As 2022 comes to an end I reflect on some of the major events. Every so often there was a glimmer of hope in among all the horror. Hope doesn’t hang around for long in UK politics and in any case, as anarchists, we are a long way off a desired set of institutions or
Tag: boris johnson
The spectacular demise of Boris Johnson and what comes next
Boris Johnson’s demise as prime minister was destined to be spectacular. At the start of the year, I wrote that it was likely that he had already done something that would court controversy and so it proved. Ultimately it was his style of denying everything in the first instance and then backtracking, if necessary, that
Boris Johnson: the King Midas who turns everything to shite
No sooner than Boris Johnson tried to look statesmanlike, it all fell apart. Some prime ministers get to retreat from national issues by bursting onto the world stage. He wanted to be world king as a child. It turns out he’s King Midas but instead of turning everything to gold, he turns everything he touches
We need to stop Boris Johnson before it is too late
Boris Johnson is the most dangerous prime minister I’ve suffered. I consider him much more dangerous to the people of the UK than Donald Trump is to the people of the USA. Obviously, one is in power and the other is not but there is also a fundamental difference between the constitutions of the two
The tensions in Johnson’s government provide opportunities
As the political year ends, it’s worthwhile to reflect on the utter incompetence of Boris Johnson. I’m undecided over whether an incompetent government is worse than one that functions well. It’s probably best to judge them on what they do. The issue with Johnson is that his incompetence has cost thousands of lives. We could
Why Boris Johnson still isn’t a libertarian
Monday has been dubbed ‘Freedom Day’ by the Prime Minister. Despite being urged to focus his pandemic response on data rather than dates, he set the 19th of July as the date by which the UK would remove most Covid restrictions – regardless of what the virus does. People are being instructed that they must
Cummings confirmed what we all knew. So where is the anger?
Last week could have been a pivotal moment in British politics. It should have been. It could still turn out to be hugely important but where were the British public? It’s not entirely clear. After an astounding week in British politics, they seemed to shrug and turn away. Maybe the Dominic Cummings testimony to the
Demanding the impossible: why sleaze in UK politics will never go away
The UK political system is a history of scandal after scandal. If we look to just the recent past, we could mention the way Covid has been handled, the Grenfell disaster, MPs expenses, the Panama Papers, Windrush, Hutton, cash for honours, cash for questions, back to basics, Hillsborough, Orgreave, spycops… There’s a seemingly never ending
Incompetence, Cronyism, Repression: One Year On, What is the Covid State?
Last year, I wrote in this blog that the UK government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis was one of ‘callous incompetence’.[1] In hindsight, that was no surprise: their incompetence stemmed from the deliberate underfunding and privatisation of public health services; their callousness was baked-in to the structurally violent principles of Tory ‘austerity’. That analysis
The current variant of Thatcherism is more deadly than the original
In a liberal democracy, it’s hard to imagine a more dangerous prospect than neoliberals running a country during a global pandemic. Over the course of the last year, my belief that the answer to major local, regional, national and international problems is anarchism, has been bolstered. Cooperation, mutual aid, and a sense of community have