23 August 2018
Why Not Fuck Off?
A political message.
By John Watson
Just as I would rather not meet Mike Tyson in the ring, so I would be reluctant to disagree with Rowan Atkinson on matters of humour. All the same I didn’t laugh out loud on reading Boris’s article in which he compare naqib-wearing women to letterboxes but simply saw in it the type of colourful imagery which anyone would use in a chat with their friends but which increasingly offends the political class when used in public. Mr Atkinson was more amused. Well, as the Romans used to say, “degustibus non est disputandum” and who would argue with that?
However that be, what a precious load of prats they must think us. No, I don’t mean the Romans, they are past thinking anything, although I suspect that they would have veered towards the robust end of the spectrum. The “they” in question are the honest, hard-working people of Britain, the backbone of the country, aspirational, decent, tolerant, fair-minded, easy-going and not very political, the people whose robust good nature makes one proud to be a citizen of this great land. What do you suppose they think when they hear us brand the sort of remarks that they would use across the breakfast table as racist or bigoted? There are two obvious possibilities:
The first is that they nod in sad agreement, tugging their forelocks towards the North London bastions of political correctness, a bow towards Islington, a genuflection towards those who live further up the hill, and indeed themselves, in Hampstead and Highgate. How sorry ordinary people must be at having failed to live up to the rigorous standards set by the chattering classes and their oh so privileged and talented children. Do they remember those same people referring smugly to Britain as “a first rate city with a third rate country attached” and weep tears of remorse that, struggle as they may, they have not raised the standards of their provincial conversations to those expected by the cognoscenti of the Capital? Let’s hope not, which leaves the other alternative.
Perhaps, then, they just grin and shrug their shoulders, laughing at the pretentious drivel talked by their political “betters”, at the ritual demands for apologies for “mis-speaking”, at de-platforming and the re-labelling of loos, at all those who think that what you say is less important than how you say it. Probably they do, thank goodness, but that doesn’t make everything all right because, each time, their opinion of the political class drops and slowly their trust in it ebbs away. And there lies the rub. As the gap opens between the way normal people talk and what is acceptable in the privileged bubble, the public take another step towards ignoring their leaders and reaching for their own conclusions. That isn’t a new phenomenon. The loss of confidence in Latin-spouting priests lay behind the Reformation. “Let us read the Word for ourselves” men cried. They did and, for better or for worse, the world changed. “Let us interpret the news for ourselves” men say now. They do and populism again asserts its grip. A Trump in the US, a Brexit in the UK, the rise of the far right across Europe. These are the children of the public’s loss of confidence in its political class as that class moves its focus from truth to correctness of expression. Perhaps that will ultimately prove to be a good thing: perhaps it will prove to be a bad one: but either way this sort of populism is not what was envisaged by the fools who sit fiddling on the pyre. “It is a difficult question, Sophia, whether it is racist to recognise genetic differences at all.” Idiots!
It is not just Mr Johnson who finds himself on the wrong side of the linguistic gauleiters. Mr Corbyn has picked up some similar flack in Labour’s anti-semitic row. Inevitably the speed with which Mr Corbyn’s party has grown has sucked into it (along of course with many idealistic and decent people) a fair selection of political lowlife, anti-semites and holocaust deniers among them, and Mr Corbyn can be justly criticised for his lethargy in throwing them out; but giving a platform to an Auschwitz survivor who was sufficiently concerned about Israeli policies to compare them to those of the Nazis? Vivid maybe; overstated perhaps; but anti-semitic? Clearly not.
So what should we do with all these ghastly people who contribute little by way of ideas but build their careers by finding political errors in the utterances of others, who look out from the towers of the metropolis to sneer at the language used by those who seek to achieve something. In more sensible times whips and stocks would have met the bill satisfactorily but in truth such measures are probably unnecessary. This tide like all others will run out and those without clothes will be savagely exposed. And until then, how are we to put up with their utterances? Should we just ignore them as they peddle their bile to shrinking audiences? No, they will continue to damage the political process. Or should we reason with them, being careful of course not to cause too much offence? No, that doesn’t seem enough either. Something rather blunter is called for. I know, let’s borrow from the vernacular of the very people they correct and despise. Let’s just tell them all to fuck off.
