from Quora on B Johnson Esq

Why are so many people "gaslighting" Boris Johnson?

Many people are raising concerns about Boris Johnson’s dreadful premiership.

Mr Johnson’s three year premiership was marked by negotiating the economic partition of the UK, an unlawful attempt to prorogue parliament, persisent government attempts to break the law, a police fine, a botched attempt to save the career of a disgraced MP, a failed attempt to rig the chairing of the intelligence committee, among the highest number of Covid deaths in Europe, numerous resignations from his Downing Street operations, the most number of ministerial resignation in a single day ever, the resignation of two ethics advisors and the first prime minister to overrule the Lords appointment committee.

Elected by the party membership for his campaign and vote winning skills, Mr Johnson chose to resign because of his collapsing government. Mr Johnson will never lead his Conservative party ever again.

To watch: the Conservative party’s post mortem on the reasons for electing and backing Mr Johnson as their leader.

Sir Jeremy Farrar

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/04/uks-progress-on-covid-now-squandered-warns-top-scientist?utm_term=61ac7184290cceea2e9c8b161fca714c&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

The emergence of the Omicron variant shows that the world is “closer to the start of the pandemic than the end”, one of Britain’s most senior scientific figures has warned, as he lamented a lack of political leadership over Covid.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, the director of the Wellcome Trust who stepped down as a government scientific adviser last month, said the progress in combatting Covid-19 since its emergence was “being squandered”.

Writing in the Observer, he said rich countries had been taking “a very blinkered domestic focus, lulled into thinking that the worst of the pandemic was behind us”. He said while he was cautiously hopeful that current vaccines would protect against severe illness from Omicron, that may not be true for future variants.

The longer this virus continues to spread in largely unvaccinated populations globally, the more likely it is that a variant that can overcome our vaccines and treatments will emerge,” he writes. “If that happens, we could be close to square one.

“This political drift and lack of leadership is prolonging the pandemic for everyone, with governments unwilling to really address inequitable access to the vaccines, tests and treatment. There have been wonderful speeches, warm words, but not the actions needed to ensure fair access to what we know works and would bring the pandemic to a close.”

He said that the urgent action needed had not changed – “wearing masks indoors, increasing testing, social distancing, isolating if positive (with support to do so) and vaccination will all help to drive down transmission and protect against illness.”

Follow my good example out of enlightened self interest!

CUT YOUR EARTHLY CAR MILEAGE TO JOIN THE BILLIONAIRES EXPLORING SPACE - they only travel the distance from Perth to Glasgow, after all (60 miles)!

I am very concerned about the Covid, climate, ecological, nature emergency and am doing this:-

At 73 yrs, I've had a fantastic lifetime of hillwalking all the big hills in the UK and Ireland.  It is well time for me to make a concession, a small prize lost to help win the much grander prize of leaving the state of the planet in a slightly better state, perhaps.

Since 2020 I have resolved to lead by example and to cut my total car mileage by 50% on my 2019 figure of 14,000 miles when I drove to Scotland six times to climb their hills.  In 2020, I travelled only once and drove 6,000 miles.  This year, I have done two trips, car camped on nearly all the nights and, so far have driven only 5,000 miles in my attempt to climb, in my lifetime, every single summit listed in the SMC's 'Munro's Tables'.

Last week, I came back from a fantastic 14 nights, with only two of them in a hotel and visited nine summits.  With my diesel car, driving at 60 to 65 mph on the motorways and dual carriageways, I achieved 85 mpg according to the car computer.  Therefore, my deadly greenhouse gas emissions were really low!

I went on fewer occasions but stayed longer and cut my carbon footprint.  I was cycling from my car base camp to the start of the hill on each of the nine days to take in a 'Graham' hill.  I had a great time in mixed weather and showed to the new generations of walkers what can be done.

In losing car mileage and cutting greenhouse gases, I have explored local/regional countryside and found some most wonderful walks in exploring areas I had never before dreamt of going to.  Again, parking up, cycling, then walking before returning to the bike to get to the car.  All this gained, instead of bombing off into Wales from Halesowen or to some far-flung corner of England to use up our precious finite fossil fuels with their deadly greenhouse gas emissions.

Will others follow my example?  Especially, those of my age in order to leave a planet in a better shape for the youngsters?  BE A GOOD ANCESTOR!

Overseas aid is cut to boost migrants seeking simply a decent life in the UK!

JOY HOWELL: Last year our government broke their election manifesto and cut UK foreign aid from 0.7% to 0.5%, that's a difference of £4 billion. I am HEARTBROKEN at the thought of how many people around the world will die because of this; listening to some of the MPs and government defending this decision is actually making me feel physically sick.

I've heard the argument that in this "unprecedented" covid crisis we should be looking after our own first. I agree that the level of poverty in the UK is unacceptable (we've needed a footballer to fight for food for our own hungry children) but I have seen no evidence that this £4 billion is being used to overcome this problem. I have, on the other hand, heard of friends of Gov members being given multi million £ deals!

I fully agree with what Joy has written. The government has broken the very law that they themselves passed under a previous leader and PM, David Cameron. The government breaks its own laws AND gives the military and warfare increases above inflation. Promoting and boosting WMD and warfare is now 2% of GNP, while giving food, shelter and clothing to the impoverished of the world is reduced to an even more miserly 0.5%. This, from the 6th richest nation out of nearly 200 and where the rich should be paying much more in taxes to help the poor - in line with 2 Corinthians 8 v 13-15 (the economic basis of the Kingdom of God).

PROTECT AND RESTORE OUR GREEN AND WILD PLACES, if we can't expand them!

 "It allows nature to thrive, taking carbon from the air and boosting health." Tear Fund (part of DEC - Disasters Emergency Committee)

We can expand the Clent Hills Country Park into a 32 sq Kms Regional Park as part of the new W Mids National Park.  For farming, recreation and re-creation of habitats to boost biodiversity.

It is vital that our 32 sq Kms Golden Green Triangle in that corner between the Black Country and Brum, with the two 1,000 feet high Clent Hills, is upgraded, invigorated and protected from built development.  To address the Covid, Climate, Ecological, Nature disasters.

Not a single hedgerow, it seems, has been laid to rejuvenate even one section.  Instead there are gaps galore.  Fences and barbed wire are taking over.  Hedging trees must be planted to absorb carbon.

Every Home Office wood must be handed over to the Woodland Trust for their care, maintenance and to be open to the public.  In this way, these precious woods can be restored and be a carbon sink.

Every field is needed as part of the national effort to feed humans before animals to feed humans.  Farming in tune with nature is essential and farming using fewer finite fossil fuels, too.  Have more people working on the land.  In this way, slow the Climate, Nature disaster.  AND SLOW THE ROT!

Fewer fields for horses and more for food!  Reverse horsiculture!

No fields for built development.  Keep smaller, much warmer, practical homes to the conurbation outside the three sides of the triangle.  In this way, to help ourselves to get out of the warming greenhouse.

The hundreds of miles of public highway paths must be upgraded with every stile made safe for walkers and runners.  Far too many paths are muddy in wet weather and almost every stile is in need of replacement or repair.  The councils and the WMCA must work with the farmers and landowners to get them up to standard.  Funds must be used to incentivise them.

Tim Weller  27 March 2021

Basic socialist/humanitarian/ecological principles

Thanks for the email.  Please don't take my candidacy as a declared Independent, too seriously.  It is simply a campaigning device to get the real politicians to do what I want them to do, in line with LU policy that I so like and agree with.  More radical than the Green Party, my former home and, I just love Bob Whitehead's FFPT, his careful research on it and his help, for me, over antisemitism in the Labour Party.

I think, I'm unlikely to waste £5,000 but being a declared candidate does have an advantage.  One reporter, Mark Cardwell wrote something, 'The Commitment' contacted me yesterday and FoE has included me as a result of my 'declaration'.  I may be taken a little more seriously and my questions over my many concerns are more likely to be answered.  I also get better access to decision-makers for a short period.

In particular, I want them to understand the basic socialist/humanitarian/ecological principles of:-

• from each according to his ability; to each according to his need;
• build out obsolescence to make things last;
• use what you have instead of tearing down and rebuilding;
• don't destroy railway lines but use them for their intended purpose;
• finish what you start - unless it's extensions for HS2, Metro or Sprint diesel buses!
• retrench instead of regeneration in the light of the Covid, climate, ecological, nature crises;
• much more sustainable lifestyles urgently promoted instead of 'live it up today and to hell with tomorrow';
• live simply so that others - poorer nations and future generations - may simply live;
• diplomacy instead of the militarisation of diplomacy;
• UN and international bodies taken seriously and co-operated with;
• over-consumption and over-population are the two main drivers of global destruction;
• our very rich, resource-rich and fatal addiction to finite resources is deadly, dangerous and will be our ultimate undoing.  Prepare now!

LISTEN AND ACT ON THE DIRE WARNINGS FROM ATTENBOROUGH AND THUNBERG - at opposite ends of the age range!

Four possible challenges for NHS/Social Care

1. Resurgence of the virus
2. Disruption of health and social care
3. Backlog on non-Covid cases
4. Flu epidemic 

The wise and the foolish are all in the same boat to ride out the storm

"The fool has said in his heart, there is no God."  (Psalm 14 v 1)  Unfortunately, both wise and fools in the land have lived as though they can enjoy forever our finite reserves of oil and gas.  Both wise and fools live unnaturally on a natural planet.  We all carry on regardless.  Live it up today, as if there is no tomorrow!  We all live unsustainably.  We even thought Covid would never come to the UK, so there was little, if any preparation.  And, certainly, no preparation for short supplies of the very stuff of life - coal, oil and gas - and even timber as it gets burnt in forest fires and stoves.  We ALL live as fools.  Not just the ungodly like me!

At least, prepare to ride out the storm, for goodness sake!

PREPARE BY, we can lockdown for Covid; we must now lockdown for Climate in 2021.

No flying and minimise car travel.  My promise to my insurance company is no more than 7,000 miles at 70 mpg in 2021.  And that, mainly for zero-carbon outside hill walking/cycling and sleeping in the car to save greenhouse gas emissions.  Rough it, to slow running out and patriotic climate action!

Community leaders to prepare for climate crisis as no-one did for Covid

You are a community leader and we expect you to set a fine example, as you certainly do. It also means that we expect you to show the personal changes we all must make to respond not only to the Covid crisis of this year but also to the climate crisis that has been creeping up on us since the formation of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988.

It was actually in 1856 that the American scientist, Eunice Foote showed that in burning fossil fuels with the emissions of carbon dioxide, the CO2 absorbs heat. Unfortunately, this enhances the natural greenhouse effect that allows life on earth to exist. Hence, the warming of the planet. Scientists tell us that our sister or twin planet, venus has a runaway greenhouse effect that makes it hotter than mercury even though mercury is nearer to the sun and therefore, should be hotter. Scientists fear that human activity in burning up all our reserves of fossil fuels, may well do the same thing to our planet as has happened to venus. Earth may join venus in becoming uninhabitable. Do check out Wikipedia that I have my facts right!

The actions we all have to take our obvious. Less travel by fossil fuel means. Much less consumption to slow the production of greenhouse gases to feed our greedy, unsustainable lifestyles. Very much more effort by us all to tread as lightly as possible on the earth by sharing our wealth to help the poor; and, to help the poor nations to also cut climate devastating forest burning and, for the poor South to also enjoy electricity from the power of the sun.

The economic basis of the Kingdom of God is 2 Cor 8 v 13-15 that says, in effect, "from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs." 

 In 1987, we had the Brundtland Report that came up with: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." You know about A Rocha. https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/

Others in the Christian community support Operation Noah. This is their statement from 2018: PREPARE FOR THIS RUNAWAY CLIMATE CATASTROPHE 20 November 2018

1. Operation Noah (UK churches acting together to save collapsing life support systems) agrees with the reasons behind the Extinction Rebellion, i.e: We are facing an unprecedented global emergency.

Our children and our nation face grave risk. The planet is in ecological crisis. We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event this planet has experienced.

Scientists believe we may have entered a period of abrupt climate breakdown. 

The earth’s atmosphere is already over 1°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. The chances of staying below the 2°C warming agreed upon in the Paris agreement are tiny. Recent projections show we are on course for 3 degrees of warming and, potentially, much higher.

Children alive today in the UK will face unimaginable horrors as a result of floods, wildfires, extreme weather, crop failures and the inevitable breakdown of society, when the pressures are so great.

We are unprepared for the danger our future holds.

The time for denial is over – we know the truth about climate change and we know the truth about current biological annihilation.

2. ON acknowledges the Extinction Rebellion has some important supporters, including 94 academics, one of whom is former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

Many thanks, Leon for whatever you and your team can do in the coming days.

BORN LIVES MATTER

to Sam Hailes, Editor, Premier Christianity

Dear Sam

I've read 'First Word' and the letter from Geoff Pollard and much else in the July magazine.  I also liked 'The Sins of our Fathers' and 'Walking Through Grief'.  Great reading!

Geoff wrote that "plagues ... are simply part of the way that the world is."  There is more to it than that.  It seems that Covid-19 has only arisen due to our love of killing animals for meat.  And we only eat it because someone else does the killing for us.  It's presented to us in a way that we never have to feel uncomfortable as we chomp and chew.  The fact is, Covid came from a wet meat market where animals were alive, dead and dying.  The virus crossed the species barrier from them to us.

Does this not tell us that we can only blame ourselves and, we had all better start eating more of a plant-based diet?  Especially, to cut deadly greenhouse gases.  And, out of respect for all of God's creatures.  Kill less; live more lightly/simply on the planet for others to simply live (including animals), might be a good motto for us all.​

Tim :  it's also important that the plants you eat are grown and tended without the use of chemical sprays which deaden the soil the plants grow in.    I try to support growers who care for the earth as well as their bank balance.    They do exist and need our support.   Rosanne

The Virus Crisis shows what can be done for the Climate Crisis

I think, Simon is right to say 'Stop buying.' Except, when the authorities saw the looming virus coming ever nearer to the UK, they still did nothing to prepare. Not even buying PPE! Prepare for the Really Big Crisis now by spending on compulsory insulation; compulsory solar PV; carbon allowance/fuel rationing done on fair shares for all basis; one-child family planning encouraged; eastern Europe's Fare-Free Public Transport (and NOT only for me and my ilk) to compensate for greater risk from Covid; Universal Basic Income to ensure the wealthy help the less wealthy so that we are no longer dependant on spend, spend, spend economic growth. We cut economic activity to kill the virus - do it again for climate. WE HAVE THE ANSWERS!

Greta Thunberg has said that we can learn from the virus crisis: we are all taking the science seriously and the whole world is acting decisively. Do the same for the climate crisis.

And in killing nature with all our spending and yet more spending on big infrastructure projects like HS2, we end up killing ourselves because we are part of nature, too! You are both right.