I’ve got to the stage where I try not to watch or listen to the news beyond 6 pm. It just means that I lie awake scrolling through the horrors and injustices that are seemingly all too prevalent in our modern, civilised world. Similarly, if I pick up a device within a few hours of bed, I spend hours ranting in my head rather than skipping lightly from cloud to cloud in the land of nod. You can accuse me of burying my head in the sand, but I’m not; I’m just trying to not to become engulfed or overwhelmed. If I had continued to follow the news cycle as assiduously as I used to, this column would be a weekly primal scream, you dear reader would have switched off years ago, and I would have probably been ….ahem …. reassigned. However…
This last, dreadful, tragic week and the reaction to it need to be commented on, so please forgive me. The awful details that emerged from the murder trial in Reading reminded the nation that every life is precious, not everyone is telling the truth, and that every human in situations of stress and violence can make the wrong decisions. It was an awful tragedy. A boy was murdered, and the murderer was convicted. And a family, whose bravery was an example to us all, asked for their son’s death to be a beacon of hope at this most awful of times: “We do not want his death to be used to create division, further hatred or tension. We want his story to make our streets safer for everyone.”
A clear, dignified request from a bereft family at their lowest ebb. Our simple humanity demands that we, as a society, respect and honour those wishes. But somehow, we have allowed a vile bigot near the levers of power in this country, a person who sees every tragedy as an opportunity to harvest the seeds of division he has constantly sown. This preening popinjay trampled over a family’s grief in his desperation to shore up his crumbling edifice of respectability by issuing a clarion call to the thugs and mindless foot soldiers that stalk the dark shadows of the racist right. And come they did. Aiming their “cold, hard rage” as instructed at the police and the property of people living close to where the tragedy occurred. This man should be in prison, not in Parliament.
It is my desperate hope that all of Britain can now see this disgusting creature for who he is. He will willingly destroy any sense of integration, community, and harmony for his momentary suckle on the teat of power. All of us must fight this racism, which he has brought out of the fringes of society into the mainstream, firstly by promoting our isolation from our neighbours, then by pointing his finger at those he regards as ‘untermensch’ and making them responsible for society’s ills. His behaviour this week has been nothing short of disgusting, and hopefully it is his hubris. He has been hiding to avoid scrutiny over corruption charges, but he could not resist, and now we all see him for what he is. A fascist, opportunist piece of shit to be wiped from decent society’s shoe.
Music this week has been mainly inspired by my feelings. The radio show is full of wonderful stuff. As ever…
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