By Ben Pensant

Last week, against my better judgement, I put down The New Europeans, switched off my iPhone, and ventured to a place where few modern leftists ever go: The Real World. I won’t be doing that again. Because despite only getting as far as my local, nothing prepared me for the sheer level of apathy, ignorance, and respect for other people’s views that exists outside of social media. It was hell.

Within an hour of eavesdropping I learnt that not all Brexit voters are racists, most Remainers accept the referendum result, and working-class communities aren’t rife with snarling bigots roaming the streets assaulting immigrants with rolled-up copies of The Daily Fail. Needless to say, I didn’t even have time to scour the floor in search of loose peanuts before I scarpered and tearfully reported the landlord for inciting hatred.

However, one thing that intrigued me was how different Real World Corbyn supporters are to those of us who spend our days on Twitter abusing people who ask questions we can’t answer and blocking anyone who presents evidence of Jezza’s fondness for terrorists and dictators.

Indeed, it appears that Real World Labour voters have no interest in Marxism, couldn’t care less about Palestine, and wouldn’t know the lyrics to The Red Flag if you forced them to sing it while queuing in the snow for tepid soup as Emily Thornbird patrols the line twatting anyone who strays off-key or dies with an electric cattle-prod.

Apparently, some Labour voters simply want a party that represents the working-class and believe Corbyn can provide that. Others desire change after years of Tory rule and are willing to overlook Jezza’s faults to support someone they can achieve it. Many have concerns about the shadow cabinet’s incompetence but are hopeful that once in government they’ll become serious politicians and deliver their promises. And there are even some who want Corbyn to win but will accept the result without crying, blaming Rupert Maxwell, or throwing fire extinguishers at police officers.

You don’t need me to tell you that when the revolution comes all of the above will be among the first against the fucking wall.

Because there are no half-measures when to comes to the Dear Leader. And the gutlessness of these vanilla cretins was enough to convince me that Real World-dwellers are ill-prepared for the fight against fascism. You’re either with us or against us: total submission or none at all. You think it’s a coincidence we’ve got such a hard-on for radical Islam?

The so-called Corbyn groupies who occupy this bleak underworld are even worse than Blairites. Because they know fine well what’s at stake yet still won’t submit to the Bearded Angel of Islington. With nary a Momentum mug or a death threat to their names the passive ‘support’ of these nuggets has arguably done more harm than good. Meanwhile us true Corbynites are out there selling badges, calling people ‘Zios’, and countering evidence of Jezza’s support for murderous theocrats by repeatedly screaming ‘What about Saudi Arabia?‘. Some of these turncoats are even friends with Tories for Allah’s sake.

And mark my words, if Corbyn loses it won’t be them putting in the hours and blaming everyone from the PLP to JK Rowland. No, it’ll be muggins here, while they float on like the social media illiterates they are, blissfully unaware that if they’d got off their arses and bullied people like the rest of us the best man might have won.

Well, I’ve got news for these fascism-enablers: Jezza neither needs nor wants your milktoast ‘support’. If you want to know what REAL solidarity looks like, listen up. Because as I walked home from the pub in floods of tears it dawned on me the only way to compensate for the shameful inactivity of these pretend Corbynites was to ramp up my own efforts to ensure his victory. As any activist knows, door-to-door canvassing and engaging with the public are the most successful methods of winning hearts and minds. Which is why I opted to record a cover version of a ’90s alt-rock classic instead.

Think of it as an unofficial campaign anthem, a revolutionary call to arms, or even just a low-key tribute to a bearded 68-year-old who combines a passion for human rights with support for violent misogynists who hang gays from cranes. Because to believe in Corbyn is to believe in peace, prosperity, and the kind of demented economic policies that turned mega-rich Venezuela into an impoverished shit-hole. Jezza is the only man capable of delivering this and with his bold plans to borrow billions and drive businesses (and their taxes) out of the country, this utopia is tantalisingly close.

But we mustn’t be complacent, hence deploying the power of music to get the message across (while also boosting my ego and making me look mint). Because as Jezza’s recent onstage appearance with The Liberteens illustrated, his infinity with rock’n’roll is plain to see. Especially if the rock’n’rollers in question are led by a recovering smack-head who would offer a support slot to Rolf Harrison if there was a warm blanket in it.

As Corbyn’s recent appearance on the cover of Kerrranggg! proves, there’s nothing more anti-establishment than left-wing politics, despite the fact that establishment institutions such as the BBC and the entire public sector are utterly consumed by left-wing politics. As for Jezza, well, you don’t get more counter-cultural than a privately-educated state-worshipping career politician whose government would impose more regulations than IPSO, the EU and the Ministry of Truth combined. And I haven’t even mentioned his anarchic plans to turn Britain into a South American-style economic basket-case yet.

Because there are few stars more apt for a magazine about music, freedom and saying what the fuck you want than a man who has spent his career lauding regimes that ban music, suppress freedom, and murder people for saying what the fuck they want. Indeed to this former metal-head, Corbyn’s kind face beaming back from the cover of Britain’s biggest rock weekly was the most beautiful image to appear in the mag since that photo of Mike Pattern holding a plate of dog-shit.

So here it is. For the uninitiated, Jeremy was a 1993 top ten hit for LA grunge icons Green Jelly. Taken from their debut album Nevermind, by the time of its release I’d  already stopped listening to them and was exploring new horizons with my gothic funk band and two indie-pop/grindcore side-projects. But still, the undeniable power of ‘Jeremy’ couldn’t fail to move the teenage me, despite its blandness being a world away from the edgy stuff we were doing in HP Lovesauce, The Underpant Thieves and Shitbastard. Indeed, those groups were so esoteric all three split up before we’d even written a song, ensuring our places in post-rock history among those of us who refuse to measure a band’s worth on such vulgar concepts as whether or not they have any tunes.

Indeed, I’ve long believed that the second you write a song you’ve effectively sold out, which was highly convenient for me as I never finished one. But my natural flair for outside-the-box guitar-playing still needed an outlet, hence the decision to reinvigorate a tired standard. Which is a rare skill that few possess – Jonny Cash tried but failed, bless him – and not to be confused with performing other people’s songs because you can’t write your own.

Some have commented that this unique interpretation of ‘Jeremy’ has a complexity and non-linearness that was absent from the original. That’s not for me to say though they’re probably right. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if gossip had filtered down the musical grapevine that a newer, better version of ‘Jeremy’ was in the works. I mean, I hate to be morbid but it’s no coincidence that when word got out about my version Green Jelly frontman Chris Cornwall killed himself.

Still, having listened to the track repeatedly, I’m pretty hung up on it myself. Because my decision to update it for a hip, Corbyn-friendly audience was an apparent masterstroke, with particular praise reserved for the lo-fi mix. And you don’t get more lo-fi than recording something on your iPhone. That’s right: no gimmicks, no strings, no overdubs, just me, my voice and a guitar. I wasn’t even looking at my hands or anything. Because you don’t need perfection when you have the story of one man’s journey from humble beginnings on a six-bedroom mansion to taking the world by storm.

Which many predict I will too once my fragile, experimental ditty gains traction. It’s not for me to say but even if that is the case – which it is – this isn’t about fame. Knowing I’ve helped a principled man gate-crash Number Ten is reward enough for me. Though if anyone wants to offer me shoes, pizza, or fizzy pop for private performances I’m all ears.

As you’ll see, I gleefully subverted the predictable melody, unrestricted by such bourgeois concerns as playing guitar properly and singing in tune. And the eagle-eared will notice the subtle twists I’ve made to Cornwall’s hackneyed lyrics, vastly improved by me singing them and not him. Many have also observed the irony of the original’s subject matter – a high school shooting – which is deliciously apt as Jezza is about to massacre the Tories.

But enough talking and time for some rawkin’. Listeners will notice there is little trace of my northern accent in the vocal performance, a natural by-product of joining the regressive left and instantly becoming more educated than your average working-class moron. But fear not, though I may now speak in the uniform, middle-class tones of every bedsit militant this side of The Tooting Poplar Front, the passion and authenticity remains. Indeed, it’s arguably more passionately authentic now that I no longer spend my weekends watching Take Her Out, eating corned beef from the tin, and setting fire to hijabs on the Metro.

As it happens, I’ve been told the outro vocals are reminiscent of the great Gary Walker. It’s not for me to say but be warned, they weren’t talking about the generic pop he did with his twin brother, such as Unchained Melody or The Sun Has Got His Hat On. No, they were referring to his difficult, uncompromising work, like the savage, non-linear album he did with drone metal overlords Scumm))))0((((, a record so difficult and uncompromising no-one has ever listened to it.

But this isn’t about me: it’s about a man of principle. And if my heartfelt protest song convinces just one person that the voting Corbyn will create a fairer society in which everyone is equally poor then my work is done. Who knows, I may even inspire other musically-gifted Corbynites to unlock their talent, much like Jezza has pledged to do for ‘black, Asian and minority ethnic’ folk too pathetic to unlock it themselves without the help of rich white liberals. If so, a thank you from Labour HQ and a promise from the Dear Leader to lift his restraining order* would be nice but all in good time, brothers and sisters, all in good time.

*(Look, if you really don’t like people breaking into your house and stealing beard-shavings from the bin perhaps you should stop being so fricking awesome.)

Enjoy:

Jeremy

Kinder…gentler…Jezza

At home drawing pictures of Tony Benn

Red Ken and Len, spitting on The Sun

Hands raised in a V, pointing at Margaret Thatcher

Kinnock didn’t give attention

And the fact was the party didn’t care

But King Jeremy of Shropshire, he ruled Islington

Jeremy spoke to Hamas today

Jeremy spoke to the IRA

The right-wing Murdoch media picking on the boy

Seemed a harmless little trot

But they unleashed a lion

Trimmed its beard and bit Yvette Cooper’s tit

How could I forget?

Then he hit them with a surprise win

Their jaws left hurting, dropped wide open

And on that day he flushed those Blairite turds

He wouldn’t sing the national anthem

And a tie was something the Dear Leader wouldn’t wear

King Jeremy the principled, he ruled Westminster

Jeremy spoke to Hezbollah today

Jeremy spoke to Assad today

But Jezza won’t speak to The Times Of Israel

He stands up for the Muslims, stands up for transgenders

Stands up for refugees, stands up for the benders

Stands up for bus-drivers, stands up for the bull-dykes

Stands up for Sharia, he stands up for all kinds

Even the Jews

All his life he’s fought anti-Semitism

And other forms of racism

Despite this he praises Jew-hating terrorists

And let’s not forget the clerical fascists

Castro was Jezza’s favourite socialist

Even though he persecuted trade unionists

So raise a glass of Cuban rum

Comrade Corbyn, your time has come…

 

By Ben Pensant

As anyone who’s spent five minutes on Twitter knows all too well, the only thing more predictable than Islamic terrorism is the right-wing reaction to Islamic terrorism. True enough, within seconds of marginalised youngster Salman Abeidi blowing up 22 people in Manchester social media was awash with racist assumptions based on nothing more than the fact that marginalised youngsters who blow people up tend to be Muslims.

So when it turned out he was a Muslim the mob deducted this had influenced his decision to kill people, conveniently ignoring the many other valid reasons to kill people, such as cartoons depicting a pervert with a beard necking on with Jesus. But the left long ago gave up countering arguments with facts, a clever move as we literally don’t have any. Far better to ignore those who contend that a religion which instructs its followers to murder might have something to do with its followers committing murder.

Thankfully, the left-wing response to Manchester was as dignified as ever. In fact, the calm manner in which we reacted to the tragedy was almost Zen-like. Indeed, it’s a measure of our virtue that the same people who are driven to seething rage by Brexit, pronouns and Katie Hopkins were remarkably relaxed considering a far-right fascist had just killed 22 people. A better example of ‘carrying on as usual’ you’d struggle to find, and if that means carrying on ignoring the elephant in the room while it carries on killing us then so be it.

As you’d guess, this message was exemplified by Jeremy Corbyn; showering the grief-stricken with empty platitudes before reminding them it was the West’s fault. Because despite his sterling work supporting Hamas and Hezbollah there’s no blood on his hands, unlike a certain Theresa May. Indeed, as has been repeatedly pointed out by Corbynites, the fact that the government sell arms to Saudi Arabia magically cancels out that fact that Jezza has spent years supporting the ideology they sell them to. Not that it matters a jot as he had dreadlocks at the time.

But this is just the sexiest example of liberals doing what they always do when Islamists kill. In fact there has arguably been even more apologism and screams of ‘racist!’ than usual, with particular emphasis placed upon avoiding negative emotions like anger and instead singing Kumbaya and pretending it’ll all work out if we just learn to love.

How someone whose 13-year-old daughter was murdered at a concert is supposed to avoid feeling angry about it is unclear. But we know any attempts to stop more 13-year-olds being killed at concerts are to be avoided. Or at least delayed until several weeks of candles, group hugs and tear-stained renditions of Don’t Look Back In Anger have eradicated any residual anger about their child going to a gig and ending the night with nails in her brain.

Because this is no time to discuss who set off the bomb or the ideology that made him. The respectful reaction is to forget the crime and who carried it out and focus on Bringing People Together. And by that I mean ‘ensure Muslim communities are protected and patronised in preparation for the wave of Islamophobic hate-crimes that never arrives’. Because it’s to the left’s credit that we use every act of Islamic terror to warn against something that might happen rather than deal with something that did.

And if we can achieve this by re-tweeting photos of an imam and a rabbi holding hands then all the better. Anything to avoid condemning the religious ideology subscribed to by Abeidi and every other oppressed Muslim who opts to vent their frustration with Middle-East meddling by murdering teenagers.

Because the only time that ideology should be mentioned is to say that terrorism has nothing to do with it. Indeed, so thoroughly has this deception been maintained it now appears Islam has nothing to do with anything, least of all Islam. With a bit of luck in a decade from now Islam will have gone from being the Religion Of Peace to the Religion About Nothing; a theocratic Seinfeld with less Jews and more beheadings. Until that day we must continue to massage the myth that Islam is peaceful, anyone who criticises it is racist and all the terrorism, oppression and human rights abuses carried out in its name are unfortunate side-effects that will go away if we just ignore them.

Luckily, once the vigils and singalongs were finished we got back to doing what we do best: blaming everyone but Islamic terrorists for Islamic terrorism. Because as anyone who’s had the Qur’an explained to them by a liar knows fine well, if Muhammad was around today he’d be appalled by terrorism. And he’d be particularly appalled that Abeidi exterminated a gaggle of young girls without enslaving and raping them first.

Though like another bearded sage with a fondness for sandals, he’d also stress that ISIS only burn people alive and shoot Parisians because of us. As courageous Sharia-positive feminist Linda Sarsour recently pointed out, Mo spent his while life fighting Islamophobia, though it’s debatable he ever endured anything as offensive as Katie Hopkins or Peppa Pig. But at least he never let it impede his murdering and warmongery. God knows how he’d complete his life’s work in this day and age.

Luckily, Mo would be delighted with Sarsour’s brand of feminism, fast becoming du rigueur in regressive circles with everyone from Sally Khon to Susan Sarandon embracing this exciting new version which empowers women by subjugating them. In fact, intersectional taste-makers predict it may even overtake Lena Dunham’s bold strain, which involves lecturing females less privileged than her and flashing her mott on the telly. I’m sure Allah would approve.

Which would make a nice change from pissing him off. Because we have to face facts: if we keep doing stuff Islamists don’t like they’re going to keep killing us. No-one’s saying teenagers shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy themselves. But the fact remains that if those parents hadn’t let their children out to flaunt their materialism and rampant sexuality they’d still be alive. Respect is a two-way street, though you’d never guess from the way youthful Brits regularly insult this harmless faith by wearing skimpy clothes, listening to music and leaving the house without a male guardian. Brave radicals regularly show remarkable restraint by not assaulting these young women yet all they get in return is Geordie Shore and chlamydia. Wouldn’t you be angry?

Thankfully, some of us get it and I was delighted to hear Ariane Grande admit her culpability in the Manchester massacre. ‘Sorry’ has been the hardest word for the West to say to Muslims for decades and it comes to something that it takes a bloody pop star to do it. But make no mistake, Grande deserves all the plaudits she gets. Because it’s easy for me to say the blame lies with half-naked ladies wearing lipstick and flashing their knickers but it will have meant the world to the Islamist community to hear it straight from the whore’s mouth.

Contrast this with the attitude displayed by redneck loser Jesse Hughes after 90 Eagles Of Death Metal fans were caught in the crossfire as another gang of oppressed Muslims were forced to take the law into their own hands. The killers’ bodies were barely cold before he was mouthing off about security guards and he forfeited sympathy altogether when he went on to out himself as both a Trump supporter and a gun-wielding maniac. Predictably, he later tried to weasel out of it by claiming he was ‘traumatised’. Pull the other one, tashy. And while you’re at it try telling someone who’s endured the ordeal of seeing a white man eating sushi while wearing a sombrero that witnessing your fans being shot to pieces is even half as traumatic.

No, the left weren’t buying it for a second and for two days brave liberals withdrew their support for the band, with one insightful soul on CiF rightly wondering if Hughes’ toxic politics may have even convinced ISIS to choose an EODM gig as the backdrop to their bloodshed. Thank god someone’s not afraid to ask these questions. Because as shocking as young lives lost are, to move on we have to acknowledge that children can be just as responsible for their own deaths as adults.

And the fact is the putrid swamp from which Hughes and his Eagles crawled also spewed forth those Grande fans who thought nothing of rubbing their secularism in the faces of oppressed Muslims. To quote Seumas Milne straight after 9/11, ‘Is it any wonder they want to kill us?’. And I haven’t even started on our relentless bombing of the middle-east yet, which has become so bad the jihadists have even started attacking European countries who’ve got fuck all to do with it.

No, the fact is being Western is provocation enough and until we learn to just do what they want we’ll be living in fear for a good while yet. With this in mind I can’t have been the only one to note the irony of last week’s incident happening so soon after the BBC screened their vile attack on the northern Muslim community, Three Girls.

Connected? Who knows but as we’ve blamed everyone else we might as well stick the boot into our Zionist propaganda channel too. Because the grooming ‘scandal’ illustrates the same truth as the Manchester ‘attack’: if you keep subjecting peaceful people to racism and marginalisation sooner or later they’re going to rape and murder your children.

Indeed, both cases starkly illustrate the danger of allowing your children to attend pop concerts in training bras. But fear not, white parents, it’s not you who has to pick up the pieces when the poor sod who kidnaps or murders them has to spend his golden years in jail. Just let the Muslim community deal with it. Again.

And the fact that the brave men depicted in this disgraceful ‘drama’ were shown zero respect for their entrepreneurial spirit just shows how cancerous the BBC has become. Because as we know, Islamophobes from Lands End to John O’Noakes never miss an opportunity to slam Muslims for failing to assimilate (ie ‘sell out’). Yet when these kind-hearted men offered a trio of council estate gob-shites the chance to earn a living what happened? Well, the work-shy skanks only cried off rather than get their fannies dirty. As if a child being anally intruded above a kebab shop by a 50-year-old man is any more taxing than a paper round. And lo and behold, for having the temerity to forge promising careers in the vice trade they’re thrown in jail. Never mind whorephobia; this is pimp-phobia and it has to stop before it turns into a thing, like misogynoir or AIDS.

Thankfully all but two of the convicted Rochdale men are back on the streets, along with hundreds who are still getting away with it up and down the country. And lest we forget the brave police officers and councillors who did the decent thing and spent years turning a blind eye to the abuse out of respect for the Muslim – my bad, Asian – community. Because as any liberal knows, there’s nothing more respectful to ethnic minorities than ignoring child-rapists in their midst just in case they get upset and kill us.

Sadly, that ship has now sailed in Manchester, though at least Abedi can take comfort knowing his 72 virgins will be much better dressed and considerably less racist than those little Madames from Rochdale. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for those whose lives were ruined by the arena attack. But rest assured should Abeidi’s accomplices end up in jail us real liberals will be wishing them a speedy release. Failing that they can always get CAGE to lobby the government hard before taking the bastards for every penny they can.

Until then our approach must be, in the words of Andy Burnham, the Larry Vaughn of the North, ‘business as usual’. Tricky to pull off for those whose kids were ripped in half by white-hot ball-bearings but they’ll get over it. Or rather, we will. Because we were appeasers before last Monday and we’re appeasers now. Anything less and the terrorists – or as I call them, ‘the Tories’ – have won. Altogether now…

Soooo Sally can wait…

 

By Ben Pensant.

As both a die-hard Remainer and a rabid Corbynite I’m often asked how I reconcile my love for the EU with support for a man who’s spent most of his career opposed to it. The answer is simple. So simple, in fact, that I refuse to explain it, preferring the ‘Ignore & Block’ response beloved by modern leftists like OJ Jones and that Eoin bloke who thinks he’s a doctor.

But one thing I do point out is that Corbyn’s issues with Brussels were based on nuance and principle, unlike the right-wing toffs and working-class numbskulls who voted for Brexit. Obviously I never explain this nuance and principle because I refuse to do anyone’s homework for them. But the fact that left-wing Eurosceptics like Jezza and Tony Bennett were brought up on mansions might have something to do with it.

People – or should I say, Tories – also regularly ask how I can be so onboard with the anti-democratic movement to stop Brexit when those spearheading the campaign are from the same putrid well that has spent two years trying to oust the Dear Leader. To which I reply: even a stopped clock is right twice a day. If a smooth operator like Diane Abbott can be simultaneously dedicated to the anti-EU Corbyn and have nothing but contempt for the racist idiots who voted Leave then anyone can.

If that means sharing platforms with traitors like Chuka Umunna and Owen Smith – because at least they’re right about one thing – then so be it. They’re still gonna be hanging from a lamp-post outside Number Ten by summer’s end but if they co-operate we might recognise their efforts and string them up at the sunny end of Downing Street.

Because what the people who ask these pointless questions fail to grasp is that while Corbynites and Blairites have many key differences – the main one being that we’re awesome and they’re dicks – what unites us is the shared contempt for the masses that runs through modern Labour like a stick of ethically correct sugar-free rock. As well as a healthy disregard for outdated ideas like democracy, free speech, and universal human rights. And it’s Labour’s gradual abandonment of these key principles – to go with the long overdue dropping of the pretence that we represent the working-class – that will see us get exactly what we deserve on June 8th.

Because make no mistake, despite our differences – and their dickishness – the militant left and the Blairite centre remain the deluded glue holding this great party together; no mean feat when you consider both factions are predominantly made up of people who’ve done precious little ‘labour’ in their lives. And this glue has never been more necessary than in these brittle times, with Corbyn and progressive values under attack from the right-wing establishment.

Which is why we need to be on guard. Because despite a Labour government looking increasingly likely, we mustn’t underestimate the power of the Murdoch machine to try and defeat us by banging on about popularity or smearing the Dear Leader as a terrorist sympathiser by quoting his own words sympathising with terrorists.

They’ll fail, of course, because the support Labour have nationwide is too vast to be crushed by the fact that Corbyn has spent his career defending antisemites. From the hordes of brave 48%-ers regularly marching through the capital to the army of fresh Labour members mobilised by Jezza there is more than enough strength in numbers to surpass the nine million intelligent non-racists who voted for Ed Miliband in 2015*.

(*Figures courtesy of @AngelaRayner, @Hackney Abbott and @RLong_Bailey.)

But just in case the unthinkable happens and the working-class once again reject a party that has nothing but contempt for them, it pays to have a ready-made list of excuses handy for the aftermath. Because we all know that should Theresa Maypole win you won’t be able to log onto Facebook without hearing Tory dullards floating the ridiculous idea that a decade of Blair and Brown’s champagne socialism and suicidal economics followed by a seven year dog-end of deeply unpopular opposition might just have inspired more people to vote Tory.

Luckily, after the 2015 election, Brexit and Trump, the modern left are old hands at blaming everyone but ourselves for the fact that we keep losing. But just in case you need a refresher, here are the only five excuses you will ever need. Of course, this is all immaterial as the chances of the Dear Leader losing are so slim I don’t even need to vote for him. In fact, were it not for the intense arousal I’m anticipating the second I put a cross in that box I’d happily spend June 8th chillaxing with a Michael Moorehouse triple-bill.

But it pays to be prepared and thankfully when Corbyn becomes PM these excuses can be re-used to explain why terrorism has increased, unemployment is through the roof, the businesses that haven’t fled the country have folded, and those of us yet to starve or freeze to death spend our days shivering in mile long queues for black coffee and rotting cheese. With the exciting prospect of this Venezuela-style socialist utopia it’s a mystery anyone votes Tory at all. Which brings me to excuse number one:

1. Stupidity.

Should the British people reject both Jezza’s principled socialism and the middle-class movement to stop Brexit much will be written about the role played by the chaotic ineptness of the opposition. Don’t believe a word of it. Because who but the most educationally subnormal bin-man would fail to be bowled over by the likes of Emily Thornbirds, a brave woman willing to ruffle feathers by sending her kids to private school while telling everyone else they shouldn’t?

How thick would someone have to be to ignore the efforts of principled heavyweights such as Peter Mendelson to sway Leave voters by telling them how uninformed they are?

What kind of idiot wouldn’t want a Prime Minister who thinks a bearded Cuban dictator who murdered thousands of opponents and lived like royalty while his citizens starved was ‘a champion of social justice’?

Like the EU referendum, the US election and the Eurovision Song Contest, stupidity is the perfect explanation when results don’t go our way. Because the idea that outside of the Twitter/Islington bubble there are millions who reject virtually everything modern Labour stand for is to be ignored, discouraged and shut down at all costs.

As for convincing 17 million Leave-voters to support a party dominated by Blairites who want to stop Brexit and Marxists who don’t care either way…well, have you ever spoke to these people? If you can get past the bad skin and broken teeth good luck understanding a sodding word they say.

No, the working-class long ago ceased being useful to Labour. And luckily, the surge in new members will be more than enough to get over the line without having to do anything silly like engaging with people who think differently to us and shop at Liddle. Far easier to carry on telling people how stupid they are. And if that fails there’s always option number two:

2. Racism.

As the over-the-top coverage of Corbyn’s defence and support for Islamists shows, a dislike of brown people has played a huge part in the anti-Corbyn crusade. Indeed, if by some miracle the Tories cheat their way to victory you can bet your bottom dollar the genetic white supremacy of the British public will have had something to do with it.

Happily, should the Tories win we can simply re-hash our old Brexit/Trump excuses and label millions of people we’ve never met bigots. A cursory glance at Twitter shows these excuses still carry a lot of internet currency, presumably because both offer a safe space for civil servants and performance artists to feel superior to strangers.

Because one of the proudest examples of left-wing cognitive dissonance is the way we spend all our spare time telling everyone what a foul, racist, hate-crime ravaged wasteland the UK is yet we are shell-shocked when people who live in this foul, racist hate-crime-ravaged wasteland vote differently to us. The fact that Britain is one of the most tolerant, liberal democracies on the planet is besides the point.

As is the fact that if the British public really were as bigoted as Pauline Toynbee says the BNP would have been in power for decades. Because as all good regressives know, narrative trumps facts. So if Bernie Saunders can sanctimoniously condemn billionaires for buying yachts and cars while he owns three houses there’s no reason why we can’t brand the British public prejudiced pricks then wonder why they don’t vote for us. Because much like Bernie seems to think all white people are privileged because he lives in a world where everyone is white and privileged, so we assume the invented values of our narrow universe are of paramount importance in the real world. The same real world that is also a vile racist wasteland. Which is why spend as little time in it as possible.

And we all know whose fault that is:

3. The Media

In particular the Murdoch empire and their two-year campaign to smear Corbyn by repeating stuff he’s said and done while doctoring YouTube videos to give the impression he’s shook hands with more extremists than the doorman at Finsbury Park Mosque.

Try as they might they still fail to land a glove on him. So poor are their efforts, in fact, that we’ve spent the last two years whining about how disgracefully they’ve persecuted him and how no other opposition leader has ever had to put up with abuse from the press. Luckily, most of Jezza’s youthful die-hards have never heard of Neal Kinnock or William Vague which allows them to maintain the narrative of poor little Jeremy, the plucky socialist who could (if only The Scum would stop picking on him). And we will continue to uphold that narrative should the unthinkable happen and Theresa Gay becomes Prime Minister. Something which will probably bring tears of joy to this set of bastards:

4. The PLP

For plotting against the Dear Leader and attempting to oust him. For refusing to show loyalty to a man who’s spent his career defying his own party. And for creating the toxic atmosphere which forced Corbyn to end every PMQs or TV interview looking like he was struggling to hold in a particularly wet fart.

Much like the media, the PLP have been a perfect target for blame since the man of principle revolutionised the party. And much like the media they will also carry on getting it with both barrels should disaster or conspiracy strike and the Tories win. Because rest assured, if that happens the plotters’ insidious influence will be all over it: lest we forget, their influence is so insidious they managed to make an utter bollock of removing the most unpopular Labour leader in history by putting forward a democracy-averse four-eyed Welsh virgin even more deluded about terrorism than St Jezza.

Proving that for all the likes of Owen Smith have done sterling work in trying to overturn the referendum, it’s still clear whose side they’re really on. A stopped clock may indeed be right twice a day but it’s still fucked for the other 1,438 minutes.

And speaking of insidious influences:

5. Zionism.

Obviously.

So there you have it. Make sure you keep a couple of back-ups in your pocket in case of emergency – Donald Trump, climate change, that old wife who Gordon Brown called a bigot – and you’re good to go. But whatever you do, remember this: under no circumstances blame Jeremy Corbyn. For anything. Ever.

Because there’s no excuse for that, comrade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Ben Pensant

Of all the questions I’m regularly asked by right-wing trolls – from ‘Do you know the difference between reported crimes and actual crimes?’ to ‘Why does a man who supports LGBT rights celebrate a regime that hangs gays?’ – by far the most frequent revolve around the divisive issue of free speech. Divisive, that is, to right-wing trolls; we progressives are characteristically clear on freedom of speech: it applies to people we agree with and no-one else. Simple. That so-called ‘liberals’ have joined them in denouncing this outlook tells you all you need to know about the pernicious influence of 21st century fascism.

But still they persist, trying in vain to catch us out by demanding facts and evidence to support our pertinent, principled, piss-easy-to-discredit claims. Of course, as any good Twitter liberal knows, the best way to deal with awkward questions is to ignore them and press the ‘block’ button. However, while this is encouraged with regards to difficult queries about Brexit (and positively mandatory when asked anything to do with Jezza’s love of terrorists), when it comes to discussing free speech the modern left-wing philosophy is so fool-proof it allows us to actually engage with people we disagree with. Yes, really.

Of course, strawmen, whataboutery and cries of ‘racist!’ should still be deployed whenever necessary. But when a viewpoint is as simple as ‘free speech not hate speech’ it’s immensely satisfying watching right-wingers and ‘classical’ liberals struggle to lay a glove on such impeccable logic.

All of which informs my response every time some clever-clogs on Twitter asks ‘But who decides what is hate speech?’. Because we all know who decides; the same people who decide what’s racist, what’s Islamophobic, what’s culturally insensitive to minorities we’ve decided are too pathetic to think for themselves. No, I’m not talking about the government (though once Lord Corbyn cruises to Number 10 you’ll notice the state paying much closer attention to what people say, think or dress up as at Halloween). I’m talking about the folks who really matter: people on the internet.

Indeed, from celebrity care-mongers Lily Alan and Garry Lineker to regressive intellectuals like DJ Werleman and Dan Ariel, it’s liberal Twitter that decides who’s a hatemonger, who’s a Nazi, and who’s a five-year-old old refugee with face-fur, crow’s feet, and a penchant for flat-pack furniture.

But it’s not just in the arenas of free speech and pretend white supremacy that the social media left call the shots. As I’ll demonstrate, they’ve also taken control of the narrative surrounding police brutality, with potentially groundbreaking results. Take aforementioned tub-thumping socialist Dan Ariel, a keen advocate of calling people he disagrees with ‘fascists’ and an even keener advocate of knocking them out. Understandably, Dan is usually absent from protests where fisticuffs occur, preferring to fight the good fight on the battlefield of social media, a war zone he bestrides like a vegan Norman Schwarzcock, lecturing people less tattooed than him on who they should be punching in the name of progressivism.

Because in 2017 the only way to defeat your enemy is to become every bit as illiberal as him. Hence banning speakers, shutting down speeches, and assaulting old women are all in day’s work for Dan. Or they would be if he ever attended any of these protests rather than urging other people to. But as well as fantasising about sneaking into Air Force One to put a drawing pin on President Pussy-Grab’s chair, Dan is also something of an anarchist. Indeed, despite applauding the censorious approach to debate which filthy racist Bill Marr recently called ‘the left-wing version of book-burning’, what Dan really wants is to destroy the system. And it was this anarchic streak that got alt-right Nazis and Nazi alt-righters in a right flap this week when Dan took to Twitter to outline his ground-breaking idea for the future of law enforcement. An idea which involves scrapping the police and replacing them with social workers.

He began by emphatically stating ‘all cops are terrorists’, a sentence as sublime as it is simplistic. So simplistic, in fact, that Dan ignored requests to expand upon it and instead detailed his ingenious plan to get very single police officer in the USA to pack in the political violence: ‘i don’t want to reform the police. I want to abolish them. they only exist to uphold state violence and oppression’ .

As you can see, Dan’s anti-establishment cojones are clear as day, and I’m not just talking about his refusal to use capital letters. As a proud socialist known for talking principled rubbish it stands to reason Dan thinks upholding state violence and oppression is all cops do, as proud socialists known for talking principled rubbish tend to be unaware that cops do a lot more than uphold state violence and oppression. Which he clarified later with a photo of a riot cop beating up a protester. Because in Dan’s world the police don’t spend their time solving crimes, catching criminals, helping people and making the world a safer place. No, if they’re not shooting unarmed black men as they help old ladies across the road they’re patrolling the streets looking for blue-haired lesbians to batter.

Predictably, he received instant abuse from right-wing Twitter users, smearing him by suggesting his blanket view of over a million police officers may be a tad judgemental. He replied that he was ‘judging them by the actual job they’re hired to do’, a viewpoint presumably based on the hours he spent with every single police officer in the USA, observing how half-heartedly they dish out speeding tickets or investigate burglaries compared to the passion they put into setting fire to students or using black children as target practice. Of course, Dan isn’t one to brag so he modestly withheld the details of his widespread investigation. But needless to say it must have happened because Dan is a man of principle and if he was making judgements about people he knows fuck all about he’d look a right tit.

But Dan wasn’t about to get bogged down in whether or not cops are fascist. Because they are: ‘i disagree with the institution as a whole. they enforce laws in communities they are not from’ he declared, because only in a country as fucked up as Trump’s America would it be acceptable for a cop born and bred in Brooklyn to arrest someone for murder in Montana. What Dan wants is to disband the police altogether, illustrating his affinity with the working man by calling for hundreds of thousands of them to lose their jobs, a small price to pay if it makes it easier for rich kids in masks to throw bricks at people they disagree with.

Because like every anti-Page Three campaigner and car industry-baiting environmentalist before him, Dan is a principled member of that strain of middle-class activists intensely relaxed about normal folk losing their jobs in the name of progressivism. Especially normal folk who voted for Trump and probably think Norm Chomsky is that fat bloke out of Cheers. The fact that Dan’s plan to fire people who put their lives on the line every day would affect a hell of a lot of men and women from the ethnic minorities he cares so much about is irrelevant. Dan has no qualms about labelling Asian men white supremacists so he’s certainly not gonna lose any sleep over a load of Uncle Toms who sold their souls just so they could don a badge and beat up prostitutes.

And if they’re that upset about losing their jobs they can always re-apply for them when Dan launches his new, improved version of the police force; the highly trained, unpaid gang of ‘community based peacekeepers who answer to their community members, not the state’. Fortunately, Dan wisely avoided explaining who will train and pay for these community-based peacekeepers, because like most socialists he’s very keen on handing the government other people’s money but not too arsed about giving it back.

Dan then spelled out the complex structure of this brave new dawn of law enforcement; ‘no hierarchy. not weaponised. their bosses are the people. think neighbourhood watch’. Sensible stuff and I’m sure anyone who’s ever been burgled would’ve felt ten times safer if instead of an experienced officer the break in was investigated by the bloke who does the pub quiz at the Black Bull .

And thank god that they won’t be weaponised. There are already enough armed criminals wandering around; is it too much to expect the cops to cool off until Dan’s army of untrained Ed 208s hit the streets to politely persuade muggers and gang-members to stop killing each other? What volunteers for the community peace-keeping service may lose in life expectancy they’ll gain in the brief thrill of instant virtue points. Indeed, if Dan’s plan ever comes to fruition I’m sure there’ll be no shortage of volunteers in cities like Chicago, especially once Dan gets Black Life Matters on board to work as a Rapid Response Unit and the Antifas moonlighting as bobbies-on-the-beat.

Who will handle white-collar crime in this radical utopia isn’t clear, but I doubt Dan’s sweating it. Because it stands to reason, if you hire enough people who like wielding truncheons and beating people up sooner or later you’re gonna find someone who knows a thing or two about investigating fraud. Dan’s all about letting communities decide what laws they enforce and if that means they have no legal avenue to stop themselves being robbed, assaulted, or swindled then it’s a small price to pay if it means Dan getting one over on the fash’.

And it’s precisely because Dan hates fascism that he’s so keen on a society which would allow fascists to behave as fascistically as they want. Because we all know that when crime inevitably rises and people start dying Dan will be the first to say it’s got bugger all to do with abolishing the police force and everything to do with white male privilege or something. It couldn’t possibly be because dedicated coppers lost their jobs and were replaced with a ragtag mob of local busybodies led by whoever had the biggest pick-up truck.

And just because Dan’s spent 6 months crying because an inexperienced lunatic is President it doesn’t make him a hypocrite for wanting to let inexperienced lunatics be the first line of defence against people who want to shoot their faces off. The validation of knowing that liberal values have triumphed will be more than enough to make up for the fact that thanks to Dan’s masterplan the American public are living in constant fear because all the community-based peacekeepers have been burnt alive by crack addicts.

Luckily, thanks to equally daring law enforcement proposals made by the Labour Party this week it appears there IS an answer to the boring question of what will happen to all the former cops after Dan puts them on the dole. For this week Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbots unveiled bold plans to recruit 10,000 new police officers at a cost of £1 million per head which…sorry, I meant one million new police officers at £10,000 per head…I think…or was it £300,000?…yeah, that’s it…oh hang on, isn’t it £300 million?…I dunno….shit…either way, the sums clearly add up and anyone who disagrees needs to dial back their misogynoir, pronto.

Happily for Dan, once Jezza romps to No.10 there’ll be ample opportunity for unemployed American cops to ply their trade in the UK. Though it’s debatable whether they’ll be needed, as rumour has it the Magic Money Tree Lady Di and Jezza are cultivating to fund their revolution has also been growing a branch-full of liberal lawmakers ready to dedicate their lives to banning books, policing pronouns, and arresting Katy Hopkins once a month for six grand an hour. Or six pence. I think.

Until then Corbyn’s Britain is by far the best place for fascist cops to be reprogrammed into kind, progressive robots ready to do some real police work. And trust me, one glance at the soon-to-be-erected gulag on the area formerly known as Hide Park will be enough to dissuade even the most psychotic racist pig from shooting an unarmed black man ever again. And if they could then channel their hatred for ethnic minorities and use it to persecute the white working-class instead we may be onto something beautiful. Because as I’m sure Dan agrees, decent liberals would have far fewer complaints about violent cops if they simply shot dead the odd Leave voter every now and then.

Increase the peace.

 

 

By Ben Pensant

The one positive side-effect of Brexit was the way it inspired the British left to double-down on their commitment to defeating free speech, reserving particular censorious scorn for the Tory press and their evil plan to turn the public against Lily Alan by repeatedly asking her how many migrants she’s adopted: We’ve seen Student Unions up and down the country striking a blow for liberal values by banning The Scum; Section 40 and Stop Funding Hate’s brave use of corporate blackmail to stop right-wing tabloids saying stuff they disagree with; Professional victim Jake Monroe taking The Daily Fail’s Katie Hopkirk to the cleaners for getting her mixed up with a different professional victim and not saying ‘sorry’ for it.

Happily, these are merely the tip of one huge, illiberal iceberg, as barely a day goes by without a fresh case of pearl-clutching puritans being whipped into self-righteous fervour by points of view they don’t like. And the most recent case was perhaps the sweetest yet as Mayor of Merseyside John Anderson melted SJW hearts by reporting obnoxious fascist Kelvin McKenzie to the police for writing nasty things about Liverpool FC soccerballer Ross Barker.

Unsurprisingly, free-speech fascists responded in typically contrarian fashion, with more than one noting that Anderson had achieved the impossible and made himself look like an even bigger prick than McKenzie. But this warped line of thinking demonstrated startling ignorance of Barker and his background, the same ignorance which informed his unfounded attack on the plucky scouser.

To the uninitiated, Barker is a gentle young man who also happens to be mixed-race, a fact apparently lost on McKenzie but blatantly obvious to those of us who didn’t have a clue who he was until a week ago. But boy, do we know now. For thanks to The S*n this marginalised millionaire has spent the last week crying into his footer jersey at the horror of being compared to a Gorilla by vile bigot McKenzie.

Predictably, the contemptible hack claimed he didn’t know Barker had a Nigerian grandparent, as if one look at the young quarterback isn’t more than enough to ascertain his ethnicity. Many have even shamefully defended McKenzie on the grounds that because most football fans had no idea of Barker’s family background there’s no reason a tabloid columnist should. Sick. Because anyone with eyes can see Barker’s Zimbabwean heritage is as clear as McKenzie’s bigotry. The fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that he either knew this or would be stupid enough to compare a black man to a Gorilla are neither here nor there. Because from blaming Sheffield Wednesday supporters for causing their own deaths to accusing Freddy Star of eating Roland Rat, one thing McKenzie’s past form has proven categorically is that he’s something of a cunt.

Such a cunt, in fact, that it is absurd to argue back, prove him wrong or – god forbid – use our free speech to point out what a cunt he is. No, that simply won’t do. Hence Mayor Anderson’s hysterical reaction not only resulting in the removal of the abhorrent piece from the Scum’s website and Mackenzie’s suspension, but also the glorious spectacle of police officers utilising their vital resources to investigate an obnoxious journalist for writing something nasty.

Because in our grim post-Brexit wasteland this is the only way to win. You can’t simply disagree with what McKenzie wrote: you have to claim he was being racist. You can’t merely be offended at his perceived racism: you have to demand he’s suspended for it. And you can’t just be content with his suspension: you have to call for him to be fired and arrested for committing a hate crime. Because as we all know, the greatest weapon in the fight against people saying stuff we don’t like is criminalising people for saying stuff we don’t like. And you can prise that from our cold dead hands, righties.

All of which delighted regressive leftists nationwide, many of whom have never forgiven McKenzie for the way his rag reported the Hillsboro’ disaster. But this isn’t really about Hillsboro’ or the city of Liverpool, which is handy as most of middle-class liberals know bugger all about either. And it’s not even about soccerball, as anyone who’s ever read the BTL comments on a Guardian piece about hooliganism knows all too well. Indeed, last summer Britain’s leading left-wing propaganda sheet was awash with decent, tolerant leftists sneering at England fans as a small number of them went on a violent rampage in France during the World Cup. But as ever, it wasn’t just actual hooligans who prompted such metropolitan concern. No, they had the ordinary England fan in their sights too, as detailed in an incendiary column by Tim Walker titled ‘I Was In Marseilles and I know: all England fans bear some blame for the football violence’.

Not that he literally meant all England fans. England fans such as Tom and his impeccably mannered children get a pass as they shop at Waitrose and were nowhere near any ghastly violence. Indeed, while thugs were throwing bottles at riot police he was “buying scented soap and eating ice cream”. No, when he says ‘all’ he means ‘everyone else’. You know the type: drinking beer, singing songs, eating pies, waving flags and – most heinously – taking their shirts off. Leave-voters in waiting, basically, and I bet Tom’s not the only educated England fan who’s wondered how different the last ten months could have been if he’d only packed a gun.

As one of hundreds of supportive posters below-the-line put it when a twisted lone voice suggested the vast majority of England fans are well-behaved: “Only if you class people who hurl abusive songs and boo national anthems as well-behaved”. Because the last thing we need is football fans bantering, trading insults, and generally acting the way they have since long before stadiums became populated by the kind of people who report players to the police for swearing and thought football was something only poor people with moustaches liked until they read that Nick Hornsby book.

But as the reactions to McKenzie’s column and the Hillsboro’ anniversary showed, the modern left’s empathy for football fans is quite remarkable, especially when you consider contemporary liberal opinion of them is almost identical to that espoused by the likes of McKenzie in the ’80s. Indeed, back then everyone from Ken Baites to Thatcher viewed working-class football fans with the same fear and disdain the likes of Pollie Toynbee and Tim Farrow reserve for working-class Leave voters today. So I can’t be the only one who beamed with pride when I saw brave liberals rallying in defence of working-class northerners in the wake of McKenzie’s hit-piece on Barker, the same working-class northerners they’ve spent the best part of a year calling thick, uneducated racists. See? We’re so compassionate we’re willing to put aside our revulsion for the proles to show solidarity with them when they’re under attack. But only when they’re under attack from right-wing journalists, obvs. We can’t go around defending them when they’re patronised by OJ Jones or sneered at by Giles Koran. They’re still thick bigots, but sometimes they’re useful thick bigots.

And we all know who made them thick bigots: the right-wing press with their racist mind-games and incitements to violence. Us educated sophisticates may have the intelligence to resist such brainwashing but it’s much harder when you’re the type of person who wears a shell-suit and thinks S-Town is a boyband. It’s not McKenzie who should scare us but the people he inspires to assault migrants and eat their young, the impressionable mob who’ve destroyed the lives of decent people who believe freedom of speech only applies to speech they like.

All of which will no doubt delight Kelvin McKenzie. But luckily it appears his reign of terror may soon be over, his right-wing filth consigned to the dustbin of history. Because allowing dodgy views to be seen, debated, mocked, and attacked is no good for anyone. They must be buried before the denim-clad masses get their hands on them and make them their own. Gone are the days when we simply didn’t read newspapers we didn’t like – it’s never been more vital to stop other people reading them too. Thank god for publications such as The G and The Nude European who would never dream of attacking football fans, sneering at the working-class, or printing a front page which literally calls 17 million people ‘idiots’.

And while we’re at it, thank god for Terrible Theresa No, really. I never thought I’d type those words but yesterday’s announcement of a snap general election was music to the ears of Corbynites, delighted that the fabulous day we’d pencilled in for May 2020 has been magically brought forward by three years. I can’t decide which sight will give me the most pleasure: Jezza cruising into Number 10 with a beret in one hand and a list of dissidents in the other, or Mrs May back selling cakes at the village fete and sucking off choirboys in her dad’s vestry.

And thank god that the right-wing rubbish spouted by McKenzie will be no more, as indeed will any newspaper which has ever said anything bad about Corbyn. Because if Justin Trudeaux can make criticism of Islam a crime then we can sure as hell outlaw taking the piss out of the Dear Leader. Though word from Momentum HQ is that Jezza may show leniency towards The Guardian in recognition of their sterling work indulging terrorists. Concerns have been raised that Cathy Viner may not be willing to co-operate, but given her paper’s proud history of appeasement it shouldn’t take much to get the top brass on board. And if they put up any resistance the public hanging of Nick Coen should be enough to convince them.

All of which points to a fantastic future. Unless Corbyn loses, in which case it will be the Tories’ fault for not giving him enough time to prepare for a general election. Indeed, social media is already awash with liberals aghast at May’s decision despite the fact they’ve spent months whining that she has no mandate. Because two years is nowhere near enough time to convince the British public that a man who’s spent his career supporting people who hate Britain should be Prime Minister of Britain. Add to that the pernicious influence of the PLP and the Zionist lobby and it’s a wonder the Dear Leader has any chance of winning it all. But win he will and he won’t be stopped, not by Kelvin McKenzie, not by Theresa Gay, and not by the millions of filthy Tories who would rather stay at home racially abusing sportsmen than vote for Jezza.

Dirty apes the lot of ’em.

By Ben Pensant

Much has happened on the regressive left since marginalised Muslim Khalid Massood became so incensed by Islamophobia, Western foreign policy and Islamophobic Western foreign policy he was left with no option but to murder five ‘innocent’ people in London: We’ve seen Ken Livingstone prove you can be a member of a progressive political party and believe in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories screwy enough to make David Icke shit out his shell-suit; Jeremy Corbyn humiliate an ITV reporter by coolly blaming everyone but himself for the fact that his party is about as fashionable as that crap red jacket he wears when he meets tyrants; Owen Jones despair at fellow leftists for supporting Trump’s decision to bomb Syria, as if most of them hadn’t spent the last five months scolding dumb yanks for not electing a woman who would’ve bombed Syria quicker than you can say ‘I’m with her!’

But by far the most interesting development was the exciting news from Australia that black Somalian white supremacist Ayaan Hirsi-Ali was forced to cancel her hate-filled Hero Of Heresy tour due to ‘security concerns’. Details are sketchy but one thing we know for sure is that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the death threats she regularly receives from Islamists for linking their murderous ideology to acts of murder. Prior to this an alliance of principled feminists, respected journalists and Van Badham launched a campaign against the tour, throwing decades of female empowerment under the bus to show solidarity with hardline misogynists. They even produced a viral video in which an assortment of middle-class Westerners queued up to lambast Hirsi Ali for having the temerity to speak out against the oppressive religion that states people like her should be killed.

In the two-minute clip a succession of glamorous, fresh-faced ladies in hijab took turns to politely attack Hirsi Ali; their bright eyes, shiny lipstick and sparkling smiles in sharp contrast to the grey, haunted, acid-scarred features we often see on women from strict Muslim countries on the rare occasion they’re allowed to show their faces. ‘You don’t speak for us!’ they yelled at Hirsi Ali. And quite right too as she’s actually speaking for the millions of women who don’t have the freedom to publicly criticise ideas they don’t like, unless they fancy being buried up to their neck in sand and pelted with rocks.

Predictably, the video went down a storm on social media where any criticism of Islam is rightly regarded as the modern-day equivalent of lynching blacks: ‘She should criticise governments, not Islam. Ayaan is a stolid fool and doesn’t know anything about Islam’ railed one brave liberal on Twitter. Some may argue that as her friend was murdered for making a film about Islam and she regularly receives death threats for criticising Islam she knows more than enough about Islam. But any idiot with a laptop knows that the numerous good things Islam has contributed to mankind far outweigh all that pesky oppression, subjugation, mutilation and death.

As another principled apologist put it: ‘While women are still fighting for their rights today, Islam gave women rights 1400 years ago’. Indeed it did, and who but the sick of mind would object to the right to wear a sack over your head in sweltering heat or be punched by your husband if you walk in front of him? Because it’s not for us cultural imperialists to tell women from Islamic countries what to think. Unless of course that woman is notorious bigot Ayaan Look-At-Me Ali in which case it’s practically a hate crime not to.

Still, it’s good to know that folk down under have finally cottoned on that all you need to do to keep the peace is give extremists what they want. If only that were the case in Europe, where even on the rare occasion we get it right we still manage to get it catastrophically wrong. Take Sweden, a country which has gone out of its way to accommodate peaceful and non-peaceful Muslims alike. Yet even that couldn’t stop institutionalised Islamophobia forcing disproportionately huge numbers to flee the country and join ISIS. Despite that Sweden has garnered a reputation as one of Europe’s greatest multicultural success stories, a reputation propagated by liberal academics on Twitter who’ve apparently never been there.

Sadly, that fantasy was shattered last week when a gang of AIK football hooligans thought it would be funny to culturally appropriate the harmless niqab, in the process offending every moderate Muslim, plagiaristic Australian and big-boned Loose Women presenter in the Western world. Regular as clockwork, a few days later yet another marginalised Muslim was left with no option but to mow down innocent people on a busy street in the religious-inspired attack that will forever be known as The Stockholm Truck Attack. Will they ever learn?

Luckily there is no mention whatsoever of hijacking vehicles in the Qur’an, proving conclusively that this Truck Attack had nothing to do with Islam. Though there is no mention of FGM either but that hasn’t stopped Hirsi Ali whining on about it and linking it to Islam just because it tends to occur in strict Muslim communities. Well guess what, sweet-cheeks: so does wife-beating but I didn’t see anyone blaming Islam when Paul Gascoigne broke his wife’s jaw. Well why not? Islam’s to blame for everything, isn’t it? You’ll be telling us Hitler only killed Jews because the Qur’an told him to next. All the while another poor young man with a lust for death sacrifices his freedom just because the elite Western forces that made his life a living hell wouldn’t take a step back and give him exactly what he wants. Sickening.

All of which makes me think if only Britain and Sweden had taken a leaf out of the Aussies’ Big Book Of Appeasement we wouldn’t have caused a harmless, oppressed Muslim to be shot dead by trigger-happy cops and ensured a truck with a mind of its own has some serious jail time to look forward to. The sad thing is the UK has a proud history of bowing down to terrorists. I can’t be the only person who noted the grim irony of peaceful IRA murderer Martin McGuinness shuffling off this mortal coil days before another principled freedom fighter stabbed a policeman to death.

The kid gloves attitude to McGuinness is a textbook example of how to deal with terrorists, especially terrorists willing to man up and put down their guns in the name of peace, forgiveness and accepting that your number is up due to your murderous paramilitary organisation being so riddled with spies and informers you’re left with no option but to swallow that nationalist pride or spend the rest of your days in chokey. Which sums up appeasement’s canny knack for bringing people together. In particular brave people like McGuinness and Ian Paisley, who put aside any differences to bond over their mutual loathing, thirst for power and all-round cuntishness.

Indeed, the lesson to us all is that even bigots and murderers can find some common ground provided you give them whatever they demand: Teetotal McGuinness no doubt admired Paisley’s fire-and-brimstone attitude to the evils of alcohol, while the Ulsterman will have respected the fact that as well as protestants, soldiers and English people the former IRA leader made a fair few Catholics ‘disappear’ too.

One can only hope our Islamophobic government finally realise that the McGuinness route is the only way to go. If so, maybe in ten years time we’ll witness the glorious sight of Michael Adebolajo and Thomas Mair sitting side by side in the House Of Lords: giggling into their hands, finishing each other’s sentences and cheekily arguing over who’s got the biggest knife while bonding over their mutual love of murdering innocent people.

Who knows, if she learns to wind her bloody neck in there may even be room for a hateful extremist like Ayaan Kirstie Alley. Though whether she’s done enough to be given a plum role in government is debatable. It may be perfectly acceptable to start a dialogue with men fond of torturing, mutilating and incinerating people but I for one would feel massively uncomfortable allowing into the conversation a woman who’s written a few books criticising Islam.

Who do you think I am, Neville bloody Chamberlain?

By Ben Pensant

OJ Jones is scared. Really scared. So scared, in fact, that a Guardian source tells me he’s stopped sitting down for a piss in solidarity with the sisterhood because he’s terrified Pennywell the clown out of It Came From Outer Space will fly up the u-bend and bite off his tiddler. The source of this fear is, of course, Brexit, that unwanted cultural phenomenon which has caused more middle-class tears than the Waitrose, Liverpool Road kale drought of 2014, an ungodly hour still spoken of in traumatised tones by the few BBC researchers and craft beer entrepreneurs who survived it without shitting their sandals off.

Of course, OJ is keen to point out this is not the fault of the uneducated xenophobes who voted to leave the EU: “While millions who voted for Brexit had multiple, complex reasons for their choice, the most bigoted elements of British society decided the referendum presented them with a mandate”. Grim words that will ring true to anyone who’s ever been dismissed as a dumb racist for disagreeing with tolerant liberals like Lily Alan or Graham Glinnerhan.

But this is good bigotry, the kind that’s perfectly acceptable if you went to public school, work for the BBC, or have two famous dads. It’s the bad bigotry that strikes fear into OJ, the type espoused by football fans and people who eat kebabs. A point he clarifies by explaining that the multiple, complex reasons he spoke of are basically a hatred of women and brown people: “Both the Brexiters and the Trumpists believe their respective countries can be freed from the oppressive yoke of minority rights and feminism'” he laments, as comfortable generalising millions of people he’s never met as he is suggesting their voting preferences are influenced by a fear of middle-class women wearing wooly hats shaped like fannies.

“The bigots are winning the battle for the country’s future, and that should terrify us all”. And if there’s one subject OJ knows back-to-front, it’s terror. Indeed, fear-mongering is so central to his work, if he were right-wing he’d be urging his readers to check under their beds for radicalised Muslims and regularly frisking Abi Wilkinson to make sure there are no refugee rape gangs hiding in her knickers.

But he’s got good reason to be scared and it’s not just because he might have to apply for a visa if he ever fancies moving to the multicultural paradise of Malmo. No, what’s really got OJ chewing his pyjama cord is The Daily Fail. So what have they done? Blamed the Westminster attack on Islam? Celebrated the triggering of Article 51? Printed another violently offensive column from Katy Hopkins? Amazingly, they’ve sunk even lower. For last week they offended the entire country by – wait for it – making a lame gag about Nicola Surgeon’s legs.

Yes, this actually happened. And Owen’s not happy, hence ‘The Bigots are on the march – and with ‘Legs-it’ the Daily Mail bears the flag’, in which The G proved it has no truck with the clickbait tactics of its enemies by re-printing the entire Fail front page, cleverly shoehorning both the notorious headline and the name of the paper into the title. All of which guaranteed the type of person who lives to bemoan that foul paper’s ghastliness would have it read and re-tweeted before you can say “our readers are deserting us quicker than St Jezza’s cheerleaders so please give us your money NOW!”.

But god bless OJ for reminding us that women are so fragile they can’t handle a silly headline in a silly newspaper: “Across the nation, millions have cringed so hard at its audaciously sexist front page they’ve strained their face muscles” quipped OJ, unaware that millions also read and forgot it in seconds like they do with most Fail headlines. But that’s because – like pop-stars, strippers and women who get married – most people are too dumb, uncultured, and downright working-class to realise they’re being objectified. Which is why we need educated voices like OJ – he’s written books and everything – to protect that half of the population too wounded to read a weak pun without taking a month off work and a jar of Valium.

Owen then moved on to lambasting the Fail’s sordid history: “It comes to something when this open sewer is still capable of shocking with its stench”. Refreshing words, especially in a newspaper as ideologically fragrant as your friendly neighbourhood Guardian. Thank god OJ’s employers have never printed articles by Stalin apologists or Islamists who support stoning women to death otherwise he’d look like a right cunt.

But make no mistake, it’s not enough to simply ignore or criticise ideas we don’t like. No, we should be petrified of them; constantly on guard in HW Smith’s lest we’re subjected to a misogynist Scum story about Angela Merkel’s arse: “While it should be mocked, parodied, ridiculed, it should terrify us: because it is indicative of what is happening in Brexit Britain”. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Brexit has emboldened racist thugs, it’s also liberated people who think it’s funny to laugh at a politician’s tights.

Then came his deepest cut: “It spews out hatred about women, immigrants, Muslims, the NHS, the BBC, comprehensive education, unions, LGBT people and the welfare state”. Understandably, OJ didn’t provide any evidence of this hatred, and frankly he didn’t need to because those who despise the Fail most tend not to read it. But if there’s one thing the modern left do best it’s expressing moral outrage at something we know fuck all about, such as OJ’s specialist subject – Leave voters. See, it’s not right-wing newspapers that terrify him: it’s the people who read them.

“This was a national uprising not just against Brussels, but political correctness, against the conquests made by the anti-racist movement to feminism to trans-rights”. Showing remarkable insight into people he doesn’t know, Owen was clearly inspired by his yearly investigative trips to council estates in which he comes over all Kate Ady; donning fatigues, perfecting his earnest face, and posing for selfies with bulbous-headed simpletons who look like they were moulded from corned-beef and set on fire.

But it’s their shameful objection to political correctness that really riles OJ, so much so he’s happy to generalise millions of people he’s never met to put the shits up anyone who naively believes they live in a liberal democracy: “The gloves were off, they decided. You’ve had your party, liberal do-gooders, now it’s over and you will pay” he mocked. Because if there’s one thing OJ truly ‘gets’ it’s retribution, especially as every other column he writes is about getting revenge on some fucker.

Luckily OJ long ago realised that the only people who complain about political correctness are fat ’70s comics annoyed that they can’t make jokes about puffs anymore. Because despite what the Tory press claim, it doesn’t take a degree in Gender Studies to see that PC is a force for good, though it undoubtedly helps. This may be news to the child victims of grooming gangs in Rochdale and Rotherham, for whom PC was a force for allowing grown men to have sex with them. But look closer and it’s clear the widespread abuse of teenagers and subsequent cover-ups made a mockery of the idea that PC inhibits freedom. If anything, the brave decision by councillors to ignore what was happening encouraged freedom, in particular the freedom of Muslim men to rape kids.

Indeed, if these marginalised minorities hadn’t been allowed to explore their sexuality they may well have turned to terrorism. All of which makes you wonder how right-wingers have the nerve to accuse liberals of wanting to create a nanny state. It’s clear who the real libertarians are, and it’s not the ones spitting feathers because a few dozen Muslims exercised their freedom to sexually assault girls in kebab shops.

Of course, from Gorgeous ‘George’ Galloway to the IRA, the fact that OJ has spent his career defending the most un-PC people in history in no way renders his words as hollow as his claim that hate crime has ‘surged’. As his two-year silence over Venezuela demonstrates, when you know you’re right you don’t need inconveniences like proof to back up your point: the wholesomeness of your ideology is more than enough. Which explains why he reacts to every Islamist attack by predicting a spike in racist attacks that never arrives and focusing on the hypothetical hurt feelings of Muslims rather than the actual hurt feelings of people who’ve been murdered.

He usually then issues a dire warning about the EDL’s masterplan to brainwash the British public by holding sparsely attended rallies in rain-swept carparks. Because while the racists and neo-cons stoke up the non-existent danger of Islamist ‘terrorism’ OJ knows the real threat comes from a tiny street movement so riddled with knuckle-draggers its own founding member left. But make no mistake: the far-right are on the rise, the EDL’s post-Brexit growth so rapid they’ve hired a burger van for their next demo. As Jeff Goldberg said in Jurassic Park: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

All of which should give you a clue about OJ’s biggest fear (or should I say fourth biggest, after black dogs, Frankenstein, and getting sand in his eyes). Because what really terrifies him is The Real World, that ominous wasteland that exists outside Twitter, Facebook and London. And who can blame him? In The Real World most Brexiters aren’t snarling racists, the majority of Remain voters accepted the referendum result and 99% of women neither give two fucks about The Daily Heil nor need OJ Jones to tell them they should. But who wants to live in a world like that? Far more satisfying to reside in The Imaginary World where the streets teem with violent bigots and millions are deeply offended by a lame pun about a politicians’ legs. OJ’s made himself a comfortable life in this made-up safe haven and he’s going nowhere.

Unfortunately, Owen has a lot more to fear than Leave voters, Nicola Surgeon’s thighs and the thought of his mam putting red sauce ON his fish-fingers rather than NEXT to them. Because what should really worry him is what will happen in 2020 after Saint Jezza becomes St Prezza. And yes, I know he’ll be Prime Minister and not President. But once he’s abolished the Royal Family – and when I say ‘abolished’ I mean ‘shot’ – we’ll be a republic so we’ll have a President, like what America does. I think. Either way, when it comes to OJ, well-intentioned articles criticising right-wing hate sheets won’t be enough to forgive his betrayal of the Dear Leader.

Until then, the best he can hope is that his previous good form is taken into account and JC shows a bit of leniency by only hanging him once. But make no mistake, OJ: if you think Brexit and The Daily Fail are terrifying just wait ’til St Jezza takes the iron throne.

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

 

By Ben Pensant

From Jeremy Corbyn to Iain Dunt, the modern left has a long tradition of admitting when it’s wrong. No, really. This may surprise New European readers who think Brexit happened because uneducated xenophobes were duped by Nigel Farage’s big red bus. It might come as a shock to those who blame Donald Trump’s rise on racism, stupidity and the President’s penchant for drinking hooker-piss. And it will certainly bemuse anyone waiting for Owen Jones to admit his admiration for the socialist utopia of Venezuela was an act of folly on par with supporting the bedsit militants who’ve turned the Labour Party into a Chumbawamba tribute act.

But if contemporary liberals are renowned for one thing – other than sneering at the working-class and making excuses for murderers – it’s our unswerving ability to own up to a mistake and do our damnedest to rectify it. Take the two titans mentioned above, brave leftists who risked ruin by backtracking on their anti-EU beliefs in the name of peace, prosperity and bare-faced opportunism. In Dunt’s case it was his lightning-quick transformation from a man who ‘despised’ the EU and passionately believed we should leave it into someone who tweeted the morning after the referendum: ‘You fools. What have you done?’; for JC it involved bravely abandoning his long-held opposition to the EU to campaign for Remain with all the passion and enthusiasm of John Travolta on his wedding night.

Both giants have been on my mind since Wednesday afternoon when I took a break from researching a paper on second wave feminism, logged onto Twitter and realised something awful had happened. Because while I was skim-reading The Female Eunice in a fruitless search for tits and fannies, a foul act of terror was taking place, destined to reverberate for generations to come. At the time of writing the list of victims remains in single figures but this could sadly rise as the week progresses. And when it does I’ll be the first to offer my condolences. After all, it was me who sent the tweet that caused all the damage in the first place.

Yes, as you’ve probably guessed, Wednesday was the day I found out I’d inadvertently insulted the Native American population of the USA.  And by ‘Native American population’ I mean ‘three censorious loons on Twitter’. Two of whom weren’t Native American. But as we learnt from the recent survey which found the majority of Indians couldn’t give two shits what the Ashington Redskins call themselves, as long as someone, somewhere is offended the majority can go fuck themselves.

It began when I tweeted a link to my celebration of Jack Munroe’s libel victory over evil Nazi Katie Perkins, a libel victory coincidentally denied to David Cameron after Jack accused the then PM of ‘using stories about his dead son as misty-eyed rhetoric to legitimise selling the NHS off to his friends’. As you can imagine, few of the compassionate liberals ecstatic with last week’s judgement were calling for Jack to be taken to court back in 2014. And fewer still reacted by penning smug articles warning left-wing trolls that this is what happens when you tell lies about people. Which was quite right, because the last thing the modern left is interested in is holding everyone to the same standard. No, as anyone familiar with the politics of identity knows, making untrue allegations about an Eton-educated Prime Minister isn’t remotely as heinous as getting one non-binary columnist mixed up with another. And the fact that said non-binary columnist is seemingly incapable of opening their gob or penning a recipe for Quail’s Arse soup without mentioning their own son in no way opens them up to accusations of rank hypocrisy. If anything, it just shows how virtuously virtuous they is, because it takes strong liberal principles to attack someone for doing something they theirself have done. And even stronger ones to fleece them out of 24 grand while you’re at it.

Thankfully, Tory cowards like Cameron are far less likely to drag someone to court than professional victims like Jack, which comes in handy if you’re one of those tolerant lefties who likes to emphasise their anti-austerity point by exhuming a disabled child who never lived to see his seventh birthday. And Cameron’s wife and remaining kids could be eaten by a polar bear tomorrow and they still wouldn’t know true pain, the kind that only comes after a shit-stirring harridan mixes you up with someone else and doesn’t say ‘sorry’ for it. Compared to that a dead child’s a walk in the park.

As is being a straight white male. Which brings me back to my horrendous error, an error so horrendous I’ve only managed to come to terms with it through hours of therapy, self-reflection and trying to think of someone else to blame for me using a phrase roughly 0.0000000001 % of the world’s population find offensive.

Meanwhile the media gets itself into a fascist froth over a handful of white people being mildly inconvenienced by a peaceful Muslim running them over with a 4X4. And Tory trolls push the narrative that a terror attack which claimed five lives is more important than a few millennials being threatened by a word they don’t like. Which is easy to say when you’re not the one being threatened. And it sums up our right-wing media’s thirst for vengeance when the peaceful Muslim attacker was needlessly shot by police and they still aren’t happy. We’ve already lost one terrorist this week. How about some compassion?

But Matthew McGuinness and tragic Khalid Masood had something the Camerons and Littlecocks of this world will never understand: grievance. Which in the right hands – ie left-wing ones – can excuse everything from censorship to murder. But what it categorically does not excuse is racism. Unless that racism comes from someone who isn’t white. Which is why my shameful indiscretion demands to be exposed. Though I warn you: it isn’t pretty.

My crime was to tweet out the aforementioned Jack Munroe piece with what I thought was a harmless phrase that – unbeknown to me – would be a dagger to the hearts of everyone from Will Rogers to the big lad out of One Flew Over The Robin’s Nest. Here it is. Brace yourself:

TRIGGER WARNING

‘How Jack Munroe claimed the latest scalp in the fight against free speech’.

(I’ll give you a few seconds to pick up your jaw and channel that outrage. Deep breaths. Easy does it. Cool.)

As you can see, it wasn’t the fact that someone was fighting against free speech that triggered an army of three people to castigate me. No, it was my cack-handed use of the phrase ‘claimed the latest scalp’ that got their micro-aggressive goats, a phrase I have now learnt is hugely offensive to all Native Americans, particularly the ones who still go around scalping people. Because prior to last week, like a typical privileged Westerner I assumed the custom of scalping had somewhat fizzled out and mistakenly believed that the well-worn phrase ‘to claim a scalp’ was no more offensive than comparing a shifty, chaotic administration run by an ageing playboy to a brutal totalitarian regime that murdered millions and started a world war. However that all changed when I  read the following responses and my blood ran cold:

“Claimed the latest scalp. In 2017. For fuck’s sake”.

“Claimed the latest scalp? That’s so racist and inappropriate I won’t even give you a click”.

“Maybe because you’re in the UK you don’t know this but that’s incredibly offensive to use as a turn of phrase. In the US recently (and in the past) Native Americans are being denied land and assaulted on the regular”.

While the pain of knowing I didn’t receive a ‘click’ from that particular frothing correspondent will haunt me ’til my dying days, it’s nothing compared to the hurt I heaped upon all those Native Americans who still like to scalp people but would rather not talk about it. So to every offended Navajo or Cherokoochi incensed by my bigotry I apologise profusely. And to all those assaulted on the regular – recently or in the past – I offer this invitation: should anyone offended by my use of the word ‘scalp’ like to come around and scalp me I will have no complaints. My white male error needs punishing, frankly, and if that means proving how offensive the word ‘scalp’ is by scalping someone then so be it.

So if you’re an angry Native American who’s never scalped anyone then this could be a perfect opportunity to, well, claim your first scalp. Though if you’d rather pretend I’m Kelvin Costner and christen me Triggers With S-Words I’m cool with that too.

In fact, as a white European whose ancestors probably did their fair share of scalping I’m  pretty triggered by the word ‘scalp’ too. Not enough to scalp myself of course, and I wouldn’t dream of depriving a Native American of the pleasure, as that would be both cultural appropriation and taking a job away from someone more qualified than me. But offended I am and believe me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Because so far I’ve only apologised for offending those doing the scalping  – I haven’t even started on the scalpees. How do you think they felt when they read my foul tweet? Indians, Europeans, Asians, Africans…back in the day they were all at it – scalping or being scalped with gay abandon. With all these groups queuing up to be offended by the phrase ‘claimed its first scalp’ you’d be forgiven for thinking the passage of time has rendered it meaningless. But it hasn’t. And so I hereby offer those three outraged cupcakes my unreserved apologies, and an assurance that however much they hate me it can’t be half as much as I hate myself.

See how easy that was, Katie?

Happily, thanks to social media, privileged white males such as myself can always rely on complete strangers to pull them up when they lapse into micro-aggressive gutter-speak. Indeed, only last month I was delighted to be the recipient of a DM from a delightful moderate Muslim who misinterpreted a comment I made about Sharia-supporting feminist Linda Sarsons: “If u keep trolling Linda imma troll u back’ and ‘ur shitty logic belongs in the trash with ur shitty blog” were just two of the 8 messages he sent in the space of three minutes, messages I am honoured to have received and will forever cherish for their wit, candour and colourful grasp of English.

As with my knuckle-headed ‘scalp’ tweet, should any further retribution be visited upon myself for the offence I caused I will welcome it with open arms. I’ll even provide the knife. Because like Dunt and Corbyn, if we leftists can’t admit when we’re catastrophically wrong then we might as well just give up and vote Tory.

In the meantime I’ll carry on apologising and appeasing until I’m told otherwise. And rest assured, my forthcoming Matthew McGuiness tribute will steer clear of any terms which could cause offence to serving IRA members, such as ‘bomb’, ‘baseball bat’, ‘funeral’ or ‘fingernails’. Similarly, when I eventually discuss the Westminster attack I will take great care to avoid triggering any passing Islamists by pretending Masood was a Mormon and only mentioning his actual religion to point out it had nothing to do with anything.

As Chief Brendan from ‘…Cuckoo Waltz’ would no doubt have said if he knew how to talk: it’s what they would have wanted.

You can say that again, big guy.

 

 

By Ben Pensant

As anyone who spends their life on social media knows, there is little to be happy about these days. From war, disease and famine to Trump, Brexit and white people, it often feels like everywhere you look there’s a life-threatening supremacist force waiting to oppress. But if you search hard enough there is good news out there – as the saying goes, for every fascist Muslim ban there’s a heart-rending poem about Jeremy Corbyn. And this was demonstrated on Friday as social media lit up with the joyous news that professional victim Jack Monroe had won their libel case against professional gob-shite Katie Hopkins after Hopkins got Jack mixed up with a different professional victim and – the horror – didn’t say sorry. No, really.

Yes, for those of you pre-occupied paying bills, feeding families and assaulting immigrants to notice, yesterday will go down in regressive left folklore as the day Jack The Giant Killer took on the Queen Of Mean and won. Or as it will be known among normal people: the day that lass who thinks she’s a lad fleeced 24 grand out of the mouthy cow off The Apprentice. 

For the uneducated, this is the reason virtually every liberal on Twitter has spent the weekend celebrating as if Fidel Castro had risen from the dead, lynched Theresa May and demanded a second EU referendum in which only those with degrees in Gender Studies are eligible to vote. And it all started two years ago when Hopkins committed the heinous crime of getting Jack mixed up with Laurie Penny. Granted, most people would be furious if someone mistook them for Laurie, but that’s because most people aren’t as principled and polyamorous as her. No, it was the libellous content of Hopkins’ comment and refusal to apologise that got Jack’s goat, leaving them with no option but to take the migrant-baiter to court for saying something Jack didn’t like.

Hopkins’ monstrous tweet – which I won’t repeat in case anyone has a heart attack – accused Jack/Laurie of condoning the desecration of war memorials, going way beyond what most decent people from Islington find acceptable and barging straight into hate-crime territory. The fact that it was meant for Ms Penny – who coincidentally did condone the desecration of war memorials – was neither here nor there. So, instead of merely pointing out Hopkins’ mistake and making her look rather silly, Jack went for the jugular: ‘Dear @KTHopkins, public apology + £5k to migrant rescue and I won’t sue. It’ll be cheaper for you and v satisfying for me’. Unsurprisingly, Hopkins failed to apologise and deleted her original tweet, no doubt assuming that Jack – a writer – would be fundamentally against taking legal action against someone for something they wrote. Think again, horse-face. For Jack then brilliantly set the ball rolling on their two-year quest for justice, culminating in Friday’s confirmation that sending a tweet to the wrong person and not apologising for it is now so painful and dehumanising that nothing less than 24 grand – rising to 300 in costs – will make up for it.

But it wasn’t just the horror of someone saying something mean that had Jack fearing for their life. For a sinister knock-on effect of Hopkins’ refusal to say sorry were the death threats the flame-haired food-blogger received as a result. Because as the Louis Smith scandal showed, death threats are never the fault of the person who sends them. In this case it was the fault of a vile Tory who sent a tweet to the wrong person and didn’t say sorry; in Smith’s it was because he insulted Muslims everywhere by arsing about on a rug. But it all comes from the same place. And that place is Germany, 1933.

Predictably, so-called ‘classical’ liberals who value freedom over feelings have claimed Jack could have used their Guardian column to fight fire with fire and issue a stinging rebuke to Hopkins instead of penning heartbreaking tales about how they used to be so poor they once had to cook their own slippers. Others have suggested that as a fully grown adult they could have simply blocked, muted or ignored Hopkins, like most adults do when people on Twitter get on their non-binary tits. But why bother when you can take someone to court and earn more than most people make in a year in the process?

Because what the free-speech fascists don’t understand is how hurtful it is to not receive an apology. In fact it’s even more hurtful than being mistaken for Laurie Penny. Because to the modern left hearing the word ‘sorry’ is like devouring the most moorishly-addictive heroin known to womankind. Take it away and you’ll find us shaking and shitting on a burnt mattress in a damp bedsit before you have time to check your privilege. Receiving apologies is good for the regressive soul, but not because the person giving it is actually sorry. No, that’s unimportant and never happens anyway as very few people are genuinely sorry for upsetting folk who think corn-rows on white people are as offensive as a knee in the twat.

The reason apologies matter so much is because they signify that we have someone under our control; so terrified of offending us they’re willing to say sorry just to make us feel better. That’s power, folks – ignore it and you’ll be inside a courtroom quicker than you can say Roe vs Wade. Apologies feed the soul and anyone who’s ever watched Curb Your Enthusiasm – in which courageous snowflakes regularly demand apologies from Larry for his hurtful micro-aggressions – knows exactly how nourishing they are. As Jack brilliantly put it, leaving no doubt as to what really rankled them about the Hopkins episode: ‘LOL all the people wanging on about free speech re this case. SORRY would have been free speech. Like, literally free speech. Literally FREE’.

Despite the fact there’s nothing ‘literally FREE’ about being forced to donate £5,000 to charity in order to avoid being sued, this just shows how focused brave SJWs are on getting their own way by any means necessary, especially if those means involve backdoor blackmail. Because Jack is part of a generation and political class taught that if you demand something loud enough you earn the right to receive it, regardless of how illiberal you behave. It could be an apology from Katie Hopkins; a Jewish shopkeeper’s name; the removal of a Hawaiian hula doll from a taxi-driver’s dashboard. You name it, someone will have demanded it and they won’t let a little thing like common sense get in their way.

Luckily, the modern left had Jack’s back, taking to Twitter in their thousands to demonstrate their understanding of free speech is every bit as acute as their knowledge of fascism:

‘A reminder that Twitter is not conversation or ‘bants’ but a form of publication for which you can be held to account’

‘Message to fellow trolls: go easy on the hate’

‘First Milo now Hopkins: are the hate peddlers finally losing it?’

‘Katie Hopkins: A lying peddler of hatred, the worst of Britain’s press in human form, finally gets served justice’

The eagle-eyed will have noticed the last two were not from Tipper Gore and the ghost of Mary Whitehouse but Laura Marcus and Owen Jones. Needless to say, like most Guardian journalists they fully support free speech apart from when they don’t, which tends to happen when the person exercising it is an obnoxious columnist who gets someone mixed up with someone else then doesn’t say sorry.

Laura chipped in with another gem later, ecstatic about the new censorious era this judgement will usher in: ‘Monroe win sets new precedent for social media’ she gushed, overjoyed at the prospect of an Orwellian future in which making a mistake and not owning up to it is not only poor form it could also cost you 300 grand. The message to non-left-wing trolls who have the nerve to be bad losers is clear: rudeness costs, so belt up or cough up.

And anyone suggesting Laura and Owen may have written mean things about public figures which could also be construed as libellous is wasting their time. Because anyone who’s followed their careers knows they couldn’t write anything hurtful if they tried: partly because they’re both decent and middle-class, but mainly because no-one ever remembers anything they write. Apart from these tweets, though even I’ve just forgotten what they said or who sent them .

The other two came from Gary Lineker and Billy Bragg, working-class boys done good who share Laura’s belief that freedom of speech only applies to left-wing people they like. Of course for Gary – a high-profile supporter of political censorship-via-corporate blackmail as espoused by Stop Funding Hate and Section 40 – the censoring of people who say mean things is water off a duck’s arse as it’s a not a situation he will ever find himself in. This is partly due to the fact that he’s a decent liberal who loves refugees and only says bad things about people who deserve it. But mainly it’s because if he was fined for saying something mean he’d make damn sure he’d already signed up to a scheme that allows him to avoid paying it. Still, considering some of the terms he’s used to describe Leave-voters he should thank his lucky stars they’re all too thick to realise they’ve been libelled.

As for Billy, as a deluded Corbynite there’s nothing he loves more than seeing a Daily Mail employee suffer, and it’s to his credit that he sees no contradiction in supporting punishments for people who say nasty things despite the fact he’s spent most of his career saying nasty things about Tories. Still, you can be sure that Billy’s hero Woody Guthrie – no stranger to having his words suppressed – will be spinning in delight that one of his biggest fans is such a vocal supporter of censorship.

But these messages were just a fraction of the warm wishes extended to Jack in their moment of victory, as right-thinking social media came together to redefine what it means to be a British liberal in 2017. And if there’s one thing we can be proud of it’s our fair and fantastic libel laws, which not only allow food bloggers to sue obnoxious columnists for mixing them up with someone else and not saying sorry, but also enable rich, powerful men to quash news stories exposing their nefarious activities. Rich, powerful men like a certain orange-hued pussy-grabber who’s been making adults cry since November.

Indeed, despite being the new Hitler, one thing us regressives have to begrudgingly admire the President for is his opposition to free speech and love of litigation. He may be the devil but it’s hard not to envy a man who uses his new-found power to be every bit as illiberal and censorious as we would. But fear not – we’ll get out chance and when we do we’ll make Donald Trump look like Lenny Bruce.

Because we will only be truly free when monstrous acts like saying mean things to the wrong person and not apologising for it are outlawed altogether. Apart from when the mean things are said by people we like, such as Guardian columnists, New European headline writers and every decent tolerant liberal who’s ever called Trump supporters uneducated white supremacists. They get a pass by virtue of espousing a more moral brand of meanness. And as luck would have it, they have little to worry about with regards to blackmail and litigation as their enemies are significantly less likely to act like censorious cry-babies and take them to court for mixing them up with someone else and not saying sorry for it. The pussies.

But that’s a vision for the future, the bold utopia in which we’ll be basking come 2020 when St Jezza has cruised to Number Ten on a winning ticket of charm, principle and appealing to people who think I, Daniel Blake was a documentary. Until then, I’ll leave the last word to theyperson theirself, who took to Twitter to thank their supporters and clarify once and for all that their main beef was less to do with getting they mixed up with Laurie Penny than it was to do with someone having the nerve to ignore their demands and not say sorry:

‘And this is why I fight. Not against free speech but FOR it. These bullies will not scare me into silence. I will write and write and write’. The fact that Jack could have saved theirself a lot of bother by doing that in the first place instead of deciding to sue and sue and sue just shows how right they is. But one fantastic upside is how it has inspired Jack to rediscover their mojo. We need more voices fighting the good fight, especially now Owen Jones has retired from social media having done his bit to promote the culture of offence-taking and covert censorship exemplified by brave thems like Jack.

That the hate peddlers tried to bully Jack into silence when any idiot knows blackmail and lawsuits are much more effective just shows how much they underestimate us (the hate-peddlers, not Jack). So I’d like to thank Jack and the courageous liberals who offered they them support for proving that the world can be changed by people who think the going rate for making a mistake and not apologising for it is 24 grand.

I hope you’re all thoroughly proud of yourselves.

 

 

 

By Ben Pensant

Much has been written about the government’s decision to award former Guantanamo Bay detainee Ronald Fiddler £1million pounds in damages, a decision questioned last month when Fiddler’s sightseeing tour of Iraq was tragically cut short after he blew himself up larking about with a bomb. As in 2001, when his backpacking holiday in picturesque Pakistan was ruined by US hawks framing him as a member of the Taliban, Fiddler’s habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time once again saw him unfairly punished. Though this time, rather than being blindfolded, dressed in orange fatigues and forced to listen to Enter Sandman for 24 hours he was instead torn limb from limb by the dangerous explosives that just happened to be in his car.

All of which casts doubt on the wisdom of awarding compensation to a man whose explanation for what he was doing at the Afghan border was the least convincing since Brookside star Gillian Beale claimed she was giving husband Ian an abdominal massage when she got caught sucking him off on the A1. Because anyone but the most Islamophobic Tory troll can see what a huge insult handing Fiddler a million quid was: it should at have been two million. And a Ferrari. And a penthouse in Knightsbridge with a gold toilet like what President Trump craps on.

Because if they’d treated Fiddler with the respect he deserved he’d never have fled Manchester to join a terrorist group who rape children and murder gays or try to blow up an army base. If indeed he did do that. We only have the word of the British intelligence services that he was a terrorist and we all know what they’re capable of. Not only did they inspire Mohammed ‘Jihadi John’ Emwazi to behead people by harassing him at airports, they also allowed three teenage girls from London to run away and marry men who behead people by not harassing them at airports.

And is it really so strange for a tourist to accidentally drive onto an army base in a car packed with explosives? Take fellow Guantanamo survivor/compo recipient Shaker Aamer, a mild-mannered charity worker who visited Afghanistan in 2001 to build a school for the kiddies. Yet just because he owned an AK47, carried a fake passport, visited terrorist training camps and spent 13 years trying to remember the name of the charity he worked for he was smeared as a terrorist. Similarly, the case of peaceful bookshop owner/G-Bay detainee Moazzam Begg demonstrated that these days you can’t even sell jihadist literature, make jihadist statements or found a jihadist advocacy group without people assuming you’re a jihadist.

But let’s say Fiddler was guilty of trying to blow up an army base and kill hundreds of people. Erm, whose fault would that be? Certainly not Fiddler’s, who did what any normal person would do after being rewarded a meagre million quid for being wrongly imprisoned for two years. And if the Islamophobic security services had done their jobs properly in the first place none of this would have happened. As the Jihadi John and missing schoolgirl gaffes showed, the only thing more dangerous than pestering moderate Muslims too much is not pestering moderate Muslims enough.

Because we all know this harassment was a sly form of deliberate provocation, much like Peppa Pig, the existence of Israel and Olympic athletes arsing about on rugs. All of which are increasingly likely to inspire sane, level-headed people to head for Syria to rape children and murder gays, far more than a religious ideology that tells its followers it’s okay to rape children and murder gays.

Indeed, as Rogue Warrior actor Riz Ahmed pointed out this week, even a lack of diversity on British TV is enough to force people to join ISIS: ‘If we fail to represent, we are in danger of losing people to extremism’ he warned, cementing his place in the hearts of the modern left by inventing one more thing to blame for terrorism other than a stone age religion that explicitly promotes terrorism. And as someone born and bred in Newcastle I can relate to Riz’s point: the only section of society more prone to violence and easy to radicalise than Muslims are working-class white males. Indeed, if it weren’t for Robson Green, Ant & Dec and Geordie Shore I dread to think how many children I would have raped and murdered by now.

Still, there’s hope for the future as long as we have respectful voices like Riz chipping in. And it’s assuring to know he respects Muslims so much he thinks all it takes to turn them into medieval murderers is a lack of brown faces on Hollyoaks. But we should never underestimate the left’s tendency to insult those it claims to defend. And it’s a small price if it means we can promote fearmongering, infantilise Muslims and let Islam off the hook in one fell swoop.

Which Riz achieved with his sage words, boosting his currency among liberals by cashing in on the thriving post-Trump trend for deluded actors and thick-as-mince celebs to indulge in rank apologism and hysterical overreaction. Granted, he’s not quite Lily Allen – he has talent – but the signs are looking good. A few more acting gigs alongside Snowflake Queen Lena Dunham and this time next year he could have gone full-Silverman and be spending his days tweeting paranoid nonsense about swastikas on pavements, clouds that look like the Luftwaffe cross and the froth on his coffee spelling out threatening racist phrases like ‘Citizen Khan Is Shit’ and ‘Muhammad Was A Bender’.

Of course, like Fiddler, Riz knows all about being in the wrong place at the wrong time having starred as one of the Tipton Three in Michael Winterbottom’s brave whitewash The Road To Guantanamo. The experience clearly gave the actor a unique insight into how growing up in a tolerant, liberal democracy can anger moderate Muslims so much they’re left with no choice but to repeatedly visit Taliban training camps to muck around with assault rifles while holidaying in war-torn Afghanistan.

Unlike Riz, however, Fiddler proved his commitment to Allah by changing his name more times than Prince and Puff Daddy combined. And for all his noble attempts to curry favour with virtue-signalling Guardian-readers, as a successful Hollywood star Riz will never fully understand the fear Fiddler lived in. He will never know what it’s like to be forced to emigrate to a warzone; to be so oppressed he has no option but to commit murder; to be gifted one million pounds from the same government his far-right religious ideology tells him must be wiped off the face of the earth.

Because whether Ronald Fiddler called himself Jamal Udeen al-Harith, Abu Zakariya al-Britani or Magarita Pracatan-Obi Ben Kenobi, the life and tragic demise of this complex man is a stark reminder of what happens when you keep kicking the hornet’s nest. And like everything from 9/11 to the Berlin truck attack, we’re all to blame for unleashing the swarm.

But it’s worth honouring those who were on the right side of history, such as David Blunkett and Shami Chakrabarti. Indeed, the former home secretary lobbied hard for Fiddler’s release in 2004, declaring on his homecoming: ‘No-one whom is returned will be a threat to the security of the British people’, a statement which was entirely correct as it ended up being mainly Iraqi people Fiddler posed a threat to. But such foresight was bread and butter for Blunkett, rising above his disability to show that his eye for a terrorist was every bit as acute as his eye for the ladies.

And he was joined every step of the way by Shami, Liberty, CAGE and various newspapers. Indeed, even back then Ms Chakrabarti was quietly doing what she does best: moaning about Islamophobia, showing solidarity with extremists and pressuring the government to make millionaires of innocent people who just happen to believe in Sharia Law, enjoy playing with rifles and rather like the idea of destroying Western democracy.

That people have suggested pay-outs like this should be reserved for British soldiers with missing limbs – limbs lost waging an illegal, Islamophobic war on the middle-eastern Muslim population – is the sickest joke of all. Though not quite as sick as The Daily Mail’s recent condemnation of the decision to release Fiddler despite the fact they campaigned on behalf of him and other Guantanamo prisoners and practically threw a ‘Welcome Home, Shaker!’ party when that nice Mr Aamer returned to Britain in 2015. It’s mind-boggling they could be so right then yet so utterly wrong now but that’s the Tory press for you – as hypocritical and contradictory as the left-wing media are principled and consistent.

In the meantime I look forward to the Mail backtracking on their 1997 front page branding the Stephen Laurence suspects ‘MURDERERS’ and starting a campaign for all five to receive compensation for PTSD sustained while kicking a young man to death. It might drive The Guardian nuts but a simple bit of fake news about Gary Dobson and David Norris converting to the Religion of Peace should be enough to get them on board.

They don’t call Islam a Get Out Of Jail Free card for nowt.