This Government is Perfectly Competent - in Cruelty, Crime and Corruption

I am sick of journalists and opposition politicians talking about government "incompetence/ineptitude".

It is not incompetence. It's callous indifference, neglect, and outright malice.

They have shown great competence in dismantling the administrative state, undermining our democracy, killing off undesirables and giving their cronies lots of money.

We know that this cabinet is full of eugenicists. We know that this cabinet is full of liars. We know that this cabinet is full of racists. We know that this government is full of rank corruption. We know that this cabinet is full of hard-right ideologues who don't believe in public services.

We can't let ourselves be gaslit - we know what's happening, we can see it with our own eyes, but every day someone (from across the political spectrum) gets on the news to tell us black is white.

This government did not grant GCHQ (our NSA) extended powers to demand data from the NHS and disband Public Health England to merge public health with the "Joint Biosecurity Centre" in the middle of a pandemic by accident.

They are consolidating and centralising power, just like all authoritarian regimes do when they first gain office. Once that's happened - as we've seen from the USA - it's extremely hard to reverse. Now is the time to be fighting this as hard as we can but our media and official opposition act as if it's business as usual.

People like Sarah Kendzior were screaming this in the first few months of Trumps presidency and they were called "alarmists". Now we have mainstream media outlets wondering what will happen if he refuses to leave office and instigates a civil war.

I am an alarmist. I'm sounding the alarm! It's time to be ALARMED. Then it's time to stop being alarmed and organise how we fight this. We can't do that if we're too scared to accept what's really happening.

(NB just because authoritarian regimes are using COVID-19 to consolidate power doesn't mean COVID-19 isn't dangerous. That's wishful thinking and I can see the appeal because, let's face it, the situation we're in is bleak. But once again you can't effectively tackle the threats you face if you're too scared to admit they're real)