Events this week have highlighted the reality behind Left and Right wing politics in the United Kingdom today.
The British comedienne, Jo Brand, suggested on BBC radio 4’s Heresy programme last Tuesday evening that acid would have been more appropriate to throw at politicians like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson.
She was making reference to events during the campaign for the Euro elections last month when milk shake drinks had been thrown at both men in separate protests.
Jo Brand defended herself with talk about free speech but by Thursday evening gave a limited apology saying that her comments were “crass and ill-judged”.
Meanwhile in the former British colony of Hong Kong, people were on the streets in hundreds of thousands protesting against a proposed law to enable extradition of accused persons from Hong Kong to mainland China to face trial.
The protests were supported right across the social and political spectrum by people frightened that the freedoms and rights they had inherited from the era of British colonial rule were going to be taken away by China.
By an agreement between Britain and China in 1997 after 150 years of British control and rule of the colony, the territory retains a certain independence from China as well as significant freedoms and rights to which Hong Kongers had been accustomed under the Common Law judicial system of the English tradition.
China has a completely different political and judicial system from the UK. Of course the different political and judicial systems reflect entirely different cultures and mentalities.
The Chinese government’s mentality is well illustrated by its special relationship with companies like HwaWei, and its introduction of the totalitarian Social Credit system of popular surveillance and control.
News reports this weekend say that the Hong Kong Executive has indefinitely suspended consideration of the proposed law on extradition in response to several days of mass protest. Among them, thousands of educated young Hong Kong residents mounted sometimes violent protest as they fought to retain the basic rights and freedoms bequeathed to them by the English common law system thanks to the period of British colonialism …
Now, both these items of news are facts which I have attempted to describe representatively and proportionately, in accordance with the information broadcast and in accordance with the wider historical reality.
The comments by Jo Brand reveal the simmering Left wing hatred which is never far below the surface in its attitude to the Right.
It is a hatred hard to fathom by any normal person. But it is real; it is dangerous; it is to be explained by their peculiar mindset… a mindset manifestly in control at the BBC
It’s less than 6 weeks since the BBC summarily sacked Danny Baker for his crass and ill judged Tweet/picture about Harry and Meghan. The BBC report is here and makes interesting reading, including Baker’s own explanation and reactions to it.
Let me say right away where I stand. I thought Harry and Meghan’s wedding was an amazing and historic event, and that the black preacher and choir were great. The whole event was good news in a world of bad news.
So, I was shocked to read of what Baker had done.
Whether he should have been sacked or not is between him and the BBC. And everyone will have their own opinion.
My point is that Baker and Brand have been treated differently.
Baker not only offended against common decency; he also outraged the PC BBC. Jo Brand however was articulating the BBC PC line when she insulted the norms of common decency.
Because the proponents of political correctness see everything according to their Marxist paradigm, they fail to see both the world and themselves as they actually are. Worse, they insist on changing the world to accord with their Materialist worldview. They are totally intolerant of anything which conflicts with this preconditioning paradigm: they therefore either filter information and tell us how to see it, or they censor it altogether.
PC intolerance and bigotry is such that they don’t quite realise there is something desperately wrong and extreme about even thinking of throwing acid in the face of someone you dislike.
They are so convinced that Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage are fascist and racist bigots, that they see nothing wrong with their own self righteous zeal when it leads them to think such evil things.
That is the issue. Their ideological preconditioning versus reality and morality.
And the morality and reality concerning Robinson and Farage is for the electorate to decide. Not the BBC.
What I would also like to point out to the reality revisionists of the Left leaning BBC is this.
The people of Hong Kong, and especially the young people of Hong Kong, are frightened and desperate to retain what liberty has been left to them from the period of British colonial rule.
They are fighting for the reality of liberty – true liberty founded in English culture and tradition, and protected by English inspired institutions and legal thinking.
It’s high time the BBC considered the worldview it is promoting in light of such inconvenient truths as Hong Kong – and adjusted its editorial standpoint to espouse reality and impartiality, not predetermining Marxist ideology.
Ray Catlin
PS The police will not be proceeding against Brand following a formal complaint about her comments. Quite right. The answer does not lie in the courts and prosecutions, or in more laws and regulations. It lies in people adopting a mature outlook to life, and having enough self discipline and respect for others to speak and behave responsibly. What’s called for is the self censorship which comes from old fashioned common decency. Which in the English tradition was inspired and nurtured by the words of Jesus Christ – Love God, and love others as yourself
