Catty

Feeling lazy / tired / dispirited / blah, ready to curl up with the cat in front of the woodburning stove (Oh, the carbon emissions!), I can’t be bothered to compose my own masterpiece so instead will cobble together others’ nuggets. Not elegant, but functional.

Firstly, Mr Mouthpiece himself. I don’t normally have much time for Jeremy Clarkson. Not surprising when you remember that I couldn’t care less about cars, I don’t like people who flout planning laws, and he’s so insulting about Brexit. But sometimes, very occasionally, he gets it right. His column in a recent Sunday Times is one such example. He’s irreverent, rude, edgy – catty. He could have argued his case by being polite and uncontroversial. But that’s not his style. Nor mine. As long as this country upholds freedom of expression, then read it and weep.

He was banging on about European farmers losing their patience and protesting because of new laws that will destroy their livelihoods. He says things like: “…modern politicians have all become enslaved by idiotic left-leaning pressure groups,” and, “Waving banners which read ‘No beer without farmers’ — snappy as ever — they’ve blockaded Berlin even more effectively than the Russians did.” He follows that with, “Everyone from the BBC to The Guardian is saying that the farmer protests in Germany … are, in fact, a smokescreen for a resurgence of the far right. They imply that if you peer over the steaming piles of manure being left at the Brandenburg Gate, you can see lots of weird rural boys in brown shirts with daggers and suspiciously neat hair.”

Going off-topic, he refers to “That melon woman who became [Italian] prime minister recently talked about the need to limit immigration and suddenly they’re out there on the streets with their pink hair saying she’s the new Mussolini.” 

His underlying message is also a major concern of mine: "… it’s a battle between the centrist left and the ‘far right’... the new racism and misogyny catch-all badge of disgrace, handed out by the left whenever they think they might lose a debate. ‘You’re far-right,’ they scream.” 

Given that the left loses most debates, I’ll be kind and buy them a tonne of Strepsils. Clarkson might have said instead, ‘they hiss’, to keep with the feline thread. In which case, a supply of Covid masks might be a better purchase.

On LinkedIn, a SuDS (Sustainable urban Drainage Systems) expert said, “Public backlash against SuDS! We need to plan for it, strategise and do everything we can to avoid it – even if it means we don't hit (over-)ambitious targets as soon as we'd like to.” The post was well-received by a cross-section of LinkedInners, including greenies, yet Rishi’s decision to slow down the ‘over-ambitious’ net-zero targets and policies, because of the public backlash and indeed potential hardship of the least well-off, is vilified. Why the double-standards? You’re either prepared to support over-ambitious targets for the sake of the environment, or you’re not. Changing your stance depending on who’s leading the charge is counter-productive for the environmental cause. Or maybe the environment isn’t the prime concern; maybe it’s politics.

In the Monday Times I think it was, Trevor Phillips was on sparkling form. (Unlike Clarkson, he normally has my seal of approval.) His focus was the Post Office scandal and the wider “banality of bureaucratic indifference to life. The sheer insincerity of the phrase ‘Your call is important to us’ and the evident falsehood that ‘We are experiencing exceptionally high call volumes’ are the ‘Let them eat cake’ provocations of our time.”

Another thing he homed in on that resonates with one of my grumbles: “the Post Office turns out to be an equal opportunity persecutor. What does grate is that a company that has introduced mandatory race awareness training for all its senior people failed to listen to the actual people of minority background.”

Later in the article he referred to John F Kennedy who apparently said “painting those who oppose you as morally deficient is the pathway to defeat.”

Yup. We’re back to the lefties screaming “far right”.

Illustrating his point, Phillips pointed to Donald Trump who’s “leading Biden among Latino voters 39-34 points; the Republican share among blacks is up to one in six. The crocodiles down in Mar-a-Lago are licking their lips.”

What wonderful imagery. And, yeah: blanket-condemnation of every perceived evil deed, utterance and decision of Trump’s, in the hope that something will stick, is backfiring, as he was always bound to wiggle off some hooks, which destabilizes other hooks in the court of public opinion. And, the more his supporters are insulted, the more they’re going to double-down on their voting intentions. One reason why Trump’s popularity persists, apart from the fact he has nine lives, is that many who are moralizing about Trump are unsavoury characters themselves, chief amongst them is Joe Biden. Those in glass houses, etc.

The Daily Mail also had something about Trump this week. It is reported that he gave a shout-out to Nigel Farage, calling him a “handsome guy”. Farage looked like the cat who’d licked the cream. Later, he repaid the compliment on Twitter, saying: “I have never wavered since 2016 in my belief that the world is safer with Trump.” Great to see the future President of the US and the future PM of Blighty getting on so well. Hark! Can I hear the moralizers screaming at me for daring to put my tongue in my cheek?

Busy week: Julie Burchill stuck her claws into Sir Ed Davey in The Spectator. He’s one of those self-styled morally superior grandstanders, but Burchill has his number. She observes that "... the more someone claims to be an empath, the likelier they are to be a narcissist: it’s gaslighting 101 … Supremely contemptuous of the concerns of women by being utterly committed to favouring the ‘rights’ of transvestites. ... he called for ... 'tea with the Taliban’. What a shame he had no time for tea with suicidal sub-postmasters."

One hero postmaster, Alan Bates, is lauded quite rightly for campaigning against the Horizon injustices. Therefore, in line with Trump not being 110% bad 110% of the time in 110% of what he does, why isn’t Tommy Robinson at least acknowledged neutrally for protesting lack of justice for the victims of the Rotherham (et al) grooming gangs? His motives might not be honourable, and he might be a nasty piece in other respects, but if he has helped even indirectly to protect just one girl or bring one paedo to justice, then he’s done something good. Hasn’t he? No fan of Robinson, I’m asking the question out of philosophical and logical curiosity, accompanied by a sweepstake as to how many people scream at me for daring to question Robinson’s 110% evil.

The screaming moralizers keep trying to enact the old cliché of ‘curiosity killed the cat’, or at least castigated the cat into quietness. I’ve got one thing to say to that:

Meow.