Who is the real bad guy?

 Is it the USA, Russia or Ukraine? Or perhaps all the above?

Since the current Russia/Ukraine "crisis" kicked off (it seems like 10 years ago!), I have had some doubts about the whole propaganda issue going on around it. I don't want to take the side of either Russia or Ukraine, so I won't.

However, there a few points that need to be taken into account here; well 2 points to begin with. The whole shouting match seems to have kicked off when Russia was found to have circa 100,000 troops in the area of the Russian/Ukraine border. My first reaction was "So what?" Isn't the area concerned within Russia? And, doesn't Russia have the right to move their troops hither and thither within their own country? If these troops were not on the Ukraine border, they might be on the border of Finland, China, Mongolia or Kazakhstan. What would be said about the any of those circumstances? Probably nothing, although that would depend on where you were finding your news/commentaries sources.

Anyway, 100,000 (said now to be 150,000 as of today). In Russia. But wait; Russia announced some time ago that they have scheduled military exercises with their best mates Belarus and those exercises are currently ongoing. Did the Russian troops involved in that come from the Ukraine border? If so, the current number on the Ukraine border should surely have decreased, rather than increased? Never mind. What about Ukraine troops? How many of them are there and where are they? There are different figures available, mostly out of date but it is probably safe to assume around 160,000. One has to assume the Ukrainians have the home game advantage, while the Russian forces are probably made up of troops far from home.
And, as I prepare to post this, there is news that Russia is sending some of the troops on the Ukraine border back home. I have been saying since this nonsense began that I thought Russia wasn't going to invade anyone. Putin is doing this purely to rattle the chains of the West to what he could provoke. I would say he has managed the West and our politicians perfectly well. Biden has been spouting traditional USA war mongering rhetoric and Johnson has been slavishly requesting updates on "What do you want me to say next, Joe". As for the US pushing the "False Flag" litany; well, who better to identify one of those operations than the US? Over the years, they have become masters of that underhand game.

 Over recent weeks, on multiple dates, Johnson has claimed "There are more people in work now than there were before the pandemic began". The numbers claimed were variously around 400,000 and 500,000. The latter figure of 500,000 was used the day after Johnson received a letter from the Office for Statistics Regulation advising him his numbers were incorrect. Obviously the letter was ignored. It seems there had been a rise in the number of employees in work, based on numbers derived from PAYE statistics. This data covers only people appearing on PAYE figures as "Employees". Totally ignored was the number of those declaring themselves as "Self-employed". Before the pandemic, there was approximately 700,000-800,000 in the number of self-employed. The actual total, while Johnson was making his empty boasts, had decreased by 600,000.
Never mind, what about a recent claim that crime in the UK had decreased by 14%? The chair of the UK Statistics Authority pointed out that crime had actually increased by 14%. How did this huge discrepancy come about? The government explained that the Johnson figures didn't include fraud. Fraud is not just someone selling an American tourist London Bridge. It goes to the thousands of people being ripped off by cold callers, conning people into moving money out of their account, into another "for security" reasons. It goes to the gullible who receive calls from bogus call centres  in India, claiming to be from Microsoft and saying that the victim's computer has been hacked and for a sum of money, "Microsoft" can fix that. (Note: Microsoft have nothing whatsoever to do with this scam). When that dynamic brain box, Kwasi Kwarteng was challenged on this inaccurate crime stat, he claimed it was quite normal to exclude fraud from the crime statistics and Johnson was therefore right with his claim that crime had decreased. So fraud is no longer a crime then? Well, there you go Mr. con man; fill your boots. Scotland Yard will not be knocking on your door as there is "no crime to investigate here".
That ridiculous idea seems to come from the same school of idiocy governing the Met Police. You know, the organisation that until recently was steadfast in its refusal to investigate Downing St piss-ups. The first excuse was that they have not seen any evidence of a crime. Isn't that part of the job of the police? To investigate allegations and determine if there was any evidence and to then examine that evidence to see if it bears scrutiny? Then they started along the track of "Well, we won't prosecute because these incidents happened a long time ago". Less than 2 years is considered by them as "long time ago"? Mr. Jack the Ripper; you can come out now. If you give yourself up, there will be no prosecution as the events of which you are accused happened a "long time ago".
And, tying together Johnson and the Met Police's abject failure to police, we have the arguments in Parliament during which Johnson repeatedly claimed there were no parties at No. 10. Then he said there may have been but no Covid rules were broken. (I seem to remember he referred not to Covid rules but guidelines. They were quite definitely rules when members of the public were prosecuted!) Johnson eventually progressed to referring to cheese and wine knees-ups as "work meetings".
He went on to tell us that all will be revealed in the outcome of Sue Gray's report. Full and unredacted, he said. A clever shyster lawyer must have spotted a wizard wheeze (couldn't have been Johnson as he is demonstrably not clever enough). The wheeze being to shake the Met into reversing their earlier decisions re investigating/not investigating any Downing St party allegations. A clever move as they could then use the involvement of the Met as an excuse to effectively torpedo the Sue Gray report. Claims of "possibly bias inferred from her report impeding the investigation if the report was published, as promised, in full" to the invocation of sub-judice rules. Despite numerous legal sources rubbishing these excuses, the government allowed the Met to get away with this interference. Doesn't the law re "sub-judice" cover crimes? And hasn't the government and the Met repeatedly assured there were no crimes? If there were no crimes, there is nothing to be sub-judice.
Like I said; a wizard wheeze.
STOP PRESS: While writing this, we have had the latest PMQ in Parliament and Johnson has doubled down on his earlier mis-statement on crime figures. Today (9th Feb) he said at the dispatch box that crime figures are down by 17%. He also threw in some random numbers concerning current staffing in the NHS and the police. These are crying out to be fact checked. In the meantime, I would pose this question: Isn't it time we stopped using euphemisms such as "mis-spoke, taken out of context etc" and reverted to the old fashioned "He's lying"? As I remember from my upbringing, to state something as fact, when you know it is not true, it is called a lie. And the person making such statements is to be called a liar. And punished for it.

 PPE; Tired of Reading About it yet?

The UK PPE supply saga rumbles on. This morning, the BBC News web site reports:

"Government writes off £8.7 billion spent on PPE during pandemic". A rough breakdown of reasons for this shows £673million for items that were unusable, £750million for items that passed their expiry date before they could be used and £4.7billion as a result of the government paying more for the supplies than their current worth.

Add to these numbers the £4.9billion lost through fraudulent Covid loan schemes and we end up with somewhere around £13.6billion thrown away by the government. That number is remarkably close to the amount the government say is needed to tackle the issue of a cash starved NHS/Care system and needs to be raised via the much disputed increase in N.I. contributions (tax). How careless of them! But never mind; as Boris the liar keeps reminding us his government has led world beating this, that and the other.

Virtually all of his "world beating" claims are either based on a clever use of statistics, comparing apples with oranges etc or plain and simple lies.

Looking back over the government's world beating ordering of PPE supplies (something being boasted about along the lines of "We took the appropriate measures to obtain PPE kit against serious competition for available supplies"). Or, in the language of the common man or woman, "We had legions of cronies to take care of. Regardless of the cost to the exchequer".

Reviewing data I collected in 2020, when the spending frenzy was reaching a crescendo, I see that, during the months of April, May and June, there were 233 contracts let to cronies, with a cost to you and I of £5.8billion. Picking one of these contracts at random, I noted one for £122million for supply of PPE gowns awarded to a company named PPE Medpro. According to Companies House, PPE Medpro was incorporated on 12th May 2020. The Companies House filing for 12th May 202, the day the company was incorporated, shows total capital of £100. The contract was awarded on 26th June 2020.

So, a company formed on 12th May 2020 with 100 quid from someone's desk drawer (or found behind the sofa?) was awarded a huge contract to supply PPE kit.Firther reference to the Companies House web site shows this company has not yet filed accounts. None. Since incorporation. Surely one could reasonably expect to see accounts showing at least an inflow of some of that £122million award?

The web site "Thelondoneconomic.com" carried an article on this company back in November 2020:https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/handing-122m-ppe-contract-to-tory-peer-associate-is-the-definition-of-corruption-mp-says-204739/ In the article, reference is made to links between this company and Lady Bra, (Lady Michelle Mone), and her husband, David Barrowman. The Guardian took up this case as recently as January 2022:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/06/tory-peer-michelle-mone-involved-ppe-medpro-government-contracts

The founder of PPE Medpro, Anthony Page,  was previously running a company that managed Michelle Mone's "brand". Well, how about that?

More later...