Skip to main content

Oh look, racists

 I'm always surprised that people are surprised. Yes, I know, that makes me the idiot.


Unless you've been very sensibly ignoring all broadcast and print media over the last week, you'll doubtless be aware that the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain are having a normal one.

It all started when Suella Braverman, like a garden gnome made of spite, decided to start opining about how "Islamists" are in "in charge of Britain" (Community notes added context that some readers may find useful: they are not). So far, so unsurprising, Braverman's rhetoric has often tended towards the wilfully oppositional, and she's clearly on manoeuvres to be the leadership candidate of choice when the Tories are immolated at the next election. The intensity of the charge, and the spouting of the conspiracy theory that Sharia law is incoming in the UK (where a grand total of 11% of the population identify as Muslim, reality fans) were slightly eyebrow raising, but given that this is the woman who built a career out of demonising migrants despite being the child of, uh, migrants, not particularly shocking.

More of a chin stroker was Worst PM In History Except For Lord North Maybe (TM) Liz Truss rocking up to CPAC over in the US (and spouting one of the less hinged speeches that you would, in the normal run of things, hear all year.

Dear Reader, this is not the normal run of things.

Any road up, big Liz is hawking her book about how everything's brown people's fault (I paraphrase),and presumably has half an eye on a gig on the lucrative US nutjob media circuit, where being somewhat spittle-flecked is very much de rigeur. As such, her frankly hilarious opining that she was stymied by *clears throat*...

"A media conspiracy" (must have been mistaken by all those front pages hailing her arrival, as I recall

"Trans activists" (blimey, they get everywhere, don't they? given that HMG currently estimates the UK trans population as between 200-500k, that's a hell of a lot of influence wielded by less than 1% of the people)

"Agents of the Deep State" (Not even dignifying this with a joke)

...wasn't entirely surprising. 

The highlight of her tour was sharing a a platform with Steve Bannon, a man who constantly looks as though a Xenomorph is about to burst out of his skin and then standing and grinning as he praised professional racist, Tommy Robinson, a man so far beyond the pale that not even Farage will take his calls. This was an eyebrow-raiser, tbf, but more in terms of how far she's fallen as a serious person, as opposed to the sort of thing she'd do.

Then, finally, the Tories pet Man In The Street (if the street in question is an alley stinking of piss) Lee Anderson, did a racism when he accused Sadiq Khan of handing London "to his mates". This, finally, was a step too far for the Tories, and he's been suspended. Again, not a surprise (also because he's probably angling for a transfer to Reform).

So why does everyone (read: the commentariat) react with shock to these outbursts? These people have been showing us who they are for a long time, anyone who's been paying even the slightest bit of attention is well aware. I would argue that the rational response to their fascist tantrums is to roll ones eyes, organise and get rid. You can take being outraged as read.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Inedible

"He says it's inedible" said my front of house manager, as she laid the half-eaten fish and chips in front of me, and instantly I relaxed.  Clearly, I observed, it was edible to some degree. I comped it, because I can't be arsed arguing the toss, and I want to make my front of house's lives as simple as possible. The haddock had been delivered that morning. The fryers had been cleaned that morning. The batter had been made that morning (and it's very good batter, ask me nicely and I'll give you the recipe some time). The fish and chips was identical to the other 27 portions I'd sent out on that lunch service, all of which had come back more or less hoovered up, we have have a (justified, if I do say so myself) very good reputation for our chips. But it was, apparently, "inedible". When it comes to complaints, less is more. If you use a hyperbolic word like that, I'll switch off, you've marked yourself as a rube, a chump, I'm not g...
Post a Comment
Read more

Creepy old men

I note, somewhat wearily, that creepy old men are back in the news, being creepy. Creepy old men, and their apologists and enablers, who argue that their creepiness is somehow the natural order of things. Old men would have you believe that it is difficult to not be a creepy old man. That it is a task of epic proportions. It is not that difficult. It is a matter of intention. As yet more of the grimness of Epstein unfolds, creepy old men are, sadly, a flaccid topic once again. Whether it be pursuing students thirty years their junior, or simply not asking too many questions about the background of the probably legal young woman who you've just been introduced to by your good pal Jeff. To be clear, I am not referring to criminal creepy old men, the ones who actually committed statutory rape, the ones who fucked trafficked hirls. That is not something which is allowed to get away merely with the contempt of the observer.  That deserves prison.  No , I'm referring to the hinterla...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chop chop

I was completely ignorant of the fuss over the edited Trump speech in an edition of Panorama until, one moment later, I wasn't. And the reasons for my ignorance are instructive. I had no idea that the story was even brewing until the surprise Sunday night news of the resignations of Tom Davie and Deborah Turness. As I'm sure you are by now aware, this was occasioned by a clumsy edit in an old edition of Panorama, which has already been on the iplayer for a year. It's a non-story. Except people decided to make it a story. The reason I'd heard nothing of it until the resignations was that I'm not on X, where, apparently, it was all the media classes had been talking about for a week. It was an obsession of the unholy right-wing trifecta of the Mail, Telegraph and Times (who, given that they sent a bloke just last week to interview the wrong Bill di Blasio, you'd think would wind their necks in over factual inacccuracy). It was big news on GB news, all self-contain...
Post a Comment
Read more