Sacred Cows

Lucky old India has the sacred cow.

Poor old Britain has two scared cows: The NHS and Islam. Dare talk rationally about either of them and you will be treated like a heretic or a phobic.

Today's Big Question

Who said the following?

"The burka is an archaic tribal piece of cloth that is eagerly used by fundamentalist zealots to promote a toxic brand of extremist non-Koranic theology"

A) The Pope

B) Boris Johnson

C) Dr Taj Hargey of the Muslim Educational Centre, Oxford

The Great Betrayal?

Until fairly recently I was extremely active in politics standing in three parliamentary elections, numerous council elections, actually managing to get elected to my local council in 1999, and even worked for a few years in politics before disillusionment set in. It seems the higher up the ladder many politicos climb the more their core beliefs and principles are jettisoned in the interests of personal promotion. It's very sad but seriously principled politicians are few and far between.

I must have been seriously active for nearly 40 years, starting during my school days, but can honestly say I have never known the political class held in such low esteem as they are today. Every day they seem to actively go against the wishes of the electorate. People are concerned at the huge level of immigration into our country. The establishment let more and more people in. Sick of seeing aid money go to countries that have enough wealth to develop space and nuclear weapons programmes? The government will ring fence or increase the aid budget. Sick of seeing the Blue Badge for disabled motorists being abused? The government are planning to hand out 600 000 more to people who are more than capable of walking a few miles but have some 'unseen disability'. The list is endless.

In 2016 the biggest exercise in democracy ever to take place in this country was the Brexit referendum. Against all the odds and with the state propaganda machine working tirelessly for the Remain campaign we took on the establishment and won. Many of us came out of political hibernation to campaign for Brexit and we won by a clear margin. Although too young to vote in the 1975 in/out referendum I remember clearly after that referendum, which we lost, that once the result was announced it was accepted and life went on. There were no calls for in a bit but not quite in, no demands to be in in name only and there were certainly no demands for a second referendum. Those of us who saw what was developing continued to campaign against what became the EU and as it evolved into an ever more anti-democratic, authoritarian superstate, which we were assured it would never become during the campaign of 1975, so more and more people turned against the EU culminating in the 2016 result.

The anti-democratic forces of the EU and our political establishment are now working their hardest to subvert that referendum and once again trample on the wishes of the electorate. Theresa May, a Remain campaigner, stupidly called a general election in 2017 and threw away the Tories' slim majority. During that campaign both parties pledged to honour the wishes of the people and committed themselves to Brexit. Now they've had our votes they are once again reneging on their promises and doing everything to make Brexit less and less likely. The EU negotiators are working hard to put obstacles in our way and are proving every day to be only interested in punishing us and the citizens of the EU for us having the audacity to say enough is enough.

Now there are increasing calls for a second referendum. Interestingly the Remainers didn't mention wanting a second referendum during the campaign, largely because they arrogantly expected an easy win and never expected the peasants to revolt. Now the usual suspects are being pushed out in their bathchairs to demand a second referendum and are calling themselves 'The Peoples' Vote'. Funny that the people voted in 2016 but they don't accept that as 'the  peoples' vote'.

When the establishment really want to piss off the people they trundle out that ridiculous caricature of a self-important, pompous, up his own arse twat Peter Mandelson. This week he's been calling those of us who voted for Brexit racists, white nationalists, xenophobes and Trump supporting far-right extremists. How to piss off nearly 18,000,000 voters with one fat, narrow minded, greedy, grasping gobshite. If the Leave campaign had made such ridiculous, totally unfounded remarks about the other side there would have been calls for a investigation, probably by the police for hate speech.

There is anger and resentment at large but my fear is that so few people will be angry enough to get off their bums and actually scare the establishment that we are heading for Brexit in name only. The French would now be ripping up paving slabs in Paris and burning tyres on their motorways. Maybe the great betrayal is not only the establishment betraying the people, but the people betraying our proud history and acting like lambs to the slaughter.