Terry Pratchett's books helped me see how Boris Johnson functions

Last week these classic works were in the news after campaigner Jack Monroe was given permission from Pratchett’s estate to use “Vimes Boots Index” to highlight the current high inflation rates. The Discworld is, to me, a distorted version of our world, it has helped me understand this world more clearly and from the book Small Gods there was so much I understood.

Boris Johnson wants a high income economy. Few would go against that, but in economics, as in life, where there is a Yin there has to be a Yang.

The current Westminster government seems to understand economics in simple terms ie: in a “perfect market” where all the buyers and sellers have full knowledge of each other and of all the available products/services, also labour, that is the workers, can move freely from job to any job. That is a very tall order in reality.

In reality markets are always distorted. Doctors, for example, have to be trained, and they have to pass examinations, before they are allowed to transplant hearts. Drivers of heavy goods vehicles must also be qualified. The requirement for qualification distorts a perfect market as HGV drivers cannot move freely from driving lorries to heart surgery.

Currently there are not enough qualified workers, in particular areas. That is where one of the wheels falls off of the Tory bus.

The current strategy involves the idea of supply and demand. Reduce the supply of labour whilst demand remains the same, or rises, and the price of labour rises. Companies compete by paying more, to attract, and retain staff. In simple economics terms that idea should work. However, in order to pay higher wages, companies, generally, have to increase the price of the goods/services they sell. This is inflation, so the amount of goods/services that can be purchased from a given amount reduces.

Brexit has not only restricted exports into the EU but imports to the UK as well. Whilst businesses, desperately, try to change all they have been doing over the past 40 years, shortages in supplies, of imported goods, from Europe, add to the inflation spiral, as in any market, limit the supply and the price rises. Governments can increase and decease prices by taxing various products, VAT, stamp duty, fuel duty etc. So we do not operate in a perfect market.

Terry Prachett books have helped me see clearly how we humans function here on our little planet. His book Small Gods shows how we humans create and use our “gods”. If you read a few chapters of Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus, you can see how elites have evoked gods to bend populations to their will. Religion is a perfectly good concept, and many religions bring comfort and understanding, and a code to live by. In former times they were the foundations of society. The negative side of religion is seen when sectarian violence erupts, or one religious group claims superiority over another.

Last week, David Davis invoked God to try and make Johnson resign. Michael Gove has evoked God to save Johnson.

Kings or queens are just human beings, in reality they have no super human powers, they cannot avoid cancer, divorce, criminal prosecution, like the rest of us, when it snows, they feel cold. So when rulers want people to do things that people do not want to do, the ruler will say well if you choose not to, “God” will be angry. Nobody could prove or disprove the existence of God so the rulers have power. They are anointed God on earth. Indeed James VI, pushed the idea of the “Divine Right of Kings” all the way up the hill and was often times unliked. They cried him “The Scotch Monkey”, with his over sized head and ginger hair.

Surely there is no one on earth who would think of Davis, or Gove, as a king or a ‘god’! Maybe the Prime Minister has aspirations in that direction. There are those who might question if these people have any “right” at all!

For all that, a man’s a man for all that, but heavens, the journalist Andrew Neil and Gove were together on a TV show last evening, and Gove said “I’m sure that when [Sue Gray’s] report is published there will be from individuals concerned recognition, contrition and so on, and you know we owe them an element of Christian forgiveness.”

Well there it is again, the “elite” lording it over the everyday folk and using Religion/Christianity/”God” to defend the indefensible.

Economics misunderstood, religion misunderstood, lock-down rules misunderstood? Thousands of people grieving the loss of mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends and colleagues and still the Tory government understands nothing be a craving for power. Even with all this there are still Scots who have not yet understood our need and right to be Independent.

“It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it.” – Terry Pratchett.
Cher Bonfis
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