Old Holborn

Robert Ambridge, better known as Old Holborn on Twitter and elsewhere, died last weekend. He was of an age where he had a full retirement ahead of him but made an early exit from causes I do not know. I have no easy means of getting in touch with his family to offer my condolences and I only learned of his demise some five days afterwards. I met him only once, but followed his antics and largely agreed with his outlook on the world.

Reviled as a ‘troll’ and exposed and held up to ridicule by certain newspapers, he somehow managed to cling to his place in the Twittersphere when lesser mortals such as me were serially suspended until worn down. Twitter reflects the toxicity of the modern world quite well in that it provides a platform for all that OH mocked. The world was better for his presence, but there is little anybody can do to halt the inevitable decline of the world itself.

The Met Police are openly recruiting inadequate illiterate, future offenders in the form of anybody who fits their racial profile shopping list. No matter that proper policing requires aptitude, rigour, discipline and years of hard-won experience, if your skin colour fits the swatch from which they are selecting, you’re in. If you also happen to have a hatred for white people and a disgust for Christianity then you will likely see early promotion to a top job.

The government of the day – Lefty Liberal Democrats, I believe they call themselves – are wondering why they are down in the polls. Oh, I don’t know, maybe EVERYTHING is broken, perhaps? The economy, the ruinously unaffordable net-zero nonsense, the war on individuality (you can be whoever you like, just so long as we can pin this particular badge on you) trans ideology, housing costs, inflation, the loss of productive jobs, coupled with the rise and rise of infantile non-jobs.

Education, the law, public order, common decency, the kow-towing to the demands of angry children with balled fists and incoherent placards, corruption in public office (how in the hell is Nadhim Zahawi still in a job?) corruption post-public office, corruption in local authorities, the atomisation of society into unpoliced ‘communities’, immigration, health, the breakdown of the social contract, potholes…

Potholes! The inability of any country to fix dangerous roads in a matter of days is a guaranteed marker of the breakdown of civilisation. I’m serious. Get a crew out overnight, close a section of road, resurface it properly and move on. Travelling abroad you could get a snapshot of the competence of governance by the sheer state of the roads. Any third world traveller to Britain would have to conclude that we are becoming a country in need of aid.

Nobody whose opinion is to be taken seriously gives a flying fuck about trans-rights, votes for adolescents, the abandonment of reliable power or the clown show that is the Palace of Westminster and the Civil Service. Nobody with any hint of intelligence would put diversity before competence. And who, in all decency and dignity, would dare to tell anybody that their job title was ‘Head of Engagement, Equality and Diversity’ unless it was somebody from their own cadre of confected and useless functions masquerading as jobs?

Here's to you, Bob.

Against all this, Old Holborn stuck to his guns and stuck to his right to offend the perpetually offended by simply saying what he believed to be true, a right he supported and fought for. The curtailment of freedom of speech and expression is far from ended, but maybe the old dog slowed it down just a little. Despite some of the few social media comments I was able to see, the world is definitely not better for his passing and it may very well be a little bit worse.