If the current bitch fest in the Boris Johnson cabal was a movie it would surely be Mean Girls and the PM would be Gretchen, with “hair so big because it’s so full of secrets”.
Many secrets are being plucked from Boris’s bouffant of late, but expect comb overs not bleeding scalp.
Entertaining as it is to watch Johnson’s cabal implode, it will make not a damn bit of difference to his popularity among his base.
Fast forward past the outrage of who paid to decorate Johnson’s apartment, who leaked what and the inquiries which may or may not follow, he or another petulant brat will still occupy the top spot.
If, as alleged, he said he would rather see bodies pile up than order another lockdown, it is in keeping with the offensive racist, misogynist bile his supporters voted for.
To the loved ones of those who died from Covid, Johnson’s inaction in curbing this pandemic speaks louder than his words.
Johnson is a mendacious, despicable man who says terrible things – this we knew already.
Meanwhile, beyond the political and media bubble, and this Westminster drama, ordinary people are breathlessly trying to keep their head above water.
While the powerful are peeing in and out of tents, working people like Amazon workers are urinating in bottles in vans.
Workers have never felt more powerless in modern times, as they choke on the hair balls of moulting fat cats.
Big business, which already had its foot on the neck of workers, is using the pandemic to press down even harder.
We are currently witnessing the biggest assault on workers’ rights since the Thatcher years and expect it to only get worse.
Those of us who grew up under the sleaze and brutality of that woman’s government were mistaken if we thought we were witnessing the nadir for workers.
Employees in low paid insecure jobs in industries, including hospitality and retail or even skilled roles in British Gas and British Telecom, are watching the few rights they had being eroded to dust.
This week the Unite union and its membership took to Scotland’s streets to protest against the morally repugnant policy of “fire and re-hire” of the flagship hotels of Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
IHG is only one among many pandemic opportunists, sacking workers if they don’t now accept less pay and worse conditions.
Blink and you may have missed the sorry tale last year when IHG terminated 95 per cent of workers at Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow and The George in Edinburgh, blaming the closure of both hotels.
The IHG hotels terminated almost 500 workers on statutory minimum severance packages, even using public money to pay the notice pay of minimum wage workers.
They re-opened a few weeks later offering some workers their jobs back on poorer pay and conditions despite profits of more than £200million a year.
The TUC has found that one in 10 workers had been threatened with fire and rehire during the pandemic, with the number expected to grow as furlough ends – unless the law is changed.
Hundreds of British Gas engineers lost their jobs after they refused to sign up to longer hours under the firm’s controversial dismiss and re-engage scheme.
Even Johnson spoke out against fire and rehire, just before he instructed Conservative MPs to abstain on a vote to pass a Labour motion to outlaw it.
Unite and other unions are digging in against the practice, already illegal in Ireland and Spain, by coordinating strikes.
Union busting and bully boy tactics are rife but a unified fight back from workers is the only chance they have.
Workers placed in this untenable position are suffering mental torture, haunted by the prospect they won’t be able to pay their bills and look after their families.
The oppression they have suffered is utterly inhumane and we should all be outraged.
We can help speak out for them, we can join a union, protest as consumers, as voters and fellow workers, because the pandemic profiteers will continue to steamroller employees.
It is in all our interests – it could be anyone of us next.
