Picture of a judge's wigThe Judge RANTS!Picture of a judge's wig



Date: 05/10/16

It Can't Happen Here?

(A reference - in case you didn't know - to Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel which was prophetic to start with, and may become even more so in the next few months)

Way back in the when, at the time that I was (pretending to) study A-level History under the redoubtable Eric Earnshaw, our course stopped at 1930.

However, my O-level course under Harold Jones did cover the period immediately afterwards. After all, how we faced down the Krauts was a glorious part of 'our island story ("Rah! Rah!")', and was therefore an essential tool of propagandising the children into the verities of Britishness, for we knew that such things could never, but never happen in this land of freedom, decency and tolerance.

Except...

Newspaper headline: 'Police log fivefold rise in race-hate complaints since Brexit'

...and...

Newspaper headline: 'Amber Rudd vows to [...] force companies to reveal number of foreigners they employ'

(In passing: does anyone else think that Rudd looks like one of those over-promoted 'Human Resources' managers who are a plague on our working lives?)

...such as in our National Health Service, mayhap...

Newspaper headline: 'Jeremy Hunt: NHS will [...] no longer rely on foreign doctors'

...and, speaking of May and (mis)hap...

Newspaper headline: 'Theresa May vows to protect troops from 'legal witch hunt' by opting out of European human rights rules'

It's all there, isn't it?

All - along with the flag-waving and vaunting I've referred to before - pointing to one ineluctable conclusion to anyone who made any serious study of the history of the twentieth century, the first half of it in particular: that the soi-disant (sorry, foreign jabber there) 'United Kingdom' - particularly Englandandwales - is not so much sleepwalking through the gates of overt Fascism, but rushing joyously towards it like a child at a funfair. (That smell of burning flesh may be only the hot-dogs now, but wait a bit...)

And all the time, so many of those who claim to be 'progressive' or 'liberal' or - if you're one of the Blairite remnant in the Labour Party - a 'Clause One socialist' (another witless neologism, meaning 'not a socialist at all') are either too lacking in courage or principle to challenge the pleb-comforting narrative which has led us to be standing on this ledge looking down at a maelstrom of raw sewage; or they are too busy fighting their perceived enemies on (ostensibly) their own side to go out and - as a crucial act of persuasion - actually take on and take down the casual and gleeful xenophobia which has become the daily currency of public discourse, preferring instead to pander to the public's ignorance rather than seek to educate them out of it.

These are dark days, and they will get darker still.