An Englishman's Experiences of Life in Kaliningrad
Архив рубрики: Meanwhile in the UK
MEANWHILE IN THE UK
Meanwhile in the UK by Mick Hart, an expat Englishman living in Kaliningrad. A category of the blog expatkaliningrad.com
Meanwhile in the UK is a category of my blog expatkaliningrad.com. At its inception, I had fully intended it to be a minor category, allowing me to comment from time to time on UK current affairs but mainly to include innocuous pieces of a nostalgic or historical nature pertaining to life in the UK, possibly more as it was then than as it is now, and then along came coronavirus which, as we know, changed everything. At the time of writing (3 June 2020), thanks to coronavirus, this category would appear to contain as many if not more posts than some of the categories that I had envisaged would be salient, with due deference to my Diary category (2019/2020) which, again influenced by coronavirus, has expanded through my ‘Diary of a Self-isolator’ articles, a series that focuses specifically on Covid-19 in the Kaliningrad region and how the legal rules and social obligations enacted here to better control the virus have impacted our daily life.
MEANWHILE in the UK contains too many entries to preview in this category post, but as of 3 June 2020, the contents of this category comprise the following articles, arranged chronologically:
[caption id="attachment_1339" align="alignnone" width="225"] Hello! Hello! Hello![/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1228" align="alignnone" width="300"] UK Lockdown ~ a new board game to take your mind off lockdown[/caption]
I am aware that the tone and, indeed, the very composition of these pieces may not be to everybody’s taste. Quite obviously they are not supposed to be, so I shall not waste anybody’s time pretending that I feel in the least bit sorry about that. England is a great country ~ and the other chunks attached to it are not that bad either ~ BUT … (could this be an acronym for Britain Undermined Totally? Or is the only thing missing …TOCK?). He sang, didn’t he, ‘Let me take you by the hand I’ll lead you through the streets of London’. Well, yes, mainly London but also almost any and every UK city and town. Still, as the man who never deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature said (no, I am not referring to Obama, that was the Nobel Peace Prize, or Noble Appeasing Prize or something like that ~ but if the hoody fits, so to speak), ‘Times they are a-changing’. Let’s hope so, because for the UK at this present moment in time it is very much Paul McCartney, ‘Yesterday …’
The Grand International Covid-19 & Culture-Threat Vaccine Race Not Quite Live from Gaydock Park
Published: 5 August 2020
Hello and welcome to the first Grand International Covid-19 & Culture-Threat Vaccine Race not quite live from Gaydock Park.
Held in somewhere that used to resemble the UK, this is the first equestrian race of its type where most spectators are watching in self-isolation from the comparative bailiff safety of their coronavirus mortgage-reliefed homes. The only people who will get an actual glimpse of the race live are boatloads of migrants, who will have a clear view on their approach to Dover. That’s them cheering in the background, ‘give us a free house in Surrey’, and there’s a man on the cliffside watching through his binoculars who has given us a tip for the 1960s’ Race at Haydock, which is odds-on favourite, They Should Have Listened to Enoch.
Described by some as the first nationalist race symbolising the inevitable, irredeemable, inexorable demise of globalism, and by Others as being sexist, what we do know is that it is the first race ever in which the horses will be wearing face masks, even if nobody else is.
For those of you who have just joined us, from anywhere and everywhere, the police are providing a free taxi service to a hotel of your choice, for the rest of you who understand English, and there aren’t many, but never mind we’ll provide an interpreter, it’s only money, this is a high-stakes race, the first one past the Vaccine Finishing Post not only out-prestiging everyone else in the civilised world, as well as those in Scotland, but also monopolising the coronavirus vaccine for his country and ensuring that their pharmaceutical sponsor makes mega-bucks whilst holding the world to ransom.
Ahh, and now we see the horses approaching the starting gate. In a few moments, a billionaire philanthropist will fire the starting gun and the first Grand International Covid-19 & Culture-Threat Vaccine Race will be underway.
There goes the gun (blast, he missed himself!) and they’re off! (I wondered where my wife was?) and the horses are off too.
And up front, but not so up front as we’d like, it’s China’s Unnamed Unknown Vaccine, followed by Discredited HOO, odds-on favourite Oxford Fix close behind with Gay Parade too close behind for comfort as Labour Party falls back, but not far enough for some. And China’s Unnamed Unknown Vaccine going like a bat out of hell, neck and neck with Conspiracy Theory as they approach Bills Gate. And in the black & red face mask and German tin helmet its BioTank putting pressure on Rest of the World with Open Borders, Big Mistake and Murkal’s Refugees crowding in the middle and everywhere else, whilst US Operation Warp Speed fails to trump False Liberal Media. Into the first hurdle and down goes Lockdown, Conservative Party unseating its rider, Nobody Cares and Who Gives A Toss on either side of LGBT, Tony Blair a casualty But He Doesn’t Seem to Know It, as She’s Got More Mouth Than a Cow’s Got C… ridden by the Dwarf from the North thunders into fourth place. False Liberal Media making difficult headway as they enter the Straight & Narrow, with Selfish Brits Crowding Brighton Beach and Social Distancing now one metre, could be two, behind Confused Government Policy. There goes Statistics and its China’s Unnamed Unknown Vaccine fighting it out with Poisoned Meat Market, Don’t Believe It and Whose Laboratory as Mrs May’s Highly Likely is overtaken by Truth, Porton Down and Unbelievable Story with outsider Russia’s Vaccine closing the distance on Collusion Complex and Clinton’s Hacking Jacket an also and almost ran. Ahead now and quite round the bend Entire Liberal Media, closely pursued by Populist Vote, which surges into first place as Farage’s Triumph sails merrily into the lead, threatening EU Dominance, pulling the plug on EU Court of Human Blights and Whose Democracy Is It? Common Sense is out of the race replaced by All Kinds of Liberal Agendas, Lost Heritage and Law & Order Matters, and its Muggers Alley, Hand-Over Your Cash, LoL and Innit, and Churchill’s Statue battling it out with Defund the Police as the race enters the final straight. Black Lives Matters, Reputation in Tatters and Obsequious Corporate Policy making the running, in the opposite direction, alongside Fickle Government Policy and Overpaid Untalented Celebs all surprised by BREXIT.
And its Bullshit, Bullshit and the Liberal Media, Bullshit, Russophobia, Bullshit and BBC Licence Fee hard pushed to pass They Won’t Pay It with Historical Drama Revisionism tangling with Gender-Bending Dr Who and Sink Estate in a TARDIS as they round Diverse Psychosis Corner. And its Bullshit in the lead, Ballshit out in front, Ballshit trampling Anti-Vaxxer, Trump with Second Wind as he trounces Second Wave and yes, its … Wait one moment. News just in! Apparently, we’ve just entered the third wave. Traditionally, it takes 10 to 15 years to develop a vaccine, so the finishing line has been moved to 2035 ~ stay tuned, stay in, stay safe and whatever you do don’t back Nightmares.
I spy with my little eye something beginning with bull…. (or How interference can go badly wrong …)
Published: 23 July 2020
I was sitting here in Kaliningrad, Russia, trying to avoid all contact with UK news, enjoying an old episode of The Avengers. The episode I was watching was a very early one, from the days when Ian Hendry was the star and Patrick Macnee’s John Steed was still in his embryonic stage. As a piece of television history, it was interesting to revisit but paled into relative insignificance against the style, panache, flamboyance and fantasy for which the later series became to be known.
Just as I was getting wistful about the demise of the spy-fi genre and thinking what a nice change these 1960s’ British programmes make from the politically correct obsessed and historical revisionist dramas, now the staple trade of UK television, I flicked onto Google News and was enraptured to find that the UK media, presumably having run out of things to say about coronavirus, was currently regaling us with a story so Brian Clemens in nature that I could almost hear the click of his typewriter.
My, what a cracker, I thought. With a bit more imagination this BBC article could be all bowler hats, furled umbrellas and impeccably mannered old-world spies, but coming from the BBC it couldn’t and, of course, it wasn’t.
It was one of those headlines, you know the sort, full of promise and expectation but no real substance to back it up. Within three short paragraphs of the article opening we were already out of John le Carré territory and sinking into the murkier world of innuendos, unfounded allegations, hearsay, rumour and speculation. Indeed, try as it might to steer us in one direction, and believe me it did try, the plotline twisted and swerved so much that the ride could not have been more ropey had we been roaring along in John Steed’s Bentley on the edge of Tall Story Road struggling to contain ourselves after finding the brakes had been tampered with.
And then, just as I was about to make allowances, since before the days of the PC lovies the BBC produced some quite applaudable stuff, it all became so predictable, so pithy and prosaic. Prof somebody or other from a famous UK university (that sounds quite Avengerish, doesn’t it!) spoilt the plot completely with his announcement that we are all at it, which is to say hacking around on the internet. He suggested that the Chinese do it, the Americans do it and even we in glass-house Britain do it! And how outrageous is that!
This tawdry end to what started out to be a story more unbelievable than Piers Morgan ranting just because he gets paid for it, ended up like something from Get Smart! I switched off and read one of my old Noddy books, an unexpurgated, non-PC purged, pre-revisionist edition, published long before poor old Enid B was sent the same way as Enoch ~ there’s an awful lot of statues in England’s heritage wilderness.
I was just wondering if there would ever be a PC update on Noddy in which Enid Blyton’s policeman would have to deal with a BLM riot, when I spotted another article* on the spy-fi theme and init some very interesting reader responses.
Do not expect too much from the article itself. Reading has never been the same since liberals took spanking out of the TheBeano, but the comments demonstrate a more incisive knowledge of what is going on than the media give Jo Public credit for. (I have quoted the following verbatim, with no editing on my part.)
From what I can glean about There were something like 300 social media bot accounts accused of being Russian intelligence. Those accounts posted both pro Brexit and anti Brexit material because they were commercial bots attempting to generate likes and retweets. It think the top one got something like 2,000 views and 100 likes! compare that to the government spending tax payer money to send leaflets through every door urging people to vote remain and a whole host of foreign politicians being lined up, including Obama, telling us we should remain or else and the 24/7 project fear anti Brexit stories in media including the BBC along with celebs and lovies rolled out across the airwaves telling us how racist it was to want self determination and not be ruled by a bunch if foreign plutocrats and technocrats who issue diktats upon us. I mean the President of our closest ally was flown into Britain to threaten us but that isn’t foreign interference, nope but some random Twitter bot with 50 views won Brexit and definitely is LOL (Dan Brown)
They do say that bad things come in threes, so I am sitting here wondering what the final tale in the meddling trilogy will be as we romp our way through the current instalment of spiffing yarns about Russian interference. But do not get too excited. If the second episode is anything to go by, the third will be a repeat.
Stop me if you have heard this one before, but Was there Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum? (Today’s headline (22 July 2020) from The Guardian.) Here is your second episode, following swiftly on the heels of the spy-fi adventure about Covid-19. But stay tuned, as meddling and interference stories are like muggers in London’s Brixton: they often travel in 3s or more!
The simple answer for the rehash is that in the matter of timing it ties in nicely with the Covid story, and as Brexit is imminent liberals still insist that someone, somewhere, has got to take the wrap.
I suspect that the difficulty liberals have in accepting their defeat lies in its broader and more damning ramifications, that Brexit represents a firm, unequivocal and absolute rejection of their ideological agenda. But surely, even the most in-denial liberals have had time to adjust to the truth, as unpalatable for them as it is, that in the matter of Brexit they were fairly and squarely trounced. A democratic vote was taken, and they were simply, but honestly, outvoted. Leave won the day.
I have it on good authority, but from a source I cannot reveal, that John Steed, John Drake, Napoleon Solo and Maxwell Smart are unanimous in their view that foreign influences, like Chaos and Thrush, are less than ‘highly likely’ (thank you Theresa May (her only contribution)) to have been involved and that a more plausible place to lay the blame would be at the door of the UK’s homegrown enemy The Ministry of Unwanted and Unasked for Societal Change. But the real coup for the victorious leave camp, came, ironically, from an own-goal scored by remain’s partisan media.
Remain media influenced Brexit
The media’s attempt to thwart the democratic process before during and after the Brexit referendum pushed too far, grew self-hysterical and ended up as overkill, exposing itself in the process. Legacy Britons, who from the left’s perspective were looking comfortably soporific after year upon year of PC bullying, suddenly woke up, and in so doing found that they were a lot further down Sheeple Road than they could ever imagine. They were ready at last to listen to the warning voice of our ancestors: this is not the Yellow Brick Road, this is the road to a very dark place where you just don’t want to go. At last it had become clear that the slippery slope just had to be stopped because if not, the next stop was the Twilight Zone.
Now, there was a good programme, a very good programme. Do you remember that episode about cloak and daggers, espionage, clandestine goings on, spies in trilbies and raincoats, and in the end it was all just smoke and mirrors? Therein lies the answer. Think of the UK as a backyard full ~ too full ~ of things, nasty, uncomfortable things and every which way you turn all is going terribly wrong. If this was your neoliberal legacy wouldn’t you want to divert attention away from inside the yard, to conjure up fictions, extraneous threats, to point the finger elsewhere?
Reversing up a little, in John Steed’s Bentley preferably, I return to The Guardian headline, which I purposefully truncated. You see, the headline actually reads ‘Was there Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum? The Tories just didn’t care ‘ (my underlining).
This article, together with similar fare from the liberal press, is about trying to get a derailed Labour Party back on track. The question of meddling is less important than Tories not caring ~ so vote for Labour (as there is no one else). You get the picture. Yet another case of move along please, there is nothing here to see.
Of the many episodes of The Avengers that I deem classic and which once watched is never forgotten is ‘The Hour that Never Was’. You will not get the same entertainment value from the political pages of the UK media as you will from watching The Avengers, but one thing you can be sure of finding is a lot of ‘never was’. It should, of course, ‘never have been’ but unfortunately ‘it is’.
Londongrad, Londistan or BLM (Black London Matters) ~ whatever it was it isn’t.
*https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavirus/outrageous-that-russia-trying-to-steal-or-sabotage-vaccine-research-raab/ar-BB16Vgu9?ocid=spartan-dhp-feeds {link no longer active 12/02/2022]
I am not sure what it seems like to you but from where I am, in Kaliningrad, Russia, it appears as if the UK has descended into multicultural meltdown. The ‘mainly peaceful demonstrations’, to cite the demonstrator-friendly British press, orchestrated in the name of Black Lives Matter, have seduced some and disgusted others.
In the midst of the social disorder, a Russian friend telephoned us to say how appalled he was to witness what was happening in the UK and asked the unanswerable question, what is the UK government doing about it? I was unable to provide him with a credible answer. I realised that the apparent apathy was not strictly down to the government but a systemic paralysis of the entire British establishment. I tentatively suggested that just because the unrest had not been nipped in the bud when it should have been did not necessarily mean that the movers and shakers, the people in authority, had moved behind the last statue standing and were shaking there, wherever that was, but if at home self-isolating or preferably around the boardroom table somewhere in Number 10, hopefully they were growing a pair. The same astounded man pointed out that amongst the black rioters whites were running amok. I corrected him ~ no, I said, these are callow students or liberal-left extremists.
Hot on the heels of the first riots came a terrorist attack, which, if the prime suspect is a Libyan asylum seeker as the mainstream press reports, is not only tragic but also embarrassing. I wondered how long it would be before the terrorist faction raised its ugly head. After all, the riots are receiving so much good publicity from the UK’s liberal media that your average terrorist probably feels upstaged.
The riots have certainly upstaged coronavirus, albeit temporarily I suspect, but the rioters, like other groups that hunger for the limelight, are bound to stage a sensational comeback this autumn, the likes of which Tony Blair is bent on emulating but alas can only dream of. And what if a substantial number of these rioters through their self-made inability to social distance catch coronavirus and die as a result? And will the government be blamed for it, for making them take to the streets as the only means of leveraging racial justice, and will it then lead to a second wave of rioting? And will that become a conspiracy theory also?
According to western mainstream media sources, top of the conspiracy pops is the George Soros conspiracy theory. It appears that he has kicked the number-one favourite, the Bill Gates conspiracy theory, into second place. Rumour is that extreme right wingers are blaming everything on George Soros, but then if he is funding the migrant invasion of Europe on multiple fronts and bankrolling certain adverse world events, as many people believe, I suppose it is only natural to ask the question why? Even the most philanthropic, billionaire or otherwise, cannot fail to see that something is going terribly wrong, unless that wrong for some is terribly right for others? But then, what do I want with conspiracy theories? There is enough real trouble going around without icing it with conjecture.
Sticking to the facts, it does not seem that long ago when I was editing scores of articles about championing diversity, embracing multiculturalism, celebrating enrichment and wondering what one had to do to land oneself a job as a diversity director at 55 grand a year. What went wrong? Was it ever right?
Now, whenever I have the misfortune of catching a glimpse of the news I get these goosebumps and something of a shiver. It is all do with that large black cloud hovering over our summer of discontent. Is it a plane, is it a bird or is it the doom-laden shadow of Enoch Powell’s wilderness?
The other thing that is tainting the air is the mood of the British people ~ something that every British government fails to acknowledge or grievously underestimates. The British nation, that is almost everybody who does not live in London, is waiting in that tolerant way for which it is renowned, or simply enduring as it has always done (but remember, endurance and tolerance can surely run out!) for its absentee leaders to do something, to rise phoenix-like from the ashes of appeasement and grasp the bull by its nettles. I, for one, understand the reticence: Blackmail is never an easy business, but if Hollywood has taught us anything it is pay the blackmailer once and you will never stop paying.
Meanwhile, the mob are flying on a magic carpet fuelled by government qualms, indecision and sponsored by media showcasing, the bit of power is between their teeth and the scent of success in their nostrils. And, the impresario whisper is we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Really, it would have been better in the long run if someone had taken the initiative and pulled the rug out from beneath the mob before it left square one, instead of allowing the game to continue up the ladders and down the snakes.
What we can say, without taking sides, is that a mob is a mob whatever and whatever the stated cause.
Powell’s wilderness is one thing; his river quite another.
On encountering this news article1
about the continuing civil unrest pertaining to Black Lives Matter protests and
the scuffles in Westminster on Saturday 13 June, my reaction was that it was a
prime example of imbalanced journalism. I am sure it is not intentional. See
what you think?
Whilst the headline ‘Ten year jail sentences for desecrating war memorials’1is encouraging, leading the reader to the erroneous conclusion that the article’s focus will be on bringing to justice vandals and subversives who throw national monuments into rivers or deface statues of national heroes, it transpires that the acts of desecration are disproportionately narrowed down to one clash in Westminster and (at the time this article was written) an alleged act of disrespect, that of a man with ‘far-right connections’, urinating next to a monument.
The first couple of paragraphs look
promising, but as the quotes are rolled out the narrative seems to hang on a piece
of elastic, which keeps pulling it back in one direction.
‘Robert Buckland, the Justice Secretary, Priti
Patel, the Home Secretary, and Suella Braverman, the Attorney General, are
understood to be discussing proposals to make it easier to prosecute people who
damage monuments to those who died during wars. The measures under discussion
could also cover some of the statues currently being targeted by activists.’
Here we see statues being targeted by
‘activists’ but without reference to the political affiliations of the
activists, or, indeed, their collective identity. The following paragraph
reads:
‘… the Cenotaph daubed
with graffiti, while demonstrators pulled down a statue in Bristol and are
targeting many others across the country. In another incident last week, paint
was found to have been thrown at two memorials in Lincolnshire.’
This paragraph tells us that the
Cenotaph was ‘daubed with graffiti’ but it does not tell us who daubed it, the
same applies to paint throwing in Lincolnshire. We are told that it was ‘demonstrators’ who
pulled down the statue in Bristol, but we are not told who the demonstrators
are and there is no mention of their ideological background.
In itself that would be no problem, if it was not for the fact that no such reticence was exercised in the censorship department when it came to attributing identity to those people who travelled to Westminster on Saturday 13 June 2020 to protect the country’s heritage statues.
‘On Saturday, missiles were thrown at riot police attempting to move far-right activists away from Whitehall as their self-proclaimed mission to protect the Cenotaph and statue of Churchill descended into hours of violence.’
Here we have ‘far-right activists’ ~
a clear and categorical identification attributed to, presumably, all those in
attendance. And then something strange (or, rather, not so strange) happens:
the entire article pivots on one incident:
‘One man linked to a far right group was seen urinating next to the memorial to PC Keith Palmer, who died protecting Parliament from a terror attack in 2017.’
Forget for a moment the ambiguous
‘linked to’ and the ‘far-right’ label and concentrate on the phrase ‘next to
the memorial’, and then read this:
‘Home Secretary Priti Patel condemned the incident. “We have seen some shameful scenes today, including the desecration of Pc Keith Palmer’s memorial in Parliament, in Westminster Square, and quite frankly that is shameful, that is absolutely appalling and shameful,” she said.’
Priti Patel states that ‘we have seen some shameful scenes today’, but then we have seen some shameful scenes all week, not the least of which has been the necessity of boarding up Winston Churchill’s statue and the Cenotaph to protect them from ‘demonstrators’ intent on criminal damage. She also asserts that PC Keith Palmer’s memorial has been desecrated.
At this point in time (when the
article was published) the alleged far-right affiliated man had been described
as urinating ‘next’ to the statue not on it. So was he being intentionally disrespectful?
He was later found guilty of outraging public decency but not of acting with
intent.
As disagreeable as this incident was, it should not be used to eclipse offenses of an even more disturbing nature, such as dragging statues off plinths and dumping them into rivers, daubing paint on the Cenotaph, attacking Winston Churchill’s statue and causing widespread civil unrest. Neither should it be used as a pretext for diverting our attention away from the many other distasteful acts committed during the recent period of civil disorder by people who certainly have no right-wing connections or by making tenuous links intended to demonise all counter-protestors as being of far-right extraction.
Back to the article: After a couple of paragraphs in which various commentators refer to the conservatives as the ‘party of law and order’ and the ‘defender of our culture and our heritage’, the article quickly reverts disproportionately to this one protest in Westminster and the ‘shameful behaviour’ of the far-right. Remember that the headline of the article leads one to believe that is about bringing statue violators to justice not just far-right activists in Westminster and a man relieving himself on the street.
‘Mr Johnson said “racist thuggery has no place on our streets”.’
Quite right!
‘The violence – which came as Black Lives Matter protestors
gathered in mostly peaceful protest elsewhere around the country – were
described by Ms Patel as “thoroughly unacceptable”.’
‘In mostly peaceful protest’? So
has the Black Lives Matter ‘protest’ been mostly peaceful? According to this
BBC article2, it would appear so: ‘Some peaceful
anti-racism protests also took place in London and across the UK’
Apparently, these peaceful protests took place elsewhere but on the same day as the one in Westminster. But were there any not-so-peaceful protesters from or associated with the Black Lives Matter movement in Westminster on Saturday 13 June?
Dense fog over Westminster (Photo credit: Sandra Ahn Mode on Unsplash
Moving on:
‘In their public letter to this
newspaper, Ms McVey, along with MPs including Lee Anderson and Brendan
Clark-Smith, state: “The recent protests have been dominated by criminals
who are undermining the very real fight against racism by burning flags,
vandalising sacred war memorials and attacking police officers and this has
caused outrage in our newly won constituencies in the Midlands and the North.
‘”It’s time for these subversive individuals to be
arrested, prosecuted and punished in accordance with the law.” ‘
Here! Here! But who are these people who are
‘burning flags (and which flags?), vanadalising sacred war memorials and
attacking police officers’? To whom do they owe their political allegiance?
Quickly wheel on Ken Marsh!
‘Ken Marsh, Chairman of the London Metropolitan
Police Federation, called violent protesters to be jailed. “A faction of
people only had one intention – to be violent and unlawful, they didn’t come
here to protect the statues, it’s just disorder and unruliness.
The first sentence is spot on, but then he has to ruin it by referring specifically to this one protest in Westminster, which, in the context of this article, implies that the only assaults the police have had to contend with during the Black Lives Matter furore are those from the far-right on Saturday 13 June.
Let us ask the question again? Are we to believe that each and everyone of the counter-protesters (there’s an expression that is typically reserved for the left) were of far-right persuasion and that on this day in Westminster the police had no one else to contend with, that is to say no unruly and violent behaviour from the subversive left?
When it comes to obtaining a clear and credible picture of events, especially when intuition suggests that those events are having difficulty passing the politically correct litmus test, you could do a lot worse than give the UK mainstream media a wide berth and look elsewhere. And, indeed, as I trawled through the UK press in the rapidly disappearing hope of finding something that sounded more tenable, I found myself repeatedly reciting the Rolling Stone’s refrain, “I can’t get no, satisfaction”, and then I went to India*.
It is a bit of a bugger when you have to travel halfway around the world to find something that has a ring of truth about it, but in my opinion I found it here in an article titled ‘Patriots defending statues clash with Black Lives Matter protesters and police in London’, an article which appeared online on The Times of India website*.
The Times of India3 report cuts through the PC soup served up by the UK media, dissolves the ambiguities and provides, in my opinion, a clear and balanced perspective of what shaped the events that day. You will also note that it pulls no PC punches when it comes to identifying who is who.
‘A hundred
people were arrested and 27 people including six police officers injured when
patriots defending statues clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters and riot
police in London.
‘Black Lives Matter (BLM) had officially called off their protest on Saturday when war veterans, football supporters and other groups, including far-right Britain First, announced they would be travelling to the capital to defend its statues and war memorials after many had been daubed in graffiti by Black Lives Matter activists last weekend.’
On the subject of the composition of those who travelled to London to defend its heritage, The Times of India refers to war veterans and uses the all-important word ‘including’, with reference to the presence of the ‘far-right Britain First’: ‘including’ the far-right but not made up exclusively of the far-right. It also states unequivocally who it was who ‘daubed’ the statues.
However,
it is the second paragraph that most importantly distinguishes the account of
what happened in Westminster on that day from the UK mainstream media
narrative:
‘Despite being called off, hundreds of Black Live Matter protesters
still did turn up and they ended up facing off against the counter-protesters,
causing outbreaks of fights and violence all day.’
The remainder of the article covers something that either was omitted or
marginalised by the mainstream UK press, that Britain’s war veterans who had
travelled to London to protect the statues from thugs (political affiliation
withheld) were not exactly chuffed to learn that they had been labelled “extreme
right-wingers“ by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
But then it is not only Mr Khan who likes to label people ‘extreme right-wingers’.
And here is your homework. Flick through the UK media coverage of the past week
on this whole sorry episode of civil unrest from when it started to, and
including coverage on, the urinating man, and see how many times you can spot
references to the ‘far-left, extreme-left’, and how many times the words
‘extreme-right’ and ‘far-right’ crop up. In fact, you can repeat this exercise
for news stories from the UK media over a 12-month period in the full and
certain knowledge that this is a far less reprehensible hobby than destroying
the nation’s heritage.
It is a sad reflection on the state of the UK’s much-vaunted free press that at a time when it is shouting the loudest against so-called fake news, we, the public, are still attempting to get over the first hurdle and find news that is accurate and that, in order to accomplish this, we have to look elsewhere.
An Address on Statue Erection in the UK by Chief Police Officer Raymond Ironside for CricketDick County, North Dorsetshire
Published: 15 June 2020
Keyfacts Venue: The Village Hall In attendance: 7 people (The Chief of Police, His Auntie (from Virginia) and something else that could not fully decide on which box to tick and was therefore counted as 5 Others) Tickets: Parking ones £85; O.A.P.s double the price for living so long and drawing their pensions; Students ~ we’ll pay you to stay away Refreshments: Imperialistic tea and biscuits free at twice the price in the Indian Pavilion
Chief Raymond Ironside’s address: Good afternoon, it is so nice to see such an excellent turnout for this event (looking out of the window at an Antifart-induced riot that is going on outside over monocultural yoghurts being sold at the village fete).
First an apology (we’re good at that). Many of you have written to us at the police station asking where the police station is and why it isn’t where the police station should be? We apologise for never replying ever, and twice never on Sundays, as the postman, sorry postother, hasn’t a clue either ~ that is about who or what he is and where the police station has been relocated to. Some people believe that is in Mr Sado Khan’s Hall of Smoke and Mirrors, others that it was last seen disguised as a mobile yam and breadfruit shop. We advise people who don’t know their arse from their elbow to do what we always do whenever we want to find it: ask a policeman.
Taking into account the current trend for not being able to spell and the younger generation’s flatulent use of the word ‘like’ and ‘LoL’, even if we had received your letters, we would have had to employ an interpreter, and as the recorded message tells you on all those helplines you love to ring, ‘our interpreters are all busy helping other customers at present’, most of whom have come to Dorsetshire in the middle of the night, when they are least likely to be seen, in small boats without a TV licence.
CricketDick Police are, however, on Facebook. That’s our Facebook page. You can’t miss it. It’s the one with a mugshot avatar complete with number underneath. Please note that the face we are using is a fictitious one in order to comply with the Data Protection Act and the We Dare Not Arrest Anybody Who Looks Like That Anymore in Case of a Riot Act.
Now we know that there are an awful lot of you ~ and a lot of you who are awful ~ who are concerned about the increasing numbers of burglaries, muggings, knife crimes, terrorist activities and murders in CrippleDick but never mind that, today we are here to talk about the dos and don’ts (mostly the don’ts) of statue erection. This is most important as transgressions of the erection laws carry stiff penalties, as I believe my colleagues, Detective Constable Ron Condom and Police Woman Cliterthroe, advised you last week during the talk they gave to the ‘High-5 Size-55 Yoga Pants Club’ on Camel Toes Matter. Get this wrong and it could, as the missionaries used to say, land you right in the soup. Indeed, contravention of the I Should Not Be Proud of My National History Act, carries a penalty of 5000 Obamian Dollars, two years in parts of London where I really don’t want to be, or both.
This is why I say if you do intend to raise a statue in
your back garden, on your patio, in your
front room or on the empty plinths in Parliament Square ~ and every other
municipal centre in England ~ please remember that there are a few legal points
that you need to take into account before your erection takes place.
Here, I am reminded of the case Viagra vs Cialis, which was thrown out of court and hit someone on the head who had so many rights they didn’t know what to do with them. He, she, or whatever it was, was compensated to the tune of their own national anthem with a package consisting of two kilos of hashish, the winning numbers of the EU lottery, housed for free at Buckingham Palace and was offered an unlikely position, which IT’s husband complained about, on the Statue Shatterers Board of Directors. It was also offered an OBE but turned it down on the basis that it was racist, imperialist and you couldn’t snort or smoke it.
I know I am here to talk about statues, but our job, the
job of the Defunded police (now consisting of one man and his bicycle and a
huge handbook of what he can’t say, do or arrest), is first and foremost to
ensure equality and fairness is exercised in all thongs pertaining to
inclusivity. We will only arrest if there is absolutely no other way or whilst
we are looking the other way as instructed in the statuet book.
Here is a checklist of things you should ask yourself
before you put up your statue:
1. Is your statue of a pale complexion? 2. Is your statue a pre-eminent historical figure who has made an inestimable contribution to the nations’ stability and advancement, without which the current generation would lack the entitlement to which they presume they have a God-given right? 3. Has your statue ever owned a pair of dark coloured underpants with a white band of elastic around the top? 4. Did your statue read Noddy when he was a little statue? 5. Has your statue ever, with or without your knowledge, been labelled by the liberal media as Far or Extreme Right because he or she is not a self-culture loather who objects to national identity theft? 6. Has your statue ever been caught listening to the National Anthem? 7. Did anyone hear your statue say ‘Good Riddance’ when Meghan Markle shipped out? 8. Is your statue more inclined to cheer Churchill than another statue in the near vicinity? 9. Does your statue confuse the word ‘rap’ with ‘stereotypifying crap’? 10. Was your statue a friend of Jimmy Savile’s statue, or anybody else’s statue who worked for the BBC? 11. Has your statue ever owned the Vera Lynn Collection? 12. Does your statue’s family have centuries-old British lineage or were they given a piece of paper with citizenship written on it, or did they not come from the East but knew Ron Geest? 13. Is your statue balanced or does it have a large chip on its shoulder? 14. Does your statue play cards ~ regularly and deal from the bottom? 15. Is your statue an inanimate object that if pulled down will not make a ha’p’orth of difference to the person it represents as he died in 1835 and is too busy laughing in his grave?
In addition to these questions you should also give appropriate consideration to the decorations that surround your statue ~ Union Jacks, Sunday lunches, a pair of Morris dancer’s socks, the entire BBC collection of the Black & White Minstrel Show and a certain record about Christmas by a man whose surname is very similar to someone else’s (unfortunately), should be avoided at all costs. For advice on street signs, please address your queries to Nickerless Sturfried at Scotty Parliament, or email: nomorereferendumsplease@straw.grasping.sc.
And remember, if you intend to do anything with your statue that does not concern the local leftwing council planning department, please seek advice from your local leftwing council planning department. If in doubt, you should always hide your statue in your loft, under a heavy tarpaulin away from skylights, where it could be noticed by third-class passengers hiding in the wheel-wells of passing airliners and offend their sillybilities.
Next week, your visiting lecturer will be (name withheld in accordance with The Name Witholding Act) who will be discussing her latest books, which she wrote in Yarlswood, Rewriting British History and Blackmail: Apologising and Appeasing with your statues down.
The Time-Travelling Policeman says, “I love it here in 1910. We are all well-funded, you can stand in the middle of the road and be really embarrassed if you get hit by the once-weekly bus, the government and law-abiding public all support us, the Riot Act takes care of anything vaguely subversive and all our statues and national monuments are safe and happy within their ancestral home!
The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook “If you don’t know where they are they’ll box them before you trash them!” ~ described by the B.B.C. as a ‘mainly peaceful demonstrator’
The UK Guide to Offensive Statues Handbook, not to be confused with Enoch Powell’s biography, is the Who’s Who of offensive statues in the UK ~ a must for the Statuephobic!
The first publication of its kind to provide a comprehensive list of UK statues that should have been torn down before they were built, the ‘Rioter’s bible to statue destruction’, as the Gardroomism refers to it, has been cunningly contrived to give maximum exposure, even to those statues that are wearing trousers, to every statue known to ITs in the UK.
Statues that cause offence
This handy pocket-sized booklet, that fits conveniently into the crutch piece of a pair of cheap synthetic jogging bottoms, bright pink trainers, the inside of your hoody and/or the cargo pockets of your camo trousers, without interfering with your weapons or statue-dismantling tools but at the same time guaranteeing an impressive bulge in all the right places, pinpoints with satellite precision the exact whereabouts of statues that are just asking to be defaced, desecrated, daubed with paint or thrown symbolically into strange places .
The book gives all the vital statistics ~ of Shanice , the editor ~ and also those of the individual statues, along with visibility profile, material construction, nearby rivers and lakes, whether or not the local police station has been rehoused in Martin’s the newsagents across the road and the exact locations of CCTV ~ essential information for all those who have nothing better to do than to get themselves recorded on film looking stupid for posterity as they grapple with a lump of stone or bronze (how future generations will laugh!)
There is also a splendid appendices for those statue
molesters who prefer to do their statue attacks at night, showing the location
of street lamps, and advising you on where to buy miners helmets with lamps on
top for maximum hands-free statue removing.
Offensive Statues of the UK
What makes this book most appealing to statue destructors is its unique Tossability analytics paradigm (width x height x length x weight) assessed against the number of men, women, Its or Others that will be required to uproot each statue and run away with it down the street. By measuring the height of the wall over which you are going to throw it, you can then apply the Tossability calculator, which will give you, the Tossers, the exact number of Tossers needed to toss, together with elevation, lift, and trajectory parameters. Don’t forget that before attempting this exercise each group should appoint a Chief Tosser. This is a legal requirement of Health & Safety (you wouldn’t want to break the law now, would you?).
An original feature of this book is the statue’s subject Checklist! A list of politically incorrect offenses: an A~Z and back (provided in 33 ethnic languages, including Welsh) of documented, suspected and thoroughly bogus politically correct offences from which statue-shifters can choose to justify acts of vandalism (You will need these when interviewed by the liberal left media and as a Get Out of Jail Free card in the unlikely event that any one dare to arrest you and take you to liberal left court.).
The checklist lists all the main offenses that statues can
commit:
✳Racism
✳ Sexism
✳ Homophobia
✳ Xenophobia
✳ Inciting Racial/Religious Hatred
✳ Too few women in the board room
✳ LGBT It & Other issues
✳ Fox Hunting
✳ Being Heterosexual
✳ Watching Black & White Films
✳ Thinking the B.B.C. stands for something else
✳ Starring in Gone With The Wind
✳ Having an Auntie who lives in Virginia
(add others as necessary)
Where can I get a copy of The UK Guide to Offensive
Statues Handbook?
In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the police force has not yet been abolished and never will be, which explains why the Handbook has a limited print run and a high pulpability probability.
The good news is, however, that the manual personual is half-price x 2 to P.R.I.Cs. (Political Representatives of Immigration Councils). It is not necessary to be a PRIC but having a P.I.S.S. (Politically Incorrect Sensibility Status) and being a D.I.C.K (Director of the Institute of Chartered Knuckleheads) qualifies you to three free copies, and DICK Heads, those of you who are career statue removers, can apply, when you learn to spell, for lifetime membership.
Statue Heavers Institute & Trades Executive (S.H.I.T.E.) members, on presentation of their Antifa credentials (a blank piece of paper with no C.S.Es), receive a number of loyalty benefits, including a handy Get out of Jail Free card; a free holiday in a place where statues have never been heard of; medical insurance for groin sprains and ruptures (statues are heavy!); riot loyalty points; and discounts on licensed products, such as blank sweatshirts with statues removed from the front and your name and doss house address on the back; back-to-front hoodies (the ultimate in unrecognisability); and a free introductory course on banner etiquette at SHITE’s headquarters in Brixton, which includes how to spell and how to hold your banner the right way up and the right way round (IQ Test not required).
Our sisters’ publication, Offensive Statues of the Deep
American South, is available from Lee’s General Stores, Confederate Street,
Alobama ~ but hurry, as there are not many left!
More in the series of Our Guaranteed to Offend publications
from PC Press include:
⛔ Offensive Painters & Paintings
⛔ Offensive Authors & Books
⛔ Offensive Poets & Poetry
⛔ Offensive Architects and their Offensive Buildings
🛐Offensive things that are waiting to be discovered which we will pull down later (in association with Craven Govt Publications)
“Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up” (Photo credit: Sarah Brink on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/TZyEMoSB9Tw)
Britons think life will change dramatically after COVID-19 ~ but they are not sure why or why they said it
Published: 6 June 2020
The world will never be the same as it was when it wasn’t, and many Britons would not want things to go back the way they were before they weren’t, ie before coronavirus when they had to go to work, a survey for No Real News has revealed.
Will Life Change After Covid-19?
Coronavirus has been a confusing experience, not least because in lockdown many people found themselves in the park, driving to places where they ought not to go ~ especially should their spouse find out or if they worked for the government ~ and sometimes arriving in Skegness when they least felt capable of explaining why.
A lot of people suspect that far from separating them from family, friends and loved ones, coronavirus has brought them closer together. This is particularly true for those people who visited their family more just because they were told that they should not, and for people living 45 to a house who know what it is like to travel to the UK in a very small boat.
The survey has done all sorts of funny things to those who took part in it, from people saying that they will never have to commute again to shops being a thing of the past. However, more than a third thought that this was wishful thinking, particularly those who sell on eBoot, and a large percentage of the same group predicted foreign holidays would be abandoned for a day out on a grass verge at the side of the M25.
The post-coronavirus world
Zoom & Skype: what are the symptoms?
85% concluded that they would not miss socialising by Zoom and Skype, because they did not know what these were, and the remaining 25% knew that they had them but were still learning how to turn them off or, conversely, how to turn their computers on ~ the latter group tended to be in the baby-boomer range, 50 to 65 year olds, who would rather be down the pub.
A recent poll by WeBelieveYou for Pie in the Sky found that 70% believed that life would be so different that nothing would be the same as it was when they weren’t drinking, whilst only 15%, those returning to work, thought that the only change would be their underpants.
A majority, 2%, ardently wished that they had done better at maths at school. Of this group, 30% said they would like the world to be different, but they did not know how, and the remainder believed that the world they have helped to shape would have been very different indeed had they gone to school instead of mugging people.
‘… but you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone’
By far the largest ‘world changers’ were those who remembered how better life was before social engineering. 45% of these claimed they were building a TARDIS, whilst 25% thought they ought to be quiet, as they wanted their company pension, many of which are police officers.
Asked what they thought they were supposed to say is the most important issue the world must face when Covid-19 is over, only 10% cited tackling future pandemics as they liked staying at home, 78% said climate change ~ particularly in England where it rains too much ~ and less than half of the number you originally thought of then doubled hadn’t got a clue or couldn’t give a flying f!*? ~ and the greatest percentage of these were university students.
Sorting out terrorism had sunk to an all-time low of 1.5%, possibly due to the fact that no one goes out anymore or, alternatively, that the figure is a false one, and the controversial subject of migration and refugees was odds on favourite depending on Brexit going ahead and Dominic Cummings keeping his job. However, a second poll by TurnLeft for PC UK, put this figure on 1% and noted that within this group 95% were fascists and the remaining 5% waiting to be labelled as such.
{At this point articles of this nature typically run out of anything new to say, so they start repeating themselves in order to create more space around which to wrap their advertisements. But we will buck (yes, I said buck) the trend:}
75% of people who think, think that after the pandemic there will be no change there, then; of those who don’t think, 50% were demonstrating and the remaining 50% were having difficulty fitting the words of their slogans onto their cardboard banners; all were defying calls for social distancing, prompting one sociologist, who has never had a proper job, to suggest that this might be their penultimate demo, the last targeting a government conspiracy where certain groups are incited to demonstrate to ensure that they get coronavirus (source: Mr Anonymous, Antifart).
The majority of people thought this last comment spot-on, with a fictional majority invented by the press admitting they were demonstrating but had never left their house. There were signs, however, that some of this group had changed their name to Short and others to Cummings.
Will Life Change After Covid-19?: Conclusion
In conclusion, of those polled 75% who think things will change significantly believe that they will probably change their minds later and of that there is no doubt.
Of those not polled, 100% wondered why, as they don’t agree with any of this.
The majority of an unspecified group had grandparents who sat on Skegness beach for 20 years waiting for the tide to return from Calais whilst wearing a knotted hanky and eating fish and chips.
And everyone, including the world and somebody else’s wife, had not a shadow of a doubt, because they never went into that part of town and always looked behind them, that after the pandemic the magnitude shift away from trusting what the media said to relying on notes in Christmas crackers would eventually lead to no more bullshit.
100% and the rest of the world could not stop applauding this!
So, what are we to believe and how should we proceed?
Published: 25 May 2020
Now, what I suggest we all do is …
According to the world media we are in this coronavirus thing for the long haul. Time spans of 18 months to 2 years are being bandied around, during which we must adapt to the ‘New Normal’, continue to practise social distancing, self-isolate, limit movement, wear masks at all times and, above all, ‘stay alert’.
It is good news for antibody tests ~ they are available and, unlike the previous batch which cost the UK government millions, these actually work, but will you be able to get hold of one? Is a well-known chemist chain out to rip you off by selling these kits at extortionate prices? And what good are they anyway? Even if you have the antibodies does it mean you are immune? A great big impressive pharmaceutical company is gearing up to manufacture and supply the vaccine currently being researched in Oxford, but there is no guarantee that the vaccine will work and no guarantee, according to ‘the experts’, that we will ever find a vaccine.
The Confused World of Coronavirus
In the midst of all this scientific fog, the incidence of coronavirus is rising and the death count goes on, albeit, in some places, at a lower rate than before. But lockdown easing is underway. In England, there is talk of, and interesting rows about, schools re-opening, pubs and bars opening, hotels re-opening and, as long as you wear your mask ~ the efficacy of which has never really been proven ~ and keep six feet away from the pilot, you may soon be able to jet off to Europe and enjoy a post-first-wave coronavirus holiday ~ why not, if the second wave comes it may be your last?
In June, the UK population has been told that it will be testing, tracking and tracing, but at least one newspaper headline asks, ‘Will the government’s new app work?’ And there are over a million out of work, and lots of things that used to work, like pubs, are still not working? And no one seems to know whether masks work or not, although we are still advised to wear them, as we are also advised to go to work but stay at home at the same time, if at all possible.
Once upon a time, all we had to worry about was not inciting racial hatred, not inciting religious hatred, pretend that we celebrate LGBT (Large German Beer Tents), pay our BBC license fee, champion this and embrace that, count how many women are in the board room, subject historic dramas to politically correct revisionism and, and, and …
The Confused World of Coronavirus
It was all so simple, so clear cut then, but now!! The whole world has gone from a globally warmed up, globalist socially engineered immigration catastrophe to a … a… well, it’s like, you know, like, a modern version of Frankenstein’s monster (was he German?). But the New Normal, who is he? He has a biodegradable personality, a genetically modified sense of humour, challenging behaviour, is well past his sell by date and is clearly not fit for purpose.
None of us, not even the hysteria-generating UK press could ever imagine, not even in its wildest dreams, that Brexit would not only cause economic meltdown but the worst pandemic in living memory. Not only would Brexit ultimately divided Britain along a fault line the size of the Grand Canyon, with Leave on one side and Remain on the other, but would insidiously incubate an ‘unholy alliance’ between extreme right ringers (the bells! Oh, the bells!) and ‘esoteric liberals’ with one shared aim in mind, to form a worldwide Anti-Vax pact.
And all because Gill Bates and its gang wants to stick us in the arse with its great big globalist Vax Needle.
A retired scientist from Bedford says, “It’s all so confusing!”
Stay tuned to this channel folks, for more spine-chilling tales of the Vax Conspiracy. Can we stop them before it is too late!Can they stop us before it is too soon!
CLUELESS! The third in a trilogy of new exciting bored games from the maker’s John Wankerson, in association with World Health.
I think it was done in the meat market, with a revolting habit by Batman.
A whodunnit, what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it, ‘will it ever be the same again’ kind of game.
‘I think it’s going to be done to everyone with a vaccine plot by a conspiracy theorist’ ~ Gill Bates
CLUELESS, the game for governments, scientists, ministers, and disgraced health organizations that nobody would trust anymore with as much as a splinter in their arse, is in the shops now, but you can’t buy it as all the shops are shut. Black market copies are selling in deprived areas like hot cakes made by feminist career women locked down in kitchens, and the online auction site eBYGUM reports record sales in its China category.
I think it was done in the minds of the hapless public with the UK media by Penny Dreadful.
Social distancing friendly, the 2×2 metre board conforms perfectly with the new post-lockdown workplace rules. When not in use it can be used as an office screen and played vertically.
“Clueless: It’s the game for people who can’t spell useless but really are” ~ The Daily Marrow
It’s the game that everybody’s talking about, but nobody can hear because their masks are too tight or they are wearing them over their ears. It’s the game that brings people together whilst keeping them apart. It’s the game for people on the game who are game for anything but won’t play the game. It’s the game which rhymes with something like BLAME with all L let loose.
I think it was done in Skegness with flouting the rules by Richard Head.
I think it will be over and done with, with no guarantees and conflicting information by the time the Earth freezes over.
When I heard about the anti-lockdown demonstrations, I breathed a sigh of relief. It had been worrying me lately. Brexit had kept the professional demonstrators going for about three years, but with nothing left to rail against what were they up to now? Then along came the virus and with it lockdown, and hey presto the perfect excuse to get out there on the streets again.
I never thought of checking the YouTube videos to ascertain whether lockdown, against which the demonstrators were demonstrating, had enabled them to produce better quality banners. So often it is the case that so-called activist banners lack the professional look which could conceivably lend more credibility to the stated reason for their day out: rickety old pieces of hardboard with daubed-on slogans that don’t fit and are hard to read on film, let alone in the streets amidst all the cat-awailing and jostling, lacks kudos, don’t you think? Surely, with all this time on their hands the vociferous throng could bless us with something better than the usual substandard fare. These atrocious banners look as if they’ve been knocked up on a university campus by students who feel left out for having not lived through the classic era of great demonstrations, the 1960s, or by people who supposedly have lots of time on their hands and could perhaps have used it more sensibly by learning how to letter-space.
But who cares? The beauty of the anti-lockdown angst is that you can conveniently hang it on the human rights’ hook. BREXIT was OK on this account as well, in that the antis could accuse Brexiteers of being racist for wanting to take back control of the UK’s borders. But there is nothing quite as human rights violationist as the concept and implementation of something called ‘lockdown’, even if that something is devised for your own good. If the government had been smart, it would have called lockdown ‘home-leave’ or, even better, ‘home-benefits’ and legalised cannabis whilst it was at it.
But it didn’t, and now we are having to put up with news reports claiming that Boris has divided the cabinet and nation. Whilst I am not sure what he is doing in his cabinet, I am positive that the nation has been divided for years, between those who wish to preserve their way of life and those who seek to pervert it, so why should Boris get all the credit?
UK Anti-Lockdowners Embrace Division
Journalists often use this phrase ‘divided the nation’ as if there is a clear-cut division, when, in fact, the nation is divided into many clusters, and has been since the mass importation of different cultures, all of which have different objectives and markedly different allegiances.
The media claimed that Brexit had divided the country and at the fundamental level this is true. The simple division was between those who wanted to leave the EU and those who wanted to remain. But the media also claimed that the new divide had replaced the old left vs right paradigm. To a certain extent this was true as well, as in the last Brexit-fought election Labour suffered the hitherto unprecedented humiliation of being wiped out in its northern heartland.
But if you ignore the demographics and focus instead on the ideological composition of who wanted to remain in the EU as opposed to who wanted out, you will find without a shadow of a doubt that the remain camp had an overwhelmingly left subscription.
Although the argument against Brexit was packaged as an economic one, as if everyone on the left had suddenly become accountants, the real motivation lay in the fear, and it was a credible fear, that since the EU is the powerhouse of liberal-left ideology, should the UK pull the plug, especially on the EU’s biased legal apparatus, ie the European Court of Human Rights et al, the arsenal upon which the liberal-left depends for its ideological blitz against sovereignty patriots would be lost.
UK Anti-Lockdowners Embrace Division
So, taking this into consideration, how does the coronavirus lockdown division stack up?
Well, when you read the coverage in the *Independent and read stuff quoted from banners like, ‘I will not be masked, tracked, chipped or vaccinated … This will not be my new normal. I do not consent’ [thank you Patrick McGoohan] and read (quote) ‘Two women walked through the crowd wafting incense, while another insistently gave out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ you hardly need a second opinion; besides, whose politics are the politics of the street? Oh, and by the way, among the small demonstration (about 100 people in all) gathered at London’s Hyde Park was Jeremy Corbyn’s brother.
However, the waters have been muddied a little. On 27 April 2020, **The Guardian ran an article which seemed to suggest that it is those on the right of the political divide that eschew lockdown, shortly after which the TUC saddled a high-horse about easing lockdown and teacher’s unions followed suit, becoming ever more bellicose about the government’s ‘reckless’ plans for easing lockdown. And if you look you will no doubt find that there are other media pieces that run counter to the argument that all liberals denounce lockdown as a violation of their sacred human rights. Indeed, there as many people across the political spectrum who want to stay barricaded in their houses as there are those who want out.
If the waters are muddy because of this, then the real sewage starts when we rake the bottom of the social media barrel, at which level can be found cloud upon cloud of conspiracy theories. The peddlers of such theories and their adherents cannot quite make up their collective dread whether the powers that be are in it together to keep us locked in or to force us out, and this is where you have to admit that being in charge (we won’t say control) of any country at this point in time is an absolute bummer, as you are bummed if you do and bummed if you don’t ~ so to speak.
If as the leader of a country you and your government lean towards a lockdown and social distancing policy, it’s ‘call me George Orwell’, but if you look for an ‘exit strategy’ and ways of ‘easing lockdown’, as if you have a magic laxative for the constipated state that coronavirus has imposed on us, you can rest assured of being accused of putting economy first and people last.
Here, on my personal Home Front, sadly my wife tends to stumble every other day into the conspiracy-theory camp. She has moments, funny turns I call them, when she cannot stop sending me links by email to back up all sorts of esoteric theories, which I chuck right out like yesterday’s demonstration banners.
Mark my words and make no mistake: ‘If you go looking for it, you’ll find it!’
Now where did I put that vodka bottle?
It’s nothing to do with leaving the sinking ship! Let me in, I want to come out!
Anti-Lockdown Contract (or a Modest Proposal) Those that protest lockdown, do not want to self-isolate and persist in flouting the social-distancing rules should be allowed to do so provided they sign a contract or be placed on a national register, with the understanding that in the event that they contract Covid-19 the health service reserves the right to refuse them treatment, thereby reducing the risk of overwhelming the health service with their presence, leaving beds and other resources free for those who respect the rule of law, and by doing so endorse respect for doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers who risk their lives on a daily basis on the coronavirus frontline.
Hello! Hello! Hello![/caption]
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UK Lockdown ~ a new board game to take your mind off lockdown[/caption]
