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The New ‘Normal’ in Britain in 2021? Cronyism, Crookedness and Corruption
‘‘I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers [and sisters],
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers [and sisters],
to pray for me to the Lord our God’’
— Confiteor
In the UK this weekend the Health Secretary Matt Hancock resigned from his ministerial post after CCTV pictures were published — in a thoroughly scurrilous and derisory British tabloid newspaper — of him in his office with his lover, up close and personal. It wasn’t exactly The Profumo Scandal but it was enough for him to quit. For most, it wasn’t the complete disregard for social distancing that should have caused his leaving office— which was the ‘official’ reason for his resignation — but the fact that an incompetent man who had been called ‘hopeless’ by his boss (the PM) had not made sure that the elderly in care homes had been protected from…
