Craig Murray on the government plans to break international law
Liars gonna lie (2/inf): Johnson Intended to Break the Withdrawal Agreement Even Before He Signed It
“(2/inf)”?
(Sorry, I really have been extremely thick-headed the last few days! Even my concentration on mathematics has been worryingly feeble, and I can’t help wondering if senility is setting in.)
On the Johnson government, just a little personal anecdote:
Months ago, I was struck by an entirely new feeling: a fear, deep in my guts, that we in the UK are being governed by people who just don’t know what they are doing. It’s nothing like any feeling I’ve had about any of the other wretched governments the UK has had in the last half-century four decades (it feels like five). A few days later, I was having my weekly telephone conversation with my very right wing Ulster Unionist mother, a Conservative loyalist in every sense. (She’s 91 years old, about the same age as Chomsky, and like him, still in full possession of her marbles, but that’s where the similarity ends.) We don’t talk about politics very often; when we do, the area of agreement is small. We weren’t talking about politics on this occasion, but out of the blue, she said she felt deeply afraid that we are being governed by a bunch of people who don’t know what they are doing. I can’t recall her exact words, but I know she gave voice to the exact same thought and feeling that I’d had so recently. I can’t recall us ever agreeing completely on anything political before, although, like Peter Hitchens, she does share some of my feelings about the US government.
At the risk of sounding unbalanced (well, it won’t be the first time), here is an even vaguer anecdote:
Nothing seemed very unusual today until I read the article referred to here: We have to face the possibility that our government is planning economic destruction for its own political ends – which are the demise of the state as we know it. Ever since then, today has felt like a waking nightmare. I feel overwhelmed by multiple anxieties (by no means all political). I realise this is a very vague thing to say. I have a lot of very bad days. But there is something special about this particular anxiety; it’s a very deep-seated fear, a fear right in my guts.
I should probably have rewritten this, or not posted it at all. I’m sorry! But I want to know if this gut feeling of terror is shared, as the other similar one was, so surprisingly.
I’ll get me coat.
Afterthought: even more vaguely (if that’s possible!), perhaps it’s also worth mentioning the feeling of dread I had when the Johnson government was elected. I can’t explain it at all, especially with how much time has elapsed, but the dread was quite unexpected, even though I had been expecting the result of the election. (That’s another long and vague story. Everything that happened in December caused me to lose the will to discuss politics at all, for months. I may be overcompensating a teeny-weeny bit; if so, sorry again!)
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No leave yer coat, Twirl buddy. Don’t go! Instead, try to tease out some sense of the particular shape and quality of this fear that’s bothering you. What’s a bunch of mutually-supportive chatterati for, if we can’t help one of our number having spiritual difficulties?
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Hey Twirlip.
The “(2/inf)” thing was a nod to a Twitter mannerism where you indicate that this is (post X) / (Y total). I had already posted the first “liars gonna lie” post, so this was the second. Out of a potential infinity of lies that BoJo might say.
Obscure? You don’t know the half of it! Sorry. As is more formally indicated by the actual ratio, all my blistering wit basically evaluates to a fat zero 
On the far more serious points you raise, I’m with Rhis. This is precisely the place to discuss these worries. I’ve had very similar experiences over these last few months.
As I mentioned, in the run up to the last election I spent a chunk of last summer reading Dom’s blog, to try and get a feel for his thinking. The guy scares the shit out of me. Unlike the clown nominally in charge who can barely form a coherent sentence, Cummings shows clear signs of being a true sociopath. His complete lack of empathy, his carelessness of the consequences of his actions, his cold lies directly to camera. The sudden flip on and off of emotion.
Do you read any Charlie Stross? Our government is run by Nyarlathotep.
The response of our government to this current crises illustrates that they don’t care how many people die until someone forces them to. I have zero doubt in my mind that BoJo and Cummings were perfectly happy to let as many old and vulnerable people just die. Until the optics got too bad, and the public started to force the issue.
Apart from DC, I do agree that no one currently in government is mentally fit for purpose. It’s a whole government of incompetents. I think they literally don’t understand the extent of the calamity that they’re assisting in creating. They’re like a bunch of cultists praying to an elder God for a sunny bank holiday. They have no idea what they’re unleashing on the rest of us (sorry - Stross again)
After spending a significant effort last year campaigning for Corbyn, and seeing the unthinking, knee-jerk reaction against him on the doorsteps of those people he would have helped the most, I sank into a deep despair at the beginning of this year.
And now this fucking covid nightmare.
I’m with you Twirlip. It’s a full on disaster. And I’m a conscientious objector to this whole business.
In solidarity
PP