I am a British woman. I am proud, very proud to be British.
Not for who is currently in Government from one year to the next. At this point, they are mostly the same. Labour is no longer a party for the working class and there is no real alternative to what they used to be. They believe in self ID which would be disastrous for women. The Greens think that women are "non-men" (given the subject matter of this blog post, it amused me that I found myself Googling an "acceptable" news source for this link, more later). The Liberal Democrats, do they even really exist anymore after their Judas move on tuition fees?
I am proud to be British because of the people. Our determination. Our self deprecation. Our sarcasm. The way in which we act when everything around us is a mess, but we can still come together as a nation when it counts. The Blitz spirit that still lives in all of us. It is part of our make up. Who we are.
I remember when we hosted the Olympics. Days before there had been riots in the streets. Yet the next day, a clean up was organised on Twitter and people turned up with their brooms. That is us.
Then watching the Olympics, the pride we felt as a nation. The way we got behind and cheered our own. Lets not forget. We came third in the world that year. This tiny island. With so much heart.
That is what being British is to me. Our heart and our spirit. Our backbone. I refuse to apologise for it.
So I have a question. What is happening to us?
I have said this before, but when did we as a country agree that the left were right and the right were wrong? That there was no in-between. No centre. That only an ultra left leaning perspective (far past the realms of what you previously call left wing) could be listened to and anything other was Nazism. Evil. Not to be listened to. Deplatformed.
Because that is what is happening. Even businesses cannot escape it. The speed in which they immediately backtrack and change their policies is frankly shocking.
I remember a lady known on Twitter as flashmaggie who dared to say "Death doesn't misgender. You die as you were born". (You can read about her experience here). That is a fact last time I checked. Nothing controversial there. Is is biology, pure and simple.
Yet drinks company Innocent, after one tweet from someone with the massive total of 45 followers who complained to Innocent that they were following a "clear transphobe"; took it upon themselves to issue an apology for following her, and promptly unfollowed her account.
I would add that Sussex police also investigated her for a hate crime for that tweet. Thankfully she did not fall to the current wave of "non crime hate incidents" that have been recorded on no less than 120,000 times. 2000 of those have been children under 16 (I make no apology for the Daily Mail link, when did that become a social crime?).
This week was the launch of GB News. The reaction to this has made me simultaneously laugh, eye roll but also; frankly despair.
Again we see companies who originally signed up for advertising on the site, quickly issuing apologies for daring to do so. Now it seems that a single tweet can change the minds of major companies.
We see people in faux horror, dropping their knitting (sorry to knitters for that quip) and screaming in some sort of self righteous disgust that a news channel dares to have voices and opinions that might not be automatically ultra left. Not bowing down to the current "words are violence", I am "triggered" culture that seems to be becoming more and more prevalent.
Lets look at some of the recent headlines from them. Child marriage is child abuse. The pandemic has blown up the public finances. No jab, no job? Shocking I know. I think I need therapy just from reading them. I jest.
But honestly. Is this what we have become? Given the current state of some of the press and what is reported/misreported, I would have thought another news site with a more open way of reporting would be welcomed.
Look at all the things that are kept from us. The fact that people have been rioting in Paris, until recently, every weekend for the past two years. Look at the many BLM riots that have either been ignored or misreported. Do you remember the reporter saying on live telephone that the ongoing riot behind him was in fact a peaceful protest, despite the massive fire on the background.
Now, look at this image. I bet you think that it was from the so called "insurrection" at the White House in January. But no, it wasn't. This was BLM/Antifa the year before. The press called it a demonstration. That looks like people setting things on fire and rioting to me.
I still hold hope that the majority of the UK has better sense than those who faint on social media at voices and opinions that differ from their own.
We are British FFS. It is time that we remembered that. We have backbone. We have opinions and thoughts. Stand up. Remember who and what we are.
