Strange Times - Redux - Redux

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Biden Won - By a Lot - ©Not Fake News™ - image ©The Observer

 

It just gets stranger. Not only have the UK government U-turned on furlough and now school-kid's food (again), they appear, according to the FT, to be looking at knocking outsourcing on the head by forming a 'Crown Consultancy' to cut their dependance on hideously expensive, and truth be told largely useless, consultancies. Which, if true and is a genuine attempt to stem the outflow of public money into the private sector, is only to be lauded. If I trusted this lot one iota, I might be convinced, but I don't; so holding my breath I'm not.

As I wrote the other day though, the US Elections seem to have had a clear and immediate knock-on effect on the government here; as if all previous bets were off and some serious back-pedalling is being done in the corridors of power. I note the very low profile our lot have adopted since Tuesday, with only a recent Johnson waffle congratulating Biden on his success and bigging up the 'special relationship'; indicating plainly that the Tories are paddling upstream like fury to align themselves with the new, far less easily exploitable reality that they now face. When things started to pan out Biden's way, the spads and the mandarins must have thrown a grenade into the Cabinet Office.

Biden's election has ramifications for Brexit with the Northern Ireland border issue and the Good Friday Agreement front and centre and has got to impact on the government's negotiations with the EU. A no-deal crash out would leave the UK piggy in the middle between Europe and the States and losing out all round. The Steve Jobs'-style reality distortion field that surrounded Trump and thus validated all the other wannabe despots and tyrants has now completely evaporated and the newly clothed Emperor that is neo-liberalism has finally been shown to be stark bollock naked at last. I bloody hope this is the beginning of the end of 'the end of history'. Let's get back to some semblance of normality and deal with the real issues at hand and kick this shit into the long grass; preferably on one of Trump's golf courses.

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