Boris Johnson

The bowlingatvincent.com Multinational Corporation Review of the Year – 2022.

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bowlingatvincent.com – literary wing of the Protest Channel that is @bowlingatvinny – had a strongish year. (I know ‘cos I just looked back). Except that it accidentally traduced the original purpose of the whole damn enterprise, which was to roar about sport and art pretty much alternately. I may reflect on this.

Of the fourteen blogs during 2022, five were about football. I rather unpicked Wales’s World Cup Adventure, got into United and Ten Hag (v West Ham), covered England’s Lionesses v USA and through their Euros win and watched my home town Town at the Play-off Final. Astonishingly, of the eight zillion opinions and tactical judgements I expressed through nerve-janglingly live coverage of all these occasions, I can – even in the allegedly sobering light of day – find none that were wrong.

  • Contest. And then maybe not? I was dead right that Wales needed to play better and that Bale should retire from (certainly) international football and probably club action, too. Now.
  • ‘Where are Wales? What level they at? Are they heroic over-achievers, in a cruel, more heavily-endowed-with-everything kindofa world? Or what? Where’s the Wales Place, in footballing terms – and maybe the other stuff? Football-wise, are they brave and bold, or are they ungenerous and perverse? Are the ‘limitations’ enabling or stultifying? Where do, or should Wales pitch themselves?’
  • I was right to note with some embarrassment that the USA – not Argenbloodyteena – ‘slaughtered’ Wales in the first 45 minutes of their campaign and that for all the justifiable gas about a rare and wonderful World Cup appearance, Page’s ‘pragmatic’ conservatism disappointed. Sure, Wales have few great talents (so responsible caution blahdiblah) but the endless holding patterns only seemed to undermine both individual performance – no surges; no racing adrenaline for player nor support! – and the essential hwyl that has carried Wales for aeons. It was all a bit lame.
  • I nailed the Rashford Thing and the signs of re-growth, under Ten Hag, in Holding Players. Elanga was similarly *seen* and Fernandes un-picked, en route.
  • …’quality-wise, there was little difference. In the first ten both Casemiro and Eriksen showed glimpses of their rarified best, either threading or spraying fabulous passes into feet, offering real hope that the mythical(?) corner into Team Flow and Sumptuous United-ness might yet be turned. But no’. 
  • In Things Have Changed I trumpeted the stunning transformation in women’s football, in England, and by implication, beyond. Ingerland ‘bossing the yanks’ said it all, after a decade or more where North American soccer all-too-serenely ruled over us amateurish Brits. I noted the ‘supreme equanimity and humour (as well as tactical intelligence)’ of the new gaffer – Wiegmann.
  • More controversially, perhaps, I mischiefed-up the Euros Final, fearlessly calling out relative under-achievement, performance-wise – even in victory – on the day. (Come ON. Don’t you get bored of the faux euphoria that massively over-inflates the *actual performance(s)?* It’s perfectly possible and generally the case that trophies are won in ordinary games by ordinary performances. This in no way deflates the fabulous significance of the achievement).
  • So, in Clickbait? You betcha! I do argue that recent SPOTY winner Beth Mead was one of several who were mixed, rather than brilliant, in an absolutely brilliant tournament win. I correctly identified that presser invasion as ‘the best moment in the history of sport’ and named Millie Bright Player of the Tournament… because she was.
  • Finally – well, previously – I *actually went* to the home of West Ham United FC, to cover the Mighty Mariners. Great day/crap game.
  • ‘It’s absurd in 2022 to use phrases like ‘attractive football’; worse still to associate that with abstracted, rose-tinted community goodness but as I look around the acres of ‘park’ now home to the Happy Hammers, the clash of values, vistas and jazzed-up-verbals is somewhat mind-blowing’. 

The Other Channel, now sportslaureate.co.uk , carried more football but bowlingatvincent.com was always the home for rugby. Life and *things* – like cricket, mainly – have regrettably drawn me away from funny-shaped balls but I managed to post homages to the egg on three occasions.

Despite being a Likely Phoney – male, middle-aged, possibly voyeuristic; at best a flawed dilettante – I watched a good deal of the Women’s Rugby World Cup. It was sensational. England may not have produced to their absolute peak but they have been utterly magnificent – frighteningly, powerfully so – for two years. France are not far behind. And then there were the homefolks.

  • The final, between England and the Black Ferns, had to somehow bear comparison with the semi, between New Zealand and France, which may have been the best rugby match of all time. I wrote rather wryly about the Black Fern’s ultimate, inevitable win; again creating mischief, again misunderstood. England had a player sent off – rightly, under the rules of the modern era. It (the offence) wasn’t malicious and it happened so early that the contest was effectively re-drawn as a training-ground routine. England held-out wonderfully gamely but were done, from the moment of the card.
  • ‘The second half may have been as colossal as the first. It was an exhausting watch, with the defiant visitors floating through chunks of time, before selflessly, heroically heaving against the inevitable. Both sides naturally made changes and inroads. Both scored. But the universe had been shifted. The crowd knew it. England were overhauled, before striking back. Then overhauled. With three points in it, the battered visitors kicked for the corner rather than look for the three points that would bring extra-time’.

I wrote two posts on (men’s) Six Nations stuff, back in February. They stand up, too. One of them channelled both The Mekons and Dylan Thomas: it also morphed into part-coverage of Eng women v Aus, at The Cricket, with ‘Rafters clanging. Sea rumbling’. It’s likely that I was in a caravan, in one of those storms, at the time, so it wasn’t Heather Knight who was fearing airborne adventure. Oh: I may or may not have been drinking.

There were but two artsy posts. One on Freddie Flintoff’s TV caper and the other around the Sensationalists/YBO’s art and lifestylery. I am critical of both… but right… as you will see… if you go back through. I’m really not sure what caused the apparent shift away from The Arts: they remain at the core of my life and my learning. I still believe I have some contribution to make, to reviewing and/or ‘criticism’.

From Sensationalists: people who might convince us: ‘Morons at the Mail, poor or tokenistic arts education and profound levels of ignorance have engineered a situation where we are a) visually illiterate b) suspicious and small-minded and c) too bloody lazy to stand in front of an artwork and let it do its job – beguile us, transport us, challenge us. This, for what it’s worth, is my context; the belief that art matters and that artists carry that privilege of being our conscience with courage and often a deep, deep, incorruptible honesty’.

From The Sublime to…

The unfortunate truth is I felt compelled to write upon multiple occasions – well, four – about the Tories, or Our Government. These are angry pieces.

In more than one of these blogs I savage Johnson and regret not a word of it. Plainly he is the worst Prime Minister of my medium-considerable lifetime. In A Christmas Puppy? I almost dare to bid an un-fond adieu.

‘So could the Age of Embarrassment finally be over? Might the Bumbling Buffoon, the Etonian Mess really be done?

It’s possible. In a characteristic veil of porkies and shameless, conscience-less swerves between the reported fact, his Urgent Gatherings and the forbidding fridges of a life lived in cosseted anarchy, Johnson really may have spent himself. It’s possible. The lies and the deceit and the vile uncaring will of course go on, endlessly, but it may be that his time in the Real Spotlight is over’.

I am content, foolishly, perhaps, to judge him morally as well as describe his practise, which has brought chaos, death and shame to an increasingly grubby kingdom. There is surely a kind of Shakespearian wickedness, an epic foulness around his skiving off from the first five COBRA meetings, in a world emergency, in order to a) sort his ’women problems’ and b) finish writing his effing book. This is un-caring – not needing to care – on a truly appalling level. It’s absolutely him.

So I’m fuelled with hatred and contempt, for Johnson and his thin acolytes. There are dishonourable mentions for the whole filthy clan: Mogg; Truss; Kwarteng; Hancock; Cummings – and by implication for the quietly grotesque hinterland, into which the likes of Dido and Mone hope to disappear. They appall and offend me, as does the xenophobic Brexit catastrophe and the ongoing, raw corruption across those VIP Lanes, corporate favours – particularly the gaze-averting re our scandalous water industry – and the whole, humiliating House of Lords gravy-train.

My dismembering of the Tories is less forgiving, less funny than (say) Marina Hyde’s – deliberately so. I fully accept that driven, polemical writing of this sort may contribute little to the task of ‘turning things around’: but forgive me if I simply bear honest, angry witness. Despite the fact that nobody’s paying me to do this, it does feel like ‘my job’. (Plus lacerating hostility may not necessarily devalue the writing).

The year, then. Set in a matrix of an Ingerland that feels like it’s unravelling further – or at least the brink seems closer.

Thankyou to all who do read. Regulars, who may have a sense of how ‘niche’ I remain, will understand that there are times when I am tempted to either give this malarkey up, entirely, or to further streamline, by gathering all the writing and twittering into one place. This may yet happen, but might curtail my ability to speak the truths I want to speak. We’ll see.

Anyhow. Please do continue to visit the two websites and, if you would, RT on the Twitters – that’s oxygen, for us bloggists. In case you’re wondering, if energy permits, I hope to produce a sportslaureate.co.uk Review of the Year, too.

Love and heartfelt thanks to all: have a wunnerful New Year.

              Rick.

A Christmas Puppy?

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(An apology: the last thing I wanted to do is to make everything ‘all about him’ again. But the reason I do that is because I really do have some hope that this really might be it, for Johnson – an ending. I’m not optimistic about a Sunak Premiership, however short, what with likely roles for Braverman and other Nasty Party rightists but there would be some satisfaction at the thought that BJ’s time was rather unceremoniously snuffed-out. Let’s hope that proves to be the case).

So could the Age of Embarrassment finally be over? Might the Bumbling Buffoon, the Etonian Mess really be done?

It’s possible. In a characteristic veil of porkies and shameless, conscience-less swerves between the reported fact, his Urgent Gatherings and the forbidding fridges of a life lived in cosseted anarchy, Johnson really may have spent himself. It’s possible. The lies and the deceit and the vile uncaring will of course go on, endlessly, but it may be that his time in the Real Spotlight is over.

Rees-Mogg’s insipid declaration of confidence proved as thin as the man himself. His ill-matched bedfellow (the lard-arsed one) never, ultimately stood, preferring to come over all ‘tactical’ until defeat slapped him in the kisser. It’s widely believed that the 102 MPs were as genuine as de Pfeffel’s protestations of love, and that Johnson’s toying with politics may now be short-lived. The good people of Uxbridge have barely seen the former PM, what with all the foreign holidays: they are unlikely now, to be graced by long-term service – nobody (but nobody) gets that.

Boris doesn’t do contributions of this sort. Ever since Eton, his singular egotism has blinded him to the whims and needs of the un-Boris. Surely the whole charade that is his life has been a kind of gristly reflex towards the destiny that family and place had promised? Masses of fame, masses of moolah; fawning women and footmen a-drooling. The irresistible fact, then, of Great Office (briefly) precursing comely adventure, from exotic break to highly-remunerated Public Speaking Engagement. In so far as Johnson is capable of planning ( I think in his case these things tend to be assumptions), this has been The Plan. Tick the big juicy boxes, proffered by happy circumstance towards one; reap the rewards.

Much to its shame, the universe has provided. Women got on their knees, blokes laughed at the ‘quirkiness’, folks voted, presumably out of that feudal inferiority complex that defers to Them Who Know Best: yaknow – the toffs. Silver Spoon-dom; Eton; Balliol. Boom.

Even having the Most Embarrassing Father In History somehow failed to work against him. Five missed Cobra meetings; patent corruption and murderous incompetence around Covid planning and response; relentless extravagance and grotesque indulgences within Downing Street itself (largely at some mindless but presumably mortified sponsors’ expense). None of this seemed to register against; except, perhaps Partygate.

Finally the clowning seemed unfunny. Enough of the ordinary Mail-reading psycho’s felt a twinge. There was a cover-up, there were further blanket untruths and omissions but even without a Kuenssberg or a Peston Revelation – like how could they not know? How could they not have personal experience?!? – Partygate stank the place out. People could smell it. That whole culture of taking the piss, of being superior, of not needing to care because the rules just don’t apply… leaked out. And there was no other place for that to be centred than on B J.

Boris, we all knew, had been guilty all his life of believing in his divine right to indulge, freely and without conscience. But now it was obvious this included during lockdowns. Whilst we were – whilst the Queen was! – behaving or making cruel sacrifices for the common good, Johnson and co were popping the corks. We’re not so foolish as to believe they will ever be truly held to account… but we know they were guilty of this. That transgression landed. Shockingly, a miniscule number of Tory MPs acknowledged the nature and the heft of the betrayal and the Opposition seemed – appallingly – unable to call out the great sin of the age. But it landed enough.

This is why Boris was unzipped; disowned by 60-odd MPs, ultimately. They finally found safety-in-numbers and finally called him out. Now his unseemly bundle back has been stymied. A last porkie – 102 supporters, lols! – waived in front of a gullible press. A phone call to Mordaunt to schmoozle her into backing down. But nope. That old magic has waned.

Sure there were a few spineless cretins calling him ‘boss’ right until the end. Some actually believed there was a future in it – a Boris 2. But it’s likely now that neither those hand-relievers nor the Press Barons themselves can keep the Johnson delusion afloat. The bloke’s still under investigation – and again whilst natural justice on the matter is unlikely, ultimately to be enacted, I’m guessing now that (hilariously, finally!) enough Tory MPs view him as a serious, short-term risk to the party’s credibility.

It may be possible that lots of people would, if given the chance, still vote for the Big Dog. But a sufficient consensus has arisen, within Westminster, to keep the unkempt beast chained. He may yet become, in political terms, at least, a Christmas Puppy: loved briefly then ‘too much trouble’ – forgotten.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, born New York. Made for life, of course. Will flit from speaking gig to courtesy holiday. Will play the jester and delight those predisposed to crawl. Never, actually, a serious political figure: now, quite possibly, ‘over’.

I. Moral.

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The word ‘immoral’ has been bandied about, eh? In politics and on social.

Fair enough, in fact thank god; any sentient being must have felt the creep of depravity and self-interest swilling over from the nauseating Johnson administration (hah!) to the newly-hatched but similarly reptilian Truss Crew. It may even be that A. B. de Pfeffel (etc)’s only profound contribution to British Public Life was the re-ushering of considerations around goodness and decency… because the twat was so manifestly bereft of both.

Yup, surely beyond dispute that the dishevelled clown was amoral – lazy and utterly uncaring? Secure in his repellent cocoon, protected by generational privilege and just enough ‘quirky’ wit to seduce a sufficient percentage of morons out there in The Country, as well as a few fading, doe-eyed, probably aspirational debutantes within his, or The Party’s clutches. He raised the flag for the slags – male and female – and the heartless.

Hard to be sure how much Truss loved and/or admired him, but plainly there are *connections*. Johnson’s weird ‘libertarian’ bullishness becomes her Free Market Mania. His wallowing in pomp and casual signalling about race and value becomes her pointy-thin English nationalism. Neither give a toss, nor know anything about the lives of ordinary people.

I confidently expect Johnson to be the worst P.M. of my lifetime but in that grubby contest, fair play, Truss has gotten off to an absolute flyer. She is less obviously steeped in entitlement but more openly pro- Those Who Have than he was. Astonishingly. The now infamous mini-budget, concocted with fellow servant-of-the-toffs-and-corporations Kwarteng was perhaps the most mind-blowingly brazen genuflection towards concentrated and unlimited wealth-gathering within the great families and corporations that this country/these countries have ever seen. Truss and Kwarteng shoved it in our faces. Those Who Have will get more – you other fuckers will get less, to pay for their ‘growth’.

Growth. Say it like the swear word it is. On a dying planet; in an ‘advanced society’. Four billion years of evolving life and these evil puppets are saying this is how we should work? Forget that which is decent. Forget equality or any sense of philosophical civility. Forget the Climate Crisis. Let the obscenely rich… be richer?

Biden’s notable but understated rebuke around the laughable and patently discredited ‘trickledown theories’ – unacknowledged by Truss and co, but plainly at the empty core of their vacuous ‘policies’ – was one of the minor highlights of recent political badinage, on the Twitters. (Put your hands up, friends, if the sight of a serving Brit PM getting called out for so obviously being a dumbo, made you smile – albeit ruefully). Even the (centrist) Yanks are laughing at us; at our hopeless, mean, un-educated transparency.

But maybe there is hope. Because it’s not just Andy Burnham using that word immoral. Despite the relative absence of political intelligence in the population, there is some decency. Folks know that there really is something foul about bought-Tories (like Truss) and Outed Toffs (like Kwarteng) opting to line the pockets of their allies. There is no windfall tax on the energy giants. Tax cuts *do*, barely credibly, favour the rich. The lurch both to the right and away from that which is right has found another gear. Oh, the arrogance! Did they think we wouldn’t figure this out?

On top of the willful, cheapening, xenophobic project that was Brexit, the Truss Conspiracy piles more economic and cultural madness. There’s an argument that the key driver here is prejudice – certainly it’s powerfully present. Prejudice (or lack of care) around ordinary folk, because they ‘barely contribute’. Or because they will never grow. Prejudice (of course) towards Others; those who are foreign, whose value is less than us, the Exceptional English. Prejudice born of estrangement from normal lives.

Whilst the Tories plainly got in because of this prejudice – the whole Johnson/Cummings campaign was constructed around it – something’s changed. It’s possible that many of those gullible to racial constructs are less persuaded by strategies built around class: particularly where the thrust of advantage seems mono-directional; that is, to the overwhelming benefit of the rich.

Interestingly, Truss feels relatively isolated. Even before she shocked some (but not all) of her party colleagues by being embarrassingly shambolic, it seemed like few Tories actually believed in her, or were following. (The figurehead that is Truss has always felt decapitated, has it not – even from the nonentities and bit-players that now make up her cabinet?)

The Conservative Party may, post-Boris, have been ripe for more nationalism and more strident neo-liberalism, but I’m not sure they expected this shite. Appalling competence, woeful messaging and startlingly reactionary economics.

One of the most telling allegations against the Tories since the asinine May era is that there’s been no voice for the good. No-one protesting for decency and fairness. Under Johnson, naturally, urgent or mindful voices were subsumed by the essential hedonism of the individual. Bojo was expressly amoral: nobody called him out. That cowardice – the absence of conscience – may yet decimate the party. They deserve it.

Truss is an ideological fool, soon to be caught in amber with her arms-length colleague, Kwarteng. They may actually believe in their growth theories but nobody trusts their intentions. Events – funding/’contacts’/the facts of their upbringing – present them as neck-deep in either corruption or privilege or both. They have outed themselves and some would say, the Tories, as Defenders of the Haves. They have done it more shamelessly than any government we might remember: even Johnson was less economically-wedded to the class he burst forth from.

The government are indeed immoral. Though that might not be the word that Everyman might find, it is the sentiment that will bring this callous cohort down. Soon. The people know.

They – the Tories, these Tories – are #theveryworstofus.

Johnson.

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We can’t just leave it to James O’B, so…

Johnson. The heave-inducing haystack; part lard, part Scarf(e)ian nightmare . The Liar. The Cheat. The Truly Grossly-Entitled One. The son of his father. ‘King of the World’. Did all of this stuff really happen?

Of course it did. And however much we absolve ourselves – even those of us who knew (who knew!) what sort of a malign prick he was – every single one of us has some serious thinking to do.

Without setting aside the Johnson-specific howlers, the international embarrassment, the murderous strategic failures, the government-by-racism, we have to be smart enough and generous enough to think beyond our justified contempt of the man. It’s fair enough to hate him, he’s a low-life in a surreal, truth-less realm he really does think he owns; a particularly foul individual. But this can’t happen again; this can’t all just be about him. Let’s deny him that.

We have to seek progress, do we not? So need to be as clear as we can about the enablers. (We won’t, sadly, be able to do much about the systems of privilege and prejudice in these islands but we must call them out).

Murdoch, Dacre and waaaay too much of the media has either created the environment for Johnson’s grotesque rampage or facilitated it via omission – by failing to call lies lies. Look with any intelligence or fairness at what the Mail/Express/Telegraph/Times have been pumping out and there’s a truly sinister level of delusion, bigotry, disinformation. The whole concept of news has been subsumed under a kind of contemporary signalling: imagery and relentlessly crass soundbitery hussling readers towards a mean, othering worldview. It’s strategic – meaning choreographed towards a specific purpose. Big Money, in short, is being protected.

I’ve just watched James Rob utterly eviscerate the Daily Mail and nodded along with the (yes, gedditt, plainly flawed) Alistair Campbell’s twitter onslaught against the worst PM of my lifetime. How many other significant public figures have been actually calling out Johnson’s filth and amorality, directly? Should it be down to Johnathon Pie to steer the public consciousness towards what’s really going on? Is that not the very purpose of The Media? How have they been so absent when The Story – that we’ve had a plainly debauched Tory leader with a high-viz capacity for lies, corruption and cronyism – is so obvious and undeniable? To repeat… is it not the media’s very function to report and therefore make judgement possible?

Of course it’s not, when they themselves are driving the urge towards cheap, dumb, race-based patterns of behaviour.

The Mail (surely a candidate for Most Vile Newspaper on the Planet?) enabled Johnson every step of the way – championed him. Dacre and co. made possible the rise of xenophobia and evil that powered Farage and Brexit, and the conflation/reduction of every political discourse to a dreamy return to a Proper Ingerland: white; noisy; exceptional. The Daily Mail coaches zillions of old, dim reactionaries towards a more exceptional bigotry every day. It is really not alone in this but everything from the relentless lying to the disappeared corruption around Covid contracts, Track and Trace, Arcuri, cash-for-honours, Russian influence, lobbying and second jobs, as well as the editing-out of the central horrors that are the Covid deaths, Partygate and the astonishing extravagances and outright law-breaking of the desperado couple, Cummings and Johnson is a function of the Murdoch/Media Baron Environment. We have to break that somehow.

Zooming out, the deliberate damage to political life and discourse is scary. The fact that Keir Starmer has been steered away from ‘controversy and ‘divisiveness’ for so long is indicative of a deadly failure within the system. The Opposition dare not oppose, for fear of a) Tory rags whipping up yet more dumb rage against them and b) this rage winning out, electorally. Only now, that Johnson is going (pleeeeeeze god), are we seeing any legit moral outrage from the Labour leadership. Previously, he daren’t call out lies for fear of scoring own goals.

On many levels this is offensive and inadequate – it serves us badly. But plainly Starmer has been advised not to appeal to people’s intelligence and decency, because three inch headlines about immigrants or scroungers will hold sway over that. That is, there is no (or there is insufficient) conscience out there – no sense that historic boundaries or norms around individual or collective behaviour remain valid. So nothing matters. When the PM’s getting blowjobs in parliament and/or been trying to get his mistresses jobs or jollies, or finishing his book/sorting his divorce instead of attending to international emergencies and this stuff somehow leaks away from view, things political are being steered ver-ry dangerously.

We’re still being run – being played – by a few families. Folks with colossal power, unthinkable wedges and an iron grip on all of us. It’s only occasionally that the truth of this cuts through. Cummings loved to paint himself as some anti-Establishment guru but he was (is) neck-deep in money and privilege. Johnson’s father is the very epitome of Olde English Entitlement: he will enjoy those privileges alongside those now afforded by his residency within the EU. (By the way, could there be a better symbol of Tory Hypocrisy than Our Stanley? True, there are a glut of contenders but everything about Johnson senior reeks of the very smuggest form of exemption – of the rules simply not applying).

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson – c’mon, let’s hoist him by that petard (no doubt) imposed by pater – is going. He hopes and expects to choose the time of his going – of course he does – and apparently expects us to host and underwrite his extravagant wedding during this period. After that he will (of course) slot into the easy life that is gifted consultancies and the After-Dinner Circuit, where he will command huge fees. (Can it just be me who’s thought all along that the whole degenerate Prime Minister Project has for Bojo been just another way of collecting anecdotes with which to entertain Lady Amplebosom, of Hartley Wintney? The shameless bastard will probably have his own talk show, never mind as many £100k speaking engagements as he wants. And he knew this would happen for him.)

Masses more of ‘Boris’ then, in the offing. Because the truth is paths will open, scandals will fade or disappear. Power persists. Johnson, despicable man that he is, will probably never be held accountable. And if he was, he wouldn’t care – wouldn’t need to. We may never know if his flirtations with Russian Intelligence were genuinely a threat to our national security, nor where the missing Track and Trace billions have landed. When it comes to Elite Family members, even the ‘quirky’ ones get protected.

Brexit Day – some words. A #Universe #podcast.

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Been wrestling with what to do, as a Remainer. Been probably unhelpfully angry, but also determined not to shrink. Looking for something that feels like appropriate defiance… and to be honest, not that bothered if some view it as inflammatory.

Understand that Brexiters will simply view my wee statement as typical Remainer arrogance, including, as it does, the notions that exiting is wrong, and predicated on racism. Worse still, I guess I’m insinuating into the argument the ver-ry contentious idea that we Remainers are Better People than t’other side, because we’re right, we’re anti-xenophobic and therefore we hold the moral ground. (Think we are, think we do, think there is).

If that hasn’t put you off entirely, please do have a listen. Don’t expect any worthwhile debate will ensue, because we’re all so bitterly entrenched: know that I may indeed be contributing to that particular, ongoing malaise, by digging in. Hey ho.

If we could brush aside those narrowish political red lines for a moment, I might finish by saying that I really do have concerns about a divided future – especially where the scramble for food security really will be an issue for millions, worldwide. How’s it gonna be when every leek, cabbage or chicken matters? How ugly will it be when the protectionist juices unleashed here and now are swilling towards swathes of desperate, starving, near-drowned or parched and emaciated peoples from country X?

Crazy-paranoid? Don’t think so. Think what defines us needs to be generosity, open-ness. Think xenophobia is bad. Have a listen.

 

I say in here that democracy was poorly served – deliberately – by Cummings and Johnson and by a nauseating, bigoted Billionaire Press and of course I stand by that. It’s obvious. But what Brexit and my argument points to is a deep dive (that’s what folks are saying, currently, right?) into democracy itself.

In short I’m with Orwell in the sense that democracy gets just the two cheers. Because people maybe shouldn’t get the right to decide on MASSIVE stuff they *lack knowledge* about.

Yup, I get that dangers aboundeth, here. The politically correct – or those involved in politics, who therefore can’t unload contentious notions without engaging their Ooopsie Alarms – cannot say (for example) that people are too dumb to be allowed a vote on capital punishment. But they would be right about that.

Likewise Brexit. Too many people were always going to be drawn to immediate, neanderthal prejudice for this ever to have been good politics – wise, considered politics. The Tories knew this, of course, like they knew that the detail of any leave agreements would be waaaay beyond the ken or the interest of the Great Unwashed. But a strangulated Cameron capitulated to his right wing and then Cummings and Johnston chose to press the prejudice button… because that way they could turn democracy to their purpose.

So democracy is deeply fallible, deeply vulnerable to corruption in the fullest, scariest, most moral sense. Democracy is the best we can hope for but it needs good, genuine, honest, intelligent parliamentarians to lead us through it – to debate at a high level and then lead, on things the public don’t or can’t know about. We haven’t had that, eh?

#Brexit – an exorcism.

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Ok. So it’s unwise to go there but it feels the best way. The best way to exorcise something – maybe everything. Don’t go looking for either a work of art or anything too comprehensive, here; too angry, too bitterly clear, too close to giving up.

Think I’ll bullet-point this, partly because many of you ferkers simply don’t deserve Fully Laid-out Arguments… and partly because I dread loading up more time into this sinkhole. Plus, to be honest, I don’t know the answers; the intricacies around Trading Agreements and Common Market doo-dahs being pret-ty far out of my sphere of knowledge and interest.

This is of course the chief reason Us Plebs should never in a million years been asked to vote on EU membership – the whole sorry business being a sop to the morons on the right of Cameron’s party. We have little specific knowledge but lorryloads of juicy prejudice relating to ‘Europe’. Johnson, Farage and their crypto-fascist colleagues have simply stoked all that unbecoming ‘othering’.

So we should never have been here. But we are. And amateurs like me – knowing little of the minutiae, churning with the whole cowabunga – are battling our best to make what feel like possibly moral and certainly philosophical calls, as we try to STAY TRUE to our UNDERSTANDINGS.

(So why? Because we still believe there is decency and brotherhood).

This, then, is where I’m driven to.

    • Can’t believe ANYONE could vote for or support the embarrassing clown that is Johnson, or his arse-wipe of a sidekick, Rees-Mogg.
    • How is it possible to support men who reek so utterly of privilege, arrogance, indulgence? How is it possible to avoid seeing their palpable, greedy ‘superiority?’ How could your flesh not creep when BOTH, recently, signalled ver-ry loudly that BEING RACIST IS ACTUALLY OKAY?
    • I get that most who support them do that out of like-minded xenophobia or outright racism… so I suppose that’s it.
    • Either that or you too actually believe in the Etonian Right to Rule; that there’s nothing unduly concerning about ONE SCHOOL providing the four countries in the union with god-knows-how-many Prime Ministers.
    • Here’s the nub. If you are a tory and in the Brexit Camp then the overwhelming odds are that you are either an outright racist, or what we might call a casual-cultural xenophobe.
    • (I salute those of you who are finally realising just how poisonous 2019 Conservatism has become and now scamper away in disgust, or better still whilst puffing out your chests and calling out the utter nastiness of it. Scary fact: Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is presiding over something sinister and repugnant).
    • Percentage-wise, of those who voted for Brexit and now support Boris, I reckon *60% are outright racist and about 30-odd % xenophobes. The latter maybe have six more brain-cells than the former, per head, enabling them to actually avoid saying in public the stuff their dumb hearts are screaming inside.
    • I leave about *10% as folks who could make an intelligent argument for Brexit, devoid of any bigotry. (Okay. Re-thinking that I may revise that figure in the population upwards somewhat, to include those on the Left who can make a genuine, intellectual case for Brexit: despite the fact that we haven’t heard it, I do accept that this can be made. The EU is essentially imperialist and as witnessed in Greece, for example, arguably brutally so: I recognise that as a legitimate argument. The right has an almost total absence of legitimate arguments).
    • So we are divided and there may be no way back from that. Brexit is absolutely a function of bigotry. People on my side know what people on the other side are generally like. People on the other side hate us, for our snowflake-ism and our superiority – for surely if you are bigoted and we are not, then we are superior in that respect?
    • I can live with people hating my inability to discriminate – or discriminate waaaaay less crassly than they do. (All of us carry baggage and therefore all fall from the path of righteousness at some point, eh?) But all this is clear: the Brexit Project was and is founded on racism.
    • So it is RIGHT, for me that Parliament, is fighting against no deal. It is RIGHT that 20-plus tories have opposed that rush to the ‘cliff-edge’. And, importantly, it is implicit, in their revulsion towards Johnson and his cronies and his fawning admirers, that the moral component in this – however exposed it may leave us snowflakes – is a part of the argument.
    • Is there hope – you do wonder if we deserve any?
    • There is no hope for reconciliation, or virtually none. You Daily Mailers and me are probably not gonna be pals. I’ll talk to you and be civil enough when necessary but…
    • Fortunately, I do know some tories I genuinely like. I apologise to them for this contribution to our divisions and hope they respect my right to An Opinion. (Just need to get this out there and done. We will again take beers together).
    • There will be an election. I just don’t know how that will go, because The Clowns of the Right may club together; Farage may march his seedy mob right into centre-stage.
    • I respect Corbyn’s radicalism-against-the-odds but recognise that the cruel demonisation of the man (and his vacuum of leadership through the Brexit trauma) means he may not steer us through this. Specifically, he is unlikely to win out in a General Election.
    • Does this leave us with a new figurehead, a tactical voting imperative, or a possible Progressive Alliance, or similar? (Clearly talks have been taking place on this theme). As I said; I’m not sure we deserve any hope.

*My numbers don’t matter – and yes I know they’re inflammatory. But I’m leaving them in as food for thought. I really think that racism is that central.