Since the 2008 crash ordinary people in this country have seen a steady, and now a sudden drop, in real economic prosperity. It began as extra taxation was laid on them so that they might save the banks, which (if Black Rock is anything to go by) have now gone on to take over the world by the same scams that led to the crash in the first place.
Along with that, they have been told that, in order to save the planet, they must give up their gas boilers and petrol cars for heat pumps and Teslas, whilst food prices increase through the diversion of a significant proportion of grain production to biomass, to dilute their fuel with ethanol. But clogged Agas and rusted lawn-mower pistons are a small price to pay for transferring greenhouse emissions to China.
Then COVID came, and the people have been told they must save the NHS by not bothering doctors or A&E departments with their illnesses except in emergency. That advice has continued post-COVID, the health-deity being close to collapse even in the summer. Whether people choose to heed the pleas or not, they are dying willy-nilly at a rate of around 1,000 a week above the 5-year average. How much of that is due to their being cajoled to take mRNA vaccines to save purely hypothetical grannies is still unclear. The real grannies died en masse in care homes to save the hypothetical ones.
Now, in the news, both Boris Johnson and the Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, no doubt echoed by the even more bombastic Liz Truss, are telling the ordinary people that escalating inflation and, particularly, unaffordable energy prices are the price they must pay to save Ukraine. Nobody asked them, as I recall, whether they wanted to save Ukraine at that price, or whether in fact prolonging the war might destroy Ukraine as Britain’s efforts have already destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and so on.
Do you remember the good old biblical days when a king like David was anointed in order to “save the people from their enemies”? But that’s just a hippy dream.
