Not English (6/9/20)

(Here's the idea. Here's what the idea was. I wanted to write something political, something current, something that could sum up the state of the country mid-Brexit, mid-Covid. Something that could show up the stupidity, criminality and corruption of the Johnson led Tory party. Something that could be performed quickly, filmed and set out in the world. I was looking for a name to use, trying to get a path to the great David Morrissey. And there were other, less well known but obviously excellent actors who expressed an interest in performing this. 


But, two days after finishing writing a piece that took ten days and ran to 80 A4 pages - in 'Courier 12pt font, obviously - Johnson went ahead and did something more stupid, more criminally inept than he'd managed to date. Then went on to repeat that course of action on a daily basis.


And suddenly the whole thing was outdated. And who's going to spend time learning and performing something that's already been left behind by history?


So I put it here instead. 


This is 'Not English. Consider it play number eleven, though it will never be performed anywhere. Think of it as being like the glory days of Factory Records when they would give a catalogue number to Tony Wilson's dental work so that completists could never be as complete as they wished. 


It exists but nobody will have it. Except you, here it is, just for you.)



Everything I’m about to tell you is true.


Some of it is fact, absolute, total, undeniable, fact


Some of it is my opinion, based on that fact


But it’s my honest opinion


It’s my truth


Everything you’re about to hear is my truth


I’m quite fond of the truth on the whole


I’m quite fond of truth


As a concept


As something to base your entire life on


So:


        There is nothing in here that I’ve invented


        Not for entertainment 


        Not for shock value 


        Not for attention 


        Not for ‘clicks’, not for ‘page views’ 


        Not to make myself look more interesting than I actually am 


        Not for self promotion


I mean every word I say


Every. Single. Word


And let’s be honest with each other - 


- because I think that’s the very least we can do, just as some kind of                                                                 foundation for everything I want to say tonight -


- I think we need to be able to trust each other -


- I think we need to be able to look each other in the eye and say -


- “You know what? I might not agree with everything you’re saying but you’re b                     being honest with me” -


- I think we


- as a country, as a people -


- need to take the time to listen, to think, to question


Because, there are a lot of people out there who don’t say what they mean


People who can see some kind of advantage -


- some kind of advancement -


in saying something deliberately controversial


Deliberately inflammatory


Because they know there’s an audience out there who’ll eat it up without thinking


Without questioning


And in that ‘eating up’, that audience will push the person with the ‘dangerous’ ‘edgy’  ‘outrageous’ opinion a little bit further down the road to being more important, to being better off, than the people they claim to stand for


They’ll take opinions that a tiny minority didn’t dare voice 


Because they were so basically wrong


And they’ll amplify them


In that amplifying the thoughts of some, they’ll create the opinions of others


And the ball rolls on


Ever onwards, and always down hill


The thoughts of a few people suddenly become some kind of ‘silent majority’


- despite the fact that we all know they’re not


Until they’re somehow running the way we live


Ruining the way we live


 And we can’t even remember how it happened


You know the people I’m talking about


You know their names, you know their faces


As we go along with this, I will quite happily name every single one of the bastards


None of those names will shock you


And the way I feel about them probably won’t surprise you


They’re the people that we’re all looking at and saying: “How are they getting away with this?”


How are they getting away with this?


Surely people can see that this is wrong?


There’s every possibility that we -


- you and I -


Think along similar lines


I mean, we’re probably fairly similar people


Like to think of ourselves as fairly liberal


Like to think of ourselves as forward thinking, progressive


That all we want in life is for everybody to live as happy a life as possible


That, as long as people aren’t hurting other people in any way, then other people’s lives aren’t really anything to do with us and we should just move forward as one species and let everyone enjoy their time here


We know that’s the right way to think


We know this


It’s obvious


So, why are there so many who don’t feel that way?


Why are there so many who don’t think it obvious?


How is it that we can look at something and say:


No. That’s a lie


That’s wrong


That’s ridiculous


And others look at that same wrong, ridiculous lie, and say:


This represents me


My question to you -


- and it’s not my only question, I’m sure there will be others, others will arise -


Is:


Why are so many people happy to live with all the lies?


And:


What can we do about it?


A quick spoiler on that last bit - don’t expect too many answers to that question, I’m fairly sure I don’t have any


There are things that I believe


There are things that I believe in as well


And there’s a definite difference between those two statements


I believe in love


I believe in love in all its forms:


Love for your partner, love for the person you choose to be with you for this journey


Love for your family, love for the people who were always there without you ever having asked


Love for your friends, for the people you can have no contact with for years but fall right back into conversation with


And love for your fellow man.


I genuinely believe that you can extend love to people you don’t know at all


I believe that that is genuinely easy to do


I believe that I can show love for a person on the other side of the world, that I’ve never met, that I never will meet


I believe that’s possible


I believe that by believing their life is as important to them -


- and to many, many other people -


- as mine is to me and those who care about me


- just by acknowledging that fact, 


I’m showing them love


In a simple, uncomplicated form


Those are some of the things that I believe


And then, there are things I don’t believe 


I don’t believe that I’m superior to others just because of where I happened to be born


And I don’t believe others are superior to me


I don’t believe that anybody, by virtue of accident of where they’re born, is better than

anybody else


So - no royalty, no upper classes, no peers, no lords, no ladies, nobody who has ended up with advantages in life that they haven’t earned 


These people aren’t our superiors


They just happen to have been born somewhere that I wasn’t


That you weren’t


Born into wealth? Doesn’t mean anything


You were lucky


Or fortunate


You’re not superior


But so many of these people act that way


And so many others seem to think it’s right to treat them as though they were somehow better


Intellectually


Morally


Better


People that should have caps doffed to them by the lower classes


The ‘upstairs’ to our ‘downstairs’


It’s kind of what we’re brought up to believe 


Through fiction, through literature, through TV, that, somehow, ‘upstairs’ is better


‘Upstairs’ is filled with those who are there by right


And ‘downstairs’ is there to serve the master


It’s the English way


Always has been, always will be


Speak with an upper class accent?


You’re in charge


You speak ‘the Queen’s English’


You are an ‘English Gentleman’


We’re taught this -


- surreptitiously -


- when we learn about ‘Empire’ in school


How we - as a country - ‘ruled the waves’, ‘sailed the seas’, brought culture and education to the ‘dominions’


Dominions


The places we rule


The places we are sovereign over


I say ‘we’ but I’m not entirely sure who ‘we’ are


Anybody in this room ever felt sovereign over a place that they’d never seen?


Anybody ever felt that they held ‘dominion’ over other people’s lands?


Other people’s cultures?


Other people


No?


So, we’ve worked out that the ‘we’ we’re talking about, wasn’t us


It’s the people in charge, isn’t it?


And not the people we put in charge


Because - at the time of all this sea-sailing and wave-ruling - we didn’t get to put people in charge


In terms of the bigger picture, the bit where we get to choose who’s in charge of us is a relatively new development


We haven’t really had that much time to get our heads around that choosing


Which might be why so many of us keep getting it wrong


Might be why -


- even though we now get to choose who’s in charge -


- we keep putting in charge the people who would have been in charge anyway


And that’s not to say that you shouldn’t turn up at polling stations and put your ‘X’ in the box


It’s not, “doesn’t matter who you vote for because the government gets in anyway”


It’s not saying there’s no point


There’s always a point


It’s just asking why so many people seem to do it with so little thought as to how it’s all going to turn out


I don’t believe in England


Right. This is where I might seem a bit contradictory


But that’s okay, we’re all a bit contradictory


I don’t believe that any of us have belief systems that are one hundred per cent 

consistent


It’s possible to hold opposing views on the same subject


For instance:


I fully believe in the freedom of the press


I think there’s an absolute need for journalists to be able to expose wrongdoing in 

high places


More than that, I think there’s an obligation that they do that


But at the same time, I firmly believe that there are ‘newspapers’ so appalling, whose 

influence is so insidiously awful that they shouldn’t be allowed to publish


I can believe both these things with a passion


Does that make me a hypocrite?


I don’t know


I believe in freedom of speech


But I don’t believe your freedom of speech should be hateful


And I don’t believe that leaders of the Labour party should consort with those papers


I don’t believe that leaders of the Labour party should write for those papers


Yes, Mister Starmer, I’m looking at you


Yes, Mister Blair, I’m very definitely looking at you


I don’t think they’re the issue, though


Not necessarily


Although, let’s be honest again, there are certainly issues with Tony


And I’m far from convinced by ‘Sir’ Keir


- another thing I definitely don’t believe in:


The honours system


Not for people who don’t need it, not for people who already have success and some level  of privilege in their lives


For those that the government, that the bits of society I have real issue with, would describe as ‘the little people’


For those who’ve done some real good in their community


Honours for those. They’ve done something


Honours for public figures?


Being a public figure is an honour, what more do you need?


Bowie turned down a knight hood


I’m with Bowie


There’s a rule of thumb - if in doubt, what would Bowie do?


So, no knighthoods


What could be more outdated than the idea of being ‘a knight’?


Leave it in the middle ages where it belongs


No Lords, no Ladies, no Dukes, no Earls


They serve no purpose in the real world


And, speaking of serving no purpose in the real world:


During the lockdown


And yes, I know, nobody really wants to hear anything about the lockdown but we’ve kind of got to go there because it’s going to show us so much about everything else we need to cover


During the lockdown


What did the Queen do?


I mean, what did she actually do?


We know that she came into her garden to knight Captain Tom Moore


Now Captain Sir Tom Moore


Or Colonel? I’ve got a feeling he got a promotion as well?


Knighted him for raising Thirty million for the NHS


Which the government managed to completely negate by giving a hundred million to one of  their mates to supply protective equipment that wasn’t fit for use


But he still did it


He did it


He made the effort


Which is more than those who rule us did


And I know I literally just said that there should be no knights because it’s a  ridiculously antiquated system


But


If there’s anybody who genuinely deserves that title


To whom


(and that’s the correct way to use whom. Winds me up something wicked when people use the word to appear clever - just like Boris Johnson


And there’s another name we’ll return to again 


and again and again


Uses Latin to make it appear that he’s more educated


That he’s better)


To whom, that title would be important and valued


Then it’s him


It’s Captain Sir Tom


And I know nothing about him


Apart from what he did


Which is magnificent


His politics could be absolutely miles away from mine


That doesn’t matter


He did something


He did that


And the doing it mattered


The fact that this inept, incompetent - and in my humble, honest, true opinion - utterly criminal government wasted far more than the equivalent of what he raised


Doesn’t weaken what he did in any way, shape or form


It just illustrates how cheap and nasty they are


And there will be plenty more illustrations of that


That is what the honour system should be for


What it needs to be for


Ordinary people


Or extra-ordinary people


Because, let’s face it, that kind of behaviour is bloody extraordinary


Who’ve done something worthwhile


Who’ve done something that most of us haven’t


So, I don’t believe in the honours system


But I believe what he’s done deserves honouring


I don’t believe in the honours system but I have a family member


- If we’re being strictly accurate, he’s actually a member of my wife’s family but he’s great and I’m having him as my family member on many, many counts -


Who has an OBE


An OBE he was awarded for the work he’s done over a very long time keeping alive the memory  of some of the ‘pals’ brigades


- groups of friends who signed up for service in the first world war -

- a war that had no necessity -


- and there aren’t really many wars that have necessity -


- we’ll come to wars and their nature fairly soon, seeing as they help dictate the psyche of England, and we’re still, tenuously, talking about my lack of belief in England -


- groups of friends who were slaughtered in a savage, barbaric conflict because the men who were organising that war saw them as fodder


He’s keeping their memories alive


And their memories should be kept alive


It doesn’t matter what I think of the war they were killed in or the lack of reason for it


Those lads


Those pals


I believe in them


And, again, their politics, their ideals may be miles from mine but I will still believe in what they did


In what happened to them


Again, these are the places that we find contradictions and inconsistencies


I, as both Walt Whitman and Bob Dylan have observed, contain multitudes


We all contain multitudes


Every single one of us


Though some of us clearly choose not to employ large portions of those multitudes


Perhaps, in attacking some of those that I intend to attack here, there are portions of my own multitudes, my own contradictions, that I’m failing to fully engage with


The Queen, though


I was talking about the Queen


Before I sidetracked myself


Expect sidetracks


In case you haven’t already noticed, I don’t think in straight lines


I don’t believe the world works in straight lines


I don’t believe it’s that organised


Yes, there’s cause and effect but there are also interruptions, diversions, deviations


Sometimes you need to weave your way round the subject to get to the point


And there are so many options at every point


Earlier, when I said I would happily name names tonight, I could have named those names immediately


I could have said:


Farage


Johnson


Gove


Rees-Mogg


Hancock


That would have been linear


That would have followed directly from where I was


But that would have drawn me onto other subjects that I know I’ll need to work toward


Tommy Robinson


Priti Patel


Theresa May


David Cameron


You can’t move in straight lines with these names, these subjects


Every single one leads to so many of the others in some way


They’re a plurality


See? A comprehensive education and I’m able to use words of four syllables. Amazing, isn’t it?


I’d give you something in badly quoted out of context latin but there wasn’t a lot of call for latin in the late seventies in Fazakerley


No latin at Fazakerley Comp


History


They taught us history


And the teachers that taught us history, taught us well


Taught us well, what they were told to teach us


Taught us history as taught by this country


The history of England as taught by the English


A glorious history filled with conquest and empire and monarchs


As though these were genuinely glorious things


I don’t believe in England


I don’t believe in monarchs


The Queen


We were getting back to the Queen


Who, in the middle of lockdown, came out into her garden and knighted Captain Sir Tom Moore


Which I genuinely found to be a lovely moment


Again, if there were someone who deserved that, to whom it was valuable and important, then it’s him


And she could have passed the job on to one of the others


Something for Charles to do


That would be nice, wouldn’t it? 


Something for Charles to do


God knows, there hasn’t been much


All those years he’s been waiting to do a job that he knew he’d been born to do


All those years he’s been ‘trained’ to carry out this fairly non-specific role


All those years knowing that your life has one purpose and to fulfil that purpose you have to wait for your mother to die


It’s a bit weird, isn’t it? When you think about it?


So the Queen comes out into her garden and knights Captain Sir Tom Moore


And then goes back into…


… well, whichever one of her massive houses she was in at the time…


… isolating with twenty-five staff…


- and we don’t see her again


And that’s what the Queen did during lockdown


During a time of genuine, massive national crisis


With a government who are incompetent, inept and -


- in my personal, honest opinion -


criminal in their conduct and their neglect


The constitutional head of the country -


- and that constitutional part is really important because she genuinely doesn’t have  any real power -


- not power that she can actually wield -


- not power that could stop this government in its tracks, not power that could prevent Brexit wrecking the country she supposedly loves and serves


- makes a speech on the TV that says ‘this is all going to be a bit rough you know but we’ll meet again’ and then vanishes


Comes out, does a bit of knighting -


- again, valuable to Sir Tom and very lovely, delighted it happened for him -


Then vanishes back into thin air -


- or an insanely stately home -


- for the duration


Which begs the question:


What does the Queen do?


What does she actually do?


What is she for?


What is the monarchy for?


I think I know the answer on this one


And don’t give me the ‘she’s great for tourism’ bit


She’s no better for tourism than Alton Towers


Paris does okay for tourism


And the last time I looked they weren’t that up for kings and queens


I can honestly tell you this:

I’ve been in the Palace of Versailles


I have been a tourist in the Palace of Versailles


No Queen. No King


You don’t need monarchs to pull in the crowds


So, what’s she for? What is she?


A symbol of England?


I don’t believe in England


I don’t believe in England as a concept


I don’t believe in ‘Englishness’


I don’t know what it means


I know what people think it means


What some people think it means


Two world wars and one world cup


That kind of thing


That kind of Englishness


I don’t believe in that


I don’t know what it’s supposed to have to do with me


I’ve never felt a connection to the idea of ‘my country’


It just happens to be somewhere I was born


It doesn’t represent me


And, in fairness, I don’t represent it


Am I proud to be English? No. 


What a bizarre concept


And I’m asking that question as opposed to ‘Am I proud to be British’?


Being British means something else


Or should mean something else


It should mean a connection with the Scots, with the Irish, with the Welsh


But they don’t want us


Not most of them


And the Irish that want to be part of ‘Great’ Britain aren’t the Irish I feel any connection to 


The Irish that want nothing to do with England, nothing to do with ‘Great’ Britain, they’re the Irish I feel an affinity for


So, am I proud to be British?


No. I can’t be


Because ‘being British’ has been co-opted by those who are proudest of being English, the same ‘those’ that co-opted the flag and made it something that so many of us don’t want to be associated with, because being associated with it meant we were associated with them


Farage


Tommy Robinson


The Conservative Party


The Right


The ALT-right


Those that talk about the flag and the war and the blitz spirit while not understanding what any of that meant to those that actually lived it


Without paying any attention to the fact that those who had to live through that war, those that were born into that war, felt more European than those that were born later and knew nothing about it


Because they knew the value of Europe being more important, more solid, more safe as an  alliance of like minds


While we have to deal with people who ignore that ideal and cry about their love for their country as they stand in Trafalgar Square throwing nazi salutes and wearing their  swastika tattoos as some dubious badge of honour while they defend statues that they  don’t understand


The ‘football lads’ defending the statue of George Eliot in Nuneaton was a perfect example of that attitude


They know that people are defending statues


So they’re going to defend a statue


They’ve no idea who it is, but it’s a statue


I have a suspicion that they’ve not actually read Mill On The Floss


Neither have I, in fairness, but I’m not defending her statue


And -


- another thing on that -


The ‘football lads’


They decided to call themselves that 


Because it makes them seem more normal


More ‘just lads out on a Saturday who are like  me, like you, they’d be going the footy but they’ve got this statue to protect so they’ll do their duty’


I’m a football fan


I go the footy


Season ticket holder


- it doesn’t matter who for, we’re not here for tribalism, we’re here for the exact opposite of that


We’re here for plurality, for togetherness


There you go - four syllables again


Despite - or because of - seven years in Fazakerley Comp


Because you can be educated in state schools


There are teachers in those schools who are there because they believe in being there


Because they came from there and they want to make sure others come from there


And if we fund them properly, equally


If we fund all schools properly


Instead of giving priority to public schools through ‘charity registered’ tax breaks


Then we’d lift all of society


And all of society would benefit


And the economic safety and surety of the country would benefit


People with a better start in life


People with better prospects


People with more disposable income


Which they spend


It’s not rocket science is it?


It’s as though there were those with some class based societal reason for not allowing those with the least to advance themselves, isn’t it?


Because, perhaps, if you don’t educate people, then they don’t question their role in all of this and they remain completely subservient


And those at the top, stay at the top


And, because they’ve made sure there are parts of society who haven’t had the education that allows them to question what they’re being told, they simply don’t


Question it, that is


So they believe the voice that shouts loudest


The voice that has the simplest, three word,slogan


Get Brexit Done


Brexit means Brexit


Britain Deserves Better


Unleash Britain’s Potential


Phrases that don’t actually mean anything


But they sound deep


They sound sincere


Britain Deserves Better


Better than what?


Better than the party who had imposed a decade of austerity against the working class and WAS THE PARTY using that slogan


This is one of the keys


Remove the education that people deserve and they’re more likely to believe the thing that’s put in front of them


It’s all part of the trick


If they’re not questioning, if they’re accepting what they’re told, you can tell  them who to hate


You can tell them whose fault it is


Because it’s obviously not yours


And it’s not theirs


So, it must be somebody else’s


And you point them at the people that are easiest to blame


The people who just aren’t like them


And you use the hate you created to further your aims


Your ambitions


You know they should hate you


You’re well aware that it’s your party that’s put in place all the policies that created 

their hate


But that doesn’t matter


Because they don’t matter


Not to you


Their lives don’t matter


You’re not here to try and improve their lot in life


They’re here for you to use to improve yours


And you’re already way ahead to start with


So you’ve created this little army


Not directly, obviously


Just with a little nudge here and there


A poster


A slogan


A lie


And another and another and another


You won’t lead them


There are others who’ll lead them


Others who can see the chance for a profit


Others who want to be exactly like you


Want to be in your position


You obviously won’t allow that to happen


That’s your position


But you’ll let them believe that they can be you


For a while


While they’re useful


And they’ll make a little fortune


While they build your following for you


Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson, those people


That’s how you get your army of football lads


And the point I’d started to make was this:


I’m a football fan


Have been for a long time


These ‘football lads’ don’t represent me


Or anybody I’ve ever known


But they claim to


They claim to represent a part of Britain that’s not being represented


Once again, by Britain they mean England


Because they really don’t care about Scotland or Wales


And when it comes to the Irish?


Talk about Britain now, though


Talk about England and those are the people who all too readily leap to mind


I don’t believe in England


Not that England


Not the England of ‘taking back control’


And I know that’s not everybody


I know it’s a minority


But that minority colours the rest of us


There’s an England that’s possible to love


The England of beautiful countryside and music and poetry and prose


Of rolling hills and sandy beaches


That’s an England that gave things to the world


Instead of trampling its way across the globe, taking


It’s an England of cliche


And wonder


A place where marvels happen


A place that only seems to exist in imagined memory


But I’m sure it’s out there


And I’m talking about England


Not Britain


Not a larger Britain


And that’s part of the issue


The people I’m talking about, talk about Great Britain


- when their hearts mean England -


Without appreciating that the ‘great’ refers to the size, the added countries


They take the ‘great’ and believe it’s some ascribed ‘greatness’ some quality of  superiority


It isn’t


We just went out and behaved - all over the world - like it was


So, with all due respect to Scotland and Wales


- and Ireland, but there’s a sea between us so I’m more than happy to think of Ireland as a completely separate country


And I’m sure the majority of Ireland feel the same way


I mean, I’ve not done any research on that one


But… gut feeling


I love Scotland, Wales, Ireland


Beautiful places one and all


With beautiful people


Mostly beautiful people


Because everywhere has its idiots


We -


- the English -


- just have this terrible habit of putting ours in charge


So, all due respect and all that, but…


I’m just talking about England


Eventually all the others are going to make their own decisions and go their own way


Because, God knows, they didn’t ask for any of this mess we’re in


Not most of them anyway


The Scottish didn’t ask for the English government


The Scottish didn’t ask to kick themselves out of Europe


That’s the English


That’s all on the English


And not all the English


Just enough of them to make a difference in a vote


Fifty two per cent to forty eight


Exactly the margin that Nigel Farage


The man who did more to create all of this


- if you don’t mind the phrase -


- if you don’t mind a little Anglo Saxon


- which I’m sure Nigel won’t


- with his cheery pint of beer and a fag ‘bonhomie’


- French word there, sure he’d be offended even though he’s been more than happy to turn up for a job in Belgium and then not actually do any work


While raking in more than most of us will ever earn in our lives -


The man who did more to create all of this


Utter. Fucking. Shitshow


Than anybody else on the planet


Fifty two per cent to forty eight per cent


Exactly the margin that he said he’d take to the streets and demand a second referendum if his petty little fascism lost by


But his argument winning by that margin?


Will of the people


The people had spoken


Seventeen million people voted to leave the largest trading block in the world


Seventeen million out of an electorate of forty six million


Thirty seven per cent of those who could have a say


Not counting those who didn’t turn out to vote


Because if you don’t turn out you don’t get counted


Not counting those who were too young to vote


Because, despite the fact they were going to live their entire lives in the result


Those who were too young got no say in their own future


Thirty seven per cent of those who COULD vote


Decided the course of a country


On a vote that was only ever called because a pathetically weak Prime Minister 


Yes, David Cameron, I very definitely AM talking about you


Was worried that he’d lose some of his back benchers to UKIP


Because Nigel Farage


Who had NO MPs


AT ALL


Was tempting them over


Because they could see opportunity


And opportunity is more important than public service


And they could sense that a man with no MPs 


But access to any TV show he fancied being on


Because every researcher in the country knew he’d rock up and say something controversial


Something that would generate views


Generate clicks


So they gave him a voice


Thanks for that


He had EXACTLY as many MPs as I currently have


And you gave him a profile that he had no right to


And gave a minority of Tory MPs with a grudge a sense that he was the future


With his ‘I’m a man of the people waging a crusade against the liberal elite’ act


Apparently I


- With my two A levels from a comprehensive in North Liverpool


- And my work history that’s only seen my salary hit over thirty ‘k’ once


(And that was a long time ago)


- And my not exactly extensive public profile


Am the liberal elite


I’m the power in this country


And poor deprived Nigel


A privately educated merchant banker who hung out in golden elevators with Donald Trump


With a big figure M.E.P salary


THAT HE DID NO WORK FOR


Is the man of the people


He told people that


And they believed him


Believed he had their best interests at heart


Because they’d been left behind


Just like he said he’d been left behind


The only difference is…


They had


They’d been left behind by people exactly like him


But we’re living in a world where you can say anything


And, when it’s shown to be a lie, people just shrug and go:

“What you gonna do? They’re all the same, aren’t they?”


No. No, they’re not


Some of them offered us another chance of a vote


And I really thought the country would take it


Told people quite confidently:


“If there’s another referendum then ‘Stay’ is going to win by a landslide


We didn’t get another referendum


We got an election


And that election -


- basically -


- was our second referendum


Because that’s the way it was marketed


‘The Brexit Election’


It didn’t matter that one side


The side I believe in


The side I still believe in but worry about


Wanted to fight the election on the state of the entire country


What it was and what it could be


The other side just kept going:


“Get. Brexit. Done.”


And it didn’t matter that every time they claimed that the British people


- And we’re still really talking about the English people because those guys REALLY don’t care about the other parts of their absolutely dis-united kingdom of ours -


- deserved better than what they were living through


THEY were the party who’d created what the British people were living through


Because nobody questioned it


Because, whenever a question was asked of the overweight, untidy, idiot at the head of the party


A man so lacking in dignity and class that there is no expensive suit that he can’t make look cheap


He would simply regurgitate his “Get. Brexit. Done” mantra


Didn’t matter what the question was:


“Get. Brexit. Done”


‘Mister Johnson, look at this photo of this child lying in a hospital corridor’


Refuses to look


“Get. Brexit. Done”


‘Mister Johnson. Look at the picture’


Steals reporter’s phone


“Get. Brexit. Done”


Is that the Prime Minister hiding in a fridge?


Get. Brexit. Done


And they walked it


Won by a landslide


Destroyed us


The question then is:


Is it me that’s wrong?


If the rest of this country- and, again, as ever, I’m talking about  England - most of Scotland were sound, couple of Tories up there -


- Wales got a fair bit right but there are those constituencies that border on English  heartland territory that seemed to adopt their neighbours’ ideals -


- and Ireland had a bit too much D.U.P for my liking


ANY D.U.P is too much D.U.P for my liking


Buying their loyalty was all that kept Theresa May in power for her brief interruption of history


And that takes us back to Cameron, doesn’t it?


Gets up the morning after the Brexit vote


Which he never needed to call


Looks at the result, sighs, goes, “Yes, well, this is all yours now” and walks into the distance


Within the hour Farage has sat on a TV couch again and harrumphed:


“Well, that £350 million a week for the NHS wasn’t anything to do with me”


And walks into an unfortunately temporary retirement


Johnson bales because Gove’s stabbing him in the back by standing for the job he thought he was walking into


Then Gove’s gone because everyone’s realised that he’s a backstabbing piece of…


… fill in your own blanks on that one, I’m trying really hard not to swear


It lowers the tone of the discourse


But. Jesus. These odious little people don’t half make you want to lean heavily on profanity


Sometimes you have no choice but to go:


Sod the discourse


But that’s going back to the previous election


And we’d got as far as last time


And the country had turned blue


‘The country’ being England


As ever


And I looked at that map


And all the blue


And I still look at that map


And all the blue


And I thought, and I think


Is it me that’s wrong?


Am I that wrong?


In my belief that the best thing we can do in life is make sure that everybody’s alright?


That everybody gets a chance to be happy and safe?


Am I wrong to think that?


Because all these people here, all these little blue areas, seem to think very much otherwise


The people of England seem not to believe the things I was brought up to believe


Honestly, there’s a version of England that I’d love to love, that I’d love to believe in


Remember the Olympics?


Twenty-twelve. London


I’m not interested in the Olympics


I’m a simple lad, if it’s not football, then why bother?


But I sat and watched the opening ceremony


And it made me think


Despite the fact that I’ve never


Ever


Felt particularly English


That England was an incredible place


I didn’t realise at the time that it was actually a requiem for the dream of a wonderful creative caring country that we were about to lose forever


And obviously it wasn’t designed that way


It was designed to remind us of what we all are


Collectively


Designed to remind us of everything we’ve created


Of everything we have in common


Of everything we can be.


And we can still be that


There are still enough of us


Those blocks of blue?


That doesn’t mean every single one of us 


That just means a majority of those who voted, voted that way


There are others


There are others like us


Like me, that is, I can’t speak for you


Though, if you’ve made it this far then the likelihood is that we’re agreeing on a lot here


There are others like us


There have to be


Which means, somewhere in all that blue, there are the remnants of an England I could believe in


I don’t believe in England


I never really have


I don’t understand patriotism


It’s just a place that your wandering soul happened to be born in


You could have been born anywhere


Saying all that…


Right, this is where one of my contradictions comes in


Call this a double standard if you want


It’d be hard to argue


It’s one of those, many, many, inconsistencies in my beliefs that I’ve already admitted to


I’m proud of the city that I come from


I believe in the city of my birth


I believe in its people


And I know, I know that my birth here is random


I’ve got no more control over where I come from than anyone else


The Queen


Nigel Farage


Anyone


And where I come from obviously informs who I am


Informs who everybody is, wherever they’re from


Which means that being English also informs who I am

 

That’s unavoidable


And what’s informed by that might be a reaction to everything that being English means


Because, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t believe in England


But its influence is still there


This place, though?


This place informs me


Explains me


And I don’t mean that in a ‘Scouse, not English’ way


Though I’m happy to believe that idea


Obviously


If all this…


- all this rhetoric


- all this value system I’ve built up


- all these deeply held beliefs


were built on a simple three word slogan


Which is what ‘Scouse, not English’ is, even if we haven’t noticed it


- something as snappy as ‘Get Brexit Done’


- a piece of marketing


- even if we didn’t intend it that way


- even if we intended it as an act of defiance against a country that none of us believe in


Which is exactly what it is


It wouldn’t sum up what I’m trying to say


And it wouldn’t resonate with those from Manchester and London and Newcastle and  Birmingham who all feel the same lack of Englishness as I do


As we do


Because they’re there


You know they’re there


And you know they have more in common with us than with what we’ll call, for the sake of ease, ‘the English’


The second I use the phrase, ‘Scouse not English’, I’m excluding people


Because there are almost undoubtedly a large number of people who feel ‘not English’


We’re here for inclusion of those people


We’re here for inclusion of anybody who needs to feel included


We’re here for showing that there are so many out there who feel excluded from a vision of England that we, that they, didn’t ask for


That was imposed on us all by others


A vision of England that was hijacked by a minority who portray themselves as a majority and insist that they represent ‘the voice of the people’, ‘the will of the people’


But, weirdly, have no desire to ask the people if they still feel the same way now they know a bit more detail on the fictions they were fed


The fiction of ‘Sunny Uplands’


The fiction of ‘the easiest deal ever made’


The fiction of ‘an oven ready deal’


From a man hiding in a fridge


There are many things that make me proud of being from the area I belong to


The area I believe in


The area of my precise accident of birth


I wasn’t born to riches and privilege


I was more fortunate than that


I was born to culture and heritage


A heritage of creation


A culture of defiance


A heritage - generally - of acceptance


And, yes, historically and, we have to admit it, presently:


We have issues


We’ve had sectarianism


We’ve had racism


And I’ve friends who will point to the fact that both are still there


Racism and sectarianism


In all their forms


I, personally, like to believe that we’re better than that


But I’ve not had to experience those issues


I am most easily described as ‘white English’


Though I’m obviously not happy to identify with the latter


Because of all the complications with the term that I’ve outlined so far


And the fact of being simply an accident of birth


As is, very obviously, the former - the colour of my skin


A fact that seems to elude so many


But those two things combined?


They make life easier for you


No matter how difficult you believe life can be


If you have any degree of understanding


Of compassion for others


Of, as we’ve said, love for others


Others you’ve met, others you haven’t


Then you know


Absolutely know


That not being ‘White, English, white British’


Makes life a lot harder than it needs to be


Just to start off with


We have issues 


As a city


As that’s what I’m talking about immediately


As a place


And we have to admit our issues


That’s how we move forward


We have moved forward


But we can move further forward


And, if we as a city can admit these issues and attempt to tackle them, then surely that means that the country could possibly do the same?


And, maybe, build an England I could believe in?


We could believe in


The things I’m proud of in this place, then


The things I believe in about this place


First, it’s the things we’ve given to the world


The music, the football, the theatre, the poetry, the humour, the language, the joy in a good night out


The fact that we’ll stand up against whatever needs standing against


Thatcher


We stood against Thatcher


Publicly


When she needed to be stood against


And God knows she needed to be stood against


We’re still paying for the havoc she wrought


- Just like our children will be paying for the havoc wrought by Johnson, Gove, Farage, May and their ridiculous decisions 


Thatcher. Telling everybody that they could be shareholders


That they could aspire to richness


When all she ever intended was that they sell on these shares in THINGS WE ALREADY OWNED at a small profit


So that her mates


Who were happy to play the long game


The decades long long game


Could make a fortune


Because YOU are not supposed to become part of them


Don’t kid yourselves


They don’t want you


THEY are the English


They’re the people I’m talking about


Them and the people they convince


They’re the English


Here you go, London


You can buy your own homes


Your council homes


They can be yours


Which is fantastic, obviously


Everybody should have the chance to own their own home


IF that’s what she intended


It wasn’t


Thirty years on


Thirty years after her own party had kicked her out of Number Ten because she’d outlived her usefulness to them


And suddenly nobody can afford to live in London


Other than Russian billionaires


And we didn’t know that long game was there


But we knew it, if you know what I mean


We knew her. We knew what she was


The kindest word for what she was, being ‘evil’


There are many more


So we stood against her


Because we knew her


You know what else we know?


And this, as far as I’m concerned, is the most important thing you can possibly know


We know - absolutely know - that we’re not English


Which may sound like I’m repeating myself


But I’m not


We know we’re not English in that we know we don’t come from England


WE, the very specific ‘we’, here in this room


May come from here


May have been born here


But this isn’t where we’re from


Nobody’s from England


Nobody. At all


Everybody has little slices of ‘other’ in their make up


Me? I’m from Bootle via Fazakerley (eventually via Hull and Leeds and then back to Bootle)


But that’s not where I’m from


That’s not where my blood comes from


I’m an immigrant


We’re all immigrants here


Here in this city


And here in this country


We know the value of the immigrant


Because we know, without immigrants we wouldn’t be here


On my mother’s side?


Part German Jewish. Here from Hamburg around the turn of the last century


Part Irish


The German side anglicised their name to something you’d expect to be Irish 


My dad’s side?

Possibly some Welsh, possibly some Scottish


Definitely some Irish


And a surprisingly large slice of Salford


That came as a shock, but there you go


We’re all from somewhere else


My wife?


Her family has part Irish, part Portuguese heritage


So, our children - part Irish, Welsh, Scottish, German, Portuguese


Born here


Made of immigrants


Like everyone in this country


Nigel Farage?

German great-great grandparents


That’s where he comes from


Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson?


Apart from the fact there’s a clue in the name


English parents


But born in New York


From somewhere else


Everybody comes from somewhere else, has somewhere else in them


Some of us realise this more than others


Some of us appreciate this


Some of us celebrate it


One of my wife’s great great great - I’ve never worked out how many greats there need to be - grandfathers was a Portuguese sailor, name of Rodrigues


He started a family with an Irish girl


Despite the fact that neither spoke the other’s native tongue


Nor any common language


But they made it happen


He died saving the lives of a crew shipwrecked in the bay


He came here, made his life, gave his life


He was an immigrant


And that’s what immigrants do


They make lives, and they make lives better


They enrich our experience by being here


And we, as a city, as a place, by and large, know this


We’ve spent centuries looking out to other shores


Feeling linked


Feeling part of something bigger


Knowing we come from somewhere bigger


Europe at our backs


America ahead of us


With a river and a sea to take us somewhere


So, when I look at the map of this country


The electoral map, that is, electoral and Brexit-al


I can see the places whose votes were out of step with the masses


And it’s us


In a mass of blue, we’re red


In a mass of ‘out’, we’re ‘in’


Us, Manchester, London, Newcastle, the bottom end of Wales and a few scattered outposts in the middle


That’s why I’m not talking about ‘Scouse, Not English’


I’m with London 


I’m with Newcastle


I’m with Manchester


And not just because of those Salford roots


It’s the rest of England I don’t get


I look at that map, that heavily blue electoral map


And I ask


Is it us that’s wrong?


The ‘us’ here, the ‘us’ in Manchester, in London, in the North East


‘Are we the baddies?’ and all that

I know we’re not


I know it’s not us


I know that


I know, when it came to the big questions


When it came to the questions that affect people’s lives


Our lives, the lives of others, the lives of so many


We answered correctly


Others didn’t


And part of me -


- and let’s be honest, again -


It’s a very large part of me


Feels let down by them


Is angered by them


I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that


Some of those people voted out of selfishness


Voted because they could see the hate behind the slogans, and liked that hate


Felt that that hate appealed to something in them that they’d had to bury and now felt they were free to express without any recrimination


Felt that they were right


Some voted because of that


And some didn’t.


Some voted for the loudest voices with the snappiest slogans because they felt let down


Felt left behind


And those voices offered solutions


Offered solutions and pointed at the people who were to blame for what they felt


Who were to blame for them being left behind by life


Not the government who’d been in power for the best - or worst - part of a decade


Why would they point the finger at those?


Many of the people showing those left behind where the blame lay were that government


Others were useful to that government


And some of those who were useful to the government knew it


Why do you think, every time there’s a story damning to the government, Nigel Farage rocks up on a  beach somewhere pointing at eight people who’ve risked their lives to get to a country they hope will give them a chance


- Just like my ancestors


- Like your ancestors


- Like HIS ancestors


And starts talking about an ‘invasion’


Coincidence?


Yeah, right


Somebody more cynical than I, would think that he is VERY aware of how useful he’s being

And that he’s VERY VERY aware that it keeps his profile in full view


And that next time there’s an election, he can reluctantly re-enter politics


Set up a party to ‘stand in every seat’, charge people to stand as an MP for him


And then pull so very many of them out of the election


Anybody know how the refunds went on that one?


We could bring the lights up at this point, and all google it together


But I’ve done it for you


Top results? Pieces in the Telegraph, that bastion of the liberal left, reporting that he has no intention of refunding those candidates


We could all check the Brexit party’s website


Which points out that they are still here, and need to be the conscience of the government to make sure they get the Brexit they voted for


Despite the fact the party didn’t exist at the time of the referendum


Nige was still leading UKIP back then


Remember? That morning after, when he rocked up on TV, pushed away the burning shopping trolley that he’d - 


- metaphorically -


Set alight


And ran as far as he could?


Before ‘reluctantly’ engaging with the world once again


But not having the guts to stand for office, because he knew what would happen - again.


He’s still there


Still there as ‘a conscience’


Asking for donations to help him in his crusade against this invasion he’s decided is happening


And while we’re talking about people of dubious intent taking up politics as a well paid career:


Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon


The artist formerly known as ‘Tommy Robbo’


A 'genuine man of the people'


There to ensure that England remains English


And ensure that people like me, people possibly like you


Can’t believe in England


Not on Tommy Robbo’s terms


A man who came to Bootle


And remember, I’m a Bootle lad


To try and convert us all to his way of thinking


Trust me, Bootle’s been left behind, Bootle has its issues


None of which are to be resolved by nasty little racists with a profit margin to look  after


Tommy - Ste, let’s call him Ste - has done okay for himself


Nice house, good clothes, expensive watches, fast cars


A man who changed his name to that of an ex-leader of a notorious football ‘crew’ who  followed Luton so he could appear more working class


Changed his name so that nobody would spot the three jail sentences he’d already served -


- one for assault


- one for mortgage fraud


- and, hilariously, one for attempted illegal immigration into the US


 *Those are the facts*


And found a little business sourcing donations for his ‘journalism’


Before going down again in a case of contempt of court that anybody who actually WAS a  journalist would have known was blatantly breaking the law


And endangering a trial he claimed to be passionate about


That change of name, that distortion of the facts is vital to all this


Emblematic of everything we’re talking about


Emblematic of this systemic deception


This man came to Bootle


Because he thought we’d feel left behind in the way that others he’d convinced felt it


He didn’t understand us


We may have felt forgotten, felt left behind


But we’d felt that for forty years


Because of Thatcher


He came. He left. Quickly


Like the other fascists that tried to have their little demonstrations in our city


Who hid in left luggage lockers

Who were chased home with the Benny Hill theme playing in their ears


Because we know fascists when we see them


We know racists


And - 


- again, in general because we know there are still pockets that we have to deal with


- I mean, that other UKIP leader came from here


- came from Bootle in fact


The one whose name I can never remember


The one who had a lot of interesting entries in his CV


Most of which seemed to have possibly not actually happened


The one who looked like Eddie Hitler


From ‘Bottom’


(thinks)


Paul Nuttall


How could I forget?


Paul Nuttals of the UKIPs


If you know what I’m talking about, you know


If not, ask a mate


Anyway.


He was one of ours. But not


He proves we have racists and fascists amongst us


And we need to make sure they know that they are not us


That we are better than that


We stand against the fascists, against the racists


We’ve been doing that since before Churchill trained his guns on our dockers for having the temerity, the audacity, to withdraw their labour


Every working man’s absolute inalienable right


Tommy Robinson and his mates


Worship Churchill. Defend his statue


But carry the ideals of those Churchill was fighting against


Even though Churchill was a massive racist himself


Complicated isn’t it?


I think there’s a basic concept when it comes to Churchill:


If you want to win a war, you need a bastard in charge


Then, once the war’s won, vote the bastard out and bring socialism in to create a better country for those coming back. Those who’ve done enough to deserve a better life


We were going to talk war, weren’t we?


I said so, back when I was talking about the pal’s regiments and our family member who now has the OBE for keeping their memory alive


Here’s my thought on wars, then


My honest opinion


There are no just wars


No justified wars


The second world war becomes a justified war


But it doesn’t start that way


It becomes justified through us finding out exactly what the Nazis had done


We don’t go into the war because we know what they’re doing


We don’t know, at that point, exactly what they’re capable of


That only becomes truly apparent later on


That’s when the war becomes just


When it starts? It’s about expansionism


It’s about the fact that all the appeasement they’d offered Hitler hadn’t worked


And there’s plenty of appeasement offered


Even while his stance on hating an entire race is kind of known


It’s when he invades Poland that war happens


And then it goes on to become necessary


Nobody could ever argue it wasn’t necessary


But the necessity is due to what we then find out


So, you’ve got all these ‘soccer lads’ at parliament protecting statues of Churchill  while, to a very large part, indulging in hate of others who aren’t like them


Missing the point of what made the war justified


The behaviour of people with mindsets like theirs


And talking about how Churchill won the war with no education to the role of the Russians.


Winning the war was more complicated than plucky Britain -


- and again, when they say Britain, they mean England -


- standing alone against the foe


Alone gave us nothing


Allies gave us everything


Alliances are always everything


Teaching people that is the hard part


Because studying history -


- in order to ensure that you don’t repeat it -


- takes time


Takes an eye for detail


People don’t want detail


They want surface


They want headlines


They want easy to digest soundbites


Nobody wants to be challenged


In fairness, nor do I


I have a worldview


You may have noticed


And I want others to share that worldview


That worldview, in simple terms, being:


This world’s really quite a small place and we’re not here very long, maybe being nice to everybody would make the whole experience better for us all?

I know. Naive. You may say I’m a dreamer and all that


I’ve written stuff about that in the past


‘I’ being the ‘I’ that’s writing this


The ‘I’ whose voice I’m adopting


Which begs the question:


“If I’m just voicing the opinions of another, can you trust that I believe what I’m saying?”


Yes. Yes, you can


If I didn’t then I wouldn’t be standing here doing this


I wouldn’t have taken the time to learn all this


It’s not like, in the new, brutally just past Covid world, there’s any money in this


Nobody’s getting to be a millionaire by writing eighty page polemicals


-We’re on page fifty two right now if you were wondering


And, yes, to answer your next question, this bit clearly is the bit where the writer  indulges in a little bit of meta-textuality just to amuse himself


And that’s the other half of the first answer:


If I didn’t believe all this, do you think the writer would give me it to play with?


How do you know you can trust us?


Him and me?


Simple


We’re taking the time to explain ourselves at length


And we know you’re willing to get this because you’re taking the time to listen


And that’s the problem, isn’t it?


Nobody takes the time to demand full explanations


Everybody wants the message short, snappy, concise


Get. Brexit. Done


We’re a generation -


- several generations -


With a short attention span


We’ve been broken by Facebook and Twitter


In so many ways


Facebook took our details and sold them to a grubby little company -


- Cambridge Analytica in case you were wondering -


- who used those details to build targeted advertising for right wing campaign groups


Like those who wanted to Get. Brexit. Done


So they could run posts that weren’t quite adverts and would only reach those who’d be  susceptible to the messaging


So they could get their lies out to as many people who might buy them without question


Except we don’t use the word lies anymore, do we?


No we call it ‘disinformation’


There was a report that found that “the Conservative Party had used disinformation  ‘with a new level of impunity’ during the twenty-nineteen general election”


The Independent. Twenty-third of August twenty-twenty in case you want to check that out


You could check The Mail as well, if you like, The Express, The Telegraph, that other rag that we don’t mention


But let’s be honest, they’re not running that report


Because they’re part of the disinformation


They’re part of getting the Conservative party in charge


Because it works for them


For their billionaire, offshore account, tax haven owners. With their expensive, and  innovative, accountants


According to this report, eighty-eight per cent of the most shared Tory online adverts that ran in the days before the election contained ‘misleading information’


Labour? They did it as well. Six point seven per cent of theirs


Eighty-eight per cent, though


Let’s use a clearer term for this


Nearly all of the Tory online ads that people saw the most, contained lies


That’s the report


And the most shocking thing is:


We knew


We all knew


All of us who were anti-Tory knew


And I’d guess a fair proportion of their own voters noticed it as well


And just didn’t care


Lies get told


Nobody cares


And they vote for the liars because - that’s just politics isn’t it? They’re all liars


No. They’re not


Though, as we’ve just established, and as the reports that pointed out that there were  figures in the Labour party briefing against their own leader in twenty-seventeen -


- when we came closest to actually having a socialist government -


- there are definitely liars in the Labour Party as well


It’s just that their lies aren’t as effective


Aren’t as successful


The lie is the thing


The lie and the public willingness to accept the lie


Alongside the need to keep everything concise

Facebook took our details, our thoughts, our identities and desires -


- through the very simple auspice of quizzes such as “which Beatles album are you?”


- I was Revolver, obviously


- and gave them to analysts to use agents us


While Twitter? Twitter convinced us that anything worth saying could be said in two  hundred and eighty characters


After we’d pushed them up from one-forty


Or was it us that pushed them?


Might it have been people with more to gain?


The lie is the easy thing


A simple lie, loudly shouted


Point people at the things you want them to believe and say something massive


That’ll get more attention than the truth


Because the truth needs conversation, needs detail, needs nuance


And a world that lives each day in two hundred and eighty characters isn’t really up for nuance


Even a lie that makes you look stupid is better than having to give detail that could be questioned


So Boris -


- and that’s part of the issue, people calling him Boris; it makes him sound friendly and comical -


Boris is a good laugh, he’s a guy who bumbles


He’s not a dangerous politician who, in his former life as a journalist was sacked by one paper for making up stories and forced into admitting on TV that he’d happily have arranged to have a journalist beaten up for a friend


Google Darius Guppy if, by some chance, you’d missed that one


So: bumble, waffle, mess your hair up, quote latin


You’re a bit daft but harmless


Spoiler: he’s not harmless


You’ve probably noticed this by now


Useless. But not harmless


Dangerous in the fact that job that he’s always wanted, the job he believes he was born for, is one that he is completely unsuited for


Almost uniquely unsuited for


He’s clearly incompetent


Definitely a liar


We know that from his sacking for making up stories for his employer


Reputedly lazy - have you ever seen a politician take this many holidays


Apparently not particularly bright


- and if you don’t believe the people in the foreign office who highlighted that he wasn’t briefed on difficult subjects because he didn’t understand them, then believe the people who taught him at his very expensive school and described him as the worst scholar they’d ever had


And all this was very obvious all the way through the Brexit campaign


For which, we know, he wrote two articles outlining his stance:


One for out, one for in


And, as ever, waited until he was sure which one would be most advantageous before pressing send


And everyone knows this and he gets away with it


Because it’s just ‘Boris being Boris’


The wacky, zany, bumbling posh bloke with the funny hair and the odd way of speaking


The ‘master orator’ who can’t string a sentence together off script


Whose every interview revolves around a simple tactic of not really saying anything until he can drag the answer to any question round to his prepared script


Get. Brexit. Done


And ignoring any attempt from interviewers to pull an actual answer from him


Just Boris being Boris


But Boris being Boris is an act


A carefully calculated act designed to blind us to who he really is


Think about the buses


Think about the weird interview where somebody asked him - in order to get some kind of personal angle on the real him - if he had any hobbies


And he went on this weird ramble about how he liked to paint buses


Liked to take old wooden boxes and paint them to look like London buses


Paint the people in the windows looking happy to be on their buses


And everybody went, “This is a bit weird, he’s mad, isn’t he?”


If you googled ‘Boris, bus’ - as we all do if we want to know anything any longer -


Then you’d get that interview


And you’d think, at the very least, ‘our Prime  Minister’s a idiot’


What you wouldn’t get is a photo of Boris Johnson standing in front of a bus with a  massive promise on the side to give three hundred and fifty million a week to the NHS


Because that’s slipped down the searches


That’s on another page


And we don’t look at the other pages


We’re all conditioned to look at the first thing we see and accept it


Job done


The comedy Boris is more acceptable than the dangerous Boris, the one who makes up stories for a paper and offers to help a friend have a journalist beaten up


Those are facts


Well established facts


You wouldn’t elect that man


The comedy one, though?


The clown?


He’s electable


Because he’s funny and he’s just Boris being Boris


And he’s well educated. He went to a posh school


There’s a difference between going to a posh school and being well educated


They are definitely not the same thing


But we - as a nation - are conditioned to believe that somebody who’s posh and rich and went to a good school, is better than us


Is more than us


Again, one massive reason I don’t believe in England


People believe the image


Even in the middle of the worst health crisis we’ve ever seen -


- with all the evidence that has piled up to show that this man may, just may be utterly useless at his job in a way that’s pretty much without precedent


People still plan to vote for him


And I thought - possibly misguidedly - that the Labour party electing a really centrist leader would mean they would be more electable to the middle of England


To the people who were happy to vote for Tony Blair but not for anybody anywhere to the left of him


Let’s detour for a second here:


Blair


It ends in horror, obviously


Ends with a war that should never have happened


But there were people -


- myself included -


- that believed that if Blair was willing to go into this war then he must have reason


Must have evidence


He didn’t


As we all know


He supported an American president who, at the time, seemed the worst possible candidate for his post but now looks like a genuine statesman in comparison to the current idiot-stroke- incumbent


And he cost lives


Many, many lives


And destabilised a region


A fact that we’ll spend the rest of our lives dealing with


The start of his time in office though?


The start had been glorious


The start was about reversing Thatcherism


And Majorism - if that was ever really a thing

Additional sidebar here -


- I don’t know if it’s to do with ageing, and possibly mellowing with age, or with the  changing face of politics but:


The second you find yourself looking at interviews and regarding John Major and Michael Heseltine as being on the side of the angels -


- you know something went weird somewhere


But the early days of Tony Blair?


Did everything right. Pretty much


Concentrated on making a better world for the people that Thatcher had left behind


Obviously built bridges with business and banking that ended up with some catastrophic  results


But, generally, positive action


The country improved for a while


Everything felt better


You can’t see the end while you’re in it


And I bought the lie about the need for war


I apologise for that


I was wrong


It would be easy to stand here and say I was against it, I campaigned


I didn’t


And, in fairness, the writer can quite happily  say that, if the actor disagrees with that sentiment


If the actor was against that appalling illegal war


If they were more informed, more alert, than the writer


Then they should just stick their hand up and let everybody know


So we all know where we stand


The writer though?


The writer was wrong


And that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to stand here and lambast those who bought the lie


Because, in the past, I bought the lie.


Corbyn, then


I believed in his policies


All of them


I wasn’t sure if he was electable


Twenty- seventeen and that lift in the vote?


That made me think he might be


And, last year, for the first time, I got my feet on the ground and, on the day of the  election, I went and knocked on doors


In a town that had been Tory


Which went back to being Tory.


I was wrong


Everything the press had told the world about Corbyn had got through, had convinced them


I can’t talk about the anti-semitism claims


I don’t know enough about the subject to talk about them with any knowledge, with any ease


I need to educate myself


I have friends who believe them, and show good reason to believe them


I have friends who think them nonsense, and show good reason to think them nonsense


I tend to the latter


But I don’t know


I don’t know where the truth is in this


I hope I’m right


I find it difficult to believe that anybody on ‘our’ side of history harbours hate for a single other soul because of the random nature of birth, because of ethnicity or belief


I don’t get that. That’s not what we’re about


It never has been


We’re the good guys


But there are Conservative supporters who will say the same thing


They believe they’re the good guys


Everybody considers themselves to be the hero of their own story.


Nobody thinks they’re wrong.


Look at the worst people in history. They believed they were right


There are things I find hard to believe


And there are things I find easy to believe


I find it hard to believe that Jeremy Corbyn could hold hate for people


While I find it easy to believe the worst of Boris Johnson


So. Which parts are the lie?


Because there’s definitely a lie


Either 'they' lied or 'we' lied


The lie is easy to believe


I know this, I’ve believed in lies


This is why I don’t want to criticise those that bought the lie


I have bought the lie


A different lie, but still a lie


I think of myself as a reasonable person


But so do most of those who voted Tory


The red wall that turned blue


The children of miners who voted for their old enemy


They believe themselves to be reasonable


Fair minded


The fact that a Labour leader


 - who I no longer believe will be the path forward, no longer believe that his centrism will bring the country round


- because they Are. Not. Coming. Round


- even as an incompetent government watches thousands die through their inability to govern during an, admittedly, unprecedented pandemic


- the country -


- and, again, as ever, we’re talking England


-just won't believe in Labour


- just as I just won’t believe in England


The fact this Labour leader - who isn’t making much difference that I can see - writes a column for the Daily Mail appals me


But those that read the Mail? They consider themselves to be reasonable people


It doesn’t matter what we think of the paper - or papers - they read


They, the readers, believe they’re reasonable


And we need to believe that they’re reasonable


Because we need to reach out


There are lies out there


They believe we have the lies, we believe they bought the lies


Because the lie is easy to buy


Easy to believe


And generally more entertaining


This is where we are now


You can say anything you like. And get away with it


Everybody knows people are lying


They expect it, they believe that everyone does it so why worry?


Believe everything’s a lie


That’s the point where even the truth becomes a lie


Because people won’t believe it


The truth requires nuance, requires detail, requires thought, consideration 


While a lie just needs a big statement


You look at Brexit and you say:


This is appalling for the entire country


This will damage the economy beyond repair


We’re depriving ourselves of access to our biggest trading partner


And people say


‘We’re taking back control. We want to be able to make our own laws, why should Brussels make our laws?’


Taking Back Control


The three word slogan again


Taking it from who?


Giving it to who?


It’s not going to the people who voted for it. It was never meant for them


‘We’re better off out’

But nobody can say why or how


Just that ‘we’re better off out’


People believe the headline


‘There’ll be lorry parks at Dover’, we say


‘There’ll be food shortages’


‘What about the nuclear medicine agreement?’


And they reply, ‘Project Fear’


Then watch, two years later, as the evidence sits there


While the people who negotiated the agreement to leave the EU


- which was going to be ‘the greatest, simplest deal that’s ever been made’


- complain that they’ve been forced into a bad deal because of the other side


Ignoring the fact that it’s the deal they negotiated


Which was already worse than the one Theresa May negotiated


Which these self same people who now hate their own inferior deal voted down. Repeatedly


They blame those of us who lost the vote


Blame us for slowing everything down, for blocking their ideals


Even though we have literally no power. 


Whatsoever 


So we head for the exact No-Deal that certain sections of the Tory party always saw as more advantageous for themselves


The right. They win and still complain


And accuse us of complaining


“You lost, get over it”


It’s not about getting over losing a point


It’s about trying to ensure the country our children were born in remains a place they want to live


A place they could believe in


A place with a future that they can live in. Live in and prosper


Instead we have a government whose big idea was to depend on trade deals with America


Just as America elected the most insular president of all time


And that president is a salient example of the fact that you can say anything you want and get away with it


A massive lie about your opponents, a horrible truth about yourself, lies about your own ability


With, as we mentioned earlier, impunity


An American president that openly mocked a reporter with a physical disability


A president that boasted about his appalling attitude to women and described far right  activists as ‘fine people’


With impunity


A man who was at the front of coining a new term:


‘Antifa’


You can’t criticise people for being opposed to fascism


So you contract the name a little, portray it as a political entity


Then portray yourself as being persecuted by these ‘antifa’ activists


Hint: If you’re against those who are against fascists then it’s very likely that you’re a fascist


But you can put a name on something, tell people it was always like this and just move on


Say the most outrageous thing you can think of


Deny, deny, deny


And then world moves on


That’s how you get Farage claiming that his party had secured Brexit “without a shot being fired”


Two weeks after Jo Cox was murdered


And there’s no lasting recrimination


Because you’re allowed to say these things now


You’re allowed to say anything and everybody either believes it or just accepts it


Every day there’s another one to deal with 


We don’t have time to process what’s wrong with this lie, this outrage, this mistake, before the next one arrives


And this year’s just exacerbated all that


A government that doesn’t react to a totally unprecedented medical crisis


I’ll be honest, I underestimated Covid


I was of the ‘it’s just flu, isn’t it?’ school


I was wrong


Luckily for all of us, it’s not my job to be right about things like this


The experts? They’re supposed to get this right


Other countries’ experts got it right. Ours didn’t


Those that got it right? Generally countries run by women


Countries that got it wrong? Disastrously wrong?


Us. The States. Brazil. 


Countries run by entitled white men


Who then try to convince us that they’re doing a great job


Make claims that they’ve made efforts that we know they haven’t


Count a pair of gloves as two items, count two tests on the same patient as two tests


And when the truth is obvious about these lies


There are just more lies, so you lose track of the last lot


Dominic Cummings


There’s a name we haven’t played with yet


But should, as he’s taking every aspect of government under his greasy little wing


He breaks lockdown


And we all know the stories he used


Wife was getting sick, thought he might get sick, so drove to the other end of the country so his child could be looked after


Just like every other responsible parent didn't


We don’t really need to rehash every single excuse he pulled out of the hat


But


He’s nearly getting away with it until he pulls out his trip to the castle to ‘test his eyesight’


That one little lie too far because he knows he can


Because he’s decided he’s better than us


But we had him now


We protest. Loudly. And for a long time


And in the end?


Nothing happens


Other than some more people he knows receive multi-million pound contracts to carry out work they’re not capable of


We invent track and trace systems that cost millions and fail spectacularly


I say ‘we’ but it wasn’t me


I couldn’t invent a track and trace programme


Which means I’m as suited to the job as the people who made millions from it


You’d think that would be a crisis


You’d think many things would be a crisis


Think that the PM might return from his happy families photo opp 'camping' holiday to some pressing matters


Possibly having to defend the death toll that the country has suffered under his guidance?


Possibly answering questions on how an algorithm created by his government downgraded  the results of exams that couldn’t be taken from the teachers’ assessments of pupil  ability to something more suitable for theparty that loved austerity?


How forty percent of exam results dropped by at least a grade, with that forty percent falling squarely in areas where there was less wealth

How Eton’s results stayed as they were, while less important pupils saw their hopes and dreams batted away by a government that didn’t see any use for them


Did he walk back into that?


Did he answer questions on that?


No. 


Our inglorious bastard PM popped out  to tell those pupils that their education was almost disrupted by a ‘mutant algorithm’


No mention of whose algorithm that was


No. 


It was the Rule Britannia controversy


The Land Of Hope And Glory controversy


The God Save The Queen controversy


The idea that the BBC were to remove the singing of those songs from The Last Night  Of The Proms


It doesn’t matter that the BBC weren’t removing those tunes


It doesn’t matter that nobody had asked for them to be removed


SOMEBODY -


had got it out to the media that those songs were to be removed 


So Johnson entered the fray


Somewhere industrial, sporting an orange boiler suit and hard hat combination that does him no favours


Painting the side of some metal panel in a way that shows - that he’s never painted  anything in his life


He’s asked the God Save The Queen question


And claims ‘they’ are trying to restrain him from answering this, without giving any  guidance as to who ‘they’ might be


He says: “I think it's time we stopped our cringing embarrassment about our history, about our traditions and about our culture”


And:"I think it's time we stop this general bout of self-recrimination and wetness"


Despite the fact that the only people talking about it were them


So we’re not talking about the massive loss of lives that his party has overseen 

Because they're talking about what it means to live in this mythical England of  empire and wave ruling


The England I refuse to believe in


Because it never existed other than in the fantasies of people who didn’t want the poor to rise above their station


Every so often, you see signs that make you think there might be a chance


Signs that you think might signal a weakening of their ideals, might show cracks  appearing in their beliefs


Take the early days of lockdown


In the early days of the lockdown when we were spending Thursday night applauding the  frontline workers


- an idea that wasn’t put in place by the government but that they soon took credit for -


It was possible to think: 


“Maybe they’re starting to get it. Maybe they’ve realised that the people who do the  work in this country are those on the frontline, those in health, in supermarkets,  working the bins.”


Those in the ‘ordinary’ jobs 


“Maybe they’ve finally noticed that these are the people who keep the country going, not the hedge fund managers and investment bankers.”


You could kid yourself that we might come out of this to a kinder, gentler world


That we might value each other more


That we might appreciate what people actually do for us


That the appalling fact that the BAME community was suffering disproportionate levels of loss might show ‘some people’ that the people they’d chosen to hate were absolutely invaluable to how the country runs


Then some degree of normality began to return and we realised we were fooling nobody but ourselves on that front


That the nurses weren’t getting the pay rises that their work deserved


That their willingness to put themselves in the way of harm deserved, 


That they’d been denied for a decade by the party who claimed they were now the party to ‘Build a Better Britain’


We realised that the racists were still racists


That the people who spent the duration of the Black Lives Matter protests crying that, “All Lives Matter” showed what they really meant by that claim when Farage started pointing at dinghies


We didn’t come out of the lockdown as a better place, as a kinder gentler people


We came out just the same


We came out to the same England we left behind us


The England that made damn sure we came out before the profits of the landowners were  damaged


The England that realised people now knew they could work at home, could create some balance in their life, could avoid the commute


The England that knew that those whose only contribution to the world was to own business premises, were losing out


And sorting that loss would now be a priority


That England


An England where you will always be reminded of your place


An England where everything that is wrong is somebody else’s fault


An England where those who believe themselves to be better can convince others that:


One - they ARE better


Two - they know who ruined your lives


That’s how we end up with Brexit


That’s how we end up with a Conservative government who can’t handle a crisis


Because there’s no questioning


No thought, no analysis, no place for experts


That’s how we end up in a crisis that has killed thousands who could have been saved  while also crashing the economy


The crisis wasn’t covid


The crisis was those who mismanaged it, through either ideal or ineptitude


And in the middle of all this, they’re failing to negotiate their deal with the EU


Because they never wanted a deal


They wanted No-deal


Because it was better for them and their friends


And when that really damages us all


They can point and blame Covid, blame the EU, blame ‘Remoaners'


They can point and blame others


Because that’s what they do


Because they don’t feel the need for the others


'Others' are unnecessary


That’s their England


I don’t believe in England


I don’t think of myself as English


I never will


But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a stake in this country


I was born here


Born here and left behind by those who  consider themselves our betters and their  version of the country


Some who were left behind needed to know why, how, what needed to be done to make their lives better


And they were given very convincing answers


That the answers were lies isn’t their fault


So.


What do we do?


I don’t know the answer to that one


Bit deflating to sit here this long, only to find out that I haven’t got a solution?


I’m not an expert. I’m just confused and left behind


I’ll give you the only answer I have:


We hope


We hope and we educate and we change


We listen to those who we feel left us behind


We accept that we lost


We have to accept that there will always be people that we can’t accept


That there will always be those whose minds we will never be able to change


We just need to limit their ability to influence


You don’t like Nigel Farage’s appearances on TV, on the radio?


Stop watching. Refuse to entertain those shows

They’ll notice


Viewing figures are everything, they invite the conflict to create engagement


Don’t engage


Don’t like Tommy Robinson supporters on Twitter?


Block them. Mute them. Ignore them


Don’t retweet them so that people can see how awful they are


Don’t try to argue with them, they can’t be argued with


Don’t engage


When was the last time you were irritated by something Katie Hopkins said?


Exactly

Without the audience they’re nothing, nobody


They live for the attention


Don’t give them it


Why does Nigel Farage continue after getting the thing he claimed he wanted?


Because all he actually wanted was the attention


Take it away


These people aren’t our issue


They’re a minority


And if we all ignore them, their voices won’t reach as far


They’ll still have an audience but it’ll be the audience they’d have always had


They are not our concern


Our concern is the people who feel left behind and want to know why


We need to give them a better answer


We need them to know that we understand them, that we care about them


We need to talk to the people who changed their minds and turned to the Tories because of their easy answers and simple slogans


We need to listen to them and then give them our answers


Our better answers


And then, maybe, just maybe, we won’t feel left behind


We won’t feel like we’re the ones in a country that we don’t understand, that we don’t belong to


I’m not English


I don’t identify as English


I probably never will


I don’t believe in England


But, one day, I think I’d like to




END


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