#not that I voted for Boris or even got a chance to vote because I was too young

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

The monarchy jokes are funny, but idk what y'all actually expect to happen when the King dies. We just get another one. They don't actually have any real political power, they're just overpaid shitass mascots. Y'all gotta direct some of this energy at Rishi Sunak

[thessalian]

Thess vs General Elections

So this hasn't quite hit the news sites yet, but breaking on former-Twitter is that Sunak is going to be having a private meeting with the 22 Committee. Which ... I mean ... I just cannot anymore. For the non-Brits, here is the skinny on what that could very well mean.

What's the 22 Committee? Okay. So. There are 22 backbench MPs whose main job is to take letters from other MPs in the party calling for a Vote of No Confidence in a sitting Prime Minister. That's the 22 Committee - or just The 22. If someone is going before The 22, it means that they're facing a buttload of in-party infighting and are looking at being unseated as PM.

Wait - didn't you guys just get a new PM? Well, a year and a half ago, but yeah, kinda. The Tories have had five PMs in the last fourteen years, three of which have been in the last two years or so. First there was Cameron in 2010 - voted in during the Conservative / Lib Dem coalition government where the Liberal Democrats basically faded into the wallpaper and let Cameron and the Tories do whatever the hell they wanted. Cameron resigned after the Brexit vote in 2016 and, without being given a vote, we got Theresa May. She got ousted in favour of Boris Johnson in time for the 2019 election. Johnson was forced to step down in 2022, mostly because of the absolute disregard he showed for Covid lockdown rules, but a few other scandals in there too, and was succeeded by Liz Truss. Truss lasted less than two months, during which time she absolutely destroyed the UK economy (amazing how fast that can happen), and they put Rishi Sunak, Johnson's former Chancellor of the Exchequer, into the PM-ship in October 2022.

Isn't that a lot of elections? You'd think, wouldn't you? But nope, that's not how it works here. We don't vote for the Prime Minister. We vote for the Member of Parliament in our constituency, and the first party that gets a certain number of seats gets their party leader becoming the PM. So it's the party that's in office, not the specific party leader. Party leaders are chosen by a vote, yes, but not from the public - from members of the party in question. Doesn't matter if the new PM has massively different ideas of how to run things, whole different manifestos, anything like that - if the party chooses a new leader, that leader becomes PM if the party won the last election. And the Conservative Party is the worst of a bad lot, since their membership is 160 old white men. Rich old white men. So the manifesto of the party in government has changed three times in the last two years on the say-so of 160 rich old white men ... and hell, the last time we didn't even have that, I don't think, since most of the people standing as party leader bowed out in favour of Sunak. Anyway, we've had five Prime Ministers and only one election - that in 2019.

You've been talking about there being an upcoming election... Yeah, that's the other thing. For all this wibbling around the place with changing PMs, we are still constitutionally obliged to have a general election once every five years. Johnson was elected in 2019. That means that there has to be a general election by the end of the year, no matter who's acting as Prime Minister.

So why would they be changing party leaders again? They want someone more electable, is why. Not that there is anybody, honestly - Johnson more or less destroyed the Conservative Party in the same way that Starmer has been destroying the Labour Party: by driving out most of the reasonable individuals in favour of elevating sycophants and yes-men. Hence why we've had increasing levels of bullshit from the PMs we've had the last few years. But the party's looking at Sunak and looking at the MP defections and going, "Yeah, know, if we want to stand a chance, we need someone new for them to vote for".

But you just said people didn't vote for-- I KNOW. Unfortunately, almost no one else in this country seems to. Even those of us who do know that we're voting for MP rather than PM kind of have to vote tactically in most cases, because if our constituency seat ends up being won by a MP from the party we don't like, that's a greater chance that the party we don't like get enough seats to have their leader be PM. Add to that the fact that our PMs campaign like US presidential candidates and you've got a recipe for completely fucking up an already fucked-up electoral system.

So how did Sunak fuck up? Well, sane people would say the question is "How hasn't Sunak fucked up?", but currently he's having some issues at least in part because of his insane clinging to the Rwanda Act. I've spoken about the Rwanda Act, where he wants to deport "illegal migrants" (read: refugees) to Rwanda if they turn up here despite the fact that doing so would violate several international laws; the House of Lords isn't playing ball when Sunak just wants to rush it through. Maybe it's so he can say he did something in government, or maybe he's got a lot of money riding on it somewhere along the line, but so far it's been a massive waste of time and tax money and even Rwanda doesn't want in on it anymore. Anyway, there's that and there's the whole thing where health care workers coming into this country on work visas are now no longer allowed to bring their spouses or children. So partly it's the xenophobic bullshit ... and the other part of it is his not being xenophobic enough, because a few Tory MPs are defecting to Reform UK.

What the fuck is Reform UK? It's our Ultra-Right Horrorshow Party. See, it used to be UKIP - the UK Independence Party, whose primary mandate was to get the UK out of the European Union. Which ... has now happened, so both UKIP and the Brexit Party are kind of obsolete. So anyone who wants to be a real fascist joins Reform UK. For example, Lee Anderson, who's insisting that "Islamists" are controlling London and that Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor, is a puppet for "the Islamists" ... as is Labour Party leader Kier Starmer, according to Anderson. When he refused to apologise for his bullshit, the party withdrew the whip - which means they booted him out of the party, basically. So he joined Reform UK where he can be as much of a fascist as his little (possibly nonexistent) heart desires.

I've heard that name before, I'm sure: Lee Anderson? Sure. 30p Lee, they called him (and still do). He's the one who insisted that you can make meals for thirty pence per day. Not even per meal - per day. Hence his idea of withholding food parcels from food banks unless people took budgeting and cooking courses. Never mind that the 30p figure came from a batch cooking website and involved buying a lot of things in bulk, which doesn't help anyone who can't afford the initial outlay of bulk foods or, frankly, the time and effort it takes to cook that kind of thing. Anyway, we're getting off-topic.

So you guys are really looking like getting yet another new PM before the election later this year? Maybe. It could be that he's just calling the election early. I just kind of doubt it, since the last thing in the actual news has been that he's having a standoff with the House of Lords over that Rwanda thing. It's possible that he's bailing out so that he's not the one remembered for screwing that particular pooch - the way Cameron resigned after the badly-handled Brexit vote. But 'bailing out' could mean 'resigning as PM' or it could mean 'calling the election for May this year'. We don't know, and until it hits the actual news outlets, we aren't going to.

Fact is that it's going to suck no matter what we do. Both parties are focused on treating the economy like a household budget, and the Shadow Chancellor (the person who would be Chancellor of the Exchequer if the Labour party got into government) is celebrating Margaret Thatcher as an economic model to aspire to. This is the LABOUR PARTY - the one that was started by labour unions and is supposed to be for the fucking workers - and they're quoting Thatcher. Sunak and Starmer, for all they yell at each other across the Commons during Prime Minister's Questions, seem to stand for the same things:

kindness to corporations

cruelty to refugees, trans people, the disabled, and the poor

denial of climate change in favour of fossil fuels (see point 1)

curtailing of human rights

It's both of them. We can hope Starmer's lying to court what he sees as the popular vote, but ... I doubt it. And I'm very, very tired of living in a fucking dystopia.

But hey. Even if Sunak resigns tomorrow, at least he lasted longer than a head of lettuce.

[mariacallous]

I have found myself thinking about Michael Gove more and more recently. Not just because of his profile this week over the new definition of extremism, but because I think he - in his own way - is the author of a lot of what has become the extremism of the Tory Party.

That sentence won’t go down well in many quarters. Gove does not come across as a radical at all. By all accounts (I have never met him and the only thing we have in common is our ability to perform all the words of 80s banger Wham Rap) he is incredibly charming. Some say smarmy, but most say charming - and by most I mean people across the political and media spectrum. His reputation for politeness is pretty legendary.

He is also a fantastic media performer. Partly that is to do with the above charm. He’s self-deprecating and also seems thoughtful. When asked a question, his body language makes you think he’s considering the answer, and the right thing to do, very carefully. His head cocks slightly, his lips purse (more) and his shoulders open up as if to indicate he has nothing to hide or defend. Whatever answer he gives, that impression is at the core of his presentation.

He also has a reputation for competence in government that is rare among still-active Conservatives. When he was at Defra, many environmentalists found him more open and easier to work with than pretty much anyone else who has had that brief. He hasn’t got a lot through that housing campaigners would like, but it isn’t for the lack of visibly trying.

He also instituted a revolution in education that is underestimated by most in the impact it will continue to have on this country long after he has left office. For example, I still hear a great deal of wrangling about the National Curriculum. Many Labour education pledges reference it. But, here’s the thing: Gove’s reforms have quietly and without telling anyone basically abolished the National Curriculum in all but name. Because Academies don’t have to follow the National Curriculum and at present around three-quarters of schools are academies. Even though the plan to force all schools to academies by 2030 has been dropped, this trajectory is likely to continue (and unlikely to be reversed at least in the first term of a Labour government). Anything that does not affect over 70 per cent of schools does not deserve the title “national” anything.

Two notable things happened during Gove’s time as Education Secretary beyond the policy that, I think, illustrate the point I am trying to make here. Firstly, he hired Dominic Cummings as his special advisor and secondly, he was described by David Cameron (somewhat fondly at the time, though I would be fascinated to know if post-2016 thought it quite so amusing) as a “Maoist” who like Cummings “believes that the world makes progress through the process of creative destruction”.

Now look again at the record of this mild-mannered, Wham-rapping, Aberdeen-dancing politician.

Gove publicly and loudly backed Brexit breaking a long friendship with Cameron to do so. He then agreed to head up Johnson’s campaign team for the leadership in 2016 only to run himself at the last minute torpedoing Boris’s chances. He was in May’s cabinet at the end, but also on telly calling her planned Brexit vote offering a temporary Customs Union and a vote on a referendum unworkable (to be fair, it was). He again served in Johnson’s cabinet - having apparently changed his mind about his unsuitability for the post (and to be fair, Johnson certainly delivered his fair share of creative destruction) - and as all around him were resigning, Gove was, hilariously, sacked by Johnson. Then who can forget the Laura Kuenssberg interview with Liz Truss and Gove responding where he - just feet away from the then PM called her plans profoundly concerning and unconservative. She didn’t last much longer.

Gove does serve in government now, but whenever plotting is mentioned - evil or otherwise - his name is never very far from the frame. Of course, plotting in politics is as natural as breathing. But plotting for the sake of it is a different matter. I think Gove enjoys the chaos of the game more than the outcomes.

Michael Gove gives off all the vibes of the Cameron-era type of Tory politician. And let’s be fair, that was when he made his most destructive changes to the education system as he abolished things that might have come in handy, such as a massive school repairs programme.

And maybe that’s fair. Because that government was slick and went on a media charm offensive that vastly belied its destructive instincts. The behaviour of Johnson and the insanity of Truss may lead us to forget that the underlying reasons why the country is in the mess we are is down to the economic policies of the Cameron and Osborne government.

Michael Gove has been the great survivor of the Tory years. At the heart of so many plots one loses count, yet endlessly returning to serve semi-loyally at the heart of government. He may charm the press. He may come across as a decent bloke. But his record of destruction and chaos is one we all suffer from. We may enjoy it when his dagger is turned towards his colleagues, but don’t forget for one minute that his destructive instinct is one that could take us all down if we let ourselves be charmed into thinking of him as the acceptable and moderate face of the Tory party. He is anything but.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

From the news I'm getting here across the Pond, it seems like Liz Truss has perhaps achieved a marvel in that she's turning out to be more incompetent than Boris "Big Dog" Johnson. What are the chances the U.K. will have a new Prime Minister by the end of the year?

Yeah, she's exactly as competent really but, and this cannot be overstated, the person whose mess she's inherited IS Boris Johnson. But she compounds this with a Chancellor who is much, much worse.

Uh, this answer got long, sorry about that, but lol what can you do? Exercise restraint? Pfft.

By the end of the year... probably slim, as hilarious as the letters of no confidence are; the party can't survive another new leader that quickly. Johnson's greatest legacy - his greatest gift to the left - is the one he was always going to leave: he rose to power on a platform of 'feelings not facts', a method that is highly effective in the short term but horrendously unsustainable in the long run, once the shine of the bombast wears off and people realise that the bins aren't going out anymore. You cannot bluster and jazz hands your way through running a country indefinitely. You have to be competent at the daily grind.

Big Dog was not.

But during his tenure, everyone either threw all their weight behind him to suck his Union Jack-coloured cock and get a cushy ride themselves, or they were openly fired for disloyalty. He single-handedly created a Tory party that was defined by patriotism-flavoured incompetence. And then the bubble burst, and his old nemesis Mr Consequences came calling, and the situation was, very suddenly, that he was hot garbage - just absolute weapons-grade 'this is not a place of honour' levels of toxic - to have in charge of the party, but most importantly, crucially, none of them could get rid of him without also incriminating themselves.

That's why it took so long before the wave of resignations finally kicked things into happening. That's why it had to be a wave of resignations. None of the limping high school debating champions that were left in government could survive without him; even though he was actively poisoning them, they would die immediately with him gone. The tipping point came when finally that particular cost-benefit analysis see-sawed the other way.

And what's left? What was always going to be left: a hardcore radical group of 'feelings not facts' fascists, and an insipid hodgepodge of self-deluded clowns with the life skills of a particularly underwhelming five-year-old, all of whom are embroiled in bitter internal bitching wars and cliques and spend their days writing each other's names in a Burn Book rather than doing their jobs.

Everyone is blaming each other. No one is taking responsibility. The party can no longer agree on anything, except perhaps "Woe is us."

This latest leadership contest was actually a vicious thing that added to the damage and made the in-fighting worse. If we now add ANOTHER to the pile... well. I think we would see, at minimum, mass defections to UKIP. Very possibly some new political parties, like what Labour did when Jeremy Corbyn was too left-wing for them so Angela Smith and Chuka Umunna founded Change UK and claimed it was because Corbyn was racist and then Angela described people of colour as "black or a funny tinge... you know, a different... from the BAME community" and then Change UK was quietly dissolved after 10 months and no one remembers them anymore. It would be a disaster, is what I'm saying.

A new Chancellor, though... that's more likely, I think. Kwasi Kwarteng was rumoured to have had an affair with Liz Truss and honestly I strongly suspect that's why he got the job - he wrote a stupid book about economics that no one liked, on the night of the Brexit vote was overheard by a journalist saying “Who cares if sterling crashes? It will come back up again", and then became Chancellor, and then released a mini-budget last week that has tanked the pound to the lowest performance against the dollar since records began and immediately embroiled his PM into a financial crisis so bad she literally went into hiding for a day and a half. The UK is... actually completely fucked, as of this week. I cannot overstate what a fucking unmitigated disaster that budget is, or the damage it's causing. We were already doing very badly. This is catastrophic. This is like having an infected foot and everyone being concerned because it's turning gangrenous, and then Kwasi turns up and chops off both your legs and your dominant hand and then also the legs and dominant hands of everyone else present as well, except for himself and his rich mates. We are a long, long way beyond "First, do no harm."

But Kwarteng is also very replaceable.

However:

Liz Truss is extraordinarily stupid. I honestly don't know if it will occur to her to sacrifice him. If she's sensible she will; but 'sensible' is not a word I associate with Liz Truss.

The other option, of course, is an early general election being called, for the seven-hundred-and-fifteenth time in the last decade I stg. However, Tories only call for those if they stand a chance of winning.

One poll yesterday put Labour thirty-three points ahead of the Tories.

To put that into perspective, if that were to translate into a GE performance, the outcome of the vote would leave the Tories with...

THREE SEATS.

But! Of course! It's not so simple anyway:

That was an opinion poll, and those are always more extreme than an actual vote because people use them to express dissatisfaction. A vote would not be that extreme.

That was one of several polls yesterday. If we take an average, the actual figures are:

Labour are nineteen points ahead of the Tories.

Would you like some context?

In 1999 when Tony Blair won his landslide Labour victory - the greatest Labour lead in recent history - do you know what his polling lead was?

Twelve points.

Lol

So it is vanishingly unlikely the Tories will call a GE themselves. Their only hope now is that they can somehow do a good enough job to fix their party and win public confidence back before the next GE, which will be no later than January 2025.

In ENTIRELY UNRELATED NEWS I'm sure, Labour have just declared that they are backing a change to a proportional representation voting system in place of the UK's archaic first past the post system. Funny that.

[litheammunition]

The worst fans in the world?

Welcome to England

The UK government is racist. Let’s not beat around the bush. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, is on record making racist jokes in the recent past. He and his cabinet, despite being almost all first or second generation immigrants, are pushing xenophobic, isolationist policies. They are doing their best to undermine everything that made this country worth being proud of. I have spoken against them at length on this blog.

But that doesn’t make the whole country racist. In fact, at least half of the country probably despise them. Even in their recent electoral success, they got fewer than 14 million votes, in a country with population of about 67 million. They only lead in age groups over 45, and trail in the young, working class, football-loving public. The whole election was portrayed as between two major parties, and the other one had been accused of anti-Semitism. Some voters actually went Tory in order to be anti-racist. It’s complicated.

Some fans of the England football team are racist. That’s disappointing, but no surprise. England, like all countries, has some racists living in it. The people who are racist tend to be nationalists, and tend to be fans of the national team. But there is nothing inherently racist about supporting England. There are tens of millions of non-racist England fans who are every bit as appalled by racism as anyone in the world. More, perhaps, because it’s closer to home.

England is a multicultural nation. In previous years, I was able to watch World Cup games in bars and enjoy the atmosphere of fans of the Netherlands or Colombia there passionately cheering their team on. Covid makes everything worse, but my Welsh and Italian neighbours were flying their colours and discussing their team’s chances with the English side by side. I watched the final with a French fan, who wanted revenge for Italy’s last tournament win: another penalty shoot-out after a one-all draw, helped by the sending off of star player Zidane. That incident was allegedly provoked by an Italian player calling his Algerian mother a terrorist, so there are still sore feelings there.

Meet the team

But the England team are about as far from racist as it is possible to be. In recent years, Raheem Sterling has taken it upon himself to be a vocal campaigner against racism in sport, and has been widely lauded for his work promoting racial equality. The England team have led the push for teams to take the knee in the Euros in protest against racism, despite heavy opposition from right-wing politicians who said they would boycott England games as a result. 

If you hate the right-wing Tory government, you support this England team. Just today, Tyrone Mings has called out the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, for her previous comments. Marcus Rashford has led campaigns to combat austerity,  gone toe-to-toe with the Prime Minister on multiple occasions, and won. He had ensured that thousands of children in poverty are fed, whether by donating from his own pocket, working to coordinate local businesses and food banks, or pressuring the government so hard they backed down.

For a progressive, anti-racist fan, this England team are incredibly easy to love. Even the manager, Gareth Southgate, promotes their campaigning for social justice. When the right-wingers complained about taking the knee and telling footballers to stay out of politics, putting political pressure on the team, he wrote an open letter to the nation defending them.

I know my voice carries weight, not because of who I am but because of the position that I hold. At home, I’m below the kids and the dogs in the pecking order but publicly I am the England men’s football team manager. I have a responsibility to the wider community to use my voice, and so do the players.

It’s their duty to continue to interact with the public on matters such as equality, inclusivity and racial injustice, while using the power of their voices to help put debates on the table, raise awareness and educate.

By contrast, the people who hate this England team the most are the racists, the Tories, the Brexiteers who don’t like these young, working class black lads talking back to them. They write biased headlines and try to organise a boycott of the games, predicting England will go out early because of their anti-racism posturing. The rest of us stand with players and love them all the more for it.

Never stopped me dreaming

They are a likeable group, one of the youngest in the tournament, and talented too. There’s no denying that, when seven members of the squad started the Champions League final the month before. Another four English players started for Manchester United in the Europa League final, with two England squad members on the bench. It was easy to get emotionally invested, and start to hope that at last we had a team that could do us proud after so many years of hurt and disappointment.

But when England fans started getting enthusiastic and looking forward to the tournament, other fans began the negativity. A section of the fans of the Ireland national team, which failed to qualify for Euro 2020, joined those of Scotland and Wales in mobbing all social media posts about England with insults and attempts to bring that excitement down. 

Every take was accused of ‘typical English arrogance’. Articles about the draw, including who England might play if they made it out of the group? That was paraded around as a prime example of arrogance, even if every other country was doing the same, because the draw was all we had to speculate about at that stage. 

Articles worried that England would go out in the first knockout round, unable to beat better sides like France and Portugal, and would be better off coming second in the group to avoid them? That was called even more arrogant. That’s right - if you’re English, even being afraid of teams you respect as better than you is apparently arrogant. I wonder what they think the opposite of arrogance would look like.

Other teams were more bullish. I saw plenty of France fans saying they were going to follow the 2018 World Cup with another victory, and most English punters were happy to agree, bowing before their obvious superiority. I saw a lot of Scotland fans, drawn in the same group of England, saying they would thrash their southern neighbours. Many Welsh fans were still going on about their semi-final run five years ago, saying they would go further than England again, to which English fans (including myself) looked at the draw and gloomily agreed.

I, together with many England fans, fully expected to go out in the Round of 16. A few suggested the quarter finals, or tentatively proposed that England were arguably in the top four sides in the tournament, so might make the semis. I don’t remember any serious expectation of making the final, let alone winning it. We’ve been burnt far too many times before for that. All those years of hurt have bred a nation of pessimists, most of whom can’t ever remember seeing their side make a final. There was no ‘entitlement’ from a fanbase like that. They could dream, but they had no reason to expect.

Still, the fanbase were attacked as arrogant and obnoxious on all of these posts, told that they were entitled if they hoped for a quarter final, told this was typical English egotism, as if every other decent footballing nation wasn’t hoping for the same. Perhaps the abusive Scottish or Irish fans had no visibility of those other nations and their fans, and little experience of major tournaments or hope for themselves, so they made an honest misunderstanding. Or perhaps they just wanted to get some jabs in.

Want some proof?  When BBC pundits were asked to predict a winner, twelve said France, two Belgium, one Italy. Germany, Portugal, even Turkey were mentioned, but none of them thought England. The same happened with other journalists: FourFourTwo’s writers settled on France (5), Belgium (2) and Portugal (1). The Athletic were the same. Nobody actually thought England would win it, but the funny thing is that, if they had, they would have been one of the closest.

Imagine that. If, before the tournament, a pundit had unironically suggested England would reach the final, play 120 minutes and lose by one penalty, having been leading for most of the game (and going 2-1 up in the shootout), they would have been laughed at as wildly optimistic. But even that wouldn’t have been ‘arrogant’ or ‘entitled’... because they would have been right. 

The hype inevitably ramped up as the tournament approached, but then quickly fizzled out when the names on the team sheet were replaced by actually watching England play. Just like the nation, the team were set up with a pessimist’s strategy, a defensive line-up to ward against other teams rather than going gung-ho and thinking we could smash them. 

There is a sense that the stars aligned for England this time. They didn’t. Stars Rashford and Sterling were badly out of form, and unable to even warm up with the team before the tournament, as all of those European finalists were too late to arrive for the warm-up games. Those matches were uncomfortably tight, missing the core of the team, seeing pundit’s favourite Trent Alexander-Arnold injured and withdrawn from the squad, and with key players Jordan Henderson, Harry Maguire and Jack Grealish already ruled out of starting the opening games through injury. By the time the opening ceremony came around, nobody was in any position to feel confident.

Bad behaviour

England made it out of the group with quiet dignity, playing cautious football against opponents offered a lot of respect. In fact, when Scotland game to London to play their game, the headlines were all about the Scottish fans, as 20,000 travelled to London despite only being allowed 2,600 seats, and one man wearing nothing but a kilt inadvertently flashing commuters on the Tube.

The contentious point at this stage was still taking the knee. The England team were booed for doing so, by their own right-wing fans as well as their cousins across Europe. In their previous game, against Poland, Twitter was full of Polish fans mocking the English players for kneeling and being so weak as to be so sensitive about racism. England kneeled anyway, and beat them. They didn’t seem like the bad guys of Europe then.

Scotland were originally going to kneel, then decided not to when it became politically controversial, switching to standing against racism instead, then did another U-turn under public outrage to compromise and kneel in solidarity for the England game. That was a nice touch, but the England players holding firm to their convictions was nicer. 

It’s worth pointing out at this stage that the booers were a minority. In fact, a YouGov poll on 10 June found that 54% of English fans supported taking the knee, compared to 39% opposed. The relevant numbers for Scotland were 49% and 42%. Of the nine nations surveyed, they were one of only two where the anti-racism gesture didn’t have a majority of support. 

The other racism narrative in the group concerned the Czech Republic. Scottish club Rangers had recently played Slavia Prague, and Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara was allegedly racially abused by one of the Czech players. He apparently called him ‘a fucking monkey’. With Scotland playing the Czechs in their first game, that was obviously the story in the build up. 

It wasn’t helped by fellow Czech player Tomas Soucek, who gave an interview ahead of the tournament defending his teammate banned for that abuse, and complaining that the UK is too sensitive to racism.

I fought for Ondrej all the time. I believe that he did not tell him anything racist, no one proved anything about him.

“Yet a lot of people in the UK condemned him and he received a heavy sentence of ten matches from UEFA. I found it absurd. I know him so well that I can’t imagine him saying anything racist.

“I see how sensitive the British are to racism every day. Two cultures collide because we think a little differently than they do.

“Of course, it’s right they want to fight racism, but sometimes they go to such extremes that, in my opinion, it’s counterproductive.”

Again, the English didn’t seem like the racist villains of Europe then. Quite the opposite. Heck, even before that game, Marko Arnautovic scored for Austria in their opening match and celebrated by using racial slurs against two North Macedonian players, resulting in a one game ban for racism. Compared to all of that, England’s diverse, young, progressive team of explicit anti-racism activists seemed pretty admirable.

Knock-out blows

Then things worsened. England drew Germany in the first knockout round, and a wave of jingoism was dredged up from the depths of World War II. Songs were sung about the war, nationalistic nostalgia for old battles, when the opposition tried to invade and they were sent soundly packing by our plucky troops. It was insensitive and stupid, but the same description applies equally to the Scottish national anthem sung with gusto before the England game, or literally any of the build up from the Scottish side.

Anthems were the problem. A minority of stupid England fans started taking the atmosphere too far, booing during the German national anthem before the game began. It was embarrassing and disrespectful. Of course, they aren’t the first to do it. In the 2011 Nations Cup, one of the most recent tournaments Scotland and Ireland have played in, the fans of both teams booed throughout God Save the Queen. The Scottish fans were previously condemned by the Irish FA for doing the same thing in 2008.

But the knockout stages were also where another form of abuse really took hold. Even the England fans who booed the anthems let the game go once it was done. They didn’t spend the next few days searching for Germany or Ukraine or Denmark fans to mock and tear away any positive sentiment. But that’s exactly what Scottish and Irish fans did to England fans, to the extent that it was impossible to enjoy a positive post about England without it being drowned in negativity and insults.

Rivalry is one thing. England have a rivalry with Germany, even though of course Germany don’t see England as their real rivals, in a similar way to England’s relationship with the other Home Nations. But England fans weren’t spending most of their energy pleading for Germany to fail, didn’t loudly support France against Germany, change their social media names to the French flag, searching through German tags to jeer that they were going to get thrashed, and rush to rub it in when they lost. They didn’t do that to Wales when they played Denmark, and didn’t do it to anyone.

Instead, they let them have nice things, and focused on the positive support of their own team, even if some idiots took things too far on the actual matchday. These keyboard warriors from Ireland and Scotland, on the other hand, were purely negative throughout, or at least from the moment of Scotland’s exit. They were hear to boo not only the English anthem, but every single England press briefing, training session, team photo... English support pages couldn't post anything without abuse from trolls. A couple of anthems is nothing to that all-consuming bitterness.

On the next Tuesday, with the tournament finished and done, it was an unrelated post by the England women's team building up excitement for their upcoming pictures, attracting a gang of people with Italian flags in their names to mock them for their male counterparts’ defeat. Why seek it out? Would England fans do that if their team had won the final, or would they just be ecstatic celebrating amongst themselves? Isn't that enough, without having to kick others whilst they're down?

On the Wednesday, they had been poring over footage of the England team collecting their silver medals, and I was greeted that morning with a Twitter filled with complaints that they had taken them off afterwards: England were held up for criticism of their childish behaviour, proving they didn’t care about fair play and sportsmanship. But that’s traditional for finalists to do, both in England and Italy. Anyone who actually watches football, other than just watching the England games to criticism them, would known that. 

In fact, anyone with empathy would understand it. After running themselves into the ground for over two hours and losing with the heartbreaking last penalty, the players were willing to queue with grace and collect their medal out of respect, but they don’t exactly then want to walk around with the ‘we lost’ around their necks when they were on the verge of tears. There will be time to look back and treasure it later, when it doesn’t hurt quite so much. They have the right to grieve and process it in their own time. Someone seeing them as young human beings, rather than national caricatures, might understand that.

But I don’t blame the Italians for these comments. Despite the flags in their profiles, I doubt those people were actually Italian, because many Irish, Scottish and Welsh fans were all dressing up in green white and red by this stage, just as they had worn a Denmark flag, and a Ukraine flag, and a German flag before that. James McClean, an Irish player whose team weren’t good enough to make the tournament, even bought a Germany shirt to wear and posted a picture stating his wish for England to fail.

Before each game, Twitter was filled with people telling me England were about to get thrashed by [opposition of the day], and that the world would laugh at us when we were. It wasn’t a happy environment. I might suggest that the most toxic fanbase in Europe isn't one who boos opposition for a game then forgets about them, but one who then stalks them throughout the tournament, desperately hoping for them to fail, fingers trembling to launch the abuse and rub salt into their wounds in the moment it hurt the most. 

I get picking another team to support. Irish fans not having a horse in the race takes some of the interest out of the tournament, so it makes sense to have a bit of fun by adopting another team to support. The last time England failed to qualify, in Euro 2008, I adopted Romania as underdogs. But this isn’t that. This is the opposite: not choosing another horse to cheer on, but choosing the fences, hoping that one specific horse falls and breaks its leg so you can laugh at it. Anti-supporting. Pure negativity. This isn’t ‘a bit of fun’, it’s straight-up toxic.

Taking a dive

Things grew even worse after the Denmark game. Let’s be clear: England dominated the match. Possession was 60:40. They had 20 shots, 10 on target, compared to Denmark’s 6 and 3 on target. They could have had more, but they massively eased off after scoring the winning goal. They also had the moral high ground, given that Denmark committed more than twice the number of fouls (21 to 10. On both counts, they probably deserved to win.

But the match was ultimately won due to a rebound from an England penalty, awarded due to what was perceived as a soft foul on Sterling. From there, the discourse ramped up another notch. England were now branded as cheats. The anti-Sterling hate campaign started, every England post filled with newly-Italian, previously-Denmark fans saying he and Kane were talentless divers who could only win by cheating. The anti-fans had been struggling to find a justification for their vendetta, especially as that pre-tournament English ‘arrogance’ had been borne out by a run to the final, but now they found one.

Dirty, cheating England. Of course, the opposite is true. They were literally criticised in previous tournaments for being too nice, too polite, not street-wise enough, whilst other teams had the edge it takes to win. Their position in the Fair Play table at previous European Championships was as follows:

Euro 2000: 1st Euro 2004: 2nd Euro 2008: DNQ Euro 2012: 3rd Euro 2016: 2nd

Now they have wised up, and they are criticised for doing the same things that other teams do. In the same match, Denmark’s only goal came from a free-kick from an equally soft foul (Norgaard going to ground under no provocation), and Denmark players broke the laws of the game when the free-kick was taken in disrupting the England wall. But of course the anti-fans only see one thing.

It was even funnier that they used these tirades about cheating, diving England as their justification to support Italy to thrash them in the final, when literally the previous game had seen Italian striker Ciro Immobile blatantly dive and lie down in the penalty box until miraculously recovering when a goal went in. Italy vice captain Leonardo Bonucci even had the gall to come out and justify it, claiming that the happiness of the goal had the power to make the pain go away. 

But again, the anti-fans betray that they only watch the England games to find things to abuse them for, rather than just enjoying the tournament or checking out the teams they now decide to support. One even commented on the Sterling penalty to say ‘if an Italian player did this, the English pundits would be calling for their head’... when an Italian player had literally just done it, and the reaction in England had been mostly amusement. 

Of the four BBC pundits shown the clip, only Alan Shearer was not amused. Even then, he was teased by the other three, who claimed he would have done the same. So much for the implication that England pundits don’t English players dive - in fact, these anti-fans are betraying the exact opposite bias. This is also an interestingly novel use of a hypothetical, to describe a situation which literally just happened and went the other way. The anti-fans are now imagining their own separate realities to get angry about.

Together with the claim that England were the cheats of the tournament, the penalty let to claims that the whole thing was rigged for England to win, that they were the team benefitting from referee bias. Again, that claim is laughable given that England actually had a stronger penalty claim denied in the same game, and didn’t get anything when Sterling was taken down on runs into the box in the Germany game either.

England’s history in major tournaments since 1966 has involved major refereeing decisions going against them in half of the games where they were knocked out. Goals were contentiously disallowed in 1998, 2004 and 2010, Maradona’s famous handball was allowed, and England also had players sent off in 1998 and 2006. The idea that they benefit from a refereeing conspiracy is ludicrous.

The only really crime was committed by one England fan, who it emerged had shone a laser pen at the Danish goalkeeper in an attempt to put him off for the penalty. Of course, he saved the penalty, so it didn’t work and the idea England only won through cheating again falls flat. But still the abuse came raining in, using that as the latest excuse to call the England squad talentless cheats. 

When that didn’t quite do it, the anti-fans pulled out the big guns, and said they had to will England to fail because of the country’s racism and colonial past. I mean, it’s the Euros. All of the big sides were European colonial nations. In fact, most of England’s knockout opponents - Germany, Denmark, Italy - had more a history of invading England than the other way around, which makes that moral basis a bit questionable.

The racism claim is similarly weak as an excuse for choosing Italy over England, when Italian football has long been notorious for its racism issue. AC Milan players Tiemoue Bakayoko and Franck Kessie were racially abused in April 2019, the same month as Juventus player Moise Kean. In September 2019, Romelu Lukaku was the victim. In November 2019, Mario Balotelli suffered the same. The offending clubs were not punished by the league or Italian FA. In fact, the problem seems to go all the way to the top.

“I remember that when we were young, we also booed players with normal, white skin,” the Lazio president said in response. “Booing doesn’t always have a discriminatory connotation.”

“It is wrong if someone boos black footballers, but it is even more wrong when someone who earns €3 million drops into the area and is also happy to gain a penalty,” said the head of the Italian Olympic committee.

In response to the Balotelli incident, where he reacted to racial abuse by throwing the ball into the crowd, the manager of Lecce said that “racism must not be exploited”, claiming that racial discrimination is linked to the players’ behaviour on the field and justified in the event that the behaviour is negative.

In response to the Kean incident, where the player celebrated a goal in front of the fans with his arms outstretched and was racially abused, Juventus and Italy player Bonucci came out to say something similar. “The blame is 50-50,″ he said. “He could have done it differently.” England player and anti-racism campaigner Raheem Sterling called him out for that, having recently been racially abused when playing for England against Montenegro and stood up for himself against the rival fans.

In response to the Lukaku incident, where he was subjected to monkey noises,  a statement from the fan group of his own club Inter Milan said “We are sorry you thought what happened in Cagliari was racist. You have to understand that Italy is not like many other north European countries where racism is a real problem.” and argued the monkey chants should be taken as a form of respect.

The examples are everywhere: monkey chants, even bananas thrown in the pitch. A major Italian sports paper previewed a match between Roma and Inter with caricatures of two black players and the headline ‘Black Friday’. When Serie A was finally pressured into running an anti-racism campaign, they caused even more offence by using monkeys on the posters. A pundit on Italian TV said the only way to stop Lukaku was to give him ten bananas to eat.

When English fans have travelled to Italy in recent years, they have been stabbed by hardcore fans of the Italian teams. Rome is notorious for it. When Liverpool visited Naples for a Champions League game in September 2019, fans were attacked by a group of men wielding belts and one was hospitalised. Nothing had changed since the visit to the same city in 2010, when Naples fans went out hunting for Liverpool fans with knives. 

Perhaps most famously, Liverpool fan Sean Cox was put into a coma after a visit to Rome, where a group of 50 or 60 Italian fans with balaclavas and belts roamed the city looking to do exactly that. Any basic search for Italian club ‘ultras’ reveals that they are far more extreme than any English hooliganism. The above are just the stories we hear about because English fans were the victims. Liverpool fans don’t get this sort of treatment when they go to Manchester for the biggest rivalry in English football.  In fact, the closest in the British Isles is probably the Old Firm derby in Scotland, which are now usually played in the afternoon because evening games were marked by sectarian and tribal violence. 

Even in the past year, following the Kamara incident above, Rangers players including him were filmed celebrating their trophy win by allegedly singing a version of Sweet Caroline with the lyrics ‘Fuck the Pope’. This would be a reference to the sectarian conflict between the traditionally Protestant Rangers and the traditionally Catholic Celtic, and led to a renewal of abuse of Kamara from Celtic fans on social media, with many retracting any sympathy they’d had and saying he deserved the racism.

Before this week, the worst harassment of an England player in recent memory was probably that of Declan Rice, who chose England over Ireland after being eligible for both and received death threats from Irish fans against him and his family. It’s convenient for these Scottish and Ireland fans to now act like only England’s fanbase has its hardcore idiots, and use that sense of superiority to get away from acknowledging their own problems.

But even if Scotland and Ireland were perfect, claiming that the world was supporting Italy against England due to racism and violence would look stupid in the context of the examples above. None of those things are routinely seen in English football, they are punished hard where they do happen, and the authorities certainly know better. 

It’s therefore more than a little strange to see these anti-fans going on about how they are rooting for England - a diverse, anti-racist team - to fail because England is racist, when that means supporting Italy and wearing their colours instead. Sterling played for England against Bonucci for Italy. Who are the anti-racists cheering on? Again, it’s clear that these justifications are post-hoc and they just want an excuse to spew hate with a free pass.

The Final Insult

Unlike the Denmark game, England were outplayed against Italy. However, like the Denmark game, they maintained the moral upper hand, committing 13 fouls compared to 21 for a ‘dirty, cheating’ Italian side, five of whom received yellow cards for their aggressive and cynical fouling. There could have been reds, but again the refereeing decisions didn’t go England’s way. Watch the clip of Chiellini grabbing Bukayo Saka by the collar as he was through on goal, choking a 19 year old to cheat and stop him scoring. Or watch Jorginho stamp on Jack Grealish with his studs out.

Do the anti-fans anti-supporting England as the bad guys still believe that, if they ever did? There was no admission they were wrong. Having criticised England for playing ‘smart’ against Denmark and winning, did those people watch England play nobly against Italy and lose and commend them for at least being the good guys, and sympathise with them? No, they jumped on the first chance to mock them as pathetic losers.

It became clear, if it wasn’t already, that their only agenda was hatred and bitterness. The various reasons given were just a way to dress it up to be socially acceptable. It wasn’t anti-racism, if they targeted Sterling after the Denmark game and cheered on Bonucci as he scored both the equalising goal and the equalising penalty for Italy, then jeered the three young black men who missed for England and mocked them alongside the racists.

It was the worst possible way England could have gone out, Rashford missing the decisive penalty, giving new life to his knee-boycotting right-wing opponents who had been humbled into silence by the England team’s success without their support, followed by two other black players. My heart sank, and not just from the defeat: I knew it would embolden the disgusting racists to come crawling back out of the woodwork, having been kept quiet by the brilliance of this loveable, diverse team, and of Sterling in particular. 

England were uniting the country against the racist right, but going out this way gave them everything they needed to sow division again. That’s what I’d been trying to tell the anti-fans, who were rooting for these same players to fail, whilst claiming anti-racism as the reason. They didn’t care. They just wanted an excuse for their obsessive, aggressive nationalist crusade, and were dressing it up in sheep’s clothing in any way they could.

As with the abuse of Sterling and anti-support of the England team, their nationalism ultimately found itself aligned with racists in England and abroad, whilst the rest of us - the team and the moderate, supportive public - were assailed from both sides. We and the team hate English racists more than anyone, because we have to live with them. If anyone actually cared about opposing them, they would champion and support the team standing against them, and wish Rashford score the winning penalty to shut them up. 

Nothing would have done more to hurt England racism than that. Rashford would have cemented his national treasure status, and been able to do even more good. No politician would dare argue with the country’s hero. Those who had campaigned against him and wanted to boycott England for taking the knee would have been disgraced and humbled. 

There is a story told of France’s World Cup win in 1998, when a diverse team united the country in their victory, striking a blow against racism and humiliating the far-right politicians who had criticised the squad (just as those in England did this year).

The World Cup was a particular embarrassment for Le Pen, who had called the French side "unworthy" representatives who did not even know the words of "La Marseillaise".

France's World Cup hero Zinedine Zidane was a member of the marginalised group targeted by Le Pen in the south of France. The son of Algerian immigrants, Zidane had grown up on the tough housing estates of Marseilles, where the National Front enjoyed significant political support.

Yet after his two goals in the final more than a million people gathered on Paris's Champs-Elysées to chant Zidane's name.

In defeat, the opposite is true. If nothing would hurt English racism more than Rashford scoring the winning penalty, nothing would inflame it more than him missing, which is what happened. Worse, he was followed by two other black players who had their penalties saved, confirming England’s defeat. All of the racists, the right-wingers who had been furiously silenced by the success of this multi-cultural, kneeling, outspoken team, came for their heads. 

It was disgusting to see. The sheer volume of racially-charged abuse directed towards these players, even if they hadn’t been young, even if they hadn’t been good, loveable guys, was more upsetting than the defeat itself had been. At least the players losing with dignity, comforting each other, had left me with some pride in the national team. The aftermath wiped that national pride away. 

I was sickened, I was depressed, but one emotion I didn’t feel was surprise. From the moment Rashford missed, there was a certain sick inevitability about the backlash I knew he would receive. When Saka and Sancho followed, and England’s defeat was confirmed, my first words were that this was the worst possible way it could have happened. I was heartbroken for them, knowing that the blame would weigh on them for years. and knowing that the racists would have a field day.

It wasn’t hard to predict. When France were knocked out by Switzerland the week before, with Kylian Mbappé failing to convert the decisive penalty, he was showered in racist abuse. One week later, Rashford, Sancho and Saka suffered the same fate. That was one reason why I couldn’t understand people rooting for them to miss, unless you were Italian. Why would you wish that fate on anyone, let alone these likeable young guys trying to do some good in the world? 

But the anti-fans did just that, jeering Rashford and laughing at his miss, not because of who he was or anything he’d done, but because of nationalism. Pure hatred of an admirable young black man based on his nationality. They cheered the miss, just as they’d cheered Bonucci’s goal. They cheered for the anti-racists to lose, and so the racists won, and they celebrated and mocked the anti-racists side by side. Four days later, England posts are still met with taunts for missing the penalties from these anti-fans, who have nothing better to do but lash out at teams that went further than theirs.

All of that might not be so deplorable, if these people weren’t using anti-racism as their justification, saying they wanted England to fail because England = racist. Well, the reaction to the final proved that England has racists, as I said at the start. But it also proved that wanting the England national team to fail is the opposite way to go about that. It didn’t defeat racism, it emboldened it, and rather than offer support to the victims the anti-fans joined in with their own anti-England taunts to make their misery even worse.

They might have deluded themselves that it’s punching up, but it’s punching down. Punishing the victims of racism for the racism of their neighbours, when they are the ones who have to deal with it. Judging us all the same in their hatred for our nationality, with no empathy for the anti-racists in England, no realisation we have more in common than we do to racists anywhere, because bolstering their sense of national superiority is more important.

I’ve seen similar pleas from the United States. The northern states mock the south as a racist, right-wing backwater. But good people live in the south. Even if the stereotype is true, it follows that there are victims of racism living in the south. How are they helped by calling their home a backwater? If it is racist, they look north for support, only to see people mocking the other side of their identity, the cultures and communities they love. National hate doesn’t counter racist hate, it supplements it.

People in DC sneering at Virginia doesn’t help, it just further entrenches the racists there to combat that smug superiority with their own supremacist identity, and ensures the rest are attacked on both fronts, having to live with racists and having their own home mocked as racist by outsiders, and encourages the people in DC to overlook problems on their own doorstep. What helps is unity, support, working to fight these problems together, not a game of ‘we’re better than you’.

Seriously, whose first reaction to racism is to use it to score points, to prove their own superiority? Some have used it as an excuse to mock 'the English', others have used it as an excuse to put down 'football fans', painting them all with the same brush to confirm their own existing prejudices. One is nationalism, one is classism. Neither are anti-racism activism. It’s purely an exercise in ego, smugly announcing the superiority of your nationality or class. It doesn't help the victims, who belong to that same group you are belittling. Saka is not consoled by being told everyone hates the English. Sancho isn't comforted by being told football fans are animals. That's just insulting them for a second time.

Of course, the abuse wasn’t just from English fans. Plenty of Italians are their new supporters joined in calling the players useless monkeys, anti-English nationalism hitting those extremes just as English nationalism was. It turns out that the tribal jingoism of these campaigns are always dangerous fires to stoke. Research by anti-racism campaign Kick it Out found that 70% of racist abuse in English football is sent from overseas.

“These are not football fans,” he says. “They are people who have never been inside an English football ground.” In part that’s because – while our problem with racism is acute – we don’t have a monopoly on being morons. Italian and French football fans are as likely, if not more likely, to abuse black players with monkey emojis.

None of this is in any way to deny or dilute the sheer awfulness of the racism displayed by English fans. I condemn that in the strongest possible terms, and as a country we need to be better. It is simply to point out that those using this as an excuse to dunk on the English as a racist, hate-worthy nation are factually - as well as morally - wrong.

There is just this idea, particularly amongst Irish and Scottish fans who only look as far as England and are completely ignorant of what goes on in comparable countries, or people who tuned in for this tournament and are reacting to behaviours (such as the silver medals above) as if England invented them for the first time. 

Yes, some England fans are racist towards players, and it’s awful. Yes, some England fans are hooligans, and it’s awful. But go back and read some of those examples from Italy above, and tell me if that’s a good reason to uniquely condemn England, or to support Italy against them. Did anybody outside Wembley get stabbed?

It’s also not even just Italy. By the same token, I don’t think racism or violence are an ‘Italian problem’, just as it’s wrong to see them as an English problem. In March 2019 a Manchester United fan was stabbed in Paris after a PSG game. The previous European Championships, held in France, saw England fans critically injured after assaults from Russia fans, followed by violence from Croatian and Turkish fans after their games against the Czech Republic and Spain.

In the 2018 World Cup, the Serbia and Switzerland teams were punished for nationalist gestures referencing the Serbia-Albania conflict. Mexican fans directed homophobic abuse towards Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who had spoken against homophobia. When France won the tournament, there was rioting back home and two people died. This year, the same happened in Italy. But people only see the crowds outside Wembley and shake their head at hooliganism as this uniquely English character flaw, without bothering to check the international news.

England fans are given this reputation, but they are by no means an outlier or exceptional in this. The anti-fan nationalists will conveniently forget incidents of fan aggression in their own countries, and either feign or display their ignorance of England’s opponents by backing them regardless of what their own fans and players are like, because their principles and judgement only apply when England is in the dock.

Look at the Polish and Czech and Austrian examples this year, even without the Serbia and Switzerland and France and Russia and Mexico and Turkey and Croatia examples from the last couple of tournaments. In many of those, England fans are sneered at by a lot of Europe not because they’re seen as racist, but because they’re seen as too sensitive to racism. When anti-fans say ‘everyone hates England’ and align themselves with that, they’re not aligning themselves against racism, just against England.

When supporting England’s opponents, nobody did the slightest research on Ukraine, who were issued a stadium ban by UEFA in response to racist abuse and the use of laser pointers in a Euro 2016 qualifying game. That came just two days after Ukrainian champions Dynamo Kiev were forced to play two European games without fans after racist abuse of Chelsea players. Nothing had improved by March 2019, when Chelsea again visited and player Callum Hudson-Odoi was racially abused.

In November 2019, a Brazilian player was subjected to monkey chants in a Ukrainian league game, and stuck his middle finger up to the racists in return. The response of the Ukrainian authorities was to ban him for the next game. But the anti-fans were happy to show how opposed they were to English racism by supporting Ukraine against them.

Even Germany have had a chequered recent past. Mesut Ozil, named the Germany player of the year in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2016, quit the national team in 2018 over perceived racism in the German football association, having been scapegoated and received abuse and threats from German fans. "I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose," he said. The next year, German players Leroy Sane and Ilkay Gundogan were racially harassed whilst playing for the national team.

UEFA has its own issues. At a tournament during pride month, they have completely failed to stand up to the homophobia of certain host countries, even banning Germany from doing it by decorating their stadium in rainbow colours. When Neuer chose to wear a rainbow captain’s armband instead, they tried to ban that too, until U-turning under pressure. When Germany played England, Harry Kane wore a rainbow armband in solidarity. 

But again, England are the villains of Europe, and we are on the moral high ground with everybody else against them. Never mind that Russia, Hungary, Turkey are all in this tournament. UEFA have again given hosting duties to Azerbaijan, as they did for the Europa League final in May 2019, leading to an Armenian Arsenal player not being able to attend or play. This time the authorities just confiscated a fan’s rainbow flags.

You have to put England fans booing anthems into context. The previous time they were charged for it was in a game against Bulgaria in 2019, when both teams were punished by UEFA. England were charged for booing the anthem. Bulgaria were charged for booing them anthem, throwing objects, making monkey noises towards Rashford, Mings and Sterling, and doing Nazi salutes. But the anti-fans would just see England’s booing and support Bulgaria against them.

If you want to pretend that your hatred of England is based on politics, and devote all of your campaigning to that hatred, and support these other countries against them, you betray your ignorance. The world is full of awfulness. If you think it’s an England thing, you haven’t been paying attention.

Excuses, excuses

So now we all hate England and want them to fail because England is a racist country. That clears that up. We were all hating England and wanting them to fail because they were arrogant and entitled, and then it was because they were disrespectful, and then it was because they were cheats, but now we’ve found a much stronger excuse for own own nationalism, for doing what we wanted to do anyway.

I know that this hatred isn’t about Sterling’s dive, or the booing of the German anthem, or any of that. I know because it started before a ball was kicked, and even before that ball was delivered by a remote control car. Fans of the Ireland national team, who lost to Slovakia in their first play-off game, were voicing their resentment way back when the squad was announced. Fans of the Scotland national team, who scraped through their own play-offs but then went out at the bottom of their group, joined them soon afterwards, donning Germany shirts before their own defeated players had even changed out of theirs.

That is not normal. A rivalry between Scotland and England in Group D was expected, sure. We saw something similar with England and Wales in Euro 2016, with a build up to their game. But there was no need for the Wales team to wildly celebrate England’s getting knocked out in the next round as if they’d just won the whole thing. 

The English were largely happy to watch and cheer them on rather than ordering Belgium flags and doing all they could to ruin their fun. After all, a large proportion of the Wales squad hailed from England, which was another reason tribal nationalism was difficult to support. I wonder how Che Adams, Scotland’s best attacking threat, would feel to read all of these abusive comments about the country he was born in, grew up in, and has lived in all his life.

He was happy to identify as English right up to March 2021, when the Scottish FA offered him a chance to start in Euro 2020. He was eligible thanks to his maternal grandmother, but had opted to play for England in 2015 and actually turned down Scotland when they approached him in 2017. It seems that only qualifying for an international tournament has turned him Scottish.

It’s funny how fans are happy to hate and attack a whole nationality, but still cheer them on when they’re playing for them. There’s another parallel with the racists there: as Ozil said, he is German when they win, but an immigrant otherwise. England’s penalty takers learnt that this country’s racist underbelly are sadly no different, and they are only willing to respect diversity whilst it serves them.

Of course, England’s squad is one of the most diverse in the tournament, also filled with first, second, and third generation immigrants. Kane, Sterling, Saka, Rashford, Grealish, Sancho, Rice, Phillips, Walker, and Maguire all played a part in the semi or final, having been eligible to play for another team, and the vast majority of England fans have taken the whole squad into their hearts. Until the abuse of the penalty takers by a small minority, this diverse team were beloved across the nation.

Why wouldn’t they be? The players and manager have shown themselves to be decent, dignified, respectful people. I read Raheem Sterling’s story, and wonder how these anti-fans can want him to fail with such aggression. I look at Gareth Southgate’s journey, being scapegoated as the penalty failure in Euro 1996, and growing to become the eloquent, compassionate, humble leader he is today. The way he hugged a crying Saka, and came out in the press conference to take the bullet for his players, was incredibly emotional for anyone with empathy. 

(Perhaps Southgate can be contrasted with the Wales manager Ryan Giggs, if you want to read up on the episode where he tore apart his family by cheating on his wife and trying to censor the press and sue Twitter to cover it up, or the one when he tore apart his other family by repeatedly sleeping with his brother’s wife, including getting her pregnant weeks before their wedding, and leaving his brother estranged from their mum because she chose Ryan and his millions over the victim of their feud, or the current news stories concerning his appearances in court on charges of domestic violence and abuse.)

But of course the anti-fans missed it. Whilst the rest of us were watching Kalvin Phillips, who had covered the most distance of any player in the tournament, make the effort after 120 minutes to run and console Saka, they were rushing to mock the 19 year old for his failure, and mock England for another heartbreak.  He was still lost in the midst of the Italian celebrations whilst jubilant haters were rubbing it in, once again fighting side by side with the racists mocking him too.

High horses, white horses

Of course, it’s no surprise that England had loved this diverse team. They were representing a diverse country, and England also had one of the most multicultural fanbases in the tournament. It feels weird to root against them on anti-racism grounds, just because such diversity also attracts racists. Regions with more immigration tend to see more anti-immigration campaigners, as we see in the US along the Mexican border, or UKIP winning their first MPs on the Kent and Essex coasts. But as mentioned with the southern states above, that doesn’t justify looking down on the whole community for having both more minorities and more racists, just because the two tend to come together.

It’s easy not to have racist abuse when you have no black players in your team.  The Ireland team colours are white as well as green. Adams, imported from England, was the first non-white player for Scotland in a tournament. It’s safe to say that if Rashford, Sancho and Saka were white, or if it had been Kane and Maguire who missed their penalties, there would have been no racial abuse in England either.

People in all white communities don’t get to look down at diverse communities, which have both minorities and racists, and call them inferior. It’s easy not to have visible racism when you have no diversity, but that doesn’t make you superior. That is itself a racist outlook. Multi-ethnic communities may have more ethnic tensions, all across the world, but you don’t get to smugly look down on them as somehow lesser than your homogeneous one.

A true anti-racist would support the diverse community, and support those suffering from racism, not tar them with the same brush on the basis of their nationality, or end up punishing black people for the same racism they have to live with. But that’s what hating the England team is. It seems perverse to abuse and hope a diverse team will fail, simply on the basis they will be subject to racist abuse if they do. But that’s what anti-supporting the England team is.

Playing politics

The thing is that they are contributing to the problem. The anti-English extreme nationalists just drive support to English extreme nationalism. If a country is constantly being mocked and attacked, told that they deserve it regardless of what they do or who they are, just based on their nationality, that will inevitably shore up a toxic version of their own national identity in defence.

It’s the same reason that support for Scottish nationalist politicians has shored up support for the nationalist right wing in England, and vice versa. The two dance around as enemies, but they benefit from each other’s presence, pointing to them as a bogeyman to paint a false dilemma. They know what they’re doing. When it’s portrayed ‘us or them’, people choose the lesser of two evils, just as fascists and communists have always thrived out of people fearing the other group, and encouraged that fear as a recruitment tactic.

But once you start a slinging match of ‘my country’s better than yours’, everybody loses; especially migrants and minorities. The anti-fans say they oppose the problems of racism and xenophobia, but they are actively making them worse by escalating this toxic discourse, creating a hostile, aggressive atmosphere for everyone. The best counter to English nationalism is togetherness, friendship, recognising common ties, establishing those links. You’re not opposing the Brexit mindset by taunting random English people that all of Europe hates them, you’re reinforcing it and telling them they have nowhere else to go.

It also suits foreign politicians to frame this as an English thing, because it allows them to avoid examining whether the same problems exist at home. It’s the same trick as when English politicians tried to pass BLM off as an American thing, ‘that doesn’t happen here;, and criticise the US rather than consider the skeletons in their own closet.

There have been similar takes from those snobs who look down on football anyway, seizing upon this as a way to sneer at football fans as uneducated racists, rather than realising racism is everywhere and we should all be banding together to fight it in every context. If we all have that in common, we should focus on that, rather than treating it as a competition to feel smug about and bin off whole countries as a way to avoid looking at ourselves.

Does England have a racism problem? Yes. Of course it does. Is racism an England problem? No. Most countries could do more to fight racism, and pretending otherwise abandons anti-racism for nationalism. I can say with confidence and depression that the abuse would have happened in virtually any other country in Euro 2020, had the same thing happened there. Look at the French fans abusing Mbappé the week before. Look at how some Italian fans treat black players in everyday league matches, let alone if they were the source of national disappointment at a moment they had been waiting 55 years for.

Politics isn’t even an excuse. Yes, England has a right wing, nationalist government (or technically, the UK does). But the majority backed taking the knee, even when the Prime Minister and Home Secretary were against it. Even moderate Tories have never had majority support in recent times. Their culture war nonsense does not speak for the whole population. This is also a country with a progressive recent history, at least relative to the rest of Europe, even if the current incumbents (or encumbrance) have put this progress in reverse.

Look at Ireland for context. The UK government was roundly criticised this week for cutting the rate of foreign aid, which had been steady at 0.7% of GNI (the fifth highest in the world), to 0.5% (still seventh in the world). The rate in Ireland has been 0.31%. Ireland legalised abortion in 2018, when it had been legal in England since 1968. Same-sex marriage was legalised in 2015, two years after England. According to the UNHCR, the UK had 48% more refugees per capita than Ireland in 2014, and processed 77% more asylum claims per capita between 2015 and 2017.

At no point during this period have England fans felt the need to launch a crusade against the Ireland national team, watching every qualifying game, cheering on Sweden, Belgium, Italy, in Euro 2016, wearing France shirts and cheering and jeering as they were knocked out. Because a country having less progressive politics is not a reason to do that. It would be nice if someone remembered that, now that the tide has turned.

People are now suggesting that England should be punished for the racism and fan behaviour by being prohibited from hosting another tournament for a long time. To this, I would remind them that the last tournament was hosted by Russia, this one was hosted by Russia, Azerbaijan and Hungary, and the next one will be hosted by Qatar. English politics are not enough to justify that, either. As above, it also wouldn’t exactly help Rashford, Sancho and Saka to punish them again.

None of this should come down to how contemptible Boris Johnson is, any more than it should come down to a minority of repulsive fans. As I said above, the players and manager have shown themselves to be decent, respectful people. Tens of millions of England fans are too. Judge England on them. After all, each of them does more to counter the hundreds of nationalist idiots than a hundred nationalist idiots from other countries lumping them all together with a sense of smug superiority.

It’s worth saying that I also came across a lot of decent, level-headed Scottish and Irish people replying to the abuse where they found it, saying they were happy to allow England their success and that this rabid anti-Englishness was unnerving even to them. They had often lived in England or had English friends in real life, and said they had found all the English people they actually met to be decent.

I saw some explain this was a stereotype fed by one nationalist to another, which was all they knew, having not actually interacted with the reality. They only knew the English as the Enemy, after years of political rhetoric blaming everything on Westminster, just as Johnson once blamed everything on Brussels, leading to stereotypes and xenophobia in England. As always, nationalist hatred comes out of both general public ignorance and the stoking of existing divisions for political gain.

It seems that every culture has nationalists who will scapegoat a group of people as The Other, based on race or nationality, to reinforce own sense of superiority, But we don’t fight that urge by giving into it ourselves. We fight it by reaching across borders and differences, realising that decent people on one side or the other are not in competition, measuring how many racists they have living close to them to put the other people down, but natural allies who should sympathise and show solidarity with one another.

Finally, it is worth mentioning on an upbeat note that love wins. Many anticipated the abuse and showered Rashford, Sancho and Saka in messages of support. When the mural of Rashford in his hometown was defaced by a few racist thugs, thousands rallied to decorate it in hearts and heartfelt messages. It’s important to address the awful behaviour, but anyone who defines a country by the former rather than later just wants to divide it, and amplify the worst voices. Let’s not do that.

A sad ending

I love international football. Every morning during the tournament I checked my phone for news on the England team, and every morning I woke up to abuse. Most of it not from England’s opponents, past or present, but from Scotland and Ireland fans dressed up as them.

Look, I wouldn’t expect fans of neighbouring nations to support England after their own elimination or failure to qualify. I do it for them, and the reaction in England to Scotland’s qualification was to be happy for them and excited to have two other Home Nations in the tournament, just as they were happy for Wales during their fairy-tale run in 2016. Most of their players play and live in England, so they are friendly and familiar faces.

But sure, I don’t expect any support. I understand they are rivals, even if the hatred can sometimes run a bit one-sided. But this anti-support isn’t rivalry, it’s obsession. It’s sad. If a Spurs fan watched every Arsenal game to watch them fail, just so they could seek out Gunners on social media and mock them, they would rightly be seen as a pathetic, toxic person. If you had a mate who did that, you’d suggest they find some new hobbies, or perhaps seek counselling as that level of all-consuming hate is worrying. It’s like the mindset of stalker.

England registered their best tournament finish in my lifetime, and possibly the best I will ever live to see, but the level of negativity and insults made it hard to even enjoy what should be at heart a game. It’s supposed to be fun, not day after day of scrolling though harassment. You know the way a bad loser sucks all the fun out of a game for everyone else? I don’t understand why they can’t just let other people have nice things. Can English people, not so different from people anywhere in the world, not get to enjoy the first final in their life, after decades of disappointment, without haters seeking them out to remind them the whole world hates them and hopes they fail? Why? Does any other fanbase do this, even in other sports?

Perhaps England fans are obnoxious winners, but no more so than any top club side. If they make more noise than international heavyweights like Germany, it’s because it means more: fans have been waiting for longer, and any foray into the later stages is an emotional high, rather than something that happens every few years. It’s like Liverpool winning the league after thirty years: they were called the Unbearables, because they celebrated a lot harder than City picking up their fifth title in a decade. Their slogan was literally This Means More. You can forgive them a little excitement.

But even if they are, I wouldn’t trust these people to know. Let’s be honest, if you’re going to devote a month of your life to a hate campaign against everyday English people who just want to cheer their team on, determined to suck every last bit of that fun away, you probably hate them so much that even an English smile feels obnoxious to you. That’s your problem, not theirs.

As noted above, from within England it seems a strange idea that the English think they are best, when they seem to spend most of the time defeatist, wishing they were more like Germany or Spain or France. Meanwhile all of these comments are incredibly clear that they think Ireland is superior to racist, stupid England. There’s a healthy dose of irony there.

But if there’s one thing worse than a graceless winner, it’s a bad, graceless loser, and these Scottish and Irish fans have to be the worst losers in football. They are so unwilling to accept a rival doing better than them that they do this. In fact, they get to be both, as those adopting Italy (after Germany, Ukraine, Denmark, each time telling English fans they were going to get destroyed) showed no class in immediately jumping to mock the heartbroken English on ‘their’ victory, whilst most English fans and pundits were congratulating Italy as deserved champions. Sad losers and obnoxious winners, which would no doubt be proven if they ever won anything.

Something to bear in mind the next time we hear about England having the most obnoxious fans in the world.

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Bulgaria brings a mentally reassuring anthem to Rotterdam 2021

I’ve said so that VICTORIA herself sort of agreed to have done “Tears Getting Sober” if she was allowed to, but for one I have to thank that EBU said that the artists can’t have their 2020 songs back? You’ll see why when I get to the review after two boring paragraphs of text with technical info, for the country that is Bulgaria!

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

Victoria Georgieva (or VICTORIA, but I can’t be arsed to continuously capitalize her name so I’ll just say Victoria from now on) was born a singer, for she started to sing at the age 11, went to a specific school of angel voices (no really that’s what it was called), and tried to go to the X Factor while a liiiiiittle too young until realizing that she needed to wait for a few years, and wait a few years she did, and went on to the X Factor again.

She didn’t win, but she still got to sign a contract and sing some stuff in Bulgarian before she decided to rebrand, started singing in English, and completely decided that ballads is her style. She cannot really do upbeat most of the time. So you can’t really have a bop from her in the future. (Well except that there’s a couple of songs in her discography that I personally classify as “bops” but they’re more like... idek sad bops?? but they can be danced to, but I get her, she doesn’t do anything that’s more loud and upbeat and clubby and summery kind of - in short, nothing you can go “YAAASSSS QUEEEEEN” over to.)

The entry she ended up singing, “Growing Up Is Getting Old”, is what I can describe to be about overcoming the emotional twists and turns inside of you as you grow older, because as it turns out, it ain’t what you thought it would be - but if you push just a little further, you realize that if you’re growing up, maybe the life isn’t so bad, afterall - you are able to get up. Somehow. It was written as part of Boris-Milanov-led songwriting camp held during summer, and a lot of people seemed to be a part of it because multiple different folk have songwriting credits on the potential Bulgarian entries this year.

REVIEW

Let’s get this out of the way immediately. I prefer “Growing Up Is Getting Old” to “Tears Getting Sober”. The former sounds a lot less irritatingly underwhelming and a lot more positively overwhelming you with warm emotions and sunglow. “Tears Getting Sober” was a song I could never really connect with - maaaaybe the last chorus is much better on there, but it doesn’t do much for me either, I guess.

Their 2021 forray however is a much different kind of thing - once again, going for lyrical non-cliches, Victoria tells a tale about her inner turmoils and continuing in life, in a way that’s personal to her and also kind of relatable to all of us. We all have these moments of fear and anxiety and nervous systems aching. If only there was someone who’d tell us that we’re worth saving... thanks a lot Victoria, you’re the MVP. Filling in the void that Netherlands from last year had brought us but not anymore - another personal song about getting old and having those kind of feelings inside - and doing a great job at taking the baton in the right way (even with featuring the word “grow” in both of the titles, neat coincidence).

Not only the lyrics feel like a hug, the song just emulates ray of sunshine and golden glitter coming down from the sky, Molly Sanden style. The violins in the G major key playing so precisely, building up momentum throughout the entire song, slowly but surely - starting with the ticking clock in the first verse that may have subtle violin in there; and the first chorus is just so simple piano, and then the second chorus has a tinge of electronic something, and the last chorus goes full in with the backing vocals boosting the song, after Victoria performs the quite magnificent bridge... now I don’t have synesthesia but I associate music keys with colors, and to me G major would always come across as something yellow or orange - “Growing Up Is Getting Old” is a perfect example of why’s that for me. And obviously, Victoria’s love for harmony-humming (even if there’s just one instance of it after she sings “star crossed soul”) complements the song to a T.

And it turned out to be a much better choice than last year’s. Maybe finally a female ballad I am getting behind.

Now I wanna know why the bookies don’t appreciate THIS entry as much as last year?

Granted, now it’s 2021 and the environment is so much different, and the songs have changed, and the dynamics have changed, and now there’s suddenly more competition at stake. And for Bulgaria it fares quite much more underwhelmingly - well, at this moment they’re like 6th, which isn’t bad, but there’s a lack of sung praises coming its way, not quite a feat that “Tears Getting Sober” actually achieved, being the bookies fave right before the cancellation of last year. In general the year has been pretty dry for the previous winner picks like Iceland, Lithuania and this, but I can’t say that the previous winner bets from 2020 are all that dead either? Though I gotta say that Bulgaria wasn’t gonna win 2020 anyway, so it’s a lose-lose in this case.

Also I just can’t at that music video being a little dramatic at the beginning, with the cancellation of Eurovision being presented as if it were a worldwide disaster during which we all shall lock ourselves into bunkers and wait until the better days, eventhough the panini is not war and war supplies kit is not just enough to survive it. But it seems like that the world is quite literally falling apart, as evidenced by Victoria going through all kinds of pathways away from her living room, meeting a  (presumably) mini version of her somewhere in between, and literally surrounded by the shaking environment by the last moments of the song

before we realize it was just reality recursing from the TV’s point of view that Victoria was watching all along, and then she leaves the living room again, but in her world, everything is normal and she could just go wherever she wants by car. Even I can’t come up with a storyline ending that’s somewhat intertwined and all plot-twisty and more confusing than that. But props to her team I guess

Approval factor: Let’s say I somewhat approve this message. Follow-up factor: For the sake of argument let me just say that Bulgaria is moving on a great path, eventhough the former entry leaves me cold, at least the current entry keeps me warm at all times, like a cup of cocoa and a good blanket. Please Bulgaria, never run out of sponsors. Qualification factor: I’ve seen one or two people throw around the “surprise NQ” tag for this song and I don’t get why??? There’s no way that the tense atmosphere of semifinal 2 would sure-fire-ly kill Bulgaria, even if they have a lot less chances to win this year than they had the last one. There can be some shock NQs indeed though, and if there are, I am paging... uhhhhh Finland? Idk why but you might see what I mean if I ever get around to reviewing “Dark Side”. Bulgaria? Never. It may not win the semi but it will cradle around the top 7 somehow.

INTERNAL NF CORNER

That’s right, Bulgaria managed to do both.

At the time when one other of Bulgaria’s songs got released, within the *Special* Eurovision September 1st-onwards range, people naturally succumbed to their primal instinct of asking whether that’s her Eurovision song... only for Vic to probably announce this early on that no, it’s just *one* of potential ESC entries she’s harbouring. And the remaining potential ones were all on her debut EP. Who actually got a more well-orchestrated schedule for everyone to follow, and yet, people were much more keen to cling on the first EP song out of the gate, “Imaginary Friend”. Now I get that the fans of that song were super upset at the revelation that IF is not going, but it is a technically strong song for the sake of being a technically strong song, and I don’t want to think that Victoria is only forced to choose the songs that can win for her, so she’s such a sweetheart for gravitating towards a song she could dearly care about. So props to her team saving the initial winner for last to be revealed, lol.

Though wasn’t her personal favourite a Billie-Eilish-lite-upbeat-kinda-track Phantom Pain?

Which was also my personal favourite?

Look, I know that favouring the only non-ballad in the whole lineup (well “Ugly Cry” is also not quite a ballad but its beat is kinda so-so, so I tend to ignore it) is kinda sus, also, y’all are sick to death to Billie Eilish comparisons, but I do believe that Billie would never be able to do an “Imaginary Friend” while Victoria could do a “Lovely”. This makes me remember the cover art of Billie’s debut album where she sits on her bed, dressed in white, and so is Victoria on this very MV, with strange shit going on behind her in the mirror. To the mirror, her reflection acts creepy, back again.

The other 2 I don’t feel like caring about enough, sure they got their cred, sure there’s one entry properly crediting Milanov (who seems to not have an actual entry this year that’s purely attributed to *him*, as opposed to 3 last year, 2 of which were performed by acts that returned this year????), sure there’s the funny thing about having a funeral song where out of this and Finland only Austria managed to send a quote unquote “funeral” song, but I think the funeral song would’ve sounded better if the pre-section of it on the “Phantom Pain” video was THE “funeral” song itself, and not whatever was that other funeral song.

In between there was a public sort of survey where people could submit feedback and positive words to Vic’s choices to help her decide - I didn’t get to vote but I feel fine with the winner eitherway, and that counts for something! And the end result was revealed at the very end of Victoria’s very own rooftop concert.

The colors on the circle thingy of this, they were meant to symbolize all Bulgarian entries up to Victoria’s 2nd one, in pictograms that kind of reminded me of Coldplay attributing every song on ‘Mylo Xyloto’ its own little symbol.

The concert was not only full of music and also adverts for the inaugural sponsor iCard (that also included some element of foreshadow in between the suspense, you’ll see why), but also the Bulgarian folk talking before each song, saying all the positive nice words they can for Vic; that she’s talented, and that they were so excited that Bulgaria was doing well in the odds last year prior to cancellation, bla bla bla... also some people were proud of voting for Bulgaria outside Bulgaia, and they made puns about the forthcoming songs on the concert that they were introducing, and so on, and there was also someone called Dara, whom I really want to be sent by Bulgaria one day to show off that they’re not afraid of doing trashy-esque bops that don’t necessarily win

Also they reminded me that Lucy from No Angels (aka the sole reason Bulgaria 12′d Germany in 2008) still exists.

Also Azis.

There was also an intermission where Eurovision 2021 acts could say all the nice words to Victoria on their own part. And several artists chose to... how shall I put it... use up their several seconds rather interestingly. Like how The Roop would say something real quick only to delve into more of their usual “let’s dance, let’s discoteque! *hand scissors* ;P” self-promo, and Senhit carelessly being allowed to say whatever she wants in Italian without subtitles <3 Sorry sis, they’re only given to people from another white-green-red flag-color country.

About the iCard foreshadow... so there’s their advert about Victoria waiting in the line to get something in the Soft Vocals Store, and people ahead of her giving her money the standard oldfashioned way, and the old lady at the counter is... slow, to say the least. After a good amount of time spent waffling around, Victoria finally pulls out the iCard application and pays for the imaginary items she wants, then narrates some stuff about said application, and a Eurovision entry of hers plays when the old lady is at home, spending time in front of TV enjoying the music. Before the concert, the song that played was “Tears Getting Sober”. The advert played once more before Victoria’s big entry decision and entry MV reveal, and in place of the 2020 entry, “Growing Up Is Getting Old” was the one that sounded out loud... Now you may think that there were attempts at some sort of spoilage here, but after that ad before the concert EP NF result, there was this other advert starring Victoria that played “Imaginary Friend” at the end, a last-ditch effort to trick viewers into going “see? just because that ad played the chosen song doesn’t mean it’s the chosen song!! this song could as well be a chosen song as well!!” yeah no shut up GUIGO IS the chosen song kthxbyebye.

ANY LAST WORDS?

Having said all that praise, I actually have “Growing Up Is Getting Old” fairly low on my ranking. It’s just because the year is so damn good and I have a lot more songs to care about more than this, but I appreciate the gesture that this singer is sending very much. Good luck on your road to conquer Europe, Victory-ia, I’m sure you get the best of the experience and all, because you would deserve it.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Canada Battles More Than 180 Wildfires With Hundreds Dead In Heat Wave (NPR) Emergency responders in Canada are currently battling more than 180 wildfires in British Columbia amid an intense heat wave that has left hundreds dead in the Pacific Northwest. About 70% of the active fires were likely caused by lightning strikes, according to the British Columbia Wildfire Service’s dashboard. Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist with the company Vaisala, says a lightning detection network uncovered more than 700,000 lightning strikes in the area between June 30 and July 1. The fires come amid a massive heat wave for the region.

Canada, US are easing pandemic border-crossing restrictions (AP) Pandemic restrictions on travel between Canada and the U.S. began to loosen Monday for some Canadians, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said plans to totally reopen the border would be announced over the next few weeks. Canadian citizens and permanent residents who have had a full dose of a coronavirus vaccine approved for use in Canada can skip a 14-day quarantine that has been a requirement since March 2020. Eligible air travelers also no longer have to spend their first three days in the country at a government-approved hotel. Restrictions barring all non-essential trips between Canada and the United States, including tourism, will remain in place until at least July 21.

Summer swelter trend: West gets hotter days, East hot nights (AP) As outlandish as the killer heat wave that struck the Pacific Northwest was, it fits into a decades-long pattern of uneven summer warming across the United States. The West is getting roasted by hotter summer days while the East Coast is getting swamped by hotter and stickier summer nights, an analysis of decades of U.S. summer weather data by The Associated Press shows. State-by-state average temperature trends from 1990 to 2020 show America’s summer swelter is increasing more in some of the places that just got baked with extreme heat over the past week: California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Oregon and Colorado. The West is the fastest-warming region in the country during June, July and August, up 3 degrees on average since 1990. The Northwest has warmed nearly twice as much in the past 30 years as it has in the Southeast.

Collapsed Florida condo demolished ahead of storm (Reuters) The partially collapsed Miami-area condo where 24 people are confirmed dead was demolished on Sunday night, ahead of the possible arrival of Tropical Storm Elsa. Search-and-rescue efforts for 121 people missing have been suspended. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters earlier on Sunday that rescue efforts would resume after the demolition, noting it was 11 days since the collapse.

Loved and decried, El Salvador’s populist leader is defiant (AP) In the narrow, gang-controlled alleys of the Las Palmas neighborhood, struggling Salvadorans are untroubled by actions of their president that so infuriate his critics. They are not bothered by Nayib Bukele’s dictatorial maneuvers—sending armed troops into congress to coerce a vote, or ousting independent judges from the country’s highest court, paving the way to control all branches of government. They praise his relentless attacks on the politicians who governed El Salvador for nearly 30 years before him, and the elites who benefited from their rule. In this neighborhood they are grateful for the boxes of food staples they’ve received from Bukele’s government during the pandemic. Adults proudly pat their shoulders and say they got both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine long before most other people in Central America. For all the observers and critics who condemn a dangerous concentration of power by a charismatic leader who sports down-home blue jeans and leather jackets, Bukele enjoys an approval rating of more than 90% among people who saw three of four previous presidents jailed or exiled for corruption. “They talk about democracy... I don’t know what else,” said Julio César López, 60, a street artist in Las Palmas. “It makes me really happy that they’re kicking out that class of people.”

Fraud Claims, Unproved, Delay Peru’s Election Result and Energize the Right (NYT) They showed up for the rally by the thousands in red and white, the colors of their right-wing movement, swapping conspiracy theories and speaking ominously of civil war. On the stage, their leader, the presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, let loose on her headline issue: election fraud. Though electoral officials say her opponent, the leftist union leader Pedro Castillo, leads by more than 40,000 votes with all the ballots counted, they have yet to declare a victor a month after the polls closed, as they consider Ms. Fujimori’s demand that tens of thousands of ballots be thrown out. No one has come forward, even weeks later, to corroborate Ms. Fujimori’s claims of fraud; international observers have found no evidence of major irregularities; and both the United States and the European Union have praised the electoral process. But Ms. Fujimori’s claims have not only delayed the certification of a victor, they have also radicalized elements of the Peruvian right in a way that analysts say could threaten the country’s fragile democracy.

Britain plans to end legal mandates for masks and social distancing on July 19, Boris Johnson says (Washington Post) Boris Johnson on Monday announced that Britain was set to soon end virtually all government mandates to control the spread of the coronavirus, telling people that in two weeks it would likely be completely up to them whether to wear a face mask or socially distance. At an evening news conference, the British prime minister said England was ready to move beyond one of longest, most restrictive series of lockdowns on the planet, turning away from legally binding rules to personal responsibility. He cautioned that the pandemic was not over, but it was time for restrictions to end soon. If the current trends hold, and Johnson suggested they would, then he expected the full reopening for July 19.

Lobsters’ feelings loom large as British Parliament debates animal welfare bill (Washington Post) How does a lobster feel when it’s dropped into the boiling pot? The British Parliament wants to know. Is an octopus sad, sometimes? Does the squid learn its lessons? The bee feel joy? The earthworm anxiety? The peers in the House of Lords are currently debating the matter. These questions arise because Prime Minister Boris Johnson is trying to make good on his electoral pledge to enshrine into law the idea that animals are “sentient beings,” meaning the government would be obligated to not only safeguard creatures’ physical well-being but also take into account their feelings—of pleasure, pain and more. The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill is a potentially sweeping piece of legislation that could require all arms of government—not just the agriculture ministry—to consider animal sentience when forming policy and writing regulations. The implications could be moral and profound, supporters hope—or cumbersome and bureaucratic, critics say, with some seeing a power play by vegan activists and animal rights radicals.

Indian dowries still common despite being illegal (BBC) A new World Bank study has found that dowry payments in India’s villages have not decreased over the past few decades even though the practice was made illegal in 1961. The researchers found that in 95% of the 40,000 marriages that took place in rural India between 1960 and 2008, dowry was still paid. Paying and accepting dowry is a centuries-old tradition in South Asia where the bride’s parents gift cash, clothes and jewellery to the groom’s family.

80 people feared missing in deadly ‘tsunami’ mudslide in central japan (CNN) Japanese rescue workers continued to search for survivors Monday, two days after a devastating “tsunami” of mud swept through a coastal city, killing at least three people and leaving 80 feared missing. Of the people currently unaccounted for, it’s possible that some may not have been in the city at the time of the mudslide, a city official said.

Malaysians suffering amid lockdown fly white flag for help (AP) When Mohamad Nor Abdullah put a white flag outside his window late at night, he didn’t expect the swift outpouring of support. By morning, dozens of strangers knocked on his door, offering food, cash and encouragement. Malaysia’s nationwide lockdown to curb a coronavirus surge was tightened further on Saturday, banning people in certain areas from leaving their homes except to buy food and necessities. It lurched Mohamad Nor into desperation. He ekes out a living by selling packed nasi lemak, a popular dish of coconut milk rice with condiments, at a roadside stall every morning, but that income has vanished and government aid was insufficient. The white flag campaign that emerged on social media last week aims to help people like Mohamad Nor, who is 29 and was born without arms. By chance, he saw the campaign on Facebook and decided to try to seek help. “It was so unexpected. So many people reached out to help, support and also encouraged me,” Mohamad Nor said, sitting in his dingy room amid boxes of biscuits, rice, cooking oil and water that were swiftly donated to him. He said kind Samaritans offered to help pay his room rental and that the assistance should be enough to tide him through the next few months.

New Zealand records warmest-ever June as ski fields struggle (AP) New Zealand has recorded its warmest June since recordkeeping began, as ski fields struggle to open and experts predict shorter southern winters in the future. A range of factors led to the record, including more winds coming from the milder north rather than the Antarctic south, and unusually warm ocean temperatures, said Gregor Macara, a climate scientist at the government-owned National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research. He said the vagaries of weather will change from month to month. “But the underlying trend is of increasing temperatures and overall warming,” Macara said.

Nigerian Baptist Students Kidnapped in Kaduna (CT) More than 100 students at a Christian boarding school in Nigeria’s northern state of Kaduna were kidnapped early Monday morning. Shooting wildly, armed assailants breached the walls of Bethel Baptist High School in Maraban Rido on the outskirts of the state capital, Kaduna, at about 2 a.m. on July 5 and took students in the school hostel away at gunpoint, area residents told Morning Star News (MSN). Efforts were still underway to determine exactly how many students were abducted. A Bethel teacher told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that 140 students were kidnapped while 25 students escaped, but area residents living close to the school told MSN that 179 children were abducted of which only 15 escaped. The attack was the fourth mass school kidnapping in Kaduna state since December, according to AFP.

[ataswegianabroad]

Alone Amongst the Gum Trees Part 3 - It Was Murdoch All Along

NOTE - this article has been migrated to Medium. As of 2021, A Taswegian Abroad will be closed down, and all of my writing will be published on my Medium profile.

“For some time, Australia’s democracy has been slowly sliding into disrepair. The nation’s major policy challenges go unaddressed, our economic future is uncertain and political corruption is becoming normalised. We can’t understand the current predicament of our democracy without recognising the central role of Murdoch’s national media monopoly. 

There is no longer a level playing field in Australian politics. We won’t see another progressive government in Canberra until we deal with this cancer in our democracy.”

- Kevin Rudd - THE CASE FOR COURAGE

Foreword

I started this as a brain dump on July 25th, 2016 just before I flew back to Australia for 4 weeks. I decided to wait to finish it as an “Alone Amongst the Gum Trees” piece after the 2016 US election as it would have directly impacted the outcome. 

That was the plan, anyway. I forgot entirely that I had written this draft for almost 5 years. The next thing you know: it’s early 2021, I’m married, have a dog, a car, and my first child is due in August. 

My last political opinion piece was from April 11, 2016: a piece on how Bernie Sanders was being treated in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.

So what happened from mid-2016 to early 2021? I didn’t jump back down the political commentary rabbit hole. No more rants on Tumblr blogs. No angry posts on Facebook. The odd spicy tweet about the current election happening between my old home (Australia), my new home (Canada) and the messed up cousin next door (United States). I instead chose to divert my love of writing to sports (see https://thefiftyfooty.com/), technology, and music.

From a political standpoint I chose to mostly stop talking, and to listen. Now don’t become misconstrued: I did not ignore it. I was very active over the Provincial and Federal Canadian elections of 2015 and 2019, I followed the unprecedented US political climate very closely given our proximity to the United States (and learned a lot in the process), and I voted in the most recent 2019 Australian election (my third from Toronto since leaving in 2012).

If I take a step back - I still need to be self-critical: I was defeated and I surrendered to the tidal-wave of the far-right. I was watching the US tear itself in two over race, alternative facts, and radical ideology. I was watching the UK go down a similar path with Brexit and Boris Johnson. I was watching my beloved homeland of Australia continue to confusingly elect damaging conservative governments despite the polls, trends, movements and more indicating it was time for a change.

As I matured into my late 20′s and now early 30′s (*gulp*) I was asking myself: was this how it was going to be? Did the western world just decide “we’re done with progressive views, let stick it in reverse for a bit and see how we go”? If that was true, then why did Canada buck this trend with Trudeau in 2015 & 2019? Why was New Zealand thriving under Arden after 2017 and 2020?

I went to a dark place on this. 

But then something amazing happened. Enter former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd talking about wanting a royal commission into Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp empire who control 70% of print media in Australia.

Did he say 70% of all print media in Australia?

I STRONGLY recommend taking 15 minutes to watch this video. It will do a much better job of painting the scene than I ever could. If not, you can still read on through.

After doing some looking into this: all I can say is that I didn’t have to dig very far to have my fire reignited. All I can think about now is this #MurdochRoyalCommission

My world view has changed, and what I am about to write next will explain a few things that I hope will change yours too.

This is not a left vs right piece. This is not a blame, shame, or complain piece either. I won’t curse or abuse, because this is a self reflection, a cry of encouragement, and a call to action to all who live in and want to protect the political integrity of democracy around the world.

I am here to explain my thought patterns with the goal of having at least one more person under the thumb of Murdoch’s “beast” realise just what’s going on, and to encourage that person to make more informed decisions knowing the facts.

The Path to En-frightened-ment

February 2014 was the last time I updated the long-form political arm of my blog. Back then as a young man exposed to his first bout of political and social disappointment after the 2013 Australian election - I felt the need to get it all out and I did in a little more linguistically brash Part 2 of “Alone Amongst the Gum Trees”.

I was in an interesting position then. I was a 23 year old finding his place in the world - personally, politically, spiritually, environmentally. I was mostly deciding whether or not I was done with Toronto and it if was time to stay home permanently after spending 3 months back in Australia.

I chose no. I left. I came back to Toronto and the rest is history.

Then one day a couple of years later I got us flights back to Australia for a visit. After nearly 3 years avoiding it (mostly because of my post-election distaste for Australian ignorance), it was time to bite the bullet and go home for a bit.

In 2014 I mentioned:

...let’s talk about Australia, how things changed, how it looked from outside the huge wall that the government apparently has built around the country now, and how it looks from a bloke who literally can not wait to leave again.

I had been anxious about that trip for a while. Not because I hadn’t seen everyone for so long or because it was my wife’s (then girlfriend who became my fiance on that trip) first time visiting, it was because Australia had a chance to move away from the “ignorance, inequality, narrow-minded idiocy, and over-conservatism” I mentioned in 2014. 

But we didn’t. Turnbull won the 2016 election. I was so angry at the Australian people. I was so scared of that ignorant, greedy, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, narrow minded, privileged, climate denying creature that seems to be slowly devouring the planet.

From that point in time, all I could think about was some sort of big right-wing populist shift happening across the globe. Outside of the obvious ones: Trump in the USA, Johnson in the UK and Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison in Australia, there were a few more extreme cases: Putin in Russia, Marine Le Pen in France, Viktor Orban in Hungary. Then there’s Cambodia, Brazil, Turkey, Egypt etc who saw this as a huge advantage as well. It may not be the end of a progressive vision of the world but it definitely seemed like the beginning of a big switch.

One thing I learned during my political writing hiatus while serving my self-induced “exile” to Canada is that this country was one of the few blips in this trend. Why did Canada choose to elect Justin Trudeau in 2015, a left wing liberal, after 9 years of Harper’s conservative government? Was it simply because Canadians were good and fair people? Did they just fundamentally understand that you need both conservative and progressive governments to advance society? Perhaps they do, and Canadians are most definitely good and fair people regardless of election results. I am even set to become a Canadian citizen myself (and a dual-citizen overall) in 2021.

So where is this all coming from? Why are the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom on a continued path to segregation, protectionism, populism and division while Canada and New Zealand show basically zero of these tendencies?

The News Corp cancer that is Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is the deciding factor.

So What Does Kevin Rudd Have To Do With It?

Mr. Rudd has been living in the USA for the last 5 years and is firmly spearheading the charge in that Rupert Murdoch’s media behemoth “News Corp” has been unlawfully influencing Australian opinion and undermining elections in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States for close to 3 decades (more predominantly in the last 8 years). 

Before you read any further I have to be transparent about my opinions of Kevin Rudd. I accredit his “Kevin 07″ campaign as the catalyst for my interest in politics, my decision to study economics at university, and my ongoing support for progressive policies in every federal and state election since 2007. His work has played a big part in shaping me into the person I am today.

Despite my positive position on Mr. Rudd, I am also disappointed he did not action this during his time as prime minister. However, I am “all in” when it comes to what he is standing for, and that is:

Eradicating monopolies in all forms (be it political, business, journalism, etc)

Improving media literacy to encourage fair and unbiased journalism

Avoiding the pitfalls of Murdoch's divisive influence on the USA happening to Australia

There’s a few key factoids to his claims of mass-media bias:

70% of print media in Australia is owned by ONE MAN: Rupert Murdoch (100% owned in Queensland)

Print media influences the national conversation on a daily basis

Rupert Murdoch owns the biggest YouTube channel in Australia (news.com.au)

The line between fact-based and opinion-based reporting continues to blur, resembling that of CNN (Democrats) and Fox (Republican) extreme partisanship in the USA

All of Murdoch’s papers have backed the Liberal/National party in all 19 out of the last 19 federal and state elections 

The ABC is breaching the Australian Broadcasting Act of 1983 by not standing up to Murdoch media purely out of fear

Politicians are not standing up out of fear of character assassination

Whether or not Murdoch is backing left or right, Labor or Liberal, the question still remains:

Do you think it is healthy for a FOREIGN PRIVATE ENTITY to own a monopoly level of influence on a sovereign country’s political system for that private entity to use for their own personal gain through targeted media attacks and character assassinations? 

Watch This Space...

There are utter mountains of evidence to accompany these claims, and to make sure you can digest what I am trying to say, I recommend that you sink your teeth into the following videos to validate and truly comprehend the size of the tumour we are dealing with:

Feb 20, 2020 - 1h - Friendlyjordies informal interview with Kevin Rudd

This is right before the Covid outbreak in March, which delayed Mr. Rudd’s ability to move for a formal commission into media bias

Provides excellent insight into the ABC’s lack of action, the opportunism of the Green party, and the complete absence of unbiased reporting in Australia

Feb 18, 2021 - 1h 30m - Kevin Rudd Officially Requesting Royal Commission to Australian Senate

The first 20-30 minutes provide Mr. Rudd’s summary of the situation

The remainder of the video consists of questions from both Labor and Liberal senators about Mr. Rudd’s claims

Mar 1, 2021 - 2m - Kevin Rudd speaks to Sunrise about the Murdoch monopoly

Mr. Rudd went on a national flagship morning show to discuss his concerns regarding News Corp

LISTEN to the questions being asked of him: completely disregarding his valid points and dismissing him as “sour grapes”

Channel 7 is not News Corp, so why try to discredit Mr. Rudd? Fear of being targeted by News Corp

Mar 9, 2021 - 1h - National Press Club: The Case for Courage

Mr. Rudd stands up in front of The National Press Club of Australia to promote the four big challenges facing Australia in his upcoming book “The Case for Courage” 

He takes questions from journalists from both Murdoch and non-Murdoch media outlets

As I start to conclude this piece, for action to happen, an independent royal commission is required to get to the facts. Mr. Rudd already gathered over 500,000 signatures that were recently sent to Prime Minister Scott Morrison asking for the royal commission to take place, but this is not enough.

Even former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a friend of Rupert Murdoch and political opposite to Mr. Rudd, signed the petition and said the following:

Mr Turnbull, a former Liberal prime minister, said the Murdoch media used to be a group of traditional right-leaning outlets but has now become "a vehicle of propaganda."

He told ABC television's Insiders program on Sunday that Australian democracy was suffering for allowing the "crazy, bitter partisanship" of social media to creep into the mainstream.

"We have to work out what price we're paying, as a society, for the hyper-partisanship of the media," Mr Turnbull said.

"Look at the United States and the terrible, divided state of affairs that they're in, exacerbated, as Kevin was saying, by Fox News and other right-wing media."

I recently sent a (somewhat long) letter to Mr. Rudd expressing my concern for the state of Australia’s media landscape, with it culminating in the following questions:

I am deeply moved and inspired by your bravery to take on "the beast" as you so aptly name it, and I want to boldly ask: how can I help? How can I get involved? 

I am yet to hear back from Mr. Rudd himself - but I think if you’ve gotten this far, you know what I am about to say next.

I want to help, learn more, or get involved.

That’s amazing. We’re not asking for money, just action. Here’s some ways you can help is stop the rot:

SUBSCRIBE TO and FOLLOW direct updates from Kevin Rudd:

Website / Newsletters

https://newsroyalcommission.com/ 

https://kevinrudd.com/

Social media alongside the #MurdochRoyalCommission hashtag on all platforms:

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

YouTube

Boycott News Corp media sites, publications, and channels

I’ve linked a list of all assets by News Corp above

This includes steering clear of ALL mediums of news owned by these publications and outlets including the respective:

Social media channels and pages

Television and radio news channels 

Print and online newspapers and articles

SHARE and spread the word of this cancer affecting our democracy

Talk TO your friends and family (not AT them) and LISTEN to their views - people are not dumb: this will make sense if given time to digest

WATCH the videos posted above as a start, alongside a few more recommendations:

This interview between Friendly Jordies and former Labor Leader Bill Shorten from earlier in March 2021

I learned more about Bill Shorten in the last 20 minutes of this interview than I did in his entire run as opposition leader. 

This just goes to show you how utterly mistreated he was by Murdoch media

For a laugh - every episode of Kevin Rudd: PM from Rove McManus’ late night show

I want Australia to remain a safe, secure, and lucky country to raise my family in someday. I care about this very much and plan to ramp up my content around this until we are free from the Murdoch beast and its lies.

Thank you so much for reading, as always, I am happy to discuss.

List of Murdoch (News Corp) Owned Outlets [Expanded Below]

Television

Foxtel (65%)

Australian News Channel

Fox Sports Australia

Streamotion

Fox Sports News

Fox Cricket

Fox Footy

Fox League

Kayo Sports

Binge

Sky News Australia

Sky News Weather

Sky News Extra

Sky After Dark

Australia Channel (News Streaming channel)

Sky News New Zealand

Sky News on WIN

Internet

Punters.com.au — Australian horse racing and bookmaker affiliate.

SuperCoach

Australia Best Recipes

hipages

odds.com.au

Mogo

One Big Switch

Knewz, a news aggregator

Realestate.com.au

Advertising, Branding & Tech

Global

Storyful

News UK

bridge studio

wireless Group

wireless studios

urban media

First Radio

Switchdigital

TIBUS

ZESTY

News Corp Australia

SUDDENLY - Content Agency

Medium Rare Content Agency

HT&E (Here, There & Everywhere)

News Xtend

Radio

News UK & Ireland

wireless Group

talkSPORT

talkSPORT 2

talkRADIO

Virgin Radio

FM104

Q102

96FM

c103

Live 95FM

LMFM

U105

Scottish Sun 80s

Scottish Sun Hits

Scottish Sun Greatest Hits

Times Radio

Magazines and Inserts (digital and print)

News Corp Australia

Big League

body+soul

Broncos

Business Daily

delicious

Escape

Foxtel

GQ Australia

Hit

Kidspot

Mansion Australia

Motoring

Sportsman

Super Food Ideas

taste.com.au

The Deal

The Weekend Australian Magazine

Vogue Australia

Vogue Living

Whimn

Wish

News & Magazines (digital and print)

News UK

The Sun

The Times

The Sunday Times

Press Association (part owned, News UK is one of 26 shareholders)

The TLS (Times Literary Supplement)

News Corp Australia

The Australian including weekly insert magazine The Deal and monthly insert magazine (wish)

The Weekend Australian

Australian Associated Press

news.com.au

New South Wales

The Daily Telegraph

The Sunday Telegraph including insert magazine sundaymagazine

Victoria

Herald Sun

Sunday Herald Sun including insert magazine sundaymagazine

Lions Raw

Samizdat

Queensland

The Courier-Mail including weekly insert magazine QWeekend

The Sunday Mail

Brisbane News

South Australia

The Advertiser including the monthly insert The Adelaide magazine

Sunday Mail

Tasmania

The Mercury

The Sunday Tasmanian

Northern Territory

Northern Territory News

Sunday Territorian

Community suburban newspapers

Cumberland/Courier (NSW) newspapers

Blacktown Advocate

Canterbury-Bankstown Express

Central

Central Coast Express Advocate

Fairfield Advance

Hills Shire Times

Hornsby and Upper North Shore Advocate

Inner West Courier

Liverpool Leader

Macarthur Chronicle

Mt Druitt-St Marys Standard

NINETOFIVE

North Shore Times

Northern District Times

NORTHSIDE

Parramatta Advertiser

Penrith Press

Rouse Hill Times

Southern Courier

The Manly Daily

The Mosman Daily

Village Voice Balmain

Wentworth Courier

Leader (Vic) newspapers

Bayside Leader

Berwick/Pakenham Cardinia Leader

Brimbank Leader

Caulfield Glen Eira/Port Philip Leader

Cranbourne Leader

Dandenong/Springvale Dandenong Leader

Diamond Valley Leader

Frankston Standard/Hastings Leader

Free Press Leader

Heidelberg Leader

Hobsons Bay Leader

Hume Leader

Knox Leader

Lilydale & Yarra Valley Leader

Manningham Leader

Maribyrnong Leader

Maroondah Leader

Melbourne Leader

Melton/Moorabool Leader

Moonee Valley Leader

Moorabbin Kingston/Moorabbin Glen Eira Leader

Mordialloc Chelsea Leader

Moreland Leader

Mornington Peninsula Leader

Northcote Leader

Preston Leader

Progress Leader

Stonnington Leader

Sunbury/Macedon Ranges Leader

Waverley/Oakleigh Monash Leader

Whitehorse Leader

Whittlesea Leader

Wyndham Leader

Quest (QLD) newspapers

Albert & Logan News (Fri)

Albert & Logan News (Wed)

Caboolture Shire Herald

Caloundra Journal

City News

City North News

City South News

Ipswich News

Logan West Leader

Maroochy Journal

North-West News

Northern Times

Northside Chronicle

Pine Rivers Press/North Lakes Times

Redcliffe and Bayside Herald

South-East Advertiser

South-West News/Springfield News

Southern Star

The Noosa Journal

weekender

Westside News

Wynnum Herald

Weekender Essential Sunshine Coast

Messenger (SA) newspapers

Adelaide Matters

City Messenger

City North Messenger

East Torrens Messenger

Eastern Courier Messenger

Guardian Messenger

Hills & Valley Messenger

Leader Messenger

News Review Messenger

Portside Messenger

Southern Times Messenger

Weekly Times Messenger

Community (WA) newspapers

(50.1%) (Formerly)

Advocate

Canning Times

Comment News

Eastern Reporter

Fremantle-Cockburn Gazette

Guardian Express

Hills-Avon Valley Gazette

Joondalup-Wanneroo Times

Mandurah Coastal / Pinjarra Murray Times

Melville Times

Midland-Kalamunda Reporter

North Coast Times

Southern Gazette

Stirling Times

Weekend-Kwinana Courier

Weekender

Western Suburbs Weekly

Sun (NT) newspapers

Darwin Sun

Litchfield Sun

Palmerston Sun

Regional and rural newspapers

New South Wales

Tweed Sun

Tweed Daily News

Victoria

Echo

Geelong Advertiser

GeelongNEWS

The Weekly Times

Queensland

Bowen Independent

Burdekin Advocate

Cairns Sun

Gold Coast Bulletin

Gold Coast Sun

Herbert River Express

Home Hill Observer

Innisfail Advocate

Northern Miner

Port Douglas & Mossman Gazette

Tablelander – Atherton

Tablelands Advertiser

The Cairns Post

The Noosa News

The Sunshine Coast Daily

Townsville Bulletin

Toowoomba Chronicle

Townsville Sun

weekender

Daily Mercury (Mackay)

Tasmania

Derwent Valley Gazette

Tasmanian Country

Northern Territory

Centralian Advocate

International

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea Post-Courier (63%)

United States

New York Post

Wall Street Journal

realtor.com

Move (80%)

Dow Jones & Company

Consumer Media Group

The Wall Street Journal – the leading US financial newspaper

Wall Street Journal Europe closed

The Wall Street Journal Asia closed

Barron's – weekly financial markets magazine

Marketwatch – financial news and information website

Financial News

Heat Street - news and opinion website

Mansion Global - global luxury property website

Enterprise Media Group

Dow Jones Newswires – global, real-time news and information provider.

Factiva – provides business news and information together with content delivery tools and services.

Dow Jones Indexes – stock market indexes and indicators, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (10% ownership)

Dow Jones Financial Information Services – produces databases, electronic media, newsletters, conferences, directories, and other information services on specialised markets and industry sectors.

Betten Financial News – leading Dutch language financial and economic news service.

Strategic Alliances

STOXX (33%) – joint venture with Deutsche Boerse and SWG Group for the development and distribution of Dow Jones STOXX indices.

Wireless Group

Talksport

TalkRadio

Books

HarperCollins

4th Estate

Collins

Ecco Press

Harlequin Enterprises

Harper Perennial

Harper Voyager

Kappa Books

Modern Publishing

Unisystems Inc.

Zondervan Publishing

Christian publishing company taken over by HarperCollins in 1988

Inspirio – religious gift production

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

What is the “Greatest Country on Earth™?“

I mean this objectively.  Out of ~200 nations, one of them has to be undeniably better than the rest.  If we make a sortable list, one has to be on top, just as certainly as one has to be on bottom,  So, which country is the all around best?

I can tell you for absolutely certain it is NOT the United States; sure, we’re economically best, every other country relies on us for trade, but something like 99% of all the money is controlled by so few individuals that they could all fit in one of those crappy rental limos that high schoolers get their parents to splurge on for Prom Night.  Income inequality has never been worse, minimum wage been stagnant for almost 10 years, and nobody can afford a home.  “America” is rich, but “Americans” aren’t.  So that ain’t great.

The Democracy Index lists the top ten most politically stable and democratically active countries as Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand. Finland, Ireland, Denmark, Canada, Australia, and Switzerland,  I happen to know for a fact that Canada, Australia and New Zealand are super racist, just like their dear old dad the British Empire (and their cousin, America); Canadians hate the indigenous, New Zealand hates the Maori, Australia hates the aboriginals.  They’ve taken a page out of Andrew Jackson’s playbook to genocide the problem away then punish he stragglers to make their lives as hard as possible.  So that’s not great.  Scandinavia seems nice, but I’ve had my heart broke too many times to take them at face value.  If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Let’s go further.

Breaking down the Democracy Index, we get different leaders based on criteria:

Electoral Process and Pluralism: elections are free and fair, and there are multiple views being discussed.  Nine countries get a perfect score of 10.00; Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Luxembourg, Uruguay, and Denmark [for reference, the US got a 9.17]

Functioning of Government: can it collect taxes and spend them on stuff that’s useful?  No country gets a perfect score, but the three highest are Norway, Canada, and Sweden with 9.64 each. [for reference, the US got a 7.14]

Political Participation: can people vote, and do they?  Only Norway gets a perfect 10.00.  The next five are trailing behind; New Zealand, Iceland, Finland, Israel, and the United Kingdom each score 8.89. [for reference, the US got a 7.78]

Political Culture: how invested are the people and the government in the right to vote?  We get perfect 10.00s from Norway, Iceland, Sweden, and Ireland [for reference, the US got a 7.50]

Civil Liberties: how free are you?  How oppressive is your government?  Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand get perfect 10.00s [for reference, the US got an 8.24]

From this, we can glean that Ireland seems pretty great.  But they’re wrapped up in the aftermath of Brexit; there’s a non-zero chance that the Troubles could start back up again if they put a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, which would be HORRIBLE.  That’s not on them necessarily, it’s just as much if not more on the UK government (British Tories see the Irish as subhuman; Boris Johnson wants to wipe them out, put them in his slave mines with the Syrian refugees and Jeremy Corbyn’s corpse).

The World Happiness Report lists the top 10 happiest countries as Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, and Austria.  These too can be broken down into further criteria:

GDP Per Capita: a country’s total wealth divided by its population (this is not as indicative as it sounds; a higher GDP doesn’t mean you see a single extra cent from your job.  Countries with the highest GDPs have the largest wealth gaps, and are middle of the road when it comes to happiness.  The top 10 are Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapore, United Arab Emirates. Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, United Sates of America, and Saudi Arabia.

Social Support: how much does the country care for its citizens?  Top 10 are Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, the United Kingdom (normal so far), then Turkmenistan and Mongolia!  Turkmenistan is a military dictatorship run by a man who likes to watch horses fuck.  I think he may be over-reporting how much aid he’s giving out to the people.

Health Life Expectancy: the 10 most medically modernized countries are Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, France, Northern Cyprus (which is under Turkish occupation), regular Cyprus, Canada, and Italy

Freedom to Make Life Choices: this sounds like something the US should excel at; Freedom and Liberty are our favorite catchphrases!  But no, in practice we’re not even close to the top of the barrel.  The top 10 are Uzbekistan (former Soviet Republic), Cambodia (one-party dictatorship), Norway, the United Arab Emirates, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, New Zealand, Canada, and Sweden.  Turns out maybe “freedom” means “no rules, all anarchy” in some countries, and hey, more power to them.  For reference, the United States is in the middle of the list, between Peru, Botswana, the UK, and Japan.

Generosity: do unto others, as the saying goes.  Turns out the richest countries are the least generous.  Whoodathunkit?  The 10 most generous countries are Myanmar, Indonesia, Haiti, Malta, Kenya, Bhutan, Kuwait, Thailand, Iceland, and the UK.

Perceptions of Corruption: does your government have it’s hand in the cookie jar?  The top 10 least corrupt are Singapore, Rwanda, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, and Ireland.  For reference, the US is down low, between Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Nicaragua, and Iran.

The Human Development Index lists the top 10 developed nations as Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Australia, Sweden, Singapore, and the Netherlands.  The US sits pretty at 15, though this index just shows that we have running water, electricity, and roads; while we are technologically developed on the country-wide scale, the closer you look, the less this technology helps those at the lower levels.  Poor people are still poor, still have lead in the water, still lack access to good food.  The US is considered a considered a developing nation in that regard.

Ireland, New Zealand, and Switzerland get passing scores on all four of the freedom indices (Freedom in the World, Index of Economic Freedom, Press Freedom Index, and Democracy Index); they’re both socially and economically free, their press is in a good situation, and they’re full democracies.  Good on them.  Australia is socially and economically free, a full democracy, but their press’s situation is only “satisfactory,” a step down from “good.”  Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Costa Rica, and Portugal are socially free, their press is good, they’re full democracies, but they are economically “mostly free.”  For the record, the United States is socially free, only mostly economically free, our press is satisfactory, and we are a flawed democracy (this puts us on par with Taiwan, Lithuania, Latvia, South Korea, the Czech Republic, and Cyprus)

And finally we have the Corruption Perceptions Index.  As of 2020, the lest corrupt countries are New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, Norway, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Germany.

Taking into account the various indices, Norway tops almost every list followed by Iceland, Ireland, and New Zealand.  If we can get over he racism (that’s gonna be a major hurdle), I think it’s safe to say that we have our three finalists.  Norway and Iceland are tied or first, with Ireland a close second.  I’m more inclined to favor Ireland because they’ve been helping out the Choctaw Tribe back in the US during the coronavirus, in repayment for their help during the great potato famine; Good Guy Ireland, pays his debts, helps his friends, has a mutual fucking hatred for WASP bastards.

Ireland appears to be the greatest place to live.

Now burst my bubble, because I know it’s coming.  Tell me the bad news, rip off this band-aid nice and quick.

[nuttersincorporated]

Please Vote Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the UK general election, if you are registered to vote please vote. I’m begging you. The Tories are destroying the UK. Please, at least try to vote them out.

“What’s the point? They are all as bad as each other.”

No, they aren’t. Some of them are worse.

Under the Tories, the gap between rich and poor has got so much wider, homelessness and child poverty have spiked up, disabled and ill people have died by having their benefits removed, bits of the NHS have been privatised and sold off… I could go on.

Point is, the Conservatives suck and they make things worse for everyone who isn’t the uber rich.

Labour, on the other hand, have polices that will actually help everyone.

“I just want Brexit done.”

So, vote Labour! They are the only ones with an actual solution. ‘Get the best deal we can and then go back to the people to see if they want that deal or to stay in the EU.’

The Lib Dems won’t win so Brexit won’t just be cancelled (I don’t think that should happen even though I don’t want Brexit) and the Conservatives will have us talking about Brexit for yearsto come as we deal with the aftermath.

Also, you do realise that this election is about more than Brexit, right? Whoever wins will be in charge for five years and decide more than just how Brexit ends.

“I don’t Jeremy Corbyn.”

Personally, I like him but even if I didn’t; you are voting for a party not just an individual.

If you want to talk about not liking a party leader; Boris Johnson is racist, classist and dangerously right wing and hides it behind his ‘silly Boris blather.’ Hed lied to the Queen to got parliament illegally shut down, was fired from the Times and the shadow cabinet for lying, has caused a rise in hate crime and refuses to apologised for things like calling Muslin women ‘letterboxes’.

“What’s the point? I live in a Tory safe seat.”

And? That doesn’t mean you should just roll over and make it easier for them.

I live in a Tory safe seat. Nigel Evans is almost certainly going to win again where I live but I can make it a little harder for him.

I hate him. Nigel Evans is a hard Brexiter, doesn’t believe in global warming, voted against the introduction of a minimum wage, vote against every increases in the minimum wage, tried to make the minimum wage optional for employees (which defeats the point of a minimum wage) and – despite fighting SO HARD against the minimum wage – complained that it was hard for him to live on his MASSIVE wage of £64,000 a year because – born rich Nigel – thinks he should have more money.

You think I’m just gonna let him take his seat without voting against him? HELL NO!

Even if I knew he was going to win, I’d try to stop him. If only because I wouldn’t have the right to complain about him if I didn’t vote.

“The Tories are probably going to win again. Why should I bother voting?”

Because, they only win if people don’t vote against them. We have a chance to vote them out. Stop being pessimistic.

We CAN do this! But only if you vote.

“My one vote won’t make a difference.”

Yes, it will. If everyone thought like that, no one would vote.

Have you ever heard the story of the Milk Fountain?

Once upon a time, there was a town called Milk.

The town mayor decided that to celebrate the town they should build a fountain and, instead of water, they should fill it with milk.

Everyone thought this was a great idea. So, they built the fountain.

The mayor asked everyone who could afford it to donate one bottle of milk each week to keep the fountain running.

Everyone agreed and they all brought a bottle which they poured into the fountain ready for the big switch on.

However, one man thought, ‘Why should I put milk in? I’ll just add one bottle of water instead. No one will notice because it will dilute in all that milk.’ So he added a bottle of water instead.

The next day was the big switch on. When the mayor pressed the button, pure water came spurting out. Everyone had had the same idea and no one had added milk.

What could have been something unique for the town didn’t happen because everyone thought that they alone wouldn’t make a difference.

The people of Milk were ashamed enough to change the name of their town and avoid talking about the incident. However, privately each of them thought, ‘It wasn’t my fault. Everyone added water. Even if I had put milk in, it wouldn’t have made a difference.’

Stop adding water to the fountain, is my point. It’s only all water if you don’t add milk.

Go vote tomorrow.

[alexsmitposts]

UK: Everyone Now Drowning in Enoch’s Rivers of Blood The Prophet Enoch is a well-known figure in the Old Testament. Consequently his name has been popular as a personal name at certain periods, with parents of Jewish and Christian backgrounds naming their sons after him. The name never used to have any significance, except in reference to the biblical figure, other family members or some minor celebrity used to be the fictional character “Aynuk”, who features in comic dialogues with his mate “Ayli” (Eli) in local humour from the Black Country, the industrial area to the west of Birmingham – if you can understand the dialect. But nowadays it is a very brave person who dares give their child the name Enoch. It has developed connotations so disturbing that no one wants to be associated with it. “Enoch” is an insult you give to a particularly nasty, bigoted, narrow minded racist who is happy to be that way, regardless of the harm it causes. Call someone that, and you expect a violent or verbally aggressive reaction, a lot of other people joining in, and probably several trips to the hospital. So why has the man who destroyed the reputation of this name come back into the news? In the UK, where he did his evil deeds, there was no story. But the rest of the world has noticed his resurgence for the same reason they do when former Communists gain votes in Eastern bloc countries, and the German and Italian far right make comebacks. These countries are supposed to have got over all that nonsense, but here they are, backsliding into the bad old days. For over fifty years, British political life has tried to move beyond Enoch Powell. Now he is being looked back on with fondness by the most extraordinary constituency. What he represents has gained a new respectability – and this is as frightening as any nuclear bomb, or deranged US president, when you realise why this has happened, and how easily it can happen anywhere else. Beyond fame One of many ironies in this story is that he wasn’t even supposed to be an Enoch. The notorious former Conservative and then Ulster Unionist MP was christened John Enoch Powell, and therefore not expected to use his middle name in everyday life. Powell was always known to be intellectually brilliant. He was a classical scholar who university contemporaries remembered being very much a loner, simply because he couldn’t find anyone of his own level to talk to. Even near the end of his life, when accused of agreeing with something outrageous in conversation at a dinner, a witness to the event commented: “He wouldn’t remember because he is always in the clouds above us. He was probably speaking Aramaic at the time.” Yet despite his many gifts and accomplishments, Powell lives in history as a result of a speech he made in Birmingham in 1968 in which he attacked mass immigration from the British Commonwealth. This is known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech, because although he didn’t actually use those words, he quoted this line from Virgil’s Aeneid: “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’”. This astonishing attack on people of colour by a senior politician got Powell sacked from the Shadow Cabinet (the opposition party’s alternative ministerial team). But they struck a chord with many people who felt that the UK was being overrun by “foreigners” (non-white people), and they were becoming strangers in their own land. Though hardly anyone in a public position wanted to be associated with Powell thereafter, his views were shared by many voters, who thus considered themselves a persecuted underclass, being robbed of what was rightfully theirs by a liberal elite incapable of representing them. Exactly the same arguments used by the Brexit cult and its supporters today. Down the pub, in safe environments, you could admit to agreeing with Enoch Powell. In places regarded as “respectable” and “establishment,” his views and supporters were beyond the pale. Yet now, in a poll by the radio station of The Times newspaper, the most “establishment” journal of all, 16% of respondents have stated that Enoch Powell, out of a long list of historical figures, would have made a good Prime Minister. That is the third highest number. Just imagine how loved someone must be to be the third most desired leaderin any country’s history. Powell died over twenty years ago. But his racist rhetoric, and general outspokenness on other subjects, are still part of the UK’s political legacy. Everyone still knows who Enoch was, and why he’s famous, and has an opinion on him. Far from softening his reputation, time has magnified it beyond the many failures Powell endured after his notorious speech. So have the many attempts, at every official level, to declare him and his views unacceptable., because these are so obviously political in nature, dictates from above. When consulted by people in authority about other issues, people who agree with Powell think they are being spoken to as fellow human beings. If they mention race issues,they feel they are talking to a dictated opinion, imposed upon the people who repeat it as much as them. This sends them running to anyone who can treat them with respect, but still hold these abhorrent views. But Brexit has taken the sad rehabilitation of Enoch Powell to another level. Leaving the EU remains as it always was: the mantra of those who feel dispossessed because they have the “wrong views” on immigration and many other matters. Winning that argument has made the “Enochs” feel they are now in charge, and can behave however they like. BoJo the Clown and his circus have made this acceptable, and they pride themselves on doing what no other government has dared to say or do, because that in itself makes them heroes to people who just want someone to listen to them. All this has made Enoch a Prophet once again. For some he is a martyr to political correctness, the forerunner of Farage who suffered for being on the side the Brexit referendum has now proved right, in its own eyes. But most of us never deal with anyone like Enoch Powell. We don’t have a framework to see him within. This isn’t because it doesn’t exist, but because it does – and makes us all look so stupid, we wish it didn’t. Beyond point Powell has had several biographers. Each one has soon discovered that Powell had very clear positions on a wide range of topics, each meticulously argued, often in the face of intellectual disapproval. For example, it is generally agreed that although Saint Matthew’s Gospel is placed first in the New Testament, Saint Mark’s Gospel was written earlier. Powell spent decades trying to prove the contrary, with a supreme belief in his own understanding backed by wide and deep scholarship few can ever have equalled in this field. The big task for a biographer is to work out how all Powell’s different positions fitted together, and what this tells us about the man. Each one has made a point of saying they have done this. But by the act of doing so, they make clear that there isn’t a definitive understanding, and that what they think may be their personal conclusion, but there is room for argument. As a result of the horrible views he expressed, no one wants to bracket Powell with other great geniuses. But he was undoubtedly a major figure in the political life of his day, even when he no longer had any chance of office, or even a party he could call his own. Major figures do have one thing in common. Everyone who is good at a particular thing is very different from all the others who are good at it. Think of artists, car makers, sportspersons, newsreaders – if they are good, they are distinct, and do what only they can do. Brilliant people have the next dimension up. They can only function by being not only different, but the opposite. They cannot accept the arguments everyone else finds persuasive. They can only exercise their brains by arguing the opposite of what everyone else accepts, simply because only people of their intellectual level can do that successfully. Enoch Powell was an early exponent of what later became known as monetarism. He developed his views at a time when Keynesianism was the accepted logic, backed by powerful political and social forces which declared all non-accepters to be morally maladjusted, unable to grasp the rightness of the new, post World War Two classless society. In time, professional economists started drawing the same conclusions as Powell. Most of these probably never knew that Powell had had the same ideas first, and wouldn’t have wanted to admit it if they had, because he was a layman in economic terms. But when Keynesianism ran its course, politicians such as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, like Powell conservatives who gloried in seeming extreme, adopted a lot of Powell’s own economic thinking as if it were their own. Most thinkers in such circumstances would be glad to be proved right. But Powell was rather upset, insisting that these people didn’t really understand his arguments. What he meant was, if his arguments were so poor that his inferiors could understand them, they weren’t as good as he thought they were. The mere fact that his views had been accepted meant he had to reject them as unworthy of his superior intelligence. This is the one common thread in Enoch Powell’s outrageous and contrary bucketful of opinions. They were so wrong that only a brilliant man would be able to think and argue them. Powell needed the power of his own argument, which was always more important to him than believing a word he said. Maybe Enoch Powell really did believe his evil rhetoric. But that wasn’t important. The point was to gain intellectual stimulus by trying to make the impossible true. It’s the way brilliant people operate. But doesn’t it remind you of anyone else? Beyond acceptance Donald Trump and Boris Johnson are in broadly the same part of the political spectrum Powell was. Neither is regarded as anywhere near as brilliant as Enoch. But they attract the same sort of visceral adoration from the same type of people: those who feel excluded for having the “wrong views,” who feel these wilful outsiders represent their interests and no one else does. Both Trump and Johnson are regarded by many as pathological liars, and with considerable justification. This is often considered, rightly or wrongly, to be par for the course for politicians. What makes these two different is that they don’t seem to care, or understand why anyone else should. Trump is so associated with lying to his back teeth that people began counting his lies even before he had been elected. Since then, this has become a cottage industry, and has produced disturbing data. But Donald doesn’t care, and neither do his supporters. All that matters is that he makes the argument he wants to make, no matter how wrong and downright dangerous it is. He doesn’t feel any need to believe a word he says, or have anyone else believe it, it is all about how he says it. BoJo was sacked for lying when he was a newspaper columnist, and has made a long string of offensive statements about every segment of the population, in print and in person. Thousands of these are also well-documented. When this was brought to his attention, he told everyone to ignore whatever he might have written or said. It was all show, people shouldn’t conclude that he actually believed anything he’d ever said or done in his whole life. Those who buy into the racist rhetoric and wilful contrariness of Enoch Powell, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson do so because they believe in what these men say. It matters to them, it’s important. But those who say it are only interested in advancing an argument to convince themselves they can get away with it. They don’t have to believe it themselves, and aren’t interested in whether they do. Maybe we want someone to con us so we don’t have to admit we’ve conned ourselves. We all know, deep down, that conning ourselves leads to nowhere good. We don’t want to put ourselves in that place, or our friends and family. So we let Enoch and Donald and Boris do it for us, in public, and let them take the blame for what we have chosen to become. This is what these people represent, and as Enoch isn’t alive to disappoint anyone, he always will – if we let him, by continuing to let his successors get away with it.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Elections

So I’ve done my civic duty and voted in the local elections. And I’m hearing a bit of news that ... heartens me, a little. Basically, some people are suggesting that Johnson might call a general election if things don’t pan out very well for the Tories in the local elections, because it might be his best chance of staying Prime Minister.

Why does this excite me? Because there is no earthly way the Conservative government could get the infrastructure in place for the whole Voter ID / Taking Control of the Elections Committee bullshit that got signed into law the other week in time for a general election.

Look, today I slumped to my local polling station going, “This is probably going to be the last fucking time I can just go and vote without having to pull my biometric ID card - assuming they accept that as photo ID”. Because they don’t accept any ID with a photo on it as photo ID, and the weighting on it is horrifically skewed towards likely Tory voters. For instance, travelcards that let the elderly travel with discounts are considered valid photo ID - but the same kind of card that lets students travel with a discount are not. Which is where I start getting frankly horrified because it means that I, who am not a British citizen and can only vote because I am a citizen of the Commonwealth, may get to vote whereas someone who was fucking born here won’t be able to.

Anyway. Like I said, all of this stuff is heavily weighted towards blocking people who don’t traditionally vote Tory from voting. This is just going to add to our First Past the Post system’s unfortunate skew in the Tory direction. (Oh, yeah, another part of the Election Bill was to make the election for Mayor of London First Past the Post instead of proportional like it’s fucking supposed to be, so they’re really fucking with things right now.) So if Johnson manages to wait and ride out whatever fallout he’s going to get from the local elections, he gets to have an election where everything is stacked in his favour.

But. If he gets spooked. If he doesn’t wait. If he decides that a general election is the only way to keep his position. If he does that now, before all the infrastructure’s in place and he has to go with the significant skew in his favour that already exists instead of the monumental skew in his favour coming down the pipe? He may very well lose. The right-wing press is desperate to tar Kier Starmer with the same brush as Boris Johnson over what they’re insisting on trying to call “Beergate” (a long-running meeting on the campaign trail where £200 worth of curry was ordered, along with some beer - and given where they were probably ordering from, that’s not a lot of people and not a lot of beer, either, but no, some of these nutters insist it’s as bad as the “suitcase full of booze” party at 10 Downing Street and the “Ambushed by Cake” incident). It isn’t really working.

This government has not only taken pages from Trump’s handbook, but taken that Trumpian disregard for democracy to a whole new level by gutting the concept of free and fair elections. The way things stand when the Elections Bill takes full effect, even if people manage to get their valid photo ID to vote, and even if Labour (or some other party, though that never happens) does win ... all the Tories have to do is call fraud. And since they’ll have strings to pull in what is supposed to be an impartial elections committee ... that’s a problem. So if we’re going to have any kind of free and fair election again, it needs to happen now.

So gods, I hope we spook Johnson to the very core. I hope he decides that it’s going to get so much worse between now and the next official general election that he calls one before the flood of no-confidence letters to the 1922 Committee turn up and force him to resign. And given inflation going up to a projected 10%, interest rates going up to a full 1%, and the only suggestions that a significantly out of touch government can make is shit like “Buy own-brand stuff at the supermarket” (never mind that the price on own-brand stuff is going up more than the price on name brands) and... Well, this was less a suggestion on how to save money but there was a horrific interview with Johnson where the lady interviewing him flagged up the story of a 77-year-old widow named Elsie who spends her days riding the bus because it’s the only way to keep warm when she cannot heat her house because of the expense, and Johnson’s only comment was to state that he was the one who, as Mayor London, instituted the Freedom Pass by which she could ride a bus all day with minimal financial outlay. Which, incidentally, was a bare-faced lie.

So, yeah. Johnson’s just another word for dick and I hope he calls a general election out of panic because it’s the last fair one we’re going to have at this rate. As to the voting? I’m not supposed to outright say who I voted for but it’s not like everyone doesn’t already know. Hell, I mentioned on my way out the door that I had to go vote on my way home and Scruffman was like, “Secret ballot and I’m not going to start talking politics, but you know what to do!” My response was, “You’ve heard me rant a few times; I’m sure you know exactly how I’m voting” and left. Yeah, I don’t think I make my political views a secret from anyone.

[scotiaeire]

GREED WAS DIFFERENT IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

(PLS EXCUSE CAPS, SIGHT ISSUES)

“ Stanford historian Laura Stokes is uncovering how attitudes toward "acceptable greed" have done a turnaround in the past 500 years. Self-serving behavior deemed necessary on Wall Street today might have been despised in medieval Europe. One might even have been murdered for using wealth as a justification for circumventing societal norms. “

I WAS RAISED IN RURAL SCOTLAND. SINCE SCOTLAND IS OWNED BY ENGLAND, THE CONCEPT OF GREED WAS ALWAYS AROUND. LARGELY IN THE FAMILIAR FIGURE OF “THE ESTATE”. THESE ARE LARGE TRACTS OF SCOTTISH LANDSCAPE NORMALLY OWNED AND HELD BY ABSENTEE ENGLISH LANDLORDS.

THEY ARE USED FOR FORESTRY (CASH CROP) HUNTING, SHOOTING AND FISHING (MORE “CASH CROPS”) AND AS THEIR OWN PRIVATE GETAWAYS. PRETTY MUCH LIKE BALMORAL, WHICH QUEEN ELIZABETH, SECOND OF ENGLAND, FIRST OF SCOTS (NOT SCOTLAND..THE SCOTS ACTUALLY HAVE TO GIVE HER CONSENT TO BE THEIR QUEEN AND WHATEVER FECKING EEJITS DID THAT NEED SHOT IMO) AND WHERE CHARLIE RAN AND HID WHEN THE COVID19 SURFACED, PRETENDING TO BE “SELF  ISOLATING” WHEN ALL THEY WERE DOING WAS SHOVING HIM SOMEWHERE REMOTE, SO THEY COULD PROTECT THE HEIR TO THE THRONE (DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ IN THOSE TRASHY MAGS. ENGLISH ROYALTY HAS A SUPREMELY STRICT INHERITANCE STRUCTURE).

ANYWAY, AYE, *THAT*  KIND OF GREED. SO VAST AREAS OF LAND THAT FORMERLY BELONGED TO THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND, WHO ELECTED CLAN CHIEFS TO ACT ON THEIR BEHALF, WELL, ALL OF THAT CHANGED WHEN THOSE CLAN CHIEFS WERE BOUGHT  OFF BY ENGLISH GOLD AND WAYS AND INSTALLED THE ENGLISH FEUDAL SYSTEM.

NO, I’M NOT A FAN OF ENGLISH GOVERNANCE. IS ANYONE? IF YOU ARE, YOU’RE AN IDIOT OR A TORY. POSSIBLY BOTH. AND I’M LONG PAST THE AGE OF CARING WHAT FOLKS THINK OF ME.

SO, BACK TO GREED. WHAT THIS MEANS  IS THAT, IN SCOTLAND, ABSENTEE LANDLORDISM CREATES ISSUES BECAUSE OF GREED FOR LAND. THERE ARE NO NEW HOMES BUILT FOR LOCALS AND THEIR CHILDREN. THIS IN TURN FORCES THE CHILDREN TO LEAVE THE PLACE OF THEIR BIRTH AND GO TRY TO FIND WORK, OFTEN SO FAR FROM HOME MANY OF THEM NEVER RETURN. IT DEPOPULATES COMMUNITIES THAT ONCE WERE TIGHT KNIT AND FULL OF PEOPLE WHO CARED FOR THE COMMUNITY AS A WHOLE. A “TRIBAL” SYSTEM WHICH BENEFITTED EVERYONE, IN WHICH EVERYONE HAD A FAIR SHARE, DID THEIR SHARE OF THE WORK NEEDED TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE, AND ANSWERED ONLY TO THEIR CHIEFTAIN.

ALL THAT WENT WHEN THE CONCEPT OF ENGLISH GREED ENTERED SCOTLAND AND CHANGED THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE OF HIGHLAND SOCIETY. (I’M NOT EVEN GOING THERE WITH THE CLEARANCES OR I’LL BE HERE ALL DAY)

AND THAT, MY FRIENDS, IS THE SHORT VERSION OF “HOW ENGLAND FUCKED UP AND KILLED SCOTLAND”. BY GREED. (IT’S STILL GOING ON, IF ANYONE’S INTERESTED...AN EXAMPLE BEING, 98% OF SCOTLAND’S OIL PROFITS GO TO WESTMINSTER. NEXT TIME THEY SAY THERE’S NO CASH FOR THE NHS ASK BORIS WHERE THOSE PROFITS WENT)

SO, I KNOW FIRSTHAND WHAT AN IMPACT GREED, AS WE KNOW IT TODAY, CAN HAVE ON SOCIETY, FAMILY AND INDIVIDUALS.

MY HISTORICAL INTERESTS GO BEYOND THAT OF PRE-UNION SCOTLAND, AND INTO THE ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY AND CULTURES OF THE BRONZE AND IRON AGES. A TIME WHERE GREED AS WE SEE IT TODAY WOULD NOT BE CONDONED.

YES, THE VIKINGS PLUNDERED. THEN THEY TOOK WHAT THEY HAD FOUGHT FOR, SHARED IT OUT (WOULD *YOU* GO A-VIKING IF THERE WAS NOTHING IN IT FOR YE?) AND TOOK THE EXCESS BACK HOME TO IMPROVE YOUR LANDHOLDINGS AND SHARE AMONGST YOUR PEOPLE. (THERE *WERE* THE ODD EXCEPTION. THEY WEREN’T LOOKED KINDLY UPON)

SEE, FOR VIKING AGE PEOPLES, “FUN” WAS IMPORTANT. FEASTING, DRINKING, MORE FEASTING AND DRINKING, THAT WAS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT THAT FORMED ALLIANCES, (OR BROKE THEM DEPENDING ON HOW PLASTERED A GUEST GOT TO THE POINT HE INSULTED THE HOST) AND REINFORCED FAMILY TIES. TO DO THIS...BECAUSE IN THOSE TIMES AND PLACES, A STINGY HOST WAS NO HOST AT ALL...WEALTH WAS NEEDED. BECAUSE OFTEN, THE ONUS ON GIFT GIVING WAS ACTUALLY ON THE HOST, NOT THE PARTYGOER. AYE, THAT’S RIGHT. THE HOST GAVE PRESENTS TO THOSE ATTENDING HIS FEASTS. AND THE MORE LAVISH THE GIFTS, THE MORE CHANCE OF CEMENTING THAT ALLIANCE, OR FIRMING THOSE TIES.

YOU MIGHT THINK THAT SHALLOW AND IN IT’S OWN WAY, GREED DRIVEN. BUT IT WASN’T. IN THE SAME WAY AS WOMAN (AND MEN!) OF THOSE TIMES WORE THEIR WEALTH, OFTEN WALKING OUT IN EVERY PIECE OF JEWELLERY THEY OWNED. AT  ONCE. SO THE WOMEN IN PARTICULAR COULD SAY “LOOK HOW STRONG AND GOOD AT PROVIDING FOR ME MY MAN IS” OR, YES, “LOOK AT HOW F*CKING GREAT I AM AT GETTING MYSELF SORTED* THEN THE LOCAL VIKING HERO OR CHIEFTAIN/KING WOULD GIVE THE MOST LAVISH GIFTS HE COULD. IT WAS A WAY OF SAY “LOOK AT ME. THE GODS FAVOUR ME. AND SINCE OUR GODS ARE KICKASS GODS, THINK HOW DAMN *GOOD* THEY MUST BELIEVE I AM, AS A KING, AS A WARRIOR, AS A MAN, TO BE SO FAVOURED. SO IT DOES YOU GOOD TO HOOK UP WITH ME, JUST REMEMBER THAT”.

(POTTED HISTORY OF WEALTH AND GIFT GIVING IN THE VIKING AGE)

NOWADAYS? WELL...I LOOK AT FOLKS LIKE THE KARDASHIANS, WHO CLAIM TO “WORK HARD” FOR THEIR MONEY BUT IN REALITY, HOW MUCH WILL THEY MAKE WHEN THEIR LOOKS GO? AND WHAT KIND OF A SOCIETY BUYS THEIR GOODS BASED JUST ON A PRETTY FACE? WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT MINDSET? (I COULD TELL YE’S BUT I MIGHT BE LOCKED OUT OF TUMBLR BY DOING SO).

AND I LOOK AT CORRUPT POLITICIANS, LINING THEIR POCKETS AT THE EXPENSE OF SOCIETY’S MOST VULNERABLE, SO THAT PEOPLE DIE ON A DAILY BASIS OF STARVATION, LACK OF HEALTH CARE OF SHELTER, OR BY BEING ABUSED, MURDERED, AND WELL, YOU GET THE PICTURE. I’M SURE MOST OF YOU KNOW THE SITUATION REGARDING THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN YOUR OWN COUNTRIES. CERTAINLY, IN SCOTLAND (I HAVE TO POINT OUT I LIVE IN IRELAND NOW, AS THE ENGLISH GOV WOULDN’T LET ME REMAIN IN MY NATIVE SCOTLAND BECAUSE I MARRIED A DISABLED BELGIAN MAN. BREXSHIT.) ENGLAND GETS THE BULK OF PROFITS FROM SCOTLAND’S NATURAL RESOURCES, TRADE AND INDUSTRY (EVEN TO THE POINT THEY REBRAND SCOTCH WHISKY WITH THE UNION FLAG AND CALL IT “BRITISH” WHICH KINDA MAKES ME FEEL....SICK....)

SO AYE, THIS ARTICLE’S WORTH A READ, I GUESS.

BUT WHAT MIGHT BE MORE IMPORTANT IS THAT THE UPCOMING GENERATION (SORRY GUYS, HAS TO BE YOU. WHEN YOU GET TO MY AGE YOUR ACTIVISM DAYS ARE BEHIND YOU. I JOINED CND AND MARCHED AGAINST NUKES BACK IN THE DAY. DID IT CHANGE ANYTHING? NOT ONE SINGLE THING. BUT DINNAE STOP TRYING PLEASE) ANYWAY, HOPING THE UPCOMING GENERATION, WHO ARE MORE SAVVY THAN SAID POLITICIANS AND ROYALS GIVE THEM CREDIT FOR ON THE WHOLE (KARDASHIAN WORSHIPPERS ASIDE) CAN CHANGE THINGS. BECAUSE AT THE ROOT OF IT ALL IS GREED. CLIMATE ISSUES..GREED FOR ENERGY. MILLIONS STARVING..GREED FOR NATURAL RESOURCES TO SELL ABROAD FOR CASH, GENERALLY. I WON’T GO ON.

AMASSING WEALTH ISN’T, IN ITSELF, A BAD THING. USING IT TO FURTHER STEAL FROM OTHERS IS. USING IT TO LORD IT OVER OTHERS AND DICTATE THEIR LIVES IS.

PERSONAL NOTE: THERE’S MORE OF US..THE POOR FOLKS...THAN THE RICH ELITE.

THEY’RE OUTNUMBERED.

SO SOMEONE TELL ME *WHY* WE ALLOW THEM TO DO WHAT THEY DO TO THE PLANET, TO US, AND TO OUR CHILDREN?

BECAUSE ALL THE “NON VIOLENT PROTESTS” IN THE WORLD CHANGES LITTLE. SOMETIMES, YOU NEED TO SMACK THE BULLY DOWN SO THEY DON’T GET UP AGAIN, SO THEY NEVER WANT TO BULLY ANYONE EVER AGAIN.

YES, THERE *ARE* TIMES WHEN VIOLENCE IS JUSTIFIED AND I MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR SAYING SO.

SCOTLAND HAD AN INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM IN 2014. ROUGHLY HALF OF SCOTS, SAID THE POLLS, WANTED FREEDOM. (SADLY, THE LARGE NUMBER OF ENGLISH SETTLERS IN SCOTLAND DON’T). THE REALITY WAS, WE WON. AND IT WAS STOLEN FROM US. BLANK BACKED BALLOT PAPERS (MINE, FOR EXAMPLE) WHICH WERE MEANT TO HAVE BAR CODES AND UNIQUE NUMBERS ON THE BACKS. MISSING BALLOT PAPERS (A WOMAN WHO FOUND A BUNDLE IN TRASH CANS HANDED THEM INTO THE POLICE. *SHE* WAS ARRESTED AND HAS BEEN MADE TO SIGN A SILENCE ORDER BEFORE BEING RELEASED. FACT.) POLITICIANS OPENING POSTAL VOTES BEFORE THE VOTING HAD EVEN ENDED, ON LIVE TELEVISION. (AYE, DAVIDSON, LOOKING YOU, WOMAN,,,) AND A CONSTANT BARRAGE OF ASSAULT ON THE OLD, BY THE ENGLISH MOUTHPIECE IN SCOTLAND, THE BBC, TELLING PENSIONERS THAT UNDER INDEPENDENCE THEY’D LOSE THEIR PENSION (LIES), THAT UNDER INDEPENDENCE FOLKS WOULD NEED PASSPORTS TO GO BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND (LIES) AND MORE, WHEN THE TRUTH IS THAT SCOTLAND’S RESOURCES SHORE UP ENGLAND’S ECONOMY.

NOW *THAT* IS GREED ON A GRAND SCALE. AND THAT IS WHY ENGLAND REFUSES TO LET GO OF IT’S OWN CASH COW...

WHATEVER THE FUTURE HOLDS, I HOPE THE UPCOMING GENERATION CAN COPE WITH IT. BUT MORE, I HOPE THEY CAN CHANGE IT. I HOPE THEY HAVE THE COURAGE TO DO WHAT IT TAKES. LOOK AT THE PAST, SEE WHAT OTHERS DID, DON’T REPEAT.

BECAUSE GREED IS WHAT’S KILLING US ALL, IN TRUTH.

ARTICLE SOURCE HERE: https://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/august/greed-middle-ages-080212.html

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

But Elanor... where the heck are the Libs in all of this????? Dying of popcorn kernels going down the wrong pipe because of the cackling?

Quite honestly if the last decade has shown us anything it's that the question "Where are the Lib Dems?" cannot be answered by science. Like, here's a quick recap of the only things of note they've done in that time:

Willingly entered into coalition with David Cameron so they could have a taste of power, and promptly betrayed all of their core principles to do so; this allowed the Tories to come into power.

Managed to get a referendum on voting reform that would have made UK voting infinitely fairer and more representative but fucked up the PR so badly that the few people who participated said no

Got rid of Nick Clegg, the only one anyone could reliably name

New leader Tim Fallon was completely and utterly forgettable and then suddenly went 'Actually I'm a massive homophobe' for no reason and so then had to leave

New leader Jo Swinson ruined our chance to block Theresa May's shitty Brexit deal by agreeing to the 2019 general election in the hopes that the Lib Dems could win more seats, which they did not, and which led to Boris Johnson becoming our elected leader and pushing through an even worse Brexit deal that has led to a crippling new cost of living crisis

Won some by-election seats off the Tories because right now even a bowl of toilet water looks more inviting than dealing with the Conservatives

Uhhhh, the current leader is Ed Davey I think

They have, though, agreed to back Keir Starmer if he tables a vote of no confidence, because they basically agree to anything that means we get another GE. So, there's that.

That said, they had one nice one, if she's still there - Sarah... someone? Teather, Sarah Teather. Remember her? In the expenses scandal she was the only MP who not only hadn't abused the system, but hadn't actually claimed any expenses at all. She was great. Shame she left. I bet she's having a whale of a time watching this.

[thelifeofkaiblog]

So many people I know are devastated by the UK election results :(

•*•*• 14th December 2019 •*•*•

((2:57am))

Let me start by saying that absolutely no political party or politician feels trustworthy or honest. None are anywhere near perfect and it felt to a lot of people like figuring out which was the “lesser of two evils” - Boris Johnson, a proven liar and protector of the wealthy, while sacrificing the working class, and Jeremy Corbyn, an equally dodgy man with questionable associations with senior members of Sinn Féin (Irish political party linked to IRA’s bombing campaign) and anti-Semitic members within his party (Labour).

The Conservatives (Johnson’s centre-right political party) have been in power since 2010. National debt has doubled, though it also doubled under the last Labour government. The Conservatives, with the assistance of the Liberal Democrats, brought in austerity. Austerity is severe cost-cutting measures, in response to the global recession - budget cuts for the NHS, emergency services, social care, schools, libraries, etc. In 2015, they promised to build 200,000 starter homes. They haven’t built any. There’s fear over privatisation of the NHS, something that saves lives on a daily basis - something that many will truly suffer without because a large percentage of us, like many Americans, can’t afford private healthcare. They promise Brexit, but their planned deal is awful - not to mention that it’s not the Brexit people voted for, so there should have been a referendum on this deal or remain, with no way for the deal to change after it’s voted on.

It seems like many working class people have been brainwashed into thinking that the Tories (Conservatives) will help them, when things have only got worse. There has been an increase in poverty and knife crime. I’m not saying all of this wouldn’t have happened under any other party, but the Conservatives have had 10 years to improve things and haven’t, so why would another 5 years in power change that?

A lot of others who voted Conservative seem to have very little concern for how less privileged people will be affected. I’ve talked to a fair number and almost all were quite selfish in their thinking. It boiled down to “what’s best for me and my family, it’s not my job to care about others”. Voting for the leader of a COUNTRY and you don’t care about how your vote impacts the rest of said country? With that and some working class citizens still voting them in, “like turkeys voting in Christmas”, this feels like our Trump moment.

As I wrote at the beginning, I don’t think there was a good choice, but I think a change in leadership would have at least given us a better chance of positive change. If Corbyn had accepted how disliked he was and stepped down, letting someone else take his role, we may instead have been looking at a Labour government today. I didn’t even vote Labour, but it seemed less terrifying than this.

[swanning-around]

Possibly the best thing written on current UK politics, from Rex Varro, British Intelligence magazine - www.british-intelligence.co.uk

PRESSGANGED : BORIS JOHNSON AND THE BRITISH MEDIA

REX VARRO

1st September

​

It seems that people on the Right in Britain are broadly split into two camps: those who say Boris Johnson is a bullshitting waste of space, and those who think the prime minister will come good if we can just get past coronavirus.

I can see both sides of this. Yes, coronavirus dropped from a clear sky onto a government fondling an 80-seat majority and a country collectively sighing with relief at having avoided a Labour Party captured by communism and also having voted in a prime minister who promised an end to Tory lies about Brexit. Just like the moments in movies when someone asks what could possibly go wrong now, everything went pear-shaped very quickly.

Readers of British Intelligence being clever and well informed sorts, I do not need to recapitulate the sorry story of the past six months. True, Johnson became very ill – and some say he has yet to fully recover – but his absence made it all the more clear that the cabinet is like a giant rock band with a great front man: once he goes it is fatally reduced. I know that people pay good money to see Queen and The Blockheads, but as far as I am concerned, without Freddie and Ian it is a complete waste of time. True, you still have Priti Patel on bass as it were but it’s not enough.

Then there is the media’s obsessive hatred of Johnson. Back in the Eighties when I held left-wing views about society I often heard people moaning about Tory control of the media. It is hard to credit how strong and aggressive newspapers were in those days, yet even then I was sceptical about the supposed control papers such as the Sun held over public thought. The public’s innate conservativism was reflected by newspapers, not the other way round. It is typical that the Left got this arse about face, and still does. I still have Labour-supporting friends who rant about ‘Tory hate comics’, imagining that dying publications such as the Sun, the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph are all that stands between them and a socialist Britain.

In any case, the ‘serious’ media, including many ‘broadsheets’, the BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 and ITV news, is now largely controlled by what is best described as a Blairite worldview. This means they hate Johnson. That they cannot see him as one of their own is indicative of how ignorant, unimaginative and saturated in received wisdom these institutions are. For Johnson is very close to the kind of politician they want: a social liberal, a can-kicker on debt, a wildly enthusiastic burner of public money and very much pro mass immigration. What, as they would say, is not to like?

Well, what they don’t like is that he’s posh – though that is OK if you are in the Labour Party –  went to Eton and above all has at times described women and certain minorities in jocular and pejorative terms. Yes, in his journalism he deployed a sub-Wodehousian style which while threadbare is not, to any sane grown-up, an indication of fascism.

The man deployed levity! He joked. He mentioned piccaninnies, bumboys and made mild fun of burkas. This is the most serious heresy for the media left. They know perfectly well that what Orwell said is true: every joke is a tiny revolution. The Left’s power increasingly resides in the controlling and policing of social attitudes. Real jokes, jokes that reflected events and behaviour in the world, were effectively banned a long time ago in the comedy revolutions of the Eighties and Nineties. The Left rejoices in snide sarcasm and social satire aimed at white people but jokes that kick against the fortress of identity politics can never be tolerated or forgotten, because if political correctness falls then the whole leftist project falls with it. Johnson’s crime is that he has never taken it seriously enough. That and also having the cheek to say he would stand by the result of the Brexit referendum.

Compare Johnson with the ultimate cuckservative Theresa May, with her capitulation to the Left on identity politics, policing and, don’t forget, her Frida Kahlo bracelet. What an easy ride she got from television news reporters (the most aggressively Blairite operators in the media)! She bought in to all their wrong ideas, accepted their premises and above all was committed to emasculating Brexit in broad daylight while promising the electorate that she was doing the opposite – a good old fashioned member of the political class in other words. If the media elite was not so fanatical and lost in a hammock-spin of fury over Brexit and Trump etc, it would realise that Johnson is not so far from May as his grassroots fans think: he has the primary Tory vice of seeking to work round issues caused by left-wing mischief making and wrongheadedness  rather than openly confronting and fighting them. Much of this will be due to entrenched public relations micromanagement inside Number Ten. Nevertheless, if Boris was the kind of freebooting maverick he is often sold as then he would have gone off-piste long ago. He hasn’t. The Conservative Party believes that it is easier and more electorally advantageous to ride the tiger of cultural Marxism rather than fight it, despite it being obvious that making war on PC is a vote-winner and, in the long game, the only way liberty, free trade and the rule of law – in short the centre right’s vision of society – will survive.

It must be recognised that revolution is being propagated in the West but Johnson is yet to show he is taking a different line to the Cameron/May governments. Cameron, a weapons-grade bullshitter, made speeches about social justice as did Theresa May, who in 2017 even instituted the pure socialism of a ‘race audit’ to tackle ‘burning injustices’. Johnson has been more practical with his talk of levelling up, but now Covid-19 has offered the Left the chance of perhaps its biggest power grab since 1945. It doesn’t want the crisis to end, at least not until it has seen society permanently changed, essentially a vast expansion of state power, state spending and interference in private life along with a new drive towards supranational relations to militate against the Brexit revolt. Worryingly, this is the agenda for the global elites. See what the World Economic Forum is doing with its ‘Great Reset’ initiative. Johnson fans often ask me how this can be achieved if there is no Labour government in Britain. Even asking the question reveals naivety: media campaigns, a left-leaning civil service, PR, forums, think-tanks, green papers and the like are the methods employed to chivvy ministers along, rather as a sheepdog herds its charges into an enclosure.

This all means that Johnson’s in-tray is massive and ominously fateful. This is not a time for standard soaking wet Tory tactics: fudging, ‘British compromise’ and managed decline. If this government gets the Covid fallout wrong the consequences will be far reaching.

What should Johnson do? Until it gets the sort of echt centre-left leader it craves, the media likes to present Britain as a pandemonium of dissent and protest. It is true that the revolutionary urge is growing, but race and environmental activists are comparatively small in number yet Johnson’s media handlers evidently live in fear of them or rather in fear of the media’s constant propaganda in their favour. Johnson should get all this in perspective and realise that the ‘silent majority’ does not want to live in the future the Left are dragging us all to. Therefore he is a lot safer than he thinks he is. In any case he is years from a general election so can afford to take gambles, be radical and forthright across the fields of education, law and order, sexual politics and international relations.

The lingering popularity of Margaret Thatcher, which was quite out of proportion to her actual achievements in office, was based on her straight talking and unqualified patriotism. Every prime minister since her time in office has more or less spoken with a forked tongue, aided and abetted by the media. Most reasonable intelligent ordinary people over the age of about 40 know the public have been lied to for years across a range of issues, the biggest one being immigration. Johnson must break the mould and set a precedent. Otherwise, and rather sooner than you think, this country will be truly ungovernable.

Rex Varro is a national newspaper journalist

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