The black hole at the heart of government

Scientists have discovered a black hole (or should that be a ‘hole of colour’?) at the centre of our galaxy. I’ll be sure to avoid it when I am out on one of my many intergalactic voyages. If black holes are so fascinating, I suggest we send a few scientists down Whitehall to see if they can locate the black hole that clearly exists somewhere between numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street. What’s more, if they find it, I suggest they fill it – preferably with some conservative ideas.

The reign of the bouffant buffoon started so well with ‘Get Brexit done’, after the corner into which Theresa May painted herself over the political withdrawal from Europe. She lost some of her best appointments to the Department for Exiting the European Union including Brexit Secretary David Davis MP, and failed to get anything of significance through parliament. Enter stage right Bumbling Boris who managed to see off a few close rivals for the leadership and we were on the crest of a wave. No more bossing by Europe, immigration under control, free trade agreements with whomever we wanted, and we still had the pound to wave in the face of Johnny Foreigner as he turned up on our shores with a wallet full of euros. Except…

Where are we now? The Highest level of inflation for 40 years, increased National Insurance contributions, overt tax increases and stealth tax increases. Families on lower incomes are genuinely struggling to put food on the table. This is not some socialist trope; I know as I speak to my married children. Working from home has worked out well for at least one of my sons, as he would be unable to afford to travel from Hull every day by car to his office 40 miles away in York. Take the train, help the environment you say? Have you purchased a rail ticket recently? I travelled the 89 miles from Genoa to Milan last week in first class for £20. A single between Hull and York costs £39 and you travel in a rickety old banger of a train with barely enough room to puff your cheeks. Given the economic basket case that is Italy, hit far worse by their response to Covid than we were, one cannot help but feel that several gallons of piss are being taken by our lords and masters.

Of course, the government has the perfect excuse, the ‘pandemic’. But this was just another demonstration of the Downing Street black hole into which got sucked all the stupidest ideas in pandemic management from across the world: economic lockdown; social distancing; mask mandates; and a fortune invested in vaccines which, patently, do not work. Boris tried to resist all of this initially, but the pull of the black hole proved too strong. His initial resolve and the little he had left of his dignity got sucked into the vortex. Instead of allowing people to go about their business and earn a living he put a stop to that for the best part of two years. Our productivity saw a record drop yet we spent £69 billion in furlough to keep people at home doing nothing. I was surprised to see that I knew more about economics than Chancellor Rishi Sunak when I realised this could only be done by printing money and borrowing it from the future; essentially the super highway to inflation.

That’s where we are now. That and worshipping the false god of climate change which, in addition to making us ever more dependent on China to manufacture just about everything we need (ironically including parts for our ridiculous bird shredding, noisy, inefficient and unsightly wind turbines) will put cars and foreign holidays beyond the reach of many working class families. While we are finding it ever harder to leave our country, illegal immigrants flow in unabated by the thousand each month; nothing short of an invasion. We seemingly make absolutely no effort to stop them, instead we usher them in, offer them a warm welcome and an unguarded hotel room. Then we seem surprised when we bring them their breakfast in bed that the blighters have legged it off into the English countryside. For the few that don’t get away we are offering them a free place in the sun in lovely Rwanda, seemingly missing the point that they are then probably closer to home than they were when they washed up on our shores. Why don’t they just go there directly? Maybe it’s the lingering memory of genocide, the corrupt regime and the lack of a social security system that puts them off.

It is hard to know if the World Economic Forum has as much power as some of the more conspiratorial of my colleagues think. But there is a remarkable degree of congruence between the ‘build back better’ bollocks spouted by the likes of Johnson, Trudeau, Ardern and Macron (except he says ‘mieux reconstruire’).  Otherwise, they seem to have little in common except rabid self-interest. Another of the World Economic Forum’s alleged slogans is “You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy.” I can’t wait until they start working on the second part.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.