Amid all the brouhaha concerning what a former Tottenham Hotspur striker had to say about Government policy, it is an interesting exercise to scan through Alastair Campbell’s Twitter account to see what he thinks of it all. It makes instructive reading. Apparently, this is all the fault of Boris Johnson’s “corruption of the apparatus of state” (because of, er… *checks notes*… Brexit). It’s also, purportedly, indicative of BBC Chairman Richard Sharp’s “indecency”. What has happened to Nagoya Grampus Eight’s former No 10 is “so wrong”. Campbell feels so strongly about these matters that he even recorded an “emergency podcast” with the crisp salesman last night.
The spectacle of Alastair Campbell opining about the meaning of words like ‘decency’, ‘corruption’ and ‘wrong’ is one which would not seem out of place in a Kurt Vonnegut novel, were the satire not so patently obvious. That he is doing so almost 20 years to the day since the invasion of Iraq was launched is so rich with irony that it barely seems credible. Is he really so lacking in self-awareness?
For younger readers, perhaps this needs spelling out: Britain’s participation in the invasion of Iraq took place largely on the basis of a ‘Dodgy Dossier’ compiled, in part, by Alastair Campbell, then Tony Blair’s Director of Communications and Strategy. The Dossier contained misrepresentations about Saddam Hussein’s purported “weapons of mass destruction” programme, which it turned out did not exist – and he was also involved in producing the so-called ‘September Dossier’ of 2002 to make sure the Government’s assessment of Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction” programme aligned with the views of George W. Bush and his administration. To add a further layer of dramatic absurdity, in 2003 he launched his own mini-war against the BBC, having decided (in his own words) to “fuck” Beeb journalist Andrew Gilligan for daring to report the views of Dr. David Kelly, a biological weapons expert who did not think the claim in the ‘Dodgy Dossier’ that Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” were deployable in 45 minutes was credible.
In other words, Campbell may have done more to destroy the British public’s trust in their political leaders than any other figure has in the last 25 years – and who must shoulder some of the responsibility for Britain’s participation in a disastrous war. He also, not incidentally, displayed little regard for the BBC and its values during the many years in which he was in office in his various roles at the heart of government. The fact that he has somehow managed to launder himself in the eyes of the left-liberal Twitterati establishment by hating Brexit and Boris and adopting various Correct Opinions about the issues of the day says more about the ignorance and moral frivolity of those people than pretty much anything else. It is, to coin a phrase, ‘so wrong’.
What is there to be said about a society in which Campbell not only emerged relatively unscathed for his part in leading Britain into a disastrous war, but in which he is able to win praise and adulation from the ‘great and good’ merely for parroting their midwitted views whenever he gets the opportunity? I genuinely have no idea – except that, if our civilisation does indeed go into interminable decline (as seems increasingly likely), future historians will doubtless conclude that we thoroughly deserved it.
Dr. David McGrogan is Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School.
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Teachers.
Indoctrination too!
“The most telling quote was elicited from one demonstrator by Sky News: “We had a situation today where Israel is attacking Gaza. Why is it that they are not allowing an eight-year-old child to wear the badge of his homeland, of his heritage?”
The family should be due a visit from Border Force with a letter explaining that the family are to be returned to their homeland as a matter of urgency and that they are to pack their bags and immediately board the waiting paddy wagon for a trip to the airport.
We have no business keeping people in this country who believe they belong elsewhere. Just think about the damage to their mental health.
The headmaster, Toby Spence (a brainwashed dreamer) says “if we don’t have a planet to live on”——————–Are you having a laugh mate? No planet because of a little extra CO2? Even the IPCC admit their worst case scenario’s are not ever going to occur. Our kids are indulging in all of this nonsense because of idiots like you filling their heads full of junk.
Brain washed dreamer is a bit kind imo. He’s more like Hitler youths Reichjugendfuhrer, he’s actively brain washing kids with bad/mad ideas.
Diane Reay, a Left-wing sociologist and former teacher “also thought children were justified in striking:”
Teachers are noted for never letting a strike opportunity go to waste whether its them or the children.
Children going on strike from school is an example of “participatory” democracy and not truancy aided and abetted by teachers wanting a day or two off work.
Very well observed regarding teachers propensity to skive.
Thank you
The problem with teachers is that they never get beyond the learning level of the last classes they taught. If their usual classes are eleven year olds you effectively end up conversing with an eleven year old.
It’s easier to be a socialist. You just keep on heading down the same road————-To Serfdom. —————Funny that you never hear the social justice people harp on about there not being enough white people playing basketball. Clearly the black people are discriminating against the whites and are all “racist”. ——-Actually no, just like it is mostly white people that play tennis. But despite the perfectly obvious, socialists will continue to insist more women should be welders so they can socially engineer their “equality”. Ofcourse there would need to be so many trans welders in there as well.
Thank you once again Mr Tucker fir a terrific article.
What I don’t get is if there’s known terrorists, supporters and extremist groups with links to terrorists in existence, and supporting a terrorist organization allegedly carries a hefty prison sentence, why are countless people filling the streets, week after week, who blatantly show their support for Hamas but the police only bother themselves with the people holding an ‘anti-Hamas’ placard, Israeli or St George flag? Where’s the deterrent? So the law states one thing but the police, whose job it is to enforce the law, demonstrate something different entirely, therefore it’s all just massively farcical and pointless isn’t it? Especially as these extremists and criminals just get to avoid deportation anyway because ”human rights”. It’s all one great big p*ss-take and seemingly nobody’s on our side, the Home Office, police, judicial system and politicians are all traitors and national security is a mere illusion. The government have seen to that;
”The pro-Hamas protests in London are not, apparently, as organic and spontaneous as their organizers would like them to seem.
At least four groups with links to Hamas are reportedly behind several of the marches: The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the Palestinian Forum for Britain, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and the Friends of al-Aqsa. The same groups were behind the largest protest so far, on November 11 in London, where it is estimated that around 300,000 people participated.
Supporting Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organization in the UK, could lead to up to 14 years in prison.
The MAB was co-founded and directed for almost a decade by Muhammad Kathem Sawalha, who in the late 1980s was a Hamas leader in Samaria in the West Bank, where he reportedly “masterminded” Hamas’s terrorist strategy. He fled to the UK in the late 1990s and, incredibly, obtained British citizenship, despite being on Israel’s most-wanted list.”
……And all of the kids of people involved in these groups have to go to school somewhere, so it makes me wonder just how many of these kids bunking off to protest have direct familial links to terrorism in London or anywhere in the UK;
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20264/hamas-in-london
In Liberal Progressive land some people are more equal than others, and some are more hate filled than others. Spout of about a Muslim though and your feet won’t touch the ground
Why Are So Many British Schoolchildren Going on ‘School Strike’ to Protest Against Israel?
Because hard left teachers with the full assent of a Conservative government, have brainwashed them.
Do we have an Education Secretary?
Seriously, the dreaded UNWRA may as well just run these schools as well and have done. Could it be any worse?
Maybe children in the UK who see on their screens Palestinian children of their own age shot, mutilated and stuck under rubble from Israeli aggression for the past 75 years resonates with their empathic tendencies?
But no empathy for hostages and raped girls?
can’t you have both? Hamas attacks are horrible so is the total destruction of Gaza.
So do you have both?
The hostages on their screens appeared well looked after and there were no images on their screens of so-called “raped girls”.
There were plenty of images of Palestinian children shot by Israeli snipers, dead Palestinian babies and the limbs of dead Palestinian children exposed under rubble after Israeli indiscriminate bombing.
“appeared well looked after”——-Just keep believing what you want mate. I couldn’t care less.
“Those who were released earlier stated that Hamas treated the hostages with respect. 85-year-old Israelis Yosheved Lifshitz and 79-year-old Nurit Cooper were released by Hamas due to their health conditions. Yosheved Lifshitz, who was released, said that he was treated in a friendly manner and that there was someone there to look after everything.”
https://www.archyde.com/israeli-grandmother-held-hostage-by-hamas-fighter-viral-photo-exposes-unexpected-connection/
If you couldn’t care less then stop replying with your inane comments.
It’s what children don’t see on their screens that would bring them into disenchanted adulthood all too quickly and reduce their susceptibility to adult manipulation for their own causes.
Children certainly understand when they themselves are bombed. But to encourage them to take a stand on geopolitics is the same adult cynicism that grooms them for the sex trade.
I’m not necessarily referring to “TV” screens as the main stream media are the chief purveyors of a one sided narrative to brainwash the masses in one direction dictated by the global elite.
I’m referring to “their screens” on devices that pick up raw footage which is uncensored so people can make up their own minds.
Young people are savvy enough to find or see alternative sources via the internet on their mobile ‘phones.
I agree with you that those who don’t find alternative sources, including adults, are prey to manipulation.
You mean those who see on their screens the “Palestinian’s” staged agit-prop videos disseminated so enthusiastically by the BBC, ITV etc.
Only a complete moron blinded by Islamophobia and racism would believe they were staged.
Because a large minority of ‘UK’ children are Muslim?
And the non Muslims are brainwashed?
The trouble is that children in schools (and at universities) have been groomed for much longer than we realise, and especially so in the last three years. All you parents who can, you need to take your children out of school and home educate them. They are being groomed in every possible way, not just about climate. And it’s a vicious circle: groomed children go on to be further groomed at university and then return to the schools as grooming teachers – what hope is there for the children?
Why? Because we spared the rod and spoilt the child.