Go woke go broke

As the sclerosis of wokeism spreads globally ever further and wider, let's take a whistle stop tour of some of the latest ridiculousness served up on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

The left of the American Democratic Party hates its own country. Where once it directed its ire at Donald Trump, it now simply hates the United States of America and everything it stands for through any prism you choose. Race, sex, gender, money, aspiration.

There is a steady increase in so called social and political commentators in the UK appearing on broadcast media to demand that we make reparations hither and thither for atrocities (real and perceived) we committed against persecuted minorities up to 500 years ago.

It is not going to happen. I am proud of my country and I hope you are too.

Is it perfect? No.

Are there parts of our history that did not paint the country in its best light? Yes.

Wittering on about it will change nothing. I'm a patriot. I love my country. If you don't like it here, exercise your free will and leave.

Trigger warnings. The very words strike "fear" into the hearts of good men and women. In the latest woke wheeze, we now have trigger warnings for trigger warnings.

Warwick University, hang your collective head in shame.

I have a solution. Don't bother with the trigger warnings in the first place. Here's my wheeze, open up your lecture halls and start doing your job of teaching students how (not what) to think.

I know it is does not have the cache of planned industrial action (which perversely is supported by the National Union of Students) and with 90% of lecturers left leaning, I won't hold my breath.

I am rarely lost for words but this is a serious competitor for the "stupid tree" award, hitting every single branch and twig on the way back to terrafirma.

In short, a photographer was censured for referring to women as ladies. That is it. Enough to cause disapproval and triggering.

The ladies in question were on a raised podium behind gentlemen in front of them. At the end of the session, the gentlemen were asked by the photographer to help the ladies descend safely from the podium.

The photographer now faces cancellation for an expression of common decency. If you have a problem with the word "lady", you probably have a problem, many problems in fact and perhaps need to look at yourself. X and Y chromosomes are largely immutable. Please get over it.

Amol Rajan's two part series "the Princes and the press" has certainly generated some tabloid clicks and apparently led to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge switching coverage of their upcoming carol service to ITV.

The BBC's decision to reframe Megxit, first coined by Dan Wootton in The Sun in 2020 has been woke washed to Sussexit to appease the infamous media shy residents of Montecito, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (sans HRH) Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle.

Harry claims that Megxit is mysogynistic or sexist. This is for the birds.

Even writing these words, I realise I am devoting time and energy to these privacy cravers who hate the tabloid media unless it bends entirely to their will and does their bidding in their unseemly spat with the Royal Family.

The Sussexes wanted their freedom, peace and privacy. So do we. From them.

Step aside Wolfson College, a Canadian competitor for your Stupid Tree award has emerged.

The Toronto District School Board has cancelled a proposed talk with Nadia Murad who was kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by IS, fearing that the talk, which would have included discourse around Murad's forthcoming book "The Last Girl: My Story Of Captivity" would offend Muslims and (wait for it) "foster Islamophobia".

Your eyes are not deceiving you. A proscribed terrorist organisation enslaves a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is blocked from telling her story to Canadian students for fear of Islamophobia.

This is insanity. I would like to believe that this is peak Woke. I fear not.

Chatter around the theory that younger generations are different from homo sapiens of yore continue unabated.

Terms such as "woke snowflakes" are considered offensive and a misrepresentation of their core beliefs.

The reductive premise seems to be that if people of a certain age and demographic (as a 50 year old, white, middle class, heterosexual male, I appear to be such a person) would just understand their needs, their thoughts, their musings, we would realise they are just "kind".

Presumably this includes Greta Thunberg ordained as the poster girl for Gen Z. I like to consider myself open minded but given the voluminous guff spouted forth from the Swedish prophesier of doom, I think I've heard enough.

With under 3 weeks to go to the 25th December, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Living in a Judeo Christian country where despite the ineptitude of the Church of England, Christianity remains the primary religion, "Merry Christmas" seems a more than acceptable way to address my fellow man.

Not according to the Cabinet Office. Apparently, Merry Christmas may be offensive to those in minority communities, both secular and religious.

I have no desire to ban Eid, Diwali, Passover or any other religious celebration undertaken wholeheartedly by minorities throughout the United Kingdom. Why is there even a discussion to be had in a Christian country about banning the term Christmas?

This is the kind of nonsense that spews out of a Whitehall that is only around 25% staffed, with working from home now the method of choice for many civil servants. On full pay and a copper bottomed final salary public sector pension of course.

After 20 months of shuffling paper on the kitchen table, combining the odd stroke of work with "This Morning", "Loose Women" and "The Chase", it is time for the mandarins to give their head a wobble and get back to work, instead of telling the citizens of the United Kingdom what they can and cannot celebrate.

The pandemic has seen a collective failure by many established religions in turn creating a theological vacuum that the cults of COVID-19, Climate Change and Woke have filled.

Successive Archbishops of Canterbury have led the Church of England (yes it really does still exist) down paths that have led many Christians to lapse in their church attendance and in extremis to convert to other religions, not least Roman Catholicism.

Justin Welby's interventions in political matters has also not resonated, including with senior members of the clergy, including Michael Nazir-Ali, who crossed the floor to Rome.

The Church of England must reconnect with the nation to remind both those who have forgotten that they are still the predominant religion in the United Kingdom and illuminate those who have never engaged that they exist and that they may just have something worth listening to.

The emergence of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 led to the inevitable Downing Street press conference hosted by Boris Johnson flanked by Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance. And the inevitable return of restrictions.

The questioning of the Prime Minister by representatives of the BBC, ITV and Sky was at best "softball".

All 3 strongly implied that the government should impose more draconian restrictions more quickly (leading inevitably to another lockdown) but failed spectacularly to land a blow on Boris, despite November seeing him career perpetually from crisis to disaster.

Journalists would be exempt from any future lockdowns but millions of UK citizens who (for example) own their own businesses would not. They have had quite enough of restrictions on their civil liberties, more than enough of losing money, a belly full of worry and substantially more than enough of BBC, ITV and Sky reporters.

The impact and "readiness for government" of the reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet itself is addressed elsewhere but I was fascinated by the flagrant disregard shown by Keir Starmer to Angela Rayner in relation to its mere existence.

Rayner it seems suffered the indignation of the reshuffle beginning coterminous with her giving a speech, with no knowledge that it was taking place.

This may be interpreted as Starmer exacting his revenge for Rayner's push back against being stripped of certain roles in the last shuffling of the red deckchairs in May.

Starmer is unable to sack Rayner as Deputy Leader of the party and she retains appreciable support within the Trade Union movement, which for the most part are lukewarm on Starmer.

This was though a sleight, delivered insouciantly by the leader of the opposition who has enjoyed steady momentum throughout November as the Tories found more shotgun cartridges to fire and more of their own feet to fire them into.

Rayner, forced to apologise for "Scumgate" will come back from this but Starmer has shown for perhaps the first time as Labour leader some fleetness of foot and Machiavellian cunning that suggests he may yet have the knockout punch, in this fight at least.

The cult of Wokeism has wrapped its tentacles around COVID-19 with a vice like virtue signalling grip.

Face masks: wear them, everywhere, even alone in your car, to show you care.

Lockdowns: insist on them at every turn despite the knowledge that many more people will suffer illness or die as a result of COVID-19 than from it.

Vaccine passports: This year's "must have" along with the NHS app, still enabled and just waiting for that ping.

The coup de grace? Jabs. Lots and lots of jabs. What started out as 15M vulnerable people across 4 cohorts needing 1 jab by Easter this year has turned into everyone needing 3 jabs by February 2022 and the possibility (probability) that refusing to keep receiving boosters every 3-6 months will lead to the curtailment of civil liberties.

As an obese free thinker with a chronically ill wife facing a multiple organ transplant, I have decided to comply. That is my free will. I urge everyone to exercise theirs and make their decision for them. I promise to respect it.

Unlike this government and its temporary allies in the People's Democratic Republic of Woke, I may disagree with what you say or do but I will always defend your right to say or do it.