My daughter - mocks AAB, “given” BCD. Utterly unfair. Shambles of a lying, charlatan, incompetent government destroying young people’s futures. Sort this out @GavinWilliamson@BorisJohnson.
Pls spread awareness: @campbellclaret@AndyBurnhamGM
Norway fans are doing a “Viking Row” up the escalator at Boston’s South Station before heading to the World Cup
Adding this to the list of things I’ve never seen before and probably never will again
This morning, I appeared on Good Morning Britain in a live interview about the grooming gangs. Before I went on air, I was told not to mention the race of the perpetrators. I, of course, didn’t listen.
I have now received an apology from the editor.
My interview is below: 👇🏻
“In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman, and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse-racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true, that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention while ‘God Save the King’ was played than of stealing from the poor-box.”
— George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Orwell was pointing out a type of person who sneers at their own country as if that makes them clever. Not because they’ve thought deeply about anything, but because they think mockery itself is a mark of superiority. The tone of it hasn’t changed. The same kind of people are still here. The same smirk. The same false performance of being “above” England.
You see it across media, universities, arts, politics - this little ritual of laughing at everything English: the history, the songs, the traditions, the parades, the accents, the villages, the old ways of doing things. As if scorn is the height of sophistication.
Meanwhile the ordinary Englishman hasn’t changed. He doesn’t make a spectacle of loyalty, but it’s there - in how he speaks about home, in how he looks after his own, in how he stands when something needs to be stood for. It’s quiet, steady, and real.
The divide Orwell talks about is still obvious:
There are those who feel duty and belonging.
And there are those who think they are above both.
The first group doesn’t need to explain itself. 🏴
Dear @SadiqKhan
Last month in London there was an event selling property in Northern Cyprus - which is illegally occupied.
Can you point me to your post condemning it?
It is important we show everyone you are not an antisemite and your problem is not with Jews and Israel.
Today a group of Muslims prayed next to the Ministry of Defence, facing the Iraq and Afghanistan memorial.
As I have said before, choosing to pray in this way in public is a political act. It is a social statement and, yes, it is an act of domination.
Anybody who understands Islamism understands that the domination of public spaces is part of the modus operandi. It is done so Islamists can show who is in charge - and to show other Muslims and the wider public that the authorities will bend to their will.
There is quite obviously no need to pray here. The decision to do so is symbolic and pointed.
It is not welcome. We have freedom of religion in this country, which is why there are mosques. But we are not a Muslim country and this is not welcome. It should be stopped.