OUT TO LUNCH

It’s been an exhausting week. No, I’m not talking about the glare of publicity I have been facing all week on Politicsweb and lesser media outlets. It’s the digging. We have clay soil where I live and it’s the very devil of a job to dig a hole deep enough to bury something. Fortunately the garden service people came on Thursday and we bunged them a few extra blue Mandela’s in exchange for the hole.

Why the digging you ask? Well, I was checking my DVD collection and it appears I am in possession of the sort of stuff that, if found on the premises by the Woke Police, will lead to boots kicking in the door at four in the morning and me being dragged off to one of their sensitivity training camps. So I’m burying a waterproof container underground to hide my contraband.

My real worry is the ‘Til Death us do Part’ compendium I bought at HMW in London when we were still allowed to buy such things. It was a comedy series that ran for fifteen years between 1965 and 1980 on BBC (the same institution that are now telling us what we are allowed to watch) and was a huge hit. The central character was an objectionable and foul tempered bigot called Alf Garnett (played magnificently by the late Warren Mitchell) who lived in a rough part of the east end of London with his long suffering wife, his daughter and her work shy part Irish, part Liverpudlian husband.

Written by Johnny Speight (who was accused of encouraging racism by some joyless lunatics even back then) it mocked the sort of attitudes held by many Brits. For example, in one episode Alf goes to watch his beloved West Ham play football but can’t help hurling racist insults at the black player accusing him of not passing the ball “cos they want to keep everything for themselves, them lot”. Gender based violence also gets an early airing with Alf frequently yelling at his wife (played by Dandy Nichols) calling her a “bloody silly old moo”.

___STEADY_PAYWALL___

Ownership of other past TV programmes that are almost certainly going to get us into deep trouble when the forthcoming ‘Suppression of Humour Act’ comes into force shortly include Sasha Baron Cohen’s Borat and Ali G sketches (both racist), It Aint half hot Mum (anti LGBTQI+), Are You Being Served (anti LGBTQI+) and Monty Python’s Flying Circus (offensive to practically everyone).

Now, I’m not too sure about you but I don’t much like being told what I am allowed to watch and what I am allowed to find funny. Particularly if I am being told by dreary prigs who have no sense of humour themselves. And for much the same reason I don’t like to be told what I am allowed to think or what I am allowed to say or write, particularly by gutless cowards who hide behind pseudonyms.

Over the years social media has proven to be a wonderful way for the yob element to get one over the larnies. Poor J K Rowling is the latest victim but our own Helen Zille has had several unpleasant experiences. The yob element’s tried and tested method is to latch onto a tweet (such as one about black privilege), either take it out of context or blow it out of all proportion and then demand an apology followed by the sacking of the person responsible.

In the meantime they will have contacted their online chums in the main stream media and asked for their help to whip up some hatred. Since they can no longer afford real journos to tell real stories the main stream media are only too happy to oblige, particularly if they think it’s going to cause huge discomfort to someone they see as successful, educated or privileged.

As Douglas Murray wrote in the lead article in last week’s Spectator magazine

“…. as crowds high on the octane of generational self-righteousness rampage through major cities, the evidence mounts. The growing intolerance of freedom of thought, the inability to talk across divides, the way that most of the British establishment, police included, feels the need to pledge fealty to the cause — as though all terrified of ending up on the wrong side — points to a crisis of more than confidence. It is evidence of an underlying morbidity…… What we are seeing is nothing more or less than the death of the liberal ideal”

Given the violence which has accompanied the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, particularly in the US and in London, I can understand why a police officer may decide to ‘take the knee’. It sure beats being dragged out of your vehicle and beaten senseless by the mob. But when the police are so intimidated then you know that anarchy cannot be far behind.

The Black Lives Matter website in the UK states the aims of the organization is "to dismantle imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and the state structures".

Pretty much the same then as the EFF, BLF and large chunks of the ANC. No mention you’ll notice of making black lives better by improving housing, health, education, welfare, employment or any sissy stuff like that. The stated aims are all destructive. Presumably after all those things have been destroyed a wonderful new world will emerge from the rubble, although nobody can explain quite how this will come about.

If you want to know how much black lives matter in South Africa just take a look at the unemployment numbers or the winding queues for a SASSA payment every month and compare it to the luxury car collection of a connected cadre who was given the order to supply the SA government with COVID-19 medical protection equipment. Just one of many as the Zondo commission has revealed.

Quite who funds the BLM movement to topple democracies, silence debate and destroy capitalism is a mystery but it is obviously a well-resourced and well-oiled machine. You don’t think you could get that many people onto the streets with suitably worded placards at such short notice just by phoning round surely?

The really clever thing about BLM though is that it sounds so worthy a cause that it appeals to anyone who desperately wants to show the world that they are good, caring people. The virtue signallers in other words. And if you don’t ask too many searching questions I am sure that daubing slogans on a statue of a long dead man or pissing on a memorial of those who died in a war to win the very freedoms that you are now in the process of destroying makes perfect sense.  

At the moment the woke are winning the war because most people are understandably terrified of being ‘called out’ on social media for telling the woke that they are talking utter crap. I was brought up with a saying from an early age; “sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me”. For that reason I believe certain freedoms are worth standing up for and I applaud those who are prepared to stand with me under their own names much as I despise the yellow bellies who snipe anonymously from behind the parapets at those of us fighting this wearying, divisive and unpleasant battle.

Should we be worried about all this somebody asked me the other day? Well, when institutions that claim to espouse civil liberties and freedom of expression can be brought to their knees by the Twitter mob we should be very worried indeed. Any subsequent claim to be in favour of freedom of speech is about as convincing as Al Qaeda claiming to be in favour of gay marriage.

If you value the freedoms you enjoyed previously, including not being told what you may watch, say or think, then you need to speak up now. Tomorrow might be too late.

Finally, another bravely anonymous reader snidely mentioned something about how many of you appear to regard me as the greatest writer since Shakespeare (actually that was PG Wodehouse). So let me not disappoint you and finish up in true Shakespearian form with a rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter.

I wonder if the folk who we call ‘woke’
Can ever comprehend this country’s broke?