Truce? You can't handle the truce!

Christmas has traditionally been a time to put aside differences and get on with each other, if only for the sake of the kids. But on Christmas Day social media was alive with two quite different versions of the season’s felicitations. In the main, people laid down their weapons and wished each other a happy day, whoever they were, wherever they were. Peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind and all that. But a smaller group were noticeable by their very different and quite sinister instinct; to wish harm on those with whom they disagreed.

Boris Johnson’s Christmas message was inclusive, affable and filled with warmth and good humour. Doing what a Prime Minster should do he sought to embrace the whole nation, wish everybody well and hint at better days to come. In stark contrast Jeremy Corbyn – a Scrooge for our times if ever there was one - was dour, somewhat bitter and condemnatory in tone, refusing to concede for one second that his personal brand of politics was why he had lost the election. It also sought, right from the off, to paint a portrait of a miserable, divided society.

Taking their cue from the top a number of high profile lefties took it in turn to wish ill on the Prime Minister – how dare he be popular, how dare he seek to unite the nation – some even wishing him death or personal disaster during his brief holiday break. Various tweets from many politicos on the left also contained veiled sneers, portents of doom and some even slightly threatening messages, signalling an inability to withdraw from the fray for even just one day of the year.

And what bitter self-loathing can account for the many who wished death on a man who at 98 only retired from a lifetime’s service to the country two years ago? Seriously, what existential threat does Prince Philip represent? Armando Ianucci mocked Jacob Rees-Mogg’s sincere “Today a Saviour has been born to us. He is Christ the Lord.” Quote-tweeting it as ‘Fake news’. One wonders how he might respond to a prominent muslim tweeting out ‘eid mubarak’ – a cynic may suggest that no derision would be dealt in that direction.

And in one after another sneering, divisive, spitting hate-filled, messages of malice the noisy part of the left did what they do on a daily basis. Kevin Maguire, A C Grayling, Jolyon Maugham, Carole Cadwalladr and all the usual joyless circus of sad clowns. As predictable as the sunrise, as welcome as super gonorrhoea. Had the first world war Christmas Day football match been between the modern right and left, the left would have no doubt taken the opportunity to mow down the opposition with machine gun fire.

So certain are they of their just cause that they seem to have gifted themselves the cloak of purity and goodliness that protects them from all criticism, at least in their own minds. Yes, in recent weeks, Owen Jones, Stormzy, Ash Sarkar, John Hannah and others have come under heavy fire, but the ammunition used was what they themselves supplied. Instead of wishing them death, their interlocutors have usually just repeated their own words back at them and expressed a wish that they could see what others see. Know thyself is still sage advice.

Left and right, in a nutshell.

So in the new year we have a much more clearly defined separation between left and right. The right - who in reality are mostly centrists and now include many former Labour voters - wish health and prosperity to all while those who identify with the hard left will do their utmost to wreck such ambitions. All we have to do to win this war for the character of our nation is to carry on being reasonable and turn our backs on those who hate. Come and join us, one and all and whoever your god, bless us all, every one.

Stormz in a Teacup

For a while now I have been struggling with unlocking the secret to a fair society. Nobody seems especially happy with democracy because it doesn’t always produce the outcome you want. This most recently happened in the good old disunited kingdom resulting in the installation of an opposition-busting 80-seat Tory majority. Since then you can hardly pick up a newspaper, turn on the radio or television, or dive into social media without being harangued by hair-shirt wearing extremists who are bleating about extremism.

The reality is that Boris Johnson is a pretty centrist figure politically and for all the outrage at him once using words like picaninnies and commenting on water-melon smiles; for all the accusations of racism over comparing burkas to letterboxes; for every imagined slur the left wing can conjure, nothing he has said or done comes even close to what his newly recruited voters believe, say and do every day of the week. Boris is popular; his detractors can neither understand why, nor tolerate that simple fact. And this is because the left as a whole just don’t grasp human nature.

On Friday there was outrage that Dominic Cummins is reportedly paid a salary approaching £100k by the Conservative Party. So what? Seamus Milne is paid more by Labour, but to make it appear far more heinous and ‘capitalisty’ the headline used the descriptor ‘three times the average wage’! The politics of envy in microcosm. To be honest I was surprised that a man who has just helped save us from Corbynism was being paid so little; I mean, Michael Heseltine gets about that much every year for doing nothing except big-up the EU¹. But the fact remains that headlines like this will gain traction with a certain sector of society.

Working people will shrug, possibly say something like “Nice work if you can get it” then get on with whatever fills their day. But those who fill their days with finding things to be offended by will… why they will turn to the great sage of their age, the seer known as ‘Stormzy’, who will articulate for them as few orators have done before. Move over, Churchill, step aside Socrates, a new sage is in town, motherfuckers. I don’t know what it says about society when hard on the coat tails of the messiah Corbyn, his emissary on earth is a hate-filled homophobic misogynist; at least judging by his own words.

Remember Stormzy? Who?

And words is all they are, for now. Such words may encourage others to take up sticks and stones but then that does Boris’s job for him. That the left is no more than a juvenile rabble which believes in impossible dreams just becomes more starkly revealed. They preach peace and love, but justify violence and hate to get it. Socialism constructs its own fantasy reality but when it gets into power it fails to live up to even its own limited mythology.

For the many, not the few is fine as a soundbite, but it also encapsulates the politics of envy. Kinder, gentler politics sounds all so noble, until the Momentum hate mob piles in. And in Corbyn and McDonnell – whom many revere as demigods, rather than the demagogues they really are – the simpletons of socialism have found guides, not to the promised land, but back into the wilderness of political exile. You’ll excuse me if I don’t buy into the fantasy.

¹. I honestly don’t know what Hezza gets paid by the EU, but why let the facts get in the way of a popular trope

Corbyn was What?

If Jeremy Corbyn was right about one thing it was in following the footsteps of one of his heroes, Lenin. Whether or not Lenin actually originated the saying “A lie told often enough becomes the truth” is immaterial; that it was his modus operandi is pretty much indisputable. And so it has been for countless other manipulators of public perception, for we humans are depressingly fallible when it comes to which lies we accept and which we reject.

In most cases we willingly embrace the untruths that confirm our beliefs while rejecting those which do not. And if you can persuade a crowd, a movement, even, to accept your dogma, why then, cult status is not so very far away. That Corbynism is/was a cult is a hard thesis to dispute. His adherents, well, adhere to the astonishment of his detractors in much the same way as the followers of Sun Myung Moon did. From the outside, hard Corbynites look as assuredly brainwashed as do the acolytes of any whacky pseudo-religious sect.

But from the warm, comforting bosom of the beast their mutually reinforcing aphorisms are balm to the soul. Jeremy the new Messiah would have healed the world had the Tory centurions not crucified him. Without his wagging finger there is nothing in the way of the Tories’ plan to sell off every hospital and dispossess every NHS worker of their livelihood. The dying planet will accelerate toward its inevitable, fiery end without the miracle of Jezza’s fierce intellect. The homeless will remain unhoused in Boris Hitler’s Britain.

And so drones on the outpouring of misery and dejection under the hashtag #CorbynWasRight. But, of course, we will never know. I say ‘we’ will never know because the prescient philosophers of Corbynism are true believers. They just know that Magic Grandpa never told a lie, always wielded a straight bat and was going to build a new world order absolutely for the many not the Jew few. They know it in their hearts and with all the wisdom this largely millennial generation can muster they see that Jeremy is good and kind and gentle and true.

Well, perhaps except for the bits about always backing the enemies of peace and harmony, but nobody’s a saint, right? Telling the parodies from the real tearful tirades is getting harder as the most outrageous of accusations are levelled at Boris. All you have to do is make up an outrageous lie about something they care about – Johnson plans to legislate to make diesel compulsory on all public transport near schools, for instance – and out will come the slogan writers and the meme generators.

Mostly, though, their angst appears to be centred on the NHS, their great shibboleth being that the Prime Minister is intent on selling it off wholesale, or if no principal buyer is found, piecemeal. “What am I bid for Nurse #32108?” and “Who will give me 50p for this kidney bowl?” perhaps. When the new year rolls out and Dominic Cummins’ instruction to his team of special advisers to make the NHS a success at all costs begins to return dividends, do you think the weeping dervishes will applaud? Or do you think it is more likely that it will somehow be the wrong sort of success?

How does one choose?

As I tweeted out, Boris could issue each and every one of them a unicorn which shits glitter and all they would do would be to complain about the mucking out. He could build a million council houses and they would demand a million more. He could enact every one of Corbyn’s social justice pledges and they would insist that he had done the exact opposite. They say misery loves company and I can think of no more miserable company than that of earnest leftists who have swallowed every lie. So, while it still lasts, do yourself a solid and have a look at what those crazy kids are saying now. #CorbynWasRight

Do Little

The UN Climate Summit recently concluded, having been moved from Chile to Madrid and then being extended. Thousands of air miles consumed and lots of CO₂-laden hot air spouted and not one single conclusive outcome. No actions, no decisions and almost nothing agreed, thus, no point. In fact it is doubtful whether the carbon cost of the futile exercise itself will ever be offset. I mean, just how many trees do you need to plant to cancel out the inanity of coming up with a ‘gender action plan’ which ‘recognises the impact of climate change on human rights, historic and current gender inequalities and the importance of intersectionality’?

These leaders, these experts, these braying donkeys tell themselves they are engaged in saving the planet for all humanity. Instead they are gathering some of its wealth for themselves and some favoured others. This is what climate action does. It creates a problem, funds research to describe the problem, lays the blame at the feet of the people who can do least about the problem, then attracts more funding to arrange junkets where rent-seeking buffoons can pat each other on the back and say they are fixing the problem. Well, they’re not.

This isn’t about whether or not - or how far - you trust the current thinking on climate change. Or whether anybody – and I mean, literally, anybody – has the full information at their command, let alone at their fingertips. For every doomsday prophecy about how a single centimetre sea-level rise will kill a billion people, there are a dozen contrary conclusions available. Hell you can’t even find out how much an offshore wind turbine costs throughout its life, or how much your bills and taxes have increased to pay for it, or whether, as has been reported, the short-term effect on climate change is actually negative.

And by short term I’m talking about the first one hundredyears. Yes, you heard me. Much of the technology isn’t sufficiently mature and the infrastructure needed to support such an energy paradigm shift is decades away. As a result, although a probable majority would agree to pay to ameliorate the worst effects of humanity on the planet, it is difficult if not impossible for anybody to be totally honest about it. Portents of mass extinction are overblown and hysterical, but hardly less problematic are the knee-jerk reactions of governments impotent to act rationally yet all too ready to act irrationally, as long as they are seen to be acting. But, for pity’s sake, governments, give people an incentive, don’t take the stick to them.

Electric cars for instance. I’m going on a charging point installers’ course tomorrow, as it happens, but I don’t expect to be either enlightened or enthused. Far from offering a revenue stream for jobbing electricians, this is just another way of selling blankets and shovels to the prospectors. The installation opportunities have already been monopolised by big money concerns and the little man won’t get a look in. Why am I going? Well, I am also a seller of shovels and blankets and my company will be offering courses in the new year; this is just a bit of small-scale industrial espionage.

Yes, I am part of the problem too, but, you see, humans are opportunists and if we don’t provide the training, somebody else will, as unnecessary as it will all turn out to be. Electric cars are not only not the solution, they don’t even come close to providing a solution. I expect them to prove to be a huge white elephant. Only this morning I heard somebody pronounce that all oil-fuelled vehicles must be off the road by 2030. To do this will involve a massive re-organisation of our entire society, the costs of which will fall – as always and in every way – on those least able to absorb them.

The solution – the solutions – lie not in governments doing a lot, but everybody doing a little. Instead of waiting for subsidies to persuade you to change, how about a bit of self-reliance for once? You want an electric car? Buy an electric car, for the full price. You want to reduce CO₂ from flying? Forget about the ridiculous notions of ‘carbon trading’ just, you know, don’t fly. As for the rest of us, a little bit of tighter budgeting, a reduction in waste and a less thoughtless lifestyle might be all it needs to make a real difference.  If only we could get the Chinese to do the same...

Ah, souls...

Remember when we were colourblind? Britain has long been a pretty tolerant country; we put up with a lot before we kick off. But our attitudes towards black and brown and yellow people have been questionable in the past. The days of Bernard Manning were effectively over while he was still performing his racist schtick to, it has to be said, almost exclusively Labour-voting audiences. That kind of blind prejudice had never been acceptable, however, and by the end of the eighties it was pretty much dead. In the meritocracy we were building it mattered not from whence you hailed, rather it was what you brought to the table.

How things have changed. I have almost finished Douglas Murray’s excellent exposition of the über-woke and their obsessions and infighting – The Madness of Crowds – and the big takeaway for me is the impossibility of what they insist they want. Demanding to be understood, the various sub-groups of the LGBTPQI++ ‘alliance’ simultaneously insist that unless you are them you can never understand them. It is a Catch 22 of their own making, wilfully aided and abetted by academics, policy twonks and a plethora of rent-seeking ‘experts’ who seek to realign society.

The trouble is, their vision of society is as seen through a kaleidoscope – disjointed, jarringly symmetrical and ever-shifting. (I do recognise, by the way, the irony of invoking a 19^th Century child’s toy to describe the world view of a cohort who have likely never peered into one.) The problem remains; you can’t demand special treatment whilst also demanding that you are accepted as an equal; you can’t force both diversity and equality to rub shoulders without friction. So Labour adopting the multitude of positions they have in order to achieve this improbable thing have set themselves a challenge which may be insurmountable.

The Labour Party is in deep trouble. Again. They have been here before and the outcome was exactly the same; eventually the grown-ups had to step in and wrest back control from the Marxists. But that certainty shows no sign of coming about just yet because the left-wing grievance machine is still firmly in control. Having eschewed their founding voter base for the inanities of identity politics they remain convinced that what is blindingly obvious to everybody else is yet another manifestation of the bigotry they are determined to find all around.

Labour lost because the people they claim to represent didn’t want their representation. They lost because their drift to the left has left their voters behind. They lost because the vote they so much need to court belongs to people they have come to abhor and denigrate. So they have to decide what they want to be; they have to resolve their own identity crisis. The workers? Or the Islington Set? The coming Labour leadership contest will truly be a battle for the soul of the party. Ah, soul…

Cracking on

I am northern and working class but, thankfully, not from one of those tribal Labour cities. I grew up in rural North Yorkshire where the farming community ensured the Conservatives were the natural party of choice. Although politics was never really discussed at home, my dad being Labour by sheer obstinacy, my mother flirting with whichever party might best benefit the family, I became aware of dad’s refusal to countenance any other option whenever the subject did arise.

He was a labourer, he asserted and therefore he must vote Labour, as his dad had done before him. As a teenager I began to see how ridiculous that made him. When my mother voted to install Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street I was away at university but I can well imagine my father’s disgust. He hated the woman for no other reason than he knew he must. Even today, having benefitted from her right to buy policy, he refuses to engage in any conversation about Mrs T, while mum, emboldened in her advancing years takes delight in occasionally poking the bear.

So, I think I understand how hard it must have been for died-in-the-wool Labour supporters in towns which until this election would have been proud to declare themselves red forever. An unthinking blind adherence to doctrine with no understanding of the harm that doctrine does has propped up Labour over and over again. But in 1979 it was workers, fed up to the back teeth with the unremitting mediocrity of their party who revolted and turned to Thatcher. I like to imagine it was the working wives, like my mother, who were largely responsible for that victory.

Now, forty years later, something very similar has happened. But has the Labour Party acknowledged it? Not one bit, for to listen to some of their commentary it appears that they are blaming the voters themselves. Too selfish, too racist, too stupid, too gullible; how dare they decide for themselves which way to vote? Emily Thornberry has been reported as saying to a colleague that she was glad her voters weren’t ‘as stupid as yours’. Yours? This proprietorial attitude towards ‘their’ voters says so much about how far Labour has strayed from the path it originally set out on.

No doubt Thornberry and Co welcome the protests that have broken out in London and Glasgow as the brownshirts of Antifa likewise refuse to accept the result. But the verdict is very much in and lost they most certainly have. They have lost authority, credibility and dignity and the longer they hold onto their belief that those votes belong to them the longer it will take them to realise that they are the architects of their own, crushing defeat.

This is no horror story...

Meanwhile the mood in the rest of the country is one of relief. And of hope. And if Boris Johnson goes forward with half the resolve that won him this election the celebrations will take a long time to fade. A happy new year is in prospect for all and no matter how much they hate him, that includes the petulant children of the hard left. I still don’t fully trust him on Brexit, but I hope to be proved wrong. But anyway, the deed is done the battle won and the war is ours for the winning. So let’s crack on.

In Praise of Authority

The experiment has been running for well over half a century now and I think we can all agree it has been an unmitigated failure. Give the next generation a go, they said, the children are the future; they should have a stake in building the world in which we all live. Of course, allowing the young to set the agenda is problematic when they have no understanding of what it is like to be old, to be business owners, to be professionals, to be parents, whereas older people…

Well older people come with baggage, of course; they are ‘Little Englanders, stuck in the past; times have changed; the world has moved on, etc… Maybe so, but there is a reason we don’t let trainee civil engineers design major infrastructure projects; why famous architects are invariably middle-aged; why heart surgeons are likewise advanced in years. Ah yes, but ‘old people’ can’t adapt to new technologies, new societal structures, new ways of being human!

You think? Seriously, you’d condemn the repositories of all that accumulated wisdom, won through experience, often via the hardest of routes, as mere fuddy-duddies? Viewing older people as toothless crusties, addled with Alzheimer’s and re-living a black and white movie loop of a world view is only rational if you are looking down the wrong end of a telescope and processing what you see with an intellect which still believes in certainties. Father Christmas, God… the eternal benevolence of socialism. Give me a break.

The continual pandering of our political ‘elite’ to the narrow concerns of every possible sub-division of society is in no way a solution to the very real problems which face all of us. And so consumed are some of these groups by the very particular individual needs of their caucus that they cannot, or will not see the needs of the rest. Differently abled does not make you uniquely equipped to understand universal issues, often quite the reverse, given their inevitably inward obsessions.

Neither are the so-called ‘lower classes’ the model for democracy fairness and egalitarian reform. And while the image of Britishness may still be represented worldwide by cut glass accents and impeccable manners in the movies, the Eton Set are hardly exemplars of British society. But then, neither are the Angela Rayners of the world, although they really seem to think they have the answers.

Jeremy Corbyn, for instance, wants British children to learn about the “grave injustices” of the British Empire. He believes more ‘honest’ narratives would enable them to develop critical thinking about those centuries of Rule Britannia, global domination and jingoism. A Labour government, he promises, would reform the curriculum. But, see, this revisionist thinking is all just part of the same old problem.

Do you really – really – want governance that examines every tiny facet of your life? Do you want Chinese style social credit scores? Or do you want a system that keeps the arteries open, punishes the bad guys, heals the sick and aims for an ever-better society? If you think either is achievable in short order then you are a dreamer. If you think either is achievable without pain then you are probably still a child.

Whatever system is in place, some will thrive regardless of all the others; some will thrive at the expense of others and some will barely survive through the charity (forced or voluntary) of the rest. And this is also true, that some will fall by the wayside and yet the majority will still grumble about their lot. For my part I don’t have faith in any of our politicians in the west to fix anything at all. I think politicians have become debased by their own illusion of power in conflict with the reality of their true impotence.

So, maybe we should give up on the experiment and accept that it is time for the real grown-ups to take back the reins now that junior has crashed the sleigh into the snowbank. Santa may be old and tired but he knows the drill; the elves have never been out of the toy factory. And, he knows who is naughty and who is nice… and how to deal with that. Could we be nearing the end of the west’s infatuation with the democratic experiment and ready for the return of some good old-fashioned paternal authoritarianism?