Government

Boris The Bully

I'm a Dutchman living in the U.K. now for almost 45 years. When I arrived I was a teenager and teenagers aren't really into politics. Once I turned 18, I have never been able to vote in general elections in the U.K. because I am not a British Citizen, despite the fact that all the policies, laws and behaviour of politicians have affected my personal and working life in the U.K.

My father got the whole family a permanent residence permit back in 1978 and despite having that and thanks to Brexit, I still had to apply for the EU settlement scheme, bizarre, I did and of course I was accepted.

The only place I can cast a vote is during local elections, which usually are a big waste of time and I'm getting very close to not bothering any longer.

I rarely comment publicly about politics, although I have been doing in the past few years. I guess when you are moving into the Autumn of your life, you take more notice of the news and are more sensitive to a sense of what's right and what's wrong. The sense of what's right and wrong gets instilled into us usually by our parents and the impact of growing up with siblings. I could probably write a book about the "unfairness" I believed I experienced when growing up as a twin and comparing what my twin sister used to get, in terms of clothes, presents and even our Birthday cakes, yes we each had a different cake! Of course when you're a kid you believe that your siblings always are treated more favourably compared to yourself.

Frances Haugen - Facebook Whistleblower

Ever since Cambridge Analytica (2018) we all knew that Facebook and especially Mark Zuckerberg were lying. But as soon as the week was over we all ignored it, we went back to our feeds like zombies, until now perhaps?

In the past week Facebook went down for 6 hours globally, an accident or coincidence as Frances Haugen was about to provide a statement to Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation in the USA government.

This is her full statement lifted from her blogpost: https://www.franceshaugen.com/blog/b9xlswihkike7639nn4ie23odz9eqy

We’re not a team!

The people in the U.K. have been remarkable. The vast majority of us have followed the rules, have respected the Lockdown, have socially distanced and continue to do so, wear our masks, have stepped up and taken the vaccine, plus many more sacrifices, including not receiving any financial support from the government whilst large corporates are receiving millions.

Other countries around the world are struggling, struggling with infections, not being able to roll out the vaccine that fast, being too optimistic early on and on top of all that have been struck by Covid variants, e.g. South African, Brazilian, Indian variants etc.

And now the promised unlocking process in the U.K. is under threat because the U.K. government have never been tough enough on incoming infections.