By Ben Pensant

As a working-class northerner and proud regressive leftist I regularly despair that my fellow plebs are Leave-voting, Sun-reading racists. However, every once in a while I’m reminded that some of us do understand the true meaning of socialism, such as during my recent sabbatical at an anti-fracking demo in Stockport when I came across an incendiary Sunday Mirror column by roly-poly firebrand, John Prescott.

I simply couldn’t end the year without paying tribute to one of the sharpest left-wing voices around. Though it’s a shame that by May 2020 he’ll be hanging from a lamp-post on Downing Street with the rest of the PLP. But who knows, if he keeps pumping out pro-Corbyn puff pieces the Dear Leader may forgive his New Labour past and sentence him to a life of smashing rocks and stitching Berets instead. Your call, fatty.

In the meantime, it won’t harm his chances if he keeps writing articles like the one he recently shat out on Fidel Castro (not literally, you understand, though I can think of no greater honour than having a crap all over El Comandante’s fresh cadaver). As you’d expect, the former Deputy PM lavished praise upon the left’s favourite mass-murderer, blamed Cuba’s poverty on the USA and whitewashed Castro’s horrendous human rights record by pointing out his predecessor Batista killed innocent people too. Because as we know, replacing one dictator with another is fine, as long as the new dictator is left-wing. Of course, the irony of using the free press and the internet to pay tribute to a leader who censored the press and virtually banned the internet is of no concern to John and as we’ll see, such niggles are easily countered with four simple words.

But first Prescott recalled his days as a steward in the Merchant Navy, a rarity for John as he rarely discusses this chapter in his life. Indeed, some Westminster wags affectionately call him ‘Uncle Albert’ due to the tight-lipped traits he shares with the fictional Joanna-bashing seaman.

In a remarkable quirk of fate, on the day in 1959 that the 21-year-old Prescott was due to dock in Havana Castro seized power. This was something of a lucky escape for Prescott as trade unionists tended to have something of a rough time in the socialist utopia Castro created. ‘I was disappointed I never got shore leave but delighted a socialist had freed the country from an evil despot’. The fact that this evil despot was replaced by another is of little concern to John and quite right – you can’t expect the international left to get bogged down in universal human rights when there’s a narrative to protect.

No, far better to reluctantly concede that Castro had ‘questions to answer’ over human rights before forgetting to ask them. Why acknowledge that the man he admires was a bit of a tyrant when it’s far easier to point out the persecution and terror Cubans faced under Castro was ‘nothing compared to the persecution and terror the Cubans faced under Batista’? It’ll take more than demonstrable facts about labour camps and firing squads to rattle our John.

He eventually re-visited Cuba in 2003 and was touched by how happy Cubans were and how much they admired Castro. Indeed, most of the Cubans tourists meet tend to be deliriously cheerful, probably because they’re neither in jail nor dead. Lauding the fantastic healthcare available in Cuba – healthcare so fantastic it’s only available to about a third of the population – he praised what Castro ‘gave back to the world’, in particular the doctors and nurses he selflessly sent across South America, no doubt overjoyed at the prospect of earning more performing back-street abortions in a Rio favela with a bread knife than they could giving face-lifts to rich tourists in Havana.

But it wasn’t just medical professionals Castro sent around the world. We must never forget the Cubans he liberated by giving them the opportunity to live in the USA. Granted, that opportunity only arose because Castro’s Cuba was such an illiberal hell-hole that millions of Cubans regularly risked their lives in shark-infested waters to escape it but hey, it was an opportunity nonetheless. And these ingrates had the nerve to celebrate when he died. Sick.

Which brings us to the meat of John’s piece – steady, ladies – which was not to laud a dictator but to pose the modern left’s favourite question: What about Saudi Arabia? As usual John was ahead of the curve, foreshadowing the recent surge in Saudiboutery in which the likes of George Galloway have desperately tried to excuse Assad’s bombing of Aleppo by pointing out other authoritarian regimes do bad stuff too.

Deploying tried and tested Corbynite tactics, John calmly stated it was perfectly okay for the liberal leader of the opposition to defend dictators because, well, the UK sell arms to Saudi Arabia. Something Prescott is all too familiar with bearing in mind the government were selling arms to Saudi Arabia the whole time he was in it. Which I’m certain John would have publicly opposed had he not been busy punching protesters, bastardising the English language and fingering his secretary .

‘If the Tories are such defenders of human rights why the hell did they fly the union flag at half mast for the death of the Saudi king?’ A good question and one that magically cancels out all the bad stuff Castro did. Because ‘two wrongs make a right’ is as fundamental to modern left-wing ideology as straw men, Godwin’s Law and blocking people on Twitter. And as everyone knows, you can’t condemn the UK’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and criticise Corbyn’s support for Castro, just like you can’t be critical of the Russians bombing of Aleppo as well as the Saudi assault in Yemen.

No, it’s all about priorities and due to the Saudi regime’s friendship with the West they’re in the unique position of being the only Islamic theocracy that the left are free to attack. And boy, do we attack it. Indeed, the glee with which the likes of Owen Jones and Mehdi Hasan condemn the Saudi head-choppers is only matched by the way they ignore the human rights abuses that go in the rest of the Muslim world. Which, as anyone who remembers Jeremy Corbyn’s principled turn at an event celebrating 35 years of Iranian theocracy will know, is as it should be. Because we can’t preach universal human rights when there’s Western imperialism to worry about, and if that means decreeing that hanging gays from cranes is less illiberal than slicing their heads off with swords then so be it. And it goes without saying that while the Saudis are to be condemned for as long as they remain allies of the West, it is imperative we ignore the fact that the religious ideology that compels the Saudis to oppress and murder is the exact same one we’ve spent years defending and calling a ‘religion of peace’.

And if the West ceased trade with Saudi Arabia tomorrow? Well, our opposition to it would vanish instantly, as would our faux-concern for the writers they flog, adulterers they mutilate and women they behead. Because when it comes to human rights abuses it’s not the abuse that matters but the identity of the person doing the abusing. What, you thought this was about compassion for the oppressed? Give over.

As John pointed out: ‘Last year this government approved £3billion in arms sales’. Which is enough to excuse Corbyn for defending a man who was happy to help the Russians nuke the USA and start WWIII. With anti-yank cojones like that is it any wonder regressives have such a hard-on for Castro? And it should be no surprise that a ladies’ man like Prescott would favour Cuba over Saudi Arabia, not least because of the Arab state’s dim view of adultery. Though happily, if John was caught with his pants down in Riyadh it would almost definitely be his mistress rather than him who was stoned to death.

No such issues in Cuba though, where rich, rotund Westerners like John are encouraged to fulfil their adulterous desires without fear of losing a thumbnail, never mind a head. Indeed, as an erudite gentleman in awe of the Cuban education system, the vice situation in Cuba couldn’t be more up his cobbled street. I bet there aren’t many prossies in Hull willing to have a post-coitus chat about Camus while she scrapes his spunk from her hair. And luckily, Cuban girls don’t expect much in the way of a tip – there’s nowt a frugal Yorkshireman likes more than knowing the lassie whose eyelid he just emptied his hairy sack on has never seen two donkeys never mind two Jags.

But at least she would only have to worry about getting diddled by a porky politician instead of being buried in a sandpit and pelted with rocks. Which is an abhorrent stone age practice that must be stopped. Apart from when it happens in Pakistan or any Islamic country not in bed with the West, in which case it’s none of our business and probably our fault they have Sharia Law anyway. Because the last thing we need is the narrative upset by suggesting foreigners with brown skin deserve the same rights as white Westerners. Just look at what happens when Muslim ‘reformers’ like Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali start getting lippy and thinking for themselves to see where that leads.

In fact the only time we ever mention Saudi Arabia is when we’re letting Corbyn off the hook or making excuses for our favourite dictators. And few are more favourite than Fidel. Indeed, Saudiboutery was practically invented for him considering some of the fascistic shit he’s pulled. It’s just a shame John never got the chance to join the revolution on that fateful day in 1959. Imagine how liberating it would have been for the young Prezza to meet his counterpart in the Cuban Merchant Navy? Though he’d have had to be quick as, like a lot of trade unionists, his counterpart was probably shot by firing squad a week later after his boss reported him for demanding tea-breaks and fresh bog-roll.

Still, 2017 could be the perfect time for John to realise his dream of twinning Hull with Havana and I’m sure all those years of kissing Castro’s hoop haven’t done him any harm. Although it’s unclear if everyday Cubans are as convinced, as fat useful idiots landing in the capital to laud the man who oppressed them for decades are ten a penny, especially since Michael Moore became Castro’s favourite film-maker. Though rumour has it the tyrant was a big fan of Gerald Thomas too, bombarding the English auteur with storyline ideas in the ’70s. Indeed, it remains a stain on the British film industry that cinema audiences never got to see a gang of saucy DI operatives in khaki mini-skirts led by Barbara Windsor open fire on a blind-folded Kenneth Williams’ duplicitous diplomat in Carry On Death Squad.

But fuck those dumb proles, John is virtually guaranteed a hero’s welcome from the people who really matter: the establishment. Here’s hoping they arrange for him to meet his Havana equivalent, a pillar of the community every bit as decent, principled and respected as John. And I’m sure Havana’s finest drug-dealer, people-trafficker and snuff movie baron Freddy ‘The Dragon’ Esteban will be only too happy to travel to Hull and return the favour.

Just make sure you don’t tell him you’re good friends with Peter Mandelson, John. Cuban LGBT rights may have improved but old habits die hard and they can still be a bit old-fashioned about homosexualists over there. Though not as old-fashioned as You Know Who, obvs: Castro’s regime may have abducted gays, sent them to labour camps and forced them to eat mud while hanging upside down wrapped in barbed-wire but hey, as the saying goes, what about Saudi Arabia?

 

 

 

By Ben Pensant.

As my army of two readers will know, this is my first blog in three weeks and in that time much speculation on my whereabouts has swept through social media, most of it planted by the Zionist lobby. So a quick clarification, because frankly I’ve had enough of repeatedly explaining this to the one person who asked me about it. So just for you, Mam:

1. Contrary to online gossip, I’ve actually spent the last fortnight at an anti-fracking demo in Wrexham or somewhere. The fact that there are no reports of this demo taking place tells you everything you need to know about the media’s attempts to silence me.
2. The fake news story splashed all over page 28 of the Northumberland News Post Leader claiming I was doing a two-week stretch for benefit fraud is utter nonsense. To suggest I was spotted performing Now, Always & Forever by Gay Dad at a Karaoke bar in Blyth while claiming incapacity for injuries sustained while watching Hollyoaks is horse-shit. Everyone knows my favourite GD track is To Here With love.
3. Though as a white male, if I did end up in court for fiddling it would be all I deserve for being a white male. And as the person recently released from jail who isn’t me no doubt said to the judge before he wasn’t sent down for a crime that didn’t happen: Go, white privilege! Because be honest, there’s little chance of a straight white male being treated as severely as a black dwarf, a gay lesbian or a 6 year-old Syrian refugee with an African accent and more facial hair than Brian Blessed.
4. I don’t even like Gay Dad.
5. Or Hollyoaks.

Happy now? Because this just shows, it’s not just the way society treats white males that needs changing; it’s the white males. Chiefly how they think. And act. And talk. Basically everything about them, in particular the way their very white maleness is offensive to every ethnic minority and blue haired feminist on the planet.

Not that we asked any of these minorities what they think. Or that we care. Because their worth is dependent entirely on their skin colour, not irrelevancies like what they think. Thankfully those dark days when the left embraced Martin Luther King’s dangerous words about judging people ‘by the content of their character’ disappeared long ago. How can identity politics possibly thrive when people reject the truth that identity is everything?

Inevitably, some racist Islamophobe will pipe up that much opposition to identity politics comes from voices within those communities too. This piss-weak argument is effortlessly batted way though, as it was recently by The New Statesman’s Helen Lewis, who took to Twitter to shut down the debate by claiming the only people who ever argue against identity politics are white men, deliberately ignoring white men like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Maajid Nawaz and Claire Fox. Because there’s nothing contemporary liberals hate more than self-hating women and brown-skinned traitors not doing as they’re bloody well told.

Happily, Lewis deflected criticism by simply pretending Nawaz et al didn’t exist. Indeed, she took the courageous step of responding to the example of Tom Owolade by ignoring it and pointing out her opponent had misspelled ‘Owolade’. Game over. Because as we know, if you make a typo on Twitter it renders your point completely null and void. And if the argument can’t be won with facts, well, Uncle Toms and Muslim validators are easily airbrushed. Because the last thing we need is minorities thinking for themselves. And if that makes us look like low-expectation racists who wouldn’t know real bigotry if it knocked us off our eco-friendly skateboard with a rolled up copy of The New European then that’s probably because we are.

Which brings us to MTV and their recent video in which a handful of low-expectation racists lectured over half-a-billion white males about what they’re doing wrong. Titled ‘2017 New Years Resolutions For White Guys’, the two-minute clip featured the glorious sight of young liberals blaming an entire demographic for the actions of a minority. And what vile actions they are, as everything from using the word ‘woke’ to having black friends were given as examples of the horrendous stuff white men do.

Naturally, Black Lives Matter earned a mention. Because only a racist could possibly criticise a group who promote segregation, want cop-killers released from jail, demand prisons are abolished and believe all non-African Americans should become second-class citizens. As one of MTV’s analysts put it: ‘Can we all just agree that Black Lives Matter isn’t the opposite of ‘all lives matter’? Black lives just matter. There’s no need to complicate it’.

Indeed, and nothing complicates it more than pointing out that most black men shot dead in the USA are shot dead by other black men. Or that the vast majority of black men shot by police tend to be in the process of committing a crime. Or that the reason disproportionate numbers of black men are shot by police is because unfortunately disproportionate numbers of black men are criminals. Far better to ignore the social, economic and historical factors which have brought about this sad state of affairs and simply put it down to the fact that cops love shooting black people. And if anyone points out that actually more white criminals are killed by police every year simply call them a racist and comfort yourself with the knowledge that those white criminals probably deserved it for being white.

Because we can’t expect MTV’s young radicals to do five minutes of research before they open their gobs, just like we can’t expect them to take a break from pissing about with Pokémon Go to read BLM’s list of demands. Because for starters it’s far too long and judging by the brain-surgeons featured in the video the realisation that it’s practically a love letter to segregation may not sink in until 2035, by which time half of them will still be reading it. And those clever enough to grasp that BLM are not quite the principled progressives they think they are will be quite comfortable supporting a Marxist street movement with a tendency to hold rallies at which people get shot. But not by the police, obvs, which is why we don’t talk about them. ‘Cos, y’know, not all black lives matter.

Moving on, the kids turned their ire on those racists who have the nerve to suggest dead policeman deserve as much sympathy as dead criminals: ‘Also, Blue Lives Matter isn’t a thing’ notes one of the wise young men. ‘Cops weren’t born with blue skin. Right?’ Indeed they weren’t and funnily enough BLM head honcho Shaun King wasn’t born with black skin either. But he still has no qualms telling people significantly blacker than him how to think. And quite right too because if someone truly believes they’re black – or Asian, or Welsh, or a 6 year-old non-binary Chinese pensioner with a phobia of spoons – then that’s up to them. As grim as 2016 has been, let’s be thankful that mixed-up teenagers no longer have to black up like Ponyboy in Soul Man to convince the world they’re something they’re not.

Luckily, the fact that ‘blue lives’ tend to be snuffed out in the line of duty rather than committing crimes is of no interest to MTV. Because these crimes wouldn’t be happening if it wasnt for white supremacy, just like Islamists only run people over with trucks because of Western foreign policy or angry snowflakes only harass young mothers on aeroplanes because of Donald Trump. Because you lose the moral high ground the second you start holding minorities to the same standard as everyone else. How can we expect blacks and Muslims to understand the complexities of their own oppression when they’re incapable of independent thought and controlled by white men?

A question brilliantly answered in the video with a succinct history lesson so steeped in knowledge it could have come from Diane Abbott: ‘First off, try to remember that America was never that great for anyone that wasn’t a white guy’. Brilliantly echoing Bernie Sanders who famously claimed ‘When you’re white you don’t know what it’s like to live in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor’, they showed that ignorance of the world outside your echo-chamber is just as common among deluded old socialists as it is hipster millennials with shit for brains.

That this sentence appeared on a channel which features a hell of a lot of people neither white nor male for whom America has been rather great is completely irrelevant. Because there’s nothing leftists love more than dismissing the achievements made by feminist and civil rights movements of years gone by. And if that means pretending Western society is still as racist and misogynist as it was half a century ago and ignoring trivialities such as the fact that women have more freedom and opportunities today than ever before and the most powerful man on earth is black then so be it.

And just because the term ‘white men’ encompasses everything from heads of state to the Mick Fleetwood lookalike who used to sleep in Haymarket bus station doesn’t mean they haven’t all benefited from their privilege. Indeed, it’s the white men out there who don’t even realise that they’re privileged racists who are the most dangerous. As one of the MTV philosophers put it: ‘Just because you have black friends doesn’t mean you’re not racist. You can have black friends and still be racist’. Indeed you can, as proven by every person on this video. Still, it’s great to hear such a plea for inclusiveness and integration from supporters of BLM, a group who are against blacks and whites even going to the same school.

‘Look, we know nobody’s perfect…But honestly, you can do a little better in 2017…Some of you guys do a great job, some of you don’t’. Understandably, this final volley neglects to mention what constitutes ‘a good job’ or why they didn’t make a video lumping every other demographic under the sun into one amorphous, bigoted blob. Because as we know, when anyone else does something bad it’s because we made them. And when anyone neither white nor male achieves something it’s in spite of white maleness trying to stop them at every turn.

Because for too long white men worldwide have had privilege handed to them, even the ones who end up destitute and penniless, watching Sky Sports through pub windows in the pissing snow. For instance, I know from personal experience that when that person who isn’t me was jailed for two weeks he only escaped a buggering in the shower because he was white and male. There can’t be any other reason why his boyish good looks and general affability didn’t make him a prime target for Big Brenda from E-wing.

Needless to say, I hate to think what would’ve happened to Not Me if he’d been black, female or – god forbid – Muslim. But according to the bloke I didn’t share a cell with, the latter would have at least guaranteed Not Me a single cell and some comfortable shoes. This country may be going to hell but at least there’s one place where a Muslim man can do exactly what the fuck he wants.

But while our Islamic brothers will clearly ‘do better’ in 2017 I don’t hold out much hope for white males. As the video showed, white men just aren’t willing to learn about stuff like mansplaining, even when they have it twatsplained to them. Still, in the meantime, lets simply admire MTV for having the nerve to tell millions of people they’ve never met where they’re going wrong. And for simultaneously pulling off an even bigger upset than Brexit and Trump combined: who’d have predicted that the cast of Jersey Shore would one day become MTV’s second biggest pack of cunts?

 

 

 

 

By Ben Pensant

Of all the kind messages I received after publishing my heartfelt tribute to Black Lives Matter in October, by far the nicest was from a young lady called Ho Vs Wade, a friendly feminist who politely informed me I should get back in my lane and cease discussing black issues otherwise she would ‘climb up in my ass’. Going on to critique the essay as ‘misogynoir disguised as woke’ she simultaneously offered a grave warning about what would happen if I carried on writing about African Americans and a helpful hint on the best place to store my Eminem albums.

I’m honoured to have been on the end of such righteous rage and rest assured, Ho, if I do end up swinging from a tree in the grounds of ‘Buckingham Castle’ with Mr I’m Slim Shady Yes I’m The Real Shady’s back catalogue stuffed up my anus I will know it was categorically my own fault. Though whether there’d be room in there for everything from Infinite to The Marshall Mathers LP 2 after you’ve already climbed up in it is anyone’s guess. We’ll make it work.

At the more extreme end of the scale, the Donald Trump supporter who objected to my comments about their hero’s crap ginger hair and suggested I ‘focus on policy’ was blocked, muted and reported for hate speech before you can see ‘micro-aggressive troll alert’. With Trump soon to be ensconced in the White House we’ll be seeing a lot more of this so be on your guard, kids.

But it made me think perhaps it would be better to leave the identity conversation to those who really understand it. Y’know, middle-class feminists like Lindy West, Laurie Penny and Mandy Dingle off Loose Women. Which is why I decided to use my next tribute to the hottest protest movements of 2016 to focus on Black Lives Matter UK, a group who appear to know as much about every day black lives as I do about climbing up inside a privileged white male’s CD-chocka arsehole.

For the uninitiated, BLMUK was set up to highlight the issue of black men dying in police custody, an issue swiftly abandoned when it became apparent that this rarely happens and when it does it happens more often to white people. The obvious solution was to go down the same road as their American counterparts and claim that racist policeman are patrolling the streets shooting unarmed black men left, right and centre. This however, was equally problematic as due to the police in this country not being armed the shooting of unarmed black men happens even less frequently. And like the deaths in custody, when it does the victims are more likely to be white.

The obvious solution would have been to campaign against violence; get involved with black communities; provide support, education and opportunities to vulnerable youngsters; explore the socio-economic issues that lead to disproportionate numbers of young black men becoming involved in crime. But that would have been kowtowing to the government so instead in July they blocked roads around several airports to mark the anniversary of Mark Duggan’s death.

A noble attempt to highlight the epidemic of law-abiding, unarmed black men being executed by the police, an epidemic so serious it happens in Britain once every few years. And a roaring success it was too, just as long as you ignore the fact that Duggan was neither law-abiding nor unarmed but a career criminal who’d been under surveillance for months and in possession of an illegal firearm seconds before when he was shot.

So with one successful demo in the can it became clear BLMUK had bigger ideas. And boy, did they not, as for their next trick in September they pulled off their greatest stunt yet as 9 protesters grounded flights at London City Airport for six hours in protest at the inherent racism of climate change.

Predictably, right-wing trolls and idiots with more brain cells than surnames displayed their ignorance by mocking the idea that climate change is racist. But racist it is, as anyone who remembers the cruel fates of President Danny Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s dad back in 2012 knows all too well. There’s no telling these apologists though. You can bet your life those scoffing also think it was mere coincidence that the super-storm of 2004 just happened to hit the exact spot in Scotland where Adrian Lester was stationed with Bilbo Baggins. Which reminds me: I must add Dwarves to list of races Climate Change hates.

And so it was that BLM came up with the masterstroke of aligning themselves with the Green lobby, a movement every bit as uncompromising and judgemental as them. Indeed, it’s tempting to look at the clip of the 9 people arrested at the London City Airport protest and wonder exactly what drew them to BLM as none of them are black and have clearly never set foot in any of the working-class communities they claim are being oppressed by aeroplanes.

But this is irrelevant. While it may be resolutely Not Okay for privileged white novelists and film directors to comment on black issues it’s perfectly fine for privileged white croquet champions and opera directors to campaign on behalf of the black community by lying down in the middle of the road. Some Tory trolls have suggested that perhaps those with actual experience of working-class black communities – such as working-class black people – are better placed to represent them. Which is utter nonsense: there’s nothing an unemployed 18 year old from Brixton can teach me about black Britain that Natalie Geraldine Twistleton-Wykeham-Fiennes can’t.

Because we may love, respect and patronise the black community but we can’t expect them to understand how climate change hates them. That would be madness. Far better to have it explained by someone who describes their occupation as ‘plotting the downfall of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’. And what people like BLM activist and organic farmer William Pettifer lack in real world experience they make up for with their dedication to saving planet earth, fighting racism and spending their youth living on a houseboat before taking over daddy’s business on their 30th birthday.

So what better movement to infiltrate than one that takes its cue from an American protest group dedicated to peace, equality and segregation? BLM is tailor-made for Oxford graduates who call themselves ‘anti-aviation activists’. Because as anyone who’s read a column by Richard Monbiot or listened to an acceptance speech by Leonardo DiCaprio knows, the planet is getting hotter, it’s all our fault and the only solution is to scream ‘we’re doomed!’ and demonise anyone with a slightly different view.

Because the great thing about the environmental lobby is their ability to convince people with barely enough scientific knowledge to keep a spider-plant alive that anyone with slightly different views about climate change is an idiot denier who probably believes the earth is flat and Neil Armstrong was made of cheese.

So the ideology of zero tolerance green activism – espoused by everyone from John Kerry to Bono out of UB40 – allows liberals, actors and musicians to make huge judgements on people who think slightly differently to them. And these judgement aren’t restricted to someone’s opinion or theory but also their morals, decency and potential to kick dogs. For as we know, any opportunity for the left to let its mask slip and be every bit as intolerant as the nasty right-wingers we attack for being intolerant should be grabbed with both hands.

So it follows that a respected scientist who believes climate change is caused by man-made C02 omissions but doubts the speed and severity with which it’s happening will be attacked, dismissed as a loon and accused of being a shill for the gas & oil industry. Likewise, a climatologist could agree that global warming will have disastrous ramifications but think it’s only partly caused by C02 and that’s enough to be ostracised, stripped of funding and slammed as the flat-earth David Irving. And woe betide anyone who agrees completely with the general consensus but believes there are better ways to tackle it than encouraging dirt poor countries to recycle or throwing millions at the IPCC. With some sections of the left that’s almost as sacrilegious as saying Glenn Greenwald tells the odd porkie.

In each case it’s perfectly acceptable to lump them in with the smaller percentage of scientists who refuse to believe climate change exists at all. In fact it’s positively encouraged as, like most modern left-wing ideologies, if you don’t buy into it wholesale you’re off the team. Our parents didn’t pay small fortunes to have our heads filled with Marxist nonsense at uni just to abandon it for fascist concepts like the ‘middle ground’. You buy the job-lot or you’re the enemy.

And if along they way the actual science part gets lost and it all becomes about ideology and virtue-signalling then, duh – thats the bloody idea. You didn’t think this was actually about saving the planet, did you? If that was the case we wouldn’t be pre-occupied with treating anyone who displays the slightest bit of climate change scepticism as if they’re a Hassidic Jew who’s just walked into Malia Bouattia’s office and asked her to pass a motion condemning Hamas for blowing up buses.

No, if we really cared about why the planet is getting hotter we wouldn’t have deliberately forgotten that scepticism is part and parcel of being a scientist; that most scientists believe a theory is never ‘settled’; that if it wasn’t for scepticism we wouldn’t have scientists in the first place. Because getting bogged down in specifics helps no-one. Far better to let the debate rattle along on left/right, good vs evil terms and frame the argument as a simple question of ‘are you with us our against us?

And if that means making wildly contradictory claims in order to protect the narrative then so be it. So we can’t just agree with the theories written in the many peer-reviewed papers supporting man-made global warming. No, we have to go the extra mile and say their peer-reviewed status means they’ve not only been deemed of critical worth, they’re also 100% correct and anyone who slightly disagrees is a Republican stooge who thinks Elvis shot Kennedy. Then, when a troll pipes up that there are also many peer-reviewed papers that are sceptical about the causes and effects of climate change we simply ignore them, dismiss them as lies or claim that the peers who reviewed them weren’t proper peers.

Similarly, any rise in the earth’s temperature must be accompanied by an avalanche of fearmongering from The Guardian, the New York Times and the cast of Saturday Night Live, gravely warning that by 2018 the Sahara will be completely consumed by flames unless we all start going to work on roller-skates. Naturally this reaction will be in sharp contrast to less narrative-friendly news – such as the recently released NASA data showing temperatures have dropped – which the publications above tend to deal with by simply not reporting them.

Once that’s done we can echo Al Gore and John Kerry, brave men who went that extra inch by claiming there is ‘not one’ peer-reviewed paper that refutes the consensus on climate change. And correct they are too, as there’s isn’t ‘one’ – there are thousands, most of which are available to anyone with a computer, half an hour to spare and the patience to sift through pages and pages of Israeli-funded neo-liberal propaganda.

Speaking of Gore, using statistics and hyperbole from his his award-winning 2008 documentary An Inconvenient Truth is always a safe bet for easy virtue points. Though tread carefully when quoting Gore’s prediction that by 2014 the ice in the North Polar ice-cap could be ‘completely gone during summer’ as not only did this not happen but according to NASA the ice has since grown. This could be countered by pointing out it’s not a crime to miscalculate a prediction and re-evaluating the data to see where they went wrong. But it’s much easier to just accuse NASA of lying, claim Gore was misquoted or deploy the favoured tactic of shaking your head then telling your opponent there’s someone behind them and running away.

Likewise, another way of shutting down debate is to accuse scientists and journalists who believe in climate change but have a different theories on the causes, effects or timescale of being in the pockets of the establishment and big business. The idiot deniers will inevitably point out that the same could be said of those who push the accepted consensus, such as the IPCC – set up by the UN – and renewable energy companies who stand to make fortunes from alternative fuel sources. Do not be fooled by this line of thinking though, as the last thing anyone who cares about the planet must do is admit that maybe, just maybe, there are establishment forces and ruthless companies with ulterior motives on both sides of the argument.

Even-handedness is to be discouraged at all times and should anyone lapse into such a partisan approach simply shame them on social media and call them a tinfoil hat-wearing Trumpite. Then suggest the only reason these loons spread this nonsense is because they’re illuminati agents plotting to destroy the planet by poisoning bats and blaming it on wind turbines. It may not win you much support in the real world but the warm glow you’ll get from bouncing these accepted truths around your social media echo chamber is toastier than the Arctic will be by 2035.

All of which those 9 brave souls arrested in October would wholeheartedly agree with. As we’ll find out the next time they stage a Black Lives Matter protest that has precisely bugger all to do with black lives. On the plus side, with climate change-denier Donald Trump in the White House it’s only a matter of time before he demands all renewable energy companies are liquidised, every wind turbine is turned into a nuclear missile and the entire state of Arizona becomes one huge fuck-off fracking site.

Fear not though, kids, because when that day arrives you can bet BLM UK will awake from their slumber with an ingenious protest to both halt Drumpf’s plans to destroy the planet and highlight the damage all that drilling will do to the earth’s black population. Just as long as it happens sharpish, mind, as come June most of the Gang of Nine will be busy summering in the Cotswolds or ‘finding themselves’ on the French Riviera. But rest assured, they’ll be dreaming up ways to link these two separate issues without looking like a bunch of entitled entryists who know as much about the lives of working-class black Brits as I do about hopping on a private jet to Florence to show solidarity with junior doctors by purchasing Lombardo’s Bust Of Christ and wiping shit all over its beard.

And like good well-to-do liberals they can comfort themselves with the knowledge that neither climate change nor Trump’s rise had anything to do with them. Because the environmental lobby’s hands are clean; it’s the fault of stupid voters and filthy car owners that they elected a President who wants to watch the world burn. And like the Democrats, they can ignore the ugly truth that if the American left had devoted as much energy to addressing the concerns of the working-class they might not have an incoming POTUS who believes climate change was made up by the Chinese.

‘Go white privilege!’ indeed.  

 

By Ben Pensant.

‘Revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts but moral conviction’

Fidel Castro, March 1959.

If there’s a quote that better crystallises the socialist utopia Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz maintained for 57 blissful years I’m yet to hear it. Granted, some prefer his iconic defence of state-sanctioned killings from the same year: ‘We are not executing innocent people or political opponents. We are executing murderers and they deserve it’. And with good reason too as it encapsulates the lies and violence that characterised Castro’s Cuba by insisting that innocent people and political opponents are not being executed while executing innocent people and political opponents.

Other fans like the Lineker-esque grooming-based wager he made with the Cuban public: ‘I’m not thinking to cut my beard because I’m accustomed to my beard…When we have fulfilled our promise of good government I will cut off my beard’. Which explains why when he died on Friday his face-fur was still intact.

And many look to the words he spoke in 2003 as proof that Castro’s dedication to first class education was almost as great as his dedication to imprisoning journalists and abducting homosexuals: ‘One of the greatest benefits of the revolution is that even our prostitutes are college graduates’. It’s a mark of Castro’s brilliance that he created not only an educated workforce but also an economy with bugger all use for it. But at least the hookers know how to say ‘fuck me in the mouth’ in five different languages.

But my chosen quote resonates because of a profound ideological clarity which still brings tears to my eyes. Not as many tears as the Castro opponents who ended up blindfolded with bullets in their brains but tears nonetheless. As newly unemployed footballer-cum-philosopher Joey Barton put it: ‘A giant of a man has passed’.

A giant indeed, looming large for six decades over all the people he oppressed, tortured and murdered. Though it’s unsurprising Joey has such affinity with Castro, as both he and the deceased tyrant have first hand experience of how dangerous cigars can be. Let’s hope he maintains his militant tendencies now he has so much time on his hands; the regressive left needs more principled recruits of his ilk. And few are more principled than Joey, who’s kind to animals, loves his mother and has been banned from more dressing rooms than Barry Bennell.

But it’s the emphasis on ‘moral conviction’ that makes that quote so memorable. Especially as it was spoken after Castro over-rode Cuban law and gave the right of appeal to prosecuters after a tribunal acquitted 44 members of Batista’s airforce. Happily, moral conviction won the day, there was a second trial and the airmen were sentenced to 30 years in jail. Which goes to show what all good progressives know; moral conviction trumps trivialities like the law and human rights any day of the week. And nowhere was this illustrated more than the reaction of high profile leftists to the death of their hero.

Indeed, this belief in moral conviction is so great that all manner of politicians, writers and celebrities have spent the last few days eulogising a dictator whose principles and values were anything but liberal. That the same people were decrying Donald Trump a week ago for his attacks on free speech and freedom of movement speaks volumes about how powerful that moral conviction is.

The fact that they then lauded an unelected fascist who banned free speech and free movement is a testament to their moral conviction. And if that means holding opposing ideas at the same time so be it – there’s nothing like the death of a communist dictator to being out the cognitive dissonance of liberals. Because cognitive dissonance is part of our identity and should be embraced, like laziness, victimhood and mental illness.

Unsurprisingly, the first to laud the Comandante was Jeremy Corbyn, who echoed his 2009 description of Hamas (‘dedicated to peace and social justice’) by declaring Castro a ‘champion of social justice’. It emphasises the Leader’s moral conviction that he has no hesitation in using the phrase ‘social justice’ to describe the policies of a man who sent gays and journalists to prison without trial. But when you’ve already used it in reference to a terrorist group who shoot protesters, fire rockets at civilians and have a written constitution calling for the genocide of Jews worldwide then applying it to a bearded dictator is a walk in the park.

Corbyn then praised Castro’s longevity, smirking as he discussed the US Presidents he’d outlived – a gold star for as far as anti-Western regressives like St Jezza are concerned. ‘It seems like he’s been with us forever’ gushed Corbyn, in tones usually reserved when a family pet or cuddly TV presenter dies rather than an illiberal tyrant who spent 6 decades oppressing, starving, abducting and murdering his own people.

Wisely, Corbyn didn’t expand upon why Castro has ‘been with us forever’ as that would involve mentioning the fact that there hasn’t been an election in Cuba since 1958. Because these are questions for Cubans to worry about, not brave souls like Corbyn who can happily fetishize repugnant regimes from the safety of their Islington allotment without having to think about all the people who suffer in them.

Luckily, Corbyn was nice enough to mention the attacks on freedom and human rights violations that have gone on in Cuba for nearly 60 years. By which I mean he treated Castro’s ‘victims’ with the respect they deserve by dismissing these abuses as ‘excesses’. Tory trolls would no doubt claim this is like saying ISIS throwing gays off roofs and raping children is ‘a bit over the top’. But in actual fact it shows how dedicated Corbyn is to the narrative. A narrative he protected with the relativist trick of pointing out that other countries have ‘excesses’ too. Which is 100% correct and Corbyn tends to be a big fan of these countries just so long as they’re enemies of the West.

Of course, Jezza’s whataboutery wasn’t intended to damn those countries but his own. Which, despite being one of the most liberal societies on the planet is infinitely inferior to a despotic technological black hole in which gays, journalists and anyone who criticises the government tends to be thrown in prison. And if that includes so-called comrades who’ve gone off message then so be it; as Corbyn showed when his Stop The War Coalition supported the Iraqi resistance as they bombed polling stations and murdered trade unionists, the modern left are happy to throw democracy and left-wing solidarity under the bus if it means siding with someone who hates the yanks.

Corbyn then pointed out what a ‘huge figure in our lives’ Castro was. Quite right too, though not as huge as he was in the lives of dissidents he exiled, gays he imprisoned, families he tore apart or opponents he murdered. He then praised Cuba’s education and health service, a common tactic among liberals who believe that high literacy and good hospitals cancel out poverty, censorship and having to queue six hours for a pint of milk. Hey, even Harold Shipman had a nice bedside manner.

On Castro’s health service, Corbyn neglected to mention that not all Cubans have access to it and that the speed and quality of someone’s treatment depends entirely on who they are. Which is just about the best advertisement for a functioning communist state I’ve ever heard. Because if the state takes on the responsibility of controlling every aspect of our lives you have to expect those who run the state to get some perks out of it. Otherwise you end up with meritocracy and no true leftist wants that.

No, the fantastic health service is reserved for tourists and government officials and if the doctor who treats them is lucky he might be on the same money as my paperboy. Proving that the moral conviction Castro spoke of would find its literal translation in his adopted motto ‘sociolismo o muerte’ – socialism or death.

To be fair, those without access to Cuba’s fantastic health service often ended up with socialism and death but hey, we all have to make sacrifices. Indeed, after the Soviet Union went tits up and the Cuban economy tanked, Castro was known to limit himself to only five or six cigars a day while millions of Cubans struggled to eat. Socialism or death, comrade.

But it wasn’t only the next Prime Minister of the UK who paid tribute to a dictator so fascistic he makes Donald Trump look like Jed Bartlett. For Saturday afternoon was a veritable free-for-all for regressive apologists to express their sadness at the death of a man who imprisoned 15,000 opponents, forced 1.5 million into exile and had nearly 3,600 shot by firing squad.

Ken Livingstone demonstrated his inability to discuss a topic without bringing Hitler into it by highlighting the hypocrisy of Brits criticising Castro for imprisoning opponents when during WW2 we threw Nazi supporters in jail. ‘We didn’t have an entirely functioning democracy in World War 2, it was shut down. The general election was cancelled, anyone expressing support for Hitler was thrown in jail’.

Brilliantly doing what he does best, Ken equated those fleeing Castro’s tyranny with far-right supremacists while also pointing out we shouldn’t get on our high horses about a country that had no democracy for 57 years when our own country stuck two fingers up at democracy by missing one election due to the fact that there was a world war on.

He then praised the ‘open and relaxed’ Cuban society he observed as a tourist – a common claim given that tourists are treated like royalty compared to Cubans – before conceding that Castro ‘initially wasn’t very good’ on gay rights, which is entirely true if your idea of ‘initially’ means ‘for two decades’. It’s also a bit like saying ISIS ‘aren’t crazy’ about civil partnerships. But fear not, Middle-Eastern queer community, if the rise of ISIS mirrors that of Castro you’ll only have to worry about being mutilated and thrown off roofs until about 2034 by which time you’ll look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.

However, before right-wing trolls suggest Ken is condoning homophobic hate crime he clarified that ‘the key thing that mattered was people had good education, good healthcare and the wealth was evenly distributed’. All of which softens the blow of abducting and imprisoning people because of their sexuality. And his point about wealth distribution was entirely true as during Castro’s reign no wealth was distributed at all – you can’t get more even than that.

But Ken’s point is the supposedly ‘oppressed’ didn’t know how lucky they were. Because only the most privileged neo-liberal would whinge about being imprisoned in a labour camp when they have the luxury of being sufficiently educated to read the instructions on their weekly dose of painkillers.

Elsewhere George Galloway took time off from auditioning for the lead role in Ken Loach’s Genghis Khan biopic to gush ‘You were the greatest man I ever met. You were the man of the century’. Luckily for George most of the other dictators he’s said the same thing to are dead. Which is fortunate as the likes of Saddam and Chavez weren’t keen on playing second fiddle to some Cuban with a beard. Let’s hope George’s other favourite tyrant Bashar al Assad has a thicker skin as I’d hate to see Mr G get on the wrong side of the amiable Syrian.

Speaking of authoritarians beloved of British regressives, Galloway’s other man of the century Vladimir Putin was quick to air his sadness, praising Castro for embodying ‘the highest ideals of politics’, presumably the highest ideal in this case being a one party state that imprisons gays and murders opponents.

On a similar theme, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei – himself partial to a bit of ideological cleansing and state-sanctioned murder – lauded Castro in somewhat curt fashion: ‘I extensively talked with Castro in person. It is his personality to believe and rely on people’. Indeed, as any tyrant would agree, the ability to believe those who tell you your beard looks fantastic while relying on them to arrest and murder people on your behalf is vital for a dictatorship to thrive.

Let’s hope the Ayatollah isn’t too heartbroken though. Remember, Seyid, your delightful theocracy’s 40th is three years away and that mediocre non-entity of a British backbencher who came to your 35th anniversary bash is kind of a big deal now. So you may have had your last chinwag with Castro but there’s another bearded revolutionary happy to take his place, kneel to Mecca and chew the fat about hanging gays from cranes.

As if the kind words by these honourable statesmen weren’t principled enough, Irish President Michael Higgins praised Castro for surviving 600 assassination attempts, providing ‘freedom for his people’ and creating a country that was ‘determinedly independent’. So independent in fact, that the second the Soviet Union fell off a cliff the Cuban economy followed suit, as it did years later when the arse fell out of that other socialist utopia it was financially beholden to, Venezuela.

Higgins also pointed out that ‘inequality and poverty are much less pronounced than in surrounding nations’. Indeed, there is very little inequality in Cuba as pretty much everyone has fuck all. The fact that so many Cubans happily co-exist at the same level of impoverishment is a testament to the enduring principles of Communism and I’m sure Higgins would love to experience first hand the joy of state-controlled media, no freedom of movement and having to queue 12 hours for a banana.

Not far behind, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau praised the ‘larger than life leader who served his people for half a century’. The fact that he did this by running a one party state in which elections were banned doesn’t seem to concern Justin, dismissing the tyrant as a ‘controversial figure’, as if he were a TV presenter in a spot of bother for making an off-colour joke instead of a brutal dictator who ruled a country through fear and punishment.

Of course, Justin is a self-confessed feminist who applauds gender segregation so we shouldn’t be surprised that he would recognise the mass murderer’s ‘tremendous love for the Cuban people’. Indeed, as every authoritarian leader in history would agree, sometimes the best way to expresss your love for The People is by brutalising them for 50-odd years and plunging them into penury while you live in luxury. It’s called Communism folks. Get used to it.

Gerry Adams, meanwhile, spoke fondly of Castro, in particular his knowledge of Irish history: ‘He was a good friend to the Irish people and an admirer of our struggle, especially the hunger striker of 1981’. Indeed, hunger was something Castro admired a great deal, judging by the fact that his expert grasp of economics ensured several generations of Cubans spent their whole lives bloody famished.

Equally, President of the European Commission Jean Claude Juncker proved his obsession with liberal values such as workers’ rights and freedom of movement extends only to those countries who fund his crumbling bureaucracy: ‘The world has lost a man who was a hero to many…His legacy will be judged by history’ intoned Juncker, unconcerned at the hypocrisy of a man who promotes free movement of people praising a government that forbids most of its citizens from leaving the country. Which, of course, is pure pro-Western propaganda; Cubans are more than welcome to leave Cuba, just as long as they don’t mind chancing their arm on a flimsy raft in choppy waters where the only thing more dangerous than the sharks are the government boats patrolling the ocean. And people say these ingrates are oppressed?

Still, Juncker has proven over the last year that he is somewhat unmoved by desperate people dying on rafts. Here’s hoping he turns the tables on Western Supremacy by imposing stiff trade embargos on Britain for having the temerity to leave the EU. I somehow doubt Theresa May will have the nous to respond to such economy-destroying restrictions in the moral, resilient manner that Castro did but I’m fairly certain she won’t use it as an excuse to execute thousands of her own people, send millions of them into exile and starve or imprison the rest. The cowardly bitch.

On social media the responses were as pleasantly predictable as ever. Northern Soul-loving, loose-lipped lefty Paul Mason took to Twitter to declare that 50 years of totalitarianism and impoverishment was the fault of the West and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Communist states have a habit of descending into totalitarianism and impoverishment: ‘USA punished them with poverty/isolation. USSR used them as pawns. RIP Fidel, Viva the Cuban ppl!’. Whether Mason’s closing ‘viva’ was directed at the ‘ppl’ who Castro imprisoned, tortured or murdered wasn’t clear. Though it’s good to know that the man roundly proclaimed by regressives as a ‘visionary’ was so great and powerful he created a society incapable of functioning without being entirely dependent on two superpowers. One of which he was more than willing to help nuke on behalf of the other. Now that’s vision.

Elsewhere, US Green Party leader Jill Stein took time off from questioning the integrity of her country’s democracy to praise a dictator who actively opposed democracy: ‘Fidel Castro was a symbol of the struggle for justice in the shadow of empire. Presente!’ Stirring stuff, and bang on – if there was one thing Castro ‘struggled’ with it was justice. In fact, along with democracy he struggled with it for 57 years. Indeed, despite promising to hold free elections prior to the revolution of 1959, Castro found justice and democracy such a struggle that most Cubans saw as much of them during his reign as they did soap, toothpaste and newspapers that reported actual news.

Coming full circle, Corbyn fanboy and ‘prison abolitionist’ Aaron Bastani took to Twitter and radio to criticise Guantanamo Bay, the trade embargo, the US judicial system, American democracy, Saudi Arabia, Kings Landing, Darth Vader, lung cancer and any other bad thing he could think of to avoid acknowledging the brutality of Castro’s regime. Interviewed by Julia Hartley Brewer he claimed Cuba’s ills were all down to America, using China as an example of how a Communist state can flourish if allowed to trade. Which is a valid point even if it does ignore the fact that China is a free-market capitalist economy as far removed from the financial and technological backwater of Castro’s Cuba as Aaron is from someone whose knowledge of prisons runs deeper than a Bad Girls box-set.

But it was the BBC who really excelled themselves by reacting to Castro’s death in the non-biased way we’ve come to expect; whitewashing his ‘flaws’, romanticising the revolution and generally giving the impression of a quirky eccentric who divided opinion, like Noel Edmonds in khakis. Though it’s safe to say the last group of people who stood in a line in front of Castro with their hands behind their backs ended up in a lot more discomfort than anyone who’s ever opened a box for the erstwhile Swap Shop legend.

Their rolling news coverage avoided words such as ‘despot’ and ‘tyrant’, preferring the partisan likes of ‘revolutionary’ and ‘hero’, and went to great pains to stress that evidence of atrocities carried out by Castro were merely ‘accusations’, his style of leadership ‘wasn’t without flaws’, and only ‘some’ thought he was a mass-murdering dictator whose authoritarian rule kept Cuba in the dark ages for six painful decades. Brilliant, even handed stuff – take note, Daily Fail – and I’m sure the BBC will react in the exact same way the next time a homophobic mass murderer shuffles off this mortal coil. Though they missed a trick on Saturday night by not having Gary Lineker present Match of the Day decked out in fatigues, smoking a huge cigar and threatening to send Ian Wright to re-education camp unless he removes those queer specs.

But even without the superior education and shiny hospitals, Castro cemented his place in the hearts of liberals decades ago with his determination to stick it to the yanks. Okay, he stuck it to millions of his own people in the process. But they knew the deal and should have felt honoured to play such a huge part in history by dying in the name of Communism. But were they grateful? I doubt it. These days you cant even execute someone by firing squad without them whingeing about their human rights. If you’re reading, Jezza, rest assured; come the 2020 revolution I’ll gladly live in abject poverty, be tortured in a labour camp or take a bullet in the heart if it means bringing freedom, fortitude and fascism to this sceptic isle.

Viva la muerte!

By Ben Pensant

Of all the heart-wrenching pieces written in the heart-wrenching aftermath of the heart-wrenching US election, by far the most heart-wrenching was the heart-wrenching essay penned by professional feminist Lena Dunham, which was so heart-wrenching I almost stopped reading its heart-wrenching content after the first heart-wrenching paragraph.

Posted days after Donald Trump traumatised rich liberals by winning the support of the people who clean their houses, feed their children and buy their drugs, ‘Don’t Agonize, Organise’ pulled no punches in its dissection of modern America.

It appeared on Dunham’s website Lenny, which sends out weekly emails (‘Lenny Letters’) to subscribers, covering a diverse range of topics from the gender pay gap to how, like, awesome Hillary Clinton is. The aim of Lenny is to provide a safe ‘snark-free’ space for women to get information on ‘how to vote, eat, dress, fuck and live better’. Why she didn’t go the whole hog and offer advice to women on how to tell the difference between their arse and their elbow isn’t clear, but it’s good to know Lena respects her sisters so much she thinks they need a New York trust-fund socialite to tell them how to make decisions they’re perfectly capable of making themselves.

Indeed, it’s frightening to think that before Lena became famous there were hordes of dumb women voting Republican, picking their own clothes, having sex how and with who they like and – worst of all -casually eating sushi without considering how offensive this is to the 0.1% of the population who give two fucks about cultural appropriation.

But her diatribe wasn’t just an indictment of the orange fascist who pussy-grabbed his way to the White House by lying, insulting minorities and speaking directly to communities whose inhabitants Lena and co. view as toothless, bigoted imbeciles. It was also a moving account of the pain inflicted upon educated artists by those toothless, bigoted imbeciles. In particular educated artists with their own TV shows about spoilt millennials who wouldn’t know a day’s graft if it bled all over their designer thrift-store cardie.

It began in classic Dunham fashion – the very first sentence featured the word ‘MY’ in capitals – leaving no doubt as to who this essay was about. And on it went, its content both damning and self-congratulatory, as she applauded her generation for having ‘the strongest and most vast understanding of identity politics yet’ while apparently unaware her generation’s obsession with identity might just have contributed to the popularity of a staunchly anti-PC demagogue.

By the end this identity devotee happily admitted she had no interest in knowing why people with identities different to hers voted for Trump, preferring to leave it to ‘the strategists’ and ‘the men in offices’ at Democrat HQ. The ones who confidently predicted they would win and ran a highly effective campaign which managed to throw away Democrat-held states that Barack Obama would’ve had to get arrested for cow-molesting while whistling the theme tune to Bonanza to lose.

Because when it comes to identity it’s the white working-class who Lena has decided are to blame for destroying Western civilization. And the working-class blacks, Asians and Hispanics who voted for Trump are even worse, because nowt annoys regressives more than minorities upsetting the narrative by not doing what they’re told.

So Lena instead spent the whole article focusing on her favourite subject – Lena Dunham – describing the physical and mental effects of Trump’s victory as she recalled how her and a friend simultaneously broke out in hives upon hearing some news they didn’t like.

After crying all over the edgy yet micro-unaggressive ‘baby blue sweater with a not-so-subtle pussy motif’ she had worn especially, she and her boyfriend cried at the Javits Center, cried in a diner, cried on the way home and cried in the shower. After which I like to think her beau – who found the Florida result so traumatising he had trouble breathing – did his best to show solidarity with Lena by crying, reading some Angela Carter and sitting down every time he went for a piss.

Throughout there was much talk of ‘white male privilege’, a phrase that invariably emanates from the mouths of people who are considerably more privileged than any white male I know. And, of course, no little soul-searching about where the Democrats went wrong. And when I say ‘no little’ I mean ‘none at all’ as the only people who ‘went wrong’ in Lena’s cosmopolitan eyes are the dumb voters who had the temerity to reject a crooked, proven liar in favour of another crooked, proven liar who could at least be arsed to visit their towns.

And just in case anyone doubts the hatred these dumb voters have for decent liberals like Lena, check out the campaign of abuse they subjected her to: ‘My phone was hacked and I was sent pictures of aborted foetuses…I was called a fat whore and told I should be killed in front of everyone who knew me’. Vile stuff indeed, but before anyone suggests the type of people who do such things would do them no matter which party they supported, think again. For Lena is in no doubt that issuing death threats and calling someone ‘a fat whore and a retard’ is a characteristic of white men threatened by Lena’s class and intelligence and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that some people are just horrible regardless of their political views.

‘We wanted a female president. We wanted guaranteed control of our bodies. We wanted equal pay. That made us nasty. That made us targets’. Ignoring the fact that it’s actually Lena’s authoritarian streak and unpleasant personality that makes her ‘nasty’ this once again played into her favourite theme – that all criticism of Hillary Clinton is based on misogyny. It couldn’t possibly be anything to do with her dishonesty, her warmongering, her establishment allegiances, her contempt for blue-collar communities, her second career earning millions making speeches for Wall Street or her involvement in numerous unresolved scandals from private email servers and fatal attacks on US embassies to Saudi Arabia’s funding of the Clinton Foundation and the various allegations that she intimidated women who accused her husband of sexual assault. None of which had as much influence on voters as the fact that she has tits and a fanny.

Indeed, the idea that racist, sexist voters would be knowledgeable enough to consider the above claims is ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous, in fact, as Trump supporters suggesting liberals dislike him because he’s ginger. As opposed to the fact that he’s petulant, has no experience of politics, a history of losing money and a knack for appealing to people who make funny hand salutes at rallies. And rest assured, as soon as a Trump voter makes such a claim I’ll be the first to point out how ridiculous it is.

Equally, Lena rejects the idea that her beloved identity politics may have played a part in turning people off the Democrats in favour of a man who actively opposes political correctness. As fellow self-satisfied pseudo-feminist Lindy West put it in The Guardian; ‘Blaming PC for Donald Trump is like blaming the civil rights movement for Jim Crow’. Which would be absurd, Lindy. Almost as absurd as blaming a lack of ‘black safety’ and ‘black upward mobility’ on a white novelist’s confession that he doesn’t have many black friends.

But Lena could barely contain her sadness that thanks to Trump’s victory we will never see the end of the monolithic beast she’s spent years fighting: The Patriarchy, that white male entity responsible for the gender pay gap, campus rape culture and those horrendously micro-aggressive T-shirts for little boys with Einstein’s fucking face on the front.

‘But we kept going, thinking these were the dying moans of the dragon known as the patriarchy being stabbed again and again in the stomach’. It’s heart-breaking to know we were that close to destroying misogyny for good and no woman would have suffered ever again if only a mega-rich establishment female had became President.

Indeed, this was confirmed by Clinton herself in her tearful concession speech when she bemoaned the fact that she never quite broke through that final ‘glass ceiling’. It’s telling that people who spend their lives bemoaning how awful life is for Western women also seem to believe this awfulness would have disappeared overnight if Hillary won.

Hence Lena reserved most of her scorn for the women who sold out their educated betters by thinking for themselves and voting for Trump. ‘It’s painful to see white women, so unable to see the unity of female identity, so unable to look past their violent privilege, and so inoculated with hate for themselves, showed up to the polls for Trump’, she lamented, clarifying her idea of ‘unity’ is dismissing millions of people she doesn’t know as privileged, self-loathing traitors. Despite the fact that the vast majority of them are considerably less privileged than Lena, a woman who is only famous because of her not-inconsiderable privilege.

Privilege which Lena exploits to the full by being not only illiberal but proud of it. Yet she offsets this by still being less illiberal than Trump voters, who she compares to ‘abusers’. Witness her brave call for words to be banned earlier this year: ‘I literally want to make a list of words you can’t use when describing a female candidate’ she blasted, reserving particular anger for gendered insults such as ‘shrill’, ‘inaccessible’, ‘plastic’ and ‘difficult’.

A problematic suggestion from a writer but that just goes to show how correct she is. Because as Lena has pointed out repeatedly, Clinton’s unpopularity has nothing to do with her policies and personality but everything to do with what isn’t between her legs. And if she can shut down debate along the way by attacking freedom of speech then all the better.

It doesn’t matter that it’s not inherently sexist to criticise a female politician. Or that holding women to a lower standard because they’re not men is far more offensive than the word ‘frumpy’. Or that the gendered insults she wants to see banned are about as gendered and insulting as holding a door open for an old lady.

(Me calling Lena ‘an obnoxious little madam’ – now that’s a gendered insult)

No, what matters is staying on the right side of identity politics, something Lena found out when she publicly criticised a footballer (Odell Beckham Jr) who she recently sat next to at a function and decided – without talking to or knowing anything about him – that he thought she was ‘a marshmallow’, ‘a child’ and ‘a dog’. But don’t worry, it wasn’t Odell’s fault, bless him; he’s simply not as as educated as her: ‘It wasn’t mean, he just seemed confused’ she sighed, showing her affinity for normal folk outside of her wealthy, artistic bubble is as strong as ever.

Happily, after receiving much condemnation on Twitter Lena apologised, though this had little to do with the fact that she’d been massively judgemental about someone just because he played football and didn’t go to Oberlin. No, it had more to do with her shame at accidentally mocking a black man  by letting her mouth go without first checking her privilege.

And she still found time to blame it on Hollywood and how being forced to attend events populated by stick-thin actresses literally leaves her with no choice but to decide that a man who’d rather play on his phone than make conversation must be a raving misogynist who can’t bear to look at her. Because there couldn’t possibly be any other reason why someone wouldn’t want to talk to Lena Dunham. I mean, why on earth would a professional sportsman who’s trained and worked hard to excel in his field not want to speak to a woman who not only thinks he’s an idiot but is also so down to earth she applauded a campaign to ban sushi from her college on the grounds of cultural appropriation?

Still, she’s always willing to learn, as demonstrated when she admitted she was wrong to make huge assumptions about an individual she doesn’t know. A period of self-reflection which lasted until Trump won the election, after which she was back to her judgemental best, making huge assumptions about 50 million individuals she doesn’t know. Now that’s what I call growth.

All of which was apparent in her Lenny essay, which predictably made no attempt whatsoever to understand that despite Trump’s more worrying traits –  his admiration for Putin, his plans to censor the press, his views on abortion – many people voted for him in spite of this because they liked his talk of restoring jobs and pride back into working-class communities.

All of which is alien to Dunham as, like many on the modern left, she has no interest in empathy. Indeed, of late she’s been too busy ‘mumbling incoherently’ in the shower and bemoaning the fact she’s been ‘heartbroken by the system for the first time aged 30’ to empathise with anyone. All of which enhances the sneaky suspicion tha Lena’s parents didn’t say ‘no’ to her very often.

And judging by her father Carroll’s recent animated film about how terrible white men are, I get the impression when Lena was a bairn he had slightly more important things to worry about than raising a well-adjusted daughter. Such as abstraction, figuration and how to make a small fortune flogging quirky child-like paintings of ladies’ fannies.

Still, Pee Wee Herman could become POTUS and it wouldn’t impact Lena culturally or economically in the slightest. So let’s hope she sticks to lecturing bigoted men and self-hating women, safe in the knowledge that whatever happens she’ll still be rich and they’ll still be stupid.

Though it may please Lena’s enormous ego to know that even though the result didn’t go as expected she still impacted on the election in her own special way. Indeed, polls suggest there’s a strong case that Trump may not be President now if she hadn’t said she’d leave the country if he won.

Now THAT’s worth crying about.

 

 

 

By Ben Pensant

As Western liberals are once again forced to deal with a democratic result they don’t like, a lot of time has been spent analysing why people voted for Donald Trump. Much soul-searching has been employed trying to understand where Hillary went wrong and what her party need to do to ensure they are never again beaten by a grown man who slags off beauty queens on Twitter at 3am. But all this talk of ‘demographics’, ‘the establishment’ and ‘neglecting the very people whose support you need to win elections’ obscures the truth: everyone who voted for Trump is a racist misogynist and no amount of handwringing, apologism or demonstrable evidence to the contrary will change that.

Because moral superiority is all that matters to regressives and if that means being as intolerant as the people we castigate for being intolerant then so be it. We may perform mental gymnastics to explain why Islamic extremists kill people but we’ve got no interest in working out why millions of Americans voted differently to us. Because everyone knows Islamic extremists kill people because we provoke them, throw gays off roofs because we marginalise them, and enforce Sharia Law because the Zionists doctored every copy of the Qur’an after 9/11 to make it look like Allah wants his followers to kill Jews, subjugate women and purge the world of unbelievers.

Trump supporters, on the other hand, are all rednecks.

Even the blacks, even the Hispanics, even the Muslim immigrants who’ve experienced the horror of Islamism and consequently didn’t fancy voting for a supposedly liberal party who dismiss religiously motivated massacres as ‘workplace violence’. We must do everything in our power to shame these Uncle Toms back into their cabins.

Thankfully, the left have reacted to the election in the level-headed manner we’ve come to expect; by crying, rioting and campaigning to overturn the result. And social media was at the forefront, with everyone from rich liberal musicians to rich liberal actors expressing their disgust that people less rich and liberal than them voted differently.

‘What I’ve learnt so far: America is waaay more sexist than it is racist. And it’s pretty fucking racist’ Tweeted pint-sized funnyman Patton Oswalt. Presumably his ‘America’ doesn’t include rich liberal comedians off the telly who are waaay more intelligent than Trump voters. And they are so intelligent that despite knowing exactly what ‘America’ thinks they are blisfully unaware it takes more than racism to win swing states like Pennsylvania and Florida. Or Democrat strongholds like Michigan and Wisconsin. Indeed, as rich liberal copper-top Rose McGowan told the Twittersphere – it takes sexism too.

‘The hatred for women is so deep, so real. It must be dealt with immediately. It must be excised. Fuck off misogynists’ raged the former A-lister, aiming her anger at both the pussy-grabber and everyone who overlooked his misogyny by voting for him. Because even the most blind right-wing troll can see that all the sexual assault allegations against Trump are true. In fact they’re every bit as true as the allegations against Hillary – that she threatened women who accused her husband of sexual assault – are false. Because the possibilty that both sets of women could be lying, telling the truth or a mixture of both simply can not be entertained.

No, every claim against Trump is true and every one against Hillary is a smear. Forget this and it becomes harder to assert that voting for Trump meant overlooking his misogyny. Because as sure as night follows day some bright spark will suggest by the same token voting for Hillary meant overlooking her husband’s misogyny (and her enabling of it). Fear not though. If this happens simply accuse the troll of being a racist misogynist – a trick that’s been working a treat for Egyptian writer Mona Eltawahy for over a week. Because since last Tuesday she’s taken Twitter by storm with her hatred of Trump supporters, displaying all the calmness of a drunken Milo Yiannopoulos with his head stuck in a feminist’s letterbox.

After a day of calling all Trump voters ‘fascists’ and admitting she hated every one of them she responded to a Tweet enquiring how she knows so much about 50 million people she’s never met with a curt ‘Because I’m brilliant. Don’t hate’. Which neither answered the question nor backed up her hypothesis but it did utilise the classic regressive left manoeuvre of being massively intolerant then when someone pulls you for it imply they’re the one being massively intolerant.

She also brilliantly played the ‘complicity’ card, stating anyone who doesn’t share Trump’s bigotry but still voted for him inadvertently endorsed that bigotry. Of course, by that logic peaceful followers of Islam – such as Mona – are complicit in all the misogyny, homophobia and, erm, murder carried out in the name of their faith. No-one put this conundrum to her but judging by the calm, considered, expletive-strewn responses she gave to similar questions I imagine her reaction would be akin to asking Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi what he thinks of the new Ari Gold album.

Because the one silver lining of Trump’s victory, like Brexit, is the way it’s enabled progressives to throw off the shackles of liberalism and be every bit as divisive as the people we castigate for being divisive. Simple yet effective and it’s been working a charm for everyone from Mona to Lena Dunham for years.

Speaking of the Girls star, she offered the most sobering election night analysis yet in a heart-breaking essay worthy of its own tribute (which is why I wrote one, coming soon). Needless to say, it featured lots of tears and confirmed once and for all Lena’s brand of feminism is less concerned with freedom and equality than it is with telling stupid women what to think. As well as giving the distinct impression her parents didn’t say ‘no’ to her very often.

But as well as adult children struggling to process events they don’t like, Twitter and Facebook have been awash with gut-wrenching anecdotes about actual children terrified of Trump’s America. And as ever, it’s the kids of middle-class liberals who are suffering the most.

Take this heartbreaking Tweet from professional Sharia apologist Reza Aslan: ‘Me to my 5 yr old: The bad guys won this time. Him: What do we do? Me: Not sure. Him: We beat bad guys w/love so they become good guys! Me: (crying emoji)’. It’s hard to imagine how Reza found the strength to explain to his child that while he might dislike Trump he won a democratic election and we should analyse why people voted for him rather than calling them all racists. Luckily, in subsequent Tweets it became apparent Aslan had swerved that conversation altogether:

‘It’s pretty simple. You either voted for Trump because he’s a bigot and you agreed, or you voted for Trump despite it because you don’t care’. Cleverly ignoring the many Trump voters who don’t actually think he’s a bigot, Aslan did what the left have been doing all year and decided millions of people he’s never met are racists. A risky move for someone who has spent his career lying and defending a bigoted religion but I look forward to Aslan dapting this new approach the next time he appears on TV spouting misinformation about places like Indonesia being bastions of liberal values: ‘It’s pretty simple’ intoned Aslan to Trevor Noah. ‘You either defend Islam because it’s bigoted and you agree or you defend Islam despite it because you don’t care’.

But this was just one of many perceptive insights from hyper-intelligent children who, like Lena Dunham, are horrified at the prospect of their life changing ever so slightly now Trump is President. Still, if his presidency does trigger a nationwide recession, there is clearly a whole generation of precocious children just itching to graduate from Harvard and take the sentimental greeting card industry by storm.

I just wish my Labour-voting parents had encouraged me to be open about the political pain I experienced as a child instead of cruelly saying ‘tough’ and getting on with it. I’m sure I’d have become a more balanced adult if they had eased the trauma of Thatcher winning three elections by keeping me off school to attend counselling sessions while they cried, started riots and set fire to bins.

But an even more disturbing effect has been the massive surge in Trump-inspired assaults, proving American liberals have just as much trouble differentiating between reports of hate crimes and actual hate crimes as their British cousins. Indeed, much like Brexit – where everything from robberies to homophobic attacks were cited as proof of the hatred unleashed by leaving the EU – the primary evidence for this Trump-inspired spike seems to be an avalanche of unverified anecdotes on social media.

Indeed, it shows how disturbed the victims are that in many cases their first reaction to being told to ‘go back to Mexico’ or having their hijabs ripped off in public was not to film and report the incident but to go home and write posts about it on Facebook. Thanks to Trump, in a few short days people who usually jump at the chance to report any man who calls them ‘sweetheart’ or upload a video of someone ‘manspreading’ on the bus have become curiously reluctant to share video evidence or inform the authorities. Even the police themselves have noticed, responding to several hate crime reports on social media by pointing out that the police departments in the areas where these crimes took place have heard sweet fuck-all about them.

But they would say that. Because one day after the election Trump already had the cops doing his dirty work. Look at the reaction to the shocking story of a Lafayette student interviewed by police after claiming she’d been assaulted and robbed by Trump supporters. Days after her story was circulated on social media by people who desperately wanted it to be true, Trump’s emboldened bully boys decided not to pursue the case, no doubt due to Islamophobia, white supremacy and the fact that the girl in question confessed to fabricating the entire story. But surely a tolerant society should respect this young lady’s choice to identify as someone who’s been assaulted by Trump supporters? Not any more.

Still, despite question marks over whether these scare stories actually happened – and the alarming lack of evidence – it was heartening to see them liked and forwarded all over Twitter without question. For every genuine case – photos of shops and bathrooms vandalised with swastikas, the video of a man attacking an anti-Trump protester at Ohio Uni, footage of teenagers at a school in Michigan chanting ‘build the wall!’ – there has been an avalanche of unverified anecdotes on Twitter, accepted and disseminated as empirical evidence of the chaos democracy has unleashed upon the US.

Funnily enough, those gravely condemning the wave of violence seem unconcerned with actual, confirmed incidents of Trump supporters being attacked. Indeed, a day after the Lafayette student was revealed as a liar her story was still being gleefully forwarded by liberals on Twitter. Far more gleefully than the video of a Trump supporter being violently assaulted by three men in a Chicago parking lot, the footage of a California Trump-voting college student being pushed to the floor and kicked, the story of the 11 year old from Texas on crutches after being beaten up for voting Trump in a mock election, or the hilarious film depicting a homeless black woman abused and thrown to the ground for holding a sign in support of Trump on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. ‘You spewed hate and you got hate’ a decent liberal tells her as the mob rip up the self-hating whore’s signs and loot her shopping trolley. ‘You got exactly what you were dishing out. I warned you’ he intones, demonstrating the new thirst for retribution the modern left have adopted with gusto.

Which is as it should  be. Because admitting there are violent ‘deplorables’ on both sides muddies the narrative that the left are more virtuous than the right. So incidents like those listed are ignored by the mainstream left, along with gunplay at protests, graffiti stating ‘DIE WHITES DIE!’ and placards suggesting Melania Trump should be raped.

Thankfully there are brave liberals in the media – Shaun King, Rae Paoletta, the ubiquitous Mona Eltawahy – who’ve taken the brave step of documenting the genuinely appalling hate crimes (ie the ones committed by Trump supporters) which may or may not have happened. And when I asked these tolerant pacifists if they were also concerned with the assaults on Trump voters they did themselves proud by completely ignoring the question.

In the mean time, let’s hope we learn more about the 8 transgender folk who, according to Guardian contributor Zach Strafford, committed suicide because of the election. Details are sketchy, which is understandable as there is not one shred of evidence whatsoever that these deaths a) had anything to do with Trump, or b) happened at all. Indeed, Strafford himself hastily deleted his original Tweet for fear of ‘suicide contagion’, a noble yet pointless move considering it had already been re-tweeted 13,000 times. Still, fingers crossed none of the imaginary dead are Trump voters otherwise Strafford and the hate-crime alarmism lobby will have to re-set the fictional death toll to 7.

Speaking of The Guardian, its roster of privately educated hacks reacted to the election result in their usual manner, by writing about white privilege. Which is particularly apt coming from a paper whose staff couldn’t be more white and privileged if they turned up to editorial meetings wearing their Oxford graduation robes and Grampappy’s old pith helmet.

Polly Toynbee, still smarting from the EU referendum, spoke of xenophobia and demagoguery, comparing the newly fascist America to post-Brexit Britain and its Labour-held seats where ‘white supremacism won the day’. Which of course was news to the people living in these communities who are neither white nor supremacists and don’t live in daily fear of being lynched by the Aryan Brotherhood. But these uneducated fools can’t be expected to know as much about the places they’ve lived all their lives as an Oxford drop-out who lives in Sussex, has homes all over Europe and sent her kids to private school despite telling other people they shouldn’t.

Conversely, Owen Jones took the route of blaming Hillary Clinton, castigating her party for putting forward ‘a monumentally unpopular Democrat’. Something Owen is familiar with having campaigned on behalf of and twice voted for a Labour leader who’s about as popular as the Zika virus.

Since the result he’s been in even more bullish mood, warning that due to Trump’s victory ‘every racist, woman-hater, homophobe and right-wing authoritarian feels vindicated’, before going on to list the reasons for Trump’s victory. Which he narrowed down to racism, misogyny and ‘centrism’, none of which explained why people who previously voted for Obama decided to go for this racist, woman-hating, homophobic, right-wing authoritarian.

But Owen isn’t interested in answers. It’s about ideology, silly, hence his next column on Trump was one big call to arms for direct action. Or as Owen put it: ‘Protesters should mobilise in every town and city. Civil disobedience should be employed where necessary’. You could practically hear Owen stuffing flares down his jeans and dusting off his V For Vendetta mask as he typed. Because nothing excites workshy middle-class activists more than the romantic lure of slugging it out with the bizzies.

And should this ‘civil disobedience’ result in violence? So be it – Owen will do what the left always does and blame someone else, just like Bernie Sanders fans did earlier this year after disrupting Trump rallies and assaulting his supporters. Because they would never have entered those rallies if Trump hadn’t have said stuff they didn’t like in the first place. In other words, every brick thrown, every shop looted, every white woman labelled ‘self-hating’ for not listening to rich liberals…it’s all on you, Drumpf.

As Owen said of his beloved left: ‘It clearly cannot compromise in the fight against racism, misogyny and homophobia’ and he is correct, despite the fact that left-wingers like him who make excuses for Islam have been compromising in the fight against racism, misogyny and homophobia for fucking years. But it appears Owen has his wish as the protests have continued daily, the left-wing media helping to downplay the violence and criminal damage by only mentioning the bits they can blame on Trump supporters.

Of course, Owen doesn’t intend to jump on a plane and join in with the civil disobedience as he’s probably been pre-booked to appear at an anti-fracking demo in Rochdale or somewhere. But it’s good to know he wholeheartedly approves of Democrat-run cities and states being destroyed in the name of peace.

And what fun the snowflakes have had having doing it. Much of their ire has been directed towards the Electoral College, an imperfect system which has existed for 229 years yet passed by many liberals and millennials who’ve only just learnt about it and are awfully cross.

Even roly poly polemicist Michael Moore appeared shocked at the effect this flawed yet accepted system can have when it works in favour of a candidate you don’t like. So much so that he joined the Manhattan protest urging Trump to resign because he lost the popular vote. Honourable intentions indeed, and I’m sure Moore and the other Democrats currently whining about the EC kept their objections quiet for the previous 8 years because the Prez had enough on his plate trying to introduce Obamacare and avoid calling Islamic extremism Islamic extremism. See what liberals are willing to sacrifice for the greater good?

Having predicted a Trump victory in July, Moore has been downplaying his Nostradamus-esque qualities of late. With good reason too, as he appeared on Channel 4 News on election night and stated confidently Hillary would win. Still, let’s not be too kind to Moore as along with John Stewart he’s one of the few high-profile leftists to state not all Trump voters are racist and point out that many voted for him because he was the only candidate to address the loss of jobs and industries and pledge to do something about it. So that’s you off the team, chunky.

Yet still the media are determined to pin this defeat on Hillary, the Democrats and even the left as a whole, as if it was our fault that moronic Americans needed a better incentive to vote the right way than Beyonce’s approval or Katy Perry’s tits. Disgracefully, the BBC were pushing this narrative before the votes were even counted, with Andrew Neil, Katty Kay and Emily Maitliss discussing Trump and Clinton with a wide range of analysts offering different theories as to why people chose the candidate they did. All of which were redundant as we all know why: because Hillary voters are good people and Trump voters are cunts. Simples.

Katty and co waffled on about Trump’s talk of bringing back jobs and industries to blue collar areas, ridiculously surmising this might have appealed to people who’ve lost their livelihoods and watched their communities crippled by the economy.

They sugar-coated his racism and misogyny by limply claiming many voters disliked Trump and found some of his views unpalatable but were willing to give him a chance because he addressed working-class concerns the Democrats had categorically ignored.

They obfuscated by citing mistrust of Clinton as a factor in her losing votes to Trump – and winning considerably less than Obama – pathetically trying to claim that lifelong Democrats had voted for Trump yet providing not one shred of evidence other than hearsay, rumour and the fact that he gained swing states and Democrat strongholds from them.

But most shamefully, they had the nerve to wheel out dozens of intelligent voters calmly explaining who they intended to vote for and the reasons why, none of which included Trump’s hate for Mexicans or Clinton’s lack of a penis.

Well, half of them did. It was pretty clear the 50% in the Trump corner were CIA stooges, planted to give the impression not all Trump voters are raving Nazis with feet for hands. This was blatantly obvious as they all appeared to know how to read, none of them wore Klan hoods and at no point did they attempt to grab Emily’s pussy. You fooled no-one, Brillo.

Still, the BBC are welcome to their smears. For now us liberals have to buckle up and continue to cry, start riots and make huge generalisations about millions of people we neither know nor understand.

But it’s vital British progressives apply the same intolerant logic of the American left to our own deplorables, otherwise known as Brexit voters, Tories, ex-Muslims, liberal Muslims, peaceful Muslims, Ahmadiyah Muslims and in fact the vast majority of Muslims who disappoint us daily by not joining in with the global jihad. Now more than ever they need to rise up and disprove Trump’s racist rhetoric, ideally by killing a soldier or blowing up a train. Otherwise, what’s the point? You might as well be bloody Jews.

And we also need to hold our own Neo Nazi government to account, starting with vile warmonger Theresa May. Luckily, The Mirror’s Corbynite Associate Editor Kevin Maguire set the ball rolling, attacking Mrs May for her ‘mealy mouthed’ words of congratulation to Donald Trump. Proving as far as principled liberals are concerned, diplomatic language is only acceptable when used by bearded opposition leaders to address theocrats, terrorists and anti-Semitic extremists.

But at this bleak time our thoughts should be with Hillary Clinton – robbed of victory, broken and pathetic, with only a few million crumbs from her Goldman Sachs speech fund to tide her over ’til pension day. I send this message to you, brave lady, but with a caveat: please tell your fanny-rat hubby to watch his mouth when he’s talking about Dear Leader Corbyn. The last thing you need is the Momentum boys fucking up your shit.

‘Man off the street’ my arse.

 

 

By Ben Pensant

Hot on the heels of my previous piece on Louis Smith’s Loose Women appearance I was saddened to learn this week that the Islamophobic Olympian has been banned for two months by British Gymnastics. Naturally this offended my liberal principles and as a liberal who values their principles I was left with one liberal, principled question on my liberal, principled lips: why the fuck wasn’t he banned for life?

Because it’s all good and well punishing the likes of Smith for offending 1.6 billion people by arsing about on a rug but until we get proper blasphemy laws we’re left with threats and intimidation because a piddling 8 week ban is about as fitting as sending Salman Rushdie to bed without a story. Though he’d probably thank you if it were one of his stories, because as well as being a blasphemous, neo-liberal bigot he also writes prose that could make an onion cry. Not that I’ve read any of his tomes but neither had the Ayatollah Khomeinei and you wouldn’t tell him mocking the prophet is ‘just a bit of fun’, would you?

Still, despite Smith’s woefully inadequate punishment – highlighting this country’s reluctance to help moderate Muslims by indulging religious fanatics – at least it sent a warning. Not quite ‘this is what happens when you mess with Muhammad’ but its a start. Because as delighted as I was with the supportive  messages I received after my last piece it appears there are many out there who still don’t get it. See, for every Tweet applauding my choice to show solidarity with religious extremists there were half a dozen smearing me as someone who shows solidarity with religious extremists. And for every Corbynite who shared my desire for a satire ban there were a handful of Red Tories blasting it as an illiberal, authoritarian concept worthy of North Korea or Stalinist Russia.

My counter argument that curbs on freedom of speech in Western-allied Saudi Arabia are ten times worse than anything Jezza, Stalin or Kim Jong-In could dream up were met with the usual accusations of ‘whataboutery’, ‘moral relativism’ and ‘talking out of my dirt-box’. Yawn. They attempted to silence me by saying I had a nerve accusing others of being Saudi Arabia apologists when I’d written an article defending the very same ideology that compels Saudis to flog and behead people for blasphemy. Needless to say, I debated them with reason and intelligence beefore blocking every person who asked me a question I didn’t like. Job done.

But still, their bitter words left a mark. One repeated claim from was the ridiculous assertion that satire and mockery ‘didn’t hurt anyone’. Seriously. I’d like to see them tell that to Diane Abbott as she recovers from the trauma of sitting down to watch Peston On Sunday last month and being subjected to the spectacle of two well-off politicians and a privileged male giggling like toddlers as a racist comedian did an impression of Diane. Or as The Canary put it: ‘Middle-class white folks laugh it up as they mock Britain’s most prominent black MP on live TV’.

In which Kerry-Anne Mendoza laid into smug host Robert Peston, Blairite traitor Jess Philips and Tory twat Anna Soubry, the latter having completely exhausted the good will she received from leftists for saying that Leave voters were uneducated racists who’ve destroyed the country by forcing gap-year students to face the horror of applying for Visas before they spend 6 months finding themselves in Amsterdam. Their crime was to laugh along to a ‘routine’ from ‘comedian’ Jan Ravens which amounted to her doing a voice which sounded a bit like Diane and saying stuff which sounded a bit like stuff Diane might say. God knows who told her this weird pseudo-mimicry could pass for humour; there’s bugger-all chance it’ll catch on.

Ravens’ defenders claim this type of satirical performance art has been around for years. primarily done by white men calling themselves ‘impressionists’ but I don’t believe it for a second. And even if it were true, just like the claims that politicians of all genders and ethnicities have been on the receiving end of piss-taking since time began, any decent liberal knows if the subject of mockery is from an ethnic or religious minority all bets are off. Unless that ethnic minority is Indian, the religion is Hindu and your name is Priti Patel in which case you deserve every bit of abuse you get for being a Tory sell-out who bathes in the blood of post-Brexit hate crime victims.

‘The bullying and haranguing of female MPs is wrong according to Labour MP Jess Philips. Unless of course the Labour MP is black, backs Jeremy Corbyn or both’ began the article, brilliantly trivialising the actual abuse many female MPs have been subjected to by conflating it with a comedian putting on an MP’s voice for a laugh. Of course, Kerry-Anne – Canary founder and editor-in-chief – knows all about the disenfranchised thanks to her years spent at the coal face as a banker, management consultant and 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

In no mood to excuse the prejudice of the four cowards, she tore into them for failing to acknowledge ‘the ethnic and sexual subtext of the impression’, in particular the way Ravens ‘played into well worn racist tropes about the scary, angry black woman’. Despite the fact her impression was done in a soft, non-scary voice about as angry as Jeremy Corbyn when a hospital is bombed in Aleppo.

Indeed, while these tropes were invisible to most dumb proles whooping it up as the funny white lady mocked the defenceless black woman they were clear as day to those sophisticated enough to pick up on the sinister meaning, such as Gender Studies graduates or Match Of the Day presenters. ‘At one point Peston literally asked Jess “Are you feeling scared over there?”. Because, you know: scary, angry black lady alert’ bemoaned Kerry-Anne, brilliantly deploying the regressive left trick of projecting her own pre-conceived ideas onto others to massage her virtue. Despite Peston’s question clearly referring to the well-documented animosity between Philips and Diane and Kerry-Anne being the only one propagating the stereotype that black women are scary.

She then dealt the hammer blow by conflating Ravens impression with genuinely racist Tweets. Because the two are obviously the same, as anyone who remembers Spitting Image’s shocking depiction of Frank Bruno will recall – a shameful latex monstrosity which was the main factor in Frank’s transformation from sporting hero into a man who spends his afternoons in Asda carpark wearing one shoe and shouting at trollies.

But it’s not just third-rate comics who are in on the act. Even supposedly respectable TV journalist Michael Crick took to Twitter to quote a knuckle-headed taxi driver who said he wouldn’t vote for Corbyn as he’s ‘messed around with that Diane Abbott’. Because even pointing out Corbyn and Diane bumped uglies in the ’70s – as well as being such a bigot he doesn’t find an overweight 63 year old woman attractive – is a grossly offensive act so grossly offensive it’s been given its own name. As Guardian journalist Abi Wilkinson stated in her stinging rebuke to Crick: ‘Someone should tell him that misogynoir is still misogynoir even if you put it in quote marks’. Other examples of ‘misogynoir’ are hard to find, though I’m delighted the left have invented yet another term for shutting down debate very bit as illogical and meaningless as ‘Islamophobia’. Explanations as to what it entails are thin on the ground, though according to Kerry-Anne ‘this overlapping of racism and misogyny is known as misogynoir’, which makes it sound like an actual phenomenon and not just an empty word invented to discredit opponents by accusing them of bigotry. It appears to cover criticism of anyone who happens to be black and female, unless of course they happen to be black, female and a Tory like Helen Grant, in which case all criticism is perfectly valid and any abuse her own fault for being an Auntie Tom.

(Wether or not Kerry-Anne’s criticism of the white, male Preston makes her guilty of ‘misandriblanc’ is understandably not discussed)

Luckily Abi – like fellow middle-class Corbyn cheerleader Owen Jones – is fond of accusing people of ‘complicity’ and her hectoring tone to twice-her-age, forgotten-more-than-she’ll-ever-learn Crick was no exception, subtley lumping him in with the misogynoirs: those rainmac-clad sexist racists lurking in damp alleyways smoking french cigarettes and making jokes about St Jezza getting finger-blasted by the Shadow Home Secretary. I look forward to Abi and Owen applying this logic to themselves and owning up to their complicity in helping elect a Labour leader with more chance of winning The X-Factor than a general election.

But back to Kerry-Anne who signed off with a dig at Dan Hodges for describing a Corbynite as a ‘useful Jewish idiot’, somewhat ironic given The Canary’s refusal to believe Labour has an anti-Semitism problem but more than happy to accept that three people laughing at an impression of a politician is proof of racism and ‘misogynoir’. Because the last thing the modern left are here to do is treat black women as autonomous adults capable of handling some light piss-takery. Just like we can’t expect Muslims to be sensible individuals un-ruffled by the sight of a young man arsing about on a rug, so we have to assume black people are pathetic vulnerable children in need of special treatment and the protection of educated liberals.

Because we’ve seen what happens when you let minorities think for themselves: you get people like Priti Patel and Helen Grant believing they have the right to join the Tories. Or self-hating ‘Muslims’ like Maajid Nawaz and Harus Rafiq setting up anti-extremist think tanks with offensive ideas about curbing Islamism. All of whom think nothing of taking the victimhood we selflessly bestowed upon them and throwing it back in our faces.

No, this autonomy and ‘treating people like adults’ business must be stopped. In a perfect world Nawaz and Rafiq would be allies of Corbyn and The Canary, as modern Labour and Islam have similar views about depictions of the prophet; swap cartoons of Mohammud for an offensive ‘impression’ of Diane Abbott and it’s not hard to see why so many on the left are drawn to such an authoritarian religion. But no, these clownish ‘reformers’ prefer to sell out their faith by working with the very governments who’ve bombed their homelands to smithereens, abandoning the core tenets of their faith in favour of neo-liberal values such as the freedom to say, think and believe whatever you want. A more shameful pair of bigots you’d be hard pushed to find at a Klan rally and their actions won’t be forgotten. Trust me.

But the abuse Diane received is what we’ve grown to expect from the anti-Corbyn media. Indeed, the attacks on Diane are part of a disturbing trend to criticise female politicians because they’re women and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact they’re raving hypocrites who are useless at their jobs. Because as we know, an oppressed minority- in this case a minority that makes up 50% of the population – can NEVER be held to the same standard as everyone else.

So the smears Shami Chakrabarti and Emily ‘Lady Nugee’ Thornberry have recently endured for sending their kids to private schools despite telling other people they shouldn’t are just another example of the misogynist press playing the (wo)man and not the (net)ball. The fact that they both bravely spoke out against Grammar schools (ditto Abbott, who also sent her son to private school despite telling other people they shouldn’t) not only compounded the rampant media sexism but happily also how right these principled women are. Because in Corbyn’s Britain the last thing we’ll need is educated working-class folk. Why not go the whole hog and start encouraging the dumb proles to buy cars and own their own homes? I bet the Tories would love that.

As any idiot knows, for Labour to function we need a steady stream of Oxbridge-educated workshy Marxists to correspond with the steady stream of knuckle-dragging oppressed morons to do the heavy lifting and be patronised at every turn. It’s not rocket science. Yet the haters deliberately ignore common sense and slam Abbot, Shami and Lady as hypocrites simply because they passionately believe in the modern Labour Party’s stance on education. Which is – it’s perfectly okay to send thick rich kids to selective schools but not poor bright ones.

Of course, they don’t repeat that out loud – that would be silly and might upset the Leave-voting plebs who need to be kept on side despite the fact we hate them. No, far better to reminisce about the unfairness of the 11-plus and repeat the shocking figure that only 1300 children from poor families are currently in Grammar schools. While ignoring the fact that if Corbyn’s Labour had their way the number would be zero.

And should anyone point out that the 1300 figure only accounts for kids from low income families and doesn’t include children of working-class parents with good jobs, simply look at them like they’re speaking a foreign language. Which won’t be hard as most modern leftists are completely dumbfounded when they find out not all working-class people are destitute, penniless wretches scavenging in bins and fighting over half-eaten tennis balls. The fact that many little folk work hard and live comfortable lives is a huge indictment of the Blair and Cameron eras and one that Corbyn will be quick to reverse as soon as he sweeps into Number Ten.

Because there’s nothing that derails the left-wing narrative more than ‘Essex Man’ doing well for himself, which is why so many of us are completely unaware that the phenomenon exists. The idea of skilled provincial oiks earning good money in industries which boost the economy and give pride to communities is anathema to the modern left and must be dismissed at all costs. We may stick up for the working man best but it’s far more fulfilling sticking up for him when he doesn’t have a job. Indeed, the esteem in which Corbyn and McDonnell hold time-served men and women working in vital industries was apparrent in their miserable reaction to the news that Nissan would stay open thus safeguarding over 30,000 jobs. You’d think someone had just told them Fidel Castro was a Zionist and sprayed warm piss all over their duffle coats.

But we all know the REAL reason the ladies of Labour are relentlessly mocked and it’s got everything to do with what isn’t between their legs. Thankfully when it comes to pointed political humour the best voices are firmly on the right side, illustrated last month when edgy intellectual Stewart Lee was booked to play an unpaid show at the Stop The War Coalition fundraiser in London. Although Lee eventually dropped out of the unpaid gig (along with former sidekick, edgy intellectual Richard Herring) it speaks volumes about his intellectual edginess that he was happy to give an unpaid peformance for an organisation so dedicated to democracy and socialism it once openly supported a terrorist group who bombed polling stations and murdered trade unionists.

Because this is a man of principle who as well as regularly playing unpaid gigs also has a hard rule never to do corporate shows. Partly because he never gets offered any but mainly because the idea of playing to a bunch of normal people who neither ‘get’ his sardonic humour nor read his out-there Observer column is like cryptonite to Stew. Fortunately he’s willing to forgo such moral objections when it comes to charity work which is why he’s happy to perform unpaid for an organisation that has repeatedly shown solidarity with dictators and religious extremists.

But despite his no-show it’s a huge statement for a comic to endorse a movement just as happy blaming the Paris massacre on Western intervention as it is waving banners that say ‘We Are All Hezbollah Now!’. And even in this hateful climate there are encouraging signs that when it comes to satire the regressive left may just have the upper hand over racist buffoons such as Louis Smith or glorified parakeets like Jan Ravens.

One only has to look at the brave comedians who two years ago shat all over the principles of freedom of speech by signing a petition to ban a TV show they didn’t like. Because if it wasn’t for the likes of Rhys Thomas and Jenny Éclair we may have been subjected to a SECOND series of On The Pull With Dapper Laughs, further traumatising those already triggered by Dapper once saying the word ‘rape’ on stage. Indeed, sources brave enough to have actually watched the show report that Mr Laughs even sneaked that vile word into the show, albeit in a crude, jumbled up manner so it sounded like he said ‘pear’. So we can thank him that millions of defenceless women are now so disturbed by those four letters that even mentioning the harmless green fruit in their presence is akin to biting their tits. Thank god it was nipped in the bud sharpish and these brave comics stopped everyone else watching a show they didn’t like instead of just changing the channel like most unhinking morons would.

In a similar vein, edgy political comedian Sara Pasco last year wrote a passionate piece in The Guardian defending the petition to boycott Ben Stiller’s Zoolander 2 for committing the offensive crime of featuring a transgender character – ‘All’ – played by Benedict Cumberbatch. Sara cleverly avoided triggering readers with graphic details of the offensive content found in the film, a trick pulled off with ease as she hadn’t actually seen it. But that didn’t stop her telling people they should boycott it based on a five-second trailer appearance by Sherlock Holmes with shaved eyebrows.

These examples offer hope to all right-minded liberals that perhaps the tide is turning – maybe there is a bright Corbyn-shaped future where not only will we no longer have to watch offensive characters such as All and Dapper Laughs but no-one else will be allowed to either. Indeed, it’s intriguing to note that had these men, women, xen and xomen been around 30-40 years ago they would probably have stood shoulder to shoulder with Mary Whitehouse.

(Apart from Stewart Lee, obviously. Based on his support for STW the National Viewers & Listeners Association would have been far too mainstream. He’d have more likely got his protest kicks doing benefit shows for Bobby Sands, Gerry Healy and Black September)

But today’s comedy establishment would have no doubt applauded Whitehouse as she tried to ban everything from ‘Til Death Us Do Part and Chuck Berry’s My Ding-A-Ling to Doctor Who and School’s Out by Alice Cooper. She was also famously fond of Jimmy Savile, the NVLA awarding him in 1977 for his ‘wholesome family entertainment’, which in retrospect is a bit like presenting a trophy to the Iranian theocracy for their commitment to gay rights.

Though many on today’s creative left would doubtless have applauded that too, in particular Whoopi Goldberg, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton, Wes Anderson, David Lynch and everyone else who signed the petition in 2009 demanding the ‘immediate release’ of Roman Polanski, the director who admitted drugging and raping a 13 year old girl. As Goldberg said at the time, it wasn’t rape rape. Correct, Whoopi – it was anal child rape.

But seven years on it’s good to know the Guardians of decency in the UK entertainment establishment are every bit as ideologically warped as their film industry brethren. And I like to think they would have been liberal enough to give Savile the benefit of the doubt too. I guess his family should be grateful he never filmed himself arsing about on a rug or did an impression of a black female politician.

Because as Louis Smith and Jan Ravens know, if he had his name would be mud by now.

 

By Ben Pensant

There are many wonderful things that Jeremy Corbyn will do when he becomes Prime Minister: re-join the EU; re-nationalise the railways; re-introduce capital punishment for anyone who smears the Dear Leader, questions his competence or photo-shops pictures of him being fisted by Diane Abbott while Len McClusky blows smoke rings up her arsehole. But by far his greatest policy will be a much needed ban on satire. Or at least the kind of lowbrow satire that thinks it’s funny to photo-shop pictures of Jezza being fisted by Diane Abbott while Len McClusky blows smoke rings up her arsehole. The only political humour to survive will be the cutting edge kind found at The Canary. I’d suggest taking a look but the satire in their Off The Perch section is so cutting edge even sophisticated progressives like me struggle to work out if they’re taking the piss or not.

But as illiberal this sounds, I assure you: it’s bloody not. Because if the last year has taught us anything it’s that being on the regressive left is no laughing matter. And when we are swamped by writers, comedians and sportsmen who seem to think being able make jokes about whatever the hell they want is the hallmark of a free society then you know we’re doomed. Thankfully, one by-product of far-left values dominating mainstream media is a tendency to find allies in the unlikeliest places, such as on daytime TV. And that’s exactly what happened for ten glorious minutes last week when Loose Women mutated from a show about the menopause into a pop-up blasphemy court as a young man was informed that the death threats he and his family recently received from religious extremists were completely his fault for TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING TRIGGER WARNING filming himself at a wedding arsing about on a rug. 

Yes, you heard that right and I apologise to anyone too traumatised to read on but some things are so vile they can’t be sugar-coated. A rule adhered to by former pop star-turned jilted wife Linda Nolan as she gravely introduced multiple medal-winning Olympic gymnast Louis Smith days after he disgraced himself and his profession by filming himself and a mate arsing about on a rug: ‘What was going through his head when he was filmed in an offensive racist video?’ Linda tutted, sparing the sensitivities of the viewers by giving no indication whatsoever as to how arsing about on a rug is racist and which race his arsing about on a rug offended. ‘He’ll be telling us what he’s going to do to make things right’ she warned.

As anyone who has followed this vile story knows, the phrase ‘arsing about on a rug’ isn’t the half of it. What Smith did may not qualify as ‘satire’ but it was certainly ‘mockery’ and neither have any place in the civilised society Corbyn intends to build. (As soon as he’s finished travelling the world praising dictators while dressed as a Butlins redcoat freed after 30 years trapped down the back of a fruit machine).

For when Louis Smith decided it would be funny to pray, shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ and make disparaging remarks about ’60 virgins’ he hurt and offended peaceful Muslims everywhere. So hurt and offended, in fact, that several of them took to the internet to demonstrate how peaceful they are by threatening to kill him and his family. Something which Linda was in no mood to condemn as she referred to ‘the racist video which mocked the Islamic faith…and caused his family to receive death threats’.

Wisely, these death threats received little attention from Linda and co, other than to emphasise how offensive the video was. Indeed, it’s a sign of how principled and identity politics-obsessed our media has become that the presenters of a mainstream chat-show deemed a young man arsing about on a rug more worthy of outrage than the fact that a young man was sent death threats for arsing about on a rug. Because what looks like arsing about on a rug is actually mockery. And any idiot knows the worst thing anyone can do in the eyes of the modern left is mock a peaceful religion that believes horses can fly and gays should be ‘punished’.

‘So what does he have to say for himself?’ asked Linda before a defeated Smith took to the stage, and if he thought he was going to get an easy ride he was in for a shock. Because grilling an Islamophobe is no job for the terminally nice Andrea McClane or right-wing Murdoch shill Suzanne Moore. No, this task required the big guns and in June Sarong, Janet Street-Preacher and Mandy Dingle that’s exactly who we got.

And boy, did they relish the chance to unleash their inner SJWs and tackle a subject somewhat meatier than useless husbands or itchy fannies. Street-Preacher steamed in first, comparing Smith’s behaviour to ‘a drunken teenager’ before Sarong took the reins to assure Smith they hadn’t invited him on to attack him, a point she proved tenfold by going on to attack him. ‘At what point did you think it was okay to do that?’ she raged, unaware that we live in a country in which it is not only ‘okay’ to make jokes about religion, it is also encouraged by our Islamophobic media and their offensive view that no idea is above having the piss taken out of it. Even harmless ideas such as believing anyone who leaves Islam deserves to be killed.

Brilliantly shutting down Smith’s attempts at contrition by constantly interrupting him, Sarong then deployed a classic regressive manoeuvre by pointing out that, as a mixed race man, he should have known better than to be racist towards a religion whose worldwide community consists of hundreds of races. As you’d expect from a woman who called the rug footage ‘disturbing’ and spoke of it in horrified tones usually reserved for ISIS beheading videos or repeats of Your Face Or Mine, Sarong was in no mood for Smith’s claim that his behaviour wasn’t racist, countering that it was ‘xenophobic and prejudiced’. Who or what Smith was being xenophobic and prejudiced against isn’t clear as at no point in the video does he express dislike for foreigners nor act in a discriminatory manner towards Muslims. However, as a privileged white male I would say that. Because if a black woman off the telly says something is xenophobic and prejudiced then it bloody well is.

Having trivialised the actual racism Smith and millions of others in the real world have exprienced by comparing it to a young man arsing about on a rug, Sarong took a breather, perhaps to ponder the seismic effect Smith’s behaviour may have on the environment. A ludicrous concept, yes, though no more ludicrous than her theories about the 2004 Tsunami that she aired while working on a show with Naval officer-turned-actor-turned-bat-shit-conspiracy theorist Jesse Ventura.

The baton was then handed to Mandy Dingle, who took the unusual step of bringing up the death threats that Smith and his family received ‘as a result’ of Smith arsing about on a rug. Happily the thorny issue of the threats was abandoned after roughly five seconds of Smith talking about them as Dingle quickly interrupted him to assure the audience that despite evidence of his racist behaviour he was actually ‘a good person’. As opposed to an evil racist who decided to insult 1.6 billion Muslims by arsing about on a rug.

Dingle then offered her own theory as to what may have driven Smith to risk his career by suggesting his fame and success had gone to his head, in contrast to hers appears to have gone to her arse-cheeks. This received much giddy approval from the panel, the opposite of the silence that greeted his swiftly silenced comments about receiving death threats. Because in these enlightened times a young man enjoying life after working hard to fulfil his ambitions is a far greater crime than threatening to behead someone for arsing about on a rug.

In fact, it’s a testament to how brilliantly identity politics has skewed the discourse that the only reason the death threats were briefly mentioned in the media was to highlight how horrendous Smith’s behaviour was. Despite much talk in The Guardian and The Mirror about the ‘feelings’ of religious conservatives and radical Islamists, there was little if any discussion about the feelings of Smith’s family who had received delightful social media messages from men in masks with pistols on their laps.

No, the consensus was that he brought it upon himself by arsing about on a rug, a view compounded by the Muslim representatives who the press asked to comment. Not Muslim reformers such as Maajid Nawaz, Asra Nomani or Shiraz Maher; too liberal, too progressive, too likely to say that when a man is sent death threats by followers of a religion for arsing about on a rug the problem lies with the religion not the man arsing about on a rug. No, the Muslim community quote which dominated virtually every piece of reportage came from the far more authentic voice of Mohammed Shafiq – chief executive of the Ramadan Foundation – who spoke for progressives, appeasers and extremists everywhere when he said ‘Our faith is not to be mocked. Our faith is to be celebrated’. Which tenet of his faith is to be celebrated wasn’t clear but luckily a fair amount of Muslims had already decided to ‘celebrate’ the part where the Qur’an orders its followers to kill anyone who mocks their religion. Pass the bunting.

Character assassination complete, the ladies used up the last minutes of the ‘interview’ by compounding Smith’s shame with every weapon in their arsenal; blaming him for ‘letting down’ his mother; accusing him of not shaking hands with his team-mate in Rio (despite the fact he did); and issuing dark warnings about the effect his disgusting behaviour could have on his career. ‘What are you going to do to solve this?’ asked Sarong, the ‘this’ in question being the pain and offence he has caused the Muslim community as opposed to all that trivial business of he and his family receiving death threats.

They finally got what they wanted as Smith admitted to being ‘ashamed’ of his behaviour and the Faith Militant nodded approvingly. Satisfied their work was done, Linda thanked him for having the bravery to be denigrated on live television. ‘Bravery’ being an apt word for appearing in public in the same week strangers have been telling him he deserves to die. Indeed, I almost felt proud to be British as I watched an Olympic athlete patronised by a woman whose greatest claim to fame is she was once touched up by Jimmy Savile.

Asked if he would apologise to the Muslim community he said he would, though knowing this despicable character the chances of this happening are as remote as Janet Street-Preacher apologising to Donkey from Shrek for stealing his teeth. As it happens, Smith made a lame attempt at contrition by visiting some mosques in London to learn about the Islamic faith. However, he even managed to bugger that up as one of the mosques he visited was of the Ahmadiyya variety, a branch of Islam whose followers are regarded as even worse than young men who arse about on rugs. So if he thinks indulging these sell-outs will get the extremists off his back he’s in for a shock.

Indeed, Smith need only look at Glasgow shopkeeper Asad Sha, the Amahdiyya Muslim who provoked his own murder back in May when he disrespected Islam by wishing ‘happy Easter’ to his friends and neighbours. Smith needs to buck up his ideas unless he wants to wind up bleeding to death in the street for being a nice person. But if that happens could anyone seriously argue Smith didn’t bring it upon himself?

Not with a straight face. Because from 9/11 to 7/7, Lee Digby to Charlie Hebdon, the Rochdale grooming gangs to the Cologne sex attackers, when it comes to atrocities carried out in the name of Islam the left have a proud tradition of forgiveness, understanding and ingrained victim-blaming. Because sometimes a narrative is so precious the only way to preserve it is to, well, blame a victim. We’ve spent years taking autonomy away from Muslims and there’s no way we’re giving it back just because someone threatened to kill an Olympian’s mam.

It may be clear as day that the only crime here was committed by those who sent death threats to Smith for arsing about on a rug. But it’s clearer than day that those death threats would never have happened if Smith hadn’t arsed about on a rug. And if this sounds suspiciously similar to a crusty judge accusing a rape victim of causing her own sexual assault by wearing a short skirt then so be it. Muslims – along with all the other oppressed groups the left have declared unthinking victims to be infantilised in the name of solidarity – can not be held responsible for their own actions. Especially not when those actions are the result of widespread Islamophobia, cruel Western foreign policy and the unforgivable crime of a young man arsing about on a rug.

So let’s applaud our progressive media for abandoning common sense and liberal values to put the feelings of radical extremists first. The only way is up now for Linda and co who’ve at long last achieved their ambition of producing a British chat-show every bit as hysterically judgemental as The View. All we need now is Whoopi Goldberg to appear as a guest panellist and inform us that last November’s Paris attacks weren’t terrorism terrorism and the transformation will be complete. I also look forward to them inviting ugly Islamophobe Salman Rushdie onto the show to say sorry for forcing the Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a death sentence against the novelist for writing a book. And fingers crossed after Asia Bibi is finally executed for blasphemy ITV send Jordan and Maureen Holdsworth to Pakistan to ask Asia’s corpse just what the hell it was thinking when it insulted Muslims worldwide by taking a sip of water from a co-worker’s cup. While taking a huge shit on the Qur’an and arsing about on a rug. Probably.

Stay Loose, ladies. 

 

By Ben Pensant

Since Labour fell into the hands of bedsit militants it’s been tempting to sit back and marvel as Jezza holds the Tories to task by disappearing for days on end, giving speeches at events organised by rape apologists and refusing to condemn Putin as he bombs the shit out of Aleppo. However, it would be complacent to simply revel in the joy of watching Her Majesty’s Opposition taken over by people who’ve spent their careers in duffle coats selling badges. Because the regressive left is for life, not just Saturday afternoons in Hyde Park. Defending the oppressed, targeting the powerful, sending death threats to people we disagree with – these are all parts of an ongoing process which requires skill, dedication and a horde of smug liberals hysterically accusing people of racism on the internet. Which brings us to Gary Lineker.

Or rather, his new fans and their fantastic online reaction to his recent plea for tolerance towards child migrants – and his subsequent spat with The Sun – which saw the former England striker beatified by social media. Since then Lineker’s every utterance on the subject of Lineker has been greeted with a level of reverence not seen since Trump supporter Caitlyn Jenner was anointed High Priestess of decency and goodness by the same tolerant liberals now calling Trump supporters indecent and evil.

Lineker’s path to sainthood began after pictures emerged of 14 child refugees arriving in  Britain from the Calais jungle. Almost instantly the right-wing press took a break from smearing Jeremy Corbyn by reporting stuff he’s said and done to question whether these youngsters were, as they claimed, under 18. This suspicion was clearly motivated by The Sun et al’s hatred of foreigners and nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that most of these children had beards, wrinkles and the haggard look of men who’ve spent 30 days trapped down a South American copper mine. And sure enough, Tory trolls and people with eyes seized upon these inconclusive photos as evidence that adult migrants often pose as children, something which all liberals know never happens. Despite all the first hand evidence which suggests it happens rather a lot.

And this was where our new favourite Match Of The Day presenter steamed in: ‘The treatment of some towards these young refugees is hideously racist and absolutely heartless’ he lamented on Twitter, asking ‘what is happening to our country?’. Who he meant by ‘some’ wasn’t made clear but as this tweet arrived the day after the pictures of the child migrants who looked a lot like adults and came hot on the heels of the press and people on the internet pointing out these child migrants looked a lot like adults it’s fair to say Gary was probably talking about people who thought these child migrants looked a lot like adults. Which made them all ‘hideous racists’ for buying the MSM line that the reason many child migrants look a lot like adults is because many child migrants are actually adults.

Predictably, Lineker was abused on social media and before long The Express and The Daily Mail had joined the hate campaign. They even had the nerve to run stories featuring supposed ‘experts’ to back up their bigoted theory that migrants sometimes lie about their age. This roll call of hideous racists included carers, charities, foster parents, aid workers, immigration officers, other migrants and even the Home Office, who poured petrol on the fire by releasing unnecessary statistics showing two-thirds of Calais refugees who had their ages assessed in the last year were found to be over 18 despite claiming to be children. Luckily, as these statistics and first hand accounts came exclusively from the right-wing media – as well as renowned Tory mouth-pieces The Independent, The Mirror, the BBC and ITV – they could be easily ignored or dismissed as part of the anti-migrant conspiracy, much like the inconvenient reports from Sweden estimating 70% of migrants lie about their age.

Such xenophobic fearmongering is typical of the Swedes though, a nation of 9.8million who demonstrated their xenophobia by taking in 160,000 refugees in 2015. Not only that, they have a long history of carrying out humiliating dental checks on migrants to determine their age, a dehumanising process which has no place in the caring, sharing EU despite the fact it’s common practice in all but 3 member states. One of which is Britain and I’m as shocked as anyone to finally report something good about this hate-crime ravaged isle. Indeed, this compassionate stance by the Home Office shows how tolerant and humane we are that we’re willing to let actual refugee children remain in a squalid, dangerous camp while men twice their age jump the queue, are absorbed into the care system and handed the freedom to drink beer, smoke tabs and share bunk-beds with 10 year olds.

Because thanks to our Home Office’s commendably lax age verification process – which apparently amounts to nothing more than asking someone how old they are – we now have the delightful situation where unaccompanied refugee kids barely out of nappies are overtaken on the list of priorities by slightly older migrant kids who look like extras from the Ken Loach re-make of Assault On Precinct 13. And this latter group are to be defended at all costs, not just from Murdoch press attacks but also interfering aid and charity workers whining about the supposedly more ‘deserving’ kids left behind. Of course, none of these Tory shills mouthing off to the Telegraph provide any proof of these neglected tots, apart from official reports, eyewitness accounts and video evidence.

But as all regressives know, we live in a world where footage of Jeremy Corbyn paying tribute to a theocracy that hangs homosexuals can be mocked up and planted on YouTube by Zionists before you can say ‘alien autopsy’. So all the first hand evidence can be taken with a huge pinch of salt; just because they’ve actually been to the camp doesn’t mean they know more than those of us who’ve read about it in The Guardian. A paper, by the way, that took the compassionate-and-not-ideological-in-the-slightest decision NOT to publish the photos of the bearded children out of respect for their privacy. The same respect they showed 3 year old Syrian Aylan Kurdi last year when in another compassionate-and-not-ideological-in-the-slightest move they splashed photos of his dead body washed up on the shore of Bodrum all over their front page. See how sensitivity’s done, Dacre?

Of course, any good will the Home Office garnered for their admirable approach to age verification was destroyed when they decided to pander to Neo-Con groupthink by releasing the aforementioned statistics showing 2/3 of Calais refugees had lied about their ages. Or at least it would have been were it not for the fact that most social media liberals weren’t aware of the stats and the ones who were either dismissed them as lies or claimed they were taken out of context. ‘Yeah well what do the fucking useless Home Office know?’ was the general response from the few who acknowledged the existence of the widely reported figures. The very same few who had previously lauded the Home Office as a beacon of compassion for not subjecting migrants to the same checks which virtually every other country in Europe has for years. Checks which would have resolved this issue conclusively long before ownership of the argument fell into the hands of ranting demagogues on left and right. Phew.

Because as we know, being seen to show compassion for refugees is far more important than actually helping them. Why waste your own compassion when you can just pinpoint someone with less compassion – a Tory, perhaps, or a Jew – and attack them for it? Far more satisfying is the special skewed compassion that allows us to show solidarity with the people jumping ahead of vulnerable children. Well fear not, kids – you’ll get your turn in the spotlight. But last week was all about the incredible ageing boys and this is why we must fight attempts to derail the narrative, such as lies, smears and demonstrable proof that migrants sometimes lie about their age. This is the Home Office’s real crime and one far greater than their cack-handed approach to checks. Because inconvenient truths like this have the potential to make the liberal left look blind or stupid. And that simply can not happen.

Because on the modern left using our own eyes and acknowledging unpleasant facts is to be discouraged at all costs if it messes with the narrative. In this case a narrative that has decreed every young man in the Calais Jungle is a harmless child refugee fleeing war-torn Syria. Which, as leading geopolitical analyst Lily Allen put it recently, is war-torn because of Britain. Therefore it’s our duty to let every single one into the UK with as little done as possible to guarantee the most in need are given first priority. Got it?

The fact that numerous charities and immigration services have categorically stated most of the males in Calais are economic migrants from Sub Saharan Africa is irrelevant – modern liberal compassion doesn’t discriminate between those most in need and those pulling a fast one and the statements were probably made up by the Tories anyway. Far easier to pat ourselves on the back for caring so much about vulnerable children that we’re perfectly happy for them to remain in a squalid camp while young Syrian refugees – many of whom are neither young, Syrian or refugees – are given access to all the luxuries our society has to offer, such as food, warmth and Spider-Man pyjamas.

But luckily for Lineker and his new devotees a trump card was waiting to be played as one of the children who The Sun claimed was around 38 was revealed to be a UN interpreter. Quick as a flash, social media burst into action and lambasted the Wapping wankers for lying. Lineker himself replied to a Tweet revealing The Sun’s deception with a sarcastic ‘Wow! Surely not!’. A Tweet which was subsequently removed when the story took a new twist with the revelation that the interpreter story was actually bollocks and the 38 year old-looking child was a refugee.

Unsurprisingly the avalanche of frothing ‘See! I told you so!’ proclamations abruptly stopped but this was of little importance as the meme had already worked its magic. So magical in fact that even now, a week later, social media is awash with people who still think the hapless lad was an interpreter, David Davies is the devil and unicorns exist. Job done.

Which led to The Sun’s most shameful moment as they realised peppering arguments with truth and evidence holds little sway over public opinion so they tried another tactic and called for Lineker to be sacked. The gall of them to attack freedom of speech was not only pitiful but hugely offensive to the left: it’s OUR job to go around policing opinions and demanding people lose their jobs and we won’t be giving it up soon no matter how many of our PC clothes are culturally appropriated by the right.

Thankfully the compassionates mobilised, decrying The Sun’s attempts to shut down debate and punish views they disagree with. Where these free-speech advocates were when the liberal establishment were forcing a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist to resign for making a quip about female scientists isn’t clear. And why there wasn’t similar outrage from the anti-censorship left when Dapper Laughs: On The Pull was removed from ITV2 after 50 comics signed a letter urging them to cancel the series is a mystery. Because as all leftists know – as well as the editors of The Sun, the bloody copycats – freedom of speech only applies to people we like. So if this means pressuring a respected academic to abandon his life’s work for telling a harmless anecdote about women crying then so be it. If it results in comics campaigning to censor a fellow comic because they don’t like his leering, sexist dimwit alter-ego playing gigs in which he behaves like a leering, sexist dimwit then tough shit. You need only consider the 68,000 signatures on the successful petition to cancel …On The Pull to see how popular The New Censoriousness is.

Apart from when The Sun get in on the act, obvs. When that happens we have to double down. So we can’t simply say that Lineker should be perfectly entitled to express a political opinion without impacting his job; no, we have to also defend his assumption that doubting the migrants’ ages is ‘hideously racist’ and his propagation of the fictitious ‘interpreter’ narrative. We can’t simply point out The Sun are huge hypocrites to call for someone to be sacked when they regularly deride special snowflakes for doing the same; no, we have to accuse them of making up quotes, publishing fake statistics and deliberately stirring up hatred against the wrinkled young boys of Calais who all look like middle-aged men because they’ve spent their childhoods running from tyranny. Despite the fact that the European Commission have pointed out 60% of them are economic migrants who literally haven’t.

Happily, at the time of writing the Calais Jungle is in the process of being dismantled, helped along by residents who decided to chip in by setting fire to a tent and almost burning 17 refugees alive. Then setting fire to another. And another. And some shops. And restaurants. Clearly in their desperation to reach Britain many refugees have decided enough’s enough and who can blame them? It’s a knocking bet the right-wing press’s offensive coverage played a huge part in inciting these crimes and the only way to rectify this is to offer those responsible freedom, shelter and generous benefits. If that means jumping to the front of the queue at the expense of unaccompanied children in need of help then so be it (we can always blame The Sun for that too).

And should any of these kids end up a pile of burnt bones as the chaos at the camp intensifies then all the better. There’s nothing us liberals like more than a grisly photo op to get the self-righteous juices flowing. The last thing we need is for actual vulnerable children to be let into the country and helped when it’s far more beneficial to our sense of superiority to have them smouldering in Calais or decomposing on a beach. And for these sacrifices we should honour and cherish every dead child for reminding everyone who the issue is really about: us.

So what began as a potentially narrative-damaging chain of events turned into a triumphant week for the left, as our favoured tactics of spreading lies and ignoring evidence paid off handsomely. And while we may not have won the argument the whole process gave our moral superiority a healthy top-up. Credit too to Lineker for adopting the tried and tested manoeuvre of making wild claims online then hastily deleting them and pretending it never happened.

Ultimately though, as grateful as we are to Gary for giving us an excuse to be the most compassionate people in the room, his major flaw was his warmth and likeability. This meant even those who disagreed with him probably had some sympathy, despite on the whole being racists, xenophobes and sons of bitches. He was also a marvellous striker and a genial, knowledgeable presence on Match Of The Day. Which makes me doubt he has the talent, backbone and obnoxious opinions necessary to beat the trolls. Far better to get the message across by having zero warmth and credibility whatsoever, a trick pulled off by early ’90s icon turned obnoxiously opinionated political commentator, Terry Christian.

As anyone lucky enough to have witnessed the mouthy DJ’s regular Twitter spats will know, Terry is a maverick who pulls no punches, sticking two fingers up at the public in a manner befitting a celebrity who no sod outside Manchester or under 35 has heard of. As well as displaying his working-class credentials by questioning the IQ of Leave voters and branding them all ‘a bit tinfoil hat, a bit Little Englander’, Terry has a brilliant tactic for winning arguments on Twitter which involves butting into conversations, refusing to answer questions then calling anyone who disagrees with him a ‘fascist’, a ‘numbskull’ or a ‘fascist numbskull’. Before blocking them. But not before he’s accused them of ‘shutting down debate’, proving his grasp of irony is almost on par with his ability to make reading an autocue look as mentally taxing as quantum mechanics. But this is the type of bravado we expect from the only man in history to present a TV show with Tony Wilson on which the former Factory boss was the second biggest cunt. So if Lineker is serious about cementing his position in the hearts of the regressive left he could do worse than take a leaf out of Terry’s book, whose opinions on the migrant crisis are just as nuanced, tolerant and apparently scribbled in crayon by a drunk 5 year old as his thoughts on Brexit.

So come on, Mr Lineker – it’s time to behave like a man his mid-50s is supposed to and start swearing at people on the internet whose opinions you don’t like. You’ll feel much better for it and frankly it’s the best education on offer. Who better to school you in political discourse than a cheeky northerner whose greatest contribution to television history was a man eating his own sick?

Just say The Word, Gary.

By Ben Pensant

I’m sure I wasn’t the only impartial observer  green with envy last month as protesters in North Carolina vented their anger at the killing of yet another black man by looting shops, setting fire to cars, and killing yet another black man. Of course, as 26-year-old Justin Carr was shot by a fellow demonstrator his death provoked far less outrage than the police shooting of Keith Stott which inspired the protest in the first place. In fact, the courageous leaders of pro-segregation movement Black Life Matters are so dedicated to saving the lives of young black men they have a policy of ignoring young black men who aren’t killed by the police. So much so that, despite these deaths happening far more frequently, they are disregarded with the same evasive skill deployed by the Stop The War Coalition when asked to condemn Russia for bombing the shit out of Aleppo.

Which is a shame. Not because the life of a young black man killed by another young black man is worth as much as the life of a young black criminal killed by a cop. That would be absurd. No, the reason Carr’s death is worth remembering has nothing whatsoever to do with the travesty of a 26-year-old murdered while attending a peaceful protest. Because Carr took one for the team. Or, in the words of his own mother, “died for a cause”. What this cause is or how it was furthered by a black man dying is irrelevant, as is the fact that the real reason he died is because BLM protests tend to attract people who carry guns and shoot people. But only people who deserve it, obvs, as anyone whose heard those delightful ditties ‘Pigs In A Blanket’ and ‘What Do We Want? Dead Cops!’ will agree.

No, recognition from BLM is exclusively reserved for that smaller group: unarmed law-abiding citizens killed by trigger-happy cops. Or the larger number of young black men killed while committing a crime or in possession of a firearm. Luckily BLM are so opposed to labelling blacks as criminals they deliberately refuse to differentiate between black citizens and black criminals. The politics of identity has deemed them all the same and should a member of either demographic die at the hands of a police officer he or she is instantly labelled a victim of an overtly racist society that pays white cops to eat doughnuts, polish their sirens, and casually shooting black men on their coffee breaks. Of course, should any black man – criminal or otherwise – be shot by another black man the reaction is somewhat different: BLM simply pretend it didn’t happen, despite the fact it happens considerably more often. It’s highly impressive that a group so obsessed with the horrors of the past are such experts at forgetting stuff that occurs with depressing regularity in the present.

Indeed, it’s testament to how dedicated to stopping the tide of murder BLM are that they have no interest whatsoever in acknowledging the many socio-economic factors that lead to disproportionately large numbers of young black men turning to crime and killing each other. The only black lives that ‘matter’ are those snuffed out due to systemic racism and white privilege and should any black person be needlessly shot dead by another black person while attending a demo (such as Justin Carr) or taking an afternoon stroll with their baby (like Nykea Aldridge) then the silence from BLM and their supporters is as deafening as the silence from Jeremy Corbyn’s cheerleaders when asked how a commitment to fighting antisemitism squares up with a long history of defending antisemites like Steven Sizer or Raed Salad.

(The knowledgeable among you will have noticed that one of those is a Muslim and the other an Anglican. Which proves that our Dear Leader is just as dedicated to fairness when enabling religious hate-preachers as he is when politely declining seats on ram-packed trains).

So when self-hating black policeman Officer Jay-Jay Stalien took to Facebook to talk about his experiences working in Baltimore, shamelessly using facts and evidence to argue that the tragedy of young black men turning to crime and killing each other in greater numbers than the police ever could is a much bigger issue than the much-publicised but statistically rare instances of unarmed black men getting killed by cops, we owed it to ourselves as liberals to ignore him. As most of the media in this country did, which is why the majority of people reading this won’t have a clue who he is. And quite right too. We can’t allow the narrative to be controlled by black people – black cops, no less – who’ve seen communities destroyed by crime and might just know what they’re talking about. Especially ones who see the world as it is rather than how middle-class liberals would like it to be.

Far better to let regressive feminists like Lindi West tell black people what they should think by utilising hysteria, ignorance and ominous phrases like ‘state sanctioned killings’. Indeed, after San Frandiego 49-ers quarterback Colin Kopernicus refused to stand for The Star Spangled Banner in August, West didn’t merely defend his protest; she went one better by slamming the pre-match tradition as “a ritual celebrating a government that summarily executes men like him in the streets”. She understandably provides no evidence that black footballers are being routinely shot dead without trial at the behest of the White House, which makes sense as there isn’t any. But it’s nice to know that Lindi has such deep respect for African-American sportsmen that she thinks they’re “just like” armed criminals.

Similarly, Rebecca Carol is another Guardian columnist who refuses to let busy-bodies like Stalien derail the narrative with inconvenient truths. Referencing Claudia Rankin – the well-respected academic and recent recipient of the Macarthur Fellowship ‘Genius Grant’ – she recently wrote of black Americans: “We matter enough to sell out concert stadiums and win prestigious awards touting our intellectual prowess…But we don’t matter enough to keep us from being murdered by police”. Much like West, Carol strikes a blow against those who generalise all blacks as criminals by using the blanket terms ‘we’ and ‘us’ to inadvertently generalise all blacks as criminals. She then quotes Rankin’s words about “trying to change the discourse of black people being equated with criminality and murder” despite the fact that in the same article Carol equates black people with criminality and murder.

Indeed, neither she nor Lindi ever refer to criminals from other US demographics who also have a habit of being shot by the police, such as young white men, twice as many of whom were shot by police than blacks in 2015. They wisely swerve statistics such as this in the same manner they avoid the sad fact that young black men commit a disproportionately high number of violent crimes in the US. So disproportionately high that the number of black men shot by police is actually remarkably low in comparison to their criminal counterparts in the white community. Because as we know, the ideology espoused by Carol, West, and BLM is not intended to help black communities by tackling these problems. The left lost interest in empowerment and self-determination years ago: it’s entitlement and victimhood all the way nowadays. Even thinking about the real issues is to be discouraged at all costs.

Drugs, poverty, gun culture, unemployment, lack of education…these are problems that can only be solved if you ignore them and look for someone else to blame. Preferably someone with a badge, a gun, and a car with a flashy light. Even discussing the historical injustices inflicted upon black people over centuries is tricksy, much like the shitty hand played to them by successive Democrat and Republican governments. Because the last thing us liberals want to do is to offer clues or evidence as to why so many black communities are blighted with crime. The agenda has decreed that racist cops randomly kill black people because Washington, the CIA, the Zionists and the Illuminati tell them to and we’re bloody well sticking to it.

See, it’s far easier for journalists, activists, rich pop stars and deluded actors to spin an official line no matter how counterproductive and harmful it is to the communities they’re supposed to be supporting. Because the day SJWs start treating black people as an autonomous group of diverse individuals with their own minds  – as opposed to a homogenous bloc defined entirely by their skin colour – is the day we might as well give up and vote for Trump. So god bless Hilary Clinton for her dedication to peace, equality and securing black votes by cynically indulging BLM and their quasi-Stalinist agenda. I’m sure every American is proud as punch to know that voting for such an honest, down-to-earth individual with a flawless record for truth and transparency is the only way they can ensure that the 46th POTUS isn’t a deranged, tax-avoiding bullshitter with a penchant for praising dictators and Tweeting about sex tapes at four o’clock in the morning.

And I’m certain every black American is thrilled that Hilary sees them as so pivotal to her campaign she’ll even utilise an illiberal militant movement she would ordinarily avoid like the plague in order to win their support. My, it’s almost as if she senses that the neglect and disdain with which her party, the GOPs and the rest of the political establishment have treated huge swathes of the American public is about to bite them on the arse. An arse which will be bruised and bloodied beyond recognition should a politically illiterate, ageing playboy with a mouth like an orange balloon knot be allowed to sink his teeth into it.

But this is of little interest to BLM. Hilary’s endorsement keeps the useful idiots on side and should Trump win no-one is going to complain about a free pass to fight fascism by waving banners, assaulting journalists, and shooting innocent people. Indeed, Hilary is so keen to go to the wall for BLM she’s made a clear choice to forgo the two minutes of mouse-clicking needed to access the reams of hard evidence that casts serious doubt on BLM’s claims and ideology. Because as all good regressive leftists know, to show solidarity with a group you have to ignore all the bad stuff. Then when the bad stuff becomes too big to ignore you simply claim it’s not true. Then when it’s proven to be demonstrably factual you decide that actually the bad stuff isn’t that bad after all, accuse your opponent of racism then abandon the debate to wallow in the smug glow of victory. It’s a tactic that works a treat for Corbyn supporters commenting on his proven support for Hamass. And the lovely thing is it requires little to no knowledge on any given topic, which is handy for all those die-hard Momentum members who think Hezzbolla are social workers and Israel invented Shakira Law.

Of course, in this multi-media world it’s important to remember video evidence of something does not necessarily mean that what is on the video actually happened. Unless of course that video appears to show an unarmed black man being shot by police purely because he was black in which case that is always what happened. Even in those cases where it looks suspiciously like the unfortunate black man was actually shot because he was in the process of committing a crime, resisting arrest, or waving a gun. Because as all intelligent liberals know the full story is often far more complex than a thirty-second clip.

Take the recent video of a teenage boy in Romford being assaulted by a gang of bullies. Like most decent people my initial reaction was one of horror and sadness. Yet on further inspection I noticed one of the assailants was black which immediately set alarm bells ringing. How quick had I been to condemn these thugs without looking at the bigger picture? For all I knew this young black boy was the victim of racist abuse. At this point I realised the supposed victim was also clad in a hoodie and holding a mobile phone. So as well as potential racist abuse it became disturbingly clear that something much darker was also at play: white privilege and cultural appropriation. Shudder.

Sure, no-one deserves to be punched in the face and kicked while concussed on the floor. But you have to wonder if this would have happened at all if the ‘victim’ hadn’t flaunted his white privilege by brandishing a Samsung. Or worn a fashion item historically associated with black youths. All things considered, is it any wonder he ended up in hospital? As principled liberals like Georgie Galloway and Lorry Penny implied at the time of the Charlie Hebdon massacre: if you kick the hornet’s nest, don’t complain when you get stung. Needless to say, the ‘bullies’ have now been arrested while the white ‘victim’ remains at large. Surprise, surprise. So a young man from an oppressed minority ends up in jail even though it was his white aggressor’s problematic behaviour that provoked the ‘crime’ in the first place. Sickening.

Ditto the recent video of an elderly homeless man knocked to the ground by a flying kick from a young gentleman in London. As soon as I noticed the young man was black I knew there was more to this than meets the eye. And sure enough, the ‘innocent’ homeless man can clearly be seen laughing just before his malnourished frame is booted out of shot to much hilarity. Who’s to say he wasn’t chuckling at fond memories of Love My Neighbour or The Black & Blue Minstrel Show? How do we know his mirth wasn’t inspired by casually reminiscing about the Steven Laurence murder? What if the presence of these law-abiding young black men had stirred ‘hilarious’ recollections of the slave trade and Apartheid South Africa? The truth is we don’t know. But these explanations are easily more convincing than the MSM narrative that a nasty little thug who thinks it’s funny to assault people older, weaker and poorer than him is a nasty little thug no matter what colour he is.

Because anyone can see that if this tramp hadn’t shoved his white privilege in this oppressed young man’s face he wouldn’t have got clattered, and could have spent the night sleeping in a bin with a belly full of pigeon feet instead of lying spark-out on the pavement with shattered ribs. We have no way of knowing he wasn’t asking for it and frankly, it’s not our job to treat POC as equals and hold them to the same standard as everyone else. As middle-class BLM activist and YouTube sensation Trev Melvin brilliantly put it last month: “A homeless, poor white male still has more privilege than I will ever have, regardless of the money that I make”. Couldn’t agree more Trev. And the sad fact is that once this flea-ridden hobo recovers from his ‘ordeal’ he’ll be free to return to his imperialist ways, weaving his vomit-encrusted beard into dreadlocks just to rub it in. Meanwhile the poor sod who nearly killed him to amuse his friends spends his golden years in jail, another victim of the systemic racism that infests this nightmarish post-Brexit Britain we have the nerve to call ‘Great’.

All of which begs the question: where is our spirit of protest? Where is our principled opposition to the neo-liberal nightmare? Where is our insanely entitled hate group whose recently published List Of Demands is an uncompromising plea for segregation and special treatment that reads like a Marxist manifesto written by a toddler who’s just dropped a Cornetto?

Well, I may have some answers. For there are encouraging signs that the UK has rediscovered its protest mojo too, inspired by BLM demos across the pond and the principled scenes of violence and looting that invariably accompany them. And while it would be fantastic if more black men were shot dead by police in Britain, the sad fact is, due to there being much less crime and far fewer guns over here we don’t have quite as many excuses to riot and smash up property. However, that hasn’t stopped some exciting new movements taking the agit-bull by the horns. Trust me, something is stirring on the British left and in the coming weeks I will explore this bold new future.

Buckle up, comrades.