Just got this through from the pro-democracy groups about an article in the Heil by someone called Charles Dunst. Dunst says, rightly, that Brits, especially young Brits, are losing faith in democracy. They are, but this isn’t the fault of 13 years of authoritarian Tory rule and legislation setting up secret courts and curbing the right to protest and strikes! No! The real threat to democracy comes from authoritarian leftists like Extinction Rebellion. And Liz Truss, a puppet of the free trade NHS privatisation lobbyists at Tufton Street, is just the woman to defend democracy. This is just completely bonkers. It’s on the same level as telling the British public that Judge Dredd is a staunch believer in civil liberties and prison reform. I don’t have much respect for Extinction Rebellion as their stunts of holding up traffic and so on seem designed particularly to annoy the ordinary public. And they have harmed people, as when they prevented an ambulance from taking a woman having a stroke in hospital in time, so that they woman wouldn’t have suffered paralysis down one side of her body. But Dunst’s crazy article does remind me of the advice Private Eye gave about reading the opinions of Rees-Mogg senior. He must be read carefully. Then you turn his ideas through 180 degrees and, vioila! he’s exactly right. Here’s Open Britain’s comment:
‘Dear David,
In 2023, Britain is inundated with flag-toting, vote-suppressing, reality-denying authoritarianism. In times like these, nations rely on journalists to speak truth to power, to challenge the government line and speak for the people when their voices aren’t being heard. In Britain, our media ecosystem is doing the opposite – its supercharging and amplifying our vocal right-wing minority.
You may have seen this Daily Mail headline circulating on Twitter. Charles Dunst’s unbelievable article claims that young people are losing faith in democracy, that they just don’t feel it’s working for them anymore – and that’s true. Our institutions are not adequately reflecting the will of the people, meaning we need to fix those institutions and restore trust (which is exactly what Open Britain is fighting for).
Dunst has other ideas. Instead, he goes on to commend Liz Truss of all people for standing for “liberal values”, while arguing that the reason democracy isn’t working is actually because of China. He claims that climate protestors are the real authoritarians in the UK, despite their almost complete lack of power and the harsh government crackdowns on their right to protest. It’s an incomprehensible distortion of reality – but it still gets into people’s heads.
The mental gymnastics required to write such an article must have required years of rigorous training. But it’s just one example of how the UK media manufactures consent among the public, deploying specific framings and omitting hard truths that change the tone of the story altogether, functioning as unofficial state propaganda. This article is toeing the line of people like Liz Truss, Rees-Mogg, and Boris Johnson, presenting them as a solution to a problem that they caused.
None of this is terribly new. From backing the actual Nazis back in the 1930s to going on xenophobic, anti-muslim tirades in the 2010s, the Mail and its counterparts have long pushed an unpopular agenda. But now, in the age of tabloid articles, social media, and targeted advertising, it’s posing a real threat to democracy itself. A democratic system is only as good as its information environment – and ours is clouded with propaganda and misinformation.
For one thing, we need to support the independent media in the UK. In recent years, a new breed of media companies like Byline Times, Politics JOE, and openDemocracy have started to set a new standard, covering substantial political stories instead of hacking into Harry and Meghan’s phones.
What we really need, however, is meaningful press regulation. At this critical time, we need to start asking questions like “Why does Russian oligarch Evgeny Lebedev get to sit in the House of Lords and own the Evening Standard?” or “Why are we allowing Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to warp public opinion in his favour?”.
It’s just another reason we need a democratic renewal in this country. As much as a broken press is a threat to democracy, democracy is equally the solution to a broken press. In a survey of 24 countries, the UK had the second lowest level of trust in the press (just 13%) – only beating out Egypt and ranking well below Russia, Indonesia, and Mexico. The people want change, and we need real democracy to reflect that.
As Charles Dunst said, the people are losing faith in democracy. But the solution is not more NatC conventions or bringing back Liz Truss. It’s a wholesale revitalisation of the democratic institutions that deliver the will of the people. That’s what Open Britain is all about.
There’s an interesting opinion piece in today’s Evening Standard by the author Tomiwa Owolade. He was talking about the British book awards, which he attended on Monday, and the appearance there via video link by Salman Rushdie. Rushdie, remember, had suffered a near-fatal attack by an Islamist fanatic at a literary gathering in America back in August last year. Rushdie’s voice was hoarse, and the video accompanying the article shows him wearing spectacles with one lens blacked out, which were a result of his injuries sustained in the attack. But what impressed Owolade was that he didn’t talk about his own 30-year period hiding from murderous fanatics like his attempted assassin. He was receiving the Freedom to Publish Award, sponsored by the Index on Censorship. Rushdie didn’t talk about others who were suffering imprisonment and death for their writing, and didn’t mention authoritarian states like Russia, China, North Korea or Saudi Arabia. He spoke about the rising level of censorship in the supposedly liberal west, among nations that pride themselves on their tradition of freedom of speech.
“The freedom to publish,” Rushdie said, “is also the freedom to read. And the ability to write what you want.” But this conviction is now being weakened: “We live in a moment, I think, at which freedom of expression and freedom to publish has not in my lifetime been under such threat in the countries of the West.”
This is not a problem that’s confined to the political Right or Left. Rushdie mentioned the “extraordinary attack on libraries and books for children in schools” in the US. A recent report by PEN America has found that book bans are rapidly rising in the US.
Across the country, novels by distinguished authors such as Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood have been banned in schools and libraries. Rushdie argued that this constitutes an “attack on the ideas of libraries themselves.”
But he also described as “alarming” the trend where “publishers bowdlerise the work of such people as Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming.” This is where editors are trying to ‘update’ novels by dead authors by removing or replacing offensive words or phrases. Rushdie argued that “the idea that James Bond could be made politically correct is almost comical.”’
Owolade concludes:
‘Rushdie viscerally understands the severe end of censorship; he has been nearly murdered for writing a book. But he is also rightly cognisant of, and opposed to, the milder threats. Because he recognises that the two ends are interlinked: once we accept that some books should not be allowed to be published, or read, or should have their content suppressed or bowdlerised in any other way, we accept the logic of those who think freely producing such books is a crime worthy of prison or death.’
I entirely agree with the article and Rushdie, which rather surprises me. I’m not a fan of his, and I honestly don’t think the Satanic Verses should have been published. There were three internal messages in Viking Penguin at the time advising against publishing it because it would upset Muslim opinion. I haven’t read the book, but people I know who have, including a lecturer in Islam, have assured me that it isn’t blasphemous. However, there’s something to about it in National Lampoon’s Book of Sequels that while it’s made clear that the book isn’t blaspheming Mohammed or the other principal figures of Islam on page 50, the book is so grindingly dull that no one ever makes it that far. The fatwa placed on Rushdie was a noxious piece of opportunism by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who wanted an issue he could exploit that would allow him to wrest leadership of the Islamic world away from the Saudis. The publication of the Satanic Verses came at exactly the right time, and so you had the rancid spectacle of mass book burnings in Bradford, Kalim Saddiqui telling his flock that ‘Britain is a monstrous killing machine and killing Muslims comes very easily to them’, and a demented Pakistani film in which Rushdie is a CIA agent, whose career undermining Islam is ended when God whacks him with the lightning bolt.
But we do have creeping, intolerant censorship in the west and it isn’t confined to either the left and right. I’m very much aware of the purging of radical authors, and particularly LGBTQ+ material from American libraries. I’m also not a fan of the Bowdlerisation of writers like Dahl and Fleming because they’re deemed to be offensive to modern sensibilities. The term ‘Bowdlerise’ is particularly interesting. It comes from the name of a puritanical Victorian publisher, who produced a suitable censored children’s edition of Shakespeare with all the Bard’s smut and innuendo cut out. I’m also concerned at the way publishers, students and lobby groups are trying to stifle the publication of works on such controversial topics as the trans issue and ban their writers from speaking in public or holding academic posts.
A recent example of this has been Oxford University Student Union’s reaction to gender critical feminist philosopher Kathleen Stock speaking at the Oxford Union. There were protests by the Student Union against her appearance as well as attempts to sabotage it by block-booking seats so that they wouldn’t be available to those who really wanted to hear her. She’s been denounced as hateful, people have declared they feel unsafe after her appearance, and the SU has cut its connection with the debating society. They therefore won’t be allowed to appear at fresher’s fairs and other Student Union sponsored events. The SU is also offering support to people traumatised by her appearance.
This is in response to a feminist intellectual who simply does not share the opinion that transwomen are women. Controversial, yes, but not hateful. What makes this affair ridiculous is that there have been real, noxious figures from the Fascist right who have spoken at the Oxford Union and suffered no such attack by the Student Union. People like Nick Griffin, the former head of the BNP, and the Holocaust Denier David Irving. If anybody deserves mass protests against them, and who really would make people feel understandably unsafe, it’s those two. I can’t imagine how Jews and non-Whites would feel in their presence, especially given the BNP’s history of violence against them. But they were allowed to speak at the Oxford Union, albeit to the surprise and disgust of many.
Rushdie’s right about free speech coming under attack in the liberal west. And the Tories, and particularly the Nat Cons are part of this. They’ve passed legislation severely restricting the right to protest and to strike, as well as the legislation providing for secret courts. And I don’t see Starmer changing this legislation, not when he said that laws like the Crime and Policing Act need time to bed in.
We really do need to wake up this threat, and that this isn’t a partisan issue if we’re going to defend freedom of speech and debate.
‘David, leaked documents have revealed massive shortages of NHS staff. [1] Without urgent intervention, experts are warning our NHS could be left on its knees, with over HALF A MILLION unfilled vacancies for doctors, nurses, porters, ambulance workers and others we desperately need. [2]
The good news? There’s a plan on the table that sets out how to fix this impending staffing crisis – and it’s being backed by campaigners, experts and even the Health Secretary, Steve Barclay. [3] It could secure the future of our NHS. The bad news? Reports suggest, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt believes it’s too ambitious and expensive and he wants it to be watered down. [4]
That’s where we come in David. Right now the public’s voice hasn’t been heard. Together, we can show Jeremy Hunt, that we – the British public – expect him to stump up the money to fix the biggest crisis in our NHS, get it back on its feet and recruit the doctors, nurses and dentists we need. A huge petition signed by hundreds of thousands of us could pile on enough pressure to force him to fund this plan. Every 50 of us who add our names, an email notification will be delivered to the Chancellor’s inbox. If 10,000 of us do so in the next few hours, that’s 200 emails. Our messages will flood his inbox!
So, David will you add your name right now and call on Jeremy Hunt to fund the plan to give us the NHS staff we so desperately need?
For years the NHS has struggled with staff shortages, often having to look to expensive agency staff to fill the gaps. [5] Having enough qualified staff in our NHS is crucial to protecting patient safety. That’s why this plan is so important – it finally tackles one of the biggest problems facing our NHS head-on.
Not so long ago, Jeremy Hunt was Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee. At that time he blasted plans “to cut back on doctor training” and he criticised the lack of a plan to tackle “the greatest workforce crisis in their (NHS) history”. [6] Now, as Chancellor, it’s time he puts our money where his mouth was.
So, David will you add your name to the petition calling on Jeremy Hunt to back the plan and protect the future of our NHS?
I’ve signed it, but I’m not sure how much good it will do. After all, Jeremy Hunt wrote a book not so long ago demanding the Health Service’s privatisation. But I hope this petition helps to make a difference.
BREAKING: Water companies released raw sewage into rivers OVER 800 TIMES A DAY last year.Our rivers and seas were polluted time and time again, because water companies, the Government, Ofwat and the Environment Agency are dragging their heels. [1] This is unacceptable.
It’s time for water company bosses to do their jobs and clean up their act. Bonuses paid to water company executives have surged, despite most failing to meet sewage pollution targets. [2] The average bonus was £100,000 for a period when foul water was pumped for nearly 3 million hours into England’s rivers and seas. [3]
Until these sewage spills stop, not a single penny in bonuses should be paid to the CEOs of these companies. Right now Ofwat are consulting on plans to do just that. [4] You can bet lobbyists for big water companies will be feeding into that consultation, trying to get them to weaken their plans. We can’t stand by and let that happen – we need to come together and drown them out.
So will you help protect our waterways from pollution, and sign the petition today calling on Ofwat to make sure their plans are as tough as possible? Use the button below to add your name in just one click – then make sure you share the petition with as many people as possible so we can drown out those who want to block these plans. We’ll hand it in before the consultation closes.
I’ve signed it, because this is a recurring, persistent problem. We’ve have similar reports and petitions before of the water companies fouling rivers and the sea in their local areas. And once again, the problem goes back to Thatcher. When the Tories privatised the water companies in the 1980s and set up the environmental protection agency or the rivers authority or whatever it was that was supposed to take on the job of guarding Britain’s watercourses from pollution, Private Eye reported that they deliberately weakened its power. People were also warning that the removal of EU legislation protecting waterways would also see companies dumping raw sewage into it. There was even a strip in the magazine, the Brexiteers, which showed a gammon couple first deny that it was going to happen, and then gleefully rushing into a sea polluted and brown with what Billy Connolly described as ‘jobbies’. They were glad because although it was turds, it was good, British turds.
Let’s clean up the environment and clean out politics: Tories out!
Here’s another email I got from the internet petitioning organisation seeking to gauge people’s views on the current state of the health service, and the particular issues they are most concerned with, as part of a wider campaign to defend it. Two of the questions, not on this email but there if you answer the questionnaire, ask you if you would be willing to speak to TV, radio or the press or talk about it on social media, and ask you for your telephone number if you would like to be part of that aspect of the campaign. I filled it out, as I am very concerned and angry about how they’re treating the NHS, but clearly not everyone will want to take it that far or give their home phone numbers.
‘David, the 38 Degrees community has been campaigning for YEARS to get the NHS the funding and workforce plan it desperately needs. It’s why we drove an ambulance with our message to Rishi Sunak across the country over the summer. [1] Now, we need to think about our next move.
If we’re going to keep fighting for what’s best for our NHS, it’s going to take all of us getting involved. And that means we should all have a say in what we do next. By taking this quick survey we’ll know what’s really important to all of us, and then together we can plan our next big NHS campaign.
So, David, will you take a quick survey and have your say on what we should do next? It takes two minutes. Here’s the first question to get you started:
How concerned are you about the current state of the NHS?
Things are so bad that ordinary people can’t help but speak up. A 77-year-old patient caught Prime Minister Rishi Sunak off guard by telling him to “try harder” to improve nurses’ pay, and a patient told Health Secretary Steve Barclay that he was doing “bugger all” about long ambulance waits. [2]
38 Degrees has a proud history of campaigning to protect our NHS. From fighting for a fair pay rise for NHS staff, to ensuring the NHS is properly funded and staffed, as well as opposing plans to raise the age limit for free prescription charges – we’ve fought relentlessly for an NHS we can all be proud of. [3] And with so many challenges left that fight is far from over.
By sharing your opinion in this short survey, we’ll be able to prioritise the issues we campaign on together. But to make the best plan we can, we need all of us to share our views.
So will you take this short survey today to help us keep fighting for the future of our NHS? It only takes two minutes. Here’s the first question to get you started:
How concerned are you about the current state of the NHS?
I got this message yesterday from the internet petitioning organisation objecting to Jeremy Hunt’s apparent refusal to provide free school meals to four-firths of a million children on Universal Credit, but who currently don’t qualify for free school meals. I’ve signed it, and if you feel as strongly about it as I do, I hope you’ll do the same. Because this is obscene. Britain is one of the richest countries in the world, and millions of working people and children are going hungry. They have to use food banks to stave off starvation, and now there are warm banks to make sure they don’t die of hypothermia because they can’t afford to heat their homes. Marcus Rashford, God bless ‘im, managed to shame them into providing fee school meals to deprived kids during the holidays. And they hate him for it. They published hit pieces afterwards lambasting him for being rich and having more than one house. Guess what? That’s irrelevant. The Fabian Society rejected class war, and so, I think, did the Labour party in general. They fought for the working class but saw socialism as such an eminently reasonable social system of society that everyone would benefit. This is where Labour differs from Communism. The only people who are fighting a class war, and exploiting class resentment, are the Tories in order to keep the workers firmly in their place.
‘Dear David,
800,000 vulnerable children are going to school hungry and missing out on free school meals – yet Chancellor Jeremy Hunt had nothing to say about it in last week’s budget. [1] He’s happy to leave hundreds of thousands of families, on Universal Credit but not eligible for free school meals, to struggle to feed their kids. [2]
David – we won’t let the Government get away with this. Our petition to expand free school meals is over 90% of the way to 100,000 signatures – but your name is missing. [3]
We MUST push this up the Government’s agenda if we’re to protect families struggling this winter. [4] That’s why we have BIG plans to expand this campaign – and it all starts with ramping up names on this petition and handing it in to Rishi Sunak to put child hunger firmly on his radar. As for the next stage of the campaign… watch this space!
So David, will you add your name to show Rishi Sunak he can’t get away with letting kids go hungry?It only takes a few seconds to sign!
It feels like we’re getting close to a breakthrough, David. Supermarkets, local councils, and celebrities are piling on the pressure to expand free school meals. [4] But time and again, the Government has failed to give critical support to families most in need – which is why we need your name, and your support.
So David, will you sign today to urge this Government to expand free school meals and keep this country’s children fed?If each of us reading this signs, we’ll smash the 100,000 target!
I got this petition early today from internet democracy group 38 Degrees. One of their community, Vicky Ropner, has put up a petition calling for Liz Truss to be prevented from enjoying the perks of ex-prime ministers. These include the ability to appoint new peers to the House of Lords. Truss was only Prime Minister for three months and was simply too disastrous as premier to enjoy these benefits. I completely agree and have very definitely signed it. It is grossly unfair that she should enjoy the privilege of elevating her cronies when her wretched policies have resulted in horrific levels of inflation and increased mortgage rates. Not to mention something like a quarter of this great nation’s children relying on food banks and people having to use ‘warm banks’ to keep warm ’cause they can’t afford to heat their homes.
No to perks for Truss.
And definitely ‘No’ to the Tories.
Here’s the petition
‘Dear David,
Liz Truss left her position as Prime Minister after being in the job for less than 2 months. [1] But despite being in the job for such a short amount of time, she could still be allowed to put through a resignation honours list and choose people to promote to the House of Lords. [2]
That’s why Vicky, a 38 Degrees supporter, set up a petition demanding Truss is denied the privilege. She believes an “incompetent and disgraceful” Prime Minister should not get such rewards.
Recently, the House of Lords Appointments Committee – who decides whether or not approve new members of the House of Lords – rejected a number of nominations, and spoke out against unsuitable candidates being put forward. [3] Huge public pressure could convince them to step in and stop Liz Truss’ honours list being approved.
So, if you agree with Vicky and believe a Prime Minister forced to resign after just a few weeks should not be allowed to reward their friends with jobs for life in the Lords, can you sign the petition today? [4] It only takes 30 seconds, and we’ll hand the petition in to those in charge in the next few days!
To: The Conservative Party, Parliament and the House of Lords Appointments Commission
What: Liz Truss and the Conservative party need to realise that the public mood is for her to leave quietly without an honours list or any other perks of the job. She has been an incompetent and disgraceful Prime Minister.
Why is this important: Liz didn’t even last 3 months, there is no other occupation that would grant you anything for that, no honest one anyway. Instead she fell at the first hurdle, making huge and avoidable mistakes because of her arrogance. Consequently the people of the UK experienced even more worry and suffering.
It now must be made law that a PM that resigns or is forced to go before a year has passed, has no rights to the perks of the job after leaving. It is insulting and ridiculous that she should be able to set her friends up in the House of Lords, receive severance pay and other perks after being such an appalling PM. She blamed circumstance and not herself. She chose such an appalling cabinet that wasn’t fit for purpose.
She managed one thing, she attended the Queen’s funeral, even Larry the cat could have managed that if they’d provided a comfy enough chair!
PS. Not everyone reading this email will agree with the concept of the House of Lords at all, but one thing we can all agree on, is it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future. So we should be able to expect representatives in the House of Lords to be chosen because they want to do the best for our country, not because of who their mates are.
PPS: Vicky Ropner started their petition on the 38 Degrees website.
With 38 Degrees anyone can start their own campaign with the click of a button. But that’s just where your journey begins. Creating a petition, then sharing it with friends and colleagues, can soon give you a groundswell of support. Perhaps you’ll end up changing something really important.
This video comes from the Evening Standard and shows Mogg getting jeered and booed by the crowd in England’s great and proud second city as he’s escorted to the Tory conference by the boys in blue. I realise that it’s terribly rude of the crowd and no doubt some right-wingers will seize on this to claim that it shows that leftists are purely animated by hate and envy, unlike nice, serene, altruistic right-wingers, but I enjoyed watching this. Mogg is just a few miles away in BANES (Bath And North East Somerset) so it’s good to see him getting what he deserves for the poverty and misery his party and government has and is inflicting on ordinary people up and down the country.
I got this email from anti-privatisation campaign group We Own It informing me about their new website and their continuing campaign against the government’s proposed sell-off of Channel 4.
‘Dear David,
What do Armando Iannucci, the Archbishop of York and Siobhán McSweeney from Derry Girls all have in common?
They’re all taking a stand against Nadine Dorries’ plan to privatise Channel 4.
They’re not the only ones. 27 independent production companies, actor Jon Pointing, comedian Jack Rooke, and the Bishops of Ripon and Leeds are taking a stand too.
They’ve come together today to send a message to the divided Conservative Party: Channel 4 ain’t broke. Don’t fix it. Conserve it.
Thanks to donations from hundreds of you, today we were able to launch an ambitious new campaign which hit the front page of the Yorkshire Post, the Evening Standard, the Independent, the National and local papers across the country.
Check out the beautiful new website and share it to spread the word! We need YOU to make this big launch even bigger! This is a campaign we can win.
THANK YOU so much for showing this government where you stand.
Cat, Alice, Johnbosco, Matthew, Jack and Kate – the We Own It team
PS Thanks so much to everyone who took part in the day of action for the NHS on Saturday. You were all over the press for that campaign as well!’
I very much support this campaign, not least because Bristol is one one of the various cities in which the broadcaster is located. I’m afraid that if the government privatises the station it will have to close down its offices or studios in Bristol and the other towns, and that these local broadcasting industries will be severely damaged. A little while ago I wrote to my local Labour MP, Karin Smyth, to express my fears about the loss of local broadcasting in Bristol. She very kindly wrote back stating that she also was going to oppose Channel 4’s privatisation.
I think the channel has declined in quality since the 1980s and 1990s, but it has been a vital part of British broadcasting and cinema. There have been a stream of British films made either by, or with the participation of Channel 4 films. And when it was first launched in the 1980s, it offered a genuine alternative to mainstream broadcasting. It showed Indian films in a slot entitled ‘All India Goldies’ as well as an adaptation of the Indian national epic, the Mahabharata. It also provided excellent opera coverage, and really did much to bring it to a genuinely popular audience. It also gave Britain the wit and wisdom of the journalist and TV critic, Clive James, who had his own show on a Sunday night. James published a trio of books of his TV criticism, as well as his travel journalism and an autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs. His writing could be hysterically funny, as when he covered the extremely excitable remarks of over-the-top sports commenters. In one of his articles he described how one of the cars broke down or crashed during a race ‘and Murray Walker exploded’. At other times, when discussing the horrors of the Holocaust and the surviving Nazi and Fascist leaders like Albert Speer, Baldur von Schirach and Oswald Mosley, who turned up on British television, he was deadly serious and scathing. As he also was when writing about Stalin’s famine and purges and Mao’s China. He interviewed a number of great personalities on his show, including a very young Victoria Wood and the late, great Peter Cook. For fantasy enthusiasts, there was The Storyteller, a series of tales adapted from folk stories, narrated by John Hurt, with puppet creatures, including the Storyteller’s dog, created and operated by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Henson and Frank Oz were the geniuses behind the Muppets. They also made the fantasy movie The Dark Crystal, in which every character is a non-human creature. In the 1990s Henson’s Creature Shop also created the various aliens in the Australian-American SF series Farscape. I am very much afraid that if Channel 4 is privatised, then this history and pool of great broadcasting talent and skills will be permanently lost.
And it will be lost not because there’s anything wrong with Channel 4, but because the Tories’ backers, like one Rupert Murdoch, want British state broadcasting to end so their own cruddy networks can move in and take its place.
Well, the great British public showed Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, precisely what they thought of them when the two turned up for Her Maj’s jubilee celebrations today: they booed them. There have been a number of videos put up about this on YouTube by the press and other media outlets, like the Torygraph. This video put up by the Evening Standard is particularly interesting, as one of those who booed the Gruesome Twosome explains precisely why. The gentleman in the vid is a Frenchman, who’s lived in this country for 20 years and loves it here. He likes the monarchy, and wishes his country still had one as he feels it brings people together to have a head of state who’s above politics. But he hates Johnson because of the lies, partygate and Brexit, and feels that he’s dragging us down. And it’s thanks to Johnson that he’s having to return to France.
I think our French friend speaks for many people. I dare say Johnson will find some way to cling on to power. He might even manage to claw his way back into some semblance of popularity, such is the attention span of the British public. But at the moment are large part of the British public, and clearly long-time foreign citizens, who love this country, are sick of Johnson and his endless lies and hypocrisy. And they feel especially insulted by the countless parties he held while everyone else was told to isolate, even when it meant they couldn’t visit sick, elderly and dying friends and family. As for Brexit, whatever nonsense Rees-Mogg and Johnson are trying to sell us about it’s supposed benefits, it’s wrecking our economy and agriculture. It’s made it more difficult for Brits to go to the continent, it’s depriving us of some of the workers we need, such as the fruit pickers for the farms, and it’s forcing great people like the speaker, who enjoy living here and who no doubt have really contributed to our society out and back to their countries of origin,
I suppose that now we’ll be graced by a right-wing mouthpiece going on about how it was absolutely terrible that Bozo was booed, and that it’s all part of some kind of terrible anti-patriotic attitude fostered by cultural Marxists. But Johnson should consider himself lucky. In the Byzantine empire, the Greek-speaking part of the former Roman Empire that survived until Constantinople was finally conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth century, the citizens enjoyed the right to lynch an unpopular emperor at the races. The fifth century emperor, Justinian, was so disliked that he and his bodyguards fought a running battle with the mob right back to the imperial palace.
If all Johnson got was booing, he should consider that he got off lightly.
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