IN THE DOCK

Talking Pictures TV, that dependable repository of cathode ray classics, has recently added another neglected gem to its nostalgic roster by giving a welcome repeat outing to one of the most unfairly-maligned British shows of the Golden Age, ‘Dixon of Dock Green’. Routinely – not to mention sneeringly – labelled ‘cosy’ (usually by those who’ve never seen it), the everyday stories of a London policeman originally ran for an impressive 21 years, which was no mean feat considering the lead character of Sgt Dixon (Jack Warner) was 81 when the series hung up its truncheon in 1976. This police procedural has a poor survival rate in the archives, but enough early episodes exist to keep the TPTV run so far strictly monochrome. And what the episodes from the 1950s and 60s undoubtedly convey is the look and feel of a soap opera – or ‘ongoing dramas’ as the BBC used to call them back then; some even contain a Light Programme-style arrangement of the theme tune that sounds like it belongs on ‘Music While You Work’. Unlike the later episodes from the 70s, these feature multiple scenes of Sgt Dixon at home and the family element is strong thanks to his daughter being married to DI Andy Crawford, with all three sharing the same residence. Ironically, soaps today feature an inordinate amount of criminal activity, largely thanks to the corrosive influence of Phil Redmond, though far more than can be seen in yer average episode of a literal crime series like ‘Dixon’. This is drama mercifully free of melodrama.

A decade ago, three DVDs were released that featured the surviving episodes from the last five years of the series, and these have a different feel to the ones TPTV has screened to date. There’s a poignant strain of melancholy running through the early 70s stories that is mirrored in the ageing, past-retirement and eternally avuncular figure of Sgt George Dixon. But Sgt Dixon is a man so indestructible that he cheated death at the hands of Dirk Bogarde (in the movie that inspired the series, 1949’s ‘The Blue Lamp’). Trailing Dixon pounding and plodding his beat along pavements straddling boarded-up properties is like watching a world pass away before our eyes – the post-war Ealing idea of England that trained Dixon to do his job hard but fair. And we trust him to uphold that principle as he criss-crosses a remarkable amount of waste-ground which wildflowers are already reclaiming as nature capitalises on the gap between the recent disappearance of one building and the distant erection of another. Dixon is oblivious of the goldmine his community is sitting on, but those that constitute the community will never benefit from the invisible gold once it comes to be mined; they, like Dixon himself, will be gone by then, edged out by prospectors.

The transition from monochrome to colour was largely on the surface when London was designated the cultural centre of the universe; the 60s never really swung in Dock Green aside from the odd visual flourish via the younger members of the community, and even then this flourish was a slow burner, not really showing itself until one decade had seamlessly morphed into another. Besides, the likes of George Dixon took it all in his seen-it-all-before stride; and it’s worth remembering this is a man who didn’t just emanate from a different decade, but a different century. He could recall every teenage tribe from Victorian hooligans through to cosh-boys in zoot-suits, never mind Teds, Mods and Rockers; it took more than yet another adolescent fad to faze him. Dixon is the physical embodiment of continuity with an era that is clinging on against the odds and under the radar; but everyone sensed it would all go when he did.

A man with the kind of gentle touch we were brought up to believe is a hallmark of British policing via the Ladybird manual, Sgt Dixon is the father figure overseeing a very human drama dealing with the little people who don’t stage audacious blags with sawn-off shooters. More often than not, he encounters life’s failures and does so with great humanity and sympathy. The streets of Dock Green can contain characters inhabiting the same rented accommodation, as in the wonderful 1976 episode, ‘Alice’ – including a burly northerner who once held ambitions to be a world-champion boxer, now reduced to wrestling every night to make ends meet; a small-fry businessman who talks the talk but is still stuck in a poxy little office; then there’s his West Indian secretary, over-qualified for her post, but presumably unable to get a better one because of her colour; and the socially diffident loner who gives the episode its title – a touching performance by Angela Pleasence as a girl with holes in her stockings, convinced she has what it takes to be a great violinist, though the viewer knows she’ll never make it.

Even in the bleaker 70s, Dock Green nick remains something of a comforting family firm – with the sergeant’s son-in-law DI Crawford overseeing a fluid squad of here today/gone tomorrow officers that the archive failed to preserve the complete careers of. But DI Crawford, like his father-in-law, is a static rock of stability in a landscape that is crumbling around him. Yes, he’ll get heavy with the bona-fide villains, but when confronted by innocents caught up in events born of their limited social circumstances, he recognises the signs and goes easy on them. The aforementioned apprentice violinist, name of Alice, is one such character. She possesses a damaged and delicate vulnerability, but the reasons behind why she’s the way she is remain unrevealed even as her sad story unfolds; gradually, however, we are exposed to a steely determination in Alice not to be walked over, something that is often the hallmark of the unlikely survivor and explains how they manage to cling onto the fringes of society, invisible and ignored, but ultimately defiant.

Dock Green is abundant with Alice’s, but the alienating elements of the big city are something the local Force is familiar with, and the causes of crime on the manor are often all-too evident. Even the genuine crooks are still recognisably Ealing-derived, most being the products of traditional criminal families stretching back generations, as much a part of the community’s fabric as Sgt Dixon himself (who has, in his time, nicked father, son and grandson). Innocent observers see the bad in them, but appreciate the nick will slap them on the wrist and send them to the Scrubs for a couple of years without fear of their criminal aspirations ever exceeding the low-level ambition their upbringing aims for. Their future heirs will not settle for that. No, when old coppers who can no longer handle their drink light their pipes and cluster round the Joanna for a run-through of archaic music-hall standards they know off by heart, you realise you’re watching one late, lamented incarnation of England in its elegiac death-throes.

The streets Dixon patrols are being eradicated and obliterated; where the Luftwaffe floundered, the town-planner has triumphed. A sense of place is as much about bricks & mortar as it is about people; when the bricks & mortar have been reduced to rubble, the people are reduced with them, and place is displaced for an entire generation – one which will never reclaim it. Hell, you think the crop that rule the roost as Dixon is on his last lap are bad – wait till you see their children and grandchildren when they get their chance. Schooled in the free-market casino that renders the little people Sgt Dixon has always striven to serve as collateral damage, morality will be a major casualty, as will any sense of shame as they fight to protect their self-interests at the expense of the rest. Their community is the community of Me. They will build towers that burn and evade prosecution at every turn because they can buy immunity, creaming their ill-gotten millions off each institution founded for the public and flogged to the private. They won’t give a flying f**k for the little people, and they won’t even have the decency to hide the fact or even feel the need to hide it. Is it any wonder the allure of the era before their abominable breed stained the surface of Albion retains its pull?

© The Editor

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CRIME OF THE CENTURY

Picture the scene: Scotland’s First Minister indulges in another of his race-baiting speeches, spitting out the word ‘white’ with enough thinly-veiled venom to warrant a complaint; once back home, there’s a knock at the door from the Edinburgh Police, who inform him he’s just committed a Hate Crime and they cart him off to the nick. That’s the trouble with creating monsters; the monster has a habit of eventually turning on the creator. Just ask Maximilien Robespierre. The architect of the Terror during the aftermath of the French Revolution was ultimately responsible for dispatching thousands of his fellow citizens to a rendezvous with Madame Guillotine, and yet he met the same fate himself a year after introducing the policy. The brief stint he enjoyed as the most powerful and feared figure in France saw Robespierre as a prominent member of the National Convention’s Committee of Public Safety – a title used without irony, yet one which has had echoed down throughout history ever since; it’s there in every totalitarian state that calls itself a Democratic Republic, and it’s there in legislation masquerading as fairness, tolerance and equality. War is Peace, indeed.

The build-up to Scotland’s notorious Hate Crime Act becoming law on April Fool’s Day (no joke) has been accompanied by a gaslighting campaign on the part of Police Scotland, convincing every Scotsman and woman that they have a bigoted little orange cartoon monster inside them, one that can erupt into a tirade against all ring-fenced ‘oppressed minorities’ at a moment’s notice. Presumably this warning only addresses those Scots unfortunate enough to have been born with white skin, mind, for as we all know, racism is an exclusively white ailment. The vagueness of what can be defined as ‘hatred’ in this soon-to-be law means the definition is entirely in the hands of those entrusted to police it, employing subjectivity and emotional responses to decide. So open to interpretation is this definition that talk has been of actors in stage plays or performers at the Edinburgh Festival being arrested should a complaint be lodged against them, and then there’s JK Rowling. The Edinburgh-based English author has already endured years of relentless online abuse from unhinged and demented Trans-activists accusing her of being the Antichrist, and some of these non-binary fruitcakes are planning to launch a series of complaints the day the Act becomes law in a bid to have her arrested for stating biological fact and for not pandering to narcissistic and misogynistic men in drag as they invade women’s safe spaces.

One of the most contentious – not to say worrying – sections of this Act is the possibility someone could be charged under the new law for stating an unfashionable opinion within the confines of their own abode. An Englishman’s home may once have been his castle, but it appears a Scotsman’s home could soon become a public space. Shades of the Chinese Cultural Revolution once again as younger members of the family are encouraged to grass-up their parents and report any indiscretions to the authorities; a similar policy used as a nightmarish example of an oppressive future society applied in the Dystopian 2002 movie, ‘Equilibrium’, though this approach was effectively road-tested for real at the peak of Project Fear, when reporting one’s neighbours for breaking the pandemic rules was regarded as a moral duty. Nobody yet knows precisely how this law will be enacted come April, though the threat to both freedom of speech and even freedom of thought is paramount. As yet, this will be restricted to north of the border, but a legitimate concern is the Labour Party, once in government, will cherry-pick whichever segments of the Act they fancy and seek to implement them UK-wide.

If so, perhaps whatever legislation arises can one day be used to prosecute Ministers of the Church of England as that doomed institution continues down its nihilistic path, fatally infected by an ideology that poisons all who contract it. In a desperate and misguided bid to stave off extinction, it would appear the Anglican branch of Christianity has morphed into a more contemporary cult and wholly embraced the modern mantra. The Archdeacon of Liverpool, Miranda Threlfall-Jones (yes, you guessed it – middle-class and white), has been criticised for comments that seem to be contenders for prosecution under Hate Speech. ‘Whiteness is to race what patriarchy is to gender,’ she tweeted. ‘So yes, let’s have anti-whiteness, and let’s smash the patriarchy.’ As ever, simply reverse the sentiment and imagine the outrage. The Original Sin theory that has long been the backbone of the Church of Rome has now been adopted by the Church of England, though the Sin in this context is the colour of one’s skin. Yeah, you’re doing a great job of bringing the community together, vicar. Oh, and let us not forget the calls of senior clergy to increase the Church’s ‘slavery reparations’ (laughable enough) from 100 million to 1 billion; I mean, is there anything these clueless c***s won’t do to come across as ‘on trend’? It’s pathetic.

Race and gender are the top priorities in such legislation; class prejudice never gets a look in, strangely enough, despite it being a far more successful divider in separating the rulers from the ruled. But Scotland is not alone; it’s just got in there quicker than anyone else. This cancer is endemic across the Anglosphere, after all. Canada, arguably the epicentre of Planet Woke under Trudeau, is poised to introduce legislation that will facilitate the arrest and detainment of people suspected of one day planning to commit a crime when they haven’t actually yet done so. Again, we’re seeing elements of an old movie predicting a future Dystopia being used as a blueprint for governing an allegedly democratic society, this time ‘Minority Report’, which coincidentally appeared the same year as ‘Equilibrium’. I guess few in 2002 anticipated where we’d be 22 years later, though there’s no doubt the pandemic was the litmus test for seeing how much Western governments could get away with in restricting the freedoms of their citizens. As it turned out, they got away with a hell of a lot, and now they’re emboldened by their success.

The resignation of Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been a minor success for opponents of the Thought Police approach to governance espoused by so many of the draconian ideologues in charge of Western nations, post-pandemic. Varadkar ticked all the boxes, being pro-Net Zero and a devotee of the gender cult, aping Nicola Sturgeon in admitting violent male criminals posing as ‘women’ into women’s prisons. He even had his very own Hate Speech Bill, one that promised to deal with ‘incitement to hatred’ as long as that hatred was directed at the usual suspects, one he did his best to rush through the senate following the riots that occurred in Dublin last November as a result of a violent attack on a female crèche worker and three small children by an Algerian national. Varadkar had already turned a blind eye to concerns by Irish natives to mass immigration, branding any opponents of his rainbow nation with the familiar labels of far-right, racist and xenophobic; he wanted to arrest and imprison such opponents, much like Justin Trudeau freezing the bank accounts of his own opponents during the truckers’ protests a couple of years ago.

What these figures all have in common other than an adherence to a dogma not shared by the masses is an absolute loathing of those very masses. Technocrats to a man (and woman), the leaders elected to power on mandates they have no intention of honouring are hell-bent on appeasing every chattering-class fad at the expense of the genuine concerns harboured by the electorate. The pandemic demonstrated how to do it, and the post-war consensus appears to be to carry on regardless. Leo Varadkar’s resignation came about due to the overwhelming rejection of his attempts to alter the Irish constitution in the worst referendum result an Irish government has ever suffered; as with the ruling elite here in 2016, the utter inability to understand why this has happened exposes the width of the chasm between elected and electorate, something Scotland has evidently yet to work out.

© The Editor

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LONG WAVE GOODBYE

‘Evolution, not revolution’ – so spoke Tony Hayers of his mission at the BBC in his role as the nemesis of Alan Partridge when Hayers was BBC Commissioning Editor in the 1990s sitcom, to which a Partridge desperate for a second series of his TV chat-show reacted enthusiastically by declaring, ‘I evolve…but I don’t revolve’. The character of Tony Hayers (played by David Schneider) represented the post-Birt BBC executive class at odds with the populist approach of the Norwich-based broadcaster (played by Steve Coogan); in the real world, the BBC has been inherited by Tony Hayers rather than Alan Partridge, and we – as licence-fee payers – have seen (and heard) the end results of this evolution over the past 20-25 years. The increasing move towards digital platforms for receiving Auntie’s output may well suit anyone under 50, but for an ageing audience not tuning in to ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’, the sudden transformation of BBC services to wholly accommodate a younger demographic whose viewing and listening habits have been entirely shaped by online activity has left loyalties severely tested for some. As of April Fool’s Day, Radio 4 will no longer have opt-out wavelengths for different programming, and – as usual – the hardcore audience accustomed to a traditional switch from FM to Long Wave and back again have had no say in this decision.

An opt-out slot is, in a way, a legacy of the old BBC Home Service, which would routinely pause for regional matters at various points during the day – not dissimilar to the manner in which the individual ITV franchise holders used to operate up until ITV’s transformation into a London-based, 24/7 networked entity around 20 years ago. The change from the Home Service to Radio 4 in 1967 didn’t eradicate this formula either; the content of Radio 4 could differ wherever you happened to be listening in the country till 1978, with the gradual spread of BBC local radio negating this aspect of the Home Service remit from the late 60s onwards. The South-west was the sole region immune to the 1978 overhaul, clinging onto the opt-out as late as January 1983, when the twin launches of Radio Devon and Radio Cornwall belatedly called time on a time-honoured practice. However, whilst regional opt-outs may have come to an end in the early 80s, wavelength opt-outs remained. Back in the now-unthinkable era when BBC Schools broadcasts dominated the daytime R4 schedules, a split between FM and Medium Wave (which the station then occupied) was necessary, but when Radio 4 swapped its MW band with Radio 2 in 1978, the old R2 Long Wave band became Radio 4’s opt-out option.

BBC radio has been transmitting on Long Wave for 99 years, beginning with its transmitter in Daventry, Northamptonshire, in 1925; there are still a trio of transmitters broadcasting Radio 4 LW on 198 kHz, though now owned by the private company Arqiva, which says significant investment is required to keep them going. However, with the Long Wave platform earmarked for eventual closure, it’s likely these transmitters won’t be maintained indefinitely. Since 1978 Long Wave has been a handy tool for niche programming where Radio 4 is concerned. The Shipping Forecast first aired on Radio 4 when the AM wavelengths were swapped between Radios 2 and 4, remaining in the same place on the dial as a result; the evergreen nautical recital is broadcast four times a day across FM and LW, though come April only the two daily FM broadcasts will still be heard, albeit with an additional edition at weekends. Other programmes that have benefitted from the two-way split include The Daily Service – and it’ll certainly be strange not hearing that mentioned at 9.45am just before Book of the Week – as well as Yesterday in Parliament’s extended version, both of which will henceforth only be found on Radio 4 Extra and BBC Sounds.

One already-notable absentee from Long Wave now is Test Match Special, a programme that has been shunted about a fair bit in recent decades. Launched in 1957, this Great British Institution took advantage of the empty afternoon airwaves occupied on an evening by the Third Programme and stayed in the same place – on Medium Wave – when the Third was rebranded as Radio 3; it remained on R3 up until the early 90s when the new MW-only station Radio 5 arrived as an intended home for all of the BBC’s radio sports coverage, and Test Match Special duly moved in; however, due to the somewhat…erm…lengthy duration of Test Cricket, the show also retained a presence on Radio 3 FM. It eventually found a fresh home on Radio 4 LW when Radio 5 was re-launched as the news-heavy Radio 5 Live in 1994, even if the Shipping Forecast, the Daily Service and Yesterday in Parliament – rather than rain – tended to routinely stop play. Despite extended coverage on the digital station Radio 5 Sports Extra avoiding these interruptions, LW broadcasts continued until the conclusion of the 2023 season.

I can completely understand listeners revelling in the crystal-clear haven that is a digital station, though I can’t deny the unique background sounds of mushy old Long Wave added a distinctive analogue accompaniment to the fine wine richness of the show’s legendary voices in the same way a vinyl crackle was integral to the ambience of a classic album from the 60s or 70s; it often used to sound as if TMS was being phoned-in from some distant village green in an imaginary Albion upon which the sun had yet to set. Perhaps that’s part of the nostalgic attachment to Long Wave, for all its failings at passing this century’s sonic quality test; its audio imperfections are so engrained in the listening experience that they have become part of that experience. When they are cleaned-up and ironed out by the digital transformation, something just seems to be missing. Of course, it depends what one happens to be listening to; I certainly couldn’t imagine enjoying Radio 3’s musical content in quite the same way on MW, for instance; but when it comes to the spoken word, especially one spoken with such mellifluous elegance as the ear masseurs of old on TMS, Long Wave undoubtedly guided the brushes painting the pictures in the listener’s head.

One can understand why some still preferred to listen on Long Wave long after the takeover of the superior soundscapes of the digital medium that superseded it, even if the choice of devices with which listeners can now access their favourite radio shows has multiplied way beyond the archaic trannie, and the bewildering amount of additional stations these new devices offer does make it hard to resist upgrading one’s audio equipment. The current issue of the Radio Times helpfully informs readers that if the listener doesn’t have a digital radio, a TV set or a smart speaker though which to access digital radio, or a Smartphone, or desktop computer or tablet, the listener will no longer be able to tune in to the listed programmes ‘as the schedules are unified’; it also points out older car radios with LW will be similarly affected. I don’t doubt that the more, ah, mature audience liable to be listening in to these particular programmes has already invested in the necessary gear and may well have been taking advantage of the proliferation of digital stations for quite some time; but, as always with the BBC, it’s hard to come away from this news without feeling yet again that a decision has been taken from on-high with no consultation with the audience that stands to be most affected.

One could accurately cite the disgraceful discarding of BBC4 as the sole BBC TV station still upholding the best Reithian traditions as a more extreme example of the contempt in which the Beeb holds some of its subscribers, and the binning of Long Wave is merely one small step in that ongoing process we call progress. After all, to paraphrase the great Alan Partridge, we evolve, but we don’t revolve.

© The Editor

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CROWN PRINCE OF WALES

Okay, let’s get it out of the way straight away: Wales will shortly be led by a black man, something that happens whilst Northern Ireland is currently led by a Catholic woman, not to mention the fact that Scotland is now led by a British Asian Muslim, and Britain as a whole is led by a British Asian Hindu – at least for a few more months. How’s the oppressed minority narrative going, then? Much is naturally being made about the fact none of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom are headed by a white man anymore; so, does this represent the ultimate triumph of multiculturalism? Does it spark the latest chapter in the demise of the indigenous population? Well, only if one concludes the indigenous population are best represented by a privileged clique of ex-public schoolboys; they’re the ones conspicuous by their absence from the premier political map of the nation at the moment, so if anyone feels the lack of white males in positions of power means the majority are no longer accurately represented, it’s not as if they were anyway. And whilst skin colour may have been elevated to a defining characteristic of a person’s value and worth thanks to the odious cancer of Identity Politics, it’s not exactly an accurate barometer for measuring whether or not someone makes a good political leader.

When Barack Obama was first elected US President in 2008, the novelty of a black man reaching the pinnacle of power was something that barely spanned the gap between election and inauguration. Once sworn-in, Obama then had to get down to work just like every other American President before him; the colour of his skin wouldn’t be the determining factor in his success or failure. Indeed, if I was Welsh myself, I think I’d welcome the election of Vaughan Gething as First Minister not because he’ll apparently be the first black political leader of a European nation, but because he’s not Mark Drakeford. The outgoing Tsar of Cymru was one of the UK’s worst lockdown zealots during the pandemic, pursuing Project Fear with a maniacal fanaticism that made Nicola Sturgeon resemble an anti-vaxxer; every additional curb on civil liberties demanded by the Labour Party in England was enthusiastically embraced and implemented by the Party’s man in the valleys. And, of course, when he was imposing 24/7 mask-wearing on the downtrodden Welsh population, he himself was caught on camera mask-free, doing his bit for diversity at a Diwali shindig as he blithely ignored the social distancing rules the plebs had to abide by – funnily enough, just like all the top Tories did at the same time.

Embodying the worst authoritarian aspects of the Left when it comes to the Lower Orders, Mark Drakeford actively pursued a green policy that has left many Welsh farmers up in arms, whilst his unworkable 20mph default speed limit in built-up areas confirmed the anti-motorist agenda at the heart of the political class governing these islands. Drakeford has run Wales since 2018, and it’s hard to imagine anyone echoing Mrs Thatcher come his retirement, concluding that he’s left the country in a better state than when he found it. Drakeford’s successor steps up from his role as Minister for the Economy, having won 51.7 percent of the vote in the leadership contest against Education Minister Jeremy Miles. With shades of Ford pardoning Nixon, Vaughan Gething paid tribute to the outgoing First Minister, describing Drakeford as ‘the right leader at the right time in the pandemic’, adding ‘we will be forever in his debt’; well, Gething himself probably will be, but it seems a bit presumptuous to include the Welsh people in his gushing obituary.

But, of course, little attention is being given to Mark Drakeford or his record as First Minister today; all eyes are focused on the new man, and (it goes without saying) the colour of his skin. SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf was predictably quick off the blocks. ‘What an incredible achievement,’ he declared, ‘to become the first black leader of a European country.’ Keir Starmer wasn’t far behind. ‘His appointment as First Minister of Wales, the first black leader in the UK,’ said Sir Keir, ‘will be an historic moment that speaks to the progress and values of modern-day Wales.’ Vaughan Gething himself wasted little time in noting his own achievement in his acceptance speech upon being elected. ‘Today we turn a page in the book of our nation’s history,’ he proclaimed. ‘Not just because I have the honour of becoming the first black leader in any European country, but because a generational dial has jumped too. Devolution is not something I have had to get used to or adapt to, or apologise for. Welsh solutions to Welsh problems and opportunities, is in my blood – it’s what I have always known throughout my adult political life.’

Gething’s life actually began in Zambia fifty years ago, though he is of Welsh descent, with his father being a vet from Glamorgan who met Gething’s black mother when working in the African nation. The family relocated to Monmouthshire when Gething was aged two, though the unpleasant experience of his father’s job offer being withdrawn upon his arrival with black spouse and child was a not-uncommon occurrence in less-enlightened times, and one worth remembering without being revived as an Identitarian marketing tool. Unfortunately, one suspects it will be weaponised to some degree, if only to uphold the discrimination storyline expected of any non-white figure on the Left, where exposure to racism forms a core feature of their profile. Even if the Gething family had experienced no prejudice whatsoever, the racism question would still be asked of the new First Minister and he would be expected to provide the correct answer.

As Keir Starmer’s representative in Wales, Vaughan Gething quickly toed the Party line by bigging-up the Labour leader when the subject of the impending Election was raised. ‘I know that we can win,’ he said. ‘We can win if we stand together, linking arms to defeat the narrow forces of division that seek to make a warm country turn cold. That only happens if we sweep the Tories out of office and send Sir Keir Starmer into No.10.’ If/when that happens, the brief exclusion of white male faces from political leadership in the UK will come to a swift end, even if Sir Keir presides over a Cabinet as racially diverse as the one Boris Johnson headed from 2019 – one that the ‘rainbow nation’ cheerleaders were mysteriously quiet about. Perhaps the likes of Priti Patel, James Cleverly, Suella Braverman, Sajid Javid, Kwasi Kwarteng, Nadhim Zahawi, and of course, Rishi Sunak didn’t see race as a selling point; indeed, their respective failures could no more be attributed to the colour of their skin than their limited successes could. Most of that, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, was down to the content of their character.

STEVE HARLEY (1951-2024)

One of the most intriguing and inventive acts to emerge from the ‘Art School’ strand of Glam in the early-to-mid-70s, Cockney Rebel – along with Bowie, Roxy Music, Sparks, and Be-Bop Deluxe – helped give a much-maligned musical movement the kind of intelligent, stylish flair lacking in the likes of Gary Glitter or The Sweet. Cockney Rebel were led by Steve Harley, a charismatic singer-songwriter with a distinctive London drawl who fronted what was essentially a backing band; indeed, between the release of their second and third albums, Harley was abandoned by the bandmates who resented his dominance and he was forced to recruit a fresh batch. With the old band having enjoyed top ten hits with the curiously camp ‘Judy Teen’ and ‘Mr Soft’, Harley’s new line-up scored their only chart-topper, the evergreen ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)’ in 1975 – the lyrics of which were a barbed attack on his ex-colleagues. Like many artists of his generation, Harley found himself out in the cold when Punk exploded and struggled to recapture commercial success for the best part of a decade, only eventually returning to the top ten in 1986 – a duet with Sarah Brightman on the title track of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, ‘The Phantom of the Opera’; he went on to play the role of the Phantom on stage before being replaced by Michael Crawford.

Steve Harley continued to make music both on his own and in various collaborations, and was often a go-to interviewee when seeking a more erudite perspective on the era of pop he helped illuminate with his quirky, eccentric talent. He passed away at the age of 73, yet one more victim of the disease that forever seems to elude a cure.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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COAST TO GHOST

Another YouTube channel that has provoked a fair deal of binge-watching of late is one that goes by the name of Vacant Haven. Although I first watched a video on this channel around a year ago, it’s only recently that it’s become one I routinely turn to when seeking the kind of interesting entertainment television rarely bothers with these days. Vacant Haven consists of three – sometimes four – ‘urban explorers’; to their detractors, urban explorers are little more than glorified trespassers, though the guys from Vacant Haven specialise in discovering abandoned properties that the landowners seemingly couldn’t care less about. Houses are their speciality subject, mostly large residences once home to the moneyed classes who evidently ran out of money – or in many sad cases, met their makers without any heirs to bequeath their homes to. These particular urban explorers only enter a property if there’s already a way in; they never break a lock or smash a window; if there’s no entry, they don’t force one. Should they manage to get indoors, they leave everything as they found it, even if that means the items left behind are then destined to be collected by less respectful intruders. They never give away the location of the houses in question (to deter such intruders) and never reveal the name of the last resident, even if stumbling across documents and other personal possessions, such as photographs.

It’s the presence of faded photographs that can give these enjoyably intriguing explorations a melancholy quality that elevates them above what some might perceive as simply a bunch of goons trespassing on private property for a laugh. We see the remnants of a life, objects that meant something to someone and now mean nothing to no one; despite the fact some of these objects would have the experts on ‘Antiques Roadshow’ wetting themselves with excitement if they got their hands on them, most are just rotting away as nature encircles the property and slowly reclaims it. One of the strangest explorations the guys have embarked upon was when they visited an entire row of houses along the coastline of the Isle of Wight, all of which had to be hurriedly abandoned ten years ago when subsidence dramatically opened up a crack in the ground and the road beside the homes effectively tumbled into the sea. The residents were evacuated overnight by the army, unable to take everything with them, and no demolition has been done due to nature slowly doing it on the demolition firm’s behalf. It’s just a matter of when. The severe cracks in the walls of the houses and the unstable ground beneath them made this particular video one that probably can’t be repeated, but it served as a potent reminder of just how precarious our coastlines are.

On the mainland, coastal erosion has been a well-publicised dilemma for decades, if not centuries. Ravenspurn, a bustling medieval port that stood on the Holderness Coast in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was prominent enough to be featured in a trio of Shakespeare’s history plays, yet was eventually swallowed up by the sea along with around 30 other towns along the same stretch of land, one that continues to lose upwards of six feet every year. Dunwich in Suffolk is a shadow of its former self; the former Anglo-Saxon capital of the Kingdom of the East Angles was battered by a series of devastating storms from the late 13th century up until the mid-14th, decimating a major port and reducing what was left to an insignificant village; despite this, its previous reputation meant it continued to send two MPs to Parliament before the 1832 Reform Act abolished the rotten boroughs. The same storm of 1287 that did irreparable damage to Dunwich also led to the destruction of Winchelsea in East Sussex, forcing survivors to up sticks and found a new town of the same name further inland – the same fate that appears to await the Welsh seaside village of Fairbourne in the here and now, a location listed for what is coldly termed ‘managed retreat’. The fact Gwynedd Council blame it all on climate change neatly covers their backs and conveniently neglects the reality of something that has been going on throughout the history of these islands.

In his picaresque 2010 novel, ‘Walking to Hollywood’, Will Self used a walk along the crumbling Holderness Coast to translate coastal erosion into a metaphor for Alzheimer’s; around 15 years ago I saw the author give a talk and he spoke of how he was inspired to visit the place via a regional report on ‘Nationwide’ he recalled from his childhood. The way he described it sounded very much like the routine reporting on the story we’d still be familiar with to this day, though the climate change angle is now a compulsory inclusion, almost as if coastal erosion has only been with us since the Industrial Revolution. Mainstream media coverage is an occasional feature of news programmes, and one that again slots smoothly into the Doomsday narrative of the green lobby; once the usual excuses have been wheeled-out, chances are a report will be largely restricted to the standard shots of houses perched upon the edge of a cliff or one that has already been smashed onto the beach below. What’s not often highlighted is the fact that for many who have to surrender their homes to the sea there is no compensation scheme in place, nor are they offered alternative accommodation or any kind of insurance payout.

A feature on Sky News a few days ago touched upon this rarely-discussed aspect of the issue, speaking to a resident of Hemsby in Norfolk who, like many, was entranced by the thought of a house beside the sea and relocated from Northamptonshire in order to find his dream home. Unfortunately, this dream home is now in danger of complete collapse, as the sand dunes below his home are rapidly eroding; three metres of land separating him from the beach have been lost in as many days, and though there are properties between him and the ever-encroaching cliff edge, they won’t be around for much longer. Another resident of the neighbourhood was more fortunate; being classified as disabled has enabled him to be re-homed, though that’s not to say he hasn’t suffered. His former home was demolished last year after a knock at the door from a representative of Yarmouth Borough Council’s building control informed him of the impending demolition and that he had seven days to find somewhere else to live – despite the fact he had nowhere to go.

According to a recent survey, an estimated half a billion pounds worth of residential property in 21 English villages and hamlets is poised to be claimed by coastal erosion come the end of the century. But when it comes to properties in danger, those of the highest value are prioritised over bog-standard residential homes not deemed worthy of protection; whilst the larger towns and cities prone to flooding are allocated imposing seawalls, in the more rural coastal counties only the wealthy qualify for the kind of defences that could save a property, and many in Norfolk feel left to their own devices. And this despite the Floods Minister Robbie Moore doing the usual Ministerial soft sell by reciting the numbers: ‘Over the next six-year funding programme,’ he said, ‘we’re increasing that nationally from £2.6bn to £5.2bn, with specifically more money being allocated to Norfolk.’

I remember my mother once telling me of a campsite she spent a childhood holiday at in the East Riding village of Skipsea; returning just a few years later, she said the land upon which the campsite had stood had completely vanished. Then again, Skipsea stands beside the fastest eroding coastline in Northern Europe, and my mother’s story proves this was happening long before the culprit that the MSM and the local politicians now hold responsible. Yes, one could argue anyone pouring money into a scheme to prevent something that’s been with us for centuries is ‘doing a Canute’, but some coastal areas of the UK are amongst the most neglected, deprived and overlooked communities in the whole country, and it’s easy to understand why many of their inhabitants feel abandoned by government. Any kind of national operation to get them on their feet again – of which improved coastal defences would be a vital element – wouldn’t be a bad thing.

© The Editor

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A COLD SPELL

There have always been people who can’t spell very well, though perhaps social media has simply exposed this illiterate lexicon to a wider audience, giving the impression the education system has more to answer for today than ever before, not to mention bad spelling being exacerbated by text-speak. The whole there/their/they’re conundrum certainly appears to be the most obvious hurdle that online discourse finds the most difficult to overcome, and in the absence of an instant spell-check system – the equivalent of the teacher’s red-pen in the old exercise book – I guess many never learn from their mistakes. Mind you, two highly-regarded albums from the late 60s show this is nothing new. ‘Odessey and Oracle’ by The Zombies was released in 1968, containing some of the band’s most celebrated songs, including the immortal ‘Time of the Season’; the misspelling of the word odyssey was an error by the artist who designed the psychedelic sleeve of the LP, one which the band attempted to excuse by claiming it was deliberate. A year later, The Bee Gees released ‘Odessa’, a double album that found the brothers Gibb dipping their toes in the fashionable ‘concept album’ trend of the era; the epic title track was subtitled ‘City on the Black Sea’, though the Ukrainian city in question is generally spelt as Odesa; it was this spelling that was used in headlines when a Russian drone strike on the city killed at least eight people last weekend.

Yes, I realise even for someone who specialises in opening posts with idiosyncratic anecdotes that have the most tenuous of connections to the subject in question, joining the dots between terrible spelling online and another depressing example of Vlad’s ruthlessness is a big ‘un, but how else does one recite the casualties of war and avoid surrendering to despair altogether? The Soviet Union’s decade-long dalliance in Afghanistan has often (with some justification) been referred to as ‘Russia’s Vietnam’, yet two years into a conflict Ukraine’s neighbour was expected to waltz through without breaking much in the way of sweat before calmly planting the Russian flag in Kyiv, Putin’s storm-troopers remain bogged-down in a manner that also evokes memories of America’s futile and protracted intervention in Indo-China 60 years ago. Although for most in the West, the Russian invasion of Ukraine that occurred in February 2022 kick-started everything, the current conflict is already regarded as the latest episode in what is officially called the Russo-Ukrainian War, something that has a starting point of eight years earlier, in February 2014. That was when Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity resulted in Moscow both annexing Crimea and supporting pro-Russian separatists fighting against the Ukrainian military; years of naval skirmishes and cyber warfare were then eventually followed by the full-scale invasion of the territory in February 2022.

Outside of virtue-signalling solidarity with the people of Ukraine, Western Europe’s response to Russia’s aggression has been publicly limited to bad-mouthing Putin, something that Vlad makes pretty easy, to be fair. The recent death of Comrade President’s opposition nemesis Alexi Navalny in…er…shall we say, suspicious circumstances provided the West with further ammunition, yet it’s understandable from a security perspective that any Western support of Ukraine in military terms is not something it would be wise to broadcast. Therefore, the embarrassing slip-up attributed to Germany’s Brigadier General Frank Gräf, in which a private conversation between the top army official and his colleagues was intercepted by Russian intelligence and then revealed to the world, was just the kind of propaganda coup Putin must dream of. An alleged British presence engaging in operations on the ground in Ukraine was referenced in the tapped conversation, provoking a minor diplomatic incident between the UK and Germany; but Germany itself was named and shamed in the recorded conversation, with the prospect of the country’s military dispatching the far-reaching Taurus missiles to Ukraine under discussion – something Chancellor Scholz has publicly ruled-out.

In the wake of both last weekend’s attack on Odesa and the fall of Avdiivka to Russian forces, Ukraine’s President Zelensky has called for further Western assistance in terms of air defences. The German Taurus missiles mentioned in the intercepted conversation have a far greater range than the Scalp and Storm Shadow missiles provided to Ukraine by Britain and France, with Taurus capable of hitting a target 300 miles from their launch-pad. Mention of Germany loaning a few to Ukraine has naturally given Russian sabre-rattlers the opportunity to rekindle ancient enmities, with the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, prompted to proclaim, ‘Our age-old rivals – the Germans – have again turned into our sworn enemies. Look, with what thoroughness and in such detail the Germans discuss striking our territory with long-range missiles, choose targets to hit and discuss how to inflict the maximum harm to our motherland and our people.’ By appealing to the Russian people through evoking long-standing grudges against the Germans, Medvedev was clearly hoping the Russian presence in Ukraine would again be vindicated by the leaked conversation. After all, Germany has donated more weapons to Ukraine than any other Western European nation.

Renowned German political magazine Der Spiegel said the video conference headed by Brigadier General Gräf that was leaked was not undertaken via a clandestine and internal army network but on a not-so secret platform called WebEx. One of the participants is alleged to have used an insecure line either on his hotel’s wi-fi or his own mobile, something which made the hacking of the conversation an easier proposition for the Russians, who are rather experienced in this sort of thing. Once the horses had fled the stables, the German ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, reflected on the gaffe by commenting, ‘I think that’s a good lesson for everybody: never use hotel internet if you want to do a secure call.’ I should imagine anyone who’s ever watched a movie set during the Cold War must know confidential information tends to be passed on in outdoor locations, complete with ambiguous code words and a meticulous awareness that the people involved are probably being watched. The complacency of the German military officials in this case is surprising, but Brigadier General Gräf was enjoying a jolly in Singapore, attending an air-show alongside other government and military figures; a 40-minute call to his superior, Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, was entered into following a long day in which he was probably a little off-guard. At the same time, however, such events attract the enemy.

Professor Alan Woodward of the Surrey Centre for Cyber Security remarked that the Russian spies who eavesdropped on the private chat were probably in the vicinity. ‘When you get gatherings like that,’ he said, ‘it’s always worth sitting in the car park or getting a hotel room.’ Henning Seidler, a Berlin-based researcher in cryptography, believes the conversation was picked-up by the spies’ antenna and they got lucky, listening in and writing down everything being transmitted whilst it was recorded – just like spies did back in the days of one-time pads and numbers stations. ‘It’s like fishing with dynamite,’ he says. ‘You just throw a stick in a pond and see which fish are floating up afterwards. This was their most juicy catch.’ Of course, Moscow released the leaked tape via its RT channel on the day of Alexi Navalny’s funeral – a classic case of attempting to bury bad news; but there was only one burial most people outside of Putin’s circle were paying attention to that day. So what if that NATO lot were talking behind Russia’s back again? Vlad is so afflicted by paranoia and a persecution complex that I doubt evidence that the West is against him could have come as much of a shock, anyway. Serves him right for listening in. I just wonder what the standard of spelling was on the part of the eavesdropping translator over there/their/they’re in Singapore.

© The Editor

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A BED AND BREAKFAST SERIAL

Ever since its inception as a prime-time fixture of mainstream channels, reality television has proliferated not (one suspects) because the TV audience demands it above all other entertainment, but because in comparison to what preceded it at peak-viewing time it cuts a lot of corners. For one thing, beyond the fee paid to the celebrity host, there are none of the expenses required for the kind of programme previously airing in a similar time slot; participating members of the public or has-been household names desperate to resurrect their careers do not cost the same as the star performers that used to tread the television boards on old-school variety shows. An Ant or a Dec or a Graham Norton or a Claudia Winkleman to front the series is usually as far as the budget stretches. Such programmes are also far cheaper to produce than the sitcoms that coexisted with the aforementioned variety shows and illuminated the evening schedules on BBC1 and ITV half-a-century ago, which is why the likes of ‘Porridge’, ‘The Good Life’, ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?’, ‘Dad’s Army’, ‘Steptoe and Son’ and ‘Fawlty Towers’ remain on a repeat loop; they have no contemporary equivalent, and they’re still funny.

However, whilst the Saturday night series which cost a pretty penny to stage – i.e. ‘Strictly’ – are dependent upon large viewing figures and social media traction to justify the expense, the lingering vestiges of the big-budget ‘Sunday Night at the Palladium’-type shows that can still be seen in these are utterly absent from series in which further corners have been cut by dispensing with the celebrity host and studio audience altogether. Something like ‘Bake Off’ is in no way a production number on the ‘Strictly’ scale, but it still has the famous faces fronting the brand as members of the public do all the work; ditto ‘The Apprentice’ and – to an extent – ‘Dragon’s Den’. Yet take one further step away from the formula and you have something along the lines of ‘Come Dine with Me’ or ‘Gogglebox’, both of which have put members of the public centre-stage, with the celebrity host replaced by a bog-standard voice-over to link the scenes; yes, ‘Big Brother’ used this tactic, though it still had its celebrity host presenting the opening and closing nights as well as staging the interview with the evicted contestant once a week – something the likes of ‘Love Island’ has carried on. The audience participation that comes via the phone vote is a factor in such contests that is absent from the less sensationalistic incarnation of reality television, and whether or not this is purely coincidental, the shows belonging in this category are a far easier watch.

Such is a series called ‘Four in a Bed’. Despite its deliberately provocative title, this Channel 4 take on the more preferable format of reality TV is so inoffensive that old episodes air back-to-back in the middle of the day on Channel 4’s digital sister station, ‘More 4’. This is mainly how I’ve seen it, and as fashions haven’t altered in the last 20 years, I’m often quite surprised when the date at the end of the credits sometimes reveals the one I’ve just watched can be from as far back as 2017. Anyway, this show has no celebrity host, no audience participation, and is shot entirely on location. The locations in question are four bed & breakfast hotels of various types, everything from the upmarket ‘boutique’ brand to traditional seaside B&Bs to ‘glamping’ sites; each residence is represented by either an owner or a manager, often – though not always – coming as a pair; it could be husband and wife, father and son, mother and daughter, bezzie mates and so on. There are four B&Bs featured and each is visited by the other B&B owners in the contest; at the end of their one-night stay in the B&B, the visitors mark the venue out of ten via a questionnaire relating to their brief time there. These anonymous feedback forms are then perused by the hosts once the guests have departed; the visitors also place money in an envelope that reflects what they think their stay was worth, though this is kept secret until the final episode.

‘Four in a Bed’ is undoubtedly a competition – which provides the series with a light touch of tension; but it has none of the unenlightening nastiness that permeates the prime-time programmes and can make them an uncomfortable viewing experience as the worst traits lurking in most people are cajoled to the surface. What we see is people passionate about their particular brand of one of the most beleaguered businesses of recent times – the hospitality industry – and who are eager to prove theirs is the best of the bunch; whether or not this exposes any latent ruthlessness depends upon the individual contestant and how they react to the feedback of their fellow contestants. When they arrive and are shown to their rooms, each guest then embarks upon a forensic examination of the fixtures and fittings. Cleanliness is the first of the three factors that can determine how the B&B under the spotlight will fare at the end of the contest, and it’s one of the series’ numerous humorous clichés when a stray hair is discovered on a mattress or pillow and the camera struggles to hone in on it with the same precision as the person who gleefully uncovered it. Grout on bathroom tiles, cobwebs, faulty shower units, and skid-marked toilets all figure highly on the list of low marks afforded the facilities, but nothing rates higher – or lower – than dust. Fingers run along surfaces – picture frames, TVs, skirting boards, windowsills, curtains – in the desperate hope of coming away from them with a hefty clump of dust to display.

After cleanliness, what counts is a good night’s sleep; then it’s a hearty breakfast. All play their part in deciding if the B&B in question has a chance of winning the contest. Usually, B&Bs bereft of en-suite bathrooms are in for an uphill struggle to win, as are self-catering venues or those that dispense with the seemingly compulsory ‘Full English’ on a morning in favour of a poncy continental breakfast or the dreaded ‘vegetarian’ option. Prejudices and set-in-their-ways narrow-mindedness are often exposed when any deviation from the norm is presented to the contestants, and personalities can emerge more forcefully when the first batch of feedback forms are received. If a B&B owner gets bad marks for something on which they pride themselves – such as cleanliness or the quality of their breakfast – vengeance rears its ugly head and they arrive at the B&B of their most cutting critic determined to find fault with it. The final question on the feedback form is ‘Would you stay here again?’, and it’s rare for an injured party to put ‘yes’ when the chip on their shoulder is firmly settled. A good drinking game could be entered into when watching as the viewer waits for the first contestant to say ‘game on’ (usually when reacting to bad feedback), a phrase as repetitive as a contestant referring to another as ‘a dark horse’.

There are five episodes in each instalment of ‘Four in a Bed’ – with the first four seeing a different B&B host each episode, and then the final episode being ‘payment day’, in which the contestants sit around a table and get to quiz one another on their comments in the feedback forms. These can sometimes be quite explosive encounters as grievances nurtured over the episodes come to the fore; similarly, when the envelopes are opened and the contestants discover how much they’ve been paid, the comments already aired can lead to expectations of underpayments. At the same time, if a guest enjoyed their stay, they can make an overpayment. Some participants seem to ‘game-play’ by deliberately underpaying everyone else in the hope of neutralising the competition, but this doesn’t always work out how they intended. Whether a contestant has the status of hero or villain is largely down to the viewer’s preferences, but there’s none of the cynical manipulation by producers to engineer a pantomime baddie in the vein of a ‘Nasty Nick’. The stakes for viewers are not so high, and as far as easy entertainment goes, I admit I quite like ‘Four in a Bed’. No, it’s not ‘The Singing Detective’ or ‘The Forsyte Saga’; but in its own way it’s a guilty pleasure as much fun as ‘Jeux Sans Frontières’. Nothing wrong with that.

© The Editor

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ROUSING THE RABBLE

Just as anyone who grows-up as the youngest child in a large family often has to shout to make themselves heard above the multi-sibling melee, groups within society who can’t boast the biggest numbers tend to have the loudest voices. It helps when they don’t have to worry about financial backing, such as posh-boy eco-warriors, or when they control the means of communication; having such a powerful tool as the latter at their disposal can inflate their perspective so it is sold to the masses as Truth, something we are exposed to day-in/day-out where the MSM is concerned. Similarly, when it comes to Islamic representation in Britain, the hardline Islamist extremist who will happily bellow some genocidal slogan like an anti-Semitic town-crier as soon as a camera aims its lens at him tars every Muslim with the same intolerant brush; a minority within a minority, the extremist has the platform and the extremist broadcasts the message. And now he has his useful idiot back in Parliament, eager to spread the toxic word. Yes, the result of the Rochdale by-election is that George Galloway has staged yet another comeback, and one can’t deny he at least had a valid point when he declared in his victory speech, ‘I think Keir Starmer has woken up this morning to his worst nightmare.’ I should imagine Sir Keir was not unique in having a lousy night’s sleep.

A spokesperson for the Board of Deputies of British Jews reacted to Galloway’s triumph by commenting, ‘His election is a dark day for the Jewish community in this country and for British politics in general. George Galloway is a demagogue and conspiracy theorist who has brought the politics of division and hate to every place he has ever stood for Parliament.’ Galloway’s victory has also highlighted the shaky ground Labour stands upon in its dependence on the Muslim vote as part of its General Election operation, let alone its apparent plans to introduce a pseudo-blasphemy law re Islam, one that only plays into the hands of Galloway’s storm-troopers. The factors that enabled Galloway to capture Rochdale were a consequence of both Labour failing to properly vet its candidate for the constituency and a certain kerfuffle in the Middle East that every individual in public office is being persistently pressurised into having one specific opinion on. Labour’s apologetic response to losing Rochdale to an estranged bad penny like Galloway was summed-up by its deputy national campaign co-ordinator Ellie Reeves, who insisted the victory only came about due to the bizarre situation whereby the Party’s candidate was rendered null and void too late to submit a replacement. ‘George Galloway is someone who stokes up division and fear,’ said Reeves. ‘This isn’t how we would have wanted this by-election to play out.’

A Labour MP from 1987, Galloway was expelled from the Party for inflammatory comments during the Iraq War in 2003 and thereafter represented the Respect Party. Renowned for keeping somewhat dubious company, Galloway had a helping hand from the Sharia Law-promoting Islamic Forum of Europe when he won Bethnal Green and Bow from Labour’s Oona King at the 2005 General Election, though he lost it in 2010. He returned to Westminster a couple of years later, winning a by-election at Bradford West, which he lost at the 2015 General Election. And now, nine years later, he’s back via another by-election. Of course, Galloway will be no more of an effective constituency MP for the voters of Rochdale than he was for the voters of Bradford West; George Galloway never represents the people of the constituencies he wins because George Galloway only ever represents George Galloway. Stealing Rochdale from Labour by default, Galloway will use his new position as a soapbox for his ego as he can once again revel in the sound of his own voice ringing around the Lower House. Ironically, Galloway was heckled by climate change activists during his victory speech, with confetti thrown over him by the reliable clowns from Just Stop Oil. They really are welcome to each other.

‘This is for Gaza!’ Galloway declared once he’d dusted the confetti from his hat, though we all know if it’s for anyone, it’s for George. This time round, he’s representing the Worker’s Party of Britain – a Party whose deputy leader refuses to condemn the atrocities of 7 October, claiming most of the massacred that day were slaughtered by Israeli forces. Oh, George, the company you keep! Momentum, the far-Left tumour within the Labour Party that facilitated the election of Corbyn as leader, described Galloway’s victory as ‘a needless and self-inflicted loss for Labour’, whilst celebrated polling guru Sir John Curtice remarked upon the scale of Galloway’s election (40% of the vote) by pointing out, ‘This is the biggest drop in Labour support in a post-war by-election and it does mean that certainly Labour MPs who are representing constituencies with large Muslim populations who have been told they may face candidates standing on a pro-Palestinian platform that they will be looking to Sir Keir perhaps to toughen his stance on Israel in order to try to head that off, even if I think it is probably undoubtedly the case it is unlikely that anybody else has the ability to exploit this issue in the way that Mr Galloway is uniquely able to.’

It is true that few are as capable of George Galloway in exploiting the cause of the moment to further their own ambitions, with him ending his victory speech by crying, ‘God bless you. God bless Rochdale. God bless Gaza.’ Both Labour and the Tories have routinely – and rightly – been accused of parachuting a candidate into a constituency they know nothing about and have absolutely no affinity with whatsoever, but Galloway is one of the few politicians who can parachute himself into an available constituency without the backing of a major party and succeed. With a fresh pulpit to preach from, Galloway can now resume his particular obsessions by inflicting them on the wider electorate right at the point where anti-Semitism is on the brink of being normalised. A spokesperson for the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism said, ‘George Galloway has an atrocious record of baiting the Jewish community. He has previously and infamously declared Bradford an “Israel-free zone”. He said of his previous by-election loss (Batley and Spen in 2021) that “the venal, the vile, the racists and the Zionists will all be celebrating”. He described David Baddiel as a “vile Israel fanatic”.’ The spokesperson went on to recite more examples of Galloway’s specific anti-Semitic activities, including his dismissal of Labour anti-Semitism during Jezza’s era as ‘a disgraceful campaign of Goebbelsian fiction’ and October 7 as a ‘concentration camp breakout’. Lucky old Rochdale, eh?

Well, a majority of 5,697 means George Galloway can enjoy the MP lifestyle again at least until the upcoming General Election, though how the Labour leadership will fight this particular seat in the autumn will prove to be one of the Election’s most intriguing battlegrounds. With characteristic melodrama, Galloway sees his win as the start of something far greater. ‘This is going to spark a movement,’ he cried. ‘A landslide, a shifting of the tectonic plates, a score of Parliamentary constituencies beginning here in the north-west, in the West Midlands, in London, from Ilford to Bethnal Green and Bow. Labour is on notice that they have lost the confidence of millions of their voters who loyally and traditionally voted for them generation after generation.’ Yes, it is true that Labour have lost the confidence of those voters; but they lost it long before Hamas paraglided into Israel; they had already lost it in 2019. What George Galloway has done is to highlight just how vulnerable Labour still is, and how the mirage of a foregone conclusion that is a Labour victory in the next General Election could throw a lifeline to an even more damaged brand if Labour isn’t careful – the Conservative Party.

© The Editor

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