Has it been that long? I was intending to add an entry sooner, but life gets in the way sometimes; I'm sure you know how it is.
So, Biden won the Presidential election. That's some good news I guess. There are a couple of things which I think are interesting which have come out of that.
The first is that suddenly the media are picking up on Trump's inability to accept objective reality, i.e., defeat. On a couple of occasions TV networks cut away from live Trump speeches on the basis that they weren't factual. It might be a worthwhile exercise to revisit some of his previous speeches that they *didn't* cut away from, and check that they were more truthful than his current speeches; my expectation is that they will be riddled with as many factual inaccuracies as his current batch of waffle. Then it might be worth looking at what they can do to ensure that if in future other presidents try to get away with lying, they call that out immediately / while the speaker is speaking. I do think there needs to be more truth in politics, and it is unacceptable that politicians can't be held to account in law for claims they make during election campaigns.
The other thing to note is that although Biden has won the election, over 70 million U.S. citizens voted for Trump. A lot of that might be due to the "rosette effect", i.e., some people will always vote Republican no matter who the candidate is, but when you consider Trump's character and the things he's been accused of, that is a worry.
On this side of the Atlantic, it seems as though our PM Boris Johnson has sacked his Special Advisor, Dominic Cummings. I think the media are making more of this than they need to, but Cummings has been a bogeyman for some time, not just for those on the left or anti-govt. groups, but even backbench Tories who aren't part of the inner circle of government. Cummings was seen as the brains behind Vote Leave, and -more recently- managed to break the lockdown restrictions and get away with it, by offering some elaborately concocted excuse which sounded to many like a lie. There is footage of him leaving by the front door on Friday evening (13th Nov) with a box full of his belongings, which has unfortunate echoes of the time he was filmed running from No. 10, an event which later became part of his lockdown excuse narrative.
If anything, it means that he won't be held responsible for any adverse events which occur after 1st Jan 2021, when the Brexit transition period ends. This is the man, remember, who was held in contempt of Parliament because he refused to attend an enquiry. I can't see him changing his attitude any time soon.
Anyway, I don't see that a change in personnel advising the PM at this stage helps. Certain MPs and media heads have talked about the possibility of a "reset" and a change in approach to government, but I think they are being overly-optimistic about the ability of those currently in government. You've got to remember that all current ministers were appointed on the basis that they are rabidly pro-Brexit, and they might not be very capable or aware of other issues.
We've got less than a month and a half until the transition period ends, and still we don't know if there is going to be a deal or not. My expectation is that there won't be a deal, although several people more knowledgeable in these things think there will be. If I could bet on "No Deal", I certainly would, but I can't see any bookies offering odds on it.
I'm not sure that these developments are going to make anything better in the long run. And I'm pretty pessimistic about 2021. You thought 2020 was bad? Next year could be worse. Hopefully, though, we'll have a vaccine for this coronavirus. That'll be something.
TTFN.
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