Zelo Street

Monday 20 November 2023

Guido I’m A Celeb Claim WRONG

One group of media observers never learns, and that is the cohort willing to take the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog on trust. Rather too much of what emanates from them is right-wing propaganda - such as recycling press releases from the so-called Taxpayers Alliance and the rest of the Tufton Street gang - and there is a significant amount of pro-Tory spin. And then there are the flat-out gaffes.

WRONG

Or, as some might call them, talking well, but lying badly. Today has brought a particularly fine example as the Fawkes folks have attempted to polish the usually unflushable turd that is former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, only to find themselves covered in more than confusion.

Nige is the star turn on this year’s series of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, with ITV for some reason ponying up well north of the cool million mark in order to secure his attendance Down Under. And rather than give him a brief mention and point out that he’s a spiv and a congenital liar of no known principle, The Great Guido has sung The Great Man’s praises.

So it was that readers still awake were told at 1059 hours this morning of “Farage’s Jungle Challenge Debut”, with those chez Fawkes gushing “Farage’s debut on I’m A Celebrity last night didn’t fail to entertain, as he was made to stick his head in box of snakes to win tokens. Farage wasn’t concerned about the challenge, joking he’s had experience with snakes before … in the European Parliament”. Laugh? I thought I’d never start.

But there was, sadly, more: “The GB News presenter said he hoped those who hate him will hate him a little less after the show, admitting he could understand why Hancock joined the show last year. Though not sure even a reality show could clear Hancock’s reputation”. Yes? Yes yes? Yes yes yes?

And then came the howler, made that much worse as it had already been rumbled an hour before. “Over 10 million viewed the show last night making it ITV’s highest rating of the year, and up by over 1 million viewers on last year’s launch. So much for the boycott from the left”. Yeah, take that Rotten Lefties™! Nige’s ratings are bigger than yours!! Nyah nyahdy nyah nyah!!!

But, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, there was only one thing wrong with the viewing claim: it was bollocks. We know this as another of those making the 10 million plus claim, Brexiteer Martin “Dipshit” Daubney, had sneered “I’m A Celebrity viewing figures peak at 10.3 million … ITV’s highest rating of the year … 1 million more than last year”. There was more.

“All thanks to Nigel Farage. Some ‘boycott’”! He even helpfully added a link to the ITV press release. But the bad news was not long in coming, as the Tweeter known as Otto English broke it to Daubs gently: “This press release is from November 2022”. Super TV had the right story.

“RATINGS [I’m A Celeb] returned to 6.95 million viewers last night - the lowest launch rating since SERIES ONE in 2002 … It’s down 2.2 MILLION on last year’s opener”. And the time stamp on that Tweet? 0959 hours. That’s a whole hour before The Great Guido. It appears that Daubney then deleted his effort. And the time on the Otto English Tweet? 1019 hours.

So have the Fawkes folks deleted their post? Still live, and still unaltered, at 1520 hours, or five hours after Otto English. Heck, even the BBC has got the story, telling “The return of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! was watched by an average of seven million viewers on Sunday according to overnight ratings … That's just over two million fewer than watched the first episode last year, which attracted 9.1m”. That’s been up for more than an hour.

And even Adam Brooks, aka Essex PR, held up his hands, admitted he got it wrong, and conceded that the viewer numbers were down on last year. But while Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week, is having a field day at “Dipshit” Daubney’s momentary embarrassment, the Fawkes rabble does not appear to have been called out. Not yet, at any rate.

Good of them to remind us of their gold standard journalism. Or maybe not.

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Saturday 18 November 2023

Elon Musk And Anti-Semitism

Racism, and more specifically anti-Semitism, are not confined to the UK and its free and fearless press: the disease is equally, if not more, virulent in the USA, and within that country’s own media class. Accusations of anti-Semitism, and the consequences following from it, have caused ructions around Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week.

So much so that Musk has now told his 163 million followers “The split second court opens on Monday, X Corp will be filing a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company”. A real bear with sore head moment. Who’s he suing? “Their board, their donors, their network of dark money, all of them”. Why so?

Ah well. A Tweeter had posted “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I’m deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realisation that these hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much. You want the truth said to your face, there it is”.

And it would have gone no further than the odd murmur about batshit conspiracy theories, except that Musk intervened to reply “You have said the actual truth”. It got worse: his absolutist approach to free speech, or his interpretation of it, added to that endorsement, spooked advertisers.

Kyle Griffin of MSNBC had an early example: “IBM says it has ‘zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination’ and has ‘immediately suspended’ all advertising on X following a report that the platform ran IBM ads alongside pro-Nazi material”. FREEZE PEACH can also mean lost ad revenue.

CEO Linda Yaccarino of Twitter/X/Whatever tried to push back. But by now, Media Matters was on the case, and their Senior Fellow Matthew Gertz reminded her “Ma'am, your boss is describing posts that reference ‘hordes of minorities’ as ‘the actual truth’ and criticizing ‘Jewish communities’ for promoting ‘hatred towards whites.’” The ad losses were not confined to IBM.

MMFA’s CEO Angelo Carusone had the bad news that “Apple just announced they're pulling their ads from from X/Twitter [which] is very significant for 3 reasons: 1) X needs the App Store. It's very hard/nearly impossible for Apple to fairly enforce App Store rules when they're one of biggest advertisers. Now the conflict is gone”. His other two reasons were even worse news.

“2) Apple was a very big spender (one of top advertisers) and even more relevant was one of few companies that increased spend over the past year … 3) X/Twitter would often point to Apple's presence as evidence that the platform was brand safe. It's going to a lot harder for them to slow the advertiser losses without Apple's presence to point to”. OUCH!

And as Musk dug himself in deeper by frothing “Many of the largest advertisers are the greatest oppressors of your right to free speech”, Matt Binder had even worse news: “you can now add … Disney … Paramount … Warner Bros to this list of companies that just suspended advertising on X / Twitter after Musk’s recent endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory”.

Not long after Rupert Murdoch claimed that all the Egyptians he had met were white, and complained about the “Jewish-owned press”, someone prevailed upon him to put the Twitter feed down. Musk should have done the same a long time ago. Alternatively, he could have listened to his colleagues and discovered that his views were, shall we say, not quite mainstream.

As has been pointed out, “Henry Ford. Ezra Pound. Charles Lindbergh. Kanye West. Elon Musk. There’s no ‘genius’ that excuses this endless parade of toxic antisemitic nonsense”. Gertz has added better news for those of us besieged by Twitter adverts: “The good news is that at this rate, soon regular X users won’t have ads in their timeline either”. Still Musk refuses to listen.

You can’t sue your way out of a hole. But you can stop digging.

Friday 17 November 2023

Sun Writer Palestine Rant Fail

The eventual admission that the far right were the source of almost all the violence in London last Saturday, after Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, told his followers that they should support the National March Against Antisemitism, to be held in the capital on November 26, was something to behold. Now the Murdoch Sun has intervened.

Why might the public not take this august journal seriously?

Yes, the paper whose owner once complained about the “Jewish-owned press” is now calling out peaceful protesters that want to see an end to the round the clock rocketing, bombing and shelling of Gaza by the IDF for being supporters of Hamas and/or anti-Semites, while trying to lean on the far right and prevent them from rocking up a week on Sunday for a bit of afters.

Why the Sun is intervening thus may be that the title, and its management, still believe that the Super Soaraway Currant Bun of yesteryear, with its daily circulation of over four million, is still out there, still capable of telling the population what to think, and still able to bend events to its will. On the weekend of the 25th and 26th November, it will discover the new reality.

That reality is a circulation of well below the one million mark, a credibility shot through by past episodes of falsehood and misinformation, and a public whose support for a ceasefire in Gaza remains unshaken by gaslighting, smearing, bad faith actors, propaganda, and the failure of a flailing and desperate media class to impose themselves on the proletariat.

Still, let’s consider what The Sun Says this morning: “Tommy Robinson and EDL are weaponising identity of British Jews - they’re as dangerous to us as leftie anti-semites”. Ah yes, that anti-Semitism on the left that is rather more talked about than discovered. Author Noa Hoffman talks of “an army of bad-faith actors weaponising my identity and tearing into its core”. Do go on.

“The devastating war in Israel has put my community, the British Jewish community, in the spotlight. With that has come a tidal wave of racist hatred so ferocious I’ve had to try hard not to lose my mind … On the Left, massive pro-Palestine rallies have been littered with some of the most dangerous people in the country”. What makes them so dangerous?

The flag of Palestine. Not of Hamas

“They proudly shout ‘From the river to the sea’ - a chant calling for Israel to be wiped off the map”. A chant YOU CLAIM makes that calling. Others interpret it to be about freedom for the Palestinian people, which they do not enjoy, either those in Gaza, or those in the West Bank. But carry on. “They don’t believe my community has any right to a homeland”.

Israel, the last time I looked, existed, and has a right to do so. No serious opinion is pretending otherwise. Ms Hoffman is also not doing her credibility any favours by claiming “Jewish people are removing any symbol of their identity to avoid physical harm and harassment” when there is a significant Jewish contingent at rallies in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Nor does she, and her paper, do their reputation any good by deploying headlines like “Thugs tracking me down” and then rowing back with “my boyfriend messaged me to check my address and phone number are sufficiently private … He worried about violent thugs tracking me down”. Nor is she helping her cause by talking, more than once, about the EDL.

Lennon disbanded the EDL some years ago. Granted, he keeps suggesting he might bring it back, but he hasn’t. And while she is sound with her response to him - “I want nothing to do with him … I don’t want his fake support, I detest it” - he and his pals will just feed on this kind of article to paint themselves as victims, brushing it off as an attack on their free speech.

Noa Hoffman, her paper, and those of like mind are between a rock and a hard place. The Sun spent years smearing anyone on the left as anti-Semites in order to get their preferred politician into Downing Street - someone who has used anti-Semitic caricatures in his written work - that the same left will likely ignore any pleading for support. The media class has shot its bolt.

Pro-Palestinian rallies are overwhelmingly peaceful. Smearing them will get the Sun nowhere. And the far right won’t take any notice. Sad, really.

Thursday 16 November 2023

Labour’s Ceasefire Shame

The civilian death toll resulting from the IDF’s round the clock rocketing, shelling and bombing of Gaza has now, when those missing and assumed buried under the rubble of apparently randomly targeted buildings are factored in, passed the 15,000 mark. That’s 15,000 killed in less than six weeks. 15,000 non-combatants without the means to defend themselves.

Yet most of what Robin Day rightly and memorably called here today and gone tomorrow politicians did not seem overly concerned about such details, and that has included the Labour leadership, one of whose representatives rocked up on TV this week and declared that calls for an immediate ceasefire were “performative”. Another one arguing in his spare time.

There is nothing “performative”, to use the happy characterisation of another career creep, about wanting to end the death and suffering resulting from pumping the equivalent of more than two Hiroshima bombs into a densely populated enclave, including the use of white phosphorus, and fragmentation rounds, the kind that tear through flesh and amputate limbs.

The Government mindset was no better, as Grant “Spiv” Shapps showed: “Voting for a ceasefire is essentially voting to give Hamas the green light to commit further terrorist atrocities. If Britain had been attacked on October 7, and we knew exactly where the murderers were, would any MP seriously be voting not to go after them?” Did we flatten West Belfast? Away with you.

One Labour MP supportive of a ceasefire found the Tories sniggering at her across the chamber. A few of The Blue Team did, though, vote for a ceasefire, but rather more Labour representatives - 56 of them, including several from the front bench who stood down in order to do so - registered their dissent, along with the SNP, several Lib Dems, and Green MP Caroline Lucas.

One of those Lib Dems was Layla Moran, who had just received the news that one of her extended family had been killed in Gaza. Still, as Philip Proudfoot observed, “Labour’s amendment today calls for a ‘humanitarian pause.’ They’ll suggest it’s ‘sensible’ and aligned with the international community … But EVERY head of the UN humanitarian agencies is calling for a ceasefire … Labour is gaslighting us”. Centro-Sensiblism again.

As for our free and fearless press, the only reason the right-leaning titles even mention the ceasefire vote is because of Keir Starmer’s discomfort in losing several of his front bench team. Their main focus is dishonestly claiming that the Tories’ Supreme Court Rwanda reverse was down to The Forrins.

It’s as if pointless culture wars are more important than the destruction, and mounting death toll, in Gaza. Another example of Palestinian lives not being of equal merit with those of everyone else. What, though, was motivating the Labour leadership to show so little empathy with those being bombed, rocketed and targeted with all those fragmentation munitions?

The Oh What A Giveaway moment came from the singularly unpleasant Luke Akehurst: “There's a certain post-colonial arrogance to British MPs thinking they can tell the elected government of another democracy that it has to stop fighting to defend its people after the worst terrorist atrocities since 9/11. The former mandatory power should stay in its lane”. Two things here.

The IDF is not “fighting to defend its people” by pulverising Gaza into dust and recklessly murdering a five-figure number of civilians. And Two, a vote in the Commons is not an instruction to the Government of another country. It is an expression of solidarity and empathy. It is not an attempt to tell the Israeli Government what to do. Akehurst is indulging in sophistry and spin.

But people like him have the ear of the Labour leadership, for better or worse. People like him who respond to the use of free speech with the mildly threatening demand “Name and CLP?” People who appear to conflate Israel with “The Jewish People”, which the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism calls an anti-Semitic trope. But he believes in Israel, so that’s all right, then.

Meanwhile, more defenceless civilians are being killed and maimed while the Labour party makes the calculation that they’ll win the next election anyway.

Wednesday 15 November 2023

So Farewell Then Rwanda Plan

This week is shaping up to be a very bad week for the Tories and their hangers-on in our free and fearless press, but a very good one for those who would rather Rishi Sunak and the rest of his less than talented cabal either shape up and stop fighting pointless culture wars, or ship out.

What is not being admitted by The Blue Team and its coterie of client journalists is that the current swathe of what Supermac called “events, dear boy, events” is opening up cracks in the Tory edifice which are slowly but inexorably breaking the party apart. Today’s addition to those “events” is, like Monday’s sacking of a Home Secretary, down to the cult of SUELLA and the inevitably messy end of the terminally inept Braverman reign.

And one part of that reign was the supremely cruel plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, where they would be “processed”, then not allowed to return to the UK. The one and only flight carrying those effectively deported eventually left with none of them on board. The Gammonati, their dog-whistlers in the press, and Ms Braverman, were incandescent with rage.

The Appeal Court then found against the Rwanda Plan. And so it came to pass that it arrived at the Supreme Court. As the BBC explained, “The legal case against the policy hinges on the principle of ‘non-refoulement’ - that a person seeking asylum should not be returned to their country of origin if doing so would put them at risk of harm - which is established under both UK and international human rights law”. And the verdict handed down today?

“The government had said its plan to deport asylum seekers to east Africa and ban them from returning was needed to deter illegal small boat crossings. But the Supreme Court ruled it is possible the Rwandan government would send refugees back to the country they had fled in the first place”. Do go on.

“It said the policy breaches human rights laws by potentially leaving the people sent there open to that risk … The Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal decision, and said there are ‘substantial grounds’ to believe people deported to Rwanda could then be sent to places they would be unsafe by the Rwandan government”. Yes, it’s Human Rights again.

So what does the press-generated personality cult of RISHI make of the failed idea from the press-generated personality cult of SUELLA? “This was not the outcome we wanted, but we have spent the last few months planning for all eventualities and we remain completely committed to stopping the boats”. Sadly, SUELLA already let slip that there is no Plan B. But do go on.

“Illegal migration destroys lives and costs British taxpayers millions of pounds a year. We need to end it and we will do whatever it takes to do so. Because when people know that if they come here illegally, they won’t get to stay then they will stop coming altogether, and we will stop the boats”. Says Ron Hopeful, holed up in the Downing Street bunker.

Unfortunately, Sunak cannot stop the meltdown on the right of his party, typified by his deputy chairman. 30p Lee, as Aubrey Allegretti of the Times has noted, “says ministers should go ahead and ‘put planes in the air’ to Rwanda anyway. When I asked if he was suggesting ignoring the Supreme Court ruling, the Tory deputy chairman said govt should ‘ignore the laws and send them straight back’”. Them. People who are not white. Again.

Next stop demanding we leave the ECHR, is it? But, as Tom Larkin of Sky News has reported, the judgment contains this caution: “It is therefore not only the European Convention on Human Rights which is relevant to this was, as is sometimes thought”. Leaving the ECHR would be ineffective.

And there was more. “There are other international treaties which also prohibit the return of asylum seekers to their countries of origin without a proper examination of their claims”. Sunak should sack Anderson as he sacked Ms Braverman. The words of Margaret Thatcher explain why.

“The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it’s inconvenient, if government does that, then so will the governed, and then nothing is safe - not home, not liberty, not life itself”. Today’s Tories are falling apart through their own idiocy. Sad, really.

Tuesday 14 November 2023

Oh Tommy Tommy - Don’t Turn Up

When all seems lost, the opposition rides to your rescue. On the question of who contributed the overwhelming percentage of violent incidents in London last Saturday, when far too many media outlets were trying to “both sides” the contribution of the far right and those of almost totally peaceful demonstrators, it has come galloping this morning.

Why that should be is not hard to deduce: the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism is organising a “National Solidarity March Against Antisemitism”, to be held in London on November 26th. “As antisemitism surges, Britain stands together in solidarity with its Jewish community … March with us to show your support”, they tell. So who is going to rock up there?

As if you need to ask: Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, emboldened by his ability to bring a few hundred of the far right brains trust into town last weekend, and then scarper in a taxi just before the riot Police arrived, has declared his support for the gathering, the news spreading fast as he has also been allowed back onto Twitter.

“Everyone should attend this & let British Jews know they are not alone” he told his adoring followers. Then came the OH WHAT A GIVEAWAY moment, the point where it had to be admitted that almost all Saturday’s violence came from the kind of people that latch on to the likes of Lennon.

While the CAA braced itself at the prospect of an unwelcome presence appearing a week on Sunday, Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust responded “You and your far right racist thugs aren’t welcome. We don’t need or want your ‘support’. Stay home”. The CST was behind the “Engine of Hate” report which demonised many voices on the left who did not have the means to protect their reputations. So they won’t get any sympathy there.

Nor will “Lord” Ian Austin, floor-crosser of no known principle, who appeared horrified at the prospect of Lennon and his pals showing their “support”: “Don’t come. You won’t be made welcome. Decent people don’t want to march with racists and extremists and violent thugs. You’re just using this to sow your usual division and hatred”. Is he calling Lennon a racist?

The Great Man doesn’t like being called a racist. Calling him a racist is what brought him to my doorstep in the dead of night (twice), with him claiming spuriously “You’ve been telling lies about me”. Well, if Lennon rocks up chez Austin, it’ll kill two birds with one stone: it’ll wake up those who have been less than supportive of Lennon’s targets, and he’ll get properly nicked.

Austin was later rebuked by wife-beater, and self-confessed murderer of Palestinians, Avi Yemini: “Sit down, Ian. You don’t speak for all Jews. Tommy Robinson is a better ally to our community than any of your Labour mates. Your boss was Jeremy bloody Corbyn for goodness sake”. Self-confessed murderer not happy about someone who wants an end to conflict.

Lennon then made matters worse by telling Austin “A coward who thinks he can continue to feed the crocodile in the hope that it won’t eat him. You cowards don’t speak for the average Jew in the uk . Your cowardice has been an act of betrayal to your people . The hatred aimed at Jews currently comes from the teachings of Islam”. The bad news was he hadn’t finished.

After Jez Myers called out Lennon, The Great Man could contain himself no longer. “The board of deputies & their attempt to cosy up to Islamic radicals is partly the reason your community is facing such hostility. The time for appeasement is over, the time for being a weak liberal Jew is over. Strength & courage is needed not cowardice”. Would Sir care to offend anyone else?

Don’t ask. “They [BoD] quote tell mama, tell mama have been proven to fake hate statistics & to prevent criticism of Islamic teachings, those teaching [sic] include Jew hatred & the board of deputies work with these frauds out of fear, nothing else but fear”. And he might just turn up, along with his far right pals. Which, for the CAA and its own pals, is going to be very much their problem.

But good to see the admission of where Saturday’s violence came from.

Monday 13 November 2023

So Farewell Then Suella Braverman

The right-leaning part of our free and fearless press may have had worse days, and at least today’s exhibition of bum steers isn’t in the “Dewey Beats Truman” category, but the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, followed closely by the Murdoch Sun and Rothermere Daily Stürmer, sorry, Mail, have ended up covered in rather more than confusion this morning.

Why should I be sacked? I have done nothing right

The Tel thundered “Braverman: The hate marches must end”, the lack of subs the most likely cause of not noticing that one does not capitalise after a colon. But do go on. “SUELLA BRAVERMAN has said the weekly pro-Palestine marches that have ‘polluted’ the streets with hate ‘can’t go on’, as the Government considered toughening up protest laws”. And the Mail?

“SUELLA COMES OUT FIGHTING … Marchers ‘valorise terrorism’ and ‘pollute streets with hate’ says Home Secretary as she defies critics who want her sacked”. Does she now? Over at the Sun, the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, still pretending to be a real journalist, was the name on the by-line of another example of taking dictation from the Tories.

Famous last f***ing Dacre words, eh?

“Exclusive: Protest Crackdown … NEVER AGAIN … As Kate marks silence, new laws to protect Remembrance” is the headline, with readers still reading told “RISHI Sunak has ordered a major tightening of protest laws after Armistice day was blighted by hate-filled thugs”. The thought that “Kate” was pictured on the Sunday, and the exhibition of racist violence by the far-right brains trust happened on the Saturday, was not allowed to enter.

Not one of those titles put the most obvious potential news on their front pages - that calls for Ms Braverman and her SUELLA personality cult to be removed from the Home Office had gone from loud to deafening after she ignored Downing Street over another of those newspaper rants.

And the punctuation lessons must begin

Moreover, the appearance of the far-right, vocal, violent, abusive, and full of race hate, was to an extent down to her dog-whistling. So it was more with a sense of relief that the inevitable news arrived: Rishi Sunak had finally summoned a sufficient reserve of cojones to sack the hate-filled SOB. Braverman, and the personality cult of SUELLA, out, to the great relief of all those who wished she had never been appointed in the first place.

So much for the Mail’s defiant and indeed threatening front page headline last Friday: “COME FOR SUELLA AND YOU COME FOR US ALL”. How did that work out for the paper’s editor in chief, the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre? How many Prime Ministers were bent to the Vagina Monologue’s will?

Or maybe not

Meanwhile, Sunak had some serious reshuffling to do: the first part was straightforward, moving James Cleverly from the FO to the HO. He was sensibly brief in his comment to reporters: “It is an honour to be appointed as home secretary. The goal is clear. My job is to keep people in this country safe”. So it is. But who would replace him at the Foreign Office?

Taking dictation? Never a good idea

The Tory talent pond is hardly deep. And so it came to pass that Sunak brought us a blast from the less than illustrious past and summoned Young Dave from well-merited retirement as Lord Cameron Of Jolly Good Sheow. Kath Viner may regret binning Steve Bell, if only for the caricature of Cameron as a condom. Also, Sunak has problems with this appointment.

JOLLY POOR SHEOW! ((c) Steve Bell 2013)

Young Dave dissed the PM over cancelling Phase 2 of HS2. Worse, Sunak trying to define himself against previous Tory leaders will now put him in on of those Very Difficult Positions. Still, Cam was suitably upbeat: “While I have been out of front-line politics for the last seven years, I hope that my experience - as Conservative Leader for eleven years and Prime Minister for six - will assist me in helping the prime minister”. JOLLY GOOD SHEOW!

But all the recycling of Boundless Hope And Optimism cannot mask the grim reality for the Tories: they lose every by-election, the back benches are so bereft of ability that another unelected has-been has to be drafted in to plug the gaps, and their support is at an all-time low. At least Braverman is out.

After she emboldened the far-right, sadly. Still, Just Rejoice At That News.

Sunday 12 November 2023

Sunak Wipes Braverman’s Arse

And so the march in solidarity with the Palestinian people - most of those in Gaza have now been displaced from their homes after weeks of round the clock rocketing, bombing and shelling by the IDF - in London yesterday passed off almost entirely without incident: the few fringe troublemakers are being investigated, and dealt with, by the Metropolitan Police.

P45? For me? No, I don't recognise that document

Considering that even the cops admit 300,000 attended the protest, and that the organisers’ estimate was 800,000, that rather gives the lie to the claims by Home Secretary Suella Braverman that such gatherings are “hate marches”. But what was a hate march was the appearance of 500 or so of the Gammonati, already aled up by mid-morning, and looking for trouble.

This gathering of the far-right brains trust was symbolically led by Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson, and tried to gain access to the Cenotaph, only to be prevented by the Met. Lennon, demonstrating that he is of less than perfect courage, later left his adoring followers in the lurch, escaping in a taxi just before the cops descended on the rabble.

Later on, the Fash - for that was what it was, and is - attempted to get near to the main march, most likely for a bit of afters. The cops waded in and made a significant number of arrests. Indeed, the vast majority of violent incidents and associated arrests involved those on the far right. Who had most likely responded to Ms Braverman’s dog whistling. Thus the Tories’ problem.

What would a sensible Prime Minister, one who was in touch with ordinary voters and grounded in reality, have done? What would a pragmatic and empathetic Prime Minister have done? What would Nietzsche have done? Sadly, Sunak does not inhabit that intellectual plane, instead creating a false equivalence to protect his Home Secretary and gaslight the public.

Here’s the relevant part of his statement: “I condemn the violent, wholly unacceptable scenes we have seen today from the EDL and associated groups and Hamas sympathisers attending the National March for Palestine … What we have seen today does not defend the honour of our Armed Forces, but utterly disrespects them”. Very fine people on both sides.

The Fash turned up? Whoever triggered them, then?

Yes, this is Sunak’s Trump moment. The EDL is effectively moribund; those who turned out from the far right were just thugs looking for some afters. The “Hamas sympathisers” were not their equivalent, and only one group was disrespecting our Armed Forces, by attempting to storm the Cenotaph, and it wasn’t those marching in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The issue, as Louise Raw, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, correctly advised the Met was that “Your issue will be pissed up fash”. And so it came to pass: as John Gafson of Sky News told, “Fighting has broken out as people shouting ‘England ‘till I die’ attempted to reach the Cenotaph”.

Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate added “There's been more far right violence around Westminster tube. Thugs broke through police lines and attacked both police and media”. Beth Rigby of Sky News told that “In wake of clashes in Whitehall, Scotland’s First Minister [Humza Yousuf] says Home Sec’s position untenable and she should resign”. She was nowhere to be seen.

Indeed, Lowles later mused “Graphic video of the far right fighting with the police in central London now. And still not a word of condemnation from [Suella Braverman]”. Sky News told viewers “Protesters were heard chanting 'you're not English anymore' towards officers as violent clashes broke out in Chinatown”. Lowles again: “Chants of ‘There ain’t no black in the Union Jack’ and ‘allah is a paedo’ being heard” Fash goading peaceful protesters.

Lewis Goodall told that, on Lambeth Bridge, “Far right assembled screaming at protestors: ‘allah, allah, who the fuck is allah?’” Our free and fearless press, though, took their cue from Sunak and duly gaslit their readers. Former Murdoch editor David Yelland was unimpressed. “By misrepresenting what happened in London yesterday old newspapers serving old readers doom themselves to the past, the young can see the violence was on one side”.

Rishi Sunak and his press pals are on their way out. The only difference between the two is timescale. Wiping Suella’s arse is not a wise move.

Friday 10 November 2023

Harry Beats The Mail - AGAIN

There are, as is the norm for a website that is more and more desperate to score clicks, several Royal “stories” that one can read at Mail Online today, and much of the content on offer is most likely conjecture. But one story that PA has circulated, and even the BBC has run, does not appear. No prizes for guessing that this one concerns the Sussexes. And lawsuits.

Evening all

But what the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker are prepared to offer readers is a routine crock of journalistic crap from their overrated, overmonied, and underwhelming creep Richard Eden, telling “Relations between Prince Harry and his father are clearly [no citation] worse than ever [you don’t know]”. The subject is Brian’s 75th birthday next week. Do go on.

“The Palace has announced that close family will get together in the evening … However, it seems that neither the Duke nor the Duchess of Sussex will be among the guests [YOU STILL DON’T KNOW] … ‘The presence of Harry and Meghan at any family gathering now would make it feel like more of a funeral than a celebration,’ writes Eden”. HE STILL DOESN’T KNOW. Any more?

“When King Charles turns 75 next Tuesday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will, however, be 5,000 miles away in California, and his milestone birthday has already been the subject of a public row … This week, a spokesman for Harry and Meghan made a point of denying a line buried in a Sunday Times story that he had been invited to a party to celebrate his father’s birthday and that he had rejected the invitation”. AND STILL DOESN’T KNOW.

That’s quite enough of “Richard's expert Royal commentary”, remembering that, as the old joke goes, an Ex is a has-been and a Spurt is a drip under pressure. We have no need of this drivel when there is a far more important Sussex story out there. Which you won’t be reading in the Mail.

Why so? Ah well. Let’s mosey over to the BBC website. “Prince Harry wins latest stage in newspaper claims” is the headline. And which newspaper would that be, perchance? “The Duke of Sussex can go ahead with privacy claims against Associated Newspapers, after a judge's ruling opened the way for a trial”. Associated Newspapers. Who publish the Mail titles.

What's it f***ing got to do with me, c***?!?!?

There was more. “The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday publishers wanted to stop the case, arguing that allegations of unlawfully obtaining information were out of time … But a judge has decided the case, involving Prince Harry and six other high-profile claimants, can proceed … Associated Newspapers has strongly denied the allegations”. So who else is suing?

“As well as Prince Harry, the newspaper group faces multiple claims of ‘gross breaches of privacy’ from Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost, Sir Simon Hughes and Baroness Doreen Lawrence … This includes allegations of bugging devices in cars, listening into phone calls and dishonestly obtaining medical and financial information”. Whoops!

Do go on. “In a High Court ruling, Mr Justice Nicklin said that Associated Newspapers had ‘not been able to deliver a “knockout blow” to the claims of any of these claimants’”. Any comment? “The decision that the case can go to a full trial was welcomed by actor Hugh Grant, the director of the Hacked Off group, which campaigns for press reforms”. That’ll annoy the Mail even more.

Nicklin J also told “Each claimant has a real prospect of demonstrating that Associated, or those for whom Associated is responsible, concealed from him/her the relevant facts upon which a worthwhile claim of unlawful information gathering could have been advanced”. So expect the Mail titles to run more smears against the Sussexes. And against Hugh Grant.

The Mail titles must hope that not mentioning this story will stop their readers finding out about it. But even the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have run an item on it. The Guardian has reported on the case. Maybe the next Private Eye will give it an airing. From what Nicklin J has said, Associated could be in deep and very expensive shit.

Like several million notes deep and expensive shit. Just rejoice at that news.

Thursday 9 November 2023

Braverman Alienates Everyone

After Suella Braverman, inexplicably elevated to the rank of Home Secretary despite being manifestly unfit for the job, had screamed and screamed but had not convinced anyone who mattered that next Saturday’s march of those showing solidarity with the Palestinian people should be banned, one might have thought that she would stop and think before opening her mouth again.

But that thought would have been sorely misplaced: having dubbed peaceful protests “hate marches”, with her Prime Minister claiming that the protest was somehow “disrespectful”, and our free and fearless press claiming spuriously that there was a risk to Armistice Day commemorations and the Cenotaph, but having failed to convince the cops, off she has gone again.

After Sunak had tried, but failed, to pressure the Metropolitan Police into banning the march, it seemed that someone very adjacent to the PM had briefed the right-wing press, with the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, howling “RISHI WARNS MET CHIEF: YOU’LL TAKE BLAME IF PROTEST IS VIOLENT”, and the Mail following up by going Full Dacre,

“As Mark Rowley STILL refuses to ban Gaza march on Armistice Day - even after being summoned to Number 10 … PM TELLS MET CHIEF: ON YOUR HEAD BE IT”. But it was the Murdoch Times that had the latest outburst by Ms Braverman, who had already alienated anyone wanting to show concern for those being rocketed, bombed and shelled round the clock.

Empathy, she had declared, now equalled hate. Now she targeted the Police, a move that Sir Humphrey might have termed “brave”. Warming to her new platform, she frothed “Now, as we approach a particularly significant weekend in the life of our nation, one which calls for respect and commemoration, the hate marchers - a term I do not resile from - intend to use Armistice Day to parade through London in yet another show of strength”. Do go on.

“I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry of help for Gaza. They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups - particularly Islamists - of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland. Also disturbingly reminiscent of Ulster are the reports that some of Saturday’s march group organisers have links to terrorist groups, including Hamas”. No citation.

So that’s Ulster’s unionist tradition, and the nationalist civil rights movement, duly alienated, then. With no power-sharing executive in place at Stormont, that makes the task of restoring the executive almost insurmountable. So could she alienate anyone else? Don’t ask. Because yes, she could.

Yet “braver” was her decision to slag off the cops. She “claimed that senior officers are biased in their policing of protests and employ a ‘double standard’, taking a softer approach with left-wing groups such as Black Lives Matter than with right-wing protests such as anti-lockdown demonstrations … [she] said there must not be soft touch policing of this weekend’s protest”.

This was, in case you missed it, “in implicit criticism of the Met’s management of the rallies over the past month. The public, she said, ‘expect to see an assertive and proactive approach to any displays of hate, breaches of conditions and general disorder’”. This has not met with universal acclaim.

As Paul Waugh of the i Paper pointed out, “Tom Winsor, former HM chief inspector of constabulary, is on [the Radio 4 Today Programme] saying [Suella Braverman] has broken the spirit and letter of the convention that Home Secretary should never question the operational integrity of the police. [Rishi Sunak] now facing huge pressure to sack her”.

Smearing peaceful marchers for displaying empathy. Smearing the Police for doing their job. Smearing both Unionist and Nationalist traditions in Northern Ireland. As Annette Dittert put it, that Times column was “a vicious attack on Sunak’s authority as PM. If he doesn’t sack her now, he might as well resign”.

Having missed all previous opportunities to sack her, Sunak now looks on helplessly while the far right gather for some Saturday afters, his credibility and that of his Government shredded by his wacko Home Secretary. It would be funny, were it not deadly serious. General election? Yes, and right now.

Wednesday 8 November 2023

Prime Minister Resigns On Principle

Not in the UK, you understand, not since Young Dave flounced out after he failed to persuade the electorate to vote Remain in rather larger numbers. We need to move south to Portugal to see what a principled Prime Minister does at the merest suspicion of misconduct. And what António Costa did yesterday was to tender his resignation to President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

António Costa - resigned immediately, versus ...

Had he seen out his term in office - after winning re-election in January last year - Costa would have become the country’s longest-serving post Revolutionary PM. But this prospect did not cause him to even hesitate, and here we have a comparison with the UK: Costa had served two terms as Mayor of Lisbon before becoming PM. Who might be the British comparator?

But you knew that already: disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was the name, and hanging on grimly until being forcibly dislodged by his own MPs was the game. No principled act from him, and furthermore, an electorate gaslighted by our free and fearless press was guaranteed, as Bozo declined to go, despite the scandals.

And what scandals they were: Partygate (where he acquired an actual criminal conviction), Wallpapergate, lying to the Queen in order to have Parliament improperly prorogued, the Russia report, the Sue Gray report, the Chris Pincher scandal, the Owen Paterson scandal, his visits to Palazzo Terranova, blaming Keir Starmer over Jimmy Savile, the reign of terror of chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings, and the congenital lying.

On top of that were all the Covid-19 deaths (over which he eventually owned up), the precipitous loss of Tory support leading to several by-election defeats (from which the party has not recovered), meetings with the likes of Steve Bannon, and the image of corruption and dishonesty was inescapable.

No way would Bozo have resigned the Top Job just because an investigation came a little close to him and his pals. But that is what António Costa did, and without being pushed or prompted. As the BBC has reported, he “resigned after investigators searched his official residence in an inquiry into alleged corruption … He said he had not been named as a suspect but believed the inquiry was incompatible with staying in office”. There was more.

... Bozo, who had to be dragged out of No 10 kicking and screaming

“Prosecutors said on Tuesday they were investigating concessions awarded for lithium mines and hydrogen production … They said detention warrants were issued for five people including Mr Costa's chief of staff, Vítor Escária”. Lithium. For electric vehicle batteries. A source within the EU.

That is important, as it keeps the EU independent of countries like China. Anyone else under suspicion? “Infrastructure Minister João Galamba has meanwhile been indicted as part of the inquiry into energy deals”. Galamba has already survived one set of calls for his resignation. There may be a dissolution of the assembly and new elections next January.

Compare and contrast with Bozo, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak coming along in rapid succession with no reference to the electorate, along with yet more of those by-election losses. Plus the continuing scandal of all those billions spaffed up the wall, to use Bozo’s happy phrase, during the Covid pandemic, with the impression being given of cronyism and potential criminality.

But it is Costa’s response to events that shows the huge gulf in principle between him and Bozo: “The dignity of the functions of prime minister is not compatible with any suspicion about his integrity, his good conduct and even less with the suspicion of the practice of any criminal act … Obviously, I submitted my resignation to the President of the Republic”. Obviously.

Few in the UK would expect a PM to depart the stage at the mere suspicion of impropriety. Our free and fearless press will readily tell anyone not yet asleep that those southern European sorts do lots of corruption and dishonesty, while gaslighting the electorate and smearing anyone who dares to suggest that the Tories are, if anything, a whole lot worse.

Thus the further lesson from Portugal. Rishi Sunak is also not resigning.

Tuesday 7 November 2023

Braverman Chickens Out

The days are ticking down to the weekend; just four to go before another, possibly the largest march in solidarity with the Palestinian people, sets off from Hyde Park, its destination the US Embassy, its route not via Whitehall, and therefore nowhere near the Cenotaph. And with each passing day, the deplorable behaviour of Suella Braverman is exposed for all to see.

For some reason elevated to the rank of Home Secretary, despite her only obvious qualification for the job being her ability to blame everyone else for her shortcomings, Ms Braverman, far from pouring oil on troubled waters by calling for calm and restraint, has whipped up the far right, with the most probable outcome that peaceful marchers run the risk of being attacked.

She has paved the way for the more wacko part of the right-wing commentariat to smear those wanting to see people given relief from round the clock rocketing, bombing and shelling as terrorists, and worse. Typical is the screamingly batshit Allison Pearson, who has claimed, I kid you not, that “The Armistice march has been organised by Hamas leaders”.

The Hamas leadership, living in Qatar, may be surprised to hear of this. But for Ms Pearson, there is no need to worry, because “A lot of normal people are heading for London this weekend to defend our country”. This is, let us not drive it around the houses for too long, normalising violence - the kind doled out by the far right. Who will be allowed to march as usual.

You read that right: what the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press choose not to tell their readers is that the National Front, the original British chapter of the twitchy right arm brigade, gather together their few followers and join in the march past at the Cenotaph on Sunday. No howls of protest from Ms Pearson. Not a peep from the Express, Mail, or Sun.

What those titles have peeped about is the march not on Sunday, but the previous day, in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Generally, there has been an attempt to conflate Saturday’s march with Sunday’s gathering at the Cenotaph, with the Murdoch Sun getting the poppies out and howling “SHOW SOME RESPECT”. The Express has called for the march to be banned.

But here a problem enters: the headline thunders “Million-strong march ‘not appropriate’ as nation pays respects to war dead … POLICE: CALL OFF PROTESTS ON ARMISTICE WEEKEND TO AVOID VIOLENCE”. But the cops are not banning the march. That’s because they can’t. Not unless action is taken by … the Home Secretary. Who has not thus far taken action.

Yes, Suella Braverman has repeatedly smeared those protesting as “Hate marchers”, thus dog-whistling the far right, who will, with the certainty of night following day, rock up in the capital on Saturday for a bit of afters. Having riled up the mob, Ms Braverman has not yet made the decision to force banning of the protests, thus also ensuring the march will go ahead anyway.

Instead, she has responded to the Met’s pleading with “I welcome this statement from the Met Police. The hate marchers need to understand that decent British people have had enough of these displays of thuggish intimidation and extremism”. Peaceful march redefined to whip up the mob, thus guaranteeing the far right will bring real thuggery to London’s streets.

As human rights lawyer Shoaib Khan put it, “Yes. We really have had enough of thuggish intimidation and extremism. Things are dangerous enough as it is without you and your thuggish colleagues trying to intimidate communities. Please stop spreading this constant hatred”. But she won’t, having chickened out of banning the march. It was her decision; she failed to make it.

So who will be blamed for any disorder? Not those on the far right who have been riled up by the press and politicians. Not Suella Braverman, who has chickened out of taking the decision to ban the march. No, those carrying the can will be the overwhelmingly peaceful protesters showing solidarity with the Palestinian people. It’s almost as if Ms Braverman wants it that way.

This is a very dangerous game she’s playing. It’s high time it was stopped.

Monday 6 November 2023

Lee Anderson - Lawsuits Work Both Ways

Still fulfilling the role of deputy chairman of the Tory party, despite the distraction of being a host on Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), and enjoying the odd bit of punditry, Lee Anderson, still to convince anyone that meals can be served for just 30p a go, has also found time to familiarise himself with legal actions for defamation.

Yours for 30p in twelve months' time (apologies to Private Eye)

30p Lee, as he was christened by Steve Bray, reached for the services of his lawyer recently when one of those Google-served clickbait adverts made a claim about him that will not be repeated here. 99% of those seeing the clickbait - rubbish like “terrible news for [insert name of well known person here] today” - ignore them. But some do not, and hence the lawsuit.

As the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, where the offending advert appeared, pointed out correctly, Google should not be letting this sort of crap through. Especially as it took around a year to drag the big G kicking and screaming to the door of the court. Anderson then enjoyed his day on the top step of the podium.

“I am pleased that Google has publicly apologised in Court and put an end to this very difficult and distressing time for me and my family. I do however think it is a real shame that it has taken so long for this to happen and that I had to get lawyers involved and threaten Google with legal action to get here”. He also thanked The Great Guido “for their ongoing support”.

He wouldn’t be one of their regular sources, would he? Still, on he went: “I remain concerned that Google’s services have been used by my desperate political opponents to smear my good name to thousands of people. I understand there are people who will sink to the lowest levels to undermine me and my work, but to see them being able to use a company like Google to amplify their bile to a massive audience is difficult to comprehend”. Oh aye?

Do go on. “I’m really glad Google decided to apologise and acknowledge its failings, but I’m an MP and that took many months and the involvement of specialist lawyers. My constituents and many others will not be in such a fortunate position, but they need to be protected”. Quite so.

So what has he done about that since his victory? Well, one thing he appears not to have done is to take on board that not only can he threaten action against others, but others can threaten action against him. Fortunately, his knowledge in this field has now been enhanced, after he became the one making the grovelling apology and opening his wallet.

As the BBC has reported, “Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson has apologised to a doctor over a ‘misleading’ social media post … He offered his ‘sincerest apologies’ to Tom Dolphin for any distress caused by a post on X, formerly Twitter, related to the ongoing junior doctors strike.” Most magnanimous of him. And was money involved, perchance?

“The MP has also agreed to pay £1,870 to the British Medical Association (BMA) strike fund to ‘compensate the upset I may have caused’”. Bloody hell, that must have hurt. So what did Tom Dolphin, who you can tell as he’s a doctor, have to say in response? “Dr Dolphin tweeted to thank Mr Anderson for his ‘very gracious apology’”. Just in case you wondered who won.

What else did Anderson say? “On the 6th October 2023 I shared a link on X to a Mail Online article entitled ‘Militant union leader at the heart of doctors strikes is a Labour activist who boasted of charging the NHS for a strike cover shift’. I accept that my words were misleading as the subject in question Dr Tom Dolphin was not on strike on the date of the shift in question”.

Which sounds like he didn’t just share a link, but made a comment, too. 30p Lee needs to bear in mind that the Mail titles word their copy very carefully, so they make their targets appear The Bad Guys without crossing the defamation line. It also looks for all the world like his apology was written for him. One thing is for sure, he’ll be winding his neck in in future.

That’s before the electorate kick him out at the next election. 30p indeed.

Sunday 5 November 2023

Suella And The Bonzo Dog Band

I'm gonna get you in my tent, tent, tent, tent, tent

Where we can both experiment, ment, ment, ment, ment

Yeah, yeah it's so convenient, ent, ent, ent, ent

Let's take a taxi to my tent

Suella Braverman, for some reason elevated to the rank of Home Secretary, despite clearly being totally unfit for high office except for her proficiency in blaming everyone else for her deficiencies, may never have heard of Viv Stanshall, the Bonzo Dog Band, or the song from which those lyrics come, but she shares one obsession with the late musician, and that is tents.

So tested by the existence of tents is Ms Braverman that she wants to see fewer of them. The FT has told its readers “Suella Braverman pushes to restrict tents for rough sleepers … Proposals include new civil penalty for charities giving tents on public nuisance grounds”. Yeah, proper rough sleepers don’t need tents, do they? They have no problem with getting soaked through and frozen stiff, right? And too many of them are FORRIN!

You think I jest? Here is the Home Secretary in her own words: “The British people are compassionate. We will always support those who are genuinely homeless. But we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice”. Yeah, it’s one of them Lifestyle Choices! There was more.

“Unless we step in now to stop this, British cities will go the way of places in the US like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where weak policies have led to an explosion of crime, drug taking, and squalor” says another of those Here Today And Gone Tomorrow Politicians from the party that has, since it came to power in 2010, overseen a 74% increase in the number of rough sleepers.

But do go on. “Nobody in Britain should be living in a tent on our streets. There are options for people who don’t want to be sleeping rough, and the Government is working with local authorities to strengthen wraparound support including treatment for those with drug and alcohol addiction”. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham was not impressed.

“Just when her policies are leading to a big increase in rough sleeping”. But she wasn’t finished. “What I want to stop, and what the law abiding majority wants us to stop, is those who cause nuisance and distress to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities”. Have I got news for her.

Taking drugs is always bad when the Tories’ wrong sort of people do it. But those who have plenty of money, and with whom the Tories often mingle, can snort away to their hearts’ content. That includes many in and around the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press. If Ms Braverman wants to be consistent, she should go after them too. She isn’t, and she won’t.

Littering is another area where she and her fellow Tories won’t act consistently. Hence many who are not homeless having developed the habit of not bothering with such trivialities as litter bins. And as for Tories and stealing, with all those billions sprayed up the wall on the Covid pandemic and the VIP lane, well, if she wants to set an example, she knows where to look, and it isn’t inside the tent of some poor homeless person.

As for the idea that living out of a tent is a “lifestyle choice”, to use her happy phrase, consider what pundit Marina Purkiss said about that: “A lifestyle choice, to me, is going vegan, or switching to an electric car. Last time I checked, it wasn’t being homeless. And I think it shows how completely out of touch, insensitive, and heartless she is”. She and many of the media class.

We have Government ministers pushing the idea that peacefully showing solidarity with the Palestinian people is a form of hate, that bombing the crap out of defenceless civilians is self-defence, and that demonstrating empathy is a form of anti-Semitism. So it is entirely predictable that this mindset now claims that the homeless keeping dry, and less cold, is a lifestyle choice.

This Government is gripped by sickness. Hopefully it will be terminal.

Saturday 4 November 2023

Braverman Hate Marches On

With Armistice Day imminent, the temptation of the usual Culture War suspects to hijack it to raise the public profile of Themselves Personally Now has proved too much, especially with a potentially very large march in solidarity with those under everyday rocketing, shelling and bombing in Gaza, and those being dispossessed in the West Bank, scheduled for November 11.

Smearing peaceful protesters and whipping up the mob ...

The commemoration and march past does not, of course, take place on that day but on Sunday November 12. But this has not deterred the likes of former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage from blaming failure to have this expression of free speech cancelled on London Mayor Sadiq Khan, but not because Nige is an Islamophobic bigot, you understand.

In any case, the person he should be upbraiding is whoever is Home Secretary, and here we come to Suella Braverman, previously adept at deploying the anti-Semitic trope of “Cultural Marxism”, but now effortlessly pivoting 180º and declaring that anyone showing solidarity with the Palestinians is part of a “Hate March”. She’d know all about the hate part.

So when Rishi Sunak, who does very poor Prime Minister impressions, went all Culture War and bleated “To plan protests on Armistice Day is provocative and disrespectful, and there is a clear and present risk that the Cenotaph and other war memorials could be desecrated, something that would be an affront to the British public and the values we stand for”, off went Ms Braverman.

“I agree with the Prime Minister. It is entirely unacceptable to desecrate Armistice Day with a hate march through London. If it goes ahead there is an obvious risk of serious public disorder, violence and damage as well as giving offence to millions of decent British people”. Is Armistice Day a sacred concept? Is London’s road network sacred ground?

Because if the answer to both of those questions is NO, using the word “desecrate” is bang out of order. Anyone might think that Ms Braverman, far from trying to calm the situation, is trying to whip up the mob, especially in her pejorative use of the phrase “Hate March”. Previous marches have been well-ordered, and her attempts to smear participants are lame and misguided.

... with a little help from her friends

In any case, as has been pointed out to Sunak and his Home Secretary, the planned march will not go near the Cenotaph, and will not start until more than an hour and a half after the all-important 1100 hours mark, when the end of the Great War, the guns falling silent, is commemorated. Moreover, the hate of which Ms Braverman speaks is not coming from those marching.

As usual, the hatred comes from the far right, as in the 1930s, as in the 70s and 80s, and as when Jewish, and Muslim, MPs and other prominent figures were targeted recently. To see a demonstration of this phenomenon, we need look no further than Doug Murray The K, not at all bigoted and racist, and still given a platform by the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine.

Here’s his take: “UK Hamas supporters are now planning a ‘million man march’ on Remembrance Day. They plan to defame our war-dead and desecrate the Cenotaph itself. This is the tipping point. If such a march goes ahead then the people of Britain must come out and stop these barbarians”.

Solidarity with those who are being rocketed, bombed and shelled round the clock does not make anyone a “Hamas supporter”. Murray is just inciting hatred, as when he spuriously claims there will be “defamation” of war dead, and borrows Sunak’s pejorative to claim non-existent “desecration”. Following that, he smears peaceful protesters as “barbarians” and, nudge nudge, wink wink, doesn’t suggest the far right should come out in force, oh no.

Meanwhile, Murray, who is a snivelling coward, will not be getting his hands dirty, and nor will Sunak, Ms Braverman, or any others in the public eye, like comedy immigration minister Robert Jenrick, blubbering “disrespectful and often hate-filled marches, routinely intimidating our fellow citizens”, which suggests he should heed the old Ford Fiesta advert, and Get Out More.

Hate still comes from those out there on the right. The only difference from the 1930s is that many of those whipping up the mob are now in Government.

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