By Ben Pensant

I can’t be the only progressive still purring over the events in Charlotteseville two weeks ago. Sure, the violence was somewhat underwhelming: one dead, a handful injured, and nowhere near enough arrests for us to frame as either a calculated assault on the peaceful left or a damning indictment of the violent right.

But the march itself is as irrelevant as the woman who was killed. No, what really mattered was the glorious aftermath; the way leftists worldwide worked tirelessly to rebrand a gang of anti-democratic street thugs as contemporary equivalents of the young men who stormed the beaches of Normanland.

It’s been a joy watching liberal media whitewash domestic terrorists who subscribe to a totalitarian ideology which killed millions simply because their enemies are also domestic terrorists who subscribe to a totalitarian ideology which killed millions. As CNNBC put it while promoting a gushing profile, Antifa “seek peace through violence”. I look forward to them following this up with a report on the Muslim grooming gangs who spent the last decade keeping children safe by raping them.

Inevitably, people on social media played their part, many of whom had never heard of Antifa a week earlier and still don’t have a clue what they represent but have decided they must be the good guys because they like fighting Nazis so fuck the system or something: “Nazis hate and want to exterminate Jews, POC, homosexuals, gypsies, the disabled. Antifa hate and want to get rid of Nazis. No comparison” raged a thoughtful tweeter in response to the ludicrous, offensive and demonstrably true suggestion that Antifa are violent militants as deserving of condemnation as white supremacists. The peaceful revolutionary then emphasised his opponent’s wrongness with four ‘cry laughing’ emojis – a clear sign you’re debating someone who knows their shit – before repeating the same point in a series of brilliantly smug tweets, each one more educated and informed than the last.

Then there are those who know fine well what Antifa are but deploy standard left-wing tactics – misdirection, whataboutery, sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” – in the hope that the first group are too stupid to do the five minute’s worth of research required to find out what they’ve been told about these brave activists is utter horse-shit.

And let’s not forget those who know fine well what Antifa represent but couldn’t care less because they too oppose democracy, free speech, and universal human rights. These far-left die-hards have so much in common with white supremacists it’s often hard to tell them apart. But then you remember, for all their shared love of identity politics and beating people up, the difference is clear: Antifa are right about everything and Nazis are Nazis. And when you’re right you can beat up as many people as you like.

This mass delusion – embraced by the same people who regularly tell Brexit voters how gullible they are – was achieved in part thanks to Antifa’s clever decision to crib their name from the anti-fascist movements of the ’30s. (Y’know, the ones who actually were anti-fascists rather than merely fascists.) Because one sure-fire way to convince progressives of your organisation’s wholesomeness is to give them a monicker promoting a simple, universal value that every decent person can get behind. Hence Anti Fascist Action, Stop The War, Unite Against Fascism, and Black Life Matters have successfully blue-pilled millions into believing they are worthy, progressive movements despite the fact that in practice these names reflect their ethos about as accurately as calling Hezzbolla The Peaceful Jew Lovers.

This sly branding has been so successful even mild criticism of Antifa is viewed by the moderate left as akin to pissing on the war-graves of everyone who died fighting for freedom and tolerance. Two things that the modern versions of Antifa are fundamentally opposed to if their recent noble history of violently shutting down college talks is anything to go by.

All of which helped kick-start the widely disseminated meme that Antifa only protest white supremacicts and wouldn’t dream of assaulting anyone who isn’t a Nazi. And this narrative has been swallowed whole by the mainstream despite the freely available mountain of first hand accounts and video footage proving Antifa’s history of protesting and assaulting anyone even slightly to the right of them. But hey, nothing illustrates the tolerance of the modern left more than showing solidarity with people who hate us.

And Charlottesville was their greatest PR coup yet, with even Sajiiid Javiiiiiid weighing in to laud those peaceful guys and gals attacking people with metal pipes: “Neo-Nazis: bad. Anti-Nazis: good. I learnt that as a child”. It’s not often I agree with a Tory MP though his logic is impeccable, despite the fact he seems blissfully unaware that the ‘anti-Nazis’ he’s referring to are ‘anti’ quite a lot of things Sajiiiiiiid holds dear and come the revolution would happily string him up from a lamp-post on Downing Street before you can say Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel’no-trudovykh lagerei.

But far-left extremists being praised by a Conservative just shows how thoroughly the characterisation of Antifa as The Good Guys has taken root. And it shows no sign of letting up. So the fact that a large number of peaceful protesters turned up to demonstrate against the white supremacists means we can ignore all the non-peaceful ones who turned up to break their skulls with bike locks. Indeed a Guardian column written by Charlottesville attendee Emma Gorcenski did just that, skilfully failing to mention the word ‘Antifa’ once and giving the impression that the only people imvolved in the counter-protest were harmless students and anyone who says otherwise is Mussolini.

Gorcenski, of course, is the delightful progressive who a week earlier tweeted that if she worked at Google she’d have beaten the shit out of evil sex-killer James DUMBore so it’s refreshing to know a liberal newspaper consider her one of the peaceful ones. And as she wrote, the fact that a bunch of Nazi cowards beat up a black man in a parking garage proves they alone are capable of attacking innocent people, despite Antifa’s well-documented penchant for, well, attacking innocent people.

But fear not, if presented with this evidence simply point out they were probably white supremacists therefore deserved it. Because it’s not our job to fret about mistaken identity. It’s safe to say in all of these instances – many of which have been caught on camera – the men in question clearly incited their own assaults by virtue of being white and male. In which case we should applaud the brave leftists who selflessly keep the streets safe by targeting innocent people. You can’t be too careful.

And the fact that incidents like this frequently occur when Antifa are in town is of no concern to progressives. That anyone with eyes can easily find out they are not quite the brave warriors the left-wing media say they are has done nothing to damage their brand, because leftists’ eyes don’t work like everybody else’s. Hence the honourable urban myth that Antifa are courageous liberal knights keeping society safe from racist cretins in crewcuts.

Because in these dark times we need all the allies we can get. As one centrist enchanted by the hip new thugs on the block put it on Twitter: “People criticising Antifa seem to have forgotten we literally allied with Stalin to beat the fuckers last time”. Which makes sense, provided you ignore the fact that Stalin was allied with the fuckers in the first place.

But still, it proves that the best way to defeat extremists is to enlist the help of other extremists, especially extremists whose ideology is every bit as authoritarian. Not that this bothered Twitter liberals: “Ally with anyone to beat the Nazis” Screeched one, though he stopped short of forming an alliance with the EDL to combat jihadists on the grounds that “the EDL are Nazis too”. And as for making equivalence between jihadism and Nazism: yeah right. Everyone knows that unlike white supremacy jihadism is a perfectly rational response to oppression and anyone who disagrees is a fascist. See how easy this shit is?

Point being, when we say “ally with anyone” we mean “anyone left-wing”. Because as we all know, if a group is on the left they get a free pass to be as illiberal or murderous as they like. In fact, they don’t even have to be left-wing: as long as they hate the West they can be more right-wing than a Eugene Terre’Blanche lookalike contest and still get lauded by everyone from John Pillager to St Jezza.

So it stands to reason that Stalin helping to defeat the Nazis means Antifa are the good guys, despite the fact that these good guys would gladly nailbomb the people defending them if it struck a blow against capitalism or something. And this indoctrination has been a roaring success, if comments such as this one from the middle-class vegetarian I mentioned earlier are anything to go by: “Why are people scared of the alt-left? Media savvy militants ready to feed, house and provide meaningful employment to everyone. Sounds great”.

Indeed. It’s great to know that sane liberals are so dedicated to whitewashing left-wing violence they’ve convinced themselves that thuggish extremists loot shops and shut down free speech to help out their fellow citizens. That the rag tag melting pot of communists and anarchists who make up Anifa would rather destroy society than contribute to it is irrelevant. They’re on the left so they must be good. Viva something-or-other!

As ever though, the left-wing response to Charlottesville was dictated entirely by ‘President’ Trump. It’s amazing that someone so ridiculous manages to shape the narrative of everything from racist marches to lunar eclipses. But we need him like he needs us and we’d have a torrid time deciding what positions to take on any given issue if we didn’t have an arrogant, ginger lunatic to guide us.

So when Trump had the temerity to say there was violence on ‘both sides’ we had to assume he was wrong, ignore the footage proving he was right, and cling to the narrative that every non-Nazi who turned up to Charlottesville was there to peacefully protest, those lovely Antifa folk are harmless boy scouts who only wear masks so the Nazis don’t doxx them, and all the people setting fire to bins and throwing flares are Zionist provocateurs and dude, did I mention the evil Nazis?

Because we can’t just debate with fellow liberals who have issues with Antifa and Communism. No, we have to accuse them of being related to Hitler.

We can’t simply dispute Trump’s claim that there were “fine people” at the protest. No, we have to say that the only fine people were the counter protesters, even the ones threatening journalists and hitting women with poles.

And we can’t limit our anti-fascist activities to actual Nazis. No, we have to hi-jack a tiny free speech rally in Boston a week later, then proudly boast how thousands of us ‘shut down’ all 30-or-so attendees, approximately none of whom were Nazis.

And if several Antifa folks still get themselves arrested despite the lack of violent torch-wielding white supremacists to ‘defend’ themselves against, well, simply blame it on heavy-handed cops and their disgraceful decision to protect a handful of citizens over a 10,000+ mob. The fascist pigs.

Luckily our side is armed and ready for combat. And it’s exciting to hear people who bristle at the merest hint of direct action against jihadists who’ve murdered hundreds this year are remarkably keen on using force against a pathetic bunch of far-right virgins who’ve killed one person. Even The People’s Puritan (OJ Jones) recently viewed to “fight fascists” while hanging out in a carpark drinking G&T, a stance somewhat at odds with his calm pleas for solidarity that have followed every Islamic terrorist attack since he appointment himself The Regressive Of Hearts.

And why not? They’re fascists, silly! If the last glorious fortnight has told us anything it’s that they are few groups better qualified to decide who is and isn’t a Nazi than the contemporary left. And should we continue to get it wrong and occasionally punch, kick, stab or kill people who aren’t Nazis? Don’t sweat it.

They’re white for god’s sake. They’re bound to have done something wrong.

(Photo: Alfred Dixon)

 

 

 

By Ben Pensant

As a died-in-the-wool regressive it’s not often I have anything good to say about the filth. When they’re not harassing the black community or choking drug-dealers to death they’re pepper-spraying peaceful protesters and arresting Corbynites for sending evil BBC reporters parcels stuffed with pig livers. (If you think snitching to the rozzers will keep you safe: think again, Cuentssberg.)

And you know we’re in trouble when even Spanish police – who you’d expect to be a cut above their British counterparts due to the fact that they’re not British – are shamelessly executing marginalised Muslims on the streets of Barcelona in broad daylight.

To be frank, until recently I was quite content for PM Corbyn to abolish the police altogether and introduce voluntary ‘community peacekeepers’, an idea floated earlier this year by socialist demigod Dan Arel which basically involved replacing experienced law enforcement officials with untrained, unpaid social workers.

Presumably this fleet of cops-who-aren’t-cops would be lead by people like Dan, brave leftists who love to talk of punching Nazis but whose arses would drop out before my grandma could say ‘aall taalk and nee troosers’ if they had to tackle and arrest one. A bold vision for a better future in other words, and one I was more than willing to embrace fully until I became aware of a magical phenomenon energising police forces nationwide.

Because something wonderful is stirring among Britain’s bizzies; an exciting new era which eschews archaic practices such as solving real crimes and catching genuine criminals in favour of tracking down people who say mean things on the internet and monitoring the tampon aisle in Tesco. And one of the branches at the forefront are Wiltshire Police – the recent stars of Channel 5’s hard-hitting fly-on-the-wall series 911 Have I Got An Emergency For You! – who have abandoned the messy business of actual police work to jump aboard the hate-crime gravy train.

Not having seen the show I can’t comment on the no-doubt heinous crimes featured, but judging by the effort and resources they’ve thrown into combatting the scourge of people saying nasty stuff on social media I’d wager the sound of South-West crimelords shitting bricks can be heard all the way from Dorset to Trowbridge.

‘You can’t hide from us if your spewing abuse from behind a computer screen. Our boys and gals in blue will find you’, they warned on Twitter, clarifying their priorities in style. Though I sincerely hope in future these priorities include a) learning the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, and b) reining in their transphobic rhetoric before some well-adjusted non-binary reads an exclusionary Tweet like the one above and hangs theyself.

Still, Wiltshire’s finest are clearly new to the whole identity politics game so we’ll let them off (for now). Their collective heart is clearly in the right place, which is more than can be said for their sense of humour judging by the brilliantly catty reply to Tory trolls who cruelly pulled them up on their poor punctuation skills:

‘We will not tolerate any abuse or discriminatory remarks made on any of our social media platforms. We are reviewing the posts and will consider any potential criminal offences which might have been committed’. Masterful. I may not be the coppers’ biggest fan but it’s impossible not to admire people who think scouring light-hearted ‘grammar police’ gags to ascertain if any laws ‘might’ been broken is a good use of resources. I look forward to a golden future in which no lolly stick is safe from the long arm of the law.

Unless that lolly stick has just turned over someone’s property in which case it will be safe as houses (no pun intended. Honest, officer). Because while Wiltshire Police’s dedication to censoring adults is second to none, they also have the worst record in the UK for solving burglaries, hitting an all time low of just one in 12 in 2014/15. That’s more like it. Because you can’t expect police officers to waste their time arresting people who break into houses when there is linguistic-based hatred being spread all over the internet. Yeah, let’s utilise our manpower sending petty thieves who destroy people’s lives to jail while trainee officers are routinely traumatised because someone on Twitter took the piss out of their spelling. Hell, why not just come around the station and cut their ears off like Tim Winstone in Straw Dogs?

Funnily enough, another constabulary near the top of the same list was Sussex PD, who have themselves made waves in PC circles after their Hate Crime Sgt. and Trans-Equality Advocate Peter Allan electrified social media with a series of bold Tweets detailing the two most pernicious crime-waves afflicting Britain today – kids calling each other names and supermarkets using phrases like ‘feminine hygiene’ to describe feminine hygiene products.

Take this grim despatch from the mean streets of Lewes: ‘6/5/17 #Transphobic #Hate #Burgess Hill – Non-crime hate incident – Name calling between children. Under investigation’. Shocking stuff. And as if it wasn’t worrying enough that police are being forced to take time out from solving real crimes to investigate non-crimes, it should deeply concern us all that children in Brexit Britain are now so full of hate they think nothing of mis-gendering middle-class kids and using vile phrases like ‘tranny’, ‘she-male’ and ‘Danny La Rue’s Uglier Sister’.

Not that that stopped an army of social media trolls abusing Allan for having the bravery to be less interested in robberies and muggings than what ten-year-olds say to each other when they’re playing Leevo. Luckily Allan batted away the attacks with ease, pointing out his concern was all about ‘education’ and re-iterating that this was a ‘non-crime’. And in these austerity-driven times it’s refreshing to know our overstretched forces are devoting valuable time and energy to investigating crimes that aren’t actually crimes.

But fear not, despite the fact that, as Allan says ‘investigations don’t always lead to prosecutions’, if reported the incidents will still be logged and recorded as hate crimes, ensuring the mythical post-Brexit spike in hate crime won’t be un-spiking any time soon. I look forward to the emergency services setting an equally good example by extinguishing fires that don’t involve any fire and rushing to the scene of car crashes in which no-one was hurt or crashed their car.

But Allan’s greatest moment came when he took to Twitter to warn Tesco and Sainsbury that their signs advertising tampons and other ‘feminine hygiene’ products breached gender equality rules. He courageously urged them to use another phrase as there were quite clearly also ‘products 4 men’ on the same shelf, suggesting ‘personal hygiene’ as a progressive way to signal respect to the 0% of the male population who bleed from their fannies.

Sadly, the trolls won the day and Sgt. Allan’s Twitter account was subsequently suspended after the hateful reaction to his insistence that men use jammy-rags too. This clearly had less to do with Allan’s common sense Tweets than it did his spineless bosses’ cowardly fear of upsetting their right-win paymasters. Unless you believe the frankly absurd idea that Allan was chased from social media because he completely destroyed his credibility as a public servant and now has about as much authority as Officer Crabtree out of Hello Hello.

Not that this minor setback will derail Allan’s dedication to tolerance, diversity and sticking his nose into non-criminal activity that has fuck all to do with him. He may have been banished by the top brass but I’ve no doubt he’s having the last laugh using his spare time to track down and arrest that old school friend who called him ‘bumface’ 30 years ago.

But despite the negative reaction from ignorant Tories and thick-as-shit Leave voters the above examples were lapped up by liberals, tapping as they do into the new left-wing censorship craze, exemplified by anti-free speech campaigns like Stop Funding Hate and all those brave souls who proudly burnt newspapers on election day so other people couldn’t read them.

It’s alarming to think that when I was a kid being on the left meant being against the likes of Mary Whitehouse and Tory MPs who wanted to ban everything from blue comedians to video nasties. Thankfully those days are gone and the left have been reclaiming censoriousness for some time now. What used to be the preserve of crusty old reactionaries has become part and parcel of being a funky young progressive, and it’s refreshing to know the police are joining the ban-party too.

Unfortunately, not every constabulary is on board with the PC revolution and I’m sad to report my local force Northumbria Police are lagging some distance behind the likes of Wiltshire and Sussex. Which is a crying shame, especially after their recent good work, when one of their officers threatened to have student Jonaya English’s place at Newcastle University revoked because she Tweeted a comment about Islam that was vile, offensive and entirely true.

Great work all round but it was sadly undone by the dark forces at Northumbria Police determined to resist the lure of identity politics. Because the shocking case of 17 harmless Muslim men from Newcastle sent to jail (by a white jury, no doubt) for having the cheek to give children with zero job prospects part-time work shows there’s still a long way to go.

See, because this part-time work involved sleeping with men for alcohol apparently that made it perfectly okay to ruin the lives of a group of marginalised Muslims based on nothing more than rumour, innuendo and cold, hard evidence. Well done, guys, at least we know we can add ‘whorephobia’ to the list of things you’re totally cool with.

Oh and well done for also ignoring the influence of the evil white woman involved who clearly egged these men on, encouraging them to sexually abuse children like a shellsuit-clad Lady Macbeth. ‘Children’ who just happen to look a lot like yo-yo knickered teenage temptresses with zero disregard for Islamic values. Hmm. And they wonder why Muslim men are left with no choice but to rape them? Jesus.

Still, we shouldn’t let Northumbria Police’s refusal to get with the times and ignore the widespread abuse of children by followers of a certain religion detract from their good work elsewhere. And the sterling effort made by PC Mohammed Khan – you didn’t think he was gonna be called Francis Fogherty, did you? – in the Jonaya English case reminds us that thankfully there are some coppers pounding the Geordie beat who know that there’s a lot more to fighting crime than simply fighting crime.

And with today’s exciting news that the CPS plan to take even greater steps to criminalise people for speaking freely on the internet, we need brave PCs like Allan and Khan on board if we’re serious about putting an end to free speech once and for all. Fingers crossed this new development and the shining example set by Wiltshire and Sussex Police sets the censorious ball rolling.

This is what you get when you mess with us.

 

 

 

By Ben Pensant

There are few people more likely to boil my piss than Tories, Centrists and Daily Mail hacks. Maggie Thatcher, Alastair Campbell-end, Richard Littlecock…the damage done to society by these three hateful groups is so severe I feel like reporting myself to Sussex Police for writing their names down. So I was as surprised as anyone last week when I found myself joining the centre left in singing the praises of James Chapman, the Tory Centrist and former Daily Mail hack who electrified social media with his bold plans to form a new political party dedicated to standing up for democracy by overturning democracy.

The thing is, once I’d picked my jaw off the floor and checked my pulse it made perfect sense. Allow me to explain. As a staunch Corbynite – I own three Momentum mugs, five pairs of Jezza pyjamas and a life-size bust of Diane Abbott’s head – I have a hard time dealing with die-hard Remainers. For while I share their view that the EU is just fab, leaving it will be an utter disaster and the 17 million thick xenophobes who voted for it deserve to be disembowelled, I’m regularly appalled by their failure to understand Jezza’s clever plan to foil Brexit and overturn the referendum result by supporting Brexit and respecting the referendum result.

But I’m always happy to give credit where its due. And every now and then I’m reminded that there are passionate voices on the centre every inch as bitter, unforgiving and downright intolerant as us. I’m more than willing to – for now – be the bigger man, let bygones be bygones and bond with my enemies over our mutual contempt for people who vote differently to us. And in Chapman we may just have found a figurehead for those of us who believe in progressive values such as freedom, diversity and re-running referendums until we get the result we want.

Because despite being in line to be first against the wall when the Day Of Jeremy arrives, I have to hand it to Centrists: when it comes to Brexit – and Brexit voters – they could give The Morning Star a lesson in deploying wildly hysterical language to demean people they disagree with.

Some Remainers think it’s just the Tory right and the Corbynite left with a monopoly on bigotry and abuse but they’re being far too modest – there’s plenty of room for bigotry and abuse on the centre too; just ask anyone who’s ever read a column by Matthew Parris – who has repeatedly stated 17 million people he’s never met are racist – or a copy of The New European – whose hilarious first front cover featured a cartoon dog calling those same 17 million people ‘idiots’.

‘Someone needs to oppose the extremists holding sway to left and right’ pleaded one of Chapman’s new fans, a concern that would be understandable were it not for the growing number of extremists on the centre evening things up. Luckily enough, on Twitter this led to a multitude of good-natured debates and exchanges – which in turn led to a multitude of good-natured strops and blockings – among leftists and centrists over which faction is the most intolerant. Granted, rabid Remainers and Kool Aid Corbynites debating who’s the most intolerant is like Max Clifford and Rolf Harris arguing over who’s the biggest sex-pest but you can’t fault their passion. And trust me, you don’t get more passionate than James Chapman.

For anyone wondering who this mysterious crusader is, before Chapman joined Anna Soubry and Kenneth Clarke on the official list of Tories it’s okay for liberals to like, he was chief of staff to David Davis. He resigned in a blaze of publicity, was blue-pilled by The Guardian then went on holiday to Greece from where he’s been getting pissed and Tweeting pure gold ever since.

This pure gold has predominantly involved calling for a new political party to be formed with the sole purpose of stopping Brexit, a call greeted enthusiastically by liberals, not least because it’s far easier to keep track of the politicians who hate democracy if they’re all in one party.

As he put it himself while opening his sixth bottle of wine: ‘Past time for sensible MPs in all parties to admit Brexit is a catastrophe, come together In a new party if need be, and reverse it #euroref19’. Initial responses came from thick-as-pigshit Leave voters whose concerns Chapman effortlessly batted away by ignoring their points and focussing on their predictably poor grammar and punctuation – no mean feat considering his own Tweet above featured an erroneous capital letter.

As the Ouzo continued to flow so did Chapman’s creativity, the feisty genius coining an original and highly ironic name for this ‘revolutionary’ new party: The Democrats. ‘A new home for you is coming’ he assured his acolytes, tapping in to the destitution and loneliness felt by Remainer Britain with only BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky News, half of Fleet Street, most of social media and virtually every actor and comedian with a third home in Florence on their side. And with Chapman’s not-at-all cult-like ‘#Join Us #Democrats’ hashtag trending, he went on to bullishly outline the key policies that would inform his new party. Key policies which appeared to involve imprisoning opponents and censoring journalists:

‘Let’s be honest, if we had electoral law leading Brexiters would be now be in jail #wheresmy350aweekBoris’ he raged, cleverly latching on to the modern left-wing principle that people who lie or disagree with us should be thrown in jail. Understandably, he wouldn’t be drawn on whether Remain campaigners like his good friend George Osborne would follow Johnson into chokey for saying Brexit would cause a recession within months, nor did he explain how much it would cost and how many new prisons would have to be built if every politician in the land was put on trial for telling porkies.

Unsurprisingly, this got Remain Twitter’s collective knickers wetter than a Newsnight appearance by Ian Dunt, with progressives far and wide applauding a man for endorsing the internment of political opponents. But if you thought that was admirably Stalinist, check out his stark warning to Paul Staines after Guido Fawkes re-published an Instagram photo of Chapman with his arse out:

‘Apparently @guidofawkes has posted a naked picture of me. Whatever turns you on, Paul. The Democrats will close you down when we implement Leveson’ he purred, showing remarkable confidence that his made-up political party will not only one day exist but will also somehow be powerful enough to shut down websites he doesn’t like.

And in case anyone thinks threatening to censor the press is a somewhat inconsistent position for a journalist to hold, Chapman’s media supporters were on hand to assure us this wasn’t the case, with even vile Corbyn-smearer Marina Hyde applauding Chapman’s ‘bravery’. Because as anyone who’s ever chased a criminal, fought in a war or rescued a child from a burning building knows all too well, there are few things more brave than lying on a sun-lounger, downing Sambuca shots and calling people names on the internet.

Which is why Chapman has changed the face of British politics in less than a week, cementing his place in Remainer hearts as the super-hero the centre deserves. He may not wear a mask or a cape – though judging his apparent love of a good session he’s no stranger to occasionally believing he can fly – but his heroism is of an altogether more illiberal hue; you won’t read about it in comics but mark my words, his exploits will be all over the history books of the future.

As a concerned Remainer wrote on Twitter, bemoaning the lack of centrist leadership to fight the hard-Brexiters and staunch Corbynites: ‘There’s little sign of moderates influencing direction. Extremists appear in charge’. Indeed they do, though as we all know, one extreme is evil while the other is ace. But either way, the time has come for someone to man up and make the moderate case for ignoring democracy. And it appears that someone is Chapman. He may be a Tory but I can think of few better alternatives to extremism than a party led by a man who wants to silence and incarcerate opponents.

All things considered, it’s hard not to see why regressive leftists would get weak at the knees over James, especially after he followed up his decidedly-Corbynite friendly pledges on censorship and internment by admitting he’d rather see St Jezza in power than Ian Duncan Smith. Good lad. Because despite his right-wing past it’s clear that James, mindful of the shit-storm that will erupt after Jezza takes power, is cleverly pulling out the stops to feature in the Dear Leader’s plans. It won’t save him, of course – his previous employment at the Mail is reason enough to see him strung up with barbed wire on Hampstead Heath – but his endearing fondness for crushing dissent may just see his wife given a cushy job as the McDonnells’ personal handmaid. And who knows, maybe St Jezza will show some kind, gentle leniency and allow her to keep one of her children.

Until then, if he keeps impressing us and makes the Democrats a force to be reckoned with the PM may even grant Chapman and co complete freedom to overturn Brexit, freeing up Corbyn to focus on the really important stuff: nationalising the railways, borrowing billions to save the NHS and depleting the armed forces to such a degree they make the Walmington-on-sea Home Guard look like The Roman Army. Meanwhile Chapman can comfort himself with the knowledge that he gave his all for the government that killed him.

Now that’s what I call a super man.

 

(Photo: Olaf Gradin)

 

 

 

 

By Ben Pensant

To say we’re living through a golden age of British comedy is the biggest understatement since evil warmonger Ali Campbell said PM Corbyn did ‘pretty well’ deflecting Paxman’s aggressive line of questioning on The Battle For Number Ten. (Show me a more statesmanlike performance this year and I’ll show you a Blairite with a conscience, knobhead.) Everywhere you look, from BBC2 to Channel 4, genuinely funny men, women, xen and xomen are conquering the world. And their neat trick of combining edgy humour with bland identity politics has earned the sharpest minds working today a special place in progressive hearts, where they’ll remain until we find out they’re all tax avoiders or secret Tories.

The evidence is overwhelming, with Corbynmania widely embraced by witty thinkers, clever polemicists, and Josey Long. Have I Got 8 Out Of 10 Cats For You regularly features the safest comics around cracking impromptu gags about how stupid working-class people are. The campaign to overturn Brexit is passionately supported by everyone from a cross-dressing motor-mouth so liberal he tells jokes in foreignish to a wine-loving Oxford graduate with a penchant for leather and dungeons. All of which made even sweeter the recent news that Newcastle Theatre Royal had cancelled a performance by notorious blue ‘comedian’ Roy ‘Fatty’ Brown.

For the uninitiated, Brown has played Newcastle City Hall every year since 1939. Recently taken over by the management of the nearby Theatre Royal, the City Hall has long been viewed as the retarded nephew to the Royal’s erudite uncle. While the jewel of Grey Street recently hosted Opera North’s spellbinding revival of Der Rosenkavalier by Strauss, the City Hall currently holds the record for hosting the most ever performances by The Ocean Colour Scene.

Hence the drive to rebrand the venue as a safe, inclusive space for middle-class people of all backgrounds rather than a threatening, lager-stained flea-pit swarming with racist degenerates watching an overweight bigot in flying goggles attacking Muslims and singing about cocks.

Theatre Royal Trust chief executive Philip Bernays – who I was shocked to learn was educated at the prestigious City Of London School – released a statement confirming that ‘after careful consideration’ Brown’s 2017 show had been pulled due to its ‘unpleasant, rude and offensive act’. This careful consideration presumably consisted of the five minutes it took to decide whether adults who’ve paid money to watch a show should be allowed to watch the show they’ve paid money for or denied the right to watch it because it upsets people who haven’t paid money to watch it and have no intention of doing so.

Thankfully the correct decision was reached. It’s just a shame the ungrateful idiots who were planning to watch Brown have no idea how close their tiny minds came to being warped by a vile man in a multi-coloured suit fond of using hateful words like ‘fanny’.

Because it’s not just Google who love to penalise people for saying stuff they don’t like: charity-funded theatre companies are joining in too, ensuring that a comedian who has played the same venue for several decades is banned because his violent language might offend yoga instructors from Gosforth.

And there’s nothing more violent than Brown’s material. For this animal has inexplicably stolen a career since the ’70s making the kind of horrendous ‘jokes’ that would get him arrested if he told them in the Waitrose superfoods aisle. Don’t believe me? Check out the gag below but be warned: its aggressive content and rape-apologism are triggering in the extreme. Even after re-wording it to soften the edges its grim depiction of post-Brexit Britain is about as palatable to middle-class ears as a night at the dogs with Danny Dier. I urge you to have 999 ready on speed dial:

One morning a young boy asks his father: ‘Dad, what’s a cunt?’. The father is shocked and scolds his son but after the child persists agrees to show him. He takes his son upstairs where his wife is enjoying a lie-in. The father quietly pulls back the duvet, revealing his wife’s naked body. ‘You see that furry triangle between her legs?’. ‘Yes, dad’ replies the boy. ‘That’s a fanny. Your mother’s a cunt’.

Evil. And disturbingly, only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, it should worry us all that material like this is being broadcast to impressionable Leave voters and inadvertently offending innocent people Jesmond eating Kale doughnuts and encouraging their four-year old sons to cut their genitals off.

Because these are the people who matter, not those who make the autonomous choice to go and watch someone who makes them laugh. Frankly, the Theatre Royal showed remarkable restraint only banning Brown – there was ample grounds to report him to MI6 or Interflora. Because it beggars belief that in 2017 this relic is allowed to swan around in a multi-coloured suit cracking sick jokes to adult customers while flinging horrific insults at women, minorities and anyone else he perceives as inferior. The fat, speccy bastard.

Thank god modern day comics would never attach themselves to such vile ideologies. So while Brown pokes fun at Islam and terrorism – which have as much to do with each other as Labour and antisemitism – daring progressives like Frankie Boil campaign for the release of Shaker Aamer, the hapless British/Saudi charity worker and former Gauntanamera detainee who famously got lost and wandered into an Afghanistan warzone in possession of a fake passport, an AK47, and an acute form of memory loss which conveniently erased the name of the charity he worked for.

Another defender of the cuddly jihadist was Sarah Pascoe who cleverly combines her feminism with supporting a Labour leader who lauds regimes that force women to wear headscarves and counts Ibrahim Hewitt – a man who believes in stoning adulterous women to death – as a ‘very good friend’. She also wrote a moving piece for The Guardian last year urging people to boycott Zoolander 3 – a transphobic film she’d never seen – because it featured Benedict Cabbagepatch in a dress.

Elsewhere, Stuart Lee – the thinking man’s Terry Kristian – flaunts his progressive values by supporting the Stop The War Coalition, the cheekily named pressure group whose clever plan to stop wars largely consists of wanting anyone but the west to win them. Stu has been known to join giants of left-wing comedy – plus Jeremy Hardie – at fundraisers for STW, who famously supported the Iraqi resistance as they demonstrated their dedication to democracy and worker’s rights by bombing polling stations and murdering trade unionists.

And who could forget the raft of stand-up stars led by Jenny Éclair who were so disgusted by fictional wideboy Dappy Laughs mentioning the word ‘rape’ they started a petition urging Tyne Tees to cancel his show? Their bravery is an inspiration to us all. Because as we know, censoring a fellow comedian is nowhere near as illiberal or problematic as creating a character who says dodgy stuff to women or writing crude songs about tits and fannies.

But if City Hall want to fill Brown’s slot they could do worse than book guitar-wielding funnyman Mitch Ben, the principled Turbo-Remainer who recently electrified Twitter by breaking with modern comedy tradition and launching an intolerant tirade against stupid Brexit voters:

“I have to suck up living in a shit country *for the rest of my life* because you don’t like Belgians” he raged, highlighting the widespread anti-Benelux hatred that has scarred Britain since it became a popular destination for economic migrants from the Low Countries. The fact that Mitch doesn’t have to live anywhere and is free to leave this godforsaken country any time he likes – seriously mate, we’ll get by – is irrelevant. Because in leftist-land no-one is in charge of their own destiny, not even mediocre musical comedians. And especially not thick-as-a-brick voters:

“RE: The will of the people. When is someone in public life gonna have the guts to admit that the people got it wrong?”. Indeed, the silence on this front has been so deafening it’s easy to forget how many columnists, politicians and shit-for-brains celebrities have spent the last year screaming “the people got it wrong!”. Either way, a more suitable replacement for Brown’s orgy of filth you’d struggle to find. And if the Theatre Royal bussed in a few coachloads of day-tripping pensioners there’s no reason Mitch couldn’t attract a third of the sell-out crowds Brown used to pull in.

But this whole saga has reminded me how proud I am of my hometown, despite the fact that this decision was made by people who know as much about my hometown as I do about the Lost City of the Incas. Indeed, from sinister strip clubs to tacky restaurants where waitresses are forced to wear skimpy orange shorts, Newcastle has a noble history of stopping things that upset progressives. And like every censor in history, the brave art teachers and Gender Studies students protesting these establishments weren’t doing it for their own benefit; they were doing it for those poor wretches who aren’t art teachers or Gender Studies students.

Because you can’t just stay away from bars and clubs you don’t like. No, you have to stop everyone else visiting them too. Like anti-Page 3 campaigners who don’t read The Scum, these brave feminists wouldn’t be seen dead in Hooters or For Your Eyes Only but have decided what goes on behind their doors – consenting adults drinking beer, eating fried chicken, taking their clothes off – is unacceptable. And, when combined with the presence of working-class men, practically an invitation to commit rape and murder.

As for the women who allow themselves to be abused for the gratification of men, well, if they learnt to take orders from their betters we wouldn’t still be having this tiresome conversation. In a perfect world they’d stop watching Geordie Shores for five minutes, take those footballers’ cocks out of their mouths, and listen to the educated feminists who preach about the objectification of women yet happily objectify strippers and models by reducing them to lobotomised pieces of meat too stupid to know they’re being exploited.

But, alas, this isn’t a perfect world, hence these bozos have been indoctrinated by the patriarchy into believing they sell their souls to photographers and Chinese businessmen because they want to. (And they say us ‘libtards’ are the deluded ones.) So there you have it: misogyny has become so normalised these women actually feel grateful every time an alpha male points a camera at their bare arse or stuffs a tenner down their knickers.

And the fact that closing strip clubs and banning Page 3 might result in people losing their jobs is irrelevant to the modern left. OJ Jones – the Millennial Mary Whitehouse – has built a career out of sticking up for worker’s rights yet spends half of his time on social media demanding people are sacked. Do you really think he and his ilk will lose any sleep over the livelihood of a barmaid who works in a club they’ll never visit? Or a model who flashes her wobblers in a paper they’ve never read? Or a Google employee who is blacklisted and fired for writing a memo so terrifying his colleagues were too scared to go to work? Or a roly-poly comedian who tells rude jokes they don’t get to people they despise in a city they’ll never understand?

Do me a favour. Next you’ll be telling me while Newcastle’s feminists were getting their organic knickers in a twist over strippers and waitresses there was some actual sexual exploitation going on in the city that was being conveniently ignored.

Yeah, right.

(Photo: Barry Cheung)

 

By Ben Pensant

Am I the only person wondering when the Labour government is going to start, y’know, governing? Two months have now passed since Jeremy Corbyn trounced the Tories by winning 55 less seats than them yet still the vicar’s squatter refuses to budge. Meanwhile, Britain is crying out for strong left-wing leadership to deal with the really important stuff: foiling Brexit, tackling hate crime and shaping a golden future in which a short-arsed middle-aged man with a hairy kite will be legally entitled to wander around female changing rooms as long as his passport says he’s a leggy 21-year-old sex goddess.

Not that I’m don’t have faith in the Dear Leader. On the contrary, I’m in no doubt whatsoever that before we know it he’ll be using the iron fist of the state to crush dissent wherever he finds it, ie the BBC, The New European and that big balloon in the sky where Richard Branston lives.

In short, if Cool Corbyn wants to bide his time that’s his business: there’ll be ample opportunity to turf May and her four-eyed husband onto the street once Labour take control. (Let’s how they enjoy shopping at food banks and dying of frostbite like those hypothetical junior doctors I keep hearing about.) I’m more concerned with the great unwashed; those wretched bricklayer folk too wrapped up pulling off hijabs and drowning their children to realise the world changed irrevocably when Jezza won the election by coming second.

Because the fact is, while we await Corbyn’s inauguration the dumb plebs are carrying on as if they still live in a free society where people can swan around buying and selling what the hell they like. And there are already distressing signs that it’s the youngest in society who are most at risk, blissfully unaware that what was accepted pre-Corbyn will no longer to be tolerated.

Take the five-year-old daughter of Andre Spicer, reprimanded last month for selling fresh lemonade to Tower Hamlets festival goers in the kind of fragrant assault on left-wing principles not seen since the dark days of Thatcher’s Britain. To anyone who thinks we live in a world where tiny children are yet to be brainwashed into blindly embracing the twin evils of capitalism and sugary drinks, think again.

If this wasn’t disturbing enough, it came mere weeks after 15-year-old tealeaf Nathan John-Baptiste was caught running an illicit tuck-shop from a filthy toilet in his Walthamstow comp. As if blatantly disrespecting socialist ideology wasn’t reprehensible enough, the dire health and safety implications of dispensing Wham Bars and Space Raiders in the same confined space where teenage boys compete to see who can piss the highest doesn’t bear thinking about.

Thankfully, both were shut down before they got out of control. Within an hour of Spicer launching her empire brave council jobsworths said ‘enough’s enough, bitches’ and swooped, reading her the riot act and demanding she cease trading immediately or pay a £150 fine. Similarly, thanks to sterling intel work by commendable snitches, John-Baptiste’s teachers were made aware of his grubby enterprise and he was ordered to shut up shop. Personally I’d have thrown the book at them and I’m certain once St Jezza takes office his first priority will be re-opening both investigations and pushing for the hardest punishment possible.

Still, according to Spicer’s father his poor, money-hungry snowflake of a daughter sobbed all the way home. And with a bit of luck the incident has left her so traumatised she’ll think twice before embarking on such dissent again and instead focus on being a normal child: sucking her thumb, playing with gender non-specific toys and counting down the days until she celebrates her 18th birthday by hanging herself.

Sadly, having read John-Baptiste’s brash statements about wanting to become a millionaire it appears he may well be damaged goods already. But I’ve a hunch this is mere youthful Tory bravado. Let’s hope the humiliation of witnessing his black market cottage industry reined in by the state has destroyed his self-esteem. And who knows, now Nathan’s stock’s been seized and the debts are piling up he may even feel a pang of remorse the next time he’s hanging around a freezing cold gym waiting for Tom the caretaker to arrive and start dishing out bubblies for hand-jobs.

But at least the rest of us can sleep easy knowing these two dangerous neoliberals have had their wings clipped, sparing future generations another Michelle Moon or Count Alan Sugar. And make no mistake the grizzly Apprentice ghoul and his perverted knicker baron fuck-buddy are prime examples of what happens when impressionable idiots are duped into believing hard work and financial rewards are inherently good. Because we all know Glaswegian women and common-as-muck cockneys are equally incapable of making their own luck as teenage boys and five-year-old girls who still believe in Santa.

The question, however, is how many kids are getting away with this sort of behaviour as we speak? And how many sinister Joe Fagins are pulling the strings? For all you know the cute girl with the pigtails across the road is currently terrorising gullible pensioners by hawking freshly-picked raspberries around care homes. And don’t be surprised to see her big brother prowling the local park flogging out-of-date Chomps to fat kids and spasmos. We need eyes and ears to defeat this, people, but defeat it we will. At least until PM Corbyn takes inspiration from his beloved Bolivia and decides to crack down on child labour by legalising it.

But Allah only knows what the teenagers of today will be like ten years from now if they’re already prepared to allow a jumped up con-artist to open an illegal business without alerting the authorities or braying him behind the bike sheds. Thank god some brave soul had the balls to grass him up. Because as the far-left’s proud history shows, snitching on people is as much a hallmark of socialist societies as cancelling democracy, murdering trade unionists and starving people to death.

Thankfully, the demographic who really matter – millennials – have their heads screwed on. And there are few better twenty-something clickbait queens working today than Ms Abi Wilkinson, who recently pissed off Tory trolls and white supremacists by daring to float the idea of 100% Inheritance Tax. Which – coming weeks after her post-Grenfell support for the requisitioning of empty houses – proved the timeless adage that Stalinism is so much more palatable when it comes with a pretty face

A long term supporter of the state having first dibs on people’s property and possessions after they die, unlike normal people Abi’s only quibble with Inheritance Tax is that the government don’t take enough. So rather than carry on pointlessly debating how much should be taxed she’s settled on ‘all of it’, with the extra revenues to be handed over to the state. And where would she like it re-deployed? The NHS? Education? Housing? Don’t be daft: she wants to encourage even more people to choose benefits over getting a job by ploughing it into the welfare state. Bingo. It’s telling that for someone who hates the government so much she’s remarkably keen on giving them (other people’s) money.

That the only people likely to bear this brunt would be those who either die suddenly or can’t afford or give away their worldly goods while they’re still alive is immaterial. Ideology always trumps logic, which is why she ignores the fact that the rich people she wants penalised (in Abi’s world it’s the only the well-off who leave money to their children) tend to be somewhat adept at hiring accountants and lawyers to think up ingenious ways to avoid paying tax. Just ask Gary Lineker, Ken Livingstone or The Guardian.

But it’s precisely because of this admirable reluctance to address the flaws in her grand socialist plan that Abi is so cherished. For she reminds us that, despite the efforts of underage entrepreneurs, the ultra-regulated socialist powerhouse envisioned by Corbyn is tantalisingly close. And few are looking forward to it more than our Abi.

Why, only last week she was promoting regressive values with gusto, penning a heartfelt piece in which she defended those tolerant liberals on social media who wished death upon Republican Senator John McCain, recently diagnosed with brain cancer. Abi’s reasoning was that because every vote in favour of repealing the Affordable Health Care act would inadvertently contribute to people dying, if McCain were unable to vote by virtue of being dead it could go the other way, particular as the vote to debate the bill in the first place was passed on a narrow margin of 51 to 50. All of which was rendered meaningless later that day when McCain voted against the bill. Ah.

But whatevz: she’s a socialist not bloody clairvoyant. And anyway, who’s to say McCain didn’t suffer a momentary episode of morality due to the tumour in his head? It’s a knocking bet if he’d been of sound mind he’d have voted in favour of the bill before cackling all the way to the bank. Which he probably owns because all rich Republicans own banks. And cackle. Even the ones with brain cancer. It’s what they do.

Of course, if McCain had died on, say, the morning of the vote, his death may well have resulted in the repeal bill going through. Thus by Abi’s own logic, McCain’s death would’ve been indirectly responsible for the deaths of people without health insurance. Which to most folk would kind of demonstrate that perhaps wishing politicians dead to even up each side’s guilt is not really a useful position to take in grown-up debate. But most people are pussies. Because to the rest of us it demonstrates that, like Abi says, ‘this is no time for civility’. And as all good regressives know, while calling people names and hoping they die contributes precisely sod all to political debate it’s a shit-hot way to win an argument on Twitter.

And should any Tory trolls point this out simply blow their minds and watch them squirm by reciting Freddy Engels’ definition of ‘social murder’. (While simultaneously ignoring the fact that by his logic every single socialist state ever is responsible for quite a lot of social murder.) Because like Abi, whenever I’m struggling to define modern legal terms I always defer to the wise words of crackpot philosophers who died 122 years ago

Thankfully, Abi’s not alone: check out the glorious riots that hit Dalston last week; encouraging signs that traditional socialist pursuits are back with a vengeance. And not before time. Because CRAPitalism gets everywhere and infects everything: my phone, my iPad, my poxy fucking Segway. In such a grimly materialistic climate it’s a travesty educated liberals aren’t applauded from the heavens for resisting the lure of commerce.

Luckily, while the sheeple may be too stupid to realise they’re being brainwashed, I knew fine well what I was doing when I applied for a credit card to buy a ten grand Smartwatch. It’s those uncultured folk with their Wonga loans and kebab addictions you need to worry about; I’ll just stick to selflessly fighting capitalism thanks all the same. That we Western liberals who selflessly fight capitalism tend to be the ones who’ve benefited from it most only adds to our righteousness.

And its this righteousness that allows us to wish people dead without the merest hint of hypocrisy. Because as Abi says, the time for civility is over. Unless of course that lack of civility is found in people she disagrees with, in which case it becomes a stark reminder of the abuse women receive online and the nasty right-wingers are only picking on her ‘cos she’s a girl and if they don’t stop right now she’ll thcream and thcream and thcream until she’s thick!

Oh, hang on. She already has.

(Photo: Hans Hillewaert)

 

By Ben Pensant

I’m sure I wasn’t the only Corbynite awoken from their post-Loose Women nap a fortnight ago by a flurry of social media alerts informing me something amazing had happened. As I checked my phone my mind buzzed with intrigue: Was Katie Hopkins dead? Were Chumbawamba reforming? Had PM Corbyn trebled Income Support so I can continue to spend my afternoons watching Loose Women and napping?

Amazingly, something even more brilliant was afoot. Through bleary eyes I read that a Tory MP I’d never heard of had exposed herself as a racist by using the word ‘n****r’ during a meeting at Westminster. Which was somewhat confusing as I’ve since listened to the recording and she quite clearly said ‘nigger’.

Either way, it gave progressives the opportunity to do what we do best and demand somebody lose their job, an opportunity grasped with both impeccably moisturised hands by Owen Jones. And there are few more adept at demanding somebody lose their job than Owen. Indeed, for such a friend of the working man he spends an alarming amount of time trying to get people sacked. But this is only because he cares so much he’s willing to sacrifice his principles to punish the Bad People. And boy, are the Bad People rattled. As one Tory troll put it recently: ‘It’s ironic that Owen Jones is so left-wing ‘cos he’s a right cunt’.

Because Owen’s beliefs are everything, even when he’s contradicting them. Which is why he’d never dream of saying ‘n****r’, let alone ‘nigger’. Indeed, his aversion to the foul racist term is so intense he reportedly purses his lips when singing along to ‘Gold Digger’ and even refers to the star of the Terminator films as Arnold SchwarzenNword.

In fact Owen finds the word so horrifying he believes people should be punished for hearing it, furiously demanding the Tory MPs at the meeting are held to account for ‘not speaking out’. Because it’s not enough to condemn someone for using a racist word. No, everyone in the room has to be penalised too. Though not literally everyone. That nice Huff Po journalist who recorded the meeting avoided Owen’s wrath, presumably because his poor little ears were so shocked he didn’t process how shocked he was until after he’d leaked the recording.

Predictably Owen’s enemies pounced, though not as hard as they have over his defence of the Dear Leader’s Brexit policy, a topic close to my heart as both a die-hard Corbynite and someone who thinks Leave voters are sub-human savages. But it’s refreshing to know that of all the controversial opinions Owen’s aired over the years the most liberal rage he attracts is for having the nerve to respect democracy. Which is ultimately a good thing for modern Labour: we Jezza groupies might not always see eye to eye with our centrist adversaries but at least when it comes to Brexit they can be every bit as intolerant as us.

Fortunately, Owen’s bag of debating tricks contains several effective methods for when he’s on the ropes, most of which involve accusing his opponent of being something they’re not, like the left-wing version of a five-year-old calling another five-year-old a ‘big bit of poo’. So when he’s feeling chipper – say, if he’s just been out on his BMX and pulled off a particularly sick wheelie – he’ll dismiss his opponents as ‘Blairites’ or ‘Tories’, destroying their argument in one move because Blairites and Tories are wrong about everything.

However, when Owen’s in a foul mood – like last week when he allegedly stormed out of the Guardian canteen because Polly put red sauce on his fish-fingers rather than next to them – he’ll go straight to ‘racist’ or ‘far-right’. Which wins the argument hands down as there’s no way someone as principled as Owen would trivialise far-right racism to shut down debate.

He recently varied this tactic to roast Tony Blair for criticising Labour’s Brexit policy by bringing up the former PM’s lucrative career as an advisor to dodgy regimes, enquiring: ‘Why do interviewers never ask him about getting paid millions working for brutal dictators?’. Why indeed, especially as Jezza works for brutal theocrats and only gets paid thousands. Thankfully, Corbyn’s support for dictators is irrelevant as he called one ‘a champion of social justice’ back in November and still hasn’t received a penny for it.

Owen then played the Iraq war trump card with biting sarcasm: ‘I object to the deaths of hundreds and thousands of civilians. Call me pernickety’. Luckily Owen is far from pernickety about supporting the man whose ‘anti-war’ group lauded the brave jihadists and Ba’athists who killed many of those civilians. But it’s a measure of Owen’s moral fibre that he sees no hypocrisy in condemning the murder of civilians while defending a man who praises groups that murder civilians.

And from Castro to the Supreme Leaders of Iran, Owen has shown his dedication to Corbyn by remaining remarkably cool with Jezza’s support for people who persecute homosexuals. At least we think he is: there are certain topics Owen keeps to himself. And what Owen doesn’t say is far more revealing than what he does.

Because there’s rather a lot Owen doesn’t say. His refusal to discuss socialist utopia Venezuela is well-documented, his aversion to acknowledging the country so extreme even hearing its name makes him wince like Harry Radcliffe when someone says ‘Lord Valderama’. But he’s recently been applying the same tactic to the annual celebration of all things anti-Semitic which took place in London last month.

Curiously for someone who spends his life fighting the far-right, Owen had nothing to say about the far-right rally that marched through London on June 18. Some suggested he was all marched-out from his demo the day before about austerity or something. Others pointed out that when Owen attacks the far-right he only means the white far-right, dummy. Either way, he offered not a syllable of condemnation for the march, which may seem odd to those desperate to smear Corbyn supporters as soft on anti-Semitism but makes perfect sense once you learn what this glorious day actually represents.

For the uninitiated, Al Quds Day is a yearly international event, its London celebration regularly seeing thousands of peaceful protesters take to the streets to sing songs about destroying Israel while waving the flags of anti-Semitic terrorist groups. Its ideology is informed by Shia extremism, anti-Western narratives and the popular concept that Zionism is responsible for every bad thing ever. The whole glorious event has been affectionately nicknamed Kill The Jews Day. What’s not to love?

Bravely whitewashed as a ‘pro-Palestine’ rally by The Guardian, it was initiated by legendary Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini after he and his band of zany theocrats seized power in 1979. It’s London leg is organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, a group only slightly less appropriately named than Hope Not Hate, Unite Against Fascism and the Liberal Democrats.

Proudly Khomeinist, the IHRC earned plaudits in 2015 after awarding Islamophobes Of The Year to the Charlie Hebdo staff two months after they were murdered. The genial host for that night’s festivities was Nazim Ali, a proud Islamist who brought the house down by quipping that the deceased French cartoonists ‘couldn’t make it’ to the bash to collect their award.

Ali – an IHRC director – was also filmed at the rally making an angry speech blaming Zionism for Grenfell Tower, exposing the sinister link between Jewish self-determination and cheap flammable cladding. Needless to say, the IHRC are one of those moderate Muslim groups the BBC love inviting onto discussion programmes, the flipside to shameless sell-outs like the Quilliam Foundation. (Or to coin the phrase Mayor Larry Khan famously used for Muslims who campaign against extremism, ‘Uncle Toms’). As you’d expect, Jeremy Corbyn is a huge fan of the IHRC, once gushing that they ‘represent everything good about Islam’.

Predictably, Tory provocateurs staged a counter-protest though Owen, Ellie et al wisely kept their distance, spending the weekend accusing the government of murder instead. Indeed, in the days and weeks following Al Quds Day Owen publicly applauded a number of worthy causes with a fervour completely at odds with his refusal to acknowledge Al Quds Day.

‘Is there anyone around there to do a citizen’s arrest on this murderer?’ he asked the following week as Henry Kissinger gave a talk in London. And I can’t be the only person to agree that the presence of the former Secretary of State on the capital’s streets is far more worthy of condemnation than a march calling for the genocide of Jews.

He also found time to re-tweet claims by Corbyn’s butler Matt Zarb Cousins that revolting Islamophobe Douglas Murray was a ‘hate-preacher’. Understandably, neither Owen nor Matt provided any evidence of this. Nor did they comment on the actual hate preachers marching through London, with MZC going the extra mile and blocking anyone who asked him about it.

Elsewhere, Owen attempted to organise a much needed demonstration against Donald Trump ‘sneaking’ into Britain: ‘RT if you’re willing to commit to protesting this bigot at short notice’ Owen urged, though it must be stressed that Owen usually needs much more notice to organise a protest, especially if the people he’s protesting are waving Hezbollah flags. Unfortunately Trump’s visit is yet to materialise, though hopefully when it does OJ won’t let the lack of support stop him pretending it’s not happening like he did when Kill The Jews rocked up last month.

Indeed, trolls have pondered why someone so appalled by racism would deliberately ignore a celebration of racism. But anyone who asks that question isn’t paying attention. Because there are infinite reasons why Owen might ignore a far-right rally on his doorstep, each one more moral, principled and utterly vacuous than the last.

The most obvious explanation is damage limitation: PM Corbyn appeared at Al Quds Day in 2012, giving an impassioned speech about evil apartheid Israel to a crowd of extremists. If a high-profile Jezza supporter were to condemn Al Quds Day he’d instantly be hit with accusations of hypocrisy from the right and Zio-apologism from the left. Hence Owen’s complete silence; a shining example of loyalty, ethics and unfettered blind devotion.

And this blind devotion allows him to lock away Al Quds Day in the same cyber vault as those gushing articles about Venezuela or that ill-judged 2015 piece which shocked his progressive fans by suggesting leaving the EU might be a good idea. Because of all Jezza’s cheerleaders Owen has been the most stubborn in refusing to entertain his support for extremists, only occasionally acknowledging it with a ‘What about Saudi Arabia?’ here or a ‘But the DUP!’ there.

The other explanation is that Owen agrees with the charming Islamists chanting ‘death to Israel!’ and accusing The Zionists of trying to achieve world domination by burning down English council estates. Or perhaps he once attended Al Quds Day himself? Back in his carefree Oxford days he’d have fit in like a glove: editing the Israel Wiki page, dismissing Hamas suicide bombings as ‘West-centric’ and rubbishing the idea of Jewish ethnicity as a ‘lie’.

Of course, we have no way of knowing if Owen has ever attended the rally. But he wouldn’t be the first brave progressive to flirt with anti-Semitism; from George Galloway and Gerry Downing to Naz Shah and Jackie Walker, the British left have a glorious history of fighting neo-liberalism by showing solidarity with fascists.

Interestingly, both Galloway and Walker have at various times received support from Owen. As, of course, did Roy Bentham, the Liverpudlian Labour campaigner who recently made the news after demanding Luciana Berger apologise for doing what Jezza’s spent his entire career doing and disagreeing with her leader.

Predictably, Owen criticised Bentham’s ‘totally off’ tone but went on to praise the cheeky scouser as a ‘courageous fighter for blacklisted workers who’ve been persecuted’. Wise words and I look forward to Owen lauding Jimmy Savile’s charity work, praising the Kray twins for never ‘urting no-one who didn’t deserve it and eulogising Mussolini’s devotion to ensuring the punctuality of the Italian rail service.

But alas, what Owen really thinks about Jews is destined to remain a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma buried underneath a hysterical strop on Sky News. That he goes to such lengths to avoid condemning Al Quds Day is admirable. So admirable in fact, it’s almost a shame within weeks he’ll be shovelling coal in the Hyde Park gulag, counting down the seconds ’til he walks the green mile to Finsbury Park gallows, wondering why on earth he ever betrayed the Dear Leader.

Let’s hope on the day of execution he gives one last interview to Brother Seumas before his neck is broken. It’d be nice for Owen to go out smiling, content at leaving his fans in no doubt his opinion of anti-Semitic terrorism was every bit as principled as that of the man perched on the Number Ten throne.

Who knows, he might even grow some balls and tell us what the N in NWA stands for too.

(Photo: Sander van der Wel)

 

 

By Ben Pensant

Well that didn’t take long, did it? PM Corbyn’s signature was barely dry on the Number Ten rent book and the PLP plotters were up to their old tricks, undoing all that recent good work kissing Jezza’s hoop by stabbing him in the back before you could say ‘Et tu, Bluto?’. It’s in their nature, like that frog that ate the penguin.

And all because slap-headed virgin Chuka Umoaner was too impatient to wait for the Dear Leader to unveil his ingenious plan to stop Brexit. Because make no mistake, there’s not a cat in hell’s chance Corbyn actually wants us to exit the single market and customs union. Despite quite literally saying he does. And the idea that someone as kind and gentle as Jezza would ever dream of ending free movement is frankly sickening.

Just because he pledged to do so and has been opposed to the EU his whole career doesn’t mean anything. And if centrist traitors are too dumb to realise it’s all a ruse to destroy the Tories then they can whistle. Let’s hope the front-benchers the PM coolly exiled find a good bedsit to seek refuge in because once Momentum’s top boys have scrubbed the last traces of Theresa May from Downing Street there’ll be nowhere to hide. If you come quietly they may offer lenience but to paraphrase Mr Green out of The Usual Suspects: all you can do is pray for a quick death. Which you ain’t gonna get.

But as horrifying as it must have been to see a progressive like Corbyn side with xenophobic populism, those of us who’ve studied brinkmanship knew he was playing the long game. You seriously think a man of principle could be on the same page as the ignorant white supremacists who voted Leave? Next you’ll be telling me he once spoke at a ‘Kill The Jews Day’ rally.

No. Just because he’s spent his whole career opposed to the EU doesn’t mean he wants us to leave the EU. And just because Labour’s manifesto stated they would support a hard Brexit didn’t mean they’re going to support a hard Brexit. Do I need to draw a diagram?

Corbynites who voted for Jezza know this so why are Blairites in such a tizz? All over social media and even – gulp – the Real World, Labour voters are shocked and appalled that an anti-EU politician wants to leave the EU, forgetting that we’re talking about someone whose cunning, intelligence and knowledge of man-hole covers is almost supernatural. If you didn’t know better you’d think half the people who voted Labour in know sweet fuck all about him.

I mean, he’s a socialist for god’s sake – of course he hates democracy! And as a upper-middle-class liberal opposed to poor kids going to good schools who also thinks ethnic minorities need rich white men to ‘unlock their talent’ it stands to reason he loathes The People.

It speaks volumes that shit-for-brains moderates can’t grasp what thousands at Gladstonbury picked up with ease. How could a man of principle not want to remain in the EU? That he’s spent his whole career against the EU is unimportant, especially as so many of the people who voted for him seemingly don’t know he’s spent his whole career against the EU. But believing that nice massa’ Corbyn just appeared out of thin air in June 2015 goes hand in hand with thinking he’s the second coming: as anyone who’s ever conversed with die-hard Corbynites knows, his most dedicated fans inevitably know the least about him.

Still, those brain surgeons crying into their blue flags because they were duped by the nice old man who forgot to tell them he wanted to leave the EU – despite spending decades telling everyone he wanted to leave the EU – still voted for him. And despite all the lies, smears and demonstrable facts, it’s refreshing to know Labour MPs and supporters can put up with Jezza supporting Islamists, antisemites and dictators but respecting a democratic result is a bridge too far.

Which it would be if that were what he was doing. But anyone with half a brain can see Jezza mistrusts the working-class as much as any leftist and wouldn’t dream of allowing them a say in their country’s future. Hence why he’s been cultivating the persona of a Marxist grumpy-pants who doesn’t like the EU for 40 years, patiently waiting to pull of his sting, like a saintly version of Chuck Lewis out of Bullions.

I mean, come on. You think all those youngsters singing ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ at Gladsto’ would support someone who agrees with the thick racists who voted Leave? Behave. They’re Europeans for christ’s sake: they have morals and everything. Look at the evidence:

These are people apparently oblivious to the hypocrisy of a wealthy politician telling the crowd at a £238-per-ticket festival how ghastly capitalism has been for them.

Who see no contradiction whatsoever in an audience full of pro-EU music fans cheering an anti-EU politician who supports regimes that ban music.

Who don’t realise festivals would be few and far between in Corbyn’s Marxist paradise as potential headliners like Eddie Sheeran would run a mile if they found out they’re on the same money as the bloke who empties the shitters.

Who are yet to enter the world of work, blissfully unaware that in a socialist society everyone has to work. And not for anything as bourgeois as houses or holidays. No, minimum wage plus the pride of knowing you’ve served the state are reward enough. And I’m sure every Gladsto’ attendee who applauded St Jezza would happily choose that over iPhones, Ray Bans and the freedom to do what the fuck they like.

In short, people who not only think the best way to fight capitalism and austerity is to re-join a European bureaucracy dedicated to capitalism and austerity, but also believe socialism simply involves holding hands and helping each other out. Which indeed it does, just as long a you don’t mind the government telling you who you can hold hands with, and the people you help out aren’t Jews, homosexuals, or sorcerors.

Sadly, much as we admire the left-wing utopias that purified and impoverished millions, the dumb British proles still aren’t ready for true socialism. Which is why Jezza is applying the slowly-slowly method: he can’t put the means of production in the hands of the people immediately but he can regulate the shit out of it, raise a tax there, requisition the odd house there. Not that Corbyn and co. will be giving up their wealth or homes. Principled left-wingers like Lady Nugget aren’t ready to lose their property portfolios in the name of ideology just yet.

But if there’s one institution who know all about regulating the shit out of stuff it’s the EU. How could Corbyn not be a fan? That people are apopleptic because he sacked four MPs shows how little they understand the diverse, youthful grass-roots movement driven by a rich white man pushing 70. A movement reflected in the adoring crowds at Glastonbury and Jezza’s recent appearance on the cover of Kerrrrang!, a far cry from the dark days of the ’80s and ’90s when a rock weekly wouldn’t be seen dead sucking up to a politician no matter how nice his allotment was.

True, the likes of NME were always left-wing in outlook. They even supported Noel Kinnock until the ginger Welshman’s cringeworthy ‘we’re alrrrright!’ moment in 1993 when he became momentarily possessed by the spirits of Jimmy Swaggart and Tony The Tiger. But their anti-establishment values meant grudging support for Labour never crossed over into hero-worship or arse-lickery. And festival crowds back then were far too grizzled and cynical to bow and curtsy for a politician. (Unless he was offering warm cider and a wrap of whizz.) If anyone had chanted ‘Oh Michael Feet!’ at Reading in the early ’80s they’d have had a bottle of cloudy piss stotted off their head before you could say ‘We Are The Road Crew’.

In those days cowardly music hacks were less concerned with telling youngsters what to think than urging them to follow their dreams without waiting for approval from the state. Exactly the kind of subversive nonsense that brainwashes kids into thinking you make your own luck in life rather than waiting around for The Grand Wizard of Islington to grant you everything for nowt.

No, the music press of that era may have hated Thatcher but instead of crying about it and setting fire to bins they wrecklessly encouraged their impressionable working-class readers to stick two fingers up at her and forge their own destinies. With catastrophic results. Because if those journos hadn’t emboldened council estate kids to think for themselves we wouldn’t have had to deal with them and their offspring voting to leave the EU thirty years later.

But thankfully, some changes have been for the better. Back then NME urged The Kids to take on the world. Last summer it ran a piece offering mental health tips to help readers get over the trauma of the referendum.

Kerrrrrrang! used to laud un-PC mavericks who held the rock and political establishments in equal contempt. The week before the election its cover star was a privately educated career politician whose favourite song is ‘Imagine’.

Thank Allah those dark days have gone, with both press and fans now singing from the same conformist hymn-sheet. Indeed, from Miranda Huckleberry to James Get-On-Up, many of the edgy music writers who came of age during punk, acid house and Britpop can now be found crying about Brexit and the price of sun-dried tomatoes in The Nude European. And if their readers are guzzling sleeping pills after the revelation that Corbyn doesn’t share their enthusiasm for the EU? Good. Anything to sustain the illusion until he makes his move, reverses Brexit and executes everyone who voted for it.

Luckily, when that glorious day comes he’ll have the muscle to pull it off. Not least vice chancellor John McDonald , who electrified an adoring crowd at Gladstonbury by accusing the Tories of murdering the Granville Tower victims. Since then, of course, it has emerged that numerous Labour councils were also responsible for fitting flammable cladding to tower blocks. Needless to say, John’s failure to accuse his own party of deliberately trying to kill poor people tells you all you need to know about this lion of a man.

Indeed, the reaction to John’s speech highlighted the difference between deluded Blairites too dumb to realise Jezza is hoodwinking the Tories over Brexit and clued-up Corbynites off their tits in a field. Lest we forget McDonnell celebrated the financial crash, gushing ‘I’ve been waiting for this for a generation!’ to a roomful of bedsit militants in 2013 when no-one gave two shits who he was.

Of course he later claimed he was joking. And as he also admitted to being a Marxist in the same speech – something he’s since denied – it’s safe to say you can take his word to the bank. Because as I’m sure those cheering him at Gladsto would wholeheartedly agree, there’s nothing funnier than people losing their jobs, having their homes repossessed and watching their businesses go under. And I bet they’d be honoured to know that while they were facing financial ruin and contemplating suicide the future Chancellor was drinking champagne and body-popping to ‘Fight The Powers’.

As it happens, deluded Marxist MPs have become something of a growth industry since then, with angry Durham lass Laura Pidgeoncock wowing the Commons with a maiden speech that combined the political wisdom of Foxy Smith with the satirical bite of a baby mouse wet-farting the theme tune to Yes, Munster. In fact you could barely fit a kumquat-flavoured Rizla-paper between Laura and the mud-splattered Gladsto hordes who left John’s speech enlightened, energised and hopelessly indoctrinated. Indeed, many were visibly overwhelmed as they spoke of the deep emotional impact of McDonnell’s words. As Freya, 19, from Hampstead put it: ‘He was like ‘yeah!’ and I was like ‘yeah!!’ and we were all like ‘yeah!!!’

Well said. And with the likes of wise-beyond-their-years Freya now the dominant voice in political discourse, the glorious sight of an anti-EU Prime Minister being lionised by pro-EU Guardian readers is tantalisingly close. And when he eventually double-crosses the Tories and slots us back into the European Union where we belong there won’t be a farmer’s field big enough for the homecoming party.

Ohhhh, Jeremy Corbyn!

By Ben Pensant

Has there ever been a better time to be a progressive? From Labour’s stunning election victory to Theresa Gay’s nervous breakdown, it seems the good news never stops. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever so it was with great sadness I recently learnt wounded Republican congressman Steve Scaley – shot three weeks ago by brave Bernie bro’ James Hodgkins – had been discharged from hospital, his condition described as ‘fair’. Typical. No sooner had we embraced the exciting idea that people we disagree with deserve to be killed than we found out Scaley – the evil bastard we’d never heard of ’til someone tried to murder him – had escaped with a bruised arse.

Still, it’s good to know there are courageous leftists willing to shoot people with dodgy views. And you don’t get more dodgy than Scaley, with his history of supporting gun ownership, voting against gay rights, and consorting with groups founded by David Duke. All of which is infinitely more dodgy than shooting people at a baseball game. Because it’s no longer enough to merely defend ourselves with chants and flares. As the first Republican to come face to face with an anti-Trump lunatic who can shoot straight will find out.

Of course, left-wing victim-blaming is nothing new; we all remember Gabbi Hinsliff’s seminal Guardian column in which she excused the handsy immigrants who terrorised Cologne on New Year’s Eve on the grounds that the ladies they harassed were brandishing IPhones and wearing expensive jewellery. And the likes of Nathan Leen have built careers on putting the blame for Islamic terrorism on everyone but Islamic terrorists. But moderates usually favour the ‘obviously murder is bad but…’ brand of apologetics. So while fringe relativists like Deputy PM John Macdonell happily laud everyone from the IRA to the Iraqi resistance, mainstream liberals have traditionally been more cautious, dressing up their victim-blaming by saying that terrorism is bad but it’s basically our fault.

Indeed, only last month popular trans-chef Jack Munroe electrified Twitter with an exhaustively researched four-point plan to defeat terrorism:

‘1. Stop arming the middle-east 2. Stop bombing their kids 3. Stop cutting police 4. Stop cutting mental health services.’

Insightful stuff. Because if Western leaders only listened to professional victims like Jack and kept their beaks out of the Muslim world all the shootings, kidnappings and suicide bombings that regularly happen in these countries would stop immediately. It’s not rocket science.

In fact, I was so impressed by Jack’s knowledge of geopolitics I asked if they could expand their point by telling me how many bombs were dropped by Salmon Rushdie, Theo Van Gough, Ayaan Kirstie Ali, Assad Shah, Aisha Bibi, Marshal Caan and the staff of Charlie Hebdon. Understandably Jack declined to answer, presumably because they were too busy crying, suing journalists, or trying to reverse their assigned gender by rubbing fennel on they tits.

But even peaceful progressives like Jack may soon be left behind as violent progressives take control of the narrative. And about time. Because punching Nazis is one thing but shooting politicians is even better. Which is why so many used the Scaley shooting to flex their illiberal muscles. And few do that better than the leading lights of British comedy.

Indeed, this past year a veritable army of funny folk have embraced the new illiberalism unleashed by the horror of Brexit and the joy of Jeremy Corbyn winning an election by coming second. Last month alone saw Jonathan Pile’s transformation from a sharp, satirical creation fond of skewering both left and right into a fully paid-up Corbynite, re-tweeting people who think the Zionists killed Kennedy and being duped by a Daily Fail front page so blatantly photo-shopped the only other people taken in by it were Owen Jones and George Galloway.

Hot on his tail was leftist stand-up Josey Long and her mirth-free video explaining why she’s less frightened of the ideology that has killed 35 people in Britain since March than she is the one that made a thick Welsh racist crash a van into a bus-stop.

And let’s not forget kind, principled, filthy rich stars like Steve Coogen, David Scheider and Eddy Izzard, who between them have spent the last year either campaigning to overturn democracy or banging the drum for a man who supports regimes that censor comedians.

But none come close to the straight-talkin’ High Sparrow of the comedy elite, Big Ted co-creator and unashamed Chavez apologist Graham ‘Linehan’ Glinner, a man whose dedication to re-shaping liberalism as the preserve of joyless, petulant Irishmen is matched only by his penchant for Parker-esque bons mots, like that time he skewered Evil Trump Jr by imploring him to ‘die in a fucking fire’. Bazinga!

Such brutal put-downs are enough to make you wonder if all the funny bits in The ET Crowd were improvised. Because Twitter Graham is a ferociously different beast to the Graham who writes all those funny sitcoms. Whether he’s winning over people he disagrees with by calling them cunts or ending a debate by creepily re-posting a Facebook picture of his opponent and his mam, Twitter Graham pulls no punches, takes no prisoners and tells no jokes.

Indeed, Twitter Graham has as much time for people who disagree with him as he does for anyone who asks him how Venezuela’s getting on these days. And it’s this brave, principled and utterly intolerant schtick that has earned him 600,000 followers – or 687,203 as Graham would no doubt correct – who can’t get enough of a deluded 49-year-old teenager who resolves debates by calling people racist. Whether they’d go quite as crazy for a deluded 49-year-old teenager who isn’t also a hugely successful scriptwriter isn’t clear.

But Graham’s trademark left-wing miserablism was all over his curt response when news of the Scaley shooting first broke: ‘Chickens, roost, etc’. A concise mega-burn that saw the G-man add victim-blaming to his growing list of attributes, which currently includes bullying students, supporting political censorship, and accusing people of being Nazis while making excuses for people who are pretty much Nazis.

Indeed, the above example from last year – in which Graham called Nigel Farage a racist and a cunt but refused to condemn Hammas on the grounds that it’s ‘complex’ – was classic Twitter Graham. Because only a Scum-reading bigot would think a group who imprison homosexuals, shoot protesters, and have a charter calling for the genocide of Jews are remotely as bad as a man who says dodgy stuff about immigrants. Perhaps if Farage had referred to them as ‘bacteria’ – the word Hammas minister Abdallah Jarbo used to describe Jews in 2010 – Graham would be more understanding. Because, y’know: it’s complex.

Understandably, Graham afforded no such leeway to the DUP, who he recently compared to the fundamentalist bad guys from The Handmaid’s Tail. Indeed, with their extreme censorship, authoritarian ideals and penchant for female genital mutilation it’s clear the rulers depicted in Margo Atwood’s dystopian thriller have far more in common with the Tories’ new best friends than those other religious fascists who Graham can’t bring himself to condemn because it’s complex.

Which is fortunate, as Graham had his hands full last month prostrating himself before the Twitter Faith Militant after using a word middle-class people find offensive. Of course, if he’d known calling the so-called Prime Minister a ‘stupid cunt’ was so hurtful he’d have called himself one instead. Alas, he only found out after passionately agreeing with JK Rowland’s much publicised view that the modern trend for calling female politicians rude names was jolly horrid. Needless to say, Graham’s world fell in when the offending ‘stupid cunt’ Tweet was dug up. Which would have made a lesser man look like an utter hypocrite. But Graham’s an old hand at SJW-wrangling, acutely aware that the one thing they love more than blue hair-dye is receiving apologies.

Sure enough, Graham instantly switched to damage limitation mode, tweeting ‘What the hell was I thinking?’ and assuring his fans he usually only calls men cunts. Though sadly that didn’t stop the torrent of tutting from feminists, proving a blue tick is no safeguard against the mob turning on their own. Of course, if Graham were a truly fearless writer he would have defended his right to call Terrible Theresa whatever the fuck he likes. But Graham knows which side his organic bread’s buttered on and if that means begging over-sensitive strangers for forgiveness then so be it.

Which he was still doing a week later, playing to the crowd and accusing someone of misogyny for calling a woman ‘shrill’. Some Tory trolls suggested this betrayed a complete lack of self-awareness, blissfully unaware that in Graham’s native Dublin the word ‘shrill’ is far worse than ‘cunt’. Either way, he’s kept his nose clean ever since.

Not that he’s lost his edge. On the contrary, his run-in with the Offence Police dispensed with he was soon up to his old tricks, re-tweeting joy that conservative blogger Mike Kernovich was assaulted at a rally and making a rare joke about telling his children video game programmer Nootch was dead after the gobby Mindcraft creator upset liberal Twitter by criticising Gay Pride and accusing a woman of ‘cuntsplaining’. Indeed, it must be horrendous to find out the brains behind a beloved piece of pop culture is an intolerant loudmouth with a penchant for calling women the C-word.

Still, Nootch could always earn brownie points by following Graham’s lead and regularly accusing Donald Trump of raping his ex-wife, a bold pastime for someone who celebrated Jack Munroe’s recent libel win. Unsurprisingly, Graham has repeatedly ignored requests for evidence to back up his claim. Because there are narratives to protect here and we can’t jeopardise them with outdated concepts like ‘proof’.

Which brings us back to Graham’s favourite target – Republicans, particularly ones who’ve been shot in the hip by bat-shit Bernie obsessives. Because with three simple words (‘Chickens, roost, etc’) Graham spoke for all of us who were overjoyed at the shooting but too shy to say it. Thankfully the four other victims are irrelevant, primarily because most of us didn’t know there were four other victims. And as luck would have it two of them were black which allowed progressives everywhere a sly chuckle at the irony of victims of white supremacy getting shot trying to save a white supremacist.

Indeed, the hubristic nature of the shooting provided much intellectual amusement on social media. Or as one anti-gun activist put it: ‘I’m glad he was shot. Fuck you, John!’. A point he clarified for anyone who thought a key characteristic of supporting gun control was not wanting people to get shot: ‘I don’t want innocent people shot’. Because as Graham would doubtless agree, there’s no such thing as an innocent Republican.

Graham’s fellow Twitter apologists also looked to Hollywood for inspiration, one comparing Hodgkins to ‘…the Inglorious Bastards. The real ones. They shot up shit to make a point’. That point may have been somewhat different to ‘Republicans Must Die!’ but it’s refreshing to know voting against gay marriage is deemed as worthy of violent retribution as exterminating Jews. And I’m sure Graham is delighted to know he shares his worldview with people who can’t tell the difference between a coward who shoots unarmed congressmen and fictional Nazi hunters from a Chris Tarantino film.

But just in case anyone thinks it’s only Graham and internet numpties who indulge in rank victim-blaming, respected Huffty Post columnist Jessy Benn arrived to add an educated middle-class sheen. Which he did by saying Scaley deserved it and telling everyone who disagrees to fuck off.

‘What’s worse: putting millions on the margins at risk via draconian policies or shooting a racist lawmaker in the hip?’ he enquired – because bad stuff done by the right always beats bad stuff done by the left – before moving on to another of Graham’s favourite themes: direct action.

‘For violent resistance to work it needs to be organised. Individual acts are understandable but can be counterproductive’. Brave stuff and it’s refreshing to know the most damning thing a mainstream liberal columnist can say about someone trying to kill innocent people at a charity baseball match is that it might not be the most effective tactic.

Jesse then summoned the Spirit Of Glinner with a measured response to a fellow left-winger who pointed out this sort of attitude only helps the Republicans – ‘Fuck you, centrist’ – before recycling more platitudes about how ‘resistance’ is actually ‘defence’. Which is what we expect from a middle-class journalist whose idea of revolution sounds like a Bravehearts remake written by Wolfy Smith. But it shows how thoroughly far-left morality has infiltrated the mainstream that we now expect it from award-winning comedy writers too.

And if it gives a long-term admirer of economy-destroying South American socialism the chance to celebrate an ‘innocent’ man being shot then win-win. Because for Graham it’s all about keeping his followers sweet (did you know he has 687,203 of them?). Which is a must when you’re idolised by people who think assaulting someone you disagree with is, like, totally woke. And it’s a measure of Graham’s kind, gentle and utterly lopsided worldview that the man who gave us some of the warmest comedy of the last twenty-five years is simultaneously one of the coldest people on Twitter.

Keep firing those bullets, Graham!

By Ben Pensant

One thing guaranteed to excite middle-class liberals is poor people dying. From working-class scousers crushed to death to Syrian refugees drowned at sea, nothing unites us like the suffering of the less fortunate, less educated, less deserving of a place on the spaceship in 2012 that rescues the VIPs from being eaten by climate change.

Because the lower order’s woes are our bread and butter. And none more so than now, with Prime Minister Corbyn so utterly defined by victimhood he can’t take a crap without blaming the celery-salted quail’s eggs he ate at Bellanger for emboldening his bowels.

With this in mind, it was with anger, sadness and disappointment we learnt that the Grenfell Tower death toll had reached 79. Angry it was allowed to happen, sad at the loss of life and disappointed that Theresa May was still 170+ corpses away from usurping Harold Shipman as Britain’s worst mass murderer.

Still, that figure will surely rise now the sinister plot to downplay the fatalities by not confirming people as dead until their bodies are found has been exposed by pop princess-turned crime-scene specialist Lily Allen. Which gives us plenty to dine on until President Jezza’s painstaking investigation reveals the shocking mistakes and fatal oversights from various levels of council and government are less to blame than The Daily Mail writing nasty things about health and safety regulations.

Until then we’ll use the golden opportunity presented by people burning to death to focus on the real villains – Tories. Because the more we characterise Theresa May as uniquely responsible for the fire the more our actual Prime Minister emerges as the polar opposite; a symbol of bearded purity. And it will surely comfort the bereaved to know that their loved ones died so middle-class Marxists could wave placards and attack cameramen.

Predictably, Tory trolls have accused us of exploiting the tragedy, ignoring how our desire to stick up for the poor shows how tolerant and forgiving we are. Because what our critics forget is that the council-estate dwellers we’re showing solidarity with – uneducated, denim-clad, addicted to pasties – are the same people we’ve spent the last year calling bigoted morons for voting Leave. It’s a measure of our decency that we’re willing to overlook their racism and stupidity to sympathise with them now the chickens have come home to roost.

We’ve also been known to characterise the type of people who live in tower blocks as prone to becoming hijab-burning hate criminals after reading Tweets by Katie Hopkins. Because these poor souls couldn’t possibly be bright enough to take what’s printed in The Sun with a pinch of salt or have the humanity to walk past foreigners on the streets without attacking them.

We’ve forgiven them because they don’t know any better; the same low standard which informs our view of the civil unrest about to erupt. Because if the proles can’t be trusted to look at a billboard without chinning an immigrant how can we expect them to react to their friends and families needlessly dying without smashing windows and stealing tellies?

And when that happens, we’ll know who to blame. As one Twitter observer opined, it’s thanks to May’s half-hearted Grenfell visit that the locals are ‘on the verge of rioting’. Because all it takes for these savages to start setting fire to bins is not getting a hug from a politician. And as we socialists are incapable of functioning without re-assurance from the state we assume everyone else is too. Despite the fact that the working-class have managed for centuries without politicians putting an arm around them and telling them everything will be fine as long as we all hold hands and vote Labour.

Not that the residents will be on the frontline; those of us donning masks and leading the protests will be cut from a more sophisticated cloth. Because rather than being provoked into thuggery, we choose to storm council offices and throw fire extinguishers at ambulances. There’s nuance to our direct action that the proles, bless ’em, just don’t understand. Hence their innate desire to lash out at immigrants rather than directing their violence at more deserving targets like Tories or Jews.

Luckily, most of the Grenfell residents were from ethnic minorities. Perfect. Because as we know, Muslims and black people – like the white working-class but less racist and far-better dressed – are incapable of dealing with adversity without detonating bombs or murdering policemen. Which is why we’ll welcome their presence during the coming civil unrest, not least because we’re less likely to get nicked and have to call daddy’s QC if there are plenty of brown faces around. But it’ll be refreshing to see Muslims, blacks and uneducated whites putting their natural proclivity for violence to good use, and if they take the heat off us then even better.

Because as the successful 2011 riots proved, civil disobedience is a vital tool in the fight against fascism, just as long as the people doing it are left-wing. And you don’t get more left-wing than the Grenfell Tower residents, curiously outnumbered at Friday night’s protests by privileged SWP activists selflessly taking time out from eating kale and milking arts funding to vent their anger by chanting outside the BBC.

What role the Beeb played in installing substandard cladding to tower blocks is unclear, as is how they have ‘blad, blad, blad!’ on their hands. Luckily, none of the cut-glass-accented youthful protesters knew either, which will make life easier for them in five years time when they all start working there.

But for now this is about one group and one group alone. That’s right – the Labour Party, particularly our new Prime Minister, the ultimate statesman, illustrated by the camera crew who appear to be following him 24/7 just in case he comes across a grieving mother in need of a cuddle.

(I’ve no idea if they film him when he goes for a piss but if anyone from Labour HQ is reading I’m more than willing to step in should anyone feel uncomfortable pointing a camera at the most powerful man in Britain with his cock out. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I’ll even shake him off for a fiver. It’s no problem. I’d film him crapping if he asked. I used to be a vegan so I’m cool with the smell. I kind of like it, actually. So yeah. Give me a call. Please)

Because this is Jezza’s moment and while death is always welcome if we can blame it on the Tories, the timing of this is particularly sweet with Mrs May squatting at Number Ten and refusing to let the man who beat her take his rightful place on the iron throne.

Hence the rapid proliferation of hard-left ideas emerging from the mainstream, with the Grenfell dead a convenient hook on which to hang our proudly illiberal values. So within days we had Jezza calling for empty homes to be requisitioned by the government, a suggestion backed with gusto by a variety of Corbyn groupies including pint-sized polemicist Abi Wilkinson and roly-poly anti-democrat David Lammy.

The latter has been omnipresent since the tragedy, voicing his approval of Jezza’s plan to seize private property and making a heart-rending appearance on Channel 4 News in which he perfected the trick of crying his eyes out without producing any tears. It got me right there – like heartburn – and made a mockery of the Kirk Lazarus axiom ‘never go full retard’.

He wisely avoided discussing whether second homes of Labour MPs would be subject to the same communist measures. Which was understandable as this could evoke memories of Lammy’s infamous extra residence, deemed necessary to take the edge off the punishing half-hour daily commute to Westminster he’d been previously forced to make.

In a move that brilliantly exemplified the modern left-wing belief that ideology trumps action, none of the Labour MPs suggesting we scrap the fundamental right to do as we please with our property offered up their own. Nor did political heavyweights Lily Allen, Gary Lineker or JK Rowling, presumably because their various mansions and penthouses are ram-packed with all those refugees they took in.

Abi also backed requisitions, unsurprising for a young lady vehemently opposed to people bequeathing their homes and savings to their children when they die, preferring a system where inheritance is handed back to the state as a generous goodbye present on top of all the tax we’ve already given them.

Indeed, for someone who hates the government Abi is remarkably keen on handing them other people’s stuff. Which she brushed off on Twitter with the classic regressive trick of accusing her opponents of being something they’re not. ‘Racist’, ‘Nazi’ and ‘child-killing Zio’ are the current straw-men du jour, though Abi cleverly sidestepped those and opted for ‘Tory’. Because obviously anyone who has the gall to object to the government stealing private property without asking must vote Conservative.

But as well as gleefully pushing to abolish basic human rights, we also had to uphold the popular narrative that Theresa May personally installed the flammable cladding and fitted the dodgy fridge that started the fire in the first place. Which was just enough to justify Brother McDonnell’s calls for direct action, calls he’s now pretending he never made by preaching ‘peace’ and making nonsensical comments about Gandhi. And the best example came from rising Labour star Clive Lewis who electrified Twitter with four simple words: ‘Burn neo-liberalism. Not people’. Brave stuff from a career politician and former infantry officer who has benefited greatly from neo-liberalism.

Predictably, right-wing trolls dived straight in until Clive rightly pointed out that, as an ideology, neo-liberalism is fair game for criticism and immolation. Whether this means he would also be fine with someone saying ‘burn Islam’ is unclear, as he wisely avoided replying to the people who asked him that very question.

But the difference is obvious: one ideology is a peaceful religion; the other needs burning. Just as the government needs to be ‘removed’ and millions need to ‘take to the streets’, these calls to arms have emanated from all corners of the left, inspiring hordes of desperate folk who refuse to let their desperation get in the way of buying iPhones and designer cardigans.

With all this insurrection in the air, it’s telling that brave liberals like Owen Jones – usually so quick to accuse people he of ‘incitement’ – have failed to condemn them. Indeed, despite spending the last week ranting about the far-right he’s never once commented on the far-right rally that took place in London on Sunday. I can only assume he was all marched-out after his anti-government protest on Saturday. It couldn’t possibly be because the annual Kill The Jews day has been known to feature a certain bearded socialist from Islington and to condemn it would mean drawing attention to the fact that the he’s happy to support anti-Semites and address crowds filled with Hezbollah flags if it means sticking it to the evil West.

There was also a speech by a charming gentleman from the Islamic Human Rights Commission who blamed the Grenfell Tower fire on Zionism. Inflammatory? Perhaps. But when you notice how few Jews died in the fire you can’t deny he’s got a point.

Which is why we need the SWP et al to unite with Corbyn to take ownership of this disaster. Because it wasn’t just Theresa May who caused it; it was everyone who had the nerve to selfishly vote against the left-wing vision that Corbyn’s government will make reality. And the fact that privately-educated class-warriors with zero affinity for either the founding principles of the Labour Party or the residents of Grenfell Tower have hijacked both for their own ends is a beautiful bonus.

Luckily, modern Labour is now perfectly in sync with the bedsit militants and rape apologists of the hard-left. And when even moderate voices are getting onboard you just know this heartbreaking period will turn out quite nicely for Jezza.

To conclude I’ll leave you with the words of one such moderate voice, respected economist Paul Lewis, whose poignant plea to leave the charred tower standing movingly crystallised the left’s weaponization of Grenfell: ‘Not a war grave but a class war grave. A monument to hubris, profit and stupidity’.

Hear, hear. Because nothing rams home a point about negligent health and safety standards better than forcing an entire community to live in constant fear of a dangerously unstable 200 ft tomb collapsing on them.

Which is a small price to pay for a constant ghoulish reminder that people like Paul wont have to look at. Unlike the poor sods on the Lancaster West Estate who would rather their skyline wasn’t dominated by a gargantuan black monolith.

Thank fuck it’s not about them.

 

By Ben Pensant

They said he was incompetent. They said he couldn’t win an election. They said he’d shook hands with more terrorists than George Galloway’s butler. They said all this and more about PM-elect Jeremy Corbyn, blissfully unaware he’d make them eat their words by becoming the first opposition leader in British history to win a general election despite coming second.

Yes. This really happened. And now – finally – Jezza is poised to enter Number Ten. But his election victory won’t just go down in history as the day Labour demolished the Tories by winning 55 fewer seats than them. It will also be forever remembered as the day the Blairites finally fell in line, got their act together and downed the Corbyn Kool Aid like their careers depended on it.

As the rapturous applause Jezza received in the HOC demonstrated, there’s nothing sweeter than seeing people who’ve spent two years trying to destroy him brought to their knees by the realisation that he’s considerably more popular than them. And it was refreshing to learn that it wasn’t Corbyn’s politics that bothered the moderates: on the contrary, their disloyalty to the Dear Leader was down to the silly belief he was unelectable. You didn’t think they were principled enough to object to him on ideological grounds, did you? Behave.

No, the smears and attacks were entirely driven by self-interest, much like the swift U-turns performed by Chuka Umuna and Yvette Cooper, both of whom began the long journey to forgiveness by immediately offering to work in a shadow cabinet now they think Corbyn could win an election.

Much like many who voted for Corbyn were willing to overlook the fact that he’s spent his career supporting anti-Semites, dictators and terrorists, former plotters Chuka and Yvette are happy to hold their noses and bow to a man they’ve spent two years trying to get rid of. Because the founding principles of the Labour Party mean about as much to Umuna and Cooper as they do to that Max Momentum bloke who looks like a cross between Peter Kay and a burst settee.

Indeed, as Jezza’s breathless rise to the giddy heights of doing slightly better than Ed Miliband shows, principles are soooo last century. Thankfully, it appears Chuka and Yvette didn’t have any to begin with, which won’t be enough to spare them the gallows though it might just earn them a last meal that hasn’t been spat on by Brother McDonnell.

And it’s not just the PLP who’ve belatedly realised what’s good for them. Take Owen Jones, who’s flip-flopped between supporting Jezza and betraying him so often it’s hard to remember whether to send him a bunch of flowers or a letter bomb. But despite past transgressions OJ played a blinder this campaign, and I’m not just talking about his bold habit of dressing like an 8-year-old librarian. Because since election day he’s been on fire, celebrating Labour’s victory by staying up way past midnight and giving himself a sore tummy by eating twice as many Callipos as he did when Katie Hopkins got sacked. He hasn’t so much drunk the Kool-Aid as drowned in it.

The fact that Corbyn only did marginally better than Gordon Brown – whose 2010 showing the Dear Leader derided as ‘disastrous’ – is unimportant. What matters is that he won, and if he did so by finishing nearly 60 seats behind an inept, robotic Prime Minister who achieved the impossible and made Labour look professional then so be it. Because only brainwashed Sun-readers think elections are decided by votes and seats. No, it’s all about kissing ethnically diverse babies outside mosques; attracting huge crowds to rallies in Labour heartlands; inspiring young people by offering them free money in return for supporting the kind of economic policies that would ensure they spend their golden years queuing up for bread, water and enough out-of-date sleeping pills to spark out a herd of elephants.

Predictably, much of Owen’s anger was directed at the DUP, causing much frantic Googling from young Momentum members eager to find out who they are. Indeed, many were shocked to see Owen attacking homophobic religious bigots, having spent most of his career defending a homophobic and bigoted religion. Luckily, having briefly skim-read the DUP Wikipedia page they were relieved to learn that these particular homophobic religious bigots were pretty much exclusively white which gave Owen a free pass to criticise them. Phew!

Which, of course, Owen did with gusto, repeatedly blasting Theresa May for considering a deal with a party with such an appalling record on gay rights. Of course, in order to do this Owen had to conveniently forget that the man he voted for attended an event in 2014 celebrating the anniversary of a regime that hangs gays from cranes. Or that last November he called a dictator who oppressed, imprisoned and murdered homosexuals ‘a champion of social justice’. The same phrase, funnily enough, he used to describe an anti-Semitic terrorist group who as well as shooting protesters and firing rockets at civilians have also been known to execute the odd same-sexer. But forget it Owen did, with the same selective memory loss he now applies to Venezuela. Because the harmless customs listed above may sound harsh to Western ears but let me assure you: they’re a walk in the park compared to the horror of someone refusing to bake you a wedding cake.

Owen also found time to slam the right for their cruel treatment of Seamus Milne, smugly Tweeting that Corbyn’s breath-taking win had ‘vindicated’ him. Because as we know, the fact that Labour cruised to victory by being less shit than expected means Milne is no longer a Stalin apologist and he never actually wrote all those articles eulogising Islamist murderers.

With all this good will in the bank there’s even a chance once Jezza takes office Owen could be spared execution altogether and instead be rewarded with a much-deserved life sentence and cushy job in the library. No-one could say he hasn’t earned it and if he keeps his nose clean we may even grant him the right to appeal by the time he’s 50, provided he doesn’t do anything silly like steal a tin of pineapple chunks or befriend Peter Mendelson in the shower.

Of course, there’ll be no such retribution meted out to Kevin McGuire of The Mirror. The gruff northern socialist has been shit-faced on a cocktail of Kool Aid and blue pop since the beginning, his devotion to Corbyn so strong he not only believes Jezza single-handedly brokered peace in Northern Ireland by inviting the IRA to Parliament weeks after they tried to kill the cabinet, he also casually overlooks the Dear Leader’s habit of supporting regimes and people who imprison and murder trade unionists.

Of course, like a true sunderland fan, all that matters to Kev is seeing his rivals do badly, even if his own team does worse. Hence his delight at the Tories’ disastrous campaign and loss of their huge majority dwarfing his joy at Corbyn’s impressive feat of winning an election with less seats than his opponent.

And like Owen he reserved particular scorn for the Tories’ decision to hold talks with the DUP, even Tweeting a cleverly photo-shopped picture of Theresa May flanked by two cabinet members in balaclavas. Which as well as giving us a reet good laugh also handed Kev – a staunch defender of the Dear Leader’s support for the IRA – another reason to celebrate as he beat off stiff competition from Paul Mason to be crowned Fleets Street’s Biggest Hypocrite.

Which is no less than he deserves for spreading the Corbynite creed and ensuring that now the revolution is here the moderates have no choice but to kneel before Jezza. Or at the very least start saying nice stuff about him on Twitter. So while previously Corbyn-phobic hacks like Jonathan Freedland and Polly Toynbee threw their objections to Jezza’s love of terrorists under the bus to lavish praise on him for ‘energising’ British politics, so the likes of Harriet Harman and David Lammy have joined Yvette and Chuka in abandoning their hostility now there’s a very real chance they could end their days tied to a tree and riddled with bullets.

Indeed, as well as going from accusing the Dear Leader of ‘trying to take the party down’ to calling him ‘the heir to Blair’, Harman, like Lammy, has spent the last few days currying favour by repeating Corbyn’s call for empty properties to be requisitioned to house homeless Grenfell Tower survivors. Understandably, she declined to offer up her own second home, preferring the classic Labour manoeuvre of telling other people what to do without lifting a fucking finger herself. But spicing up her opportunistic virtue-signalling with a dash of crowd-pleasing communism is like downing a whole pint of Kool Aid. And rest assured, such a craven attempt to impress the boss won’t be forgotten when the time comes to shave her head and mutilate her twat.

As for Lammy, where do I begin? From demanding the government seize private property to crying his eyes out on telly without actually shedding any tears, he’s arguably been more on fire than the tower. So much so that his principled reaction to the blaze – and indeed the response of Labour and the left in general – is too important to document in a measly paragraph. Which is why I’ve written 2,000 words about it which you can read tomorrow.

But such mass scale death provides the perfect backdrop for advanced Kool Aid glugging. And along with the predictably measured, reasonable way the left will process last night’s attack on Finsbury Park Mosque in the coming days, the snowball effect from Corbyn becoming Prime Minister is gaining traction everywhere.

Take political satirists, arch-enemies of the Corbynite left due to their vile habit of holding Jezza to the same standard as Tory politicians (and our outright refusal to see anything amusing about his beard and sandals). It’s safe to say we don’t get on. But since the election even they’ve suckled greedily on the Momentum mammary, in particular fictional news reporter Jonathan Pie, who has thrown his hitherto healthy cynicism out of the window to embrace the joy of socialism.

Which has been a surprising delight to leftists who were wary of Pie due to his shameful videos mocking brave liberals who say Brexit and Trump-voters are thick racists. Not cool. Happily, he’s undone all that right-wing nonsense and submitted unconditionally to the Cult Of Corbyn, even breaking character on Twitter to tell his followers what a down-to-earth guy the privileged career politician who’s spent decades indulging fascists truly is. And last week he forever cemented his place in the hearts of die-hard leftists by re-tweeting a Jezza-worshipping anti-Zionist who harbours doubts about whether the London Bridge attack really happened and thinks The Jews killed Kennedy, faked the moon-landings and orchestrated 9/11. You’re one of us now, Pie.

But before getting too carried away, it’s important to be aware of the cancerous wretches who haven’t succumbed to Corbynology. And with Jezza now Prime Minister the thorny issue of what’s to be done about these conniving parasites – as well as the millions of traitors who didn’t vote Labour – won’t go away.

My suggestion is to treat them with compassion. Sure, I’d rather banish, enslave or immolate them but one thing I’ve learnt since joining the regressive left is that if you treat stupid people with kid gloves it’s much easier to get them to do what you want. A little sweetness mixed in with the electric-shock conversion therapy goes a long way and if the odd one gets lippy and ends up buried alive then tough titty. It may be one less pair of hands on the production line but that’s a small price to pay. With Jezza, John, Len, Diane, Shami and Seumas calling the shots we stand as one, even when we’re killing each other.

I’ll drink to that.