Incompetence Rocks!

 Mike Bodnar apologises for having a rant at politicians and how they rise to power…

 

Yup, that's how we feel too. Image: the Guardian

Yes, I’m sorry. I humbly apologise that I am now forced to write about politicians, because politics is one of my no-go areas generally. But there comes a time. There comes the hour. Here cometh the Man.

What’s tipped me over the edge today are pictures in the media of our prime minister (Boris Johnson, for it is he) drinking from a water glass and looking sneezy, because – shock, horror – he has A COLD!

OMG and all that, hold the front page! Breaking news! FFS.

While hundreds of migrants a day try their luck crossing the English Channel, while the Amazon continues to disappear at an alarming rate, while homeless people around the country face a bleak and hopeless winter, and while HS2 isn’t – surprise, surprise – going to contribute to levelling up with t’north after all, all the media are concerned with is the fact that the prime minister appears to have a raspy voice.

Well diddums. Boris can afford private health care, efficient central heating, a warm overcoat or three, and he lives in a fine house – all paid for, need I remind you – by us. He can even go on holiday to somewhere lovely and warm, paid for by his party supporters. Can we?

And let’s face it, Bozo is just the one at the top. Beneath him and alongside him there’s a raft (apologies to migrants) of fellow politicians all equally well paid (some with two or three extra lucrative jobs) who also enjoy all the trappings of public office. Including I now might add, anonymity as to what those extra roles and incomes might be. FFS again.

Priti useless. Image: the Conversation

These senior politicians – Ministers of the Crown – enjoy their privileged positions because their boss, the aforementioned Bozo, has handed them the roles. They haven’t earned their seats in the ivory towers, they have merely been chummy with the right person, and have thus been rewarded with positions of appalling power and influence.

But where is the evidence that any of them – go on, I dare you – has shown true professionalism and excellence in their roles? We have had huge payments to Tory chums during the pandemic, support and protection for offshore tax haven companies operating in the UK and not paying due tax, millions wasted on spurious projects run by even more spurious quick-start companies, and with how much accountability? Fuck all.

Good luck. Image: The Guardian

Meanwhile, during the shambolic ‘measures’ (I use the term loosely) taken to mitigate education during the pandemic, GCSEs were missed, critical benchmarks in students’ lives were compromised, and a whole section of our youth is now having to play catch-up in the hope – get this – that they will eventually qualify sufficiently to be able to hold down a secure job and earn a decent wage. Well good luck.

The best advice I can offer our yoof is to enrol for a political science degree and join the Tory Party. Oh, and take a course or two in schmoozing, public relations, and try for a B.Fawn. (Batchelor of Fawning). That way you might one day become prime minister.

Rant over.

PS: When I was in my late teens I said to my mother, ‘I’ve half a mind to become a politician.’ She replied, ‘Well in that case you’re overqualified.’