“And right on cue, here comes Greta Thunberg!”

Julie Burchill is such a good writer. She's written a brilliantly funny piece about Glastonbury for The Spectator. There's even a passage about the BBC:

Though I don’t like festivals in general because of their subterranean standards of hygiene, Glasto is more irritating than all others because of its political pretensions. Its symbiotic relationship with the similarly Palestine-pandering, Brexit-hating BBC is a notable one, to the extent that it appears to be the foremost annual works outing; before Covid they sent a whopping 300 staff there, more than they did to the World Cup. I daresay it’ll have been roughly the same this year, after which these parasites will go back to piously detailing the poverty of those who have to choose between ‘eating and heating’ while blithely ignoring the burden the TV licence puts on the poorest - between ‘looking and cooking’ perhaps.

Glasto: like being hit over the head with a copy of the Guardian

So much to say - so little time  - but I thought this was worth a read. Brendan O’Neill is spot on here! (and it’s BBC related)

The great irony of Stormzy’s Glastonbury set. (£) Poor you if you haven’t got access to Speccie online. Here’s a taster:

“Watching Glastonbury feels increasingly like being hit over the head with a copy of the Guardian. David Attenborough rocked up to congratulate the festival on giving up plastic. ‘Yaaay!’, screamed the crowd, before heading back to their plastic tents. (Attenborough rather overlooked the fact that, thanks to the plastic-bottle ban, people had to queue for ages in blazing heat for water refills…) 

Olly Alexander of Years and Years gave a five-minute lecture on the meaning of the word ‘queer’, because that’s exactly what you want when you’re at a rock gig, right? There were anti-Brexit posters — put up by the billboard movement Led By Donkeys — and what could be more establishment than loathing Brexit? 

Columnists caught the spirit of the new, stiff, PC Glastonbury with articles titled ‘Beauty tips for Glastonbury that don’t include cultural appropriation’ and ‘Can Glastonbury help me shed my toxic masculinity?’”

If you’re not a subscriber you’ll miss the comments, they’re mostly spot on too. Of course, there’s one jarring note (Isn’t there always?) It’s the first para. B O’N calls Stormy a talented guy and says he likes his new single.

Well, I suppose one might flag that up in one's intro if one doesn’t want to seem like a grumpy old codger.

Me? Just call me Mrs Pickles.

His Honour James Pickles. R.I.P.

Gettin' Merky

Oh dear! I think Stormzy is making me racist. Forgive me, but definitely having racist thoughts. 

‘Yeah, f***ing repping, innit, I get merky, they get worried If you got a G-A-T, bring it out.’ 

It might be partly down to the lyrics and partly down to the BBC’s wall-to-wall promotion of Glasto.

(Neat patriotic stab-vest, though.)

It all began with Desert Island Discs. I’m having slightly ‘racist’ (elitist (?)) thoughts about Lauren Laverne, if I’m honest. Let’s just say she’s no Roy Plomley. Such intrusive thoughts even led me to question the rationale behind inviting Emily Eavis to present her eight of the best. A particularly dreary selection I thought. That says something - I’m not quite sure what. Oh dear, that’s another mean thing to say. I am a bad person.

‘Shut up’ seems like a catchy number. So I will.

Snappy retort 2

While we’re on the subject of snappy retorts, how about this one, from the London Mayor.

The video of Sadiq Khan at the London Mayor’s Question Time refusing to promise  he’d raise the matter of Hezbollah with the Home Secretary, could have gone viral.

Has it gone viral? Or have they deleted it?
Andrew Boff is the name of the man who asked for clarification as to what constitutes a banned terror organisation, after Hezbollah flags appeared during a march in the capital earlier this month.  Khan was riled.

Here, @MayorofLondon, @SadiqKhan, shows, quite clearly, where he stands on the protection of Jews in London. How can anyone trust this man? pic.twitter.com/XLohc0NkzG

— Paula (@XxPLWxX) June 23, 2017

 The Al Quds Day march is no harmless, virtuous Palestine Solidarity thing. The Washington Times has this: England is drunk on PC Kool-Aid

“Make no mistake, there is nothing pro-Palestinian or pro-Arab about Hezbollah. It is heavily engaged in the ongoing killing of Arab citizens of Syria in support of the brutal Assad regime. Hezbollah has been spreading terror around the world for decades. As far back as 1983, Hezbollah murdered 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service personnel with a truck bomb at a U.S. Marine compound in Beirut, Lebanon. Hezbollah is dangerous, deadly and violent, as everyone knows. 

Among the countries that designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization are: Arab League, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, European Union, France, Gulf Cooperation Council, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States.  

Nevertheless, Hezbollah was granted permission to march through London. 

British authorities have gone mad. They have wedded political correctness to a revival of historical Jewish scapegoating, enabling a wave of destruction that threatens to go out of control. Britain has drunk the Kool-Aid. 

Of course Al Quds Day is the kind of thing that would appeal to Jeremy Corbyn’s followers. That kind of march is just up their street, so to speak.

 The Express reports that the BBC is in trouble for its peculiar coverage of Jeremy Corbyn’s Glastonbury gig.  

“The BBC has also been berated by Tory MPs who claimed the corporation is “out of control”.
Mr Corbyn will speak for the first time on the main Pyramid Stage, a year after cancelling an appearance on a much smaller platform.
But this year the Labour leader will take to the iconic stage before introducing hip-hop act Run The Jewels.
Revellers at Glastonbury, a festival long associated with Left-wing activism, have been heard singing ‘oh Jeremy Corbyn’, sung to the tune of White Stripes song Seven Nation Army, this morning.”
Labour politicians have ben spotted at the festival - attended by 200,000 people every year.
Former shadow chancellor Ed Balls and wife Yvette Cooper are at the event and John McDonnell will hold a discussion on Sunday.
Deputy leader Tom Watson is also at the festival which is notoriously difficult to secure tickets for.

[…] 

Tory MP Philip Hollobone said: “The BBC is riddled with Left-wing bias from the Today programme downwards.
“They will seize any opportunity to get Theresa May out. Jeremy Corbyn at Glastonbury is a typical example of their behaviour… the BBC is out of control.”
Andrew Bridgen, another Tory MP, added: “The BBC will do everything they can to get their hero Jeremy Corbyn into Downing Street. Now with things like this year’s Glastonbury, it’s becoming ever more blatant.
“They are at the stage where if the BBC give it one more push, we will end up with a Marxist in No 10.”

Isn’t it galling that Jeremy Corbyn’s new-found rock-god status has has managed to eclipse his appalling record and get it so quickly brushed under the carpet? It’s even more remarkable when you compare it with certain other BBC bogeymen whose past record is attached to them as permanent fixtures, in perpetuity.

Meanwhile, revellers are pictured at Glastonbury, some of whom seem all too willing to sweep Jeremy Corbyn’s reputation under the carpet

That sinking feeling is back

That sinking feeling is back. Glastonbury time again.

As if Glasto dominating the airwaves wasn’t bad enough, the thought of Ed and Yvette Balls queueing up for the showers and Jeremy Corbyn appearing on the pyramid stage, (presumably to rapturous applause) hearing that Radiohead had been heckled with shouts of  “Free Palestine”  was just about the last straw.

I see Malia Bouattia signed off her NUS presidency by shouting “Free, free Palestine”, doubtless to similarly rapturous applause from her student fans; but a glimmer of light is here, in the form of a lone voice at the BBC, John Ware, who happens to have noticed the Al Quds Day March, even if his BBC colleagues didn’t.

"How's this for hate?
"We are fed up of the Zionists, we are fed up with all their rabbis; we are fed up with all their synagogues; we are fed up with their supporters."
Or this?
"Zionists. are responsible for the murder of people in Grenfell Tower - the Zionist supporters of the Tory Party."
I went to the annual Al Quds Days march in central London last weekend to watch several hundred supporters of Hezbollah, the "Party of God." [...]

“Please welcome Nazim Ali, the Al Quds' Master of Ceremonies for the march, organised by the Khoeminist oxymoronically named Islamic Human Rights Commission
Here's another of Nazim's gags. 

While presenting the IHRC's "Islamophobe of the Year" award shortly after the 2015 massacre by jihadists of 12 journalists and a policeman at the Paris-based satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine, he said: "No one from Charlie Hebdo could make it" (to the awards ceremony). 

Are you cracking up? No? How 's this then?
"We've always been a peaceful, family-friendly, humanitarian protest" Nazim shouted to the marchers. "That's what we're about." 

And then pointing to the protestors, he said ""Do not react to these people... Do not react to the IDF." 

Judging by the frenzy Nazim had worked himself into, my impression was that "react" was exactly what he hoped the Jewish protestors would do. "You've hit the nail," a police officer said. 

"Bye, bye Zionists, bye bye bye" taunted Nazim, waving his hands as the march prepared to move off. 

"Free, free Palestine" he chanted which got the ritual response: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” [...]

"The march was nothing short of a three-hour public hate fest against Jews who regard themselves as Zionists – who are the vast majority of Jews. Nazim Ali repeatedly referred to the only "real Jews" being those marching with him, the tiny fringe from Neturei Karta. "Zionists are the imposters" he said ".Do not talk to them.they like to show themselves as 'victims': 'Oh, we're Zionists; we're victims; we've only killed 10 children today; we're victims - we didn't get a chance to kill 20'." 

So much hate in just 24 hours both in Finsbury Park and central London. It shows just how difficult some of these "difficult and often embarrassing conversations" in countering extremism, are going to be.

They say ‘we mustn’t let the terrorists divide us” but their refusal to connect the causes they support with the terrorism they say they wish to defy, means they themselves perpetuate and exacerbate the division.

Another piece in the JC explains where our government could ‘do the right thing’ if it had a mind to.

"The issue of government subsidies for Palestinian terrorist salaries has returned to the international spotlight. What began in November 2013 as a barely believable revelation — that taxpayers in Britain, the US and other Western nations were bankrolling terrorist salaries — has now become a universally-acknowledged, impossible-to-deny and impossible-to-defend embarrassment for governments.

"A recent in-depth study has calculated that all terror incentives and rewards paid by the Palestinian Authority over the past four years total a mind-numbing $1 billion. 

As more citizens are murdered by Islamist terrorists in Great Britain, Europe, the US and elsewhere, Western donor governments have found their financial involvement with the Palestinian Authority terrorist salary programme increasingly indefensible.

‘The Palestinian “Law of the Prisoner” openly rewards those convicted of even the most heinous attacks with generous monthly “salaries” and a phantom job in the PA government. 

The salaries increase on a sliding scale. The more carnage inflicted and the longer the prisoner sentence, the higher the salary. 

Terrorists receiving a five-year sentence are granted just a few hundred dollars each month. The bloodiest murderers are paid as much $3,000 monthly. Cheques are sent directly to the prisoner, who appoints a power of attorney to distribute the funds.”

What about the BBC doing an in-depth study of that preposterous situation? I’m sure John Ware would be up for it.