Hunter S Thompson said journalism suffers from “a curious rape mania that rides on the shoulder… like some jeering, masturbating raven.” True in 1967, true today.
The Daily Mail regularly titillates its readers with sex-obsession, not only in its health and celeb articles - full of oldies trying to prove they’ve still “got it” - but in its comic section, where the soul of a newspaper reveals itself. The “Chloe & Co” strip features the eponymous, shameless slapper together with her doughnut-addicted friend Angela, a vicarious fantasy of what women might do if all their controls were off.
The DM certainly has plenty to slaver at now, what with the media dogpiling on Prince Andrew and the furore over the yet-to-start gang rape enquiry. If the Left plays on the former sufficiently to ruin him completely and even to endanger the monarchy itself it may then seem to them “a good day to bury the bad news” about the latter.
However, this issue won’t stay buried. It’s not just about the gangs, it’s also about the institutional enablers and complaint-suppressors that have allowed them to operate for decades. Several victims have now pulled out of the panel, together with the two candidates (with backgrounds in policing and social work) shortlisted to lead it.
The lack of trust goes further, into party politics. Victims fear that the Government seeks to widen the investigatory scope to cover sexual abuse of the young in general, so as to muddy the waters. Earlier this year the PM had resisted setting up a national enquiry at all, saying that Conservatives were “jumping on a far right bandwagon.”
But this bandwagon is a public juggernaut and Labour are tied to its wheels. If they don’t cut the bonds quickly it will roll right over them. The reason they haven’t yet done so is their forlorn hope of keeping Muslim voters onside by not looking too closely into the vile crimes of a small number of the latter’s co-religionists.
Too late: the Minister (PUSS) for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls very nearly lost her seat last year on a different and still hot Muslim-related issue, namely Gaza. How long can the UK remain a secular, liberal, nation-based quasi-democracy?
The real choice for this government is whether it will continue to bow to an influential and power-seeking minority, so showing them a dangerous weakness and compromising the unity and safety of the country, or stand up for justice without fear or favour.
And so to PMQs.
First came the Lib Dems’ Dr Roz Savage, who said her question had been photographed entering Number Ten in a see-through plastic folder (a rare example of governmental transparency?) She used this slender link to raise security concerns over the drive for digital ID. Sir Keir batted that away easily, saying “you cannot see it” and it would help with access to services and with combatting illegal immigration. If only all queries could be dealt with so superficially!
Then Labour’s Jayne Kirkham asked about housing in Cornwall.
Enter next the Leader Of The Opposition (LOTO) who broached the “grooming gangs” topic. Badenoch quoted a victim, one who had left the inquiry panel, as disappointed in Jess Phillips’ Parliamentary comments the day before: “what’s the point in speaking up if we’re just going to be called liars?” Victims also complain that what they wish to say is controlled using a process of official nudges and written submissions - blurt-proofing the hearings?
The PM said “The inquiry is not and will never be watered down, its scope will not change, it will examine the ethnicity and religion of the offenders, and we will find the right person to chair it.”
M’Lud: define “scope”; and does “examine” imply “publish”?
Starmer also announced the fresh involvement of Dame Louise Casey, whose “National Audit” report in June had led to the decision not to delegate the matter to local authorities as originally proposed, but to have a national grooming gang enquiry after all. Sir Keir resisted the call for a judge to chair it, on the grounds that Baroness Casey felt it would proceed faster without judicial involvement and also allow criminal proceedings to be instituted in tandem with the inquiry. He endorsed Jess Phillips (as previously with Angela Rayner) and “gently” (a bully-word in his vocabulary) reminded the Tories that they had had 14 years in power to tackle the problem.
LOTO may not have scored signally on this occasion but left us all in no doubt that the Government is “under the cosh.”
Labour’s Bill Esterson gave the PM a breather with an invitation to congratulate a mental health institution.
Next up was the Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey. He reminds me of C Northcote Parkinson’s board member who is valued because he is consistently wrong. On this occasion he was “jumping on a far-left bandwagon” by attacking the beleaguered Prince Andrew’s grace-and-favour residence. Davey seems not to have wished similar homelessness on Lord Mandelson, now in line for his third lot of severance compensation. Sir Keir waved that away with a generalisation that Crown properties should be scrutinised.
The Prince and the Lord are only two of the many prominent figures with whom the late Jeffrey Epstein cultivated warm relations, to their cost. Goodness knows what he may have told them of his dealings with the law, perhaps playing the role of victim. But the Press loves it all, regularly reprinting that photo of the Prince with the stunning seventeen-year-old redhead, affording the reader the chance to disapprove and ogle at the same time. Cor! Caw, caw!
The girl seemed very happy to be there, but appearances are deceptive because the human psyche is multi-layered. The sexual abuse she claimed to have suffered at the hands of her father at the age of eight may have acted as a slow poison in her, leading to bad and self-destructive life choices. How many “escorts” and common prostitutes have such early experiences in their past? This is why a wide scope is appropriate when delving into the prevalence and long-term effects of childhood neglect and abuse.
But that should not be used to drown out the extra factors of racism and religious bigotry at work in the “grooming gangs” or the broader threats to the King’s peace implied in their mindset and that of their sympathisers.
Sir Ed turned from kicking a man when he is down to urging the PM to “repair the Brexit damage by negotiating a new UK-EU customs union to boost Britain’s trade and grow our economy.” Starmer pretended to disagree but then said he had achieved “a much closer relationship with the EU, recognising the damage done by the flawed Brexit deal that the Conservative party negotiated.” In other words, yes, broadly speaking, but don’t be so obvious, fool. Eurocommunism must be established by stealth.
Following this we had others’ questions on pothole repairs, inequality of wealth (the PM “gently” told the Greens’ spokesperson Dr Ellie Chowns that her party should start voting for his measures) and maternity services. Wendy Morton (Con) asked about building development on the “grey belt.” Labour’s Lee Barron complained of a school that had deplorably refused to make a playing field access ramp for a disabled child.
Will Forster (Lib Dem) reported that local elections had been put off in his constituency and elsewhere. Sir Keir said “we expect the elections in Surrey to be for the new unitary councils,” that new system that simultaneously sucks power from Parliament and from grassroots voters.
Already local authorities seem almost enigmatic to the man in the street - when the football row about Jewish supporters at the upcoming Villa match (will it be renamed the Bob Vylan Ground?) burst out I had to find the Mayor’s name on the internet. The list of other Council members, added to the three Muslim MPs in Birmingham (two Labour plus the independent Ayoub Khan who called for the ban) raises the issue of factional influences on how decisions are made and to what extent Parliament can help maintain fair and impartial dealings in the provinces.
Ironically, Labour’s Alan Strickland said Reform’s Durham members “cannot cope with accountability” while at the same time Nigel Farage has taken to sulking in the public gallery since the Speaker has been at no pains to let him reply to the multiple attacks on him by Starmer and Co.
More questions and pleas came, on hospices, flood defences, struggling pharmacies and youth clubs.
Rebecca Smith (Con) reported that small businesses were telling her that the PM’s plan for them would be of little help. He replied with what he had said to her last week, to Opposition cries of “rubbish.”
As we face clocks going back again, Alex Mayer (Lab) urged the reintroduction of “Churchill time” aka British Double Summer Time. The PM thanked her for her question.
The session ended with comments on the sad state of NHS dentistry: and on a fatal school stabbing in Huddersfield that prompted Sir Keir to speak of his Crime and Policing Bill with its powers to tackle knife crime.
Then everyone went off for a cuppa and a Walnut Whip.
How much longer can this Prime Minister continue in office?
In the first place his policies appear chaotic. He has said he wants to help ‘working people’ defined by him as those who do not have savings, yet the public sector employees who have been awarded pay rises also tend to have generous final salary pension schemes, a gold-plated form of savings for old age increasingly unavailable to those in the private sector. Also the pensioners who were to be hit worst by the withdrawal of the Winter Fuel Allowance are retired workers on a low income and with little or no savings.
He wishes to ‘fix the foundations’ yet the main burden of NIC increases has fallen on the private sector since the Government gave extra funds to the public sector to compensate for the tax. Was it not foreseeable that employment in the former group would stall, together with the economy as a whole?
And then there is Chagos. How could it possibly benefit this country to give away a territory and then pay many billions to rent it back? Especially one that sits at a key point in the Indian Ocean, like a queen in the centre of the chessboard? It is all very well saying that our use of the islands is secured into the next century, but so was Hong Kong in 1898 and the lease on that ended too.
I had begun to wonder whether Starmer simply intends to destroy the nation, deluded by some Marxist fantasy that something better will replace it - as the anarchist Bakunin said, “the urge to destroy is also a creative urge.” World government sounds like a wonderful idea, until you see the white cat strokers and crocodile-faced billionaires who would love to run it.
Perhaps the truth is more tawdry. If the Mail’s Dan Hodges is right, we are near broke so Starmer is going round the world with his “Union Jack-embossed begging bowl” so he needs to do China’s bidding to help keep our finances afloat. It’s not he who is in charge says Hodges, but the “48 Group” (est. 1954) of British traders with China. Connect the dots: a new giant Chinese embassy allowed to be constructed in the heart of London, complete with - allegedly - an underground dungeon; the surrender of a key military asset in the Indian Ocean; and now the collapse of a China-related spy trial because our security adviser - sorry, just his deputy Matthew Collins, nobody else was involved, it is claimed - was unwilling to say that China, which has been stealing our secrets for years, is a potential threat.
We weren’t even going to have sight of what the adviser said, but thanks to Press pressure now we are; though possibly we will not see what the adviser was advised, and by whom.
And now Hodges is saying Sir Keir is an outright liar on the matter. When the Leader of the Opposition challenged him to say that Collins had not discussed the subject with the Home Secretary or anyone in Downing Street, the PM said that was so.
At the end of PMQs this week, according to Parliamentary sketchwriter Quentin Letts, Conservative MPs “shouted 'False! False!’ at his retreating heels.” This does not appear in Hansard’s record, but Letts was there.
Another reason for those shouts at him may have been the concluding point of order raised by Sir James Cleverly (Con) who said that he had been misquoted by Starmer in this session (and earlier this week by the Security Minister) as stating that describing China as a threat was merely “unwise”; actually he had said that to sum up our position *in one word* was unwise, but had gone on to say “First, we will strengthen our national security protections wherever Beijing’s actions pose a threat to our people or our prosperity… and when there are tensions with other objectives, we will always put our national security first.” The Speaker noted that Cleverly had now put it on record and “I will leave it at that.”
Speaker Hoyle also allowed (“do not question my judgment”) the PM to make a preliminary statement about Chinagate before answering questions.
Another bit of backtracking before verbal combat commenced was the PM’s reference to the fourth anniversary of Sir David Amess’ murder and that of Jo Cox. He took “this opportunity to condemn unequivocally the death threats made against the hon. Member for Clacton [Nigel Farage].” Doubtless that put him back on the side of the angels after Labour’s recent concerted attacks focusing on Reform’s Leader so Zia Yusuf need not hold Starmer responsible should there be a Charlie Kirk-type incident.
If Sir Keir had hoped his opening China spy trial peroration would take the wind out of Badenoch’s sails he was mistaken, though she was seen to cross out some sentences from her script during his speech. His responses to her vigorous questioning were a farrago of blameshifting, misquotation and (allegedly) lies, topped off with woolly aspirational distraction, the last cornily patterned soundbite likely crafted by one of his assistant wordsmiths: “Labour is building a better future; the Conservatives cannot even come to terms with their past.” I make no space here for his guff-fest but leave it to readers to boil what he said down to something relevant and fully truthful, if that is at all possible.
Instead let us make room for other participants.
Tom Rutland (Lab) offered the PM the chance to talk about Labour’s plans for apprenticeships.
Baggy Shanker (Lab) ditto, on knife crime in Derby.
Daisy Cooper (Lib Dem deputy leader) sought assurances that Hong Kong immigrants to the UK would be protected from Chinese persecution; she was not quite comforted by the PM’s reply. She also deplored Elon Musk’s legal expenses assistance to “far-right, racist hate-preacher Tommy Robinson”; Starmer declined to comment as the trial was ongoing.
Alex McIntyre (Lab) called on the PM to commemorate next year the last stand of the “glorious Glosters” in Korea in 1951, preventing the capture of Seoul. Starmer referred this to the attention of defence ministers and noted Labour’s commitments to veterans.
Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru) twitted Sir Keir over his reluctance to appear in the Caerphilly by-election next week where local support for Labour was collapsing; the PM riposted with what money the Government had given Wales and how much independence would cost the Principality.
Lloyd Hatton (Lab) asked for a new special school in Portland, Dorset and was referred to the schools minister for an update.
Sir Julian Smith (Con) re-raised the issues of family farms, inheritance tax and national food security. He was treated to the familiar boilerplate on farming policies, the devils of which are in the details not touched on here.
Ben Goldsborough (Lab) urged the compulsory testing (“Zoe’s law”) of all skin moles for cancer, from which he himself was now suffering.
Peter Bedford (Con) asked whether the PM would consider scrapping stamp duty on residential property, as LOTO was promising (or at least commit to no rise in property taxes.) Sir Keir said that would mean unfunded tax cuts, and more austerity for public services.
Sam Rushworth (Lab) called for a public enquiry into suicides among mental health patients in her area and the failings of its NHS mental health trusts. Starmer said the Health Secretary was “currently considering the best way forward.”
Rebecca Smith (Con) said she was launching a small business survey among “small and medium-sized enterprises” (SMEs) in her constituency, in the hope of abolishing or limiting business rates and taxes; the PM said he would supply her with Labour’s small business strategy so she could give copies to them.
Jim Dickson (Lab) asked the PM to agree that Labour were addressing the need to repair transport infrastructure; he did.
Tom Gordon (LibDem) called for the provision of local mental health in-patient beds in his constituency; Starmer spoke of related nationwide NHS recruitment, hospital building and increases in mental health spending.
Kirith Entwistle (Lab), a “second-generation immigrant,” reminded the PM of his Conference words on the need for national unity and asked him to agree that “some of those on the Opposition Benches who seek to stoke division and keep close company with those who accept Russian bribes cannot and should not be trusted to govern this country?” Ignoring the Russiagate theme Starmer noted it was National Hate Crime Awareness Week and “an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.”
Susan Murray (LibDem) spoke of the financial burdens the Government laid on for example, a beauty salon. The PM replied with points about lower rates for some types of small business, stimulus for lenders to them, and a package on support for late payments.
John Whitby (Lab) returned to the Russian bribe theme re Labour’s coming elections Bill “to protect our democracy from foreign interference” (China was, however, not mentioned.) Starmer was happy to tar Reform’s Farage and Tice with guilt by association with their Party’s former regional leader in Wales (who had taken Russian money in 2018/19 while a UKIP/Brexit Party MEP.) The PM said Britains’ choice was “Kremlin cronies sowing division or Labour patriots working for national renewal.” Farage was not invited to respond and later fumed. Starmer thus reaffirmed his patriotism but neglected this opportunity to do the same for his Christianity as he did last month (“I was christened, so that is my church, has been all my life”) A pity: surely he is at least as pious and proud of his fatherland as a Welsh choirboy.
Tom Tugendhat (Con) reverted to the China spy trial and asked “what political direction did this Government give to their officials before they went to give evidence?” Came the answer: “Absolutely none—absolutely none.”
And so, aside from Sir James Cleverly’s point of order, that was that. Exit the PM, pursued by Conservative catcalls.
The Goon Show, a phenomenally funny and surreal entertainment, originally ran on BBC radio for ten years (1951-1960). Titled at first ‘Crazy People’ it was broadcast on the Home Service. A list of the episodes is here.
The core trio of performers were Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers with co-founder Michael Bentine who left the lineup after 38 appearances.
Secombe was previously the first postwar showbiz success of the four, with a frenetic act at London’s Windmill Theatre, and his manic chattering can be heard on the earliest extant Goons recording (from the second series):
Bentine is an interesting man, not just for this and other comedy work. He was an expert pistol shot who trained the SAS in his style; also he wrote of psychic experiences in his non-fiction and autobiographies - perhaps he inherited from his Peruvian father some of the otherworldly spiritual strain found in South America.
Most of the Goon Show scripts were written by the manic-depressive genius Milligan with help from Larry Stephens. Jimmy Grafton and others. Milligan had occasional episodes of nervous exhaustion and breakdown; no wonder, given the intense pressure to create.
A famous passage from one show, animated below, is where the halfwit character Eccles is asked for the time:
The humour always included sideways references to homosexuality which was not decriminalised until 1967. A couple of ‘camp’ characters, Julian and Sandy would use the insider gay’s language of ‘polari’…
… which the show’s compère would pretend not to understand.
Like the earlier Goon Show (which ran from 1951-1960) the format was to split the funny content into two halves, with a musical interlude. Perhaps this is because there may be an optimum attention span for sparkling verbal comedy - full-length films based on successful half hour shows don’t seem to work so well; the narrative tends to dominate the wit.
Here are the first six episodes; more are easily available on the Net:
That is, Censorship Of Valid Informative Discussion.
There are things that may not be discussed and awkward types who do so will be de-platformed and persecuted.
Take Dr Vernon Coleman for example. He is a retired GP and was a prolific and widely read journalist as well as successful author of fiction and non-fiction. Until he came out as a Covid dissenter in 2020. Now look: he is banned e.g. not only from posting on YouTube (which he did for years) but even from looking at it.
He is not completely an unperson - his name is still there on the Net - so the Narrative will poison the wells ahead of your quest to find him. Here is the opening paragraph about him on Wikipedia:
If only there were some easy way of collecting all reviews like this - it would make a handy guide to getting recommendations for reading about interesting people.
Anther man and issue is the comedy writer Graham Linehan, who controversially holds that men are not women. Wikipedia doesn’t quite do the boot-in-the-balls-and-strangle-him thing, but carefully includes this para compiling quotes from media tpes who know which hymn sheet to sing from:
There, be warned about an obsessive has-been.
Next after Covid-19 and transgender issues comes climate change.
In 2012 an American climatologist called Michael E Mann instituted a lawsuit against the conservative writer and broadcaster Mark Steyn and ‘rightwing’ blogger (sic Wikipedia) Rand Simberg for defaming him. Mann had allegedly misrepresented climate data to warn of a “hockey stick” leap in atmospheric temperature; the supposed abuse of the truth was compared to the abuse of a child.
The case ran for twelve years - who among us would withstand the strain of such a prolonged action, surely an instance of the process itself being the punishment?
Each knowingly made a false statement of fact to the Court and Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information.
It may seem unfair but for me, just a look at Mann’s photo on the Wiki page tells a story:
There are many other areas of public interest suffering from official oppression, lying and obfuscation: mass immigration, systematic child abuse, the alleged ‘genocide’ in Gaza, Ukraine…
Distraction, too: Some say that Sir Keir Starmer’s recent headline-hitting proposal to introduce digital ID was intended to drown-out the story around £740,000-worth of undeclared donations to Labour Together (LT), a think tank of which the PM’s now chief of staff Morgan McSweeney had been a director at that time.
This saga may run a long while yet as it is also germane to how Starmer rose to power. It is being pursued by Muslim convert Jody McIntyre who in last year’s General Election as a newbie Parliamentary candidate very nearly ousted Jess Phillips MP from what had previously been a very safe Labour seat. See his Twitter/X thread on LT-Gate here.
The tale is part of a bigger story, of how Labour is harming the country by pandering to a minority that seems destined to break away from its control no matter what the leadership does.
The truth is becoming elusive but those who steer us according to their preferred blinkered narrative may drive the ship onto the rocks.
We must resist “COVID”, the “Censorship Of Valid Informative Discussion.”
How might it be done? Let’s look to the US for an example.
We know about two attempts on Donald Trump’s life, the first being 20-year-old Thomas Crooks’ long-distance shots at the Pennsylvania rally on July 13, 2024. Although Trump escaped with only a nick in his right ear the bullets actually killed an audience member and injured two others.
Following that incident people asked about what looked like lax security. The photo here shows agents clustering protectively around the Presidential candidate but you will see that brave as the female agent is she was not tall enough to shield him fully - Trump is six foot three. One more head shot might have changed history. The same article quotes a bystander who says he and others had spotted Crooks on a rooftop several minutes beforehand and tried to alert police, who seemed confused and slow to react.
Zia Yusuf of the Reform Party has said “Two weeks ago [mid-September], the authorities reduced Nigel’s security detail by 75 per cent.”
Mr Yusuf went on to accuse Sir Keir Starmer of embarking on the “most extraordinary, unprecedented vicious and coordinated set of demonisation attacks and incitement of violence” against the Reform UK leader.
He added: “We have seen [Sir Keir] get 11 cabinet ministers, along with his own rhetoric, calling him racist, one of those cabinet ministers - the Home Secretary no less - called him ‘worse than racist’, the Deputy Prime Minister in an extraordinary intervention, accused Nigel of ‘flirting with Nazism.’”
Mr Yusuf told GB News that if anything were to happen to Mr Farage, he would “hold the Prime Minister responsible”.
Coming back to the Deputy Prime Minister’s “Hitler youth” slur, I noted that when challenged by BBC News, Lammy did not retract, he simply said that he accepted that Farage had denied it!
Lammy should resign of course, but should never have been appointed in the first place. He is an ignorant and unscrupulous moron.
One suspects he was carefully briefed not only on his non-retraction “clarification” but also on the original vile slur, which may have been given to him because a brighter Cabinet minister would have had to fall on his/her sword if it became a serious issue. It’s a collective campaign and Lammy has been used as the mule for one of the worst bits; he may yet be forgiven by the public because he is so stupid that nobody expects anything better from him.
So, we’ve wound up the social media to fulminate against Farage; all we need is some crazy wokeist with a knife or a bomb. Or a gun, which few except criminals own these days.
And then there would be the sorrowful official reactions, like after this week’s Manchester Yom Kippur attack.
It is difficult not to think of this Government as almost evil.
Now he has said Reform’s Nigel Farage is “someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger.” The accusation is manifestly absurd not least because the Hitler Youth was disbanded at the end of WWII and Farage was born in 1964.
These are dangerous times, when self-appointed assassins have felt obliged to rid us of turbulent right-wing politicians.
So the BBC called him out on this allegation and the Deputy PM was “happy to clarify” his comment. Here is his clarification:
“He [Farage] has denied it and so I accept that he has denied it.”
Not “I accept that it was untrue and defamatory.” Not “I accept that it was a reckless and disgraceful lie and I apologise.”
Implicitly he has restated his slander.
He claims that “the prime minister is keen for us to focus on the policies not the individuals.” In other words, he could be taken to mean “it’s true, at least of Farage’s fascistic mindset, but as honourable politicians we are bound to conduct our debate on a more civilised basis.”
Unless he is willing to retract unequivocally his thoroughly unscrupulous and unprofessional slur he should resign.
Professor Ed Dutton “The Jolly Heretic” has often quoted research indicating that our average IQ has been dropping for a long time, because our soft lives mean that foolish behaviour is not punished by Nature in terms of failure to survive and breed replacements.
But even today poor people have enough to do with the challenges in their daily lives and cannot afford luxury show-off beliefs. A life on benefits is no joke and even a small financial setback can throw a family into panic.
The middle class have much less excuse for stupid actions. Looking at the sort of people who adopt and protest fashionable causes that are ill-supported by logic one wonders how seemingly intelligent and well-educated people can behave so, and with such fanaticism.
Our population may be getting stupider on average but one wonders whether that element of the middle class that glues itself to roads, throws soup on paintings, marches in support of mass murderers, neuters itself or its children etc may be getting dafter faster than the underclass.
The Jolly Heretic tells me he is unaware of any research to show this but the suspicion remains.
Is there any longitudinal study of IQ by social class and sub-groupings?
In itself, it doesn’t necessarily confirm anti-Semitic bias in the Corporation, but that soft-handed term clearly betrays bias in favour of a different group, whom it can portray as freedom-fighters, uncritically relaying claims by Hamas.
When both the Government’s advisers on foreign affairs and the nation’s official broadcaster have lost their objectivity, we have a problem.
The erosion of trust goes further.
The United Nations – such an optimistic, feel-good title – recently ruled that Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza, so giving official validation to a word used by many in their allegations. The verdict was issued by a UN ‘Independent International Commission of Inquiry’ on 16 September. It was referenced on X the following day by a group of ex-BBC journalists calling themselves The News Agents, who also quoted a Labour MP calling on the PM to stop Israel.
I replied: “You are journalists. Please look carefully at who is on that UN committee and come back to us.” They haven’t yet done so. That is a pity, because the Committee resigned in July amid accusations of anti-Israel prejudice – but are still serving out their terms. Perhaps this latest ruling is their Parthian shot.
The UN was created in 1945 as a way for the world to be run better and more peacefully. Yet when ex-diplomat Craig Murray told them last week that the UK is a force for evil in the world, “people from all over the globe interrupted with spontaneous applause”. That could be saying more about them than us.
Speaking of childishness, see when Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers donated a minute of his speaking time so that the EU Parliament could remember the death of Charlie Kirk and “declare that our right to freedom of speech cannot be extinguished”. Instead, the noise from various quarters was a “rejection” of what Politico calls “right-wing and far-right groups”. Or, to put it another way, bad manners from good haters.
When you know in your bones that you are what Leo Kearse calls “good kind people”, then all opposition must be from the Devil and eradicated by any means possible. Brexiteers are unbelievers in the Great Dream and must be punished.
The liberal civilisation we have depends on not being so sure.
English history has been plagued by doctrinaire Catholicism, firebrand Puritans and revolutionary Communists; now, we have to deal with the threat of millenarian Islam. Most Muslims here are not jihadists, but as their population numbers grow, the underbrush is building up in readiness for radicals to set fire to it. The Left is still smouldering too; perhaps there could be a temporary alliance as there was in Iran. Spiked thinks it is happening again in the West.
As our society fragments into mutually incompatible cliques, it becomes ever more important to consider what could bind us together. Oppression is one answer, and an authoritarian regime like Starmer’s might hold things for a bit; but not forever.
What we need is the truth. The news media are our eyes and ears, and if they feed us illusions, we risk crashing. The Fourth Estate must know that journalism is not propaganda. It should abandon its self-conception of leading a righteous crusade by hiding and twisting facts to tell us stories. We are fallible human beings, not angels and demons. Enough of holy panic. Let’s hear it all, good and bad.
Then, we need our other secular institutions to recover their impartiality.
It has been fascinating to watch US Senate hearings as they try to restore the FBI and the Federal judiciary to their proper functions and root out political activism. To achieve that here, we may need to undo much of what has been done structurally since 1997 to tie up the powers of the people like the threads that held down Gulliver.
But it must be done. Trust is eroding; when it is gone, the nation will collapse.
Our liberty and stability depend on not being certain, on hearing all sides, on avoiding being drawn into a great quest, on not following some charismatic captain, on not delegating our judgment and conscience to international arbiters. We need truth the debunker, not truth the pillar of smoke by day and fire by night.
It starts with the news. We need the news, the whole news and nothing but the news.
