The Berc is back...

It’s been a quiet few weeks from the pint-sized poison dwarf of Parliament but suddenly, up he pops and rants that he will “fight with every breath in my body” to prevent the government from carrying out the expressed will of the electorate And ‘Spreadsheet Phil’ Hammond has – by a feat of uncanny synchronicity- crept out of his crypt to pen an op-ed in The Times in which he says again that ‘the PM has no mandate for a no deal Brexit.’ So here we go again for round four-hundred and thirty-four (or thereabouts) of Project Fear, this time with added loathing.

But look, this ‘deal’ was ever an illusion and as has been pointed out tirelessly by those of us who voted to leave, the Withdrawal Agreement isn’t even a deal. The EU has made it clear that no deal is on offer except the invitation to surrender all negotiating leverage and meekly discuss terms of our effectively handing back sovereignty to Brussels. Because, in order to have any access to any supposed benefits of the single market, we would have to accept free movement, legislative oversight, etc, etc, all of which is exactly what we voted to leave.

And yes, sovereignty was the principle issue. Immigration and border control figured heavily in the campaigns because the power to set our own policy in these areas is fundamental to national sovereignty, but even that ambition was hijacked by our own slimy, sleazy swamp-dwellers. Simple sovereignty soon became ‘Parliamentary Sovereignty’ and as quickly as the decision had been contracted out to the voters, it was seized back by those who were the problem in the first place. Parliament has shown its hand so clearly it is a wonder the gates have yet to be stormed.

Formerly, the EU was seen as the identifiable enemy of our freedoms; the unaccountable technocrats deeply in thrall to an ideology that was ‘of Europe’, maybe, but not of many European nations, especially not the British. But the question of the referendum was also about control and the need for the people of any country to feel they were being heard and been represented by those who could be replaced if they overstepped their authority. The EU was merely a proxy for government everywhere; what is happening in Hong Kong, France and Kashmir are all expressions of rejection of imposed rule.

You can plead all you like that no deal was not what we voted for and that yes, a deal should have been easy – regulatory alignment, harmonised standards, common values and all of that – but we are where we are and the EU has made it plain as can be that negotiations are over. But that’s not good enough for Hammond, with this being released from No. 10 and tweeted by Sebastian Payne of the FT: "Hammond and Clarke sabotaged the UK’s preparations to leave… They drove the country into a dangerous cul de sac with a clock ticking towards Oct 31 because they never accepted the referendum result and they fought to overturn it…”

Bercow's legacy

I reasonably expect and fervently wish that, should we ever actually leave the wretched and institutionally corrupt European Union, all-pervasive and extensive investigations will be undertaken into each and every quisling politician involved in what I shall dub Bercowism. And I hope that once those investigations are concluded the results are made fully public and the guilty brought to book, not just ushered away with a nice, neat peerage.  ...Over my dead body, Bercow has all but said.  If that’s what it takes, John... if that’s what it takes.

Listing to the Left

One of the weapons in Twitters insidious little armoury, stocked to aid its holy war against the unbelievers and their persistent expressing of incorrect readings of the scripture is the dreaded ‘list’. Like many such weapons against thoughtcrime it is not only ineffectual, it is risible and, if anything, further desperate evidence that the eternally offended are ill-equipped for the conflict. Who has ever done anything other than laugh when receiving the notification that ‘@Twatface has added you to the list ‘People who make me cry’?

Actually, the titles of their lists say so much more about them than just their mental fragility; there, in concise little nuggets of micro-aggression, their own prejudices, cowardice and moral superiority are laid bare for all to see. A mutual follower helpfully listed the titles of lists to which he has been added recently:

·         Cunts

·         Gammon

·         Thicker than mince

·         Putin's little helpers

·         Brexit enemies of Britain

·         Traitors & Quislings

·         Bullied badly at school

Charming, but can you tell his crime? Of course you can – he voted to leave the EU. Yesterday on Twitter the same kind of people who list those who dare think differently were all thinking the same as they howled in outrage at Sajid Javid’s proposal to revive the minting of a Brexit 50p coin. Bearing the highly offensive legend “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations" this innocuous commemoration of an important national event has triggered yet more bleating condemnation of we Putin’s little helpers. Even rather prominent figures, such as writer/producer Dominic Minghella, have fallen off the sanity perch over it, laughably suggesting they would refuse to accept it as legal tender.

What is the purpose of these lists to which we, the unwashed are added with monotonous regularity? Does anybody ever consult them? Are they used for mass pre-emptive blocking? Blocking without any form of engagement is a particularly weak-willed form of cowardice: I wouldn’t like them, you say? Then I must never see or hear their opinions in my timeline. There are even accounts which threaten to block anybody who retweets, for whatever aim, the opinions of anybody with whom they may later discover they are not in complete accord.

A message group in which I am included regularly exhorts its members to report certain accounts. I never do. Unless I have been personally harassed – which happens very rarely because I don’t often continue pointless discussions with no hope of resolution - I will not permanently block anybody. And on the rare occasions when the spite has become relentless I have blocked only for a few days, until the froth has subsided. As for piling in and reporting to get accounts removed? That is a groupthink response to which I hope I am largely immune.

The great ship of state...

It all seems to come down to people wanting only to deal with others of the same mindset; to inhabit a bubble of opinion which causes no discord. But I thought diversity was our strength, surely? I mean, haven’t they been banging the drum for multiculturalism for decades now? Or can you now only be inclusive if you all think the same?  Caroline Lucas has made her own list; an all-white, women-only list, who will somehow speak for everybody. The left has an appalling track record in actual diversity of thought, but this is downright ridiculous, even for them. I hope somebody is making a list…

Cerk Berks

The English language ever changes. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.” And so the remnants of the language of my growing years remain, even as some would erase the past completely. In the absence of a universal authoritative grammar we were taught what our local elders and betters agreed on; and good old Auntie Beeb reinforced, in received pronunciation, that they were correct.

An extended ‘thee’ before a vowel, a short ‘the’ ahead of a consonant. ‘Different from’, not the grating and all too often heard, Americanised ‘different than’. And whatever the Oxford Dictionary insists ‘ise’ is still far easier on the eyes than ‘ize’ in almost every instance. But move on that finger does and as our non-consenting multicultural experiment continues, the language with which to adequately describe it becomes ‘enriched’ by the curiously perverse methods of removing punctuation, ignoring nuance and allowing a bland insouciance towards form.

On social media the noun ‘bias’ has now almost exclusively replaced the adjective ‘biased’ and the ‘bias BBC’ does nothing to stem the tide. Whether through laziness, simple ignorance or a desire to discourage nobody from expressing themselves, however illiterately, it has become harder to both read and hear what was once the most expressive and sophisticated language on the planet. Not everybody has abandoned it, of course, but those with the most influence appear to have decided that the onus is on the receiver, not those who deliver the words, to make sense of them.

But while the imprecise and sloppy use of words is annoying, what grates more than anything are the pronunciations which have crept in through a certain malaise, a certain timidity and a fear of offending. In particular, we seem to have lost an entire vowel sound. Southerners have long been unable to render the hard northern ‘U’ in written form, writing ‘oop north’ when anybody from the north knows exactly how to sound ‘up’ and ‘cup’ and ‘tup’. We find ‘oop’ quaint, a little patronising and oh, so southern and smile when we hear people ask us if we’d like a ‘cap’ of tea, or request that we keep to the parth and not walk on the grarse.

But, in words like bush and book and cook we used to have accord. I well remember as an undergraduate trying in vain to disguise my northern twang, worrying about how to say bush and ending up with an alarming ‘bersh’ which pleased nobody and attracted much and well-deserved ridicule. In attempting to conform I had instead shamed my origins and betrayed a lack of confidence that the world would accommodate me not as myself but as I thought others wanted me to be.

So it is with a mixture of amusement and dismay that I now regularly hear on the radio, on the telly and in real life, people talking incessantly about ‘cerking’. They sit in ‘rerms’ instead of rooms and discuss the reading of ‘berks’. Abandoning more nuanced superlatives, everybody is now simply ‘gerd’. I’m gerd, you gerd? Some of them even go online and enter chatrerms where they recommend cerk berks to each other. They need a blerdy gerd kick up the arse.

A cerk... reading a berk.

Control the language and you control discourse. Banning words because they may offend is one sign of this insidious practice, but another, perhaps more subtle manifestation is the fear of being strongly expressive in any way. The banal, universal vowel ‘er’ seems to be taking over and the effect is ugly and craven and needs to be resisted. Be proud of your guttural renditions and stand firm in the face of conformity. It’s only words, I know; it’s not the end of the world, but perhaps it’s the beginning of the end of something worth saving.

It's a fact

Facts; tricky buggers, aren’t they? Because what are facts when we are talking not about what they describe, but what they imply? And all facts are not equal: while the number of feet in a mile, or how many buns in a baker’s dozen are undebatable certainties, other fact-like nuggets, especially statistics, are often used to illustrate contrary positions in an argument. And while I naturally scoff at supposed evidence for your aberrant beliefs, I gleefully embrace equally shaky verification that my god is bigger than your god. I am no better than you.

Also to be taken into account is the plethora of fake facts, mistaken facts, incomplete facts, wishful thinking and downright fraud perpetrated in the name of fact and its unhappy bedfellow, truth. Your truth isn’t the same as mine and while mine may – I believe – be grounded in experiential events, your truth may be derived from beliefs which have little or no facts to substantiate them. I cite, as I often do, the absolute fact that not one piece of ‘evidence’ has ever proved the existence of god. You, naturally, counter that no evidence has been offered for his/her/its non-existence. I quote the scientific method, you rely on faith. I have faith in the scientific method… and so it goes.

When arguments are exhausted and the brick wall you have been banging your head against refuses to yield you, we – all of us – resort to other explanations. The other side has been influenced by dark forces, fallen for propaganda, been taken in by the elites who are feeding them well-rehearsed soundbites, attack rhetoric, posing as objective truths. Then, when the enemy captures those positions and turns the same words against us, we fall back, regroup and find some different words. The events have not changed and the full facts are never known – even when a think tank calls itself ‘full fact’ – but our perceptions shift. All the time.

How often have you been ‘Indecisive Dave’ watching a debate as if it were a tennis match, your head swivelling from left-to-right and back again as you nod and agree with each participant in turn. And then, when no convincing thesis wins the day, reverting to the comfort of your original position. It is little wonder, then, that mankind has embraced the frankly ridiculous notion of a magic man – or woman - in the sky who somehow orders everything so that the most deserving, the most devout, will see their reward in the afterlife.

Well, bollocks to that; I want my loot now. And so do you. Which is why the ‘facts’ about ‘the elite’ are so deliciously, egregiously deceitful. The elite, or ‘the elites’ are manipulating your every thought in order to make you slaves to the market economy? Oh, come on, people. If anything the manipulation is being done – deliberately or in ignorance – by those who use envy and a sense of injustice in the guise – deliberately or in ignorance of equality – to mobilise sentiment against those who have succeeded. Or maybe you are just manipulating yourself?

Which facts do you prefer?

I’m not yet a citizen of a post-fact world and I have a great deal of time for evidential investigation, but I am also hyper cynical and assume that ‘your’ facts are tainted. In my more self-aware moments I admit that the same applies to mine, but I just don’t see how blaming society’s ills and especially individual difficulties on those who have managed to buck the trend and make something of themselves is helping. Instead of trying to bring down the successful maybe, just maybe, we should be copying them. At the very least we could start trying to think for ourselves and not be so easily led by pipers playing our favourite tunes.

Sauce for the Geese

Caroline Lucas is involved with something called ‘Dear Leavers’ (@DearLeavers) an attempt, they claim, to open up an ‘honest conversation’ about Brexit. But is it? Is it really? This conversation appears to begin with a presumption that it is the supremely benevolent and intellectually superior Remainers who are big enough to offer an olive branch to the lesser mortals who were duped by ‘rich elites’ into voting against their own interests. There-there, they coo; it’s not your fault, they soothe; while all the time we know their teeth are tightly clenched.

Julia Hartley-Brewer asked Dominic Raab the other day, “Can you guarantee to me right now that on the 1st of November when I wake up we're going to be out of the EU?”. Well , how dare the strumpet be so presumptuous? One of her thousands of more politically correct Twitterlocutors posed his own question:  “Dear Julia, with respect, do you not think it is time to stop referring to people as 'Remoaners'? Whatever happens on October 31st, we have to get the country back together - Leavers and Remainers - and the constant use of derogatory terms will never achieve re-unification.”

While he may have resigned himself to departure from the EU bloc he seemed to believe it was the Leave side which had to surrender ground. Yet, in the same conversation one enlightened remainer soul felt the need to helpfully add “We are getting our country back one funeral at a time” in reference to the popular Remain trope that the leave vote came almost exclusively from ancient Little Englanders; the belief that a second referendum would go in favour of the vibrant, multicultural, woke New Europeans; the belief that his country was obviously now called Europe, Northwestern Region, Sector 23, B.

Now, while there is undoubtedly a fair clutch of knuckle-dragging, socially-challenged, gammon-faced morons in favour of sticking it to the Germans – why, I occasionally include my pig-ignorant self among them – these people really don’t have much of a voice. They are equally despised by everybody, regardless of whatever they think their politics are. Their insults are illiterate, unfocused and have no impact because they are not echoed by anybody with any authority, moral or otherwise. And where they have engaged in any form of action it has been as much fuelled by thuggish urges and base stupidity than by any coherent ideology.

But look at the other side, those who think that national sovereignty is a medieval throwback. For over three years, those in the Brussels camp – Julia’s remoaners – who have massive backing in the media, schools, the establishment, parliament itself, have been calling Leave voters racists and xenophobes, too stupid to know what they were voting for. The onslaught has been relentless and shows no signs of letting up. If anything it has recently shifted up a gear since the Remainer Anti-Christ has become Prime Minister.

Respect. It has to be earned...

If anybody needs to dial down the rhetoric it is surely those who have been most engaged in it. So, Ms Lucas and your disingenuous ‘Dear Leavers’ malarkey, how about we leave the EU as the government promised we would and afterwards you lot show us that you can meet your own lofty standards of civility?  Who knows; once you demonstrate that you have some respect for us, maybe our respect for you might grudgingly return.