Last
Thursday evening, heading home after my hour of Government approved
recreational cycling, a sudden tumult of applause, pot banging and car horn manipulation
filled the air. It was, I soon realised, not an attempt at recreating Chairman
Mao’s famed and failed 1958 Four Pests Campaign to dissuade sparrows
from eating the rice crop by means of a peasant created cacophonous din, but
the weekly unspontaneous public outpouring of affection for front line workers,
including NHS 111 call centre drones I presume.
There
have been three such instances of quasi-organic support plus, I am led to
believe, a “get well Boris” event that I also did not take part in. Thankfully,
Ben Fogel’s mooted mass singalong of “Happy Birthday” to Elizabeth Windsor on
the 94th anniversary of her parasitic existence, presumably mooted
when he was once more hepped up on goofballs, isn’t going to take place.
Indeed, Mrs Windsor has asked that the usual salute from state cannons is
cancelled this year. Pausing only to mention that I could have imagined a far
more creative use of weaponry and the Royal Family, we return to the tacky lauding
of the NHS.
The
reason I don’t join in with such eulogistic vacuity is not that I’m a miserable
begrudger (well I am, but that’s not why), but because I hate how the Tories
have accidentally stumbled on a way to turn the NHS and, by extension, the
future funding of all health and social care, into a charity. Of course it is
amazing that 99 year old Major Tom Moore has made over £17m for the NHS by
doing a sponsored walk round his garden, but it makes me ashamed that we are
not stopping to question why such a donation is a crucial part of the fiscal
armoury required to repel the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than a luxurious bonus.
Don’t even mention the appalling idea of flogging NHS lapel badges for £8.99 to
care workers making £8.21 an hour.
To
anyone with a shred of human decency, the solution to the crisis of
underfunding in the NHS that 10 stinking years of chronic and cruel austerity
have caused, can be found in the current slogan of the Peace Pledge Union:
healthcare not warfare. Stop the arms race by immediately ceasing all defence
spending and save human lives by pumping cash into front line services and viral
research immediately because, as far as I can see it, 3 week extension
notwithstanding, we're not going to get out of this lock down until there's a
vaccine in place, which won’t be any time soon. You do realise that it’s a
racing certainty there will be no gigs, no football, no pubs and no cricket
until 2021. Even once there is some kind of preventative medication available
to combat COVID-19 who is to say the vaccine will be automatically provided for
everyone? We’re living under capitalism remember; undoubtedly there will
probably be an arbitrary maximum age limit for mandatory dosage. In a grotesque
re-enactment of Logan’s Run or Brave New World, I can easily
imagine there will be a supposed utilitarian decision not to provide the
vaccine to those either too old or infirm to make a positive contribution to
future economic recovery. Will eugenics kick in at 70, 60 or on a case by case
basis?
Don’t
kid yourselves that the medical profession will prevent this from happening, as
the distribution of vaccines won’t be on their watch. The way things are going,
unless the general public wakes up to the fact, we are becoming a dictatorship
by stealth, for supposed reasons of the greater good, the Police will continue
their unfettered lust for coercive power by overseeing distribution of
lifesaving medication. Incidents such as the Accrington confrontation, where
appalling threats to fit an innocent bloke up were issued by one crazed thug
and tacitly supported by his cowardly colleagues, are only the tip of the
current iceberg and will soon resemble the new community policing unless
increasingly bellicose chief constables are called to account.
Mind
don’t expect much in the way of moral guidance from the ruling Tory Party at
this or any other time. The longer the
current crisis continues; the more obvious it is that the scale of the disaster
is entirely the fault of the complacent, indolent response of the cabinet back
in January and February. While still only admitting that coronavirus is
responsible for the 16,000 (at the time of writing) deaths in hospital, that
figure is presumed to be less than 60% of actual deaths from the virus when
fatalities at home or in care are factored in. Additionally, there are those
COVID-19 deaths that have been recorded as of natural causes, because of the
continuing inability of the Government to test in any semblance of an adequate
fashion.
Without
putting to fine a point on it, this is entirely down to the Tories complacently
sitting on their overstuffed, purulent arses for 38 days following the first
COBRA briefing on January 24th, rather in the same way that
patriotic Brexiteers utterly refused to lend a hand in the fruit and vegetable
picking crisis that resulted in nigh on 5,000 Romanian workers being flown in
to stop the country starving. When all credible scientific advice pointed to
the probable need for lockdown, Johnson poo-pooed the imminent crisis, took a
fortnight’s holiday in his grace and favour rural pile and missed 5 successive COBRA
meetings. Living under lockdown isn’t great fun, but if the Tories had faced up
to their responsibility to the very citizens who had returned them to power
with an enormous majority not two months previously, rather than allowing the
satanic shithouse Cummings to browbeat the timorous and incompetent elected
Cabinet into accepting the presumed 60,000 plus deaths that herd immunity was
supposed to require, then allowing the vast majority of the public to believe
coronavirus was only like a bad case of the flu and regular handwashing would
kill 99% of all known germs, we could have been well on the road back to
normality. I know for a fact I was reassured into believing this was a 9-day
wonder, no worse than 2009’s Swine Flu outbreak. How wrong I was; how wrong
they were. Now, their arrogant stupidity that seems like a revisiting of the
conduct of the French Royal Family in the latter part of the 18th
Century, will undoubtedly mean that deaths in Britain will probably be double
Cummings initial estimate and that human life will not return to any
recognisable pattern for at least another 12 months.
There
is, thankfully, much scrutiny of Johnson’s role being undertaken in the quality
press, even if such pointed criticism is only in the public domain because the
loathsome Barclay Twins are keen on replacing BoJo with the unspeakable glove
puppet Gove as their chief errand boy. The Home Office’s extraordinarily
detailed and sulky response to The Sunday Times excoriation of Johnson’s
conduct read like an angry teenager’s diary entry the night they got dumped by
their first love. This story has got legs...
In
the last days of his position as leader, the largely discredited Jeremy Corbyn
fired off some pretty stinging body shots about our “part time PM” and his role
in ending or risking the lives of so many people as live in a city the size of
Bristol of COVID-19. Now Corbyn has gone and Keir Starmer has replaced him.
Ignoring Starmer’s less than revolutionary economic and social beliefs, he has
the brains and eloquence to wipe the floor with the Tories with a forensic
analysis of their desperate mishandling of the crisis, should he wish to, as
this may actually buy him some time with the rank and file of the party, many
of whom are furious with the revelations of treacherous duplicity by senior
Labour figures during the 2017 election.
Without
question, one of the major weaknesses, indeed his number one character flaw,
that Corbyn displayed during his tenure of the role of leader was an apparent
indifference to accusations of antisemitism within the party as a whole. The
860 page internal report leaked by The Guardian has concluded that
Corbyn’s indifference was only a contributory factor in the failure of the
Labour Party to address this issue, with real damage being caused by deliberate
and orchestrated sabotage by those opposed to Corbyn on an ideological basis,
stating there was an “abundant evidence
of a hyper-factional atmosphere prevailing in party HQ in this period, which
appears to have affected the expeditious and resolute handling of disciplinary
complaints”.
It
also states that “many staff … were bitterly opposed to the leadership of
Jeremy Corbyn, and seem to have been demotivated, or largely interested in work
that could advance a factional agenda … some employees seem to have taken a
view that the worse things got for Labour the happier they would be, since this
might expedite Jeremy Corbyn’s departure from office.”
Further,
the report contains several leaked WhatsApp messages that show
many senior officials were hostile to Corbyn when he took over, with references
to Corbyn-supporting party staff as “trots”, conversations referring to former
director of communications Seumas Milne as “Dracula”, and that he was “spiteful
and evil and we should make sure he is never allowed in our party if it’s last
thing we do”. There were also mentions of Corbyn’s former chief of staff Karie
Murphy as “medusa”, a “crazy woman” and a “bitch face cow” that would “make a
good dartboard.”
Frankly,
it disgusts me that the top echelons of the only mass party for workers in this
country has been systematically undermined by those either in Parliament, who
benefitted from the organisation and help of some many unpaid activists, or those
on the actual payroll. Instead of turning their guns on the Tories, they embarked
upon a plan to destroy the party’s election chances from the inside, resulting
in the Tories being returned to power and their implementation of yet more
vicious austerity that leaves the NHS in the state it is now. That said, from
the benefit of several years distance, if such conduct means the loony
Leninists from Maomentum or the Corbynista cult of armchair, 280
character revolutionary bullshit artists who’ve never delivered a leaflet or
knocked on a door in their life, leave the Labour Party, only their money will
be missed. If those who remain decide to
coalesce around the snippy, mortgage messiah Ian Lavery, then there’s absolutely
nothing to worry about. We can make our way through this crisis within a crisis
with our dignity intact and sense of moral rectitude repaired.
This
is not the case with Newcastle United, I fear. Despite the routine wall of
silence from SJP, it appears that a takeover is realistically in the offing,
mainly because Ashley is a bit nervous about being short of readies if the
lockdown continues, as he’s been told he can’t pretend Sports Direct
stores are essential frontline services. Ergo, the magic £300 million tipping
point for any deal appears to have been reached. Long thought to have been
discredited as a shallow-pocketed fantasist, Amanda Staveley is in for 10% of
the deal. All well and good, though I do have reservations about the fact she
smokes as it makes her look common, except for the fact she is borrowing this
money from Ashley, on the back of an ongoing megabucks legal action against Barclays
Bank. I’m unaware of the ins and outs of the case, but it appears she’s
considered an odds-on favourite to come out of this smelling of roses. Two
cheers for her. Also weighing in with 10% are the benevolent billionaire
property and retail entertainment magnates, the Reuben Brothers, who own large
swathes of Newcastle city centre. Shame they’re not making much from all the
bars and restaurants under their control just now. And then there’s the camel
in the room; if this all goes to plan, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi
Arabia (PIF) will own an 80% stake in the club.
Alright,
let’s be honest, Mike Ashley’s 13-year tenure of Newcastle United has been a
disaster. Two relegations from the Premier League, a lack of care in the fabric
of St. James Park allowing the ground to decline into one big scruffy
advertising hoarding for Sports Direct with 52,000 seats, a series of
inadequate managers and players, as well as an utter refusal to communicate in
an honest and open way with a hideously divided fan base who have been at each
other’s throats since Bobby Robson left the club; not the greatest of CVs it
has to be said. However awful an owner and an employer Ashley has proved
himself to be, and this is the crucial bit, he has not stoned women to death
for having sex outside of marriage, nor has he executed gay men by throwing
them off high buildings, nor has he engaged in the ritual execution by
beheading of petty criminals. Saudi Arabia does. And that’s precisely why, if
this deal goes through, I’ll be even further distanced from the club than I am
now. In all conscience, I cannot give my support to a regime that is
responsible for daily breaches of their population’s human rights. When said
regime assumes almost total control of my football club, it is time to take a
stand and say no.
Okay,
I’ve made this point on Twitter several times and the response has been
split in three ways. Firstly, and I must say this is the least common reply,
people have agreed with me and say they are more than uncomfortable with the
idea of a medieval dictatorship pouring blood money into our club. They, like
me, see that Newcastle United will be morally diminished by this takeover and
fair game for any criticism that comes the club’s way. Unfortunately, morality
means we’re stuck with Brooooth in the dugout and Joelinton up top. It reminds
me of canvassing for the Labour Party when Michael Foot was leader.
Secondly,
we have the pragmatists, who range from the apolitical elements who will go to
the game in their replica shirts and cheer the team on, even if Ashley appoints
John Wayne Gacy as head of youth development, to the earnestly philosophical.
These are the people I disagree with, but who are able to defend their stance
in a logical and erudite manner. To summarise, they argue that while
intervention from the House of Saud is a serious publicity error, what other
way do we have of taking back our club? They accept that PFI are at best
questionable owners, but that their conscience, either clear or weighed heavily
down, has absolved them of any doubts; being taken over is undoubtedly better
for Newcastle United than being a neglected also-ran in Ashley’s stable of
shabby businesses. I’d agree with them in almost any circumstances than this.
Thirdly,
and most tiresomely, we have the majority, who seem to welcome this takeover,
indeed any takeover, as it removes Ashley’s hand from the tiller, regardless of
any other considerations. We have either the chuckleheaded clowns who’ve been
constructing TikTok videos of Arabs dancing to The Blaydon Races,
or flooding social media with selfies where they’re attired in tea towel,
sunglasses and NUFC shirt. If they are kids, hopefully they’ll grow out of this
infantilist stage, but if they are adults, they are probably beyond redemption.
At least such useful idiots don’t provide much of an intellectual challenge,
even if their noise is deeply irritating.
Finally,
we have the zealots, who’ve come out fighting from the start. They simply do
not accept that any Newcastle fan would be anything other than ecstatic about
the takeover. I envisage these to include a large number of shaven headed men
in their 40s, attired in chunky Italian designer knitwear, who use Raffertys
on Pink Lane as base camp. Confrontation and aggression are their
touchstones; anyone stating a different opinion on social media may be told at
the outset to fuck off, followed by accusations of
paedophilia. If this does not happen, any debate follows a depressingly
predictable course; fans of other clubs are assumed to be jealous hypocrites,
fans of Newcastle are traitorous hypocrites and journalists are avaricious
hypocrites. If you further engage in debate, the endpoint will be marked by
being told to
fuck off, followed by accusations of paedophilia. The block button then becomes
the only possible way to prevent further escalation, in the shape of the
preparation of an on-line bonfire and the waving of cyber scythes. I can not
and will not respect such a blinkered and unthinking response, though it does
amuse me that so many of the pro PIF faction are previously unapologetic
Islamophobes and ardent Brexiteers, who now find themselves standing in
solidarity with a regime that enforces Sharia Law with murderous inflexibility.
I genuinely fear for the future of Newcastle United, not as a football team,
but as a football club.
That
said, my Government approved 60 minute pedal on Saturday took me past my beloved Tynemouth
Cricket Club, where I ought to have been celebrating the start of the new
cricket season by watching the firsts take on last season's champions Burnmoor
and the thirds, just over the fence, if their opponents, whoever they were,
managed to turn up. Sadly, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an indefinite
postponement of the cricket season, which pains me grievously. All we can hope
is that conditions become safe enough so as we can watch and play the greatest
game on earth sometime soon, but I seriously doubt that will be the case as the
effect of those 38 days of indolence continue to haunt, punish and limit us.
Scene
1: To the
soundtrack of Largo from Symphony No. 9 in E minor, From the New World
by Antonín Dvořák, a middle aged man in cricket whites and an NCB style donkey
jacket, emblazoned instead with a BUPA logo, emerges from the grand entrance of
a palatial home in an exclusive suburb. The day is brilliantly sunny as he
grimaces while scanning the heavens, before pulling his donkey jacket tight
round his throat, allowing us to see the badges on his lapels display Vote
Jeremy on one side and FC St Pauli on the other, before he sprints towards
a sleek, German 4x4 and drives rapidly away. The crunch of gravel and screech
of tyres can be vaguely discerned over the music.
Scene
2: The
middle aged man from scene 1 is seen wheeling his cricket kit bag from the car
to the pavilion, where he sets it down, before running with his donkey jacket
over his head from the boundary to the square where a crowd of half a dozen
other middle aged men, either brandishing outsized golf umbrellas, or attired
in sou’westers and oil skins stare grimly into the azure blue sky and blinding
sun, muttering and shaking their heads. Almost immediately, they wheel
protective covers over the wicket and head towards the boundary.
Scene
3: The 7
middle aged men, divested of outer garments, sit pouring bottles of beer,
exchanging laughs and back slaps inside the pavilion, while picking from a
trestle table laden with buffet food (pork pies, sausage rolls, sandwiches,
cake and other treats). The camera focuses on first middle aged man who speaks
directly to the camera, while offering his beer glass in a toast, as the music
comes to final crescendo -:
“Rhethreg
Gwyllt; dyma'r un y mae'n rhaid i chi alw gemau amdano.”
END
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