As a schoolboy, I had an eccentric teacher who steadfastly refused to own a television, believing such items to be innate sources of moral corruption for the young. One year, we asked him what he was getting his two children for Christmas. He revealed his boys had been begging him non-stop for a new Sega Saturn videogames console to such a point that, finally, he had given in. Wrapped up waiting for them beneath that year’s Christmas tree would be just such a brand new piece of advanced consumer electronics, and several much-desired games to go with it… but no TV set to actually play any of them on, thus rendering the whole purchase intentionally completely pointless. He could not wait, he said, to see the mixture of despair, confusion and anger on their little faces come December 25th, thereby “to teach them the true meaning of greed” at festive time.
Naturally, we began to call this strange man ‘Scrooge’. But is ‘being a total Scrooge’ really as bad a thing as it is usually made out to be? Not when it comes to the issue of mass immigration.
Ebenezer Good
Every Christmas, our TV sets (should, unlike my old teacher, you actually own one) remind us endlessly of Ebenezer Scrooge’s status as one of Charles Dickens’s most famous fictional creations. From this, we get the distinct impression Dickens thought all misers to be Muppets, the great author being thus also logically in favour of all forms of charity. Not so. In my opinion, one Dickensian figure who should be much better known is the somewhat more obscure Mrs. Jellyby from his 1853 novel Bleak House, a deeply misguided practitioner of ‘Telescopic Philanthropy’ whose main chosen cause of charitable concern is actually her own self-trumpeted conscience.
Obsessed with a completely ineffective scheme for improving the benighted natives of the far-off African settlement of Borrioboola-Gha, visible only by aid of imaginative telescope, Mrs. Jellyby neglects not merely the teeming London poor who surround her, but also her own family, leaving her children unwashed, bankrupting her husband and sending him into such fits of suicidal depression he just sits there, bashing his head against the wall and hoping to die.
As Dickens aptly wrote of Mrs. J: “She was a pretty, very diminutive plump woman, of from 40 to 50, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if… they could see nothing nearer than Africa!”
Although supposedly of boundless generosity, in fact Mrs Jellyby’s compassion is curiously narrow. She is incredibly, ostentatiously, concerned about the poor dusky waifs of Borrioboola-Gha, but couldn’t give a figgy pudding about those many thousands of other poverty-stricken white urchins wandering the London streets around her in tattered rags. Instead, she has settled upon maniacally championing a certain specific chosen designated victim-group above all others, even to her own kith and kin’s immense personal disadvantage and harm.
Seemingly, Dickens based Mrs. Jellyby upon certain self-sabotaging, foreigner-obsessed, white virtue-signallers of his day, like Mrs Caroline Chisholm. Had he been writing today, Dickens would surely have based his character instead upon similar morally blind public cheerleaders for disastrous open-door mass immigration and counterproductive yet highly expensive foreign aid like Gary Lineker.
You’ve Got To Be Cruella To Be Kind
Which public figure might Dickens have based Scrooge on were the writer himself still alive and nib-scrawling in the 21st century, though? If you listen to most mainstream commentators, it would surely have been Suella Braverman, whose ‘Cruella’ nickname, gained largely from her sadly unsuccessful efforts to prevent the continued invasion of countless thousands of fake asylum seekers onto Britain’s shores, is intended as a slur, but only endears her to me personally all the more.
According to one typically negative profile in the Guardian, “As the daughter of [legal, fully integrated, financially solvent, non-criminal] immigrants, the Home Secretary’s hostility to migrants can seem not only cruel but unfathomable”, making her into “The face of Cruel Britannia”.
Another columnist in the Evening Standard, noting how ‘Cruella’ wanted to make MPs sit over the festive period to push through emergency legislation enabling the actual deportation of small-boats invaders to Rwanda, unimaginatively called her “The Grinch” who wanted to “cancel Christmas”.
Tough Love, Actually
Another candidate for Scroogeness might be Braverman’s former Home Office sidekick Robert Jenrick, or “Robert Ebenezer Jenrick Scrooge” as one blogger dubbed him, due to his allegedly draconian decision back in April to order murals of anthropomorphic cartoon animals like Mickey Mouse and Baloo the Bear be whitewashed over in a Kent asylum centre for unaccompanied children on the grounds they projected too welcoming a message (although as the visual depiction of animals is considered haram in certain strains of Islam, maybe he was just being commendably culturally aware here?)
Staff were reportedly “horrified” by this “cruel order”, and initially tried to refuse doing as they were told, like typical civil servants these days, whilst a Private Eye cartoonist hyperbolically offered to repaint them, as “it’s all you can do about this kind of evil”. Outraged children’s author Philip Pullman lifted what sounded like a quote about Scrooge straight from A Christmas Carol, calling Jenrick’s action “Cold, cruel, the act of a soul that’s shrivelled and mean to its core”, whilst Michael Rosen, the professional Left-wing propagandist and former Children’s Laureate, furiously typed out a parody of Auden’s ‘Stop All the Clocks’, entitled ‘Paint Over Mickey Mouse’.
If these seemed like performative acts of moral outrage made for all the world to see and click ‘like’ to on Twitter, then Polly Toynbee in the Guardian preferred to call Jenrick’s action (which was actually revealed by a pro-refugee activist, rather than being intentionally announced by the man himself) nothing more than “performative politics for imagined Right-wing voters”. Was it really?
The Finish for Finland, or Finland for the Finnish?
It seems numerous pseudo-conservative MPs these days would agree with such an assessment. After Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch accurately compared transgenderism in schools to an “epidemic” disease, some were quoted as condemning such “nasty, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric”, or arguing that “if we want people to vote for us, we should stop being such a nasty party”. No, MP Jellyby, maybe you should start being a nasty party for once. Far from being purely “imagined voters”, as Polly Toynbee fantasises, there are plenty of people out there who want nothing but harsh policies on immigration and asylum.
A new opinion survey out in Finland last week, for example, asked Finns the following question:
Are you in favour of, or opposed to, the following idea: Finland ceases accepting asylum seekers and quota refugees and allocates the freed-up funds to help refugees in refugee camps outside of Finland.
Responses showed 46% agreed with the idea, 41% opposed it and 13% were either undecided or declined to comment (I would guess because they did actually agree with it, but had been systematically guilt-shamed not to publicly admit to saying so). Amongst those respondents who identified themselves as voters for the nationalist conservative Finns Party, 84% said “Yes, don’t let them in!”, whilst 59% and 55% of centre-Right party supporters concurred. Of centrist voters overall, around half agreed. Even 21-36% of voters for various Left-wing parties like the Greens agreed with keeping everyone non-European out: even genuine asylum seekers.
So, far from Right-wing European voters who want a harsh attitude towards refugees being wholly “imagined” within the dead, Scrooge-like mind of Robert Jenrick, as Polly Toynbee implied, this is in fact the majority opinion amongst conservative-minded Finnish voters, and perfectly mainstream amongst all others too. Surveys consistently show the very same pattern amongst voters in the U.K. too.
It’s Scrooge or Be Screwed
Please do note that, at least according to how the survey question was phrased, native Finns were actually quite happy for some of their tax money to go towards supporting genuine refugees fleeing for their actual lives in camps abroad: they just didn’t want them living over there in Finland. Why not?
Well, it might be because, by all accounts, figures demonstrate that migrants in Finland take more money out of social welfare systems than they put in, being a net drain on public resources. It might be to do with the way that Finnish schools are tumbling down world league tables, again partly due to the presence of large numbers of immigrant students who speak a different language, holding everyone else back. It might be due to rising rates of crime, sexual assault and gang violence in immigrant-populated areas. Or it might be due to the fact that, just in time for Christmas, a 13-year-old girl was recently raped by an older immigrant boy in broad daylight, in her own school, in a small town in Father Christmas’s traditional native residence of Lapland.
Why should the Lapps just keep on quietly Lapping up the “nightmare called multiculturalism” that the Africa-gazing Mrs. Jellybys of their political class have short-sightedly unleashed upon them with their defective moral telescopes? Christmas is indeed a time for giving, but surely not for giving away your entire country.
But don’t forget – Diversity is Our Strength, say the Mrs. Jellybys of this world. I would disagree. It’s not really ‘charity’ if you’re taking tax money from people and then openly and contemptuously spending it on policies those very same taxpayers overwhelmingly don’t want and which then only end up making their own lives far worse, from no greater motive than to make you feel good about yourself. That isn’t charity. It’s pure sadism.
Myself, I actively long for the option to vote for a genuinely ‘Nasty Party’ (even one officially called that) led by unsympathetic, flint-souled figures like Ebenezer Jenrick and Cruella Braverman, rather than the professionally #BeKind pseudo-conservatives who actually pull the strings in today’s utterly misnamed ‘Conservative’ Party.
I’d far rather vote for Mr. No-Heart Scrooge than Mrs Bleeding-Heart Jellyby any day of Christmas. In the end, Scrooge is just far kinder.
Steven Tucker is a journalist and the author of over 10 books, the latest being Hitler’s & Stalin’s Misuse of Science: When Science Fiction Was Turned Into Science Fact by the Nazis and the Soviets (Pen & Sword/Frontline), which is out now.
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The solution?
Show some festive spirit and remove all taxation on tobacco!
‘….in the Peruvian Amazon, the geographical region believed to be tobacco’s historical birthplace, this plant is associated with a strikingly different usage and repute: Tobacco (especially Nicotiana rustica L.) in this area is described as a potent medicinal plant….The main indications mentioned included “problems of the mind’
“Tobacco Is the Chief Medicinal Plant in My Work”: Therapeutic Uses of Tobacco in Peruvian Amazonian Medicine Exemplified by the Work of a Maestro Tabaquero, 2020
‘Many epidemiological studies have found a highly significant negative association between cigarette smoking and these two neuro-degenerative disorders. The risk of
AD or PD in nonsmokers has generally been about twice that of smokers.’
Smoking and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease: review of the
epidemiological studies 15 Dec. 1999
‘Epidemiological studies have consistently shown that people who smoke cigarettes are less likely than non-smokers to develop Parkinson’s disease. Although the reasons for this association are not known, one possible explanation is that nicotine or other chemicals in cigarettes may offer protection against the neurodegenerative disease.’
Parkinsons News Today, 14 April 2023
Love to know why you’ve attracted two downticks. I have never smoked and it seems like an odd thing to want to do, but I struggle to justify why it should be taxed.
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, legislate it.
When it stops moving, subsidise it.
That could be the Uniparty Manifesto. You have a bright future in Political Strategy.
And when it gets old stick it in a bath chair and charge it a grand a month. But stick the illegal aliens in hotels and feed their ass.
It is a great appetite suppressor for those without enough to eat or for those who wish to stay thin.
Many, understandably, find others smoking unpleasant, for a variety of reasons.
However I do not suggest changes to the laws regarding smoking, simply to remove the tax.
Everyone is only too well aware of the risks.
Let us all decide for ourselves.
Agree on all counts
Ukrainian or not, I too would have concerns, especially if I was one of the parents with kids at this school. There’s the obvious safety risk but also the crammed conditions these refugees are expected to live in for 18 months is completely unacceptable. Has Ireland just become a dumping ground for large swathes of the world now then? At least if this building also goes up in flames the government might finally get the message;
”Parents of a child attending the Salesians primary school in Limerick City have expressed concern after learning that as many as 251 refugees are to be housed on the school grounds.
Deirdre Lawlor who is the mother of a 6 year old attending the school expressed fears regarding the housing of a large number of people saying many of them may be experiencing war related trauma.
Last month the Limerick Post reported that the owners of the site, Limerick Twenty Thirty, “have entered into an agreement with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth to use for an 18-month period, with the centre to open in January.”
Ukrainian refugees are to be housed in the former secondary school building with Lawlor describing the move as “absolutely unacceptable”.
She said the school building has 19 bedrooms meaning that occupants will have to be housed approximately 14 to a room saying this could create a “boiling pot” scenario only metres from a school “with hundreds of children ranging in ages from 4 to 13,” adding that this was “reckless and endangering”.
Lawlor who says she has “huge empathy” from people fleeing war said assurances that two security guards will be present twenty four hours a day brought her “no peace of mind” describing the situation as a “thoughtless business transaction” that was “of monetary value” to the owners of the building.”
https://gript.ie/parents-concerned-as-251-refugees-to-be-housed-on-grounds-of-limerick-school/
On immigration Scrooge would be shouting HUMBUG all day and night. There is nothing scrooge or miserly about mass immigration. It is a free for all. Migrants are appearing out of thin air in every City Town and tiny village in the country. ——–“Housing” HUMBUG “Schools” HUMBUG, “Jobs” HUMBUG, “Hospitals” HUMBUG.”A population going from 65 million to 80 million, actually planned by EU bureaucrats” HUMBUG. ——To all of you whining Liberal Progressive open border people I ask “How many people can comfortably live in these islands? 70 million? 80 Million? 100 Million? ——HOW MANY? ———-HOW MANY?
“HOW MANY?”
It’s the key question to ask them. I’ve tried and they just splutter and waffle. I don’t think they really believe in it, it’s just they are so conditioned to thinking that any limitation is “racist”. Billionaires and the super rich probably do believe in it because they know they will be insulated from the damage.
“they really believe in it”. ——–People will even want a heat pump even though there is information easily available about the cost and performance. They will want rid of oil even though there is more energy in a barrel of oil than a person doing work 40 hours a day for 10 years. They will want to allow migrants to flood in at rates that are unmanageable etc etc etc all for ideological reasons.——Ideology trumps common sense every time, and it isn’t just the super rich who indulge in this lunacy.
Yes. I think the richer you are the longer the negative effects of policies will be mitigated for you, and the longer that pretending to care about the environment or foreigners or whatever is not uncomfortable enough to put you off, but when the shit hits the fan, selfishness will prevail – but it will be too late.
Yes the wealthier are better protected from all the NET ZERO sh.t and immigration chaos for sure, but poorer people suffering energy poverty will still think there is a climate crisis if you ask them. They will still be out with placards calling on refugees to be let in etc. even though they are taking their housing and hospital appointments…..bizarre.
Sure is!
The asylum-seeker who apparently committed suicide on the Bibby Stockholm, was an Albanian. His sister who now lives in Italy said that he had paid £4000 and crossed in a dinghy because he wanted to work in the UK and be allowed to stay here permanently.
In other words, he was a fraudulent asylum seeker; a liar who thought it was perfectly acceptable to make British taxpayers pay for his accommodation, food, healthcare, pocket-money etc because HE wanted “a better life” in a country he had no right to be in.
Why didn’t he apply legally for a visa and a job? With effectively open borders for legal immigrants, he either had nothing to offer us that we might have wanted or he intended pursuing a criminal “career.”
As an Albanian, why hadn’t he been deported?
This Ms Scrooge has no sympathy for either him or his remaining family. My sympathy is entirely reserved for British taxpayers who are being forced to pay for parasites like him.
I wish I could double up tick your comment.
I will tick yours on his behalf
Irelands actions on immigration appear to be working! Apparently, if there’s no where for them to be housed, say, because of a fire or something at the earmarked hotel then politicians seem to be getting a little worried it may accidentally happen again!
And EVEN Leo Varadkar, the head wef puppet in the irish government has now stated that we need to have a serious debate on immigration, he that always blames the far right or racists is having to admit in might be pissed off locals instead! Who’d have thunk?
Leo is realising what it means to be a net contributor to the EU and being forced to take thousand of migrants in return for a blind eye to their beneficial tax regime for international companies.
We told them, but they would not listen.
I wonder if the old IRA have the guts to take on the Establishment to provide a real Free Irish State.
Yet the Irish actually voted to leave the EU and were bribed into having another vote and fell for it. ——What do people think the EU really is? They probably cannot even name the president (s) or even realise no one voted for any of them. They were simply appointed. —–People get the governments they deserve. I do not feel sorry for the Irish, the Italians, the Danes, Swedes , the Germans, the British and all the rest being over run with migrants. You voted for this crap. You made your bed now lie in it
What do people think the EU really is? They probably cannot even name the president (s) or even realise no one voted for any of them.
That’s because the EU has no president. Blair once tried to create something like this, a post to be filled by him, obviously, but the attempt faltered. The central political organ of the EU is and remains the European council where representatives of the various democratically elected governments of the member states discuss and vote on EU-wide political decisions.
As people tend to believe stuff more when it’s output by a computer, below is a simple expert system written in C answering a question of whose answer every American political propagandist should really be aware of.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(void)
{
printf(“Does USA equal world? %s.\n”, strcmp(“USA”, “world”) ? “No” : “Yes”);
return 0;
}
No Presidents? So what is Ursula von der Leyen? She is the President of the European Commission. —-What is Charles Michel? He is the President of the European Council.
You forgot Roberta Metsola who’s the president of the European parliament. Neither of the three is president of the EU which doesn’t have a president in the sense the USA has one.
But they are still Presidents, and those voting in 2016 at my workplace on whether to leave the EU knew nothing of what either you or I are talking about. Your are again being rather prosaic.
In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge sees a number of tormented spirits of men chained together, rather than having a separate chain of their own, as Marley does. He is informed that these men were members of government.
Like Marley, they have forged the links of their shared chain by their actions, all justified as ‘reasons of state’. (Westminster today and the environs of government must be a hot and sweaty foundry worthy of the hottest part of the industrial revolution).
The Edwardians sometimes accused each other of treating foreigners like pets. However, there’s something very specific about A Christmas Carol and Scrooge that Dickens clearly meant to apply just to his own country and the charity (in the Christian sense) that must begin at home, else it will begin nowhere or only become the long-sighted sort expressed Mrs Jellyby.
Dickens, like the majority of Victorians, would have been familiar with the Bible, its stories and phrases that had passed into common usage.
In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge’s name, Ebenezer, comes from 1 Samuel. It means The Stone of Help. It is a monument, a memorial, that looks both to the past and to the future. It is a reminder of the help God gave to ancient Israel in the past and of the help God can be expected to give them in the future. The emphasis placed on the help in this biblical story is that it is of a very specific sort, that directed towards one group of people.
Used as a Christian name for his character by Dickens, Scrooge becomes this memorial stone. People look to him and remember the help he gave to others, as well as the help that was given to him. Just like the memorial stone, Scrooge takes on this past and future aspect, reflected also in the spirits of Christmas past and future.
Great article
What, out of political correctness, is generally overlooked in the portrayal of Scrooge is that he was a ruthless money-lender, not merely a thrifty miser. After the excesses, and subsequent ruin, of the Georgian era, Victorians (and Dickens in particular) were well aware of the dangers of usury. Through the uncontrolled creation of bank money, markets become heavily distorted making it difficult for genuinely productive people and businesses to survive whilst the Wokerati (and their predecessors) prosper. Psychopathic predators, epitomised by Scrooge, rise to the top by lulling people, businesses and governments into debt then enjoying the ‘harvest time for the money lenders’ when they can’t pay, are obliged to hand-over their assets and endure perpetual servitude. As our debt based monetary system collapses, amid a plethora of mainstream and alternative narratives vying to distract attention from this fact so that todays’ Scrooges can escape with as much as they can get away with, there is much to learn from A Christmas Carol if we are prepared to look beyond the woke interpretation of the last century.