Grand Gestures, not

It looks like we're back to Big Bozza's Big Gestures™ again. With the PM self-isolating, he can now participate in PMQ's and other parliamentary activities via Zoom, safe in the knowledge that he's always got a teleprompter and advisors in his ears to give him a realtime heads-up on stuff he really can't be arsed to read up on himself; ensuring the kind of flawless, statesmanlike performance he so wishes he could produce in the actual, real world. Has no other bugger noticed this? In the house in recent months, he has waffled, fuffled and harrumphed his way through any such proceedings, without a shred of coherency: his lack of direct support in debate glaringly obvious. Now! Here's Bozza! Sharp as a tack and up to the task of actually answering questions. Do they think we came down with the last shower of rain?

Anyway; the newest crop of Big Bozza's Big Gestures™: Defence spending up; figures are moot but very large and projects include a centre dedicated to Artificial Intelligence, a National Cyberforce(!) [don't we already have GCHQ et al?] and obviously just to match the Trumpster, an RAF Space Command [makes me come over all nostalgic for Dan Dare (Google it): after all we've already got the Mekon personified in Classic Dom], with our first satellite-bearing rocket taking off from Scotland(!) in 2022. Let's face it, given the way he's pissing off our Celtic brethren, I hope he's not holding his breath on that one.

Next up is half a billion dollars-worth of taxpayers' money being invested in a speculative buyout of a failing blue-sky project called OneWeb: low earth orbit satellites for internet provision [or so they say]. The other half of the cash is being provided by Sunil Mittal, with the government holding a golden share in the project. Next: Covid contracts. Serco has already been mentioned in despatches, along with too many others, including Deloitte, who so far have netted some £60.8M in funding from the government for various 'services and supply', as yet with no actual legally-binding contract having been signed; despite the company having no relevant skills, NHS data links or any remotely appropriate experience in the field.

All of this at a time when the public sector [albeit not including the NHS - small mercies] are being put under the financial cosh. Meanwhile, the cogs are turning on a 'radical reshaping' of the NHS itself; almost certainly a further shift towards feeding the maw of the corporate private sector.

Johnson's cabal of lickspittles are meanwhile protected from the vagaries of the real world by his stranglehold of a majority; his defiance of his own advisors to lose any of his cohort to due process is starting to resemble something very unpleasant indeed. The only solace we can draw from all of this is that another pale-haired wannabe 'King of the World' has recently discovered to his cost that his vaulting ambition and lack of any grip on truth or reality were thankfully called out by his hard done by public. We can only hope that the same happens on this side of the pond. We need rid of this foul shambles of a government before too much longer. The interests of far too many people are at stake to allow this cancer to remain un-excised.