We need to turn up the heat on the bosses! & They carry on killing us for the sake of their profiteering mates

 We need to turn up the heat on the bosses!

This week, Johnson announced his "Net Zero” climate strategy. Just as well, since COP26, the United Nations Climate Change conference which he’s hosting in Glasgow, is less than 2 weeks away...

    Watching his speech, it was impossible to take it seriously. "Green is... good", he told everyone, looking as if he was about to laugh. And then he rattled off a long list of "policies to tackle climate change". Everything is in there, including mini(?) nuclear reactors, floating wind farms, tree-planting, and of course electric cars...

    While maxi-nuclear reactors (but how long would it take for them to be commissioned?) are certainly the best way to cut carbon emissions, most of Johnson's proposals represent tiny drops in an already hugely over-polluted ocean.

    Most implausible of all, is his plan for replacing "your trusty old combi"- combination gas boiler - with expensive and unwieldy heat pumps costing as much as £20,000. Oh, but there’d be a £5,000 government grant, for 90,000 of them, in the first instance... And for sure, Octopus energy, BG, et al., are delighted at the prospect of all these installation "orders", i.e., free cash for them, courtesy of government!

    Kwasi Kwarteng added that "we" had to hurry up and start making pumps in Britain, before China cornered the market - promising the price will fall, once competition kicks in! As one commentator observed - it sounds a bit like the "Betamax" saga: installing expensive, soon-to-be-obsolete, noisy, electricity-reliant air pumps - with no hope of reducing carbon emissions to "net zero" by 2050 anyway, given that all the other needed measures are missing!

    It's incredible really. With the working class facing the worst attacks on its living standards in 25 (or maybe 75!) years, workers are now meant to fork out for "heat pumps"? When the real issue today is gas and electricity bills! Everyone is having to pay an extra £139-£153 more, immediately! And when energy companies go bust, as 12 just did, the Big 6 charge the rest of us for the cost of taking over their customers, adding another £90+ to our bills! This, when 10,000 people died of hypothermia last winter because they couldn’t afford to turn on their heating!

    Of course, it's not just energy bills: the CPI inflation measure may be "down" - by 0.1% - to 3.1%, but all prices are rising, including the cost of basic food, as businesses take greedy advantage of shortages.

    So what to do about it? Bin workers and cleaners in Glasgow will be striking over their wages during the COP26 conference. Too right! The only way to reverse the cut in our living standards is to fight the bosses and their government for pay rises in line with price rises - collectively in the workplaces and in the streets - ASAP!

 They carry on killing us for the sake of their profiteering mates

"We must learn to live with Covid" says Health Secretary Javid. Yes, the virus is still spreading and mutating, helped by government policy, or more likely, lack of it. Despite the booster programme, Johnson's "world-beating" vaccine hasn't proved to be the way out - something he banked on, after mishandling every single aspect of this pandemic. Except, of course, the “aspect” where he gave Covid-related contracts and easy profits to his friends.

    After Johnson declared "Freedom Day" on 19 July, infection rates rose. In the last weeks they've been between 40-50,000 a day - the highest since March - and since 19 July, 10,000 people have died. That's double the number who have died in France and Germany, where protective measures are still in place. Not lockdown, but compulsory masks and proof of vaccination - as indeed is the case in Scotland and Wales. You'd think mandatory mask-wearing was a no-brainer. But looking for "brains" in the heads of Johnson and his ministers is a pointless exercise.

    So despite warnings from NHS doctors that "we are stumbling into another winter crisis", Kwarteng and Javid don't want to take "a step back" to "unnecessary" precautions. It'd give the wrong signal to business. As LBC's James O'Brien pointed out, during tributes to the murdered MP David Amess on Monday, no masks were worn on the Conservative side of the House of Commons. Which said it all.

    Now Javid tells us that 2 new profit-bearing anti-viral drugs are to be made available (before every other country!) implying it’s fine to catch Covid, as treatments are now available!

    Already forgotten is last week's Commons' report condemning Johnson's handling of the pandemic. Is he any different from Brazil's president Bolsonaro, charged with "murder by omission" of over 600,000 people, including the genocide of Amazonian tribes due to his Covid denial? They are both criminals.

    So - just as all along during this pandemic - the working class can only keep its own council: take care of itself and above all, impose its own measures of protection - against the virus and against the greed and stupidity of the bosses and their political lackeys in Westminster.