A circuitous route

After supper with Sis of burger, chips and red wine at a Gordon Ramsay place in London, I settled down in my armchair to blog. I was too tired to PhuD or prep for next week’s meetings, and disinclined to change a light bulb, vacuum the rug or straighten a wonky picture on the wall. In any event, it suited being wonky. It’s a vividly colourised and abstractly contrasted reflection of part of a boat on the water. Cleverly conceived and beautifully executed, it would never win the Turner Prize, no matter how wonkily presented.

I'm having several false starts with this blog. Successive flashes of inspiration snuffed themselves out like kamikaze kandles. One idea I had was prompted by photos in the Daily Mail of Boris and family at a bizarre-sounding “Oxford Morris dancing festival where people dress up as elves and pour cider on tree roots”. That’s a Morris-dancing festival in Oxford, not a festival of dancing motor cars. Boris looked happy and relaxed, if incredibly scruffy. I’ve blogged many times about why I supported him through thick (his detractors) and thin (the evidence against him), and that I admired to the hilt his loyalty to his friends, colleagues and country (we’ll skip over his former wives). Sometimes his loyalty was misplaced (Cummings); sometimes he overdid it (Baroness Bra). But much worse than loyalty being misplaced and overdone is a lack of it. If loyalty is unreliable or betrayed then there’s no trust. Goodnight, Vienna.

Boris’s integrity also shone through when he participated in the march against antisemitism in London. For that alone, I should vote for him again. Apparently, Reform UK is said to have secured 10% of the public’s support, which would increase to 14% if Nigel Farage jumped on board. I wonder what it would rise to if Boris joined them. A dream ticket for the Rightists or a nightmare on Downing Street for Fishy? Would I vote Reform if Boris signed up? Well, on the plus side, it sounds like Reform has a better understanding of economics and the markets than Fishy & Co. In addition, Reform’s proposed energy policy is intelligent and logical, even if I don’t entirely agree with it. On the negative side, I can’t warm to Richard Tice, so the jury’s out and this blog-topic can be parked for another day.

Talking about integrity, what about those striking doctors, eh? You know, those who share a moral platform with the muggers, drunk drivers and domestic abusers who put people in hospital in the first place. 

I've said all that needs to be said on that topic in one sentence, so I'll move on to blog about Derek Draper, who died of Covid complications after years of suffering. It’s all very sad, but a LinkedIn thread is debating whether the fawning obituaries and tributes are justified because, it is claimed, he wasn’t a very nice man. I had no idea about that, so I googled him and found the following uncritical and matter-of-fact account by the Guardian. At one time, Draper was an aide to Peter Mandelson [the Prince of Darkness] and later become a director of a lobbying firm. He lost that job when he boasted that “certain lobbyists close to Labour were offering access and valuable market intelligence about government policy to their clients”. He lost another job when “it was reported that he had enthusiastically backed a plan to publish scurrilous fabrications about Conservative politicians and their families”. In other words, if you’re a lefty, the Guardian is fine with you boasting about selling Government secrets and telling lies about Tories and their families, but if you’re a Tory, the Guardian consigns you to hell for maybe/maybe not eating cake.

It’s not good form to blog irreverently about the recently departed, no matter what their integrity – that character trait again – and I’m bored with the bias and hypocrisy of the Guardian (and the BBC, Private Eye, the Independent and Byline Times) so I’ll try something else.

The environment is always worth a blog. But this time I’m not in the mood. I’ve grown increasingly frustrated (euphemism for ‘fed up’) with the herd mentality, echo chamber, stick-to-the-script and always-agree approach of some (not all, but too many) environmentalists when discussing climate change, water pollution and biodiversity loss. Informed insight and challenges are frowned upon, viewed with suspicion even, by paranoid android conspiracy theorists. I’m therefore easing back from some commitments to focus on the ones I do enjoy and, more importantly, who enjoy and respect my participation.

Fittingly, a headline in the Times trumpets, “Post Office scandal highlights corrosive nature of groupthink.” My point exactly. If everyone – corporate or environmentalist – (how did I put it?) adopted the herd mentality, echo chamber, stick-to-the-script and always-agree approach, then we’re screwed. Problem is, whistleblowers, free thinkers, devil advocates and mischief makers are vilified for being disruptive renegades who should be shouted down if not cancelled. Their value as knights in shining armour charging to the rescue from misconceptions, tired arguments and self-perpetuating myths is sacrificed on the altar of zombie groupthink.

PS re the Post Office scandal: Ed Davey, where were you when the workers needed you? You have no right to criticise Boris’s integrity.

After a cornucopia of false starts, here’s where am I with this blog:

• I support Boris

• Disloyalty is the 8th deadly sin

• I might/might not vote Reform UK

• Striking doctors are going to hell

• ‘Biased journalism’ is an oxymoron

• The Green lobby needs a kick up the pants

• As does Ed Davey. And Paula Vennells should be stripped of her CBE; even Baroness Bra is more worthy (or less unworthy) of her ennoblement.

I suppose I could finish off by pointing out that denouncing the selection of Cllr Helen Harrison as the Tory party candidate in Wellingborough to replace her disgraced partner Peter Bone in the upcoming by-election, because she is Bone’s partner and not because of her own merits, is misogynistic. But you won’t hear that from the #MeToo movement, because she’s a Tory.

Or I could give an honorary mention to the white male Lloyds Bank employee who went head-to-head with the sinister DEI lobby, over his legitimate-in-context use of the N word, and won record damages. Another glorious result was the lynch mob forcing the Harvard President's resignation for her academic shortcomings and tacit support for the genocide of Jews.

As I said earlier, I don’t know who I’ll vote for at the next election. I’ll wait to see who I think will most effectively grab the woke bull by its cancerous horns and wrestle it into oblivion. Others can claim to prioritise the economy, environment and social issues if they wish, but as long as there’s woke, there’s fear and failure all round.