What is the most politically dangerous book ever published? Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler? Das Kapital by Karl Marx? The Little Red Book of Chairman Mao? Or To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee?
It might well be the latter, to judge by a recent interview with Sadiq Khan in the Times as part of the newspaper’s regular ‘My Culture Fix’ segment, where various well-known public figures show off needlessly about their most-loved works of page, stage and screen. Here, the current Mayor of London self-righteously proclaimed for all to hear that Lee’s was his favourite ever novel.
Name-checking the book’s best-known character, a noble anti-racist lawyer who defends an innocent black man in the old Jim Crow-era Deep South of the USA, Khan boasted of how, when reading it as an impressionable young child, “the seed was first planted for me to become a [human rights] lawyer” as “I wanted to be Atticus Finch. I still do.” When it comes to fictional lawyers, Sadiq reminds me more of Lionel Hutz from The Simpsons personally, but never mind.
It can sometimes seem as if To Kill a Mockingbird has inspired every Left-wing politician under the Sun to pass into the world of public affairs these days. Whenever asked about their favourite movies or novels, a disproportionate number do seem to take the opportunity to brag about their boundless love of its simplistic, child-friendly, anti-prejudice message, from Shami Chakrabarti to Barack Obama.
Harper Lee’s classic morality tale is not a bad book or film, by any means. But I don’t think it’s the story’s actual innate literary quality which really leads so many of today’s politicians to so ostentatiously praise it, so much as its easy usefulness as a clear cultural vehicle through which to signal their ideological correctness to all the right modern voter-bases in these sad days of BLM and George Floyd: it is a story about an innocent black man navigating a world of systemic racism and being placed at the mercy of the hands of a cabal of cartoonishly bigoted white people, after all.
I wonder if, once upon a time, when subjected to similar cultural quizzes by journalists, racist white politicians of the actual Jim Crow era used to obsequiously court their own presumed ethnic client-electorate by answering Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell or The Birth of a Nation by D.W. Griffith?
The Laugh of Khan
When politicians these days agree to sit down and answer journalists’ questions about any aspect of their (purported) cultural hinterlands whatsoever, the strong suspicion has to be that all their answers have been vetted beforehand by nervous media advisers: otherwise, someone might slip up and admit his favourite book is actually his own autobiography, the main protagonist being the only person he’s ever truly been interested in.
With all this in mind, let’s look more closely at Sadiq Khan’s recent Times piece to see what kind of barely ‘subliminal’ message he was possibly trying to send out to London’s voters with his choices. Well, figures from the last U.K. census show quite clearly that Londonistan today is well on its way to becoming a majority non-white city, so it would no longer make electoral sense for him to claim his favourite comedy character is Alf Garnett from Til Death Us Do Part. Instead, “The last TV programme that made me cry or laugh” was allegedly the apparent BBC sitcom Man Like Mobeen, an unwatchable load of rubbish about a deluded Muslim loser from a British inner-city (not Khan himself), which Sadiq says “had me laughing and then crying within seconds”.
Getting in a not-at-all-obvious dig at the corporation’s dreaded Right-wing critics, the Beeb’s general wider output, says Khan, “demonstrates how lucky we are” to have it. Watching dire, unfunny, ethnic special-interest crap such as Man Like Mobeen aimed exclusively at Muslims and those who wish to pander to them, where we once used to have universally loved and genuinely amusing London-set BBC sitcoms aimed at all, irrespective of race, religion or cultural identity, like Only Fools and Horses, or Steptoe & Son, makes me feel the precise reverse, personally.
Some of Citizen Khan’s Culture Fix answers were political in an even more explicitly naked manner, such as when he claimed the recent London-set gangster series Top Boy was his favourite TV show ever. Due to its being “gritty” and “honest”, said Khan, “The [Evil Tory] Government might learn a thing or two about what it’s like to live in some of our under-served communities [i.e., inner-city black ones, whose residents should all vote for me] by watching it.”
How come? You’re the one presiding over record levels of black-on-black knife-crime across London yourself aren’t you, Mr. Khan, so clearly being a regular viewer of the show didn’t make you run public affairs any better, did it? This line of ‘logic’ is equivalent to appointing someone Defence Secretary on the sole grounds that he or she has seen every single episode of M*A*S*H.
Those Who Khan’t, Preach
His crudely instrumentalist view of the purpose of literature, meanwhile, would put Stalinist-age champions of agitprop Soviet Socialist Realism like Maxim Gorky to shame. What book did he most wish he had written? Well, first of all, in order to curry a little cheap favour from readers of the middle-brow best-selling mass-market crime-fiction flavour of the moment, “Anything by Richard Osman”. A few years back, it would have been “Anything by J.K. Rowling”, but then she publicly realised what a woman was, so that precise answer would no longer do.
This distracting nod towards the general voter out of the way, Khan moves with relief onto what he does best instead: playing electoral games of racial divide-and-conquer with all the subtlety of a politician in Palestine saying his favourite Shakespeare play is The Merchant of Venice. It seems the other book, out of all the masterpieces of human literature, that Sadiq most wishes he had written is not Anna Karenina, The Iliad or Tess of the D’Urbevilles, but the rather more obscure recent work, A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza.
What’s that? Never heard of it. Khan explains its genius, in suspiciously blurb-like words which he had definitely not had his PR underlings write out and then memorised beforehand: “Beautifully written, it tells the story of an Indian Muslim family living in America, striving to find a balance between tradition and modernity. My brothers and sister and I were born in London to immigrant parents and although this story is fiction, there are parallels that I could relate to.”
I’m sure there are various parallels there that certain non-white voters could very easily relate to too, which I would guess is kind of the point: “Do you get that, non-white voters of London? It’s called A Place for Us. FOR US. Do you see what I’m saying here?” If not, there’s always the rest of the interview for Sadiq to repeat his relentlessly one-note identitarian message throughout endlessly.
The Art of Politics
But enough about boring old books, which many recent immigrants into London probably can’t even read without an English-to-Urdu translation app to hand. What about music? What about public exhibitions? Does Sadiq have anything interesting to say about any of that? Well, Khan is very pleased indeed to reveal that: “One exhibition I’m really excited to see will be The Music Is Black – A British Story, which is coming to London [in spring 2025] at the new V&A East in the Olympic Park.” So, the next public exhibition you’re looking forward to doesn’t even take place for another 18 months, and centres entirely upon black British pop stars and recording artists? What are your true motives for giving this answer, Sadiq? Presumably, the unspoken implications are as follows:
- I love black people, particularly those currently registered to vote within the Greater London area.
- I have just spent large sums of other people’s tax-money helping regenerate a region of inner-city London with new public buildings and ideologically compliant arts facilities like the V&A East.
- The contents of these selfsame new ideologically compliant public buildings will substantially henceforth be devoted to demonstrating that I love black people.
And if you “could own one painting” from just one such public building, Mr. Khan, pray tell, what would it be? Seemingly, it would be the black British artist Chris Ofili’s extremely ugly No Woman, No Cry, currently hanging at the Tate. Not something by Picasso, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Caravaggio or Joshua Reynolds, then? No, because none of those big white idiots had ever seen fit to paint a canvas as thoroughly amazing as the following one: “It is a stunning portrait of Baroness Doreen Lawrence, one of my all-time heroes. The painting has such depth, with references to [her racially murdered son] Stephen, and the scale and colour is captivating.” I presume this particular image was one of the few Mr. Ofili didn’t see fit to execute using a big pile of elephant shit, then?
Campaign in Poetry, Govern in Prose
Poems, Sadiq, then, poems. What are your favourite poems? For God’s sake, man, do you have any that are nether by, nor anything to do, with Muslims, Labour Party client-voters, or sainted wronged black people? No, of course not. His favourite ‘lyricist’ is revealed as being Neil Kinnock!
Asked to name “the poem that saved me”, an emetic question in and of itself, Khan could only mumble out Still I Rise, a piece of risible, Oprah Winfrey-style motivational positive-thinking doggerel with a self-pitying racial edge to it by the excessively-garlanded black U.S. pseudo-poet Maya Angelou: “This encouraging poem is bold, proud and fearless – all good characteristics needed for a politician.” Yes, it sounds just like how my granddad would once have described Enoch Powell.
Even most of Sadiq’s apparently non-political ‘Culture Fixes’, such as his admission of a love for ABBA or the TV drama Succession, turn out on closer inspection to be weighed down by totally unnecessary references to the fact that various actors and singers from them happen to have graced London stages recently: “I love seeing other live music. Bruce Springsteen at Hyde Park, Madonna at the O2, The National at Ally Pally and Interpol at Somerset House were some of my highlights last year.” Oh, Mr. Khan, under your own enlightened rule, London truly is a Capital of Culture! You’d think he’d booked them all himself personally or something.
That certainly appears to be what Khan and his underlings would like you to believe. The propaganda plug at the end of the Times interview runs as follows: “Sign up to the Mayor of London’s Culture Team newsletter at london.gov.uk.” No thanks, Sadiq. With fake tastes like yours, I’d rather sign up for such updates from www.Hermann-Goering.com instead: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun.” Now there was a culturally honest politician for you! (Although actually this famous quote was misattributed.)
To be fair, there did seem to be at least one authentically honest answer given by Sadiq Khan in his recent Times interview. When asked what book he was currently reading, Sadiq replied: “Zadie Smith’s The Fraud. I’ve loved all her work.”
Loved it? You’re bloody living it, mate. Your interview proves it.
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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State Power Grab School Vaccination
latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, media, friends online.
Welcome to sunny Berkshire.
Nothing to see here apart from the 5G tower and the chemtrails:
Scars across a clear blue sky
The Tories laughed as we launched Reform U.K. – they’re not laughing now
I’m sure Mr Tice realised this was a bit of a Bob Monkhouse moment.
‘‘People used to laugh at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they‘re not laughing now.’
JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock drop out of massive UN climate alliance in stunning move
This will be what lies behind Labour dropping the climate pledge. Starmer and Reeves went to Davos, cap in hand, and found the green investment funds weren’t forthcoming.
“green investment funds weren’t forthcoming.”
Which has possibly saved British taxpayers a lot of money. The lying Kneel was in no position to borrow money that increasingly poor British taxpayers would have been responsible for repaying.
The Navalny I knew was moral, witty and charming – unlike his nemesis Putin
‘If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong,’
A. Navalny
‘M: And on which piece of cloth was your focus on? Which garment had the highest risk factor?
K: The underpants.
M: The underpants.
K: A risk factor in what sense?
M: Where the concentration could be highest?
K: Well, the underpants.
M: Do you mean from the inner side or from the outer? I have an entire questionnaire about this, which I am about to discuss with Makshakov, but will require your knowledge as well.
K: Well, we were processing the inner side. This is what we were doing.
M: Well, imagine some underpants in front of you, which part did you process?
K: The inner, where the groin is.
M: The groin?
K: Well, the crotch, as they call it. There is some sort of seams there, by the seams.
M: Wait, this is important. Who gave you the order to process the codpiece of the underpants?
K: We figured this on our own. They told us to work on the inner side of the underpants.
M: Who said that? Makshakov?
K: Y-yes.
M: I am writing it down. The inner side. Ok… the grey-colored underwear, do you remember?
K: Blue.’
Bellingcat 21 Dec 2020
Makshakov is the squad’s commander, and Alexey Alexandrov and Ivan Osipov were the main perpetrators of the poisoning in Tomsk.
Col Stanislav Makshakov:
Military scientist
Makshakov allegedly supervised the Navalny plot and ran the seven operatives who carried it out. He regularly communicated with the FSB squad, Bellingcat reported, citing phone records. Makshakov previously worked at the State Organic Synthesis Institute in the closed military town of Shikhany-1, also known as military unit 61469. Soviet scientists developed novichok in the 1970s in the institute’s secret laboratories. Makshakov reports to Gen Kirill Vasilyev, director of the FSB Criminalistics Institute, according to Bellingcat. Vasilyev is subordinate to Maj Gen Vladimir Bogdanov, former chief of the Criminalistics Institute and deputy director of the FSB’s Scientific-Technical Service. Vasilyev’s superior is the FSB’s director Alexander Bortnikov. He in turn reports to Vladimir Putin.
I’ve been busy & just woke up so I’m firing blind atm , at first glance I thought it was the Bud Light person you were covering . Anyway a week after TC sat down with Putin are we to believe that rather than basking in the post interview afterglow he’s ordered the inner ring piece resting seam of Mulvanys Skidders to be lathered with Novichok which makes him CIA villian number one again !
A Piece Of Bread Would Buy A Bag Of Gold
I notice the reports of Ukrainian withdrawal from Avdiivka;
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4473848-ukraine-says-forces-are-withdrawing-from-avdiivka/
The article talks about the urgent need for USA money to redress the balance in the war.
”A senior U.S. defense official told reporters Friday that Ukraine faces challenges across the entire front from Russian offensives if more aid is not approved.”
But to my mind you do not fight a war with money, you fight with arms and troops. Is there a huge pile of armaments somewhere just waiting for Ukraine to purchase? This site is called the Daily Sceptic and in that spirit I would have to say that if the USA gives that money I am highly sceptical as to where it will go and how it will be used? I am more used to Agricultural markets than any other sort and simple market logic tells me that when there is loads of money and little produce; QED the price goes up. Somebody somewhere is going to be cashing in but I am not sure it is going to reverse the position in this war?
Of course Defence companies will make money but I don’t see any evidence that their earnings are much higher than normal. A lot of the stocks going to Ukraine are close to time expiry and would have to be replaced in any case.
”About $60bn would go to supporting Ukraine. The country would receive nearly $14bn to rearm itself through the purchase of weapons and munitions, and nearly $15bn for support services, such as military training and intelligence sharing. About $8bn would go to help Ukraine’s government continue basic operations (with a prohibition on money going toward pensions). There’s also about $1.6bn to help Ukraine’s private sector and about $480m to help Ukrainians displaced by the war.
About a third of the money allocated to supporting Ukraine will actually be spent replenishing the US military, which has been depleted by the weapons and equipment being sent to Kyiv.’
‘Lockheed Martin forecast its 2024 profit below Wall Street expectations on Tuesday, as the U.S. defense contractor’s largest aeronautics segment that makes the F-35 jets faces supply chain disruptions.’
Reuters 23 Jan 2024
“A piece of bread would buy a bag of gold…”
Larry Norman?
It has been widely reported that the amount of cash that goes to Ukraine is minimal. By “cash” I do not meen dollar bills but available bank balances for the Ukjrainians to spend.
The overwhelming support given to Ukraine is arms and munitions and the sterling or dollar figures reported are the value of them. In some cases it was found the USA was valuing redundant out-of-date stock at full replacement value but I understand that has now changed and a realistic value is put on older stuff.
There have been two main problems with the sipport the west has given Ukraine.
First, what was promised has arrived late and from some countries the delay has been so long it might not arrive at all. It appears the reserve stocks in the west were not properly maintained so if takes a very long time to check them and even to renovate them.
Second, all western governments repeatedly reduced defence spending following the end of the Cold War. Clearly a reconsideration of defence needs and a likely reduction was the right approach but it was taken much too far. Our reserve stocks were depleted and not replaced. Many effective arms were just destroyed while others were replaced but by tiny numbers (eg MBTs, aircraft or all types and ships).
As a result of the above, many arms manufacturing plants were closed, even demolished, and what remains has not been updated for decades. Our manufacturing capability is low and for some components, at least in the UK, it is Zero.
‘Met office’s stormy January was just average’. I have noticed that the disparity between forecasts and what we actually experience is becoming wider. For today and tomorrow in our area we have a met office ‘weather warning’ for bands of heavy rain, yet their actual forecast online shows light rain and/or drizzle with very low totals of rainfall. An independent weather site I use shows similar. So why the weather warning? could it be, at year’s end, they can trumpet that in the past twelve months they have had to put out more weather warnings than ever before, which indicates the progression of ‘climate change’?
Maybe. There is evidently a strong whiff of policy forecasting from them, but it seems to me that they have tended to become more defensive since the October 1987 débacle, which gave them a bad press. I often compare the met office forecasts with one from https://www.westweather.co.uk/, which uses the American GFS model, and there’s often a lot of variation between the two.
https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1758202588888252449/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1758202588888252449¤tTweetUser=TheChiefNerd&mode=profile
The mind boggles…..
Hahaha…enjoy those just deserts, you antisemite tosser!!!
”Comedian Paul Currie is continuing to face backlash after he abused a Jewish audience member and forced him to leave while encouraging the audience to scream “get the f*ck out.”
The controversial comedian has released a statement appealing for “eyewitness accounts” after denying the antisemitic outburst.
“HELLO. This is a message from me Paul Currie. I am pleading to any of the 140 audience members who attended by show SHTOOM on Sat 10th Feb at Soho Theatre to send me their statement to what they saw. I’m trying to get as many eye witness accounts. Or if you know anyone that was there ask them to send me their eye witness accounts.”
In the wake of the backlash, his upcoming performances at comedy events in Melbourne, Brisbane and
Lisburn, Northern Ireland have been cancelled with an upcoming show in Glasgow now being ‘reviewed.’
Soho Theatre, the venue where the outburst took place have permanently banned the comedian from performing at the venue again.”
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1758705005001908388
Doing that to any member of the audience is not a good look and equally so for any who went with the herd and participated.
An interesting article on weaponising anti-semitism.
“As some plausibly argue, one manifestation of the redefinition of antisemitism as anti-Zionism is that antisemitism is no longer about ‘who hates Jews’, but ‘who Jews hate’.”
https://www.declassifieduk.org/weaponising-antisemitism-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/
Just because the Jewish guy and his friend didn’t stand up and clap at the end when the antisemite produced a Ukraine and Palestine flag the antisemite turned on them and went mental, encouraging the crowd to join in on the bullying and abuse. Here he is explaining what happened ( 3mins );
”Israeli man thrown out of theatre by comedian Paul Currie for being Jewish speaks out.
“On stage, he turned to me and waited for me to apologise. He shouted and cursed at me before ordering me to leave and began chanting ‘ceasefire now.”
https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1758701968183181383
Where in all of this was the audience member attacked for being Jewish? He and his friend stayed seated when the flags were brought out – an understandable response to any flag waving intended to invoke herd mentality.
The other people who left might have been Jewish but in this GB News interview, it was an assumption. When rabble-rousing starts, some will sensibly depart regardless of religion or ethnicity.
He sounds perfectly level headed and sensible to me, I think he was treated terribly by mob mentality goaded on by a braindead so called comedian.
Defending the action of mob mentality will lead to nothing good!
I totally agree, see my first comment.
However the comedian appeared to be triggered by their failure to engage in flag allegiance rather than being Jewish as reported. How did he know they were Jewish or was it karma? Those downticks without providing contrary information isn’t enlightening.
See the link in my comment on weaponising anti-semitism.
Did this young lad know anything about this “comedian?”
Excellent
Rishi Sunak is proposing tactical voting – hold your nose and vote Conservative to keep Labour out.
It seems to me there’s an increasing appetite for strategic voting, that is voting for someone whose principles you support, knowing that will lose the election but destroy the Conservative party and, after a period of great pain and setback, probably the Labour party too.
Taking a long-term view seems the only wise course when too many short-term plasters have been applied to a failing system.
Under Secretary of State for Scotland John Lamont MP campaigns on the basis that voting for him is the only way of keeping the SNP out as there’s historically not been enough support for other candidates. Pushing such messages is obviously intended to maintain that situation.
Even if people vote for who they believe will represent them, there’s no requirement for the MP to do so.
We should have recall rights.
Interesting downvotes yet what is factually incorrect?
Does the timing of the Navalny death, for whatever reason, not seem beneficial to anyone other than Putin?
Should the worse come to pass, we can expect to never see this headline.
“[Insert leader name] must pay for ‘murder’ of Assange, say world leaders”
The wall-to-wall coverage of Navalny’s death by the Western MSM yesterday – it even kicked the Gaza genocide off Al Jazeera news for several hours – was astonishing, right up there with the covid propaganda circus. OTOH Gonzalo Lira’s death in prison was completely ignored except in alternative media, and Julian Assange’s appeal next week only gets the occasional mention here and there. Clearly the global fallout from the Tucker Carlson interview needed some major distraction to reset the hoi polloi’s attention.
Repost from yesterday – The Duran provided good, balanced coverage.
https://rumble.com/v4drjik-alexey-navalny-dies-in-prison.html
Or Gonzalo Lira
I’ve come to the conclusion I’m too far down the rabbit hole. When I heard about the Navalny murder, and all my brainwashed colleagues talking about the evil Putin, my very first thought was “Well played Biden puppet master. There’s no way anyone will look further than Putin for the culprit. What a brilliant way to apply more international pressure on Putin whilst also making Putin unpopular in his homeland. Win, win, for the West”. That is crazy right?
I’m with you on the rabbit hole FL. When I heard ‘clot’ mentioned, especially in a 47 year old, I immediately thought: ‘jab’. Silly me. Here in the West we’ve become so inured to the ‘sudden and unexpected’ cardiac and clot deaths due to the jab that it’s taken as normal now; we barely bat an eye when yet another sports person or actor drops these days. So I clearly need to dose up on MSM propaganda to get my head back on the right Russia-bad Narrative™ .
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/02/16/vladimir-putin-must-pay-prison-murder-alexei-navalny-death/
who dunnit? Who benefits?
Am I the only one to think the Tories demise is nothing to do with the economy and everything to do with the war on British identity, liberty, energy?
I have posted previously that I firmly believe that the destruction of the Conservative Party is being deliberately engineered so your view that it links “with the war on British identity, liberty, energy” certainly has merit.
“MS Society defends axing volunteer, 90, who was confused over pronouns”
This is probably the most disgusting story I’ve ever read! MS charity can swivel until this hero women is reinstated!
supportercare@mssociety.org.uk
Let them know your veiws!
In GBNews today I found this:
Petrol drivers paying £1,200 more at forecourts than EV owners charging at home
The article has some numbers based on an electric Corsa vs a 1.2l petrol Corsa which indicate that using a home ‘smart’ charger will cost £231 per annum for a 12,000 mile/year driving habit or £1,461 in petrol. It also suggests that charging from a standard domestic 13A plug will cost 3 times as much as a smart charger.
So £1,200 more per year for a petrol car…
The electric Corsa costs £12,820 more than the petrol (Vauxhall site list price).
At £1,200 ‘saving’ per year it will take 10.7 years to break even during which time you will have driven 128,200 miles.
If you don’t have a smart charger the ‘saving’ will be £678 per year. So it will take 19 years and 226,000 miles to break even.
I understand insurance is more expensive for electric cars but I can’t find anything about servicing costs. Maybe that will help push these crazy numbers down a bit.
I don’t think depreciation would be much short of 100% for any 19 year car.
I’ve no idea how accurate those figures are, but assuming they are, they rely on the relative price of electricity and petrol remaining stable. I think there’s a good chance electricity will get much more expensive and petrol stay the same or get cheaper. If the current plans to turn us 100% electric are pursued, they won’t be able to generate enough for everyone and they will ration it by increasing prices.
Realistically tof the aim is simply to price we plebs off the road. The mode of transport is irrelevant.
I think you’re right. The market price of petrol not interfered with by the state would drop but they will make it stays expensive by taxing it more.
The numbers were from the linked article (GB News) except for the list price of the vehicles – I didn’t check them further except to say that I don’t pay quite that much per litre from my local Tesco. The implied miles / kWh and miles / litre seemed typically over inflated as all car manufacturers figures are.
The figures given suggest that the energy consumption of the electric Corsa would be 2,760 kWh / year (for 12,000 miles) which is a little under the 2,900 units which they reckon is the UK Medium Typical Domestic Consumption. So essentially nearly doubling a normal electricity bill if we don’t get a special tariff (so £693 / year seems cheap for a current annual leccy bill)
The price of petrol is already significantly made up of tax paid to the government. £0.5795 / litre in duty and then VAT at 20% on the subtotal amount.
Yes, I agree that TPTB would prefer most of us not to have personal cars. They’ll just about accept electric scooters to buzz about town – for now. They’ll probably issue them free to anyone over 100 – with parental permission.