Friday 24 March 2017

The Spirit of the Blitz is alive, thanks to Phillip Schofield

There were several acts of genuine heroism in and around Westminster on Wednesday, but, obviously...

...they all pale into insignificance compared to TV presenter Phillip Schofield's madly courageous bridge walk. Humbling. 

Other "heroes" included Conservative MP Anna Soubry (already a hero on this site thanks thanks to her selfless crusade to overturn the Brexit vote which the majority of her own party were in favour of) who felt the need to share her terrifying ordeal with her legion of admirers who were sitting at home thinking, "Oh no - I so hope nothing bad has happened to Anna Soubry!":


Because, obviously, it's all about her. Always. As for Labour MP Mary Creagh, did you hear about her extraordinary act of heroism? 
You didn't? Well, that's odd, because she was on TV every few minutes on Wednesday to let us know how brilliantly clear-headed and brave and competent she'd been. I expect she didn't want to come across as a self-obsessed braggart rushing to make political capital out of a horrible tragedy, but producers evidently twisted her arm to tell us, again and again and at great length, just how fabulous she'd been. I'm thinking of starting a campaign to have an enormous statue of her erected in front of Parliament - she deserves no less (and I suspect she'd agree with that sentiment, albeit humbly and reluctantly). 

Meanwhile, Brendan Cox, the widower of the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, was quick to order us not to jump to silly conclusions:  "We have to remember that the person who did this is no more representative of British Muslims than the person who killed Jo is representative of people that are from Yorkshire." Which was an odd thing to say, as I don't remember anyone being crass enough to suggest that Thomas Mair's murderous attack on a defenceless woman had anything whatsoever to do with him being from Yorkshire - although many on the Remain side sought to blame an imaginary "climate of hatred" created by Brexit supporters. Satirist Godfrey Elfwick made this point, none too subtly:
Yahoo!News cited the Elfwick tweet as typical of the widespread support for Brendan Cox's comments. You would have thought that - even in this post-satirical age - a quick check of other Elfwick tweets might have rung a warning bell:




To suggest - as Brendan Cox and many others have - that Wednesday's horrific attacks had nothing to do with Islam strikes me as absurd: while one presumes the majority of Muslims in Britain are reasonable, law-abiding, loyal citizens, research into Muslim attitudes towards jihadist violence invariably reveals depressingly high levels of support for Islamic terrorism. Muslims seem only too willing to swallow the victimhood myth that so many elements in our society - mainly in the public sector - are only too keen to feed them. At the same time, to suggest that Wednesday's outrage was directly ordered by ISIS, or that this latest example of Islamic terrorism conducted by some vicious, pathetic, criminal, loser thug "shut down" or "cowed" Londoners, seems equally absurd. We spent too many years being bombed by the likes of "Saint" Martin McGuinness to suddenly lose our collective bottle now.  

Mind you, I'm probably falling into the same trap as the one many politicians have toppled into over the past two days, by being really jolly brave on other people's behalf. Only, in my defence, I haven't spent years supporting deranged and deeply unpopular immigration policies, or, in return for votes, colluding in the creation of what are essentially Third World ghettoes in many of our major cities. It's a bit galling being told that we're undaunted by the very people who created the circumstances in which we have reasonable grounds for feeling a tad nervous - who but generations of multiculti-supporting, appeasement-monkey politicians have made it necessary for our security forces to keep tabs on at least three thousand Islamist nutters looking for a chance to murder us (not to mention the the ones who haven't made it onto the list)? 

Still and all, Theresa May has been pretty impressive so far - but, yet again, it's been left to Andrew Neil to express what I suspect most of us are thinking - he does cold fury really well:


2 comments:

  1. I know you do not listen to Any Questions on Radio 4, but in this week's edition Caroline Lucas [who I think now has been a guest more than any other living person] quoted Brendan Cox verbatim [see above]. After the audience had calmed down the chaotic and incoherent Dimbleby Junior explained to us who Cox was. I sense that Mr Cox is going to be with us for a very, very long time.

    By the way, John Humphrys also has this very helpful habit of explaining names and technical references throughout interviews. I wonder when the BBC decided that their audiences are a bunch of cretins? Perhaps it is a paternalistic left-wing thing?

    God Bless Andrew Neil.

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    1. Actually, SDG, I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I find it quite helpful!

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