I was having a quiet pint outside a Bloomsbury pub, waiting for my other half, prior to going to see a friend’s show at London’s Museum of Comedy, when two women put their bottles and glasses down on my table.

“You don’t mind if we sit with you, do you?”

Fair enough. There weren’t any free tables. As long as there was room for my partner too, I said. They’d had a couple, but were only a little merry, enjoying an annual West End trip from somewhere beyond the M25.

“We won’t disturb you,” said one.

“We’ll see,” I said.

They laughed. They were used to a bit of pull and push. They were chatty and jolly. They were going to a rooftop club-cum-cocktail bar and were talking about staying up all night, though like myself, they must have been in their sixties.

After ten minutes of me waiting for my partner they suggested I had an “imaginary wife.” I laughed.

Then the first signs appeared. “Oh, nothing’s like it used to be, is it?”

My spidey-sense twitched. I don’t know why anything would be like it used to be. We all miss things that have closed or disappeared, but it would be fucking weird if nothing ever changed.

(I make a mental note to write a screenplay about a man who complains that nothing is the same as when he was young, who awakens to find it has reverted to the 1970s and he can’t find anywhere to buy cigarettes on a Sunday. He goes to Google it but can’t find his phone. He watches a local news show called About Anglia and prays for an early death. Maybe it’s a film, or maybe a TV series. Or a novel. Or perhaps, like most of my grand ideas, a tweet.)

They spoke about how they often got the boat across the River Orwell to Harwich, which sounded nice. Apparently the river is not named after George. In fact, it was the other way round.

“They’ve got those Border Control boats at Harwich, ain’t they?”

“Oh?” I muttered, with mounting alarm.

“They don’t do nothing. Just sit there,” one said with indignation.

“Right…” I said, wondering how quickly I, or they, could leave.

“We should be sending ‘em back.”

Oh, Christ on a scooter. Mentally, I held my head in my hands. They had promised not to disturb me!

“Who? Who are you sending back?”

“All them doctors and nurses,” one of them huffed.

I almost spat out my pint, but pints are very important to me.

“You want to send doctors and nurses away?” I said, incredulously. This was lunacy!

“And the surgeons.”

“Not the surgeons!”

“Well, they lie, don’t they?”

Do not have an aneurism, Vinny. Do not rupture any blood vessels.

With impeccable timing, my wife, of Indian heritage, arrived, sat down, rolled a fag and joined in. She’ll chat to anyone. Within a minute they were practically eating out of her hand.

She told them about the friend we were going to see perform and how much she loved her and that our friend had suffered considerable misfortune in life and that if anybody wronged her, my partner would kill them with the knife she bought from a Corsican purveyor of salami (and knives) in France that is engraved with the word: “Vendetta”.

They were awestruck. Or scared.

“I like a bit of loyalty,” laughed one.

“Oh, I do love your wife,” the other told me, which gave us something in common at least. Hopefully she was recalling what she’d been saying minutes earlier and feeling a little contrite. But who knows? Probably not.

I should have said, “You don’t want to send her back then?” But I failed to, such is l’esprit d’escalier. I kept it civil, when I shouldn’t have. Though, given my wife was born in Hammersmith, they would only have needed to provide her with a Travelcard and some plausible reason why she shouldn’t live wherever the fuck she wanted to in the country of her birth.

But then I started to think: maybe I want to send them back. Back beyond the M25, never to return.

This was my lurch to authoritarianism. Let’s build a wall, with checkpoints. If you can’t accept our culture, off you go. If you don’t like our ways, stay home. We live in a magnificent multicultural city, one of the best in the world, one that has a bit of everything, good and bad, but mostly good. If you can’t assimilate, don’t come here with your idiotic views to spread your poison. We have our problems, like any group of 9 million people. But there is a case for saying, if you can’t stand people who are different from you, you need a village, not a city. Maybe with your cousins. London is not a theme park for your annual commentary on the descent of Britain. It’s home and we like it.

My Border Control Officers would ask those hoping to cross the orbital motorway: “What should we do with doctors and nurses and surgeons?”

If they say “send ‘em back”, they would be deported to some reservation for flag shaggers and their passports stamped with, “Fuck Off!”

How’s that for a taste of your own medicine? It’s just what the doctor ordered.

Or:

Treat me

This is about the books from my schooldays that I chose to read, rather than those that were part of the syllabus. So I’m 13-15 years old, not very academic, to put it mildly. Certainly not bookish, though I loved a library when it was too wet for football.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

I was too young to see Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film, but its notoriety rippled through both polite and impolite society. I was drawn to a story about youth and rebellion and finding it had its own dialect, an Anglo-Russian argot, made opening its pages like entering another dimension. It announced a subculture alienated from the world around it, not by sneering adults, but by choice. I studied nadsat with much more enthusiasm than I ever did Latin.

The opening chapters brim with violence, but narrated by Alex, the main character, it takes on a darkly comical hue. Not sanitised, but matter-of-fact at the same time as being otherworldly, as our anti-hero and his droogs slash their way through innocent victims in a gory display of nihilism. The theatric savagery is tempered by Alex’s profound love of classical music, and in particular, Beethoven. How can the heart of the barbarian be so moved by such complex beauty? It’s more of an intriguing rather than redeeming feature (after all, Hitler loved Wagner) that is later used against him in the aversion therapy that seeks to strip him of his free will and rid him of his violent nature.

But it was not the ultraviolence that stayed with me, not at all. It was the language; the cleverness of the author; the isolation of a younger generation – a societal glitch that seems to repeat with each new crop; the authoritarian power that strives to tame humanity, with few limits on its own reach; and questions about volition and determinism.

The book has regularly faced bans in the United States and Kubrick’s film was withdrawn by the director in the UK after allegations it had inspired copycat crimes. It certainly inspired no violence in me, but it did lead me to explore more of Burgess’s novels, many of which I enjoyed more than A Clockwork Orange, such as the Enderby quartet and the mighty Earthly Powers. He frequently had me scurrying for the dictionary, word-monster and linguistic show-off that he was, but often it was his subtle humour that I found most rewarding in a world of Carry On comedy. (Though, while bawdy British humour had its knockers, I enjoyed that too.)

The version I read included the ‘21st chapter’; the ending that featured Alex’s redemption as he tires of violence and foresees a more productive, domestic future. The version Kubrick read was the American one, the one with the final chapter omitted. Ironically, the US publishers were not convinced by Burgess’s more ‘Hollywood’ ending, with good triumphing over evil in the end. So Kubrick’s version concludes on a much darker note than the original book.

I couldn’t put it down, to the extent that I was unable to stop reading it even in Geography. The teacher, a wild eccentric, spotted my inattention to the mineral resources of Latin America and headed towards me, menacingly. I expected some ultraviolence in the shape of a cane or strap, or at least a clump around the ear, after he snatched the book from my hands.

“Burgess?” he said, tossing it back to me. “Very good.”

I had my own implausible chapter.

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)

In my second year we had a progressive young teacher, who actually liked people. For me, he was that ‘one teacher’ that I hope everyone had.

We read Animal Farm, another dystopian novella and one that suited the imagination of a 12-year-old boy, only too willing to believe that pigs could be dictatorial. That led me to later read Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell’s allegorical novel that was supposed to be fictional, but which is often described as reflecting current reality. The common ground with the present is startling: perpetual war, cult leadership, mass surveillance, the rewriting of history, the subjugation of Britain by a mightier power, repression, thought-crime, propaganda, lies and distortions morphing into accepted facts.

It was a bleak book, unremittingly so, where the frustrations of Winston Smith are deeply felt by the reader. The world had gone quite mad. A waking nightmare ruled by tyrants where behaviour was brutally controlled, with no path out to a sane sanctuary. Winston was forced to be part of the truth-twisting, amending the past to suit the augmented present. He dreamt of rebellion, but had no one to trust with his inner thoughts, at least until he met Julia. Their love leads to their downfall.

Many people around the world have reached the stage where they are unable to believe their own ears and eyes as they are asked to accept bold, obvious falsehoods on a daily basis.

Orwell warned of a despicable world wide totalitarianism that could be produced from either flank of the political spectrum. I’d grown up loathing Nazism, which was hardly a controversial stance in the long shadow of WWII. The entire nation felt the same, it seemed, and millions were glued in 1973/74 to all 26 hour-long episodes of ITV’s extraordinary The World At War, with Lawrence Olivier describing the unrepeatable horrors of war and extremism. I would not have thought it possible that antifascism could be questioned, not just in my lifetime, but ever again.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

I remember less of the plot of Huxley’s classic novel than I do its premise: a dystopian society of a genetically engineered, caste-based, sleep-indoctrinated populace, rendered passive by happiness drugs. Each social class, from the elite Alphas to the menial Epsilons are content with their lot, preferring their own kind, with no aspirations for social mobility. I wonder how many people would consider being stripped of free will and ambition, to live with that level of constant satisfaction, however artificial it might be? If many would swap struggle for a sense of peace, even at the cost of their autonomy.

I question if, in some respects, that society has commenced. We are already made docile, or at least distracted, by our phones, our games, our streaming services, our full stomachs and our choice of intoxicants. How else do we explain the lack of revolutions against leaders who are so casually responsible for unnecessary death through war, famine, poverty, climate, brutality and indifference?

Huxley told Orwell that the violent repression in Nineteen Eighty-Four was less likely to be sustainable than the “infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis” of his own Shakespeare-inspired title. Certainly drugs, legal and prescribed, keep many of us from losing our shit, though they are not mandatory. Propaganda already has a huge impact. You don’t need sleep-conditioning when, wide awake, you pledge allegiance to a flag and country with the delusion of “liberty and justice for all” from day one of kindergarten to adulthood.

The main character of Brave New World is Bernard Marx, a psychologist who works in sleep-learning, and is thereby able to look under the bonnet of the machine that keeps people peaceful through dubious means. Consequently he is critical and in danger of exile, especially after he brings back John, a Shakespeare-quoting, natural-born human from a kind of indigenous reservation who becomes appalled by the vacuousness of the ‘Brave New World’. John’s attempt at disruption is described by the Controller as a demand for “the right to be unhappy”.

I’d never thought of the right to be unhappy as a human right, but of course it is. We must have the right to make up our own minds, whatever pressures we face from the powerful or influential.

All of these stories were about outsiders, people whose instincts were not to conform, flailing around trying to escape a repressive system that made no sense to them. It’s no wonder that I, a reluctant student and soon-to-be reluctant employee, was drawn to them. They are all about people who do not like doing what they are told.

To have our free will taken from us, as occurs in each of these books, is in itself, an act of malice, of violence, stripping from us that with which we were born. The liberty of thought is not just about being able to choose our opinions and preferences. It is self-ownership. It is also about sincerity. How can you love, how can you care, without that freedom? How can you be human?

Free will has to be universal. That’s how democracy gifts the will of the many over the few. But the many are so easily subject to manipulation. How else does cleaning up our air so that fewer people are affected by pollution become controversial? How does working to save the planet from destruction become radical?

Not only do we need the right to be unhappy, the right to express our unhappiness is also essential. The right of protest is something that separates our flawed democracies from totalitarianism, yet even that is being eroded, when old ladies holding a slogan on a piece of cardboard are ordained as terrorists.

A book I’ve just read – Elizabeth Strout’s superb Things We Never Say – also concerns itself with free will, along with the unspoken inner life. The central character, Artie Dam, advises one of his high school students to say, “Fuck you”, in his mind, not out loud. Perhaps the books of my youth helped shape my perspective more than I realised, but I can’t help but wonder if “Fuck you!” is one of the most important things we can say. Out loud.

Or…

Treat me

Custom forbids realistic appraisal of the recently departed, no matter how vile they had been during their lifetime.

The fawning obituaries of shock columnist Rod Liddle were sickening, given the unforgivable views he expressed. Few, like Mic Wright and Zoe Williams, dared to speak honestly, though his first wife and mother of his first two children had some words for his early departure from their honeymoon to meet his half-his-age lover some years ago.

It was noted that he was a brilliant editor of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, leading the show to several awards. Many who worked with him found him very likeable. Since when have racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic pervs been likeable?

Naturally his children eulogised him, as they have every right and reason to. But for those in his industry to describe someone who routinely punched down on the most disadvantaged and vulnerable as some sort of brave truth-teller is to laud Goliath for having the courage to take on David.

Fuck Rod Liddle.

Speaking of those who have passed, below is a more personal reflection on shifting perspectives of a difficult parent.

My mum and dad’s birthdays are July 8th and July 9th, respectively. I usually visit their graves on one of those days, leave some flowers and have a chat. Silly, I know. But while your parents never fully leave you, it’s nice to have a day when you know you will consider who and what they were. And I was surprised how those reflections changed with the passing years.

Not so much with Mum, who was a gentle soul, always kind, not just to her children, but to everyone. She thought the best of people, was even-tempered and routinely put others before herself.

She was fourteen when she moved to England from Tipperary to live with her aunt during World War II. It’s hard to imagine your parent’s ‘courting’, but I know they met a few years later at a dance where Dad mocked her Irish accent. But he managed to persuade her to come to the pictures with him, pleading that he’d already bought the tickets, which, she reminded him over the years, was a bald lie.

Dad rode a motorcycle, with a sidecar for Mum, but once the struts became unattached and she found herself overtaking him down a hill, he decided a car was required. He could be romantic. He eventually sold the car to buy her a ring.

Her father warned her about going out with a sailor, and it sounded like she was hesitant to the point of reluctance. But their love grew and his mixture of certainty, humour and persistence persuaded her to embark on the ups and downs of a 60-year marriage.

My view of my father has been tempered in the 11 years since he passed. Like a lot of kids, I idolised him when I was little. Your parents are your horizon and he was a redoubtable provider whose focus was a roof over our heads and food on the table, having grown up in a cold house, without shoes to walk to school in, where every mouthful of food was treasured.

He could be fun and funny. Plus we shared a love of football, which remained an uncontentious thread throughout our lives. But he could also be loud and intimidating, with wild mood swings and a quick temper. It was only when I was older that I realised that while I loved him, I didn’t actually like him; that I disagreed with him on almost every subject. Not just disagreed with him; I was deeply offended by his opinions.

In fact, I still am, as they were much like Saint Rod Liddle’s (though he wasn’t nonce-friendly like the Right’s hero). But what I was not able to take into account until after his passing was that he was almost certainly suffering from PTSD. He was 17 at the outbreak of WWII, and unhesitatingly joined the Royal Navy. Three years later, the destroyer he served on as a stoker, the HMS Quentin, was torpedoed by German aircraft and sank off the coast of North Africa. His role was in the bowels of the ship, shovelling coal into a furnace. When the torpedo hit, he had about four minutes to get off the ship before it sank. 20 of his shipmates died. I can’t imagine what that does to a 20-year-old. How that affects you, not just psychologically, but how it shapes your world view, one that has been formed when our little island was still a great power, fighting a life-or-death battle with sheer evil, in the shape of Nazi Germany, and when your only experience of other cultures was of people to trying to kill you.

It wasn’t the only time his ship was sunk in that war, and far from the only time that he saw his friends die. And like a lot of those who went to war, he found it hard to relate to anyone who didn’t. The bond of mutual respect meant he only really befriended people who had served and had some understanding of his experience; the same sense of sacrifice for their country. Other people could never quite be on the same wavelength.

He had grown up in poverty in south London in a house crowded with his six siblings. His father had been a machine gunner in World War I and met his mother when she was working at the Woolwich Arsenal, making munitions for the war effort. From the distance of the 21st century, there didn’t seem to be much questioning of Britain’s place and role in the world – there was only duty. The atrocities of empire were not widely known. We were the good guys, always. British fair play and all that. Just like the USA thinks of itself, despite the evidence. But in WWII, they were both on the right side of history, even if they were far from alone.

But they didn’t just give their youth, their courage, their fallen friends. They gave up part of themselves, forever haunted and disturbed by what they had seen and suffered. Those at home were also tormented. Imagine all five of your sons at war, your young daughters evacuated to live with strangers, and living in an underground shelter night after night as bombs rained down on your town. It drove my grandmother to the edge of her sanity, but her doctor had an idea: get a job back in the munitions factory to take your mind off the war.

Whatever my father’s experiences in the Navy though, he found civilian life less palatable than he’d expected after the war, like many veterans trying to adjust to peace time. The British way of just “getting on with it” was inadequate for many of those to whom so much is owed. He signed back up to serve in the Korean War during which he visited Japan. There he was demoted from Leading Stoker after an incident in which he was forced to return to his ship in the uniform of another Navy, having swapped with a US sailor so he could access a bar with geisha, and the American could go to a bar with booze. His new friend failed to show up to return the uniforms to their rightful owners and Dad had to report to his ship in disgrace.

He did bring back a translucent lithophane tea set, decorated with gold leaf moriage dragons and made from such thin porcelain that it revealed the image of a geisha at the bottom of the cup. It was a gift for my mum, though I doubt he’d told her the geisha bar story at that time. He also brought back a box of unstrung pearls from Tahiti but he must have been a little disheartened to hear Mum was not a fan of pearls. Nonetheless they married as the snow fell, on Valentine’s Day in 1953.

Of course Dad’s war experiences as a young man don’t excuse his racism, misogyny, antisemitism and homophobia, but it probably led to his later alcoholism and the burning rage that stayed with him into his nineties. He would never accept that Britain had ever behaved badly in the world. A Daily Mail reader in his dotage, he managed to minimise the Holocaust and the Great Famine, and always seemed to side with accused men against women. Having once been a Trade Union shop steward, he moved further and further to the right as he got older, as indeed did Liddle.

Mum struggled to come to terms with the horrific abuse scandals of the Catholic Church. She always hoped her children would “come back to the Church”, and that is not going to happen. It’s hard to accept that the institution from whom you gained your values, whether church or country, doesn’t actually hold those values.

It was Dad’s racism that first alerted me to his wrong-headedness, at quite a young age. The only reason for his negative reactions seemed to be the colour of people’s skin. An early experience of it was when he stormed out of our local Post Office after it was taken over by an Asian family. They were doing the same job as the previous family, but they had accents, and brown skin. I was embarrassed by him.

It’s possible my realisation that people in authority are not in that position because they are wise or prudent began there. They were just in charge.

I believe that most Britons at that time, including war veterans, were not aware of how many Indians fought (2.5 million) and died (87,000) in WWII. Of course India was heavily involved in the war, not that any Indians had a role in that decision. It was part of the British Empire.

Winston Churchill was voted the Greatest Briton in a BBC poll in 2002, largely for his inspirational leadership in the War, which was absolutely vital to our survival as an independent, democratic nation. His disastrous leadership in World War I seems to have been forgiven. His contribution to our continued existence is undeniable, but his virulent racism towards Indians was known then and perhaps even more widely accepted now. Apologists wheel out the “man of his time” argument, but he was an extremist even by those standards. His reputation waxed and waned throughout his life, as well as after it.

The irony of looking down on a people you believe cannot govern themselves, then presiding over the collapse of their industry and a famine that killed 3 million people is a raw one. That you can order them to die for you, provide food and wealth to enrich your own country, all the while despising them in your belief in your superiority, reveals the absence of wisdom and prudence, let alone the basic decency Britain thought it possessed.

My father would have had more in common with the thousands of Indian stokers than those who commanded him at sea. The unpublished memoir of his Commanding Officer, Sir Allan Noble, makes no mention of the men who died on the Quentin, though he did mourn the loss of his best suit. He went on to become a Conservative MP.

Dad did take a trip to Germany with his pals in the Royal Naval Association to meet the former sailors of the Kriegsmarine, who had opposed him in the war. They found men of their own age who had been “following orders” and were able to find a kind of fraternity from the similarity of their experiences. But there was no such warmth for people with different colour skin who fought on the same side. I wrote about our difficult relationship for The Guardian and his eventual acceptance of both my Indian partner and our mixed-race son.

I did greet his passing with a sense of relief. He’d wanted to go for some time. He was a big man who could no longer walk. His sight and hearing were failing, but his mind was still clear, if seething. He loathed multicultural Britain, and his daily far-right propaganda rag fuelled his sense that Britain had been defeated by “invaders” and that only a revolution could save us. I confess I did take some guilty pleasure in his disappointment in hearing that UKIP won only 1 seat in the 2015 election, though he had the last posthumous laugh when we voted ourselves out of Europe, in our great contribution to human stupidity.

Their marriage wouldn’t have been possible if Dad hadn’t converted to Catholicism, much to the shock of his family. Mum was a devout believer, so it took a lot for her to come, with papers for a legal separation, to the rehab hospital where he was drying out, not for the first time. She had threatened it often, but this time she was prepared to go through with it. He never drank again.

Although Dad “wore the trousers”, in the traditional family way, I always felt Mum had a quiet power. He could not live with her disapproval.

We know that racism is learned behaviour; that no one is born racist. Many countries hide their darkest chapters. Not Germany, but certainly Japan and the US. Our education system has hidden our role in war-mongering, slavery and bigotry for too long. Could my father have been someone different if his father and the surrounding society weren’t so steeped in xenophobia? Could we fill our armed forces if everyone knew the truth of how and why our country became wealthy and powerful? The resources of India and Africa did not enrich Indians or Africans under our rule. Nor more than a small section of Britons of a certain class. It’s a feature not a flaw and it is still the way of our world.

I used to want to ask both my parents more questions about their lives, but now I want to tell them things, however impotent my graveside chats are. I know now that Dad was broken and that Mum had held him together. I was still angry at him when he died, and for a long time after. But time has allowed me to think more about his qualities, his strength and his trauma. But that does not mean I would ever erase his dark and damaging faults.

Or…

Treat me

US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has vowed to dismantle the International Criminal Court for suggesting the US should be subject to international law.

Rubio believes the ICC is trying to interfere with US military action around the world, as if it were some kind of international court upholding rules-based global order. As such, it risks American sovereignty in countries other than its own.

If this shocking state of affairs continues, US dominion over Venezuela, Cuba and Greenland could be scrutinised, along with their right to blow up school girls in Iran and forget about it. If any country needs to commit war crimes it’s the USA. Why should the Nazis have all the fun? Must they police the world with one hand tied behind their back? No. They love their freedom. And they must be free to bomb the shit out of men, women and children around the world, so that the bad people don’t win and the arms industry can make billions of dollars. You people are just jealous of their economy.

Then, after their crimes against humanity are revealed, Hollywood can make films about how sad it made them, making more and more money, along with some nice soft power. Everyone’s a winner. And by everyone, I mean the USA.

The White House has been furious with the ICC ever since it tried to investigate alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan such as silly things like torture, murder and sexual violence. It refused to cooperate and sanctioned ICC judges and prosecutors, claiming the investigation was “an intolerable threat to US sovereignty”. The US is perfectly capable of judging itself. And it judges itself to be pretty damn fine. As Jesus said in the Old Testament: “USA! USA!”

Most of the ICC ‘situations’ that are being investigated are in African countries and the US would like to keep it like that. Global rules, like taxes, are for little people.

As the 28th Amendment says, “The US can do whatever the fuck it wants because I say so.”

That, it appears, is international law.

Man loves pints

Image credits:

Trump & Rubio: By The White House - YouTube: Public Domain

Double Standards: Tolo News

Most of us know the World Cup should not have been held in the USA and, given the behaviour of US authorities, they should probably never be permitted to host another one for the rest of time. A country that is hostile to visitors from so many countries does not deserve to host a global competition, unlike Canada and Mexico. Russia 2018 was more open than the US, which is really quite damning. But outside of Trump’s bubble of performative cruelty, ordinary Americans are fantastically warm and welcoming.

Qatar 2022 saw protest kits and support for human rights from European players. In America, nothing, despite the captain of Iraq being detained and interrogated for seven hours at the airport; Africa’s best referee being denied entry; Senegal, Iraq, and Uruguay players, all treated like suspects, Moroccan fans with tickets denied entry, the disgraceful treatment of Iran, including 14 members of staff denied entry, the refusal to allow them a training camp in the country where their games are being played, and being forced to leave the US for Mexico immediately after their matches.

There have been so many disgraceful precedents set by this obnoxious administration, alarming incidents in which FIFA has been equally culpable, but as usual, the football and the fans come to the rescue. The World Cup is simply the most uniting event on earth, no matter how hard Washington tries to suck the joy out of it. Even after just a few days, here are some of the things that moved me.

Dick Advocaat. A 78-year-old man who has seen it all, having coached in two previous World Cups for the Netherlands and Russia, as well as managing Iraq, Serbia, and a host of top teams throughout Europe. Yet he found himself in tears on the sidelines taking in the enormity of leading Curaçao in their first ever World Cup, the smallest nation by both population and size to ever do so.

Livano Comenencia. They may have been overwhelmed by Germany but the sheer joy of seeing Comemncia equalise for Curaçao on their debut against the four-time world champions is what it’s all about.

The Songs. England (allegedly) chanting:

He’s fat,

With piles

He’s in the Epstein Files

Trump the cunt

Trump the cunt

Only surpassed by Scotland revision of ‘Donald Where’s Your Troosers?’

Let the stink rise high

Let the stain run low

Doon his legs the muck will flow

All the lassies shout ‘Paedo,

Donald’s shit his troosers’

Cop keepy-uppy. A Boston police officer delighting a group of Tartan Army revellers with a display of keepy-uppy was one of the more wholesome sights. Scotland fans drinking Boston bars dry has also underlined the Scots’ reputation for world class boozing.

Alexei Lalas on James Corden. Lalas may be a genuine four-star dickhead, but calling James Corden a “full kit wanker” live on air was a treat.

Fans booing the hydration breaks. They weren’t the first, but England fans were the loudest to boo the commercial breaks in the middle of each half. FIFA weren’t honest enough to call them what they are, and they gave in to US TV networks’ disinterest in understanding what they were broadcasting; a free-flowing display of athletic brilliance and teamwork. They’ve impacted the matches by disturbing momentum. Everyone hates them except the accountants.

Vozinha. The 40-year-old Cape Verde keeper put on a man of the match display to keep Spain goalless and tearfully told us, “I cried after the game because I grew up with my grandparents when I was a kid, and they could not be here. They passed away a few years ago. My mum could not be here either for a visa issue, and the money we had to pay for it.”

Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries praised Secretary of State Marco Rubio for subsequently ensuring her visa is granted for the next game. We must all praise the Lord for Rubio deciding not to be an utter penis for five minutes of his life.

Aymen Hussein. The Iraq striker has had a life pockmarked by tragedy, losing his father and brother in horrific circumstances. So 7 hours of questioning by US Customs and Border Patrol was more of an affront than anything. That he went on to score Iraq’s first World Cup goal for 40 years was joyous.

Omar Artan. Barred from entering the country despite FIFA appointing him to referee, he refused to accept the £100,000 he was offered as compensation, saying: “This payment cannot make amends for the humiliation I have endured. They should not be paying on behalf of those inhumane dictators. I passed all of FIFA’s selections, training and preparations, yet those 11 hours in customs erased everything. The questioning by FBI agents, the rummaging through my bags by customs officers, the cold lie detector, the ECG machines attached to my body. This unfair treatment is only because I am from Somalia. No amount of money can compensate for that.”

The dignity of this humble man is in stark contrast to the cowardice of Infantino and the bald racism of the US Government.

Lumumba Vea. At every DR Congo match, Michel Nkuka Mboladinga (main image), dresses in brightly coloured suits, and, distinct from the jumping, chanting, dancing fans around him, stands on a plinth and raises his arm. He impersonates a statue of Congo’s first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, honouring the memory of the revolutionary leader who led his country to independence from Belgium, by standing motionless for 90 minutes and more.

It is an extraordinary gesture, but he was sadly missing from DR Congo’s opening match against Portugal due to US travel restrictions. It would have been all the more significant in a country that plotted to have Lumumba killed in 1960.

Lumumba is considered a national hero in Congo and Mboladinga’s gesture a fitting way to honour his legacy. We will see him this week as DR Congo take on Colombia in Guadalajara.

Minab 168. Iran’s players wore pins with the number 168 on their lapels on arrival to the camp in Mexico, a symbolic tribute to those killed when the US bombed a primary school in Minab on the first day of the war. They had previously carried children’s schoolbags onto the pitch for a match in Nigeria, but I imagine that would be too provocative for free speech America and too political for FIFA in this, the most politicised World Cup in history.

Iran’s government has plenty to answer for when it comes to violence against its own citizens, but the US has long projected itself as “the good guys” in a way that bears no resemblance to the truth, as a lot of these examples show. They have yet to take responsibility for the atrocity.

The Fans. As ever, the fans have been remarkable, showing their love for the game, for each other and their countries with such energy and élan that it has shocked and delighted their hosts. Qatari fans danced with Swiss, Uzbeks bonded with Colombians, Mexicans adopted a South Korean, hoisting him high above their heads and chanting: "Korean brother, you’re Mexican now!" Kansas City has embraced its Algerian visitors. All over, bonds have formed and the world has seemed a little smaller, together and more compassionate.

No hate just love 🌍🌎🌏
by u/aquaberry559 in MadeMeSmile

Supporters from many countries have also been blown away by the hospitality of normal Americans and I hope that locals who have experienced the exuberance of the celebrations have begun to understand that their country is not the only one that matters. That they have more in common with people around the world than they previously thought. That Trump’s politics of ignorance and arrogance are as wrong as they are ugly. And that most people around the globe are decent and quite a lot of fun too.

How about a pint?

Image credits:

Dick Advocaat by Анна Мейер used under this license.

Aymen Hussien by Mehr News Agency used under this license

Stewart McGill

“I’m going to talk about first about some of the main, relevant things that happened since we wrote the book. Then Vince is going to talk about the difference between simple anti-racism and anti-fascism, and how important the latter is.

I’ll finish off with a wee bit about what we can do as football fans, and citizens, to fight the growth of the fascist right.

Since the book we have seen the decline of St Pauli, the leading leftist club, there was a major falling out with Celtic and others over Israel and the genocide in Gaza; the arrogance of some of St Pauli support, to which I alluded in the book, was also a factor. Now I came to quite dislike many aspects of St Pauli the more I found out about them, and I loathe their link with Happoel Tel Aviv, but as anti-fascists we can’t afford to be disunited. The German left was disunited in the 1930s, we know what happened…

Based on some of the recommendations in the last chapter, I produced a Football Fan’s Charter. I was then a member of the Communist Party (left over Gaza, a divisive issue, and other reasons). The Morning Star, which is not a party paper, but is closely associated with it, liked the idea and it featured in a huge edition that came out at the start of the 23/24 football season. We went to various big grounds across the country to hand it out. The reception veered from indifferent to hostile. We have to remember that many football fans are apathetic; inclined to the right, even at supposedly leftist clubs like Liverpool, and hostile to politics in general. These are tough constraining factors, but form no reason to do nothing.

I also went to teach martial arts to some of the Ultras in Cosenza. Waste of time, all they cared about was the piss-up and the fireworks. Don’t assume that everyone in the leftist Ultra movement takes the politics seriously.

And I was proven wrong about the support of the AFD having reached a ceiling in Germany at about 11 or 12% of the vote, due to power of the German liberal culture and the inclusive nature of the fan groups. They’re now at about 25%

We also need to forget this idea that the AfD support is mostly amongst old people. The highest concentration of AfD voters and supporters is found among those aged 18 to 45 particularly among younger men.

Recent YouGov Statista trends in the UK reveal that approximately 30% of men intend to vote for or consider Reform, compared to only 22% of women. Now this is important, I personally believe that we’re not going to reach the majority of hard-core Reform/Restory people, that 25% or so of the overall vote. They aren’t going to listen to us and are pretty much beyond any redemption. I have helped persuade one former ICF member to vote Green, but it was exhausting, and there are many more with whom I have failed. It’s about mobilising, maximising and optimising the anti-Reform majority, not just for the elections, but for the good of the game in general as we used to say.”

Vincent Raison

“Keep politics out of football. We’ve all heard it. I do understand why people say it. They go to watch a game. To cheer their team and to abuse the referee. It’s a rare opportunity to let off steam, if you’re not a regular caller to LBC radio.

For many, it’s an escape. I would argue that it is also a continuation of a national apathy.

In the 1970s, black players were routinely racially abused, from the terraces, in the dressing room, on the training ground. It’s incredible to think – that was normal.

Anti-racist efforts were initially met with indifference or downright hostility from clubs and fans alike who wanted to ‘Keep Politics Out of Football’.

But the 90s saw groups like Kick It Out, and the government’s Football Task Force. They knew that racism was endemic in football and throughout society. Football played a huge part in educating people that bigotry was ignorance and did not belong in a sport that unites people.

It’s not common in stadiums now, but it is far from eradicated. And it is still rife on social media. Many of those platforms actively avoid removing racist content. It’s reaction bait. It’s money.

That’s racism not fascism, but they do go hand in hand. Racism is the Trojan Horse used to herald fascism. It attracts people on the right. Hitler did it. Mussolini too. And now Trump. Putting himself above the law, glorifying violence. Suppressing opposition in the media, in the courts. Merging corporate and state interests. Targeting minorities and stripping unions of their rights. We’ve seen it all before.

We’ve not had a fascist government in this country. Yet. But Germany, Spain and Italy have. Much of Western Europe was occupied by the Nazis.

That’s why Red Star’s stadium in Paris is named after a member of the French Resistance who was executed by the Nazis. The main stand is named after Rino Della Negra, a 20-year-old winger yet to make his debut for the club when he met the firing squad.

Fans of Rayo Vallecano sing anti-fascist songs. Their home, the barrio of Vallecas in Madrid was heavily bombed by the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

Actually Red Star’s stadium is in Saint-ouen, on the periphery of Paris, which, like Vallecas, is a neighbourhood with a large immigrant population. In our London bubble, we embrace immigration more than elsewhere in the country. But when you leave the capital, or any big city, you see how widespread the demonisation of immigrants is. And the parties stirring that pot, as we saw last night in Belfast, are Reform and Restore, far-right, and obsessed with immigration.

Is Britain too moderate for an extremist government?

Well, Farage is currently on course to be our next Prime Minister. He’s a big fan of Putin, Orbán and Trump. He wants Britain to be more like the US (an odd stance for a ‘patriot’): ICE agents rounding up brown people, oil dependence, and a privatised health service.

He has allies in the world of technofascism, a fusion of tech and authoritarian state power, where techbros use their algorithms, AI and surveillance tech to control elections, bypass democratic oversight and influence our perception.

And here, we have a media determined to protect that 1% at the top of the food chain. Attacking any left wing politicians who threaten their power. Platforming Farage, making far-right talking points such as the ludicrous: ‘Are the police biased against white people?’ (Short answer: No) – making them front page headlines and breakfast news debates. And people, desperate to blame someone for their poor economic situation, are buying it. Blaming immigrants on the same rung as them while Tesco makes £3 billion in a cost of living crisis caused by Putin’s war, Trump’s war and the Brexit they voted for.

Football did not defeat racism, but it definitely won a few rounds. It was not football’s responsibility to attack prejudice, but it used its power for the greater good. That greater good is under threat again within a democracy that is being corrupted by dishonest politicians, a compliant media and the reach of global technology.

So in short, we were complacent about racism but we woke up. Whether you call it fascism, populism or just the rise of the far-right, we cannot afford to do so again. I’d urge all clubs to have an anti-fascist group or similar and for those groups to connect with each other. Because not being a dick brings people together, just like football.”

“I’d like to talk about the World Cup now.

The first World Cup was the brain child of Jules Rimet, the third FIFA president, who was also the founder of Red Star FC. Rimet saw sport as a tool of unity and fraternity, of reconciliation after conflict. Tomorrow sees the most divisive, politicised and lucrative World Cup in history.

This is the third consecutive World Cup hosted by a country that should be nowhere near it.

The world is coming to the US, at least it would be if it wasn’t run by racist psychopaths. The brutality and lawlessness of the ICE agency means that ordinary people don’t know if they will be allowed to enter, whether they might be sent back, or even incarcerated for social media remarks that insult the Dear Leader. Thousands of fans have seen visas cancelled without explanation. Fans from more than a quarter of the countries taking part in the World Cup are facing travel bans, or high visa rejection rates. Supporters from Iran, Haiti, Senegal and the Ivory Coast are barred.

The US has refused to host the Iranian team, despite their being drawn to play their group matches in LA and Seattle. Their squad is forced to base themselves in Mexico, unable to spend a single night in the US. That should have disqualified the US from hosting the competition. Mind you, some would say bombing 8 countries in a year should disqualify you from a Peace Prize.

Iraqi players have had their visas denied or been detained for hours. Omar Artan, from Somalia, was due to referee at the finals, the peak of his professional career, but was denied entry by US authorities.

Fans who do make it past the border force had better have deep pockets. A backlash has seen some improvements but the top tickets were going for £6500. The exploitation in the people’s game is unreal.

The US, along with Canada and Mexico won the bid to host partly due to the scale of this expanded World Cup, with 48 teams competing. They have the stadiums and the half-empty hotels. And those stadiums will be policed by ICE, Trump’s Gestapo.

There is also a commercial crossover. Among the top sponsors is Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest corporate polluter. Its vast fossil fuel reserves mean it has the potential to singlehandedly prevent efforts to avoid a climate catastrophe.

Trump believes climate change is a hoax. Many Americans believe him over the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community.

Reform UK wants Britain to abandon its Net Zero promises too. Coincidentally, around two-thirds of Reform’s income comes from donors with financial interests in oil and gas.

Meanwhile traders in the know make millions from rising and falling oil prices caused by a war of choice with Iran. Ordinary people pay the price. The 1% make the cash.

And those who question the wisdom of this path are derided by a puerile president and a compromised media.

Every single Reform MP voted against workers rights and against protection for women from harassment. They want mass deportation and to strip Britons of their human rights. Farage wants “antifa” proscribed as a hate organisation, even though it does not exist. Farage and Trump will not say “anti-fascist” because we all know what being anti anti-fascist makes you. Churchill was anti-fascist, a bit of a racist too, but he was anti-fascist.

We are reluctant in this country to use the F-word. But who were we fighting in our ‘Finest Hour’ if not the fascists? Now the very same parties who echo their policies are gathering support from those who have the most to lose from their politics of hate. We cannot be quiet. Football fans know how to make a noise, if nothing else. We need to be heard before it’s too late. Before 30, 40, 60 years of hurt is the least of our problems.”

Stewart McGill

So what can we do as football fans, and as anti-fascist citizens? First, identify the problem. As Vince has said, it’s not just racism we’re talking about here, it’s fascism. Angela Davis, the black American communist and civil rights campaigner said “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.” In a society heading towards fascism, I would suggest that it’s not enough to be anti-racist, we must be anti-fascist.

Owen Jones recently wrote a very strong piece in the Guardian about the threat of tyranny in Britain citing statements from Reform leaders, have a look at that and see if we’re exaggerating.

So, what can we do? And I’ll be interested in your views and ideas here a bit later on.

We need to to acknowledge that were not going to move that hardcore 25% Reform/Restore vote. Myth-busting approaches have limitations anyway, and these are people who still believe that immigration is rising even though it’s falling steeply. Reform voters also think asylum seekers and refugees make up roughly half of new arrivals. In reality, they account for only about 9% these days, used to be much lower but total immigration has fallen.

But myths have to be busted, just to help isolate and contain the fascist disease. To this end I’ve produced a very draft leaflet which you can pick up here.

One side of it tackles some of the main myths about immigration, and Muslim people. The other talks about the benefits of immigration to the country, past, present and future. I think we have to stop apologising about immigration, we should talk about its benefits, and why it’s necessary. Particularly in an ageing society which has had birth rates at lower than replacement levels for 50 years.

I’m going to talk to various organisations about reproducing that leaflet and getting it handed out at matches. We should also target the growing women’s game, highlighting the real damage that will be caused women by the repeal of the Equality Act, as threatened by Reform.

We should put pressure on our clubs to take an explicitly anti-fascist stance. “It’s not enough to be anti-racist, we must be anti-fascist.”

And if clubs say that’s getting too political, we should ask what does that mean? How is it politically controversial to oppose Fascism, particularly in a country that defines its “finest hour” as being the role it played in defeating the forces of fascism in World War 2?

Hell, about 70% of Premiership players are immigrants, they should be concerned.

Clubs can make a difference. I went to Millwall v Norwich recently, black referee. He made a few dodgy decisions, so there was a bit of abuse, but nothing racial. That wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago. Much of this down to the sterling efforts of the club to fight racism inside the ground and the support in general. The phrase “let them all come to the Den” is now explicitly used to signify inclusivity. Things are by no means perfect, but they are a hell of a lot better.

Millwall recently published a “Pride Playbook” to help clubs form stronger partnerships with with LGBTQ+ teams across the country, building on the success of Millwall Romans and Millwall Pride. We can make huge changes, if the will is there, combined with the application.

We also need to target key clubs in key areas, average London salaries are 68% higher than those in Burnley, maybe not a surprise that the people in the latter town are more open to fascist rhetoric than are those in the former.

We need a coherent social media strategy, the right does a great job in spreading lies and myths, we need something to directly counter the garbage and give people the ammunition to fight back.

By “we,” I mean the individuals and groups coalescing around this anti-fascist project. I intend to speak to several groups associated with the game after this meeting, and with some colleagues in the martial arts community, about what we can do here.

But first, we’re interested in what you guys think, so the floor is yours…any questions? and any suggestions about how we can fight this drift to fascism as football fans, and as citizens?

It was really encouraging was that we had a full pub of engaged football fans, asking serious questions about how to counter the simple messaging of the right, how to deal with the hatred of London outside the capital, and how change can be affected by a top-down determination to change the culture of a club, as has surprisingly happened at Millwall in recent years.

Fans from Charlton Athletic, Crystal Palace, Millwall, Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, Manchester United, Liverpool, AFC Whyteleafe, Dulwich Hamlet and Red Star came together with a sense of unity. And, despite the best efforts of the nation’s media, we have seen large anti-fascist protests drown out the poison of the far-right, from Belfast to Brighton.

Image credits:

Main image - Neil Clasper

Omar Artan - public domain

The very idea that “anti-white racism” is real is laughable. Sky News, The Telegraph, The Times. The Spectator, the New York Post and Good Morning Britain should be ashamed of themselves for platforming this dubious far-right bullshit.

I’ve a few questions for those piss-clowns of faux journalism: Have you ever been stopped by the police due to the colour of your skin? Have you ever been followed around a supermarket by a security guard because of the colour of your skin? Have you ever not got a job you were qualified for because your skin didn’t match that of the interviewer? Have you ever been told, ”Not here,” by a barman because of the colour of your skin? Have you ever been out with mates of the same skin colour and had several policemen surround and search you, wanting to know where you live, where you’re going, what you think you’re doing?

Of course, you haven’t. You’re part of the most privileged group in the country and on the planet. And yet you never stop playing the victim.

Henry Nowak’s murder was a tragedy, and an avoidable one in which the police are culpable. It is not, however, part of a movement toward anti-white policing. White men have no fucking idea what racism is unless they are perpetrating it. The only movement going in here is the one in your nappy.

The Beautiful Game, as Brazil legend Pele called it, is the undisputed world champion of sports. It is far and away the most popular, by number of fans, by participants and by viewers. No other sport has its cultural significance. All you need is a ball, or something vaguely round, and you can play. Nothing else is this accessible, except running, which would be greatly improved by adding a ball.

It has survived various traumas, tragedies and disgraces and remained preeminent. While money has long polluted its upper echelons, now, in the year of our Lord 2026, the forces of enshitification have forced their mucky digits into every level of the game. Below is a sad account of how the joy of individual and team brilliance is being sullied by men in suits.

The World Cup

It should be a celebration. A world party of athletic skill and endeavour. But, for rea$ons, it’s being held in a country that does not care about the sport and whose government has zero respect for any other nation, including the 47 it’s going to host.

Matches are also being held in Mexico and Canada, but with the World Cup Final being played in the football mecca of, erm, East Rutherford, New Jersey.

If there was a FIFA Shame Prize to go with the fake Peace Prize, their chief sycophant Gianni Infantino would win it hands down for his fealty to a warmongering racist sex case. Iran’s football fans won’t be able to travel to see their team in their seventh World Cup appearance because the orange dickhead won’t let them in the country. Trump’s special envoy even suggested Italy should replace Iran in the Finals, even though they did not qualify. You shouldn’t be allowed to host the World Cup if you are not going to allow the competitors’ fans in. It’s a fairly basic requirement and no host nation has ever behaved this badly before. It should, but won’t, result in a permanent ban on international competitions being held there. Sadly, the Olympics are coming to LA in 2028.

There are numerous problems with Iran’s involvement, including official homophobia and a brutal repression that has seen some of its players killed, but the US is hardly in a position to point the finger, given it is also killing Iranian civilians, including the 165 school children they’ve forgotten about. Oh, and a few US citizens.

The sheer commercial exploitation of the World Cup from absurd ticket prices, visa charges and transport reveals the awarding of the competition for what it is: a chance for FIFA and the US to make vast sums of money out of people’s love for the game, with a total disregard for the players and fans’ experience. Few people want to come to such a hostile country to get financially screwed. Hotels are half empty because America is not safe for visitors and the racketeering is disgusting. And many people do not want to spend a dime in Trump’s America.

The Champions League

For the first time in its history, none of football’s three European finals will be shown free-to-air. That’s the decision of TNT Sports who UEFA sold the rights to. Viewers at home will need a subscription to see three English teams compete in their season’s climax. TNT Sports are within their rights, but being owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, why would they give anything away for free? They’re an American conglomerate as far away from the spirit of the game as you can get.

The UK could have preserved the Champions League final as part of the “crown jewels” of sporting events, but Boris Johnson’s government rejected the House of Lords’ proposal. Ah, Boris Johnson – the shit that keeps on shitting.

The Champions League itself is now a 38-team league running concurrently with national leagues, as the European Super League was rejected after a fan backlash to the Plastic 6’s excessive greed and vanity. Now all the teams play more European games than in previous years, and at some point the top eight go somewhere, the next 16 do something else and fuck knows what happens to the rest of them. It’s a mess and it’s boring until the knockout stages, but it does provide vast sums of money for the top teams, as usual.

Premier League

It’s difficult to put your finger on why this season has been the most boring in Premier League history, but the search for perfection, the winning at all costs – which dismisses levels of entertainment – and VAR all play a significant part.

VAR is a nightmare that no one really wants. Yes, it is more likely to produce correct decisions, even if it means someone’s arm hair was offside, but it has sucked the joy out of teams scoring goals, which is the entire point of the game. Also, it hasn’t halted some pretty awful decisions.

In the past we’ve usually had the most exciting teams compete for the title, but between Arsenal’s grim efficiency and Man City’s keep-ball with benefits, the race has been settled by the dull characteristics of consistency, defence and set pieces. Not that it matters if you win it.

Money continues to pollute this level of the game, with City’s 115 charges for financial irregularity seemingly unable to lay a glove on their spending. They’ve paid more than £1 billion on players in the last ten years, while Arsenal have spent £700-900 million, before you even factor in the vast wages. Crazy sums at any time, but especially in a cost of living crisis in which 21% of Britons live in poverty according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The use of oil money to sportswash seems to be unstoppable too, with Man City, Newcastle and Arsenal having all rented out their reputations to brush countries known for human rights abuses with positive associations. By doing so, it becomes normalised. Fans don’t want to feel their club is being criticised so will ignore the moral implications of paying £85 for a shirt to launder the reputations of repressive states. That is not a game that is beautiful.

The FA Cup

Sponsored by the state airline of the UAE, an authoritarian state that limits free speech, has unfair mass trials, arbitrary detention and disappearances, widespread migrant-worker exploitation, no democracy or permitted dissent and the death penalty. Ah, the magic of the cup.

The Football League

The Championship, the second tier of England’s football pyramid is corrupted by the Premier League’s parachute payments for relegated clubs that ensure those clubs have an advantage over their competitors. I understand why they are there. Clubs paying the ridiculous wages expected in the Premier League need to be protected from bankruptcy if they get relegated, even at the cost of ruining that competition.

Even squad players in the Premier League are out of the reach of many EFL clubs, given their wages. And those same EFL clubs can not expect to cash in on the young talent they develop after they were forced to accept the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan to reduce transfer fees payable to themselves. The scrapping of the ‘90 minute rule’ also means big clubs can hoover up talent from wherever they like, further hampering smaller local clubs’ ability to sign youth players. It’s a great deal for the rich, once again.

In addition, Brexit has reduced the pool of European players EFL clubs can sign by about 90%, without affecting Premier clubs, as signing elite internationals remains untouched. Consequently, the quality of football has declined, but not ticket prices, making the gap to the Premier League even harder to breach. They didn’t put that on their fucking bus, did they?

One bright light among the gloom is the EFL acting swiftly and decisively to boot Southampton out of the playoffs for cheating, spying in fact. As Josh Bland stated: “It matters because it represents a rare moment where integrity has triumphed over the inherent cynicism of modern football.”

Non-League Football

Surely not non-league football too? But yes, even non-league football has been afflicted by poor governance as well as rich new owners seeking to finance their way into the Football League. Real Bedford is backed by a Bitcoin millionaire, and everyone has seen the rise of Wrexham, thanks to celebrities and Disney+ money.

A club like Dulwich Hamlet is heavily reliant on income from their Saturday matches, when they can attract more than 3,000 people. If, due to cup runs of their own, or their opponents, they don’t have a Saturday match for two months, as happened a while back, they lose a huge part of their annual budget. And, in the currently unlikely event of promotion to the National League, they will lose the 50% of their income that comes from alcohol sales, as further down the pyramid fans can still be treated like adults, and watch the game with a pint.

A number of clubs at this level play on an all weather pitch. And, aside from not being vulnerable to abandonments due to waterlogged pitches, it means they can rent the pitch out for various other events and let the community use it. If any of these teams reach the National League, they are expected to replace these pitches with grass ones, which would cost a fortune in itself, and also lose the revenue a 3G pitch offers. It’s hard to understand who the League is being run for.

Women’s Football

You don’t have to worry about women’s football at the very top end. Arsenal’s women’s team has been well supported by the club and fans alike and attracts big crowds. But the average attendance in the WSL is less than 7000 though and lower down the pyramid the trickle of money seems to evaporate.

Maidstone United, of the South East Counties Women’s Football League, reached the FA Cup first round this season, a great achievement. However, after being drawn away at Plymouth, with rules meaning they received no share of the gate, it meant that they lost £5000 on the one game. That’s 10% of their annual budget. In a game that is so awash with money, it’s absurd. Success is a disaster.

While WSL viewing figures are in decline, people watching women’s football across digital platforms - YouTube and Tiktok - has exploded, which suggests a changing, and younger demographic.

Grassroots football needs to be nurtured in the women’s and men’s games. Seeing the health of women’s football by World Cups, Arsenal’s crowd and Chelsea’s digital footprint doesn’t even begin to tell the story.

*

Football is designed to protect the status quo of the wealthy and help them retain and grow their riches, much like all capitalist, class-ridden society. From the European top table to the Premier League – who could have a ridiculous six clubs in the ‘Champions’ League next year – it’s become a cartel, casting crumbs to the paupers. There is more football to see but it’s become less interesting and less entertaining (unless you won a trophy this year , in which case it’s the best year ever). Crucially, it’s become more lucrative, attracting investors in assets, not lovers of the people’s game that has been so important to communities. I have certainly watched less Premier League football, and less Champions League football than ever this year. I’ve seen more women’s and more non-league football live, both of which have proved football can still be fun, not just business with balls. I’m glad I don’t support one of the Plastic 6, because I don’t know how I would respond to that quandary – probably the same as the ‘cry more’ clowns on social media.

The World Cup is upon us and that normally draws me in regardless of its dubious morals. We’ll see, but I think fans of the greatest sport in the world deserve better than simple exploitation by cunts.

Image credits: Pictures of Money used under this license

As Secretary of State for Health, instead of ploughing £330 million into improving patient care, cutting wait times, employing more staff and repairing NHS facilities, Wes Streeting decided to give that money to one of the most controversial evil corporations in the world: Palantir.

Palantir, you may be aware, has used its technology in its operations in Gaza, including military decision making, analysing targets and battle plan proposals. Independent reports indicate at least 17,400 children have been killed by Israeli forces since 7 October 2023. The firm’s co-founder, weird old Peter Thiel, is proud of the work his company has done for the IDF. It also worked with Trump’s gestapo outfit, ICE.

Thiel, a key Trump supporter, also believes the Antichrist will come in the form of someone like Greta Thunberg, not someone who is in the Epstein Files, like Thiel himself, or Musk or Trump. He has described Britain’s affection for the NHS as “Stockholm Syndrome”. He also thinks “welfare creates poverty”, which a bit rich from a billionaire who lives in the only country where medical bankruptcies thrive. There are around 530,000 annually in the US. A disgrace in the richest country in the world.

The contract that Streeting gave Palantir is to create a Federated Data Platform (FDP) to connect disparate NHS data systems. However many NHS Trusts do not want to implement it. People may decline to share their own information if someone as untrustworthy as Palantir can get their hands on it. Officially, the NHS will own the data and Palantir will not be able to use it for their own ends, but when the Good Law Project used an FOI claim to see the Palantir contract, 417 pages of its 586 were blacked out. Not by Palantir, but by the NHS. We’ve paid for it, but we cannot know what we have paid for. Given Palantir’s record in surveillance, policing, immigration enforcement, intelligence and military applications, who would trust them with any personal information?

Palantir’s CEO Dr Alex Carp said Palestinian “peace activists are war activists” who should be sent to North Korea for protesting genocide.

And now the man who has opened the door to Palantir wants to be Prime Minister.

Current PM, Keir Starmer is cooked because he’s loathed by all sides. The left hate him for supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the centre hate him because he hired Peter Mandelson against advice, and the right hate him because they are told to do so by the right-wing press and the BBC.

In private, Streeting is critical of Israel and believes they are committing war crimes, but in public he belongs to Labour Friends of Israel and has been part of a government that has helped arm Netanyahu’s violence against Palestinians.

In short, it’s hard to tell if he believes in anything at all. But getting into bed with Palantir – and getting us all into bed with these ethics-free psychopaths – must make his judgement questionable. Surely we can do better.

Image credits:

Streeting by Lauren Hurley using this license

Carp by Ben Dance used under this license

I can’t quite believe that a country that prides itself on defeating the Nazis now has a far-right party topping the polls for the next election.

I can’t quite believe that a leader whose last bright idea cost our economy more than £100 billion is in pole position to become its next Prime Minister.

That Wales is about to elect a huge number of English nationalists into the Senned.

And that people are prepared to vote for a party that if elected to govern would make us all poorer, strip workers of their rights and hand over the NHS to private healthcare companies. All because they like a bit of racism. There, I’ve said it. It is though, isn’t it? It’s been the common theme between Brexit and Reform – the demonising of immigrants. That, and the weaponising of national pride. It’s a classic con trick. The people who are benefitting from the exploitation of the lower paid are pointing at those who are even poorer and blaming them for society’s ills.

The three prongs of Reform’s campaign are 1. The Cost of Living. 2. Immigration and 3. Crime.

And what are the factors behind the cost of living crisis? There’s the higher cost of imported food thanks to Brexit. That’s on you, Farage. Energy price spikes since Russia invaded Ukraine. A war that Farage helped spread Kremlin propaganda for on RT, blaming NATO while fan-boying Putin. And there’s the ludicrous war with Iran, driving up inflation. Farage is so in love with Trump and the USA, he struggles to remember he’s the MP for Clacton not Mar-a-Lago.

Their immigration focus is on stopping boats crossing the Channel, despite its miniscule impact on British life. And despite Brexit having contributed to the rise in small boats, as we lost the EU ‘returns’ agreement. That’s also on Farage.

They don’t mention that crime is down. They promise an increase in stop-and-search that disproportionally targets black men by a massive ratio.

A more honest campaign leaflet would highlight: 1. Reform takes no responsibility for its leadership contributing massively to the cost of living crisis. 2. Racism. 3. More racism.

So while you get thrown in jail for saying Brexit was about racism (when did this come in? - Ed.) it is inescapable that they are using the same trick to gain power and that the same people are falling for it again.

As the late Robin Williams said, politicians should wear their sponsors’ logos so we know who owns them. As Sam Bright has reported, Farage, the UK’s highest earning MP has 28 personal patrons and 20 of them are based abroad.

“Farage is in the pocket of foreign interests – and he’s perfectly happy about it – because he purposefully put himself there.”

His greatest trick is to convince British people that he, and ex-public school stockbroker and millionaire, is a man of the people and that he gives a shit about them. The vast majority of Reform UK’s declared funding comes from donors with direct financial interests in oil, gas, aviation fuel, or other fossil fuel-linked industries. It’s in keeping with MAGA ideas about climate change being a hoax, despite what 99% of scientists believe. Who would you believe? Scientists, or paid politicians?

Farage continues to be given a free pass by the Press and broadcasters, despite obvious foreign influence and industries that are known to be harmful to the environment and therefore, our lives. That’s a stark contrast to the scrutiny Green leader Zack Polanski suffers because he wants a wealth tax, he wants to end the exploitation of ordinary people and wants to nationalise industries that have been sold off under our noses. The Mail have gone into full Jeremy Corbyn mode for him because he is not in the pocket of anyone.

Ultimately the local elections are about who’s in charge of collecting your bins, but it does work as a bellwether for the public mood. It’s likely to give Labour a bloody nose, which they’ve been asking for with their support of genocide and opening the door for Palantir to infiltrate our NHS.

The USA is the rightful owner of the Most Stupid Nation Award at the moment, but Farage wants to follow their lead to an authoritarian Britain that stomps on your rights and protects whoever is willing to pay. His ability to get people to vote against their own interests is a depressing indictment of our claim to civilisation.

Alternatively…

Pints are welcome

Image credits:

Polanski: Bristol Green Party used under this license

Farage: Laurie Noble used under this license

I’m so fed up with hearing how London ‘has fallen’ and is overrun by criminals and immigrants. That it’s a dystopian hellhole operating under Sharia Law, where you get stabbed on the regular by ‘people who hate are culture’ – if not arrested for thinking about spam fritters.

They say, ‘Don’t shoot the messenger’, but look who those messengers are: disinformation networks in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Russia and China; the UK’s far-right extremist groups; MAGA commentators stirring up culture wars; AI bot networks; algorithms that reward outrage; shamefully assisted by our mainstream right-wing media – the supposedly respectable pillar of our democracy, who routinely use falsehoods about “no-go zones” to frighten people into viewing the capital as a foreign, forbidding city and guide them to vote for whoever is the most unpleasant about refugees.

The anti-London propaganda is also spouted by BBC favourite, Nigel Farage and various Tories, as well as people with a vast global reach like Trump and Musk, neither of whom have ever lived in London, nor have access to any special sources beyond their echo chamber of nationalist bigots. So bad actors, all of them. Awful human beings. People who want to influence voting towards anti-immigration parties and to destabilise Europe. Racists stick together, even between countries, and these ones hate what the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has achieved since being voted in three times by the people who actually live here. They reframe stories that leave out that crime is down and pollution has tumbled in a multicultural success story in which lives are being saved by policy. They want you to believe we can’t live together. London is proof that they – the bad actors – are wrong, disingenuous and working against the interests of more than nine million Londoners.

They push the sense that something has been lost from a rose-tinted past where everyone was lovely, friendly and homogenous; a past that didn’t exist. I remember London in the 70s. It was no paradise. It was grim. It’s also worth noting that London was not founded by cheeky Cockneys and lovable barrow boys. It was founded by the Romans, who used London as a port to develop an international trade centre. It’s been multicultural for 2000 years, but do go on.

I don’t have the reach of those who slate my hometown, but I have lived in London for nearly 60 years and still await my first mugging. People have said that as I live in leafy Blackheath these days, a peaceful Zone 3 sanctuary in south-east London, I don’t know ‘real London’. I live in a middle class enclave, so my opinions are not so relevant. But as my account (below) of last week illustrates, I travel throughout London often. There’s no point in living here if you just stay home. I can’t say this was a typical week, but it happened like this:

Tuesday: I went to the British Film Institute, Southbank, with a neighbour (Note for those at the back: a neighbour is someone who lives near you, who says hello to you, takes in your parcels and lends you an onion when you need it. Apparently they don’t exist anymore in London - except in real life). We watched a screening of The Boxer, an enthralling film from 1997 about ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. It was a pleasure being able to see it at the BFI, an extraordinary resource for lovers of film beyond Hollywood blockbusters. After the film, there was a Q&A with Barry McGuigan, the former world champion boxer who trained Daniel Day-Lewis for his role in the movie. McGuigan was charming, interesting and emotional, breaking down when talking about the loss of his daughter in 2019, and energised when talking about his decision to walk the middle path amid the fevered division of Unionist and Republican society in the border region of the island he grew up in. It felt like an honour to be in his company.

Afterwards we went for a couple of delicious pints at the Waterloo Tap before getting the train home. No one got stabbed.

Wednesday: I recorded a podcast with my co-writer and pal, which took us to a couple of pubs in the City, before we walked across Blackfriars Bridge into Southwark, for a couple of boozers in Borough. Only one of us got stabbed (Note for those at the back, this is what is known as a joke.) After we parted, I went to another pub to watch the first half of the football, before heading towards home, where a sudden urge saw me get off early at Lewisham, buy some takeaway momos (Nepalese dumplings) and visit an Irish pub for Guinness and the end of the football. Shocking activity, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Thursday: My wife was given two tickets to Kae Tempest’s book launch at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm. When Kae was Kate she went to the same school as our son, before joining the BRIT School and producing 8 poetry collections, 4 plays, 7 studio albums and this, his second novel. Kae is a once-in-a-generation talent who won the Ted Hughes Award in 2012. He spoke openly and movingly about his work as a writer and performance poet. I can’t imagine the journey a trans male makes, but I know it wouldn’t be an easy one. Yet Kae seems comfortable in his skin and at ease on stage. What strikes me is how much he meant to his listeners. There was an outpouring of love among the questions from the audience, and chatting with strangers (people who don’t know who are probably quite nice, even if they have a different colour skin to you) on the way out reflected an awestruck respect for an extraordinary artist. And despite travelling from south-east to north-west London, no one got stabbed.

Friday: A nephew and niece were going to a West End show and, being a musical, it didn’t tempt the rest of the family to join. (Note for those at the back: family includes parents, children, uncles, aunties and cousins who you care for and have your back.) We did, however, meet them for a meal at a Japanese restaurant before the show, taking the opportunity to be together, and were still chatting away in a Soho pub when they came out of the theatre a couple of hours later. We all remained stab-free.

Saturday: It was Record Store Day, a national celebration of independent record sellers, so despite being tired from a busy week, I went to SXSE, a music festival of 40 bands across 4 venues, based in Camberwell and Brixton. I met friends at Dash The Henge, a vinyl shop and south London institution and went between there and the pub opposite, The Old Dispensary, enjoying bands in both. Tickets were just £15 for the two days, but if you didn’t have the money to support live music, that was OK, you could still attend. Both venues displayed “More Blacks, More Dogs, More Irish” in some form, which would have made the anti-London brigades’ heads explode, by riffing on the racist sign from the 1950s and ‘60s, when everything was so lovely.

Camberwell has a reputation as a foodie centre, with a remarkable array of excellent restaurants including a pub with a Michelin star. But it’s not just fancy food. Falafel and Shawarma is rightly famous for the best shawarma in London, which, along with a £4.50 price tag, means the queue is permanent, but due to a quite un-British level of efficiency, it moves quickly. So I was able to enjoy several live bands, some lovely pints and some excellent food before heading home, stopping for one in New Cross and then Deptford without incident.

Understandably weary, I stayed in on Sunday, aside from a hair of the dog at my local in the afternoon (Note for those at the back, a local is a nice pub you can walk to from home where they know your name and ask how you are), before dinner at home with my wife and our kid.

So a great week that involved no danger, nor cultural invasion, despite what some very powerful people would have you believe. The question is; why are so many loud voices lying their arses off about a city that British people should be proud of. Aside from being a cultural epicentre, it is filled, not just with people from around the world, but people from around Britain. It’s like not supporting the England team because they only have one player from your club, but wearing St George’s flag underpants. The patriotism is performative.

Who benefits?

Creating social division here and in our relationship with Europe benefits Vladimir Putin as it weakens European security and the continent’s economy. It benefits Donald Trump, a regular spreader of racist lies about Britain, Europe and elsewhere. It benefits billionaires who would like your attention to go elsewhere. These are the people Farage, Reform, the Conservatives, the Daily Mail, Express and Telegraph are fighting for. Not British people, and not Londoners, but foreign psychopaths and pathological hoarders of wealth. This group are exploitative traitors. Because while you’re distracted by immigration, you’re not looking at where the problems in the UK really are. How, for instance, does Tesco make £3 billion profit in a cost of living crisis? Is that due to refugees?

“We are committed to doing whatever we can to help keep down the cost of the weekly shop” said its CEO, Ken Murphy, though how that statement tallies with that amount of profit, I am unable to tell you. I don’t mean to single out Tesco. They are one of many companies who do well no matter what the economic weather is.

The usual suspects are not suffering. It’s not that Britain is poor, far from it, it’s that the 1% are getting a greater percentage of the nation’s wealth than ever. And funnily enough, Reform and the Tories don’t want you knowing that, and their friends in the media are there to help.

The ‘Londonistan’ trope you see spread on social media is just plain old common or garden racism. Right wing politicians who promote a message of invasive multiculturalism or the failures of liberal society love to stick the boot into London, to treat it as a common enemy. Right-wing journalist Isabel Oakeshott, formerly of the Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail, and wife of Reform’s tax dodging MP and Deputy Leader, Richard Tice, complains about immigrants, even though she is one herself, having moved to Dubai to avoid VAT on private school fees. It’s important to have something in common with your partner, even if their tax-swerving is damaging to the country they claim to be patriotic about and even sometimes live in. Hypocrisy is a uniform for these ghouls.

This group was also enthusiastically supportive of Brexit, which has made everyone apart from themselves poorer and cost our economy billions of pounds in trade and investment. It’s astonishing that anyone would listen to their poisonous bullshit again, but with the might of the supine media, foreign bot farms, AI garbage and the most powerful men in the world, Reform are topping polls in the UK. Wales is likely to vote in a bunch of English nationalists. Go figure. They’ll even make inroads in London’s outer boroughs – the flaglands – but not in the London postcodes, which, ironically, might actually be a no-go area for them.

Alternatively…

Pints are welcome

Image credits:

Skyline: Ilya Grigorik used under this license

London wall: John Winfield used under this license

London at war: Public domain

London view: [Duncan} from Nottingham used under this license

Is your husband, or indeed President, a narcissistic dickhead? Well, help is at hand from an unexpected source.

The US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down a ban on gay conversion therapy in Colorado has opened the door to enable similar discredited pseudoscientific practices that might change an insufferable egotist into a normal human being who shows signs of empathy and self-awareness.

It’s unlikely to work, just like gay conversion therapy, and could lead to depression and attempted suicide, just like gay conversion therapy, so it’s worth a shot.

The Supreme Court has sided with a religious counsellor who claims the gay conversion ban violates the First Amendment, which guarantees Americans the right to be an absolute bellend, and to impose their bellendery on others. Something like that.

The conversion attempts have led to a small community of “ex-gay” men who no longer think about dick on the regular. Honestly, it never even crosses their minds, never enters their head, let alone their mouths or anywhere else, because God is watching, the mucky little perv. Some have even come round to the Christian ideal of hating people who are gay, bullying them and making their life a misery. Such is the love of the Lord.

Those who have experienced gay conversion have usually done so at a vulnerable point in their life, after self-harming, or a suicide attempt. Love in Action ran programs to wipe homosexuality from people’s lives. Not Love Action. That’s an 80s dance track and everyone knows the 80s are gay.

Too many of their attempts at conversion ended in suicide because it doesn’t work, is basically abuse, and only piles on the self-loathing. Some of the men responsible have accepted that they did terrible harm, have denounced the practice and married their husbands.

The unhappiness didn’t stem from being gay, far from it. It stemmed from being gay in an unforgiving, conservative Christian environment. Maybe someone should look at those people. Children need protection from bigots with influence.

The difficulty for narcissist conversion therapy is that narcissists think they are so wonderful, they are never going to reach a point when they volunteer for conversion. Luckily many narcissists, like Trump, Hegseth, Miller, don’t believe in human rights and are cool with kidnapping people – off the streets, or in foreign countries – to have somebody else’s will forced upon them. Strap them to a chair, Clockwork Orange-style, and repeatedly tell them that God hates them (She does), that their way of life is disgusting (it is), and they should pray their insatiable desire for attention converts into an acceptance of justified and hopefully relentless criticism.

It might not be successful, but where’s the harm in taking them down a peg or two? But if it does work, the world will be an infinitely better place.

How about a pint?

Note: This article is male-centred, but you probably won’t be surprised that around 75% of those suffering narcissist personality disorder are men. Plus gay and bisexual men are much more likely to be exposed to conversion therapy, along with transgender people.

Image credit: Phil Roeder used under this license

There are a number of reasons why I enjoyed this film more than most reviewers. It helped that I wasn’t expecting much. Although (to my partial shame) I do enjoy watching boxing and have done since childhood, I don’t find it makes for great cinema as often as it’s given credit for. Rocky, I thought was Hollywood schlop. Raging Bull, is a cinematic masterpiece, but it is not a great boxing film, the fight footage too inauthentic, and it is the story of a vile individual, however allegorical it may be. In contrast, boxing has inspired great writing, as Norman Mailer, Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jack London have shown.

I was touched by an element of nostalgia for the 1990s in Giant. Naseem’s career coincided with a particular time in my life, post-divorce and sharing a flat with a mate who was also smarting from life’s blows. Our medicines were laughter, beer, sport and hashish. Can recommend. I saw most of Naseem’s fights in that flat and like much of the country, I was fascinated by him and the love/hate reactions he inspired. People wanted to see him, but many wanted to see him get knocked out. He was cheeky, gobby and boastful, characteristics that jarred with British sensibilities of modesty and self-deprecation. Sensibilities that seem ironic if examined, given we’d taken over a third of the globe thanks to our belief that we were somehow better than everyone else. Goading your opponents was ‘not the done thing’. But it was a tactic as well as a reflection of supreme confidence. Showboating could get under an opponent’s skin, make him forget his gameplan. If you can’t hit someone who has his hands behind his back, who then tags you at will, it’s demoralising. No, Naseem got right up the noses of all the right people. Racists and hide-bound reactionaries. The National Front was still doing its racist thug thing and boxing’s more conservative element wanted to obstruct Naseem’s path to the top. But Naz turned their hatred into motivation. It’s mind-blowing to think open racism and far-right views could ever be revived, as they have been over the last decade.

At least there has been some progress, as the idea of a fighter being booed for the colour of his skin became ludicrous. But Naseem’s first pro fight was only 12 years after one of the most disgraceful episodes in British boxing history when Wembley erupted in a chair and bottle-throwing riot when the referee stopped the bloodied and outclassed Alan Minter in the third round of his world title defence against Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Before the fight, Minter had said, “I am not letting any black man take the title from me.” Unfortunately for him he was up against one of the greatest middleweights to ever put on a pair of boxing gloves. Minter had been a worthy champion, but Hagler was in a category all of his own.

Naseem was insanely talented, using his reflexes, balance and flexibility as defence, influenced by his more senior stable-mate, Herol Graham, rather than the traditional gloves-up and head movement tactics that had served for generations. He had great power for a featherweight and the speed to deliver it. He proclaimed himself the best long before his first title fight. Muhammed Ali had done the same thing back when he was Cassius Clay, born out of an incredible self-belief. Both rubbed people up the wrong way, though the comparison is not helpful. There are levels to greatness in boxing. Ali’s boxing record is a list of fallen idols. His cultural significance was vast. He was the most famous human on the planet and his refusal to fight a ridiculous war in Vietnam brought the full force of the American Establishment down on him, costing him some of his best years but earning him respect across the globe. Not all his battles were in the ring.

One of my earliest memories is the anticipation of the first Ali-Frazier fight on my way to primary school at 9-years old. I wanted Frazier to win because I didn’t like Ali’s immodesty. The Vietnam War was just something incomprehensible that came up on the news. Little did I know of his honourable stance or his wit, or how he had suffered, nor did I understand how his showmanship made him a global icon and both he and Frazier rich. I just didn’t like big-headedness, at school or anywhere else. I came to appreciate this flawed giant much later.

Naseem looked like an unlikely world champion when he walked into Brendan Ingle’s gym as a skinny 7-year-old; Yorkshire-born and bred, from a Yemeni family, about to forge a farfetched alliance with an unorthodox Irish trainer. No one from his cultural background had become a sporting superstar. He had a mountain to climb and he did it with a smile on his face.

Giant is as much about Brendan Ingle as it is Naz; him and their relationship. Ingle was more than a trainer, he was a mentor, a life-coach before there was any such thing. And he steered hundreds of Sheffield kids off dangerous paths and taught them honour, respect and discipline. He might have trained five world champions but it was his work with young people as much as the belts that saw him awarded his MBE. I can’t argue with anyone that boxing is a brutal sport that probably shouldn’t exist in the modern world, not when its main purpose is to hurt your opponent. But banning it will only send it underground, unregulated, and the loss of the social care it provides to so many troubled kids would be immeasurable. Nobody chooses between a career in boxing and accountancy. It’s a working class sport that thrives in the poorest areas of Britain and across the world. Ban it for its savagery, sure. But what are you going to put in its place?

Another Ingle world champion, Johnny Nelson, spoke of the multi-cultural nature of his gym and how Ingle combatted racism through education, teaching ‘blacks, whites, Irish travellers, Asians, girls, boys, able and disabled’ lessons on tolerance, along with how to fight. As The Observer put it: “At his St Thomas’s gym, on the run-down hill on Wincobank, world-class boxers spar among a small band of waifs and strays aged from five to 50. These are the people Ingle invites into the gym, as part of his policy of teaching those seen as society’s dregs, through boxing, some ‘social skills’. It’s a mythic scheme, a romantic pyramid…”

Boxing is the 10th most dangerous sport in the world in terms of fatalities, way below mountaineering or motorcycle racing, but in neither of those sports is violence intentional. And being punched in the head does nobody any good. But I’ve met a few boxers, and the only friend I’ve lost to a sport was to climbing.

Naseem was not just a pioneer in terms of Arab visibility in sport. He took showmanship in sport to a new level, for better or for worse. His ring entrances included being floated into the ring on a flying carpet. He somersaulted over the top rope when he got there. He danced, toyed with and taunted his opponents with a level of arrogance that many felt tipped over into outright disrespect. But his confidence was not misplaced. It was also calculated to get bums on seats, in the arenas and at home, where Sky Sports would make him a millionaire. He became a world champion at 21. But all boxers are unbeatable until they are not.

Pierce Brosnan is excellent as Brendan Ingle, and the deterioration of his relationship with Naz saw the boxer’s sense of invulnerability fade. It was a shame Naseem was not involved with the making of the film because, while all three actors who play Naz at various ages are very good, what’s missing in his later portrayal is the charm and humour he always had, and still has, that could win you over despite yourself. He could get away with saying some terrible things with that gap-toothed smile and a twinkle in his eye. Also, I suspect the small budget did not allow for bringing the spectacle of the biggest fight of his career, at Madison Square Garden, New York, to the fullness of its scale. American fight fans are always sceptical of the ‘next big thing’ coming over from the UK and fighting two-time world champion Kevin Kelley was a step-up for Naz. Not that you would have known it from his attitude. Kelley joined him at ringside after his previous fight only to be told, “I’m going to knock you spark out. In your home town. I can’t wait to beat you up.” Yet the look on his face was one of love. Love for himself.

Kelley was affronted at seeing giant billboards near Times Square with Naseem’s face as if he was the draw, not the local star himself. Naz told him that after the fight he’d get him a job putting up posters for his next bout. Incredibly impertinent but done with a smile on his face that told you he was just a kid having a laugh.

It’s hard to capture the electric tension of a big fight in film because the ringside fan is consumed by the sense that anything could happen at any moment, invested in every punch, every feint. Watching any sporting event after the fact diminishes its sense of drama, which had been ramped up by the boos that greeted Naz’s arrival in the ring. I remember shouting at the screen for Naz not to stick his chin out, to get his hands up and be patient as he started with his customary intent to humiliate his opponent. Even if he could have heard me, he would have ignored me, but when his aggression left him unprotected for Kelley’s counter punch, he found himself on the canvas in round one, looking pretty foolish in front of a delirious crowd. The American commentator laughed. Even more so when he took another count in round 2. Everyone loves to see the arrogant get his comeuppance. Hollywood built an industry out of it. Then, in the blink of an eye he decked Kelley with a sharp right hand. Kelley outboxed him in Round 3, but Naz knocked him down in the next. Naz touched the canvas again, off balance from one of the many punches he’d shipped, so took another count, before finishing the fight with a hard left hand that Kelley couldn’t recover in time to beat the count. It was an incredibly exciting fight, but gone was the myth of invincibility. You can’t convince people you’re the greatest when you’ve been decked three times by a fighter well past his peak.

It’s a ridiculous situation, but there are four world champions to every weight division, awarded by four different governing bodies. Naz held one of them, but there were legends stalking the featherweights. Manny Pacquiao, who became the only eight-division world champion in boxing history, Erik ‘El Terrible’ Morales, a world champ in four divisions, who defeated 15 world champs in his career and Marco Antonio Barrera, who held multiple championships in three weight divisions. Hamed was the glamour boy though and Barrera vacated his own title in order to fight Naz in Las Vegas for a great deal more money than he would otherwise have earned. Hamed was trained for the fight by the legendary Emannuel Steward, but without a noticeable change in style. Barrera switched from his usual high-pressure style, surprising Naz by circling and counter punching. He absolutely schooled Naseem for 12 rounds, revealing that even at this elite level, there was a gulf in class to the very top.

The split with Ingle had been bitter, the Irishman feeling his contribution was under-appreciated, whereas Naz, in the film at least, saw his success as being more down to the gifts God had given him than Ingle’s training. He went on to win a few more fights, but without as much fanfare. Then he met Barrera. He trousered $6 million, but the illusion was over.

Ego is hugely important in such an exposed, solo sport as boxing. You have to believe in yourself or you have nothing. Even journeymen have to convince themselves of their agency. I once interviewed a boxer who had lost over 90 of his 120 fights. He still approached the next as if it were a world championship. He would be anxious and testy before a fight, annoyed at his wife talking about Coronation Street, when he was mentally preparing himself for greatness in a Doncaster leisure centre.

Naseem’s confidence, encouraged by Ingle’s belief, propelled him to become the best amateur in Britain, then after turning professional, the best in Europe before winning a world title. But sooner of later you find someone better than you, as age catches up, or someone figures you out, or just wants it more than you.

Hamed did something that few champions do. He retired at 28, his senses and riches intact. He was able to provide for all of his family, with comforts they could never have dreamed of.

In the film there’s an imagined scene where they reconcile, which Naz regrets never happened. He tried to reach out to Ingle but he was not interested. Ingle admitted he was a stubborn man, but he also felt Naz had a nasty streak he could no longer abide. Naz acknowledges Ingle’s contribution to his glittering career and that of his son, John, now. At 51, ‘the Naz fella’, as Ingle called him, remains charismatic and charmingly funny. He seems at peace. He’s not worried that he wasn’t consulted about the film, he’s just thrilled someone made a film about him and has happily promoted it. It’s not a chapter of Britain’s sporting history that will be forgotten. Boxing is a brutal game and this little urchin climbed to the top of it with a panache that few could muster. He may not be remembered in boxing’s endless revision of the greatest ever, but he will be remembered for making a barbarous sport smile.

How about a pint?

Images:

Poster - fair use -

Marvelous Marvin Hagler - public domain, KO magazine

While the Middle East burns and the world reels at the precipice of a global recession, it’s fair to say not everyone is suffering. Some are making hay while the conflagration shines.

You might have heard: 15 minutes before Trump announced he’s negotiating with Iran and halting hostilities for 5 days – sending oil prices tumbling and share prices soaring – someone, or some people, bet heavily on the oil, stock and futures markets, netting hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe they felt it in their water, or are magically attuned to the vagaries of markets. Maybe they felt lucky and thought a billion dollar bet was worth a punt. Or more likely, someone was tipped off so they could profit from the chaos Trump created.

But here’s the thing – it was all bullshit. Iran said there are no such negotiations taking place. But Trump merely saying so has made a fortune for unknown investors. Who to believe? The President noted for 30,000 lies a year, or literally anyone else on the planet?

If you did hear that story, congratulations, you probably read more than a front page. CNN did call it “suspicious” (steady on!), but there’s no investigation, no outrage at the blatant market manipulation. But then it’s not even in the top three atrocious acts the Trump administration has committed this month. Its war crimes are already virtual fish & chip paper.

The billionaires who own the media protect the billionaires in government, who protect the billionaires who own the media, in a cosy circle of reach-rounds. From the outside, you can barely see the money trail, let alone the Epstein Files.

The US is sending more troops to the Middle East, so the end of the war does not appear to be on the horizon. And it’s upped the age limit of recruits to 42 as well as scrapped restrictions for those with a legal conviction for marijuana. Given how conservative Republicans and especially the military are, that sounds both desperate and alarming for peace fans (the weirdos).

The Secretary of War, Pete “Arse-breath” Hegseth, who is living out his fantasy, playing Call of Duty with real ammo, killing real people and celebrating it, said “We negotiate with bombs”. He is just too excited and emotional for the role. I highly recommend stepping out of the dickosphere and hiring a woman to do the job.

It’s nakedly obvious that the war is just a manoeuvre for Trump’s convenience. It shifts the news cycle away from uncomfortable reading, makes him seem tough to some people and offers his family and friends another gold mine. After all those bankruptcies, finally he’s found something he’s good at.

Another story that seems to have escaped the attention of the majority of the media is that the US is now basically insolvent. According to their own Treasury figures for 2025, the USA has total assets of $6.06 trillion. Its liabilities amount to $47.78 trillion - and that does not include unfunded obligations like Social Security and Medicare. Try getting a bank loan with those sorts of numbers. And the government is asking for $200 billion more to fund a war no one understands, that has no exit plan and has no benefit, other than for the US arms industry, plus friends and fams.

Meanwhile, Americans are struggling to buy food and petrol, civilians are being killed on the regular and the global economy is suffering shockwaves that are going to last for years.

But Trump and co, they’re doing just fine. Thank you for your inattention to this matter.

How about a pint?

Image credits: CM Fitzpatrick - public domain

I really did not want to watch Inside The Manosphere. I really did not want to consider these reprehensible creatures, to let them into my thoughts. I didn’t want to write about them either, but after being encouraged to watch it, and having endured the excruciating, depressing documentary, I thought that the more that stood up to be counted the better.

What became clear very quickly is that generations and the sub-cultures within them occupy different worlds with very little crossover. The five bros that are the subject of this doco had never heard of the gangly, out of shape boomer, Louis Theroux. BBC who? Their media landscape is TikTok, Insta, Snap, YouTube. They have a substantial following among teenage boys and men with teenage boy brains. They are fundamentally immature men with an outsized influence over the immature. This programme is where those two worlds collide; a mainstream spotlight onto a faction that could not care less for your considered, respectable, side-parting-and-loafers opinion.

But they’ve not just rejected the mainstream in media, what makes them appeal to a wide audience is their rejection of 9-to-5 drudgery for pitiful wages. Instead they offer the promise of money and muscles with fake cheat codes to win at that life. They are living proof of their success, never mind that it’s their gullible fanboys that are providing the funds. They are salesmen. Good ones, too. If the tech-bro billionaires are the Revenge of the Nerds, the manosphere is the Revenge of Darren from Sales.

The fuel behind their energy is a backlash against feminism, which they feel has undermined traditional male roles in society. They see men and women as adversaries, not partners. And they believe women are fundamentally lesser beings, who are not as smart as them (apart from their mums). But they also see women as homogenous, all wanting the same thing. They view men in the same general term, but they carry a contradiction. Not all men are like them. But men who are not like them are losers. They, the preening iron-pumping peacocks, are what men should aspire to. High earners, providers, cocksure hunters without doubt or feelings. They only see women through the lens of sex. Their value is purely based on their level of attraction. Big women, less attractive women are worthless to them. Smart, talented or feisty women would be too, because they would not accept their role as sexy cleaners and dishwashers, as if it’s not the 1950s.

I don’t know any men like them, thankfully, and I don’t think they know any women like those in my circle. Strong, bright women who would eat them for breakfast. They attract a lot of young women, those for whom money, status and physique are all-important. One of the influencers featured, ‘Success Coach’ Justin Waller, was described online as the least obnoxious of the influencers featured, partly because his partner and the mother of his children seemed to love him, despite his “one-way monogamy”, in which only the woman is faithful. Waller pointed to the Miami skyline and announced it was built by men; designed and engineered by them, as proof of male superiority.

“Do we know that?” asked Theroux.

“It is a fact,” said Waller. Facts are not empirical in bro-world. He doesn’t know who built downtown Miami, though given that it looks like every other dull, phallic American city there’s a strong suggestion of the male hand. He doesn’t know that 27% of architects in the USA are women either.

I saw a post from an architecture practice in the city I live in from International Women’s Day. There was a picture of a number of women at the firm: women make up 57% of their team, including 40% of the directors and 55% of the architects. These women not only had to excel at their profession, they had to battle the sexism of a male-dominated industry to help build the city I love.

“What have women invented?” Waller asked, on a show I was watching through WIFI, a technology that owes its inception to inventor Hedy Lamarr whose frequency-hopping spread spectrum also led to Bluetooth and GPS. She was a prolific inventor in her downtime from being a Hollywood superstar.

The misogyny, homophobia and antisemitism that are threaded throughout the show are born from pure, undiluted ignorance and confidently spread to their admirers like a pox.

In all its 90 minutes there is not one moment when one of these man-children says something funny. Unless you think calling someone a “fat bitch” is funny, in which case, shouldn’t you be in school? The only funny moments occur when we see Myron Gaines, who performs the vital alpha male role of, checks notes, podcasting, meets his girlfriend, who he does not think should have a vote. The sheer discomfort of a man dying inside when it’s clear he’s going to get nowhere in his quest for multiple wives, is a treat. He becomes exposed to the reality that he is not as powerful as he thinks he is, and it beautifully signposts the end of their relationship. The other LOL was when content creator/scam salesman Harrison Sullivan (aka hstikkytokky) gets a tongue-lashing from his mum on his own livestream.

Who do they think bore them, nursed them, fed them, clothed them, raised them? And how come these spoilt little arseholes didn’t learn respect and gratitude?

Sullivan is interesting because, unlike his sidekick, Ed Matthews, he is not entirely stupid. His mum worked six days a week to put him through private school to give him the advantages his Oxford-educated absent dad didn’t. He knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t even agree with what he’s doing, but he compartmentalises his beliefs from those things he can monetise. Virtue and honour are worthless to him. Essentially, he has no principles. He despises women who are on Only Fans, but promotes them because it pays. He makes homophobic comments, then claims not to be homophobic because he has a gay friend. He makes antisemitic remarks but claims not to be antisemitic because he has a Jewish mate. We’ve heard all this before from our racist dads, lad. He says controversial stuff because he exists in an attention economy. All that matters is engagement.

His mate Ed is as thick as a spoon. He believes that aliens built the pyramids. Gaines thinks that he knows women better than women do, at least until his girlfriend walks out on him. Sneako thinks Satanists run the world. The opinions of these intellectual pygmies should not have any impact on the world, but in a Trump-Tate-Musk sewer ecosystem they do. That’s thanks to the wild west of social media and their skill in exploiting it. It’s an environment in which lies and bullshit have equal value to truth and knowledge.

At one point, Sullivan gets moody with Theroux, knowing he is not coming over very well on the show. He thinks he has a ‘gotcha’ moment, when he accuses Theroux of being ‘mates’ with Jimmy Saville, the notorious paedophile and subject of his documentary in 2000. It’s balls, of course, but it was said on the internet, so Sullivan repeats it and a lie becomes truth. So it goes.

The focus on traditional gender roles suggests a preexisting pattern that is hard-wired within us and has been tampered with by the narrowing of inequality. By ‘weak’ men feminised by listening to women and ceding power. It’s reductive and incurious. It’s also wrong.

The clearest way to view where we came from, and therefore what is intrinsic, is to look at existing ancient societies that until very recently lived the same way as they did 30,000 years ago, like the hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. The same way as all of our ancestors once lived. We often think of the hunters, the men, as the providers in these bands (not tribes), but it’s the gatherers, the women, that provided the majority, around 75%, of the food, foraging for fruit, vegetables and nuts. Meat was welcome and celebrated, but it was not reliable. Women have always held this shitshow together.

I’d like to be the bigger man and not feel hatred for these men, to feel pity. But I can’t. I do actually despise them and everything they represent. I would rather beg on the streets than enrich myself the way they do. But then I have no desire for expensive ugly cars either. And as we’ve seen across the pond, money and ignorance, combined with tech, can render you invulnerable to reason and rationality. Hedy Lamarr must be spinning.

Buy me a pint

Image credits:

Netflix - fair use

Miami skyline by Euthman - used under this license

Hedy Lamarr - public domain

After doing so, Hollywood then tends to make a lot of movies about how war makes them feel sad.

The 2004 film opens with Team America’s counter-terrorist operation in Paris, where terrorists are killed, but the collateral damage includes the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and L’Arc de Triomphe.

In real life, it’s worse. America has begun an illegal war with Iran, bombing the crap out of a populous and historic country, killing around 1000 Iranians, including 165 school children in Minab. Trump has refused to take responsibility for the school bombing, blaming Iran, despite evidence that the tragedy was perpetrated by US Tomahawk missiles. He rambled, without substantiation “We think it was done by Iran, because they’re very inaccurate with their munitions, they have no accuracy whatsoever, it was done by Iran”.

The Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, said: “The American and Zionist aggression against Minab Elementary School will never be erased from the historical memory of our nation.”

Other US Government figures said the school bombing was being investigated and that the US would never target civilians. That’s because they’re the good guys. And it’s just as well, as there were between 187,000 to 211,000 civilian deaths in the Iraq War (2003-2011). God only knows what those figures would look like if they were actually trying to kill civilians and not just callously incompetent.

Killing the people you claim to be liberating does not seem to trouble the American conscience. Far from it. Trump actually joked about sinking the Iranian frigate Iris Dena in the Indian Ocean. Nearly 100 sailors died on that unarmed ship.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the vessel “thought it was safe in international waters” but instead “died a quiet death”, perhaps thinking of the Hollywood films to come that will immortalise him.

Calling the conflict Operation Epic Fury echoes the puerile nature of Team America but also smells suspiciously of male insecurity combined with child-like fantasy and underlying mental issues. The US is now being governed by outtakes from Beavis and Butt-head and South Park.

The lack of empathy and sense of responsibility of these two fucking weirdos suggests there was more humanity in Team America’s wooden puppets than there is in the White House. How much longer must the world suffer from this plague of ignorance and hubris?

Britain’s biggest newspapers are demanding that our Armed Forces put their lives on the line in an illegal, unprovoked war at the behest of a foreign leader. That’s not patriotism, it’s treason.

And yet these rags will be the first to get their poppy on the masthead come November and wallow in the blood of the war dead, months after encouraging our young to add theirs to the tragic pool.

A Sun headline thundered: “Keir is pandering to Muslim voters by not joining my Iran blitz, slams Trump as he tells PM to ‘stop letting foreigners in’.”

It’s no surprise to see the racism and Islamophobia from The Sun, but the use of ‘blitz’ is interesting, given that it owes its place in the English language to a Nazi attack on our country.

Their editor then spewed: “It is near unprecedented for a US President to have to publicly lambast a British PM for his lack of support in confronting a global threat.”

Er, what global threat? America and Israel are the global threat and the biggest obstacle to world peace since Adolf Hitler.

“Sir Keir seems to think slavish adherence to the most rigid possible interpretation of international law is the same as strong leadership.”

So obeying the law is bad now? Got it. That’s why the News of the World closed, isn’t it? Lessons learnt: none.

“It’s not just pathetic. It’s shameful.”

Their last line is true at least. The Sun’s determination to allow British troops to die for America and Israel is not just pathetic, it is shameful. The Sun is terrified of harming our fictitious special relationship, as it clings to its Empire mug of sweet Indian tea and does the bidding of the deeply patriotic Australian-American Rupert Murdoch.

Keir Starmer has simply asked for legal justification for killing people. It’s not unreasonable. Especially when Trump cannot provide one.

At one point US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, suggested they started the war because they knew Israel was about to strike Tehran. The next day he said “I never said that,” after Trump said it was not the case. That’s leadership, libs.

Trump continues to criticise Starmer, saying he’s ‘No Churchill’. Thank God he’s not, as Churchill’s last intervention in Iran, alongside America, sowed the seeds of Iran’s despotic regime today. In 1953, Iran had a thriving democracy with a popular democratic leader, Mohammad Mossadegh. MI6 and the CIA jointly orchestrated a coup, motivated by Mossadegh’s plans to nationalise their oil industry, so that its vast income could be enjoyed by Iranians, rather than Britain and the USA.

They restored the deeply repressive rule of the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, whose brutal regime led to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the theocracy that now rules the country.

It’s worth remembering that Trump isn’t an anomaly. Britain and America have always pulled this shit, avoided responsibility and blamed foreigners. America does not care about democracy. It cares about oil.

I’m not a huge fan of Starmer, but he deserves some credit for learning from the tragic mistakes of Tony Blair in Iraq and not jumping slavishly into war criminality, as the editors of The Sun, Daily Mail, Telegraph and Express would have him do, as would Badenoch and Farage. Unusually for right-wing grifters and treasonous hacks serving off-shore masters, they are not in tune with the country this time. Very few support this unnecessary war. Even fewer would want their children to die in it. Nobody joins the British Army to die for oil, or Israel. Or to keep the US President out of prison.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, is the only European leader to really stand up to the bully and call him out. Trump wants to punish Spain for saying “No” to him. I wish a few more adults in his life had done so.

The American author and journalist Ryan Grim, reported that: “An unarmed Iranian ship was invited, along with the US, to be part of an Indian naval exercise. The US pulled out of the exercise at the last minute and instead attacked the Iranian ship with a torpedo.”

This is the ship that Secretary of War and Epic Shit, Pete Hegseth, has been bragging about; sinking an unarmed ship 2000 miles from Iran.

Grim continued: “Breaking with all norms of civilization and warfare, we then refused to rescue the drowning survivors. The Sri Lanka Navy was left to pull the dead bodies from the water.

“I am hard pressed to think of any other nation throughout history that would do something so cowardly and despicable. We are genuinely in a league of our own, and American media – mostly shrugging off the bombing of a girls school and acting as if carpet bombing Tehran is a normal military tactic – is complicit.”

This is the evil that the most powerful voices in the British media want us to stand side by side with. Pathetic and shameful is right for these modern day Lord Haw-Haws.

It was a weekend for Steve. Not the weekend as most people understand it. Not a Saturday and Sunday weekend. It was a floating weekend, as they liked to call it at Dickens & Co., to give the inconvenience a little sheen. Floating, because it could be any two days of the week. Dickens needs a flexible workforce, they said. Saturday is Valhalla in retail, they said. Steve wanted to point out that Valhalla meant the ‘hall of the slain’ in Old Norse, which to him, seemed appropriate. The slain, the mute, the castrati, lying prone before the indisputability of the five-day week.

His colleagues were getting younger, he noticed. That meant a gap had emerged in which conversation was a little more strained, a little less natural. They didn’t like to talk about politics, this lot, thought Steve. Boring, innit. They’d never heard of the bands he liked. Sometimes he’d tell them about the bands they’d never heard of and sometimes they’d talk about music he’d never heard of, which was fair enough, he thought. Though not very interesting. He was reasonably well liked was Steve, but not sought out at lunch, or for after-work drinks except at Christmas. He didn’t mind. He liked his own company.

“What you doing with your day off, Steve?” asked Shelley, the tiny checkout girl with the plum-coloured bob who was always pleasant to everyone. You’d have to be a monster not to like Shelley.

“Two days off, Shell!” said Steve, relishing the free time. “Busy, busy. Seeing pals. Maybe catch a band. Do some jobs. Check on me mum, you know.”

“Oh, aye.”

At the bus stop he ran into Big Joan, the formidable Head of HR, who terrified him. She was a mother of four, from Nigeria, and she did not mess about. If she had to tell you something, you would know you had been told. He nodded to her. She made a sound that was difficult to interpret and went back to her magazine.

“Getting the bus. Steve?” asked the young guy from Accounts who everyone called Beta.

“Getting the bus, Balachandra.”

Steve always used his full name, not his nickname. Everyone thought he was called Beta because he worked with computers, but Steve knew it was a common Indian nickname meaning ‘son’. He liked knowing these types of things. Beta was very good at his job. Competent with numbers yet curious about everything outside of his realm. You could talk to Balachandra, thought Steve. He would listen.

He could have gone out that night, could Steve. To the pub or the pictures. But he knew he had takeaway leftovers at home and the thought of his Lamb Dansak had followed him all day long like a nice smell. So he bought a six-pack and tucked into his beer and curry treat on the sofa. By the time he’d watched a documentary on a lady chess grandmaster, the first night of his weekend was practically over. Steve didn’t mind though. He’d had a nice night.

The familiar terror of waking up in the morning was soon followed by the peaceful tide bringing the knowledge that he didn’t have to go to work. It was the weekend, thought Steve, his weekend, anyroad. He’d meant to shop for some breakfast stuff yesterday but forgot. Cereal was for emergencies and temporary health kicks only. He had two eggs and two crusts from a loaf of Hovis. He toasted and buttered a crust and placed a fried egg on top, with plenty of seasoning. Perfectly sufficient, thought Steve and he scrolled through the morning’s news on his phone. The Prime Minister has done another U-turn. The Home Secretary justified her totally wrong decision by claiming she was “absolutely clear” that she would always act in “Britain’s best interests.” He felt his blood pressure rise. The President of the United States was fully supportive of agents who shot people dead who hadn’t voted for him. Steve had to wash his hands to be able to type ‘Fascist liar’ on social media.

He made a mental list of things he wanted to do that day – fix the shower, change the sheets, ring his mum – but his thumb kept scrolling, only to be interrupted by his having to type a response, or an observation that would take careful editing and spell checking. Some of his comments had garnered hundreds of upvotes in the past, but they were usually the more banal ones that pointed out something fairly obvious, like ‘bad people should be jailed’. His more pithy, devastatingly direct criticisms of the high and mighty never seemed to get any traction. He wondered if they were being hidden from view by the high and mighty, or if sometimes his swearing offended. By the time he got to midday, he realised he hadn’t moved from his spot at the table. He got up and stretched satisfyingly. He had wasted the morning, but it was his to waste. He stuck a frozen pasty in the oven and checked his phone.

“What are you doing?” he asked himself, dropping the phone back onto the table in annoyance at the habit. He made some tea and looked out into the garden. He had a ground floor flat in a low-rise block that had shared gardens. He found it satisfying to look out onto a bit of greenery, when he remembered, seeing birds in the trees and the neighbour’s cat eyeing them in patient fury. He liked that there were flowers and he didn’t have to tend to them. It was all included in his maintenance fee, you see. It was how things should work.

When his pasty was ready, he went back to his phone and checked on responses to his earlier contributions to global discourse. Nothing, besides one upvote for calling the most powerful man in the world an ‘orange nonce’. He headed to Substack. There was a similar level of vitriol there, but it was in longer form, so it didn’t count as doom scrolling. Lunch was disappointing. The pastry lacked flavour and swede dominated the filling like an earthy bully.

He really didn’t fancy fixing the shower. Plumbing was hard and if done badly could create more problems. YouTube was his friend when it came to practical matters, but it often led to clips of stand-up comedians and witty chat show guests. Why don’t I just run a bath? he said to himself. Problem solved.

The shower is great for quickness, but the bath was a lovely lie down in warm water. Plus you could read on your phone. It was an old phone with an aging battery. By the time it had run out, the water was cold. He replaced half of it with hot water, washed and got out to get dressed and charge his mobile.

He had to admit to a little disappointment with himself. He had done nothing today besides make barbed comments on the hypocrisy of world leaders, the UK Government and Blackburn with Darwen Council. Yes, he’d got things off his chest, but it hadn’t lifted any kind of burden. He put on some music, Metallica’s Load on vinyl, to accompany a frozen lasagne and a distracted scan of Kerrang! magazine.

Superb, he thought. Absolutely delicious.

He finally persuaded himself to ring his mum and make sure she was alright.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Wonders never cease.”

“How are you, Mum?”

“I thought you must have lost your phone. I said to your our Janet, ‘He must have lost his phone.’”

“No, mum.”

“You never call. Your sister calls every day.”

“Well, I’m calling now, Mum. How are you doing?”

“Are you coming Sunday? It’s pork.”

Steve explained the concept of the floating weekend once more to his mother, who thought it a queer idea and wondered why he didn’t come when he did have time off. But he told her about fixing the shower and all the other jobs he had to do.

Steve would call his mother more often but every time he did, he got told off for not ringing more often. It made it less of a welfare check and more of a voluntary punishment. He was glad he’d ticked it off, but always felt low after speaking to her. The pub’s what I need, he thought.

At the pub he had his usual exchange with Toby behind the bar.

“You seen anything of Nigel?”

“No, not seen him for ages.”

“Gave up the drink, didn’t he?”

“Aye, he did.”

“Too tight for a pint, ain’t he!”

“Probably!” They laughed together.

It might not have been sparkling conversation, but it was a comfort to speak to someone in a jocular, affable vein. It was his weekend and he deserved that, surely. He took a bag of crisps and his pint of Best Bitter back to his table, pulled out his phone and marvelled at the ignorance and stupidity of some people on social media. A second pint led to him telling them how ignorant and stupid they were. Finally, he told the Prime Minister of Great Britain that he needed to resign immediately and make way for someone with a conscience.

You can imagine his surprise when he woke in the morning to find the Prime Minister had actually resigned. He didn’t take any credit for it of course, but he was about to start criticising the candidates for the leadership when the doorbell rang.

Well, his shock at the Prime Minister’s resignation was nothing compared to his surprise when he opened the front door to see a limousine and a police car, and three smartly dressed and somewhat familiar people, flanked by two policemen.

“Mr Mills?” asked an auspiciously authoritative gentleman with greying temples and an air of gravitas.

“Aye. What’s all this then?”

“Sir David Sharpe, Chair of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.”

“We saw your posts on Reddit.” said the Asian woman in the middle.

“I was hacked!” claimed Steve, urgently.

“Hacked?” said the other woman.

“Probably by the Russians, yeah,” said Steve.

“The thing is,” said Sir David. “We thought they were rather good.”

“Very perspicacious,” said Bhavya Yadav MP.

“A real breath of fresh air,” offered Lily Powell MP.

“I particularly enjoyed your defence of beans on toast,” added Sir David.

“It’s a classic,” said Steve.

“Indeed. ‘I’ll take no culinary lessons from a country that thinks cheese comes in jars.’”

They all laughed.

“You liked my style, then?” said Steve, proudly.

“Very much so,” said Sir David. “In fact, with the departure of Mr Starmer, we wondered if you wouldn’t like to come and help the government in these difficult days.”

“Take us in a new direction,” said Bhavya.

“Steady the ship,” said Lily.

“But with exciting new ideas,” concluded Sir David.

“Hold on,” said Steve, looking up and down the road. “Is this some kind of prank? Am I being filmed for one of them ‘Gotcha!’ shows?”

“I can assure you, we are perfectly serious,” confirmed Sir David. “The poll numbers are, well…”

“Frightening,” said Bhavya.

“Disappointing,” corrected Sir David. “And it’s clear a radical change is required before the next election.”

Once his kitchen table had been cleared of debris, a somewhat baffled Steve Mills reviewed a contract that was being proffered, as Lily passed him a burgundy fountain pen.

“This is none other than Winston Churchill’s favourite pen. He signed a lot of important documents with this,” she said.

Steve thought better of summarising his criticisms of the great war leader for his anti-Indian racism. He also thought better of reading the contract, which had many pages and included much dense, legalistic language. He signed and dated the document before asking, “What, am I some kind of government influencer now?”

“No, sir. You are now the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.”

“Good grief,” he managed, sitting back in his chair and trying to take in this incredible turn of events. Yesterday, he was assistant manager of Dickens and Co. Today, he was the leader of his country.

“The thing is,” he started, “I was supposed to have today off.”

During the limo drive to London, Steve resolved not to be swayed by Establishment forces to lean towards the Right as soon as he took the reins of power. It had happened to everyone who ended up in Westminster and he needed to hold his ground and shake things up.

Steve was appraised as to what his first day would look like. His first job was to approve the cabinet. Bhavya strongly suggested he keep the current cabinet, as they were all very experienced in their roles. Radical change was required, yes, but there was a lot of muttering about babies and bath water.

“Let’s have a look,” said Steve, eyeing the list of Cabinet members and not wanting to admit he hadn’t heard of half of them. After all, he was the Prime Minister. But the ones he did know, he didn’t like.

“No, no, no, no,” he said. And with his first act, he sacked Streeting, Cooper, Mahmood and Reeves, four of the most established political voices in the country. “My sister, Janet, can do the Department of Health. She’s a nurse.”

“Very good, Prime Minister,” said a somewhat concerned Sir David. “I don’t believe she’s a Member of Parliament though. There is that. And we’ve used up our Emergency Dispensation on you.”

“No, you’re right there, Dave. I’ll make her a Lord or summat. Incidentally, I’m going to get rid of the House of Lords.”

“Get rid of the House of Lords?” asked an alarmed Sir David. “No second chamber?”

“We’ll have a second chamber alright. But it’ll be democratic. And PR. That’s proportional representation, Dave.”

“I am aware what PR is, Prime Minister, but, well, PR is likely to give a foothold to all sorts of minority parties.”

“Only if the people of Britain vote for them. And who’s topping the polls you’re so scared of right now?”

“The Monster Raving Far-Right Loony Party,” chipped in Lily.

“Exactly,” said Steve. “We need to stop appeasing them with Loony-Lite policies and go for proper progressive programs. My mate Balachandra can be Chancellor of the Exchequer, Shelley can be my Cabinet Secretary and Big Joan can have Cooper’s job. She’ll eat JD Vance for breakfast.”

“Well, it’ll get the ‘shitshow of a government’ off the front pages for a few days,” said Bhavya hopefully.

Sir David winced, yet had to reflect that this was what he’d asked for. It would only be an interim Government until the imminent election and with an enormous defeat looming, they had nothing to lose.

There was a phone in the car, which amused Steve so much he had to use it. He rang his Mum to tell her he was now the Prime Minister.

“Have you been drinking?” she asked.

“No, I haven’t. Do you think that would help?”

“Does this mean you can come Sunday? Janet’s coming.”

“Oh good, I need a word with her.”

Prime Minister Mills’ first day in Downing Street was an eventful one. He instructed the Head of the Civil Service, Shelley, to prepare legislation to enshrine the four-day week; bring in Universal Basic Income, thereby dismantling the welfare system in favour of free money for all; cut business rates for pubs; legalise and regulate cannabis; nationalise the water industry; close the US military bases; make quality insulation and solar panels compulsory in new builds and pump money into health, education and public transport.

“I don’t mean to be funny, Steve, but how are we paying for this?”

“You are not funny, Shelley. You are sensible. Get me Balachandra.”

In matters of diplomacy, Big Joan was no less bold. Steve delegated a meeting with the US Ambassador to her. He was demanding an apology for Steve insulting the President but ended up apologising to Joan, Britain and God.

Joan began by showing him a print out of a block of colour.

“What colour would you say that is, Mr Ambassador?”

“I know what orange looks like, ma’am,” he said crossly, with a Southern drawl.

She then showed him a picture of the President from the State of the Union address and asked him to compare the colours.

“I do not judge people by the colour of their skin!”

Joan made a sound that was difficult to interpret; part-scoff, part-chuckle, part-indigestion.

“We don’t know the colour of his skin,” she said.

Gathering himself, Mr Ambassador said, “I am more concerned with the other, er, allegations.”

Bringing up some documents on her laptop, Joan said: “I am happy to go through the 38,000 references in the Paedo Files, if you are.”

“Those files completely exonerate the President! I want a complete and public retraction,” barked the diplomat.

“Let’s just do a search for exonerate, shall we? No, nothing. Looks like we’ll have to go through the claims one by one. But in public, as you suggest. Let me set it up with the BBC and we can prove his innocence live in front of the world.”

Steve did handle some international matters himself though.

“Argentina is once again forcefully requesting the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands,” Sir David informed the PM.

“Yeah, alright.”

“‘Yeah, alright?’ What do you mean ‘Yeah, alright’? That’s your response to Britain’s thorniest land dispute of the last 100 years?”

Steve shrugged. “That would be the North of Ireland, Dave. But, yeah.”

When Balachandra arrived he told Steve in no uncertain terms but without emotion that his plans would bankrupt the nation.

“What if every adult, including the richest individuals in the country, paid a flat rate of 20% tax?”

“You’d raise about the same in revenue as now.”

“But people would be happier.”

“A 4 day week, UBI, cheaper pubs, better health and transport would all improve people’s lives before the inevitable financial crash, recession and collapse of government.”

“It doesn’t sound too bad,” mused Steve as Sir David’s eyebrows raised almost to the point of leaving his forehead entirely. “Tell you what. Can you make up the difference by ensuring all these corporate tax-dodgers and off-shore billionaires contribute enough to cover my plans to make people happy. You know the types. Global brands who rake in billions and pay bugger all into the Treasury. And why not demand a billion from every non-domiciled media baron? If they want to poison public opinion, they’d better pay for it. ”

“I’ll have to crunch some numbers…”

“Crunch away, my old fruit. I know there’s a way. Just spare me the details, eh? Never offer me a spreadsheet. Excel is your love language, not mine.”

It had been an exhausting adventure and Steve had rarely been so happy to get driven home. At least he’d been fed and had nicked a bottle of red from Downing Street to relax with before bed. Funny, he hadn’t looked at his phone all day, he’d been so busy.

When he woke up in the morning, back in the familiarity of his bed, he thought, ‘What a funny dream. Me, as Prime Minister. Ha!’

He padded downstairs, put the kettle on and considered his options. He still had one egg, and one crust of Hovis, slightly more stale than yesterday. Fried egg on toast. Perfectly adequate.

Then, as he wiped egg yoke from his unshaven chin, he noticed on his kitchen table an antique burgundy fountain pen. The door bell rang.

Image credit: Terry Ott, used under this license

Almost the entire media industry is so furious that British people voted the way they wanted to, instead of the way they were told, that they have filled their shorts and front pages with their own excrement. The Scum, the Daily Heil, the SS-Express, the Dementiagraph and The Lying Times, have collectively lost their shit.

In response to Hannah The Plumber’s by-election success in Gorton and Denton they have decided to repeat whatever Nigel Farage says instead of doing journalism.

Without investigation or even questioning, the Fourth Estate has eagerly parroted Farage’s attack lines, accusing the Greens of cheating, of sectarianism, of ‘using Gaza’, and stealing the election with foreign-born voters.

How dare the Greens discuss their own anti-genocide position with voters? How dare they criticise the government for using our taxes to help Israel kill women and children? Especially when these papers have tried so hard to look the other way.

The far-right party is accusing the Greens of extremism. Yep, the really have. They criticised them for printing campaign material in Urdu, though Vote Leave published leaflets in Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi. Conservative and Labour directly campaign for British Indian votes. Apparently it’s sectarianism if someone else does it.

Cry Baby Nige claims Reform won in the ‘British-born’ vote, as if that was a thing. A thing other than the ‘being-a-massive-racist’ thing.

The Lying Times called the Green Party’s policies “the politics of despair and envy”. The Green Party is as far from despair as you can get in politics. It’s a hopeful movement that aims to tackle inequality and protect the environment. The envy trope is a tired old accusation that rich people use because they can’t understand being loathed for something other than their wealth. They dream of jealousy. And who’d be envious of billionaires moaning about how unsafe Britain is whilst begging for help in Dubai?

And it’s not just the newspapers who are furious that a working class woman who wants to make Britain and the world a better, safer place has been elected. Sky and ITV news have made utter fools of themselves trying to humble Zack Polanski, only for him to turn the tables and ask why they are doing Farage’s job.

The collective zombification of large swathes of mainstream media does not bode well for our freedoms or our future. The only good thing about this concerted attack on the politics of the left is that it’s clear they are scared and they do not understand how this Green victory happened. They have not yet figured out the majority of people in Manchester are not buying their lies. They’ve rejected the far-right’s racism and an extraordinarily out of touch Labour government. As long as Reform, Labour and the Conservatives continue to learn nothing, the Greens have a chance of making Britain fab again.

Image credit: By N Carr GreenParty used under this liecense

Dirty Business makes for a moving, enraging and, at times, devastating indictment of almost everything that is wrong with the running of Britain PLC, from official incompetence, weaponised neglect, oblivious greed and the effects of Margaret Thatcher’s vandalism-by-ideology.

It’s not just a story of executives trousering bonuses while destroying the environment. There’s also a central tragedy of a little girl who loses her life, and the suffering borne by her family in the face of water companies whose inhuman, dead bat bureaucracy offered nothing but salt for the wound.

Somehow the writer and director, Joseph Bullman, manages to bring humour and lightness to a story about shit and death. That’s in no small part thanks to the chemistry between the brilliantly deadpan David Thewlis and Jason Watkins, as two retired concerned citizens. The determination and forensic skill of the fierce campaigners they portray; Ashley Smith, a former policeman who used to investigate corrupt cops; and Peter Hammond, a former Oxford Maths Professor, are worth a nation’s gratitude. The obstacles placed in front of them by numerous water companies and the Environment Agency that was supposed to regulate them would have defeated most people. But for years, they dug, presented evidence and asked uncomfortable questions of the unscrupulous and kept going until they were heard.

I imagine the water companies would object to their depiction as cringe buzzword jockeys, but if you have ever tried to complain to an official body, you will be familiar with the brick wall of platitudes and insincere commitment to ‘valuing your feedback’.

In 1989, Britain became the only country in the world whose water system was entirely privatised. Margaret Thatcher proposed privatisation in 1984 and again in 1986, but strong public opposition saw it dropped from the Conservative manifesto for the 1987 election. Having won that election Thatcher revived the plan. The government took over the £5 billion debt of the sector and added a further £1.5 billion fund to assist the 10 new, private, water and sewerage companies who paid £7.6 billion for the regional water companies. A very good deal (for them).

Amid the compelling drama are some hard facts. The theory was that private companies would invest and modernise more readily, therefore providing a better service. In practice, the private companies have extracted £85 billion in dividends and accrued £60 billion in debt. In addition, the lack of investment, lack of oversight and deliberate policy of ignoring the law and dumping raw sewage into Britain’s rivers and seas has seen health hazards throughout the land; people contracting E. coli and fish dying in their thousands. One million sewage dumps were perpetrated in 2024 alone.

But how is this possible? Surely there are environmental safeguards? As Smith and Hammond uncover, the Environment Agency, quietly funded by the water companies, operates a self-monitoring system whereby the water companies report themselves if they think they’ve done something wrong. It’s like putting a fox in charge of chicken security.

That sleight of hand has been achieved with government help. David Cameron frequently boasted about slashing regulations and slaying the ‘health and safety beast’. Who needs health and safety, right? It’s one of the Right’s triumphs, to paint your health and your safety as an imposition on your freedom. As a consequence, the Environment Agency stopped inspection of sewerage works that were falling apart and pumping dangerous sewage into rivers on the regular. Next on the menu will be human rights. Bloody human rights, who needs ‘em, eh?

As Smith and Hammond uncovered industrial scale illegal sewage dumping – something Smith describes as “organised crime” – they pressed the EA to take action. But with a cosy revolving door between the EA execs and the water companies’ board room, not a single executive has been prosecuted. Fines have been issued, but to these private equity firms with complex tax avoidance strategies, these are just part of the cost of doing business. Hedge Funds don’t care about public health. They don’t care about the environment. They care only about money.

Water privatisation has made a small number of people very wealthy at the expense of scalping a very large number of people. If you like your ultra capitalism, it’s beautiful. It is the essence of Conservative economics, though the Labour Party doesn’t come off looking too shiny in Dirty Business either. Senior Labour politicians are dining with the same water company lobbyists as before. Starmer may have banned water executive bonuses, so they called them “retention payments” and carried on. The PM has vowed to end ‘operator self-monitoring’ in the EA. When? It’s a government agency, you don’t need to change the law, you need to apply it. It should have been done yesterday.

And a small number of people have become seriously ill due to sewage pollution. One small innocent person lost her life, shattering her family forever. Time doesn’t heal the loss of a child, as this deft drama shows in the most heartbreaking manner.

Dirty Business sits alongside ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office, another drama that successfully shone a light into the shambolic negligence of a society that reveres its ridiculous hierarchy of Lords and Ministers and Executives. Look at the villains of this piece: Thatcher, a permanent Conservative icon; Cameron, now sitting in the House of Lords having his lunch subsidised by all of us; and Sir James Bevan, the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency while it looked the other way, knighted and now non-executive Director of Welsh Water. It shouldn’t take a television series to shame a nation into action, but I hope this marks the beginning of a new era for our waterways and our reliance on conscience-free private finance.

It’s the ordinary people; Mr Bates, Mr Smith and Professor Hammond that are the jewels in our crown. But they don’t need honours, they just need responsible governance. One that puts people before pounds.

All three episode are available now on All 4.

★★★★★

Image credit: Rob Baker Ashton/Channel 4