Gareth Holmes
One of the hardest things for people to admit is when they have been conned.
No one likes being made to look a fool and being the victim of a hoax or scam leaves people upset, especially if the conman has scammed them out of money and left them poorer as a result. One saving grace is being able to seek legal compensation from those who are responsible and, often, never having to see them again.
What if, however, you could not escape this conman? What if you had no choice but to watch as he continually lied to you, all the while ignoring your concerns and breaking the law with impunity?
Now, imagine that you relied on this man for clear advice and leadership during a global pandemic; yet, instead of a clear course of action, you receive only vague and often incorrect sound bites, with more U-turns than the latest Fast and Furious movie.
This conman is not fit for office, and his name is Boris Johnson.
It should come as no shock to anyone that Johnson has lied continually to the public. He has done so since his days as a journalist, where he made up quotes and claimed that Europe was banning Prawn Cocktail crisps, all the way to his first days in parliament, where he was dismissed for lying about an extra marital affair.
The latter he did after assuring the head of the conservative party that such claims where “An inverted Pyramid of Piffle”. He then refused to resign when he was finally caught.
Lies hover around the Prime Minister. Two such examples are; his continued claim during the Brexit campaign that the EU wanted to straighten bananas and his promise of £350 million a week to the NHS that has yet to manifest.
The conservative party does seem tailor-made for him, however. They were dealing with falsities all the way back when David Cameron claimed that his government offered strength and stability.
What Cameron truly offered was to light a match which sparked the greatest political travesties of the modern age, just in time for his retirement to a life of comfort and after-dinner speeches.
In the rigged lottery of British politics, we have ended up with Boris Johnson: a man condemned by court for his numerous affairs and cavalier attitude to fatherhood
Of course, this alone would be bad enough if the world were running smoothly; however, we are in the grip of a global pandemic where clear guidance and clarity are needed now more than ever.
Yet, in the rigged lottery of British politics, we have ended up with Boris Johnson: a man condemned by court for his numerous affairs and cavalier attitude to fatherhood and so filled with imperial racism that he uses phrases like ‘water melon smiles’ and describes women in cultural dress as ‘looking like letterboxes’.
Boris and his government manage clarity about as well as they manage honesty, with the government doing U-turns on important policies, often just mere hours after the statement was made. His recent statement about the North East lockdown required a tweet a mere hour and a half later to correct what he had said.
The pattern is clear: wear masks except when you don’t; eat out to help out but stay in; schools are closed but open; work from home and don’t commute, but could you pop into Starbucks and get me a sandwich; and don’t see people from other houses, but go to the pub because the footy’s on.
The country is spiralling into an economic crisis, poverty and unemployment are set to skyrocket whilst we are helmed by a man who believes that every day is Churchill day
The party that once had Thatcher famously say ‘This lady’s not for turning’ has made so many U-turns that she must spinning in whatever dark throne she is entombed in.
It is time for Johnson and his cabinet to leave. The country is spiralling into an economic crisis, poverty and unemployment are set to skyrocket whilst we are helmed by a man who believes that every day is Churchill day.
The Prime Minister and his party have also condemned those who protect human rights, blaming delays in the criminal justice system on “lefty human rights lawyers and other do-gooders”. Let that sink in.
Boris Johnson’s morals do not align with those we should expect from the leader of our country. We are all suffering because of this virus and, with mumblings of another U-turn on pubs in the North, the garbled guidelines coming out of 10 Downing Street are only making things worse.
We deserve better.
Gareth Holmes
Featured image courtesy of Number 10 via Flickr. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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