As Sky TV has long been calling it, the present general election is nothing but a "Brexit Election".
So it is no wonder, therefore, that, just as during the 2016 "Brexit Referendum", torrents of lies are flooding every single media outlet, generated by Johnson and his Tory sidekicks, in the hope of attracting more votes.
Johnson's sick NHS ghosts
The Tory manifesto's pledges on the NHS are both the most cynical and the most blatant examples of these lies.
Back in September, long before this manifesto, Johnson had already primed his election bombshell with the promise of "40 new hospitals". And no sooner had he made this announcement, than it was proved to be a lie: apart from re-announcing previously-announced plans to refurbish 6 hospitals within 5 years, the 34 other hospitals in Johnson's pledge already exist, but are all badly in need of repairs. But there is no plan and no funding attached to this pledge. And, of course, there is no "new” hospital whatsoever!
Last week, the same pledge was recycled in the Tory manifesto, with some clarification added. The other 34 existing hospitals would be given funding, but only to draft "business plans" for their refurbishment. If any work was ever to be undertaken, it would only start from 2025, to be completed by 2030! Whether or not these hospitals can function for another ten years is obviously not an issue!
In any case, none of this has stopped Johnson from sticking to his "40 new hospitals" lie!
Then, this was followed with the manifesto's "50,000 more nurses" pledge. As it turned out, 19,000 of those are existing NHS nurses, who the Tories pledge to convince to work for a longer period of time within the NHS (how, they do not say!). But this includes the 12,400 nurses who the NHS Long Term Plan intended to retain, when it was announced last January!
Another 12,000 nurses are to be recruited from abroad (at a time when, under Johnson's premiership, the Home Office has just blocked a plan to do just that!). 14,000 would be recruited by reinstating the nurses' bursaries (scrapped by the Tories two years ago!). The remaining 5,000 would come via internal NHS apprenticeships!
So, once again, the "50,000 more nurses" is just another blatant lie, designed to sound good in election speeches!
That demagogues like Johnson or his twin, Nigel Farage, should play politics with such lies, without the slightest consideration for the fact that what is actually at stake is the health of the population and in particular the health of the working class, does not come as a surprise, of course. They're just self-serving careerists who know which side their bread is buttered - on the capitalists' side!
No stake for the working class
This applies to their Brexit blackmail too: their claim that they will solve the Brexit conundrum once and for all, is just another lie. Dismantling tight economic ties built over four decades of partnership with Europe cannot be done quickly, nor even fully, let alone without any damage.
Johnson's "oven-ready" deal and Farage's "neat break" are just mirages, behind which they conceal either open trade war, or on-going protracted negotiations. Either way, Brexit will still dominate the political scene with its long, divisive shadow and its anti-migrant, xenophobic bias.
While it might be obvious that the Tories or the Brexit party do not represent workers' class interests, it might be less obvious that this also applies to the other parties standing in the election. And this means that there is no way for us to cast our votes in any useful way.
Many of us may be tempted to vote Labour, either because it seems to focus on addressing the problems of the working class, or as a means of voting against Johnson's upper-class, arrogant contempt. This may be why pollsters have recorded increased ratings for Labour - which, in turn, spawned a furious resurgence of the campaign accusing Corbyn of anti-semitism.
For what? For criticising the state of Israel and its prime minister (now officially charged with corruption) over their criminal policies against the Palestinian people? But who are the worst enemies of the Jewish people, if not those politicians who, like Netanyahu, are using religion and their positions at the top of the Israeli state, to deprive the Palestinian population of their rights, thereby taking the Israeli Jews hostage in their own adopted land? So, yes, this campaign against Corbyn is yet another hypocritical farce.
As to Labour's "radical" programme, it might be attractive if it sought to build on the conscious mobilisation of the working class against the capitalist exploiters, instead of Corbyn’s insistence that he is "not anti-business". In fact Corbyn is much too respectful of the bosses' system even to hint at the possibility that the working class could play any role in its own future, by taking its fate into its own hands. Yet this is what needs to happen. And it won't happen through the ballot box!