Pass the bottle George. By Jan Needle

The good old days -my father and Pop Meadows heading
for France. WW2 not so far away....
Off to France in two days time, if our English football charmers have left any of it to go to. And while I’m there the referendum will take place, in which a large proportion of the fighting English will express their contempt for people of another race (any other race), happy in the knowledge that they’re superior.

Fair enough, it’s what we have to get used to as we grow up and learn world history, but this one is something of an eye-opener anyway. Firstly, the idea that referendums are more democratic than democracy. Which, taken to its logical conclusion, means that hanging should be brought back if enough people push for a vote, and that’s only for starters. Nigel Farridge, the man of French extraction who pronounces his surname like a Frenchman and has a German wife, will be on the loose. The five most stupid men in the Cabinet (and boy, that’s saying something) will be in control. With a bit of luck, the western world will be led by Johnson and Trump. Good eh?

‘Referendums are democratic’ was the weird non-truth seized on by another
Eton dimwit to justify caving in to the howling mob who were threatening to tear his Tory party into pieces. He really seemed to think that whichever side won, he would have satisfied the zombies. Well, as the old Scottish joke has it (whichever side does win), ‘he damn well kens the noo!’

Now I – like everybody else – have no real idea what will happen if we leave the EEC, or, indeed, after the blood-letting, if we stay. But everyone with half an eye knows now that the process (the democratic process, god spare the mark) has been a bloodbath.

Most depressing for me is what it has shown us about politics in this fair land of ours. The level of uncaring, shameless dishonesty it has displayed has horrified me, depressed me, made me damn nearly despair. Let’s take the most visible example. That bus with a bare-faced lie emblazoned on it about how much our membership costs. Even the men who put it up there have been forced by journalists to admit it isn’t true. Their counter argument? ‘Bits of it aren’t too many million miles from the truth – so let’s keep it anyway! Politics is truth. Would we deliberately lie to you? Never!’
'A deranged relative pouring petrol over an
already smouldering fire' - Tristram Hunt

It’s deceitful, dangerous and destructive propaganda. And it speaks to the ignorant and prejudiced. God help the Mother of Parliaments.

Then take the newspapers. The Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, the Sun. All owned by multi-millionaires who pay little or no tax in the country they’re so anxious to ‘save from the faceless men of Brussels who make our laws!’ (Which is in itself an absurd untruth.)

The Express tells us we can’t eat bent bananas, a calumny so bonkers when they made it some months ago that even Boris struggled to keep a straight face when he repeated it on prime-time television three weeks ago.

The Sun and the Mail tell us that we’re being swamped with immigrants , and there isn’t any actual room for any more, despite the fact that Japan has about double our population in a group of islands not that much bigger. They also insist that seventy two million Turks are waiting with their bags packed to pop across and steal our jobs, despite  the fact that fewer than two million Turks have actually got passports. The poor old BBC, who have been so browbeaten by the Government and Rupert Murdoch (not that he has a commercial interest, oh dear no) that every sentence they report in support of staying has to be immediately refuted by someone, anyone, who disagrees.

Everybody’s lying, everybody’s backsliding, and the creepy-crawlies coming from the woodwork are genuinely astonishing. I never thought I was capable of feeling sympathy for David Cameron, but now I do, however sure I am his wounds are self-inflicted. Men like IDS (who brought in ATOS and the bedroom tax and now claims Mr Cameron is 'bullying and frightening defenceless poor people.' Yes – that IDS!), men like little Govey whose wife is Sarah Vane, men like the prison supremo who decided prisoners could not have books to read and that To Kill a Mockingbird should be banned (Chris Grayling was it? One can hardly bear to call the name to mind). They’re on the telly now, and – God help us all – they’re smiling. They think that their side might win, and they’ll be free to take over the asylum.

If they don’t win, I wonder what will happen to them. Nothing, probably, because if Dave wanted to punish them, he’d get scragged by John Public, one imagines. Whichever way the vote goes, sensation seekers, I fear old England’s done.


I’m due back from France a few days after the result. I can’t imagine what I’m going to find. Perhaps our English football thugs will have teamed up with their natural allies, Mr Putin’s barmy army. Is it just me, or are we on the brink of moral chaos?




Comments

Dennis Hamley said…
Jan, thank you for this. I am stick to my stomach about what might happen next week. That we are about to commit national suicide at the behest of such monsters as these keeps me awake at night. And show no mercy to Cameron. He has brought it on us entirely through his own weakness and inability to see further than next Tuesday. Inconsequential twerp. The four evil fantasists are all - Johnson, Gove, IDS and Farage - unspeakable, which is why I cannot bring myself to speak of them. What does the fact that they are likely to carry the day tell us about the people we have become?

Jan, if we'd come to outer-Mancland on our own we would have been round to you. But John and Jane live in France. They picked us up on the way and dropped us going back to catch an early ferry. Sorry. Next time!
Susan Price said…
Jan and Dennis - agree with you both.

I don't much like the EU. There are arguments that might tempt me towards Leave - but Xenophobia isn't one of them. When I see that the scream 'swarms of immigrants are swamping us!' is the one likely to take us out of the EU, like you, I despair.

I agree with yout final image, Jan. When we're finally free of the EU - after several years of complicated negotiations and dire uncertainty for business - when, surprise! we're not living in a paradise of well-paid jobs and plentiful cheap housing - who's going to be the scapegoat then? Not the Tories, unfortunately. They always escape. Traditionally, it's the Jews, but maybe we'll be more inventive this time round.
JO said…
I agree too - for decades politicians have ridden roughshod over the needs and feelings of the powerless - and these are the people exploited by the Leave campaign with words like 'taking control'. They are given the rare opportunity to make a difference but only peddled lies. Heaven help my children and grandchildren if we vote to leave next week.
Chris Longmuir said…
Well said Jan, and I agree with what everyone else has said.
Nick Green said…
The EU is like a bickering marriage - with flaws on both sides - and you don't walk out of a marriage just because of some bickering, particularly if it's likely to result in the loss of much of your money and security (which it generally does).

To anyone struggling to make up their mind, I offer this simple shorthand: look at the people advocating Remain (nearly all moderate politicians, nearly all scientists, nearly all doctors, nearly all businesses large and small, nearly all economists (Economists! They never agree on ANYTHING)...) and then look at who is advocating Leave. A buffoon, a stuffed shirt and a fascist.
julia jones said…
Thank heavens for a good straightforward RANT. Otherwise this is so depressing I can hardly think about it
Nick Green said…
People who think we should Remain:

Obama
Hawking

People who think we should leave:

Trump
Putin

Is half the UK population REALLY so stupid?
Bill Kirton said…
They may well be, Nick. And as long as the Mail etc. keep feeding them lies, they'll stay that way. I'm appalled that we're even having this vote. I bet even Cameron is now, too. I'm with the rest of you but then I just don't understand nationalism and shudder at the whole 'dulce et decorum est' myth. The GREAT Britain Farridge and Co are looking for never was and leaving will ensure it never will be.

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