Johnson loyalists are dismissing the latest episode of “Partygate”, with police imposing 20 fixed penalty notices. For the Johnsonites, it’s irrelevant: Covid is “over” and if government officials broke lockdown rules despite having made them, this is now completely overshadowed by the Ukraine war.
As far as they’re concerned, Johnson has rebuilt his leadership: didn’t President Zelensky just say that he is “helping more” than other leaders in the “resistance against Russia”?
Sure, Johnson was one of the first to raise his fist, proclaiming “Glory to Ukraine” - as if there is “glory” in this bloody war! But it’s obvious he was looking ahead, precisely, to today.
But in reality, he’s no different from all the other NATO “leaders”. They’re all delighted to fuel this slaughter, with shipments of light arms and anti-tank weapons, claiming, like the desperate Ukrainian victims of Putin’s brutal invasion, that “Ukraine can win”. And never mind the cost - if indeed a Ukrainian “victory” was possible in the first place.
No, the only winners in this war are the West’s weapons merchants; overlords of a military-industrial complex, who now have billions more in profits from state purchases - at their taxpayers’ expense, of course... And let’s not forget the wild West’s oil and gas billionaire ”oligarchs”... BP, Shell, Total, Elf, Exxon Mobil, Aramco... They were already cashing in on post-Covid demand. Now they’ll have billions more. And so far nobody, not least the working classes are taking this money off them...
Yet at the same time a new “pandemic” - of poverty - is hitting. It’s already locked down millions in the poor countries. In Somalia and Afghanistan, babies have malnutrition. And this isn’t due to the Ukraine war, but long-standing imperialist policy, led by the US of A!
That said, the Ukraine-Russia war is causing the cost of wheat (and fertilizers) to soar, threatening further the already-crisis-ridden Middle East and North Africa.
And it’s not as if the cost of feeding the starving couldn’t be borne fully by the rich imperialist countries and their multi-billionaire oil, gas, weapons, etc., industrial giants. Just as the rise in the cost of living in all the rich countries could be reversed right now!
The reason it’s not done, is down to the “choice” of governments, of politicians, a choice based entirely on what they are really there to represent under this system: the interests, not of the poor and working class, but of the capitalist class.
Yes, this is the “Big Lie” of western “democracy”, which today is again being counterposed to the very obviously undemocratic “autocracy” in Russia. It’s a lie which the working class can no longer afford. Not in Russia, not in Ukraine and not in Britain, either. It’s only by taking over power itself that the working class can begin to change the world - in the interests of all.