461. Qatari cash converters, cantankerous king Charles & conniving, complicit commentators… It’s Christmas!

Interesting aint it?

Over the last few months while there has been intermittent interest in the Qatar mass crime event (sorry – the football world cup) – the equally hideous reports of (then) Prince Charles, now King Charles III and his guzzling of Qatar millions conveniently evaporated from the consciousness of the UK media.

As I said in a letter to editors yesterday –

Presumably – now the Qatar World Cup men’s final is over, the media might go back to pretending they care about the dead, abused and exploited workers on whose misery the football stadiums were built.

Just joking!

Of course there is now another Qatari ‘cash converter’ – Greek MEP Eva Kaili caught doing Qatar’s bidding for Q.cash.

The person who seems to have slipped the memories of the press, commentators and broadcast media this Christmas is cantankerous king Charles.

If it weren’t for the bitching and whining about the couple who fled institutional abuse (for not toeing the line) and, in Meghan's case, racism and extreme misogyny, they could claim they’re just not that interested in a defunct, dysfunctional, expensive, past-its-sell-by-date, inbred institution. But they clearly are.

So, when it comes to Qatari cash converters, where are all the questions related Charlies’ Q.cash?  Where are the enquiries into the millions he accepted in shopping bags (how pedestrian) along with the questions about FIFA and the MEP?

I hope those of you watching chump Charlie doing his first Christmas speech this year, to a bemused nation and an increasingly disinclined commonwealth, will consider a few things; his abusive act of marrying a young woman he knew he didn’t love while carrying on with the woman he did (that would be Camilla who just hosted the two worst Meghan abusers - Clarkson and Morgan for lunch) and his whining and bitching (the pen that didn’t work – the wife who was too slow leaving an event he’d had enough of) and the scuttling off to his Scottish estate in breach of covid rules. I mean he’s not exactly his granny, sticking around during The Blitz is he? Charles Mountbatten Windsor is much more like Prince Prospero in Edgar Allan Poe’s - The Marque of the Red Death - minus the colourful personality.

No, consider that all the above is paid for out of the public purse and he also has the ill-gotten gains of centuries but it’s still not enough. He covets bags of Qatari cash.

Happy Christmas.

Back in January.

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460. Fear + Dysfunction = Catastrophe

- domestically, politically, globally. 

It’s a simple equation. One we know – in theory.

The problem is that extreme right-wing activism and in fact all forms of authoritarianism, thrive on this equation.

It is no coincidence that many of those on the lunatic right – when we take a closer look – are deeply inadequate people and attracted to fear and dysfunction like Harry Potter dementors.

From Donald Trump, a man bursting with insufficiencies to Boris de-Brexit Johnson. From migrant botherer Nigel Farage to America’s white supremacist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes. In a dark irony, it has been noted many times - there is no one on the side of white supremacy who looks and/or sounds anything other than extremely inferior.

And we do not hold these people to the standards we hold our contemporaries to. We don’t even hold them to the standards we’d hold their contemporaries to – i.e. more moderate politicians or commentators. To give one tiny example – during the pandemic when then PM Boris de-Brexit Johnson partied while people died – Scottish 1st minister Nicola Sturgeon was publically shamed because she broke the rules. In her case she stood up. Yes. She stood up in a social setting where she would have been within the rules if she’d stayed seated. It’s a false equivalence that has gained corrosive traction.

 For a current relevant example of how this plays out in the media and with those at the top – you only need look at how the right-wing UK press were happy to make non-too subtle equivalence between teen sex-pest and friend of famous paedo - Prince Andrew and Prince Harry. The latter's crime was fleeing the country to protect his wife from racism.

Here in the UK, how many truly vile inadequate human monstrosities have been elevated to The House of Lords (including the Tory peer being investigated for enriching her family during covid to the tune of £29m from a dodgy PPE contract) – to the point when you have to conclude that any decent law abiding citizen would be morally bound to refuse a peerage. Though, of course, constitutionally The HoL is an abomination anyhow.

And of course Putin - the Russian authoritarian (and war criminal in the style of Blair and  Bush) once brought a large dog to a meeting with Angela Merkel just because he knew she was wary of dogs. Though, we have to bracket him. How much choice the people of Russia actually had in ‘electing’ him is debatable. Well, it’s debatable as long as you don’t live in Russia.

And party affiliation or label or even cultural background matters not a jot nor does the subject. The hideous far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir has been given political breathing space by blot on the landscape Benjamin Netanyahu trying to escape corruption charges. Despite the anti-Semitism recently washing Trump dirtier than ever – these people could be part of the Trump fan club. They sound and look the SAME.

But these vile individuals are not really the question.

The question is why – at certain points in history - do we (THE public) give them such prominent platforms, listen to their poison and follow them down the sewer.

Fear and Dysfunction.

When humans are scared and not acting or reacting properly they do weird stuff. They will listen to nonsense. They will act inappropriately. For some reason they actively move away from the common sense and the practical.

What folk are scared of is often real.

I think collectively at some level we know the planet we all rely on to survive is creaking under the weight of our collective apathy. Our abuse. Our over-use. It’s like we know we messed up - we actually did leave the house without turning the gas off but rather than go back and sort it out we are listening to the guy who is telling us that the coming explosion is someone else’s fault. The poor person taking benefits – the migrant – the Jewish/black/gay person.

However, at the back of our minds we really know that the problem is we left the gas on. We fucked up. Are we too far away to get back in time to turn it off? Dare we call emergency services and admit what we’ve done. Or should we just bury our heads and join in screaming at other people and when the house blows up point at those other folk – all the while knowing – really knowing - in our heart of hearts it’s not them. It never was them.

We all should have checked out own behaviour.

But how tempting it is when some gob-shite comes along and pours poison in our ears and persuades, with our collusion and willingness, someone else is to blame…

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