‘The British political class has offered to the world an astounding spectacle of mendacious, intellectually limited hustlers.’ This is a direct quote from a recent New York Times, a newspaper that is known for being anti-heterosexual white male, anti-Christian, and now anti-British ruling class. Mind you, normally when someone attacks the British I smile. And more often than not I mumble that no one hits the Brits harder than themselves. This time, however, let’s take a second look as to why the venom.
Under the headline ‘The Malign Incompetence of the British Ruling Class’, some clown I’ve never heard of takes up half a broadsheet page denouncing Britain’s past in general and that of the ruling class in particular. (The poor man mixes up past and present ruling classes, but never mind.) Why now? Search me, but a little bird tells me that Brexit has something to do with it. The real rulers of today, Davos types and members of the international deep state, or IDS, are never mentioned. The article reads as though it were written by someone who was insulted by some upper-class twit long ago and has never got over the insult. My, my, how many shrinks did this poor soul consult to come to such conclusions as: ‘English Brexiteers chasing imperial virility.’ When I called my friend Robin Birley and asked him why he was chasing imperial virility (Robs is the quintessential English gent and very patriotic), he emitted his unique loud ululation and asked me what moron had come up with that one.
And it gets better. The reason people voted the way they did back in 2016 can be traced, and the Times writer cites E.M. Forster, ‘to its privately educated men, callow beneficiaries of the country’s elitist public school system’. Now he tells us. Boo, down with Eton. And there I was thinking that it was working-class people in the north of England who voted to get out. Now I see that it was all just an upper-class plot on the part of elitist public-school buggers.
Taking into account that leading Brexiteers such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Daniel Hannan and Jacob Rees-Mogg are the four richest people in Britain — the four control between them 90 per cent of all British land and 70 per cent of the cash available — I understand the frustration of the Times man scribbling away in some dump. But fair’s fair. Here he is again: ‘Britain’s rupture with the EU is proving to be another act of moral dereliction by the country’s rulers. The Brexiteers, pursuing a fantasy of imperial-era strength, have repeatedly revealed their hubris, mulishness and ineptitude…’. Gunga Din, where in blazes is my pith helmet?
He goes on to expose the elite’s ‘arrogant obduracy’, explaining to us how ‘egotistic and destructive behaviour by the British elite flabbergasts many people today’. I don’t know about you, but I’m sure as hell flabbergasted, and so is my manservant Gunga Din.
But let’s get serious. The Times Balzac blames the British elite for untold suffering, and he could be right. Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of Africa, along with the Sudan, now has people starving in the streets, but this clown blames the Brits for it. These atrocities would not be happening to Zimbabwe and Sudan if they were still run by the Brits — but no such luck for those poor bastards.
The Times’s piece concludes with more historical ironies: ‘It is safe to say that a long cosseted British ruling class has finally come to the end.’ (Corbyn will surely nationalise Boris’s four million acres, not to mention Jacob’s 101 nannies.) But seriously, the New York Times has a history of anti-Christian coverage — #exposechristianschools was tweeted by a Times reporter inviting people to talk about their experiences at Christian schools. Although this has little to do with Brexit and so-called British elites, it illustrates to what extent the paper will go in order to draw a new hip readership. Mind you, Bezos’s baby, the Washington Post, is one up on the Times. One of its top editors recently asked how Christian schools can still ‘happen’ in contemporary America.
Oh well, some Brits do get positive coverage from the Times, John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons, for example. Here’s a man who holds a position of plenipotential dignity but has managed to turn it into a music-hall Archie Rice role, using his thesaurus the way Rommel used his Panzers. But the Times likes him. And why not? The paper does not have to buy a used car from him. But would any of you readers trust him if he were selling one? I’d buy one from his father, who used to be a taxi-driver in north London, but not from the thesaurus tiger. The driver’s seat would be stuck much too close to the pedals. I’m not tall, but neither am I a dwarf, nor a poisoned one at that.
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