THERE IS A PSYCHOPATH IN NO.10 - FEEL THE RAGE

My thanks to Steve Walker and SKWARKBOX for the original post, fuelled with rage. Here it is:

Johnson says wage growth more important than life length or cancer outcomes

My thanks to Gary Barker for such a brilliant cartoon depicting this man's destructive pathology

Psychopathic Tory PM says ‘never mind’ life or heath – wage growth ‘most important metric’

Tory PM Boris Johnson has said – in a televised interview – that wage growth is the ‘most important’ and people should ‘never mind’ cancer outcomes or life expectancy.

Press and listen:

In a country where cancer outcomes are poor compared to other similar countries and around 166,000 people a year die of cancer even before the Tories allowed the pandemic to swamp the NHS and where life expectancy is falling for the first time in decades, particularly among poorer people, Johnson is certifiable.

As any working-class person knows, life and health are fundamental. Johnson is an entitled psychopath – something we already saw in his refusal to express regret for the tens of thousands of Covid deaths he has caused and his ‘let the bodies pile high’ comments last year.

My thanks to the Dutch cartoonist who has captured our reality so brilliantly - sometimes the view is clearer from across the Channel. 

SKWAWKBOX has nailed it. This man in No.10 has no empathy, no moral compass. He is

emotionally crippled. He is also wretchedly bad at economics.

Here are some thoughts from Ian Dunt, writing in the 'i' newspaper on Thursday 23 September, with some glosses from me. The headlines read:

Living costs crisis is a failure of policy - Government ignored warnings, with consumers now paying the price

• In every aspect of this crisis, you see the same outcome: higher prices. 
• Gas prices are playing into the existing labour and supply shortages created by Brexit.
• the meat processing industry has labour shortages of around 15% due to a decline in European workers - and even when the meat can be processed, the lack of HGV drivers and warehouse workers means it is a struggle to get it to the supermarket shelves.
• Business leaders asked for a longer transition period. They were ignored by No.10. At the moment, it is about empty shelves; soon it will be about increased prices and inflation. 
• In these circumstances, most people's real income will fall - this means less money to spend and the economy will continue to stagnate. As it has ever since 2010, when the Tories with their neoliberal economic agenda came into government in the UK and crippled the nation with their Austerity programme.
• Inflation will be a major problem for the next few months at the very least - and instead of helping ameliorate matters, the government is making it worse. 
• Raising national insurance to help fund the NHS through its immediate crisis (whilst claiming this increase helps solve the social care crisis) will worsen the cost of living crisis for employees on low incomes because it leaves them with less money to spend. 
• It will also mean employers who also have to pay this NI increase are likely to pass on the cost to consumers through price rises. 
• And still No.10 is pressing ahead with the plan to axe £20 a week off Universal Credit, driving over three-quarters of a million people into further poverty. 
• We will witness over the coming months, more and more price increases taking their toll of an already vulnerable population. 
• This government does not prepare for eventualities.
• This government ignores the warnings of incoming trouble.
• This government then implements policies which exacerbate the crisis they have helped create. 

Those last three bullet-points serve as a judgement on Johnson and the Pandemic, as well as Johnson and the Economy.

Jacinda Ardern, the PM of New Zealand - a reminder that there was and still is another way of being a politician.

What should we do, confronted with this pathology?