A fond farewell to 2016 - the year so many things went right

On the last day of 2015 I wrote a splenetic post entitled "The 2015 Grønmark Blog Top 20 'Absolute Blister' Awards for Services to Bum-Holery. So many of the blisters singled out for attack now seem little more than distant memories (e.g. Rachel Dolezal, Connie St. Louis, Camila Batmanghelidjh, Sepp Blatter, Louis Van Gaal, Russell Brand) that, in some ways it reads like a period piece from the distant past. Not that we aren't still being maddened by a whole army of self-regarding, left-liberal SJW blisters - it's just that so many of their dreams lie shattered in the wake of the Brexit referendum and the the defeat of the American Medusa, Hillary Clinton ("a winged human female with a hideous face and living venomous snakes in place of hair" - sounds about right).

As a result of these two votes (and Matteo Rienzi's referendum loss in Italy), I'm far less angry this time round, so I'll use this post to thank some of the people who made these results possible. But first, I'll award just one 2016 Grønmark Blog 'Absolute Blister' Award for Services to Bum-Holery. It's a communal award, and it goes to all the social media "friends" who littered my timeline with hysterical, irrational, snobbish tantrums about the sheer frightfulness of the ignorant, racist peasants who had destroyed their lives and their children's lives by expressing a preference for not being ruled by unelected foreign socialists like Jean-Claude Juncker. My New Year message to all of you is, "You OK, hun?"

It would take too long to thank all of the people who made Brexit possible. It would obviously include the following politicians: Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Iain Duncan Smith, Bill Cash, Daniel Hannan, Gisela Stuart, Kate Hoey and John Mann. As for the commentariat, I'd single out James Delingpole, Matt Ridley, Charles Moore, Brendan O'Neill, Andrew Neil,  Fraser Nelson and, of course, the film-maker Martin Durkin. God bless them all - and the multitudes I haven't mentioned - for withstanding the bullying and derision they were no doubt subjected to by the Anointed: they rode into the Valley of Death - and emerged triumphant, with the cheers of the people and the wailing of the enemy ringing in their ears. Oh Lord, it was so sweet.

The Brexit cause was, of course, helped enormously - albeit inadvertently - by many on the Remain side, and I feel we Brexiteers should also thank them for their enormous contribution. Top of the list? David Cameron, for returning from Brussels with a pathetic, peely-wally little non-deal which anyone with an ounce of national pride had no choice but to reject. Next has to be George Osborne, whose melodramatic, Grand Guignol fear-mongering was worthy of Tod Slaughter in his prime - and just as funny. Then Tony Blair popped up to remind us what it was that we loathed about the elite. And Eddie Izzard (dragged up like Danny La Rue) and Bob Geldof waving two-fingers at beleaguered British fishermen put in appearance and we thought: who exactly do these wankers think they are, telling us what to do?

And there was Angela Merkel, whose Million Muslim Facebook party gave many of us pause for thought. Step (or stagger) forward, Jean-Claude Juncker - because every time he opened his arrogant mouth, Leave gained another percentage point. Yappy little Nichola Sturgeon helped enormously by reminding the English that they had an ideal opportunity to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off Wee Jimmy Crankie's face by voting for Brexit. Ditto, boring beardie, Richard Branson. Matthew Parris and his journalistic ilk did their bit by constantly shrieking "Father, father! The men are coming up the drive. Oh, do make the horrid brutes go away!"

Let's not forget Barack Obama's tremendously helpful intervention. Back of the queue? Mind your own business and sod off back where you came from, mate! David Dimbleby did his bit by chairing the grotesquely biased Question Time every week, thereby allowing voters to get better acquainted with the sorts of politicians (Emily Thornberry, Chuka Umunna and Tim Farron spring to mind) and "entertainers" who were supporting Remain. And, finally, there was Jeremy Clarkson showing his true colours and deserting what he no doubt viewed as a sinking ship, thus revealing that he'd only ever pretended to be one of us. Very well - alone!

Thanks, guys - couldn't have done it without you.

I'll leave you with a lengthy extract from Charles Moore's typically thoughtful article in the Christmas issue of the Spectator, "I'm part of the elite, so why am I cheering for the populist right!". Having been accused by a Spectator reader of becoming "very right-wing", Moore admits that he is a deeply traditional conservative who dislikes most of what he calls "the great populist institutions of the age - — Mr Trump, Vladimir Putin, Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, Beppe Grillo, the Daily Mail, Breitbart, or the ex-populist, now EU lackey, Alexis Tsipras. Instinctively, I prefer a more establishment style — courteous, gently humorous, inclined to admit error when challenged rather than to shout louder." And yet he finds himself on the side of the populists. Having gone on to list some of the elite's myriad failures, he writes:

The response of elites to their failures is too often to stigmatise the people who complain. Those who protest at immigration levels ten times higher than 30 years ago are treated as racists. Even the ballot box itself is seen as ‘populist’. Remainers argue that the referendum issues were ‘too complicated’ for voters. They seem actively to dislike the idea that our nation should once more be governed by its elected representatives. Having failed electorally, they turn to ‘lawfare’ — preferring a case before the Supreme Court to the direct implementation of what Parliament handed to the people to decide. Voters now believe that their rulers really do not like them very much, so the feeling becomes mutual.

In this respect, the culture war matters. You cannot go on saying that white straight males are brutes without eventually annoying them (and even a significant proportion of what John Prescott used to call their ‘womenfolk’). The cultural signals from the powerful are almost unthinkingly hostile to majority populations. This month, to take a minor example, a report into ‘diversity’ in the theatre commissioned by Andrew Lloyd Webber reported (reusing a phrase from Greg Dyke years ago) that it is ‘hideously white’. Why should the dominant racial characteristic of all western societies be considered ‘hideous’? If you said that anything was ‘hideously black’ you would (rightly) be shunned by polite society. Such asymmetry inspires revolt. The rise of Trumpery shows that the right has learnt a tactic of the left, which is to play up grievance to get power, money and attention. Grievance politics is extremely unattractive, but if western societies no longer deliver rising general prosperity and disrespect the people whom they are failing to serve, what do you expect?

One of the great things about being a "deplorable", as 2016 draws to a close, is finding so many thoroughly admirable, undeplorable people on one's side.

Happy New Year!