UK Prime Minister- Boris- Bojo- Johnson has just announced a self described “Rooseveltian New Deal” for post-Covid UK recovery. The government’s plan, Bojo’s ‘New Deal’ is set to see £5 billion injected into infrastructure projects up and down the country to create jobs and get the economy moving. Bojo wants to “build, build, build” to fuel his economic recovery, which – according to the man himself – sounds “positively Rooseveltian”.
It’s full of imagery of a green and pleasant land. Let us “build build build” and “Build back greener” using “shovel ready” policies to “level up” the UK economy… sounds good.
In-depth review shows it’s merely a repackaging of existing policy; nothing new, few new commitments… but it sounded good to his constituency who have no time for detail, no memory of what was promised yesterday and remains undelivered.
Another key element of the plan are distractions to refocus the opposition’s attention away from the lack of details and reused policy. Distractions are now a key part of the political game – deflecting the Opposition and concerned public from deeper examination of the political/economic changes taking place and the lacklustre responses to urgent and sustained societal challenges.
All this was delivered in a way reflecting seriously how Johnson cultivates his image as a clown, contrasting with the Very Serious People at the other side of the House like Kier Starmer and across the Channel like Macron or Merkel. Bojo characterises the “stern nannies” as force feeding unnecessarily vile medicine down the throats of poor Britons. Whereas, if you just follow Bojo all will be goodness and light; it’s never as serious as it seems we just need to relax and all will be well.
All this wrapped up in a Trumpian knowledge of how to trigger the left. I love the “clap for bankers!” as a case in point, getting the militant left to waste precious public bandwidth on a “wild goose chase” diluting what their message should be; a “shooting of fish in a barrel” opportunity with Bojo’s damp squib of New Deal.
The genuine progressive left really must learn the kind of self-discipline which is forced on Bojo by his handlers. Bring some serious self discipline for our new civic discourse and future environment – stick to the script.
This is well illustrated by Bojo in this instance getting his opposition to do his work for him by tripping over themselves in their haste to respond, Pavlov’s Dog-like, to Bojo’s constant goading but, unfortunately, making themselves look like a bunch of crazed halfwits who need to go on an anger management course. I do have some admiration for Bojo’s and Trump’s teams. There is an kind of evil demented genius an unusual mix of cunning and stupidity in being able to constantly distract their opposition from a complete lack of substance, focus and effort. That’s the cunning part; there’s stupidity is many of the self-seeking policy selected, and in the obvious failure to put in a little bit of hard work when it’s needed.
This is a long winded way of saying that people like Bojo and Trump usually run out of road eventually, and often crash horribly – usually when they find themselves in a situation where they genuinely have to know what they are doing or at least hire competent and focussed people to clean up the messes. All the indications are i think that both Bojo and Trump have found that Covid is one thing they can’t BS and bluster past.
There is a perfect political and economic opportunity here to re-launch a post-austerity economic policy for the UK, US and the west. The public are clamouring for it and the rich… well they can be persuaded to take a smaller slice of a much bigger pie.
If these trolls only knew that for all their effort in dissembling, obfuscating, and lassoing our charm laden B-S, they could repurpose their energy into hiring competent people to develop a real policy that will change the world for the better… but that takes a little too much brain power.