is another matter; however, I would urge the various prosecuting attorneys to be vigilant and proceed accordingly when the time comes.

The insanity of his UK supporters like Nigel Farage, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson etc. is an outrage and completely contrary to the British Constitution and the rule of law.  What they see in him is beyond understanding. That a British Citizen can support an insurrectionist, an inciter to violence, a fraudster and sexual predator, proved beyond reasonable doubt, says a lot about them. They are just as mendacious as he. How is it that they have support in the UK? What is wrong with these people? Have they no shame?

More of this anon. I have cooking to do.