Kolston Kult Komes Klean

During my visits to the Deep South I visited the old Colonial Mansions in Greenville, Savanna and Charleston also Georgia. 

Not all the so-called slaves had a rough time. They had a roof over their head and were fed. 

During the war we lost our house in the blitz. We lived in a village hall sleeping on the floor and in air raid shelters up to our knees in water. We would have swapped these conditions for what I saw of the conditions of the so-called slaves in the Deep South. 

My advise to those of you who are trying to get rid of the name Colston: if you do not like it, move home. 

Edward Colston's contribution to Bristol was immense.

Letter, Bristol Evening Post, 18/11/2018

Sausages or Dog Shit?

"I checked it very thoroughly" said the computer "And that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is." 

The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

I have almost nothing to say about Brexit. And here it is.

To start with, it's a silly word. So let's put quotation marks around it. "Brexit". 

Foreigners sometimes ask "Why are you doing it? Why is Britain -- England -- seceding from the European Union? Why would a tiny little country say that it doesn't need the great big continental mainland and can do perfectly well all on its own?" 

I reply "We are doing it because the bin-men all went on strike in 1979." 

That isn't the whole truth, of course. We are also doing it because the leader of the opposition made a poor decision about his wardrobe on a cold Autumn day in 1981. And because a South American dictator launched an expedition against the last few acres of the British Empire in 1982. 

The suicidal 2016 European referendum was simply the logical end point of a right-wing slope which Britain has been sliding down since before I was allowed to vote. There have been individual progressive victories since 1979, of course, but all the ideological ground has been conceded to the Right. I do not think that The People are any less socialist or any more conservative than they were in 1945. Many of The People think that paying taxes to pay for hospitals is a good idea. But then they always have done. They don't call it Marxism, they call it Fairness or Sharing. On the other paw, many of The People don't see why they should give so much of their hard-earned wages to the Government to fritter away. But many of the People have always thought that, too. God knows, no-one ever won an argument. We simply all agreed to take it for granted that The Left were funny and unpatriotic and silly. It would be political suicide for any politician to talk about socialism or the redistribution of wealth or anything more radical than Sure Start nursery schools. That kind of talk will bring the country to a standstill (winter of discontent, winter of discontent) and anyway it's insulting to our glorious dead (donkey jacket, donkey jacket.) 

"Brexit" is simply the latest move by the Right to wind back the post-war-Liberal-Consensus. "Brexit" is not a political theory you are persuaded of, but a holy mystery you are initiated into. "Brexit" is "Brexit"! Question ye not the details of "Brexit"! Have faith in "Brexit"! For the faithful, the endgame is not trade deals with former imperial colonies outside of the European free trade zone. It is not even bendy passports and blue bananas. The prize which is now within reach is a gallows in Wandsworth prison, a cane in every classroom, and the Black and White Minstrels on the television.

That is the answer to your next question. I do not think that Tony Blair was no different from Margaret Thatcher. I do not think Tony Blair was no different from David Cameron. I do not even think that Centrism leads necessarily to egomania and wars fought on the basis of personal intuition. The fact that we had a crazy Centrist Prime Minister doesn't prove that Centrism drives you crazy. Blair did some liberal things and some illiberal things. But I do not support Centrists even when they come bearing gifts. Centrism doesn't halt the slide to the right. Centrism doesn't want to halt the slide to the right. Centrism says we're moving in the right direction but going a bit too quickly. I support Jeremy Corbyn because he is the first politician in my lifetime who would, in power, start to move things (slowly, tentatively, sensibly) back to the Left. I would not follow some hypothetical Centrist Messiah because he happened to be an Anti-"Brexit"-Centrist-Messiah. Those kinds of pacts are never a good idea. Christopher Marlowe wrote a very good play about that kind of thing. 

I do not think it is possible to stop "Brexit". I think that the best we can hope for is a "Brexit" that does as little harm as possible; a form of words which allows us to tell the referendum cultists "You see, we did come out of Europe; 'Brexit' did mean 'Brexit' after all" while retaining some semblance of a functional economy. "Brexit" in name only, as the fellow said. That appears to be what both Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May are working towards. Because neither of them are lunatics. 

I do not support a second referendum.  The best option would be not to have had a referendum in the first place. 

The second best option would have been for the sane side of the argument to have said "We deny the legitimacy of this Referendum. Referenda are not how parliamentary democracies work. We regard Referendums as purely advisory. We will not necessarily abide by the results."

The third best option would have been for the sane side to have fought a decent and compelling referendum campaign and put the issue to bed for another 43 years. But that's a problem because the sane side is always going to feel boring and wriggly and evasive where the mad side is always going to sound dynamic and exciting and committed. The sane side will always come out sounding like that slimy lawyer who keeps saying "Objection, your honour" and trying to introduce pedantic little facts into the argument, where the mad side is quite free to shout "Millions of Turks flooding through the channel tunnel! Give us back our conkers." 

But we decided not to go with any of the sensible options, and we are where we are. 

Once you have jumped off a cliff, your options are severely limited. This is the main reason that jumping off cliffs is widely regarded as not being a great idea. The choice, as I see it, is between growing a pair of wings and reversing gravity, or facing the fact that we are going to be hitting the ground relatively soon and doing something to mitigate the bump. 

Jeremy Corbyn is a sensible man and sensible people sometimes change their minds. He is also a sensible politician and sensible politicians sometimes do what the majority of their party want them to do, even though they would rather have done something else. So it is possible that, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow (the day after that would be a bit too late) Jeremy might say something like this. 

"As you know, I supported 'remain' because although I think that the EU is flawed, I think that we should remain members and try and fix the flaws. And as you know, when 'leave' won the referendum by a small majority, I said that we should abide by the result but work towards a 'Brexit' that does as little harm as possible. But I have listened to you members who elected me, and I am very happy to change my mind and say that we should try and halt the whole process. Accordingly, we will fight the next election with a clear manifesto commitment to reverse article 50, and with a clear set of principles about the reforms and improvements we want to push for."

This would be sensible, pragmatic and democratic. It would also be politically suicidal. The press would crucify him. The Labour leavers would defect to UKIP. The Labour remainers would say that he didn't really mean it. The BBC would say it was all about the Jews. Labour would lose the election; the cause of socialism would be lost for the next 40 years; and the Tory hard right and the Labour Centrists would see themselves as vindicated. 

Scenarios in which Corbyn steps aside and Chuka Umunna fights the next election on a Remain platform; or in which Tony Blair returns from the Isle of Avalon in a swan-shaped barge crash into the same rocks. They wouldn't win.

I would very much like a socialist Labour Party to fight the next election on an anti-"Brexit" platform and for them to romp home with an overwhelming majority. I would also very much like a unicorn. 

So then: the last best hope is a Second Referendum. 

I don't believe in The People; I just believe in people. I don't believe that there is such a thing as The Will of the People; I just believe that people have opinions, different ones, some good some bad, some sensible, some silly. I don't believe that a vote taken on one particular day can possibly have the kind of Scriptural force that the "Brexit" fundamentalists ascribe to it. But if you treat referendums as really, really, big, really, really, expensive opinion polls, then they are obviously of some value. They force the government to engage with what Public Opinion actually is, as opposed to what they think it is or would like it to be. 

The really, really big opinion poll which we had on 23 June 2016 told us that slightly less than a third of the population agreed with Europe, slightly more than a third of the population disagreed with Europe, and slightly less than a third of cats who expressed a preference didn't express a preference either way. 

The People Spoke, and The People Said "We don't know."

If the referendum had been about abolishing Prince Charles, it would certainly have come out with seventy or eighty per cent saying "Gawd Bless Your Royal Highness" with the balance split between "Orf With His Head" and "I'm sorry, why are we even talking about this?" When the Irish asked the people about legalizing abortion, it went two thirds "Yes we should " and one third "No we shouldn't" which might not be overwhelming but is pretty decisive. The Irish wrote into their Constitution that you have to have a Referendum to Amend that Constitution; and they know exactly what Amendment they are voting on before they vote. We haven't even got as far as having a Constitution yet.

Please, please don't call it a People's Referendum. That makes it sound as if the last one was a kangeroos' referendum. It also makes it sound as if we believe in the daft idea that there is a thing called The People who have a thing called a Will, which is what got us into this mess to begin with. Let us rather call it the Purely Advisory Referendum Which Will Allow The Government To Accurately Gage Public Opinion Before Making Their Own Decision Which They Will Take Full Responsibility For. 

Having had one Bloody Stupid Referendum, there is no objection in principal to having a Second Bloody Stupid Referendum. The True Believers will say "I suppose you are going to ask over and over until you get the right answer?" To which I reply "Yes, and if the first answer was manifestly stupid, then asking again and again until you get a sensible one is obviously the right thing to do." 

"Do you want sausages or dog poo for your supper." 

"Dog poo." 

"No, listen, I am going to ask you again, sausages or dog poo?" 

"Dog poo." 

"I am going to ask you one last time, do you want sausage or dog poo?" 

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" is not a ridiculous question to ask before making a big decision. I believe that is how they treat euthanasia patients in jurisdictions where assisted suicide is legal. They don't say "I am sorry, you have booked your ticket to Switzerland, now we have to kill you." They, say, at each stage of the process "Are you quite sure about this?" I believe about a third of people get as far as the clinic and then decide to carry on being alive after all. I am sorry to have used such a morbid metaphor. If I need another one I will go back to the dog shit.

So, the question is, what is the question? 

We could rerun the 2016 vote and see if The People have come to their collective senses. (Clue: They haven't.) 

"Three years ago we asked you if you wanted to Leave the European Union or Remain in the European Union. Because this is such an important question, we are giving you the opportunity to change your mind: 

𐄂Carry on as we are and LEAVE the European Union.

𐄂Revoke article 50 if they will let us and REMAIN in the European Union." 

But we already know that the country is split down the middle on the issue, and the result will be 50/50 plus or minus 5% either way. If Leave gets 55% again, we're stuffed. If Remain gets 55% this time, then we have two advisory votes, one narrowly saying "Jump" and another one narrowly saying "Don't Jump". I suppose we could average them out and do nothing. (Do you remember that bit in Dune where Paul can see all the possible outcomes of all his actions, and all the possible outcomes of all those outcomes, on to infinity, and decides to do nothing at all, and realizes that that's still a choice, with its own consequences?) Those of us who enjoy political schadenfreude would get to see the Leavers saying "But the vote was too narrow to mean anything" and the Remainers saying "You lost! Get over it".

So, then: we must be voting on the actual Deal; whatever compromise Mrs May eventually comes up with. So the Question looks something like this: 

"Mrs May has cleverly worked out a damage limitation exercise, in which we leave Europe technically, but agree to stick to some of their rules and get some of the trade advantages we would have had if we had stayed. Do you vote to

𐄂ACCEPT Mrs May's Clever Compromise or

𐄂REJECT Mrs May's Clever Compromise and..."

...and what? And leave with No Deal? That is what the Incredibly Far Right have wanted all along: Britain as a mighty island with no tax, no welfare state, no pesky human rights. Singapore with chips instead of noodles. 

Or is the idea that we might reject Mrs May's Chequers compromise but ask her to go back to the negotiating table and start all over again? And what then? A third referendum on the third deal? 

Which leaves us with the only remotely sensible possibility:

"Chequers. It's bad, but it could be worse. What do you reckon?

𐄂LEAVE under the terms of the Chequers Agreement

𐄂LEAVE with no deal at all! Go it alone! This fortress built by nature for herself! Cry ho for England, Boris and St Cecil!" 

𐄂This is a stupid idea. Let's give the whole thing up and REMAIN if they will still have us, which frankly, I wouldn't if I were them."

I do not think that it is a foregone conclusion that, faced with a choice of Bad Deal / Terrible Deal / Remain the majority of people would chose to Remain. All of the press, most of the Tory party, some of the Labour party and that nice Mr Putin want us very badly to leave. The populist press and Nigel Farage will represent anything less than No Deal as a betrayal as bad as the betrayal when Judas Iscariot betrayed Robin Hood to William of Orange at Runnymead. I think that a three way referendum is the shortest possible path to No Deal, which is the worst possible outcome.

Rest assured: if we have Another Referendum I will do the Decent Thing. But I think that "Brexit" is now inevitable, that negotiating the least worst deal possible is the least worst strategy available and that playing Fantasy Referendum has a very high chance of making things considerably worse.

And yes, I know what the gentleman in the third row wants to say. "Brexit" will be so disastrous that it doesn't matter whether Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson or Alan Sugar is the next Prime Minister. Once all those lorries are queued up in the English channel no-one in this country will be able to have nice things ever again. My English teacher used to tell me that we didn't need to worry about our exams or our career very much because there would certainly be a nuclear war before the millennium. (Do you ever wonder how I got to be where I am today? That is how.) Hadn't we seen Threads? Apocalyptic thinking has its appeal. Eat drink and be existential because we are all going die. I think it's still worth talking about having the least worst apocalypse possible. But if I were going to Armageddon I wouldn't start from here.

If you want more of this kind of thing, please support my Patreon. 

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Libertarian Bell

Some times, at folk music festivals, after the main act has finished, there is a "sing-around" in a pub, where the punters are asked to sing a song of their own choosing. (People like this, because they fondly imagine that pub singing of this kind is where folk music began.) When it comes to my turn, I generally pass and say that I cannot sing. A nice man always says "Come on, Andrew, everyone can sing a little bit." So last time this happened I tried to sing/recite "Don't Go In Them Lions Cage Tonight".

Since then, he has stopped asking me.

A number of my Patreon supporters have said that they wished I wrote more about politics.

So this is me, writing more about politics.

I fully expect it to have the same affect as the folk song in the pub.

1: Introduction

M'learned friend drew my attention to the following essay in the Economist, a right-leaning British periodical.

The Dangers of Illiberal Liberalism

A philosophy lecturer from Sussex University, Kathleen Stock, wrote an essay for the same magazine. She took issue (from a rather dry, philosophical standpoint) with the proposition that people who were anatomically male could be said to "really" be female. She didn't say they definitely couldn't be; but she thought there could be unintended consequences of re-defining what "female" meant.

Some of the students at Sussex University were outraged by the article, which they felt was prejudiced against transexual people. The Student Union issued a statement condemning the lecturer.

The writer of the present article, one Claire Fox from something called the Institute of Ideas, is outraged by the students' outrage and condemns their condemnation. She thinks that nowadays it is progressives who are trying to police what can and can't be said, and that modern liberalism contains a dangerous streak of authoritarianism.

Matters quickly escalate, and before long things are blasphemous and taboo and everyone is being denounced, vilified and damned.

Here is Ms. Fox:

The Sussex Students’ Union denounced (Kathleen Stock) as a transphobe. In the union's original statement, it declared “we will not tolerate hate on our campus.” “Trans and non-binary lives are not a debate.”

These key tropes —“we will not tolerate” and “this is not a debate”—  are now frequently deployed to curtail discussion of issues deemed to be taboo, invariably to “protect” people deemed vulnerable from speech deemed hateful. This secular version of blasphemy follows a sacred script, written by those who consider themselves liberals. Dare to query it and you’ll be damned.

M'learned friend, who drew my attention to the article, said that he knew I didn't like the phrase "political correctness" but that the state of play at Sussex University was analogous to the situation which prevailed in the UK before the Catholic Emancipation Act — when  only people who were prepared to sign up to the Articles of the Church of England were allowed to study at University.

I felt that this was a little bit on the strong side.

2: Political Correctness Goes Mad In Dorset

You wouldn't say "Jewish Conspiracy" if what you meant was "I'm afraid Mr Levi and Mr Cohen are going to vote together to kick me off the PTA". You wouldn't say "He has a wonderful sense of rhythm" if what you meant was "he is a talented percussionist". And you wouldn't say "elf and safety gone mad" if what you meant was "are you quite sure there is really some regulation which says I can't have a glass of water?" So why say "Political Correctness" if what you mean is "prevailing orthodoxy", "self-censorship" or even "over-politeness"?

There is no such thing as Political Correctness: it is a fictional concept, invented by conspiracy theorists who think that a secret society of Jewish intellectuals in Frankfurt are plotting the overthrow of civilization as we know it. 

Are there such things as prevailing orthodoxy, self-censorship and over-politeness? Of course there are. Just try saying "The Queen is terrible at her job", "There is no need to respect our servicemen" or "I am a big fan of Gary Glitter" and see how far you get.

Are there things which you just can't say nowadays? I seriously doubt it. Most of the things which you just can't say are said all the bloody time. "You can't say that trans women are not women": no; and if you do, you will be asked to write a long think piece in the Economist. "You can't complain about religious dress": no, and if you do, you will be paid a huge sum of money to write a column in the Daily Telegraph and be interviewed in every news outlet in the country. "You can't talk about immigration", no, and during the EU referendum campaign neither side wanted to talk about anything else.

In practice "You will be damned, denounced, vilified and treated like a non-conformist prior to 1829" actually seems to mean "Someone in the Guardian will write a rude article about you, and the University of Sussex Student Union will pass a jolly stiff resolution."

I will not be locked up if I speak against the royal family and the army and in favour of pedophiles. No-one will come and smash my printing press. But the chorus of disapproval would make Sussex University's motion of censure against their philosophy teacher seem like the mild rustling of programmes at the back of the auditorium.

3: The Great Farron Flip Flop

Here is Ms Fox again:

I still consider myself a liberal in the Enlightenment sense of the word. But I have to admit that being a liberal these days is confusing.....

.....In contrast, today’s so-called progressive liberals are often intolerant, calling for official censure against anyone perceived as uttering non-progressive views.

Far from being a challenging paradox, the idea of "illiberal liberals" is a rhetorical cliche, on a level with "if you are so keen on socialism why don't you go and live there?" and "if men evolved from monkeys how come there are still monkeys?"

"Liberal" in the old-fashioned British sense means someone who believes that it is the job of government to make wise laws which maximize individual freedom. "Liberal" in the modern American sense means simply "of the left" or "progressive" or simply "socialist". The extreme right use it as a cuss word to describe anyone who isn't on the extreme right. 

So if I talk about illiberal liberals then I am saying nothing more than "People who are liberal in the American sense are not always liberal in the British sense", which we knew already. The same person might very well want to improve the standards of education for everyone but be prepared in so doing to curtail the freedom of rich people to educate their children privately. Ms Fox's essay is predicated on a piece of word play.

3: Arooga! Arooga!

A cursory look at the coverage of the so-called “Free Tommy” brigade, centered around the alleged censorship of Tommy Robinson, a notorious anti-Islam campaigner, reveals how liberals shun defending the free-speech rights of the unpalatable. Yes, I find many of Mr Robinson’s views odious, but a pick’n’mix attitude to free speech betrays liberalism, not Mr Robinson, and worse, it adds to the myth that “free speech” is a “right-wing” cause. 

This paragraph should set off a major klaxon. A story about a man being sent to jail for contempt of court has morphed into a story about a man being denied freedom of speech because other people don't like his views.

I certainly don't like Tommy Robinson's views, if they even count as "views". He believes in "the right of English people to their own country over and above people from elsewhere" and has a massive bee in his bonnet about their being more Muslim folk in this country than there used to be, or as he puts it "the struggle against global Islamification." But he was sent to prison for taking photographs inside a court, which is not allowed in the UK;  and for live-streaming photographs of defendants in a case where the judge had imposed reporting restrictions. There will be no prizes for guessing the ethnicity or faith background of the defendants in question. 

You could, I suppose, say that "free speech" by definition includes the freedom to make comments which are prejudicial to an ongoing trial after you have been told not to; in which case it is literally true that anyone punished for contempt of court has had their freedom of speech curtailed. Similarly, you might say that a citizen forced to pay compensation to another citizen after defaming them; or a civil servant prosecuted for breaching the Official Secrets Act have had their freedom of speech inhibited. But how is any of this connected with students snarling at a philosophy lecturer about an article they didn't like? Is there some connection between the ancient British law of contempt and the recent emergence of these illiberal liberals?

Ms Fox appears to think that liberals (British sense) should have sided with the Free Tommy campaign because what was at stake was an individual's freedom of speech. She suggests that these liberals adopted a "pick and mix attitude to free speech". This appears to mean that she thinks that freedom of speech is indivisible: that if you defend it in one case you have to defend it in every case. If you believe in the freedom of the press to hold the government to account you must logically also believe in the freedom of a far-right podcaster to make prejudicial comments about a trial — and also, presumably, the freedom to shout "fire!" in a crowded theater. It is possible that Ms Fox, a libertarian, does believe in the absolute and unqualified freedom to say whatever you like whenever you like regardless of context. But this is not something which either kind of liberal has ever been in favour of.  

"The British contempt laws are not compatible with Article 19 of the universal declaration of human rights " might be a perfectly feasible position. "Tommy Robinson shouldn't have been punished for taking photos inside a court because liberals" not so much.

I doubt very much if Ms Fox really believes that Tommy Robinson's imprisonment had anything to do with freedom of speech. I think that the paragraph is best understood as a kind of mating cry to People Who Are Not Liberals (In The American Sense). I think that People Who Are Not Liberals (In The American Sense) will hear "Free Tommy....censorship....Tommy Robinson....liberals....free speech....free speech....free speech." And they will instantly pick up the message: "It's okay. I'm on your side."

4:  Bound to Lose, Bound to Lose, You're Bound To Lose

The writer says that liberals (American sense) didn't defend Tommy Robinson because they found his views "unpalatable". She also talks about free speech being tossed aside "to silence those labelled as intolerant" and says that liberals want to prevent speech which is "deemed" hateful, and to censure views which are "perceived" as non-progressive.

Labelled, deemed, progressive. She cannot bring herself to say that people like Tommy Robinson really are intolerant and hateful; merely that illiberal liberals label them and perceive them as such. And she thinks that "liberals" (American sense) merely find him "unpalatable" — as if disapproving of ethnonationalism were a matter of taste, like preferring Irish whiskey to Scotch. 

But this unleashes a massive can of unstated assumption worms. Are liberals only being illiberal in cases where they try to silence a perfectly harmless person who they have falsely labelled or deemed intolerant? Or are they also illiberal when they try to silence someone who really is intolerant and hateful? Or is there in fact no such thing as intolerance and hatred? Is the claim "Some of the people you accuse of being witches are not witches at all: be very careful before you proceed". Or is the claim "Stop hunting witches, you silly children: there is no such thing."

A case could probably be made that some students at Sussex unfairly took against what was intended to be a dry, logical essay on how we define terms like "male" and "female". But Claire Fox's essay is illustrated with pictures of demonstrators holding up placards saying "No platform for fascists". Are we to take away the message: "Careful now. Perhaps the people you want to de-platform are not really fascists at all?" Or is it "If you would refuse a platform to anyone, even a literal fascist, you are no true liberal."

Not allowing a fascist to speak in your meeting hall; and refusing to appear at a meeting to which a fascist has been invited seems to be a pretty moderate form of censorship. I would not be in favour of saying "no platform for people who supported the bedroom tax" or "no platform for people who think Mrs Thatcher was quite right about the coal mines" or "no platform for people who think Corbyn has it wrong about trade unions." That kind of stuff we can and should debate. But your British National Parties and Britain Firsts and English Defense Leagues? You should certainly be free to join that kind of club. I would take a dim view of anyone who tried to stop you. I disagree with what you say but will defend to the point of mild inconvenience your right to say it. But don't think I am going to help you say it or facilitate your saying it. Don't expect me to appear at your meeting or let you borrow my hall.

And don't expect me to be your friend.

Don't you think it is a little bit suspicious that the Right is saying that it is dangerously illiberal of the Left to refuse to share a platform with people whose views they don't like while at the exact same moment they denounce, vilify and damn the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition because he has, in the past, shared a platform with people whose views they don't like?

5: H.P Sauce is the Great British Sauce

I suppose that at one time "identity politics" had a meaning. It described the kind of thinking which says "I support Labour because I am a Labour supporter; I am a Labour supporter because my father and my grandfather before me supported Labour": your political affiliation was part of who you were. But like Political Correctness and Liberal, the term "identity politics" has become a right-wing snarl word. At this moment, a nasty group of fans are boycotting Marvel and trying to set up their own company because they see comic books like Ms Marvel, Moon Girl and Ultimate Spider-Man as being full of "identity politics". What they mean  — literally the only thing they mean — is that Ms Marvel's parents are from Pakistan and she is a cultural Muslim; that Moon Girl is African American and Miles Morales is Hispanic. The tendency to use "identity" to mean "non-white" and indeed "non-white and therefore bad" reached its ludicrous end point last week when someone literally and without irony said that sales of mayonnaise were falling because young people preferred "identity condiments".

6: Conclusion: In Which The Various Threads of The Argument Are Drawn Together, And Pigs Fly

How far should intolerance be tolerated is a good question.

One answer would be "Always, without qualification, and without question: if you are tolerant of immigrants cooking unfamiliar food, then you must be equally tolerant of newspapers saying that those same immigrants should be put down like cockroaches."

Another answer would be "Never, without compromise: the slightest suggestion that someone has criticized a fellow citizen's dress, religion or sexuality must be stamped on without mercy."

In between there are many shades of grey. Fifty or more. Most of us, whether we call ourselves liberal or not, fall into that grey area.

But the Economist essay is not talking about shades of grey. The Economist essay seems to envisage a situation where the poor reasonable souls who calmly explain to transsexuals that they might want to think a little bit more systematically about the philosophy of gender are SILENCED and PROSECUTED by the intolerant left. And yet only last week I read that someone had taken the trouble to walk along Crosby sea front sticking cocks on all the statues along with the slogan "women don't have penises". Someone stuck a cock on the statue of Colston in Bristol yesterday, although sadly on his plinth, not his crotch. Just imagine: someone took the trouble to draw this thing, and then spent money on getting it printed, and then distributed roles of stickers to all their friends; and then someone must have gone out with stickers in their pocket, deliberately looking for places to display them. Imagine being that person. Imagine caring enough about other people's bits to think it worthwhile.

Statue of Edward Colston, Bristol, 25 Sep 2018

An article that said "Hey! Both sides! Take it down a notch!" might possibly have been worth writing. But anyone whose response to this kind of thing is "Gosh! Aren't liberals a problem!" needs to take a long hard look at their values. 

I think that from 1945 to about 2000, there was a broad "liberal" (American sense) consensus across all political parties. Fascists were no platformed by default. People like Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson existed, but they were mostly marching behind black flags in out of the way drill halls, not being invited to speak on mainstream talk shows and being lauded by the President of the U.S.A. Enoch Powell wasn't prosecuted or imprisoned as a result of the so-called "rivers of blood" speech, but he was kicked out of the Conservative Party and remained on the political sidelines for the rest of his life. But the rise of Trump and Farage has allowed the intolerant and the hateful —  the kinds of people who compare refugees with rats and cockroaches and call black people semi-savages, and think that slavery wasn't too bad and anyway the South never supported slavery — to express their views in public.

And when decent folk in all political parties refuse to engage with them we get articles in the Economist saying "why has the left become so intolerant all of a sudden."

7: Conclusion, in which the exegete cleverly deconstructs the article's major premise and leaves the stage to massive cheers.

You probably noted that Ms Fox specifically says that she is quoting from the Sussex Student Union's original statement.

If you go to the Student Union's website, you will find that the original statement is not there.

You will instead find the revised statement, which merely states that the Union is "in solidarity" with trans and non-binary students, and that they "strongly disagree" with the views of Dr Kathleen Stock."

I can, if I wish, read Dr Stock's dull essay on the Economist magazine's website.

I can, if I wish, read Claire Fox's screed about the intolerant toleratti.

But I cannot find out what the Student Union originally said about Dr Stock.

Because someone has persuaded or compelled them to remove it.

I look forward to a future essay in the Economist asking why the Sussex University Student Union have been denied their freedom of speech in this regard.



It is probably too late to stop me from publishing my notes on Boris Johnson and Talons of Weng Chiang, but if you join my Patreon you might be able to divert me into something more interesting next month. 

damn this country

damn this country’s constitution, where tiny majorities equate to landslide victories

damn this country’s constitution where leaders can have elections whenever the hell they like

damn this country’s constitutions where leaders can have elections whenever the hell they like, after specifically introducing laws which say they can’t

damn the whole archaic idea of monarchy, which allows party leaders to act like queens

even though i quite like the pageantry

damn the whole idea of the established church which lends spurious divine authority to politicians while paying stipends to priests who reject even the most basic christian teachings

damn anyone who cares what easter eggs are called

damn the teachers who belittled us, lied to us, hit us, and stared at us in the showers and the judges who sentenced mentally handicapped teenagers to be hanged and the mad nostalgia merchants who want it all to happen again

damn anyone who thinks that 63360 is a sensible number of centimeters for there to be in a kilometer

damn the hooray henries and public school boys and vicar's daughters and grocer's daughters who think that politics is a series of funny japes

damn the amoral careerists who vow to work every day to undermine their own leader

damn the followers of the middle way who sold their birth right and never even got the pottage.

damn the national anthem, the cenotaph, the donkey jacket and the bacon sandwich

damn everyone who is not a racist themselves but thinks we have to pay attention to the very real racism of the working class

damn the daily mail and all those who have ever read it

we do renounce them

damn the daily express and all those who have ever read it

we do renounce them

damn rupert murdoch and the god-father of his baby

we do renounce them

damn nigel farage who did all this single-handedly.

(although, in a certain light, fair play to the canny bastard as well)

damn tony blair and his dossier

damn neil kinoock and his rally

damn thatcher and her milk

damn thatcher and her war

damn thatcher and her strike

may her grave be licensed for dancing forever 

i sometimes think that the big war the grown ups promised us did come after all and the extra forty years we spent inventing new types of coffee and looking at kittens and pornography was a radiation dream and soon the cloud will pass and we will emerge from our inner refuge into nuclear winter and resume normal activities

we finally really did it.

NOTE: For the benefit of my mother, one of the words in this piece has been changed to a different word. An unexpurgated version is available on request. 

This essay is posted free of charge but if you like it please consider supporting the writer by having a look at his Patreon page

Stand Down

I guess that in the olden days most savings banks and mortgage lending companies were local concerns — you had a Manchester Building Society and a Liverpool Building Society, didn't you. The bank I use must have decided to put its Unique Selling Point in its name: the Nationwide Building Society. But when I get a letter from the bank, I don’t particularly hear the word “nationwide”and think "gosh, that must be happening all over the country" — it’s just what the company is called. Similarly, I don’t hear the sounds of hammers and anvils when I talk to my friend Mr Smith, or feel particularly surprised if Mrs Green is wearing a blue dress today. In fact, it was  actually a little funny when it first occurred to me that my friend Clifford’s name could be understood to mean “a ford by a cliff”.

I contend that this is what has happened with times and seasons and festivals. There is a thing we do in December called Chris Muss. If we stop to think, we can see where the name came from. Douglas Gresham insists on referring to it as “the Christ Mass” which frankly just sounds weird. Most of us. even if we keep up the religious parts of the festival, don't specially hear the "Christ" part. "Chrissmuss" is just what it happens to be called. When a church puts up a poster saying "Christmas begins with Christ" they are making a pun, on a level with "ASSUME makes an ASS of U and ME".

Now, fairly obviously, this is what has happened with the Easter festivals. Maybe, just maybe, the druids did have a goddess called Easter who they worshiped in the spring, and maybe, just maybe the Christians came over and said “We’re ‘aving that, we are.” But Estre was probably the goddess of the sunrise or the dawn, and Sunrise or Dawn are perfectly good names for the day of the Resurrection, so Christians might perfectly well have come up with the name independently. But no-one, Christian, atheist or Archbishop of York connects the word Easter with "dawn" or "East" or pagan bunny goddesses. It’s just what the time of year is called.

So, somewhere along the line the Friday before the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox got labeled “Good Friday”. The most likely reasons are:

1: It’s a corruption of Gud Friday i.e Holy Friday

2: It’s a corruption of God’s Friday.

3: In a very real sense, things which look very bad to us can look very good to God and the only true goodness is in the badness.

4: We don’t know.

But Guffriday is what the day happens to be called.

So for a supermarket to put out an advertisement for cheap beer, only on sale over the holiday, under the slogan “Good Friday just got better” is another pun. The reaction of most people, including most Christians, is not “OMG Tescos think cheap cider is better than Jesus’s free gift of eternal life made once for all upon the cross”. They are more likely to think "Oh yes. Guffriday, Good Friday, got better. Very good. Very satirical."

No, we don’t mark times and seasons as much as we used to. I myself drank a pint of beer yesterday evening. Yes, I can remember when no shops, and definitely no pubs or off-licenses opened on Guffriday — apart from bakers who were allowed to sell hot cross buns provided they didn’t also sell any bread. (Can anyone tell me why we eat spicy buns on Good Friday if Good Friday is a fast day?) And yes, it is a pity that many people do not realize that Good Friday is a sad an solemn day. But the sight of otherwise sane clergymen queuing up to describe the advert as crass, offensive, insensitive, sacrilegious, ignorant and illogical made me think that someone was jumping, rather late, onto a rather ludicrous egg-shaped bandwagon.

NOTE:

I think that it is an Easter "Egg Hunt", not an "Easter-egg Hunt". I might say to you in September "Will you come to my home for Christmas Dinner" and you would understand that I was inviting you to eat turkey with me on the 25th of December. But I would not necessarily say to my guests while they were drinking their sherry and eating their nuts on the big day "Will you come through to the dining room for Christmas Dinner, and then we can pull a Christmas Cracker and eat some Christmas Cake and have a Christmas Mince Pie" although I grant that the steamed pudding you eat with brandy butter is called Christmas-Pudding and would be called Christmas-pudding even if for some reason you had some in July. So I think that if the parish council were planning its events in January, they might say "And then Mrs Wren will organize the Easter 'Egg Hunt'". But on Easter morning after church, Mrs Wren might say "All children who want to join the Egg Hunt meet me outside". No-one would stand up and ask why Mrs Wren had removed all reference to Christianity from the egg hunt and whether she was going to go and spit on the grave of Farine Nestle. (I looked it up.) She doesn't need to say Easter "Egg Hunt" because everyone already knows it is Easter.

I also don't think that it matters.

Patrons are not being charged for this essay.

Flake News

A perfectly ordinary member of the Church of England moves from the former United Kingdom to Another Country. I forget whether he had to get out in a hurry because they were threatening to intern Remain votes, or whether he was just looking for work. 

Anyway, he’s been there about six months, when his neighbor says “Would you like to come to dinner tomorrow. It’s a big holiday in this country. Bound up with one of our Holy Religious Festivals, of course, but tomorrow night is just a family get together, followed by a silly treasure hunt where the kids win Turkish Delight.”

Well, the Perfectly Ordinary Fellow thinks this is very kind, and he goes, and has a nice time, and come December asks his neighbors round for mulled wine and mince pies and crackers. He stays in Another Country for the rest of his life, treats it as his home, and has kids who just sort of take it for granted that the second Wednesday after the first snowfall of February is Turkish Delight Day. (In fact, he hears that some people in the Old Country are taking up the tradition as well, because it’s fun.) 

But then the Maharajah of Another Country makes a speech. 

“We must all start eating Turkish Delight in February, like we did in the old days,” she says. 

“It is shameful the way Turkish Delight has been banned to appease Anglicans” she continues. 

“Turkish Delight is a very important Holy Religious Festival which shows we believe in the One God (which, by the way, I don’t, but my Dad did) and are definitely not like these crazy Anglicans who think there are Three.” 

Well, I don’t know if the Perfectly Ordinary Anglican buys his kids Turkish Delight (which you can get in all the shops, despite it being banned) that February; but he feels much less comfortable accepting his friend's dinner invitation that year. We can still be friends, he thinks, but as an Anglican I clearly shouldn’t be part of one of these people’s Holy Religious Festivals. Holy Religious Festivals remind me that I can never really be part of this country however long I stay here. I guess that’s the point of them. 

That night, hardly anyone goes to the Temple of the Definitely Only One God, but everyone eats far too much Turkish Delight and gets sick. 

A few years later, one of the Perfectly Ordinary Anglican's kids is beaten up by a group of thugs shouting "Another Country Above All The Other Countries!" and the Perfectly Ordinary Anglican, fearing he has no home in this world any more, jumps off a bridge. 

“How do such terrible things ever happen?”says the Maharajah. And they all live happily ever after.

If we can believe the Guardian, and I am increasingly unsure if we can, the National Trust has “axed Easter”, “omitted the word Easter from its annual children’s egg hunt” “airbrushed Christianity out of its annual chocolate egg hunt” “scrapped any mention of the Christian festival” and (again) “omitted Easter from the egg hunt.”

The Prime Minister — the actual Prime Minister — was reportedly Very Angry about this. “Easter is very important. It is a very important festival for the Christian faith for millions across the world. So I think what the National Trust is doing is frankly just ridiculous.” The reliably nutty Archbishop of York did his best to diffuse the situation, saying that the decision to not use the word Easter was “tantamount to spitting on the grave of John Cadbury.” (*)

Interesting choice of words, I should say. "Axing" implies premature cancellation, as when a TV station cancels a show because of poor ratings. "Axing an Easter Egg hunt" I could understand — it would mean that the event used to happen but wasn't happening any more. "Axing the word Easter” not so much. The same goes for “scrapping”: you can scrap a Royal Yacht or a library, but not usually a piece of vocabulary. Even “omitting the word Easter from it's egg hunt" I have a problem with. I don't think children ever did scramble around Leigh Woods chanting "Easter, Easter, Easter, Easter." And “airbrushing” is incredibly loaded. “Airbrushing” means “changing or ignoring an historical fact” — like never mentioning that there were black soldiers in the first world war, or saying that Stan Lee created Spider-Man.  It's a word, significantly, which is most often used in the context of communist Russia.

The allegation is not really that the the National Trust has axed, scrapped, omitted, removed, banned, airbrushed or abolished Easter, the Easter bunny, Easter Egg hunts or the Christian religion. The allegation is simply that they have removed the word "Easter" from the advertising and branding of this year's Egg hunt.

And it's just not true.

It a brilliant publicity stunt on the part of Cadbury and the National Trust, actually. I was vaguely aware of Easter Egg hunts as one of those mostly American things that has taken off here a little bit: people with big enough gardens hiding little chocolate eggs for the kids to find. Maybe some churches and schools do it too. I am quite sure that somewhere in the Derbyshire, in between the village which does the Pancake Race and a the village which does the Black Pudding Two Hundred Meter Hurdles you can find a village where an ancient tradition of beating the parish bounds with hard boiled eggs painted with colours of the Duke of Argyle is still observed. But did you know that the National Trust ran official hunts for Cadbury’s chocolate eggs on their properties, and have done so for some years? I certainly didn’t.

Last week's egg story was a little bit more nuanced. Most eggs don’t have the word “Easter” on them, but then, they never did; most eggs are halal, but then they always were. But this weeks is complete fiction. You can prove this by a simple experiment: go to the Cadbury's National Trust website at  www.easter.cadbury.co.uk.

I will say that again: www.easter.cadbury.co.uk.

The first thing you will see is a headline saying "Enjoy Easter fun at the National Trust..." You will also see links to “Easter Range” and “Easter Events”. The first takes you to a Cadbury's chocolate catalog, which tells you that "Our eggstensive (ho-ho) range is packed with treats for the Easter period..." including "The Cadbury Easter bundle..." and  "Our Easter favourites...."

If you follow the link to "Easter Events" your will find the dates and times at which the “Easter Egg Hunt" takes place (from 10 -3 on Good Friday and again from 10 - 3 on Easter Saturday.)

It is true that there is a logo that says "Join the Cadbury Egg Hunt". But that seems a small thing to make a moral panic about.  

“But what have chocolate eggs got to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus in the first place?" you are probably going to ask me. Well, some people say that there was a pagan goddess called Easter who rode around Narnia on a sledge pulled by magic egg-laying rabbits. Others point to a suppressed gnostic gospel in which Jesus hatched out of a giant crocodile egg like Isis. Rather desperate clergymen say that when the Very Early Christians wanted something to remind them of the stone that was laid in front of Jesus' tomb, what naturally occurred to them was an egg (as opposed to, say, a stone). The story that is most likely to be true is the most boring one: Christians give up rich food and treats after Pancake Day and start eating them again after taking Holy Communion on Easter Sunday. So naturally, Easter afternoon involves chocolate, eggs, cakes, bonnets, and Morris dancing.

The period of abstinence is called Lent; it is supposed to remind us of Jesus forty day fast in the wilderness. The last and holiest days of Lent are Good Friday (the day Jesus was killed) and Easter Saturday (the day he lay in the tomb). 

I don’t want to come across as very pious here. This Good Friday I shall probably go to Bristol Cathedral in morning and Bristol Folk House in the evening and one of Bristol's many fine coffee shops in the afternoon and I haven't give up anything at all. But you really can't have it both ways. You can't claim that chocolate eggs are mainly a symbol of resurrection and new life and then start eating them on Good Friday. You can't claim that eating chocolate eggs is mainly part of the Christian feast of Easter and then recommend that people do it on one of the fast days.

A lot of people are seeing this story as a bit of a joke; as our Prime Minister focusing on chocolate eggs when she should be concentrating on starting a war with Spain. I think it is much more sinister than that.

The story that Theresa May has put on all the front pages is not that, (interestingly enough), the word Easter is being used less and less nowadays. The story that Theresa May has put on all the front pages is that THEY have stopped YOU from celebrating, sorry, saying the word, Easter -- where "they" ARE commies, Europeans and, especially Muslims. Making up stories about how the National Trust have banned Easter, Birmingham has banned Christmas, London is a caliphate and Tescos have straightened all their bananas is a tactic which the racist right uses to radicalize white people. The more we can pretend that Easter and Christmas and Valentines and Bonfire night and the Eurovision Song Contest are Christian events, the less Muslims and Sikhs and Jews and Richard Dawkins can participate in our local culture.

I think there may be an even nastier side to it.

I think that the banning of Easter and Christmas and the Sharia regime in Birmingham are objects of faith for the very far right. Winston Smith had not only to say that two plus two equaled five, but actually believe that it did. I think that when someone -- a Prime Minister or a Bishop -- looks steadily and full on at an Easter Egg and says "There is no Easter Egg here" they are signalling very clearly which side they are on.

(*) John Cadbury was a Quaker and would probably not have celebrated Easter in the first place. Quakers don’t really keep holy days, because they think that all days are holy, in the same way that they don’t celebrate the sacraments because they think that everything is sacramental. In the past, they preferred to say First Day, Second Day, Third Day, so "Easter Monday" is unlikely to have been a big thing. Chocolate eggs were invented by Bristol's Joseph Fry in 1873 but John Cadbury had started making them within a couple of years. A price list from John Cadbury’s lifetime is headed “Easter Eggs”, although the individual products are just called “eggs”. (Some of them seem to have been ordinary chocolates in elaborate egg-shaped packaging, incidentally.)  But a flier from a few years after John Cadbury himself died is already calling them “chocolate eggs” (for the milk chocolate ones) and “Bournville eggs” (for the more expensive dark chocolate ones). They are decorated with secular spring flowers made of icing sugar and marzipan. Quakers are sometimes thought of as puritans, but I don’t think Cadbury would have had any objection to children’s treasure hunts. He clearly didn't have any objection to chocolate! He would have had a very simple grave, but I don't think he would be turning in it over what people called his eggs. 

Deflection

I am in favor of using words correctly. I don’t think that you should say “depressed” if what you mean is “sad”; I don’t think you should say “bipolar” if what you mean is “moody”; and I definitely don’t think you should say “autistic” if what you mean is “shy.” It’s insulting and patronizing to people who are actually depressed or bipolar; and it’s also a kind of linguistic inflation. (If you say “depression” when you mean “sadness” you have to make up a new word for when “depression” is what you actually do mean.) It would have been better if we’d never started using “poxy” to mean “small” or “lame” to mean “inadequate” or “psychotic” to mean cross. In fact, you probably shouldn’t say “surreal” if what you mean “silly” or “existential” if what you mean is “gloomy” or “random” if what you mean is…whatever kids mean by “random” nowadays. 

But I don’t want to go too far in that direction. Otherwise I’ll turn into one of those boring people who says that “decimate” only ever means “divide by ten” and that “gay” only ever means “brightly colored” and that “literally” can never mean “figuratively”. And that’s literally the thin end of the wedge. 

I believe I am correct in saying that “mad” no longer has any medical meaning, but does retain a legal meaning. And it definitely has a lot of colloquial meanings. I’ll get mad if you are rude about Star Wars because I’m on mad on Star Wars. The original meaning of “crazy” was “cracked”: if I say that my garden has crazy paving, I’m using it in the older sense. It was applied to people by analogy. (I remember the original Star Wars craze: people went crazy about it.) 

If my friend tells me that he has met and spoken with a fairy (which, as previously mentioned, at least three of my friends have in fact done) there are basically three possibilities

1: There really are fairies, and I need to expand my view of reality to encompass such creatures or 

2: My friend is lying, or telling fairy stories, with or without the encouragement of Mr Conan Doyle. 

3: My friend is mad, crazy, delusional or hallucinating. 

If I went with 3, I don't think I would be providing an amateur diagnosis, or patronizing my other friends who have to cope with mental conditions every day. I think that mad, cracked, crazy, or two land cards short of a Magic deck is a word we use to describe people who see stuff which isn't actually there. 

"What do you think about the people you say claim to have really met fairies, Andrew?” 

“I think that one of them was describing a spiritual experience — ‘In a particular location, I felt something I cannot explain, and “fairies” is the name I am going to give to that experience’ If he’d come from a different background, he might have said that he’d encountered the Blessed Virgin. I think that one of them was talking about faith: I think that fairies form part of his neo-pagan belief system. I think the other one had done a lot of drugs.” 

It seems to me that there comes a point at which a person — a politician, say — denies facts — about vaccination, say, or climate change, or the number of people who attended an inauguration ceremony — to such an extend that the rest of us are entitled to say “Either you are lying, or your are crazy.” 

*

The famously sane Tony Blair used to claim that it didn’t matter whether a particular policy was “left wing”, “right wing”, “conservative” or “liberal”; as Prime Minister he would do “whatever worked”. 

This is, of course, bullshit.

You can only tell if something has "worked" if you know what result you wanted; and the result you want depends greatly on whether you are left wing, right wing, conservative or liberal.  Someone might think that a law and order policy worked because it resulted in lots of criminals being punished; someone else might think that it was a failure because there was no overall reduction in the amount of crime. You might think that schools sports policy worked because Team Little Britain won lots of medals in the Tokyo Olympics; I might think it was a failure because hardly any non-elite athletes were still taking exercise ten years after they left school.

But “whatever works” does admit the possibility that something might not work. In theory, we can look at what did happen, and say "I don't think that what you did worked".

*

The new American dictator said yesterday that he was in favour of torturing people because "torture works". It isn’t immediately clear what “works” means. Does it mean that if someone knows a secret they will definitely and automatically tell it to you provided you hurt them badly enough? Or does it just mean that if the goodies are doing some torturing, the baddies will stop doing so much terroristing? "If only we had been torturing people in the 1990s, the Twin Towers attack wouldn't have happened; once we started torturing people after 2001, the London bombing didn't happen. Or if it did, it would have been worse without the torture. Or it only happened because we weren't doing enough torturing. Or something."

Someone is said to have asked Auberon Waugh how a horrible person like him could possibly claim to be a Christian. "But if I wasn't a Christian" he replied "Think how much worse I would be."

A man who tells jokes for a living cited the famous “ticking bomb” thought experiment on twitter, in the following terms: 

Your baby is tied to a timebomb. 

You have the terrorist. 

He tells you you have 1 hour. 

Do you torture him to find your baby or let it die?

He got extremely cross when anyone suggested that this was a silly scenario: you wouldn’t have a single terrorist, there wouldn’t be a single piece of information that would save the victim, and you have no way of knowing if the person you are torturing is a coward (who will blurt out anything to avoid being hurt) or, a fanatic who positively wants to be hurt in order to be martyr.

I proposed a couple of alternative scenarios:

Your baby is tied to a bomb. 

The terrorist is a colossal pervert. 

Do you let him spend 1 hour with your 12 year old son or let the baby die?

Your baby is tied to a bomb. 

You have 99 innocent people and 1 terrorist.

Do you torture all 100 of them or let the baby die?

Your baby was tied to a bomb by a Jehovah's Witness. 

Do you arrest and torture all 226,000 Jehovah's Witnesses or let the baby die?

Of the 226,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses 1% give in and scream, "I'll tell you where the baby is." 

Which of the 2260 confessions do you follow up?

There is nothing wrong with asking purely hypothetical questions; there is nothing wrong with thought experiments. "Don't be silly, I'm not on the moon" is not a very good answer to the question "If you dropped a feather and a one kilogram weight on the moon, which would hit the ground first? I suppose the ticking bomb fantasy establishes whether your objection to torture is a moral one, or a practical one: do you say "No, I wouldn't torture the guy, even if it totally would save the little'un life?" or "Yes, if in some magic way, torturing the guy would get my baby back, then I would torture him.".

But it occurred to me that the scenario we really needed to consider would be something like:

Your baby is tied to a bomb. 

Would you sacrifice a white goat to Aphrodite in order to bring your baby home in a golden chariot pulled by winged horses?

To which the answer is: yes, if sacrificing the goat would summons up the magic chariot, yes I would. But it wouldn’t. So it’s a silly question. 

In these scenarios, it's always a Really Bad Guy who is getting tortured; not a basically pretty harmless guy who happens to know the codes. And one cannot escape the suspicion that when someone says "torture works" they are adding, under their breath "and even if it doesn't, the really bad guy had it coming to them." Torquemada, Matthew Hopkins and Donald Trump all know in advance that Jews, women and Muslims are "baddies", and the search for heretics, witches and terrorists provides a pretext to hurt bad people.

If your baby really was tied to a time bomb, and if you really did torture a terrorist, or a suspected terrorist, or a Brazilian electrician who looked as if he might be a terrorist, and if the guy holds out under torture; or tells you that they’re on Dantooine when they’re really on Yavin… and one way or another the bomb goes off and the baby dies…

Everyone who believed in torture would continue to believe that torture worked. 

Because the baby would quite definitely still be alive. The photos of the pathetic little corpse being taken out of the burning building is FAKE NEWS produced my MAINSTREAM MEDIA which is run BY cultural Marxists who yes want the terrorists TO win.

If I saw some very powerful people actually looking at the dead baby, and saying "the baby is still alive", I would say that they were either mad or liars, and you would say that things weren't always as black and white as we Trotskyites like to pretend. You would write long think pieces in the Guardian about the interesting controversy of the exploding baby.

And years later, the story about the baby chained to the time bomb who saved by the torturing would be one of those things which everybody knows, like Alfred and the Cakes and the school that sang baa baa green street and weapons of mass destruction. Everyone would say that horrible as torture is and obviously we’re not in favour of it and it’s a great shame that we inadvertently castrated that kid whose dad had a name quite similar to the person who almost definitely knew something about an outrage that hadn’t actually happened yet...but you have to admit, torture stopped the baby from exploding.

And I'll point to the pathetic little gravestone and the autopsy report, and you'll say “Ah, still  going on about the dead baby. It’s political correctness gone mad. Fake news, fake news. Social Justice Warriors always lie.” 

*

Fortunately, no-one has attached any bombs to any babies. But my country is about to sacrifice its place in the world on a Quixotic whim. And it will be impossible ever to ask the question "Did Brexit work? Did it do what it was supposed to do?" 

If as expected, Theresa May lights the blue touch paper next month, then for decades to come, every media outlet but one will contain nothing but stories about how everything is rosy and wonderful: stories about factories opening, stories about people with new jobs, stories about nasty Polish restaurants being replaced with proper 1950s English cafes that sell burned steak and blue nun wine. 

And if anyone says that this isn’t true — that inflation is high, the pound is sinking, people don’t have jobs, every media outlet but one will say “That’s what you would expect the remoaners to say. Why do they run this country down? Why do they feel it necessary? Don’t quote statistics at me. You can prove anything you want with statistics. Anyone can SEE the country is doing brilliantly. Except Social Justice Warriors, who always lie.” 

And if, by some chance, sanity prevails, we will have another 50 years in which people stare at big, yellow, curved bananas and say “of course, you aren’t allowed to buy curved bananas any more. It’s political correctness gone mad."

(It is just about possible to imagine the Remain camp, ten years down the line saying "well, that wasn't nearly as bad as we feared." It is impossible to imagine the Leave camp, even in the face of Armageddon, saying "We're afraid that didn't work as well as we'd hoped.")

Which, in a sense, makes life a bit easier. 

We don’t, in fact, know whether the September 11th attacks would have been averted if some CIA officers had put some black guys balls in a vice in a camp in Cuba. To know what would have happened, child? No-one is ever told that. But we still know what is moral; what is right; what is wrong.

We don't know what works, because the crazy people will see whatever they choose to see. But we know what is moral. What is right and wrong. Big people don’t hit little people. You can’t have sex with anyone without their consent. The rich help the poor. You don’t hurt other people, however much you might sometimes want to.

In a “post truth” world, that may be all there is to hold on to. 

*

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Donald Trump: I may not like his policies, but he’s no different from any other right wing politician. 

But a man who said the sorts of things that Donald Trump has said would not be merely a right-wing politician. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. 

You must make your choice. Either this man is genetically superior to the rest of the human race, or else he is a madman or something worse. 

You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can believe everything he says because he’s such a smart guy. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being merely a right-wing politician. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.