The Great Bell – Big Ben
I have to hand it to the MSM! Big Ben Bong Gate was fine to splash across headlines and articles while the Megxit saga was on the back burner. Now this ‘drama’ is back, and embarrassing Johnson and Whitehall about not letting Big Ben bong is taking the back seat.
I also have to hand it to the MSM for failing to connect the dots: surely we racist Leavers are the culprits for the Megxit drama! But wait – did the MSM actually take note of the outburst of actor Laurence Fox on Question Time last Thursday – and the reaction of the public? Watch it here. It demonstrates nicely that we are all tired of being called racist when we’re no such thing.
And what has this got to do with the Big Ben Bong? This: it’s that the MSM are still in thrall to their ‘all Leavers are racist’ mantra, that they are still blissfully unaware of what we, the British Public, actually think. It will come as no surprise that the editors and authors writing for RemainCentral are the ones still firmly wedded to the vituperation of all things ‘Leave’.
I really have to hand it to the author of this article, published at 12.01 yesterday. BongGate was in full flow as was the uproar after the Fox-QT remarks. The title of that article is “Bring on the bongs if it ends the culture war” (link, paywalled) and it’s a vitriolic piece, dripping with venom against Nigel Farage in particular and “Leave” generally.
The author is Janice Turner. She is setting the tone in the summary: “A tacky last hurrah for Brexit ultras is a price worth paying for us to move on from the years of rancour and paralysis”. Translated this means that celebrating our freedom by having our national symbol, Big Ben, chime the hour, is despicable – but if it means giving those tacky Leave ‘ultras’ a bone so they’ll shut up, the civilised Remainers in Westminster will bear even this final burden, sighing and rolling their eyes. She starts out meaning to be funny-ironic but simply shows her Remain prejudices to the full:
“Unsheathe the mighty clock, polish up the clapper, alert the campanologist royal. If Leave ultras can raise half a million quid by this weekend, let them mark Brexit at 11pm on January 31 with Big Ben. Give the believers their bongs!” […] The whole Big Ben affair is already Brexit in microcosm. The PM making one of his jolly, populist, careless pronouncements, that if people want to “bung a bob” for a bong, he’ll make sure the clock strikes. Only to reverse-ferret when it turns out that, even after we shake off Europe’s yoke, custodians of the Elizabeth Tower have Brussels-like bureaucratic notions including “principles of propriety and proper oversight of public expenditure”. (link, paywalled)
Smell the subliminal Remain fragrance: ‘we can do nothing on our own, we need Brussels’ because, once the shackles are gone, there will be mayhem, no principles, no propriety, no proper oversight’ – oh dear! Next, she’s having a go at crowdfunding, dropping names:
“As I write, the crowdfunded Bongs for Brexit account has passed the £200,000 mark. Surely it will reach £500,000 by tomorrow night and, if not, London has many Russian oligarchs, or can’t Arron Banks just chuck in a gem from his diamond mine?” (link, paywalled)
But that’s not sufficient, she has to get in her smears:
“But why not let Nigel Farage, Francois, Tice et al enjoy their last hurrah. Let them strut and sing their charming song “Seventeen million f*** offs”. “ (link, paywalled)
Oooh – was she hurt and disgusted by that song, by the use of the F-word? The artist, Dominic Frisby, has added a new ending, and should you have missed it, here is that song again, in full. Next, her considered diagnosis of who the real culprits for this “culture war” are. It gets nasty:
“This is, after all, what they tore apart our social fabric to win. […] Waving Union flags, red-faced and triumphant […] will they be happy at last? Or will Leave ultras be wondering what to do for the rest of their lives? The Brexit Party is defunct, its MEPs back from Brussels to huckster new lives on reality TV or fight for the shouty, wild-card slot on the BBC Question Time panel. Their diaries are only busy in November when they harangue BBC presenters for not wearing poppies. They’ve lost their hate-figure now Meghan Markle has fled. They need a major royal death so they can make an absurd patriotic demand — to paint the Mall black, a whole day of silence — then go crazy when it is denied. What would suit them best is a minor war.” (link, paywalled)
How utterly outrageous! Does she not realise that it’s her and her Remain colleagues who are seething with hatred, not us? She still seems to believe that we 17.4 million were in thrall to those “Leave ultras”. She perpetuates the Remain lie that we’ve all been misguided and voted Leave only for the mayhem, for ‘tearing apart’ our country. This, she says, is ‘The Culture War’ – not the one instigated by the Left’s identity policies and obviously not that war waged by the Remain establishment, the metro elite and the MSM of which she is a part. She continues:
“I’d stand in Parliament Square dressed as Dominic Cummings intoning the bongs myself if it truly marked the end of our culture war. It was funny at first, that fight on the Thames between Nigel Farage’s trawler blasting out The Great Escape theme and the Remain cruiser containing Bob Geldof, flicking V-signs.” (link, paywalled)
Funny, was it? Funny that celeb millionaires gave the finger to a whole industry decimated by the EU? Words fail me! Next:
“But it wore us down: our public discourse degraded; vicious social media spats transposed into family rows. Then months of political stagnation. Nothing is more lowering than stasis: a third of British people said Brexit negotiations were affecting their mental health. On election night I prayed for anything but a hung parliament. This wasn’t so much a Tory victory as the electorate saying: “Make this thing end”.” (link, paywalled)
Her Remain crowd is clearly blameless. Obviously they didn’t drag this out, doing all they could to make us creep back into the loving arms of Brussels – it was our, the Leavers’ fault, for daring to resist. Next, while trying to say that not all Leavers are objectionable, she’s back with a vengeance, but you have to agree, she is trying to be even-handed and even a bit funny:
“Not all the Bongs for Brexit messages were triumphalist: “I’m a patriot,” says one. “The bells will chime and a line is drawn. Then we can all go forward positively and together.” Well, amen to that. I’d celebrate the end both of obsession about blue passports and those “Bollocks to Brexit” maroon passport covers: to red-trousered Little Englanders and the Prosecco Drinkers Against Beastliness on People’s Marches in their yellow-starred blue berets, wittering they’ll need visas to visit their Tuscan second homes.” (link, paywalled)
Perhaps she hasn’t got a Tuscan 2nd home …. Next, sort-of showing her relief that Johnson won, she cannot resist even then to have a dig at the ERG and JRM:
“The middle ground — pragmatic Remainers who respect the referendum result and Leavers who regard final departure without glee — are relieved that on December 13 politics turned boring again. […] His large majority means that, unlike Theresa May, he needn’t give a single thought to the ERG and Jacob Rees-Mogg. […] Even the Labour Party may be shocked into electing a sane, professional leader. The nation’s fever has passed.” (link, paywalled)
If you thought that, phew, this surely is now it, no more vitriol left to pour out, then you’d be wrong:
“Moreover our pimple of populism has popped. […] our own hard right is neutralised, without purpose or elected office. Post-Brexit, polling on immigration is more favourable: knowing free movement will end with new controls, people have relaxed about who is already here.” (link, paywalled)
There you have it: Leave was populism, the Leave populist pimple has been popped (what disgusting image!) – and all will be well. She doesn’t seem to understand that ‘free movement’ will only end because of that “populist Leave pimple”, because of the Leavers’, ahem: ‘hard right’ (who they? I haven’t heard from the BNP in a long time!) having worked so strenuously to get us Out. She concludes:
“Things without all remedy/Should be without regard: what’s done, is done”. Of course, after January 31 nothing will truly be done. But here’s to holding the government to account on every detail. Bong! To clear-eyed pragmatism replacing hand-wringing and catastrophising. Bong! To looking forward into the modern world, not back towards Empire nostalgia or some romanticised EU. Here’s to never seeing Nigel Farage’s face on television again. BONG!” (link, paywalled)
Yep, that’s why Big Ben should Bong, sez this Remainer: so that she never has to see Nigel Farage on telly! Let’s forget that it was Remain who did the handwringing, the ‘catastrophising’, the accusations of Little Englanders just wanting that Empire back. We however won’t forget!
BONG-BONG-BONG – BONG-BONG-BONG – BONG-BONG-BONG – BONG-BONG!
Photo by UK Parliament 
If rabid Remainers want to “heal the divide” (a divide almost exclusively & deliberately manufactured by themselves), they can start by apologising for all the abuse & lies they’ve hurled at those wishing to leave the EU.
“Gammon” Racist.
“Old” Ageist.
“Spoons drinkers” Elitist.
“Racist” An outright lie.
“Gullible” Another lie.
The list of their BS is nigh on endless…
This “Janice” sounds remarkably like a regular troll on the commenting websites that I once used to frequent. A variety of user names were used but every now and then another commenter would “out” her and tell her real name. I seem to remember that she was a journalist too. Now….does that name Janice ring a bell???? It was certainly something similar. The vitriol sounds the same anyhow! Remainers will never give up! Their blinkers are too firmly fixed in place! Treat them with the contempt they deserve and thereafter ignore them!
What a piece of work this Janice Turner is who I have never heard of. If anybody else had spouted such badly written bile they would have had the hate police after them.
Too right Lisa B! Leftie remoaners are immune from our Thought Police because our Thought Police think like them. Offensive Hate speech is never left wing, it is always right wing. So there is no such thing as left wing Hate speech, Hate speech can only be right wing and therefore politically incorrect.
Quite a lot of people have donated monies to the crowdfunding for Big Ben to ring on Friday 31st January 2020 at 11.00 pm. We have been told that £170,000 has been raised so far, but a decision has been reached that it will not ring after all. So what happens to that money now, and into whose bank account has it all gone. Will refunds be made to those who donated. The whole farce does not reflect well on Boris Johnson to be honest. I sincerely hope that this is not a sign of things to come, and that he is going to put his foot down with the European Commission over the coming months……..
Sorry, not 2010 but 2020. Fingers not working in unison with brain……
I have heard it reported that it will go to Help the Heroes – fine by me.
It’s hard to believe that any respectable newspaper wishes to publish articles from anyone spouting such vindictive, poisonous vitriol in the MSM as that by this self-important Turner person.
Whoever she is (and I’d never really noticed her, not being a reader of Remain Central) she is obviously spiteful and malevolent – a sore loser who probably can’t even say why she thinks her EU is the best thing since sliced brot.
And to think! she gets PAID for this badly-written and malicious tosh!
Do you know L Jones, I think these ‘used to be’ respectable, newspapers never actually read themselves – if you see what I mean. Anyone with half a brain reading the media can see what a load of tosh it amounts to.
Unfortunately though it has a subliminal effect I think. Bombard people with enough of it and most, being busy with their own lives, tend to go along with it.
Definitely she should not be paid for it.
“Does she not realise that it’s her and her Remain colleagues who are seething with hatred, not us?”
I know that was rhetorical, but no, of course she doesn’t. The Left has no self-awareness nor can it recognise irony when it slaps them in the face; as wonderfully illustrated by Lily Allen’s absurd wail that she is sick to death of Luvvies like Fox forcing their opinions on everyone else. To which one might say, if only.
Leaving aside her own, and the whole Left’s, proclivity for forcing their opinions on everyone else, Fox has become a hero precisely because his rebuttals, what we call common sense, were very unusual on air. And how can one instance make her sick to death anyway.
“the Labour Party may be shocked into electing a sane, professional leader.”
Er, no. They don’t have one standing, or even on the horizon.
I never fail to feel so much wiser and better informed before reading an op-ed in the MSM. Particularly when penned by a vicious little dinner party slut, brim-full of class hatred.
Good to see you so productive lately.
I’m not in the UK for now and, thankfully, don’t get the BBC but do get the US and European news. There is a striking similarity between our Remainers and the US (anything but) Democrats. They are both groups of sore losers who will try anything and everything to oppose the legitimate POTUS or Prime Minister and their governments.
I’m looking forward to two events:
– Boris getting us out of the EU in a timely manner (doubtful)
– Trump getting elected for a second term (likely).
Time that both sets of ne’er-do-wells had their noses rubbed in it…
There do seem to be a larger % of bad losers nowadays. Nobody seems to do anything for its own sake any longer. I find this unedifying. Moneygrubbers I suppose.
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Do you know, I would never have thought of the Remain voters of this country as ‘losers’ if they had just put up and shut up. It’s only because of all their obviously undemocratic manoeuvres that it has crossed my mind they might feel that way. Good thing in a way that they have reacted that way. It has woken us up to a few dangers that threaten our sovereignty and democracy from within.
Probably right T G Spokes – Moneygrubbers and yes it is sad that few if any people do something now simply because it is Right.