Written by ‘Norman’

 

There are hundreds of people working all hours of the day and night on matters of national importance at the Cabinet Office, with such numbers working there surely it should be called the Cabinet Factory. Several times during the ‘party-gate’ shambles I’ve found myself wondering what on earth these people do, apart from sending emails to each other about ‘events’ and taking hundreds of photographs when they should presumably be dreaming up all sorts of ways in which we, the masses, can be controlled, instructed or forced to comply with whatever directive comes from above.

Amazingly it is rumoured that Boris is minded to sign us up to an international treaty proposed by the World Health Organisation, which employs 7000 people of whom you have never heard, in 150 countries. The WHO was set up in the heady rules-based world order days post world war two and has six regional offices and a headquarters in Geneva. It has now decided to seek ‘powers’ to enforce its health dictats worldwide in case of another pandemic.  You can see where all this is going, and many people  are concerned that these unelected bureaucrats will have powers that will override national sovereignty and force legislation to be enacted by countries that are treaty signatories.

I can  already see the mandarins in Whitehall salivating at the prospect of more work in the national interest coming their way, so I wrote to our MP (Conservative, as it happens) to ask what if anything was being said or done about this, given the fact that Boris has his hands full at the moment with party-gate, post covid economy, rising inflation, energy costs, net Zero emission policies and of course the war in Ukraine and the little matter of keeping his job.

Not to worry, replied my MP.  ‘The WHO does not and would not have the kind of enforcement powers that can ever override our own British courts, judges or legal systems. The UK government would never allow them to change UK law,’ and went on: ‘We have not left the European Union to give away our ability to think and legislate for ourselves when it comes to issues such as lockdowns or restrictions.’

Sounds like Ted Heath and his “it’s just a little pooled sovereignty” and later Major and his motley crew when the Maastricht Treaty was sold as just a ‘tidying up exercise’.  Anyway, there will be some sort of consultation or robust debate to distract the masses and I’m sure Conservative MPs such as this one would never vote for anything “that compromises UK sovereignty in this vital area of ‘policy’.  Note the last five words. I’d have more confidence in this if a colleague had not received a very similar reply from his MP.

There is so much theatre and madness around at the moment, much of it obviously churned out to cause disquiet and distraction, that it’s hard not to laugh out loud at some of it, goodness knows at whom this is aimed – presumably  for the  consumption of the Whitehall mandarins or the media circus, although to be fair it certainly worked during the covid years, the Ukraine propaganda and to a certain extent party-gate: But here’s a thought: some two thirds of voters think that Boris should go. Is that the same voters who wanted more lockdown, more financial help, clapped for the NHS and last week said that Boris was doing a sterling job leading the return to normal and supported his decision to send millions in aid and material to Ukraine?  It’s hard to tell these days what is genuine or what is just virtue signalling.

I suppose it’s all part of the ‘let’s all be friends’, nice and woke to each other, and for goodness sake don’t say anything resembling hard facts that could have nasty consequences for a generation which says it’s devastated if the dog makes a mess on the kitchen floor, has apparently an obsession with cleanliness in the home, and also needs a trigger warning in case strong language in the form of hurtey words
upset them. All this seems to have caused many people of all ages to be frightened by anything out of the ordinary, or something that somebody said or is it, I wonder, based on  lack of what we used to call common sense or just plain ignorance.

The Globe Theatre was reported  to be offering trigger support and counselling helpline information to theatre-goers upset by the storyline of Romeo and Juliet and again recently for Shakespeare’s Juliet Caesar in case sensitive people were upset by seeing knives and stage blood.  In my innocence I had imagined that in land of Shakespeare you wouldn’t attend a play by the playwright without at least having some idea of what it was about.  Wrong again, I’m afraid.  Never assume anything. Imagine two people walking just in front of me in Stratford outside of the world-famous theatre, one turns to the other and asks: “Who is this Shakespeare then?’’ “Dunno really,” was the reply, “but I think he writes books or something.”

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford on Avon produced The Duchess of Malfi awhile back and used so much stage blood flowing freely from an animal carcass (trigger warning – it was fake) suspended above the stage that was awash that front seat audience members were issued with covers in case they were inadvertently splashed with ‘blood’.  But then there’s no business like show business.

Theatre has certainly been one of the main drivers of political correctness, with attacks on our heritage and culture that this latest statement from the Globe should come as no surprise – at least to older people who may remember the furore over various theatrical productions that many felt were sacrilegious at the time.

One of the biggest mistakes business leaders and politicians and the media make is thinking that their groupthink is agreed and accepted by colleagues, the audience and the wider community.  Often nothing could be further from the truth though as the entertainment industry and some companies have found that the public is getting tired of lectures and ‘woke’ profits are falling considerably.

Recently I responded to a survey prepared by our local council as a consultative document on proposed pedestrianisation of roads. It followed the usual format until the last three questions which asked for details of age, gender, religion, ethnicity, disability, pronoun preference and emotional sensitivities. You can probably imagine my answer to that, although I am now worried that it may have been seen as politically incorrect.

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