the brilliantly leaping gazelle

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December 20, 2025

33:64 presents “Fatboy Slim.”

If there is more compelling evidence that proves that fake news exists better than the ongoing Jeffrey Wrongun brouhaha, then I can’t think of it. None of his victims were British. He broke no British laws and he committed no crimes whilst on British soil. So where’s the British angle? The Prince formerly known as Prince? Please! He has long since ceased to be anything other than a pantomime villain of the press’s creation.

So why then is the British press so obsessed with reporting on a story which has no possible relevance to their readers? Worse, stories on which the press are now reporting on with forensic relish are based on just released documents relating to events that took place years, sometime decades ago. Big deal. They are news only in the technical sense of the word; as in new information. They aren’t news in the sense of something having just happened. 

By endlessly keeping the spotlight on the Wrongun scandal, which was happened both far away and was historical, it  means that a scandal that is happening right here, right now, the press largely ignores. The rape gang scandal involves predominantly working class girls being horrifically abused by gangs predominantly Asian men. The ‘wrong’ kind of victims, of the ‘wrong’ sort of perpetrators. As I pointed out in an earlier post, the ‘wrong’ sort of scandal entirely.

Rape/torture gangs have been predominantly operating the North of England. At least 1,400 girls were abused in Rotherham and more than 1,000 children in Telford. The gangs were also active in Newcastle, Bristol, Derby, Oxford and Halifax. That’s what I mean by scale. The crimes involved so many perpetrators and in so many locations, that it beggars belief that rumours didn’t begin circulating in these locations, and that these rumours didn’t reach the press. 

The Metropolitan Police bears this out. In October it announced it was re-investigating about 9,000 alleged offences, some of which dated back 15 years. First of all, why the need to re-investigate? What was wrong with all the original ones? How many potential abusers have since died and have therefore evaded justice? Secondly, this was the first time I was made aware that the original investigations had ever taken place. Had the press properly done their job, such widespread actual and alleged criminality would have been exposed, and all of the gross failings that facilitated them revealed.

Because this was and still is a story one would’ve thought ideal for the press to get well involved. To begin with, how it was that such evil could flourish in different parts of the country, but with usually with the same victim/perpetrator profile and often with a similar modus operandi. They might also consider whether the fact that most of the towns where these gangs operated were run by Labour councils and that if this played any part in the abject lack of action. If a desire not to be seen as racist, to prioritise ‘community relations above all else, was only extended to one part of the community. And how, if such a desire did exist, did it inform not only the polices and various local government reactions to it.

And when the press do cover it, they choose the wrong thing to focus on. Not anything to do with the abuse itself, but the inquiry into the abuse or more accurately, the various troubles it faces before it can even start. It has become the latest in a long line of political gaffes of which  this government is so prone to. Because thats’ the story. Why hasn’t the inquiry happened yet? Who is causing the delay? Why are they doing it? When it happens will its scope be so wide as to be meaningless? Why was finding a person to lead it so difficult?  Why are people so unwilling to take part in it? How committed to it is the government? What will blah blah fucking blah…

Wrongun, however is the gift that just keeps on giving. He’s dead and he can’t sue. Therefore the press are free to speculate, conjecture and theorise all they want. Its been like this for years.The exact cause of his death was questioned. Elaborate theories involving a shadowy elite were advanced. An elite that had the power, the resources and the ability to orchestrate a murder in a federal prison and make it look like a suicide. To leave no forensic or CCTV evidence. And who exactly were the members of these shadowy elite was itself the source of endless rumour. 

It really is Christmas for the press. The release of thousands of documents and photos provides them with with yet more ways to distract their readers from happening now, in much the same way that waving something shiny and noisy will distract a small child. If we had the fearless press the press loves to tell everyone it is, we’d know all about the rape gang victims ruined lives. Of the unimaginable degradations they suffered and their ongoing traumas.  

Or is it easier to focus on the abuse suffered by children thousands of miles away, when their main abuser is dead and the abuse happened years ago?

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December 11, 2025

33:64 presents “Paul McKenna”

One of the main problems about writing about transgenderism is having to take seriously something which is so fundamentally absurd. Because it is. Its foundational principle, from which all manner of lunacies, ridiculousnesses and insanities then follow, is so utterly bizarre that one wonders how it ever came to be taken so seriously by so many.

Because if it were only the usual assortment of deliberately contrarian poseurs who took this absurdity seriously, then no-one would be any the worse off for it.   Yet incredibly the idea that  gender – which is imagined – is somehow more important than sex – which is fact – has created a ripple effect of nonsense in the Britain of 2025. 

That isn’t to suggest that some people don’t feel as if they born in the wrong body. They may well feel that. But society shouldn’t collude with them, to legitimise and affirm their beliefs, or afford them a prism of oppression through which to view their every interaction. And few news items of the recent past have summed up more perfectly the various nonsenses and abominations inherent in all of this, than the case of Ryan Haley.

He is the transgender woman who was accused of the sexual assault of a 13 year old girl at Newcastle Crown Court. His defence to the charge was unique. The judge summed it up thusly.  Haley had imagined himself to be  ‘the victim of a conspiracy involving the courts, prison service, the barristers in the case, your solicitor, the police, your family and a number of other people,” 

That wasn’t the end of Haley’s persecution complex.  Not only had the victim hypnotised the police, but the jury had also been hypnotised into finding him guilty. It wasn’t anything to do with evidence, the victim being a more credible witness or the fact that he represented himself in court. No. In his own demented reality he was the one who had been wronged, not least by the victim who continually referred to him as he/him when she gave evidence.

Because that ludicrous assertion – that hypnosis was at the reason for the guilty verdict, – may not be quite ludicrous after as it first seems. I mean, what other explanation could there be to make sense of how it is that otherwise sensible people could believe that a woman could have a penis, unless they’d been hypnotised? 

Or to imagine that having such a belief didn’t mark you out as an extremely extreme extremist but instead a ‘progressive’. That you were part of the vanguard fighting for equality for an oppressed minority. And hand-in-hand with that way of thinking is the belief that anyone who is opposed to that oppression is somehow bigoted, fascistic and an enabler of that oppression.  How other than by being hypnotised could so many people, politicians and institutions be unaware of the logical incoherence of this thinking. That by fighting for equality for a minority they are seeking to entrench inequality for the majority.

Its an outrageous notion of equality that negatively impacts the majority of the UK population at the expense of a minority of a minority. According to the 2021 census, women – the ones who menstruate, that is – made up 51% of the UK population, whereas all transgender people – both trans-men and trans-women – and people who identify as non-binary made up 0.5% of it.

Only hypnotism provides a satisfactory explanation as to why it is that some people imagine that the rights of women are little more than social conventions that exist only to be negotiated away. This past week has reminded me of just how pervasive this thinking is and of just how mainstream institutional infection of it has become. Both Girlguiding and the Women’s Institute (WI) reluctantly acknowledged that the ruling of the Supreme Court – that women means biological women – and that by allowing men or boys to continue participating in their activities they were breaking the law. Therefore, no more woggles, jam or Jerusalem for them. 

One might think that having clearly identified who they’d been set up specifically to cater to – the clues being in their names  – that adhering to the law would be something they’d only be too happy to do. But no. Announcing belated compliance with a law that had been clarified back in April, Girlguiding wanted to assure everyone that it still ‘believed strongly in inclusion’ and remained committed to ‘treating everyone with dignity and respect, particularly those from marginalised groups that have felt the biggest impact of this decision’. 

WI was almost pleading with angry trans activists not to blame, call for a boycott or somehow disrupt or discredit them because of this.  ’Incredibly sadly, we will have to restrict our membership on the basis of biological sex from April next year. But the message we really want to get across is that it remains our firm belief that transgender women are women, and that doesn’t change.’

And thats the problem right there. It’s not so much to do with how some people feel as it is with how it makes other people feel when they validate those feelings. No matter how the WI and Girlguiding wish it were otherwise, their actions are profoundly misogynistic. They prioritise the needs of men and boys, who despite no longer wanting to be treated like men or boys by society, nonetheless pick and choose exactly when, where and how that applies. 

The bosses of both the WI and Girlguiding are the latest in a long line of frustrated wannabees. How they wish they spearheading a crucially important movement, one that agitates for social change and which history will judge worthy. Alas, they find themselves leading venerable institutions yes, but not cutting edge, or even close to edge. Bono they are not! They have to jump on the bandwagon of nonsense and make sure everyone knows they’re aboard.

Hypnotism. Got to be.

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December 8, 2025

33:64 presents “Jackie London”

So the budget happened and depending upon who you were, you were either one a winner or a loser. The biggest losers were of course, the taxpayers. Not the taxpayers of 2026, but the taxpayers of 2045 and beyond. Because whilst I’m no economics expert – rather like Protean if if her CV is anything to go by – I do know enough to recognise an act of short-term political expediency so craven it should be called John when I see one.

And thats exactly what abolishing the two child benefit cap (TCBC) is. The only other similarity blatantly act of a government bribing the public with no regard for any longer term consequences I can think of was when Milk Snatcher allowed people to buy their own council homes.

But as with letting people buy their own council homes, the problems that abolishing the TCBC will create – and it’s guaranteed to – will be be someone else’s problem.  Or more accurately problems, because that one problem will create many more. But before I get in to all of that, permit me to quickly refresh your memory as to what the TCBC actually was.

Basically, introduced in April 2017 the cap prevented parents who were already claiming benefits for two children, from claiming benefits for any subsequent children born after that date. It wasn’t suddenly announced in the March of that year, but instead as part of the 2015 budget, with the implications made abundantly clear and with advance warning given. So as I see it, it wasn’t really the government that was pushing children into poverty. If parents on benefits conceived a third child after July 2016 and chose not to abort it or put it up for adoption, then they were causing not just that child, but all three of the children to be pushed into poverty.

I’m not sure what makes me madder, the fact that they’ve abolished it, or the fact that no-one else seems bothered by it. In the short term, abolishing the TCBC is estimated to cost about £3.5 billions annually. However, the interest we pay on our national debt – not the debt, the interest – was about £9.7 billions in September. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had estimated that in 2025-26, the interest would be £112 billions. Not really a shock when you realise that the government has borrowed £99.8 billions since April. 

Bad as the short term is, the longer term is going to be much, much worse. In an interview on BBC 5 Live earlier this year, Protean said ‘And, in the end, a child should not be penalised because their parents don’t have very much money. Now in many cases you might have a mum and dad who were both in work, but perhaps one of them has developed a chronic illness. Perhaps one of them has passed away.”

Really? Is that what we’re going with? Economic policy informed by Julie London and a giant onion? Doubtless there are genuine cases of tragedy, suffering and hardships that unfortunately happen, but to all of the ‘1.6 million children – equivalent to one in nine of all UK children – were affected by the policy last year.’?That was one of the favourite statistics the media loved to use when advocating scrapping the TCBC. Because poverty is only caused by the government, not by a combination of the various forms of capitalism we both bemoan and benefit from. Zero-hour contracts and the gig economy allow Amazon deliveries, Deliveroo and Uber to happen. 

She went on, “There are plenty of reasons why people make decisions to have three, four children, but then find themselves in difficult times … lots and lots of different reasons why families change shape and size over time. And I don’t think that it’s right that a child is penalised because they are in a bigger family through no fault of their own.”

Which is true, right up until the point that you realise that if the child is not to be penalised, then someone has to be.  Protean has effectively sown the seeds of our economic ruination, seeds that will be fertilised, born, and from that moment on, place unsustainable burdens on the state.

There’s the birth. The health visitors, the check-ups and the vaccinations. That costs the NHS. Then nursery, and school. Oh the state’ll pay for that. On a low income or no income? There’s a state benefit for that. Housing costs a bit steep? There’s a state benefit for that. Unable, unwilling or uninterested in working? There’s a state benefit for that. And they will have children have children, because whoever not; the state has always paid for them, so where’s the harm?

The harm comes when working people realise their tax is being spent on paying for others not to work.The harm is that we have an ageing population and according to the OBR, whereas today 18% of the population is over the age of 65, by 2065 they predict it will be 26%. It gets worse, because whilst 26% of people will be over 65, an additional 15% of them will be under 16. 

All of which means that nearly half of all the UK’s population will not paying tax, but will still expecting the state to provide for them. And the half that are paying tax, some of them will be working in the kind of low-wage job that requires government bailouts – working tax credits, housing benefit and the like – to avoid even more government help.

Which in turn creates an even bigger problem.  We can only borrow if people are willing to lend to us. So if the big three global credit ratings agencies – Moody’s, S+P and Fitch downgrade our ratings even further, the interest on those loans will be even higher. And the national debt will increase. 

The truly worrying thing in all of this was that this is that all known now but that narrow self-interest, political expediency and electoral success mattered more than any long term implications. But by then it won’t matter to Stymied or to Protean. There’ll be as dead as some of our public services.

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I’ve decided to call the Chancellor Protean because she never seems to look the same in photo’s. Sometimes the similarities or the differences are more noticeable than others. It’s nothing to do with her being a woman, although that is what a misogynist would claim, and everything to do with her never looking the same in photo’s. Just so you know.  

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December 6, 2025

33:64 presents “Terry Wogan.”

In news that has generated far more coverage than it warranted, four countries have pulled out of next years Eurovision Song Contest (ESC). Something to do with Israel’s continued participation in it, because of course!

A few things leap to mind.

Who seriously thinks that the ESC has any deeper cultural meaning other to than to remind us why we voted to leave Europe in the first place. The only reason I used to watch it was for Terry Wogan’s brilliant commentary. He took it as seriously as it demanded – which was not at all – and thoroughly took the piss.  

It also reminds us why Europe has never churned out many musical megastars. Possibly it has to with language, because nothing indicates a desire for global success more than singing in a way that most people can’t understand. But even if they did, there’s a more fundamental problem that explains why there aren’t, indeed have never been and probably never ever will be any Greek, Norwegian or Polish international musical behemoths.

European pop music is shit. All of it is. Always has and always will be. ABBA? ABBA is the exception that proves the rule. Yes, ‘Waterloo’ was undeniably pure pop. But that was back in 1974. And they sang in English. And the world is unquestionably a much better place because of them. But aside from them? Celine Dion? In what universe is she anything other than a better than average karaoke singer who got lucky? Can anyone who isn’t a fan of hers name more than one that isn’t the ‘Titanic’ caterwauling abomination?

Because no matter how much Europe wishes it were otherwise, English is the language of pop. ‘Classical’ music proves this. It had no lyrics and therefore was thought of as good. By the very tiny minority of the rich who were able to judge these things, on account of them and living the sort of lives the rich have always lived.

And the movie ‘Spy’ provides more evidence to back this up. Aside from it being one of Jason Stathams greatest cinematic triumphs – his parody of himself is excellent – it also proved that to those not in on a joke, that the joke can be unintentionally hilarious.

There’s a bit in it where Verka Serduchka is doing something that the charitable might call singing, while looking like a  homemade Christmas decoration made out of tin foil. When I saw it I thought the film had nailed it, had perfectly captured the same trite cheesy music, the same  knowingly overblown campness and same the sheer awfulness of the kind of thing only ever seen at the ESC.

Only later did I realise the truth. That he had in fact came 2nd in the 2007 ESC, performing the same song, and in an even more laughably absurd way, that I had assumed was a grotesque invention by the filmmakers. (I had tried to embed the YouTube clip of it here so you could experience it for yourselves, but YouTube spared you that.)

There’s also the irony. Spain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia – the four to pull out so far – have all issued grand pronouncements each saying different versions of the same thing. Israel, war, genocide…the usual nonsense that gives politicians an excuse to engage in the kind of international virtue signalling grand-standing of the kind that focusing on more important domestic political concerns, like lowering taxes, improving public services or cutting unemployment simply doesn’t do.

More serious is the fact that the country they are so opposed to, which doesn’t share the values that they deem to be crucially important, is is the only country in the the Middle East where the ESC could take place. Technically it could take place, but in a largely empty area. The ESC has a very loyal LGBT+ following and pretty much anywhere other than Israel, would face either imprisonment or death. So why would anyone risk that?    

In what can only be described as a performative hissy fit dressed up as a principled stand, these four countries have perfectly illustrated everything wrong with the ESC. A deluded sense of self-importance – disturbingly myopic, totally obsessed with its own image and wanting everyone to know just how important it it is – and thus implacably opposed to anything that contradicts its invented reality.

Which is its a song contest. Nothing more. And not even a very good one.    

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In my last post I predicted that the fixation with smearing Farrago, as spearheaded by ‘The Guardian’ and enthusiastically supported by most of the ‘print’ and broadcast the media, would continue unabated until  polling day in 2029. 

‘The Guardian’ managed to cobble together four articles out of one comment by Reforms Deputy Leader on Thursday, one of which had a link to an earlier story. Plus a cartoon and a video podcast. Yesterday’s top story detailed another pupils memories of nearly 50 years ago. They stretched that one out into two articles, an ‘exclusive’ and an opinion piece, which were still there today, just as prominent and just as embarrassingly pathetic. 

It seems that proper investigative journalism, the tenacious and expensive unearthing of a scandal, the kind that the press were eager to convince the Leveson Inquiry they were tirelessly committed to, doesn’t actually exist and hasn’t for at least two, possibly three decades. Exposes concerning members of House of Inbreds, footballers sexual misconduct or other ‘celebrity’ nonsense, aren’t journalism.

Do we have the press we deserve because we don’t demand more or do do we have the press we deserve because we demand so little? Whatever the causes may be, they’re probably contested, likely contradictory, and no doubt better discussed by those more qualified to do so. 

Back then to Farrago. His travails perfectly illustrate what I mean when I bemoan journalistic standards. Rumour, allegations and conjecture that pretend to be news while hearsay, gossip and innuendo masquerade as evidence.

How it is possible for grown-ups – let alone responsible journalists –   to take seriously a story predicated upon what boys of 13 allege another boy of 13 said nearly 50 years ago. Unless they all allege that he said ABBA deserved to win the ESC and that he really fancied the blonde woman. 

Now that I’d believe!

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November 30, 2025

33:64 presents “Francis Rossi.”

For a long time now, it has seemed to me as if what I thought of as universal principles that applied equally to everyone, have instead become increasingly conditional. And within those conditions, there exist hierarchies, determining to whom exactly such principles should apply.

This all sounds terribly confusing, yet to me it is anything but. So with a little help from ‘The Guardian’, I’ll try and convince you as to why this indeed so. Which is apt, given as how it is ‘The Guardian’ that helps determine the conditions and who the hierarchies are. Obviously not just them alone, but them as part of a broader media consensus that constantly references and validates itself. ’The Guardian’ is in my opinion the most egregious  offender, the moreso because it presumes to be pursuing a righteous and noble objective.

The problem with this occurs when the righteous and noble objective they’re pursing escapes them. A case in point is Farrago. Over the last couple of weeks, he has been subjected to the kind of personal attacks by ‘The Guardian’ which, if they were being orchestrated by another paper against another politician, ‘The Guardian’ would be all manner of indignant over.

They’d be aghast that someone was trying to smear a politician based upon what he is alleged to have said as a 13 year old schoolboy. They’d probably speculate that this was little more an a desperate attempt to discredit Farrago on account of his increasing popularity as reflected in one opinion poll after another.  And that because of this, an unelected media elite were doing everything they could to thwart this threat to their cosy world.

And, judging by the way they’ve treated Tangoed’s denials of various allegations, also question the memories of witnesses who claim the claims against a 13 year old Farrago are true. Both their reliability but also why now, and again, speculate upon the possibility of an unelected media being in cahoots his political rivals. More of an unspoken yet tacitly understood, everybody-wins-but him kind of way. Making this case would be easy. 

‘The Guardian’ first reported the allegations and initially, it was only them who thought it had any merit. The rest of the media treated it as the the twaddle it was. But then they decided to report on what ‘The Guardian’ was reporting. This insulated them, twice over. 

Firstly, ’The Independent’, ‘The Daily Mirror’ and the BBC were covering this nonsense for days. ‘Channel Four’, ‘The Huffington Post’ and ‘Sky News’ piled on. ‘The Times’, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ and even ‘The Daily Express were all running with it, not I’d guess because they thought there was genuine story there, but because everyone else was and they didn’t want to get left behind.  

Then politicians joined in. ‘He had questions to answer’ pronounced Stymied. Better yet, he should be asking himself why he thought a man of 61 needed to account for what he did or did not say when he was 13. Beanstalk offered a slightly more nuanced position, and no doubt the Cunning Stunt zip-lined or paddle bordered towards his anger.

Their insulated because they’re not making any claims about the claims themselves, they’re simply reporting on the fact that the claims have been made. See? And all Stymied was doing was suggesting that these claims needed answering.

Because thats all this is. One big stunt. A manufactured outrage upon which all the usual suspects can vent their various spleen’s over. They’re not really bothered either way what a boy of 13 may or may not have said. At 13 we all said things that would cause offence if repeated back nearly 50 years later, and if we didn’t then we weren’t doing a good job of being a child. But whatever, it doesn’t matter. What does matters is that there’s another stick to beat Farrago with, another non-issue to plague every press conference, every public appearance and everything he does right up until polling day in 2029.

Because here’s where the conditional principles and those hierarchies I mentioned earlier come in. The principle part- democracy is a good thing. – is great. The conditional part, less so. This favours the democracy we have staying exactly the way it is and this is where the hierarchies come in. Only when the right sort of people participate in democracy, and by the right sort I mean not too extreme, not too demanding and not too expecting their not too extreme demands to be met. Because the status-quo works fine for them. Why would they want to change it? 

But then Brexit happened, or to be more accurate, Brexit only happened because enough of the wrong people gave the wrong answer to a question that was asked for the wrong reason. Very quickly, the democracy everyone thought they lived under proved illusory and the same institutions one would’ve hoped might robustly defend the peoples will, actively worked against it. 

Remember how both main opposition political parties angrily demanded another vote, invoking all manner of spurious arguments which, had the vote gone their way, they would have denounced as pathetic attempts to subvert democracy? And how most of the press – notionally a bulwark against exactly this kind of thing – amplified these spurious arguments and spent years questioning, belittling and slandering the motives of the those who voted Leave? Again, had the vote gone their way, there’d be none of that, instead we’d have been lectured to about the importance of losers consent to ensure the smooth running of democracy. The civil wars, the violence and bloodshed that have bedevilled parts of Africa when this has not happened would serve as cautionary warnings. The judiciary – again, notionally a defender of democracy, supposedly available to all and theoretically politically impartial – was consistently used by the rich to prevent parliament from enacting the will of the people.

And yet they call Farrago an ‘extremist’?

I’m no great fan of Farrago and neither do I believe in conspiracy theories. But I do believe in self-interest. And to believe that if one persons advancement of their own self-interest happens to further someone else’s, then thats a happy accident. And if a lot of vested interests just so happen to have a lot of inter-related happy accidents, then that’s not a conspiracy.

 It’s how the powerful stay powerful.

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November 21, 2025

33:64 presents “Kath Viner.”

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I’ve long been convinced that British popular culture has for some years now, been a poor imitation of the American one. An textbook example of this idea was always hamburgers. They had McDonalds and we got Wimpy. Even its name warned of disappointment. Because nothing screamed ‘fast food’ more than waitress service. Now I have an updated example of the same sadsackery, only this one comes with added ‘virtue’.

America now seems to be infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS),  which effectively views every action committed by President Trump as evidence of something so unspeakably awful that it must be spoken about all the time. Or protested about. But no matter how pathetic I think TDS is, he is at least the President. He has proper power. He can shape millions of lives. He leads a unified government, meaning that every branch of it – him, the Congress and the Senate – are all Republican. He is also the commander-in-chief of the worlds greatest military. He controls a vast nuclear arsenal. He can end billions of peoples lives at the touch of a button.

The most Farrago can do at the touch of a button is change the TV channel on his remote. The leader of a party with a the smallest number of MP’s in Parliament – 5 out of 650 – he somehow manages – in some peoples minds – to be the modern embodiment of Hitler,

So naturally, we have have to make do with Farragos’ Fake Scandals (FFS), which aren’t even proper scandals. The similarities with TDS don’t end there. Both are social contagions and both rely upon worryingly similar methods of transmission. Either passed on via individuals through friendship groups or other social networks, or for much greater propagation via constant repetition on the mass media. And similarly, both TDS and FFS are punishments for perceived ‘crimes’ against democracy.

Perceived of by those who believe in democracy, only it has to be the right kind of democracy. The one in which the right sort of people deliver the right sort of result. And when the wrong result is delivered by the wrong sort of people getting involved in matters best left to others, then the wrong sort of people suddenly became the wrong sort of right; ‘right-wing bigots’ or far right-wing extremists’.

Therefore, according to their twisted, wholly self-serving and corrupted version of democracy, Farrago who galvanised so many into being so wrong, deserves everything he gets. No allegation, no speculative conjecture, no hint of a hint of any impropriety is not so inconsequential as not to be worthy of feverish discussion and opined over. 

And nothing is more inconsequential than allegations that when he was 13 – 13 – he made some distasteful comments. At 13 his voice hadn’t yet broken! He was barely a teenager. He was just starting puberty. Yet these allegations are ‘deeply shocking’? Indeed they are. I am shocked that anyone that anyone thought that these were shocking, still less that they thought they mattered. 

And that’s my first problem with this. Do people seriously imagine that something boy of 13 is alleged to have said is in any way indicative of the man that boy has become 48 years later. It is alarming that people think it does and beyond ironic that these are the same people who quite happily blame Russian interference for influencing the Brexit vote, completely unaware that they are just as skilfully being manipulated as they believe others were. The motivation of grooming isn’t always sexual.

My second problem is what it says about the media we have and not just that because this isn’t the first time  ‘The Guardian’ have tried before to smear him based on decades old here-say about his schooldays. But also because of the calculated cynicism it reveals. ‘The Guardian’ knows full well it’s readers will lap this up because it vindicates their fantasy of Farrago as being a throwback to a world they’d wish never happened. It also allows others to weigh on it, to report on what ‘The Guardian’ is reporting. Very now, very meta.  And because of that, it allows Stymied to demand that Farrago to answer those reports.

Which is exactly the point of FFS. Throw enough mud, often enough and unexpectedly enough – who could’ve predicted that things he allegedly said 48 years ago would become a FFS – then some is bound to stick. And hopefully, the more that he’s discredited, the greater the likelihood is that potential supporters of his won’t want to be associated with that kind of mud.   

Its also unsurprisingly hypocritical of ‘The Guardian’. Less than a fortnight ago, it gave their newest electoral hope a platform to rail against what he imagines to be his unfair treatment by the press. ‘The right can mock my teeth all it wants – it shows the Greens have struck a nerve.’ He may not have written the headline and probably not the sub-header that followed,’As a politician, I expect opposition and debate. But when it centres on personal insults, not policies, something else is going on.’ 

But he did write ‘What’s now clear to me, both from the sheer number of attacks and their increasingly wild nature, is that they are a product of a political and media establishment rattled by a party that’s growing fast and willing to say the unsayable: that our country has been hijacked by those interested only in serving the super-wealthy.’ 

If he really thinks that it is ‘the super-wealthy’ who have ‘hijacked’ our country or that he’s the one saying the unsayable then he’s so green I should rename him Jack Beanstalk. The ‘political and media established’ aren’t in the least bit rattled by him. If anything, the mere fact of ‘The Guardian’ giving him the opportunity to make this claim fatally undermines it. 

The fact that FFS is now a staple of British politics proves that it isn’t Jack Beanstalk who scares them. It’s Farrago and what he represents. An ability to divine, articulate and champion the views of a substantial part of the electorate who feel cheated by this version of democracy, The ones who voted for Brexit. The ones who are living with the reality of what that means. 

It also amuses me that ‘The Guardian’ which can usually be relied upon to be vocal supporters of an indigenous peoples in their struggles with a political system it believes marginalises them, takes an opposite stance both here and in America.

Although a really cynical interpretation of FFS is that it suits all concerned to let it continue. Farrago can use it to claim he is spearheading a revolt against the status quo, and his supporters can feel vindicated that the more FFS there are, the more worried ‘they’ are by them. Conversely, ‘The Guardian’ has a business model that depends on a endless stream of FFS and TDS stories, so the more they do, the more their readers keep funding them. They too feel vindicated, albeit in an absence parody of virtue. 

On and on it goes, the political equivalent of an infinite loop.

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November 11, 2025

33:64 presents “Karl Popper.”

Last week I suddenly realised that the notion of Britain that I’d always imagined existed, didn’t, and hasn’t for longer than I dared dwell on. My reactions to seeing photo’s of an angry mob triumphant in their ability to force their hatred onto the streets of Birmingham were equally as concerning, linked as they were by an uncomfortable truth.

Initially the photo’s reminded me of disturbingly similar one’s, albeit ones normally captioned ‘Jubilant scenes in the streets of Tehran as…’,’ Crowds gathered in Lebanon yesterday to celebrate the deaths of…’ or ‘Fury erupts in Cairo as as another Israel/Palestinian peace initiative was announced.’ In that regard they were akin to having the contents of a bucket of ice-cold water thrown violently in my face.

But on the other, it was just a reminder that this is the new normal now. How after two years of anti-semetic hate gatherings in British cities being allowed to happen, with the police seemingly unwilling to enforce the laws that they already have, and with a government that prioritises short term electoral considerations above a duty to uphold civil liberties suggesting new ones, it is irrefutable evidence of the truth of this uncomfortable truth. 

An uncomfortable truth which helps to explains much of what is playing out n our screens and our streets. A truth moreover, that is fast becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Because the more those in power seek to appease it, the more those on those screens and on those streets will feel emboldened by it. The truth that might is right and that the rights of some to exercise their might are now more important than the rights of others. One that also grimly proves that the ‘paradox of tolerance’ far from being a abstract philosophical concept, is now an observable phenomena in the Britain of 2025.

The paradox of tolerance is an elegantly simple one. It suggests that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance itself. First articulated by Karl Popper in 1945, it is also descriptive of the way Hitler used the letter of the law to subvert the law to take control of the German government in 1933.  

All of which makes me think of Martin Bell. He was the distinguished BBC war corespondent who in the election of 1997 resigned from his job to stand against the sitting MP in Tatton, Neil Hamilton. Massively embroiled in the ‘cash for questions’ scandal, Hamilton had little chance of winning, which quickly vanished once both Labour and the Liberal Democrats withdrew their candidates to give Bell a clear run. He won comfortably. Everyone relaxed. The prevailing narrative was that democracy itself had been the ultimate victor, marshalling traditionally opposing elements – voters, political parties and the media – in pursuit of a nobler objective. 

By tapping into voters discontent – with a decades long Conservative rule generally,  with Hamilton and sleaze specifically – Bell was able to use that discontent to propel him to Westminster.  The media also acted in helping lay the groundwork for his campaign, by for years detailing government scandals, cover ups and incompetence for the public to be annoyed over. He didn’t know it, but he his victory was both a vindication of, and a repudiation of our electoral system.

The ‘First Past The Post’ (FPTP) method manages to be both incredibly simple and simply incredible – in that is astounding that a more equitable voting system has yet to have been adopted here. Whoever comes first wins and everyone else; thanks for taking part and better luck next time. Which is fine for the Olympic 100m final, The Grand National or Big Brother, not so much for parliamentary democracy, not if we want everyone to meaningfully participate in it. Last years years by-election in Rochdale proved that.

Because in the Rochdale by-election, Fedora used FPTP against itself to quite devastating effect. Like Bell, he capitalised on voters unhappiness with a government it felt was increasingly not for them. From the day it took office, this was government whose many failings were forensically examined by a tyrannical 24/7 media. Its  relentlessly critical coverage of Israel and the war in Gaza didn’t do Fedora any harm either.  Making it clear that he was targeting the Muslim community that made up 30% of its population and shifting the focus away from local or even national issues, but instead onto Israel/Gaza was many things, but one of them was being from the same election strategy handbook every other political party ever has used.

As I noted shortly after his victory, ‘His win is a perverse win for democracy, because the if other parties had got their acts together, this probably wouldn’t have happened. He only got just over 12,000 votes and I don’t know how large the electorate was, but only 39.7% of them bothered to vote, compared with 60.1% at the 2019 general election. Granted, a low turnout but the by-election wasn’t held at a moments notice, there was loads of publicity about it and still people couldn’t be bothered to vote! And with rumours of a general election in 100 or so days anyway, his victory will be short lived.’

Fast forward to that election. Three candidates ousted sitting Labour MP’s by using the a depressingly similar strategy to the one Fedora had used.They identified constituencies with a significant Muslim electorate and ruthlessly focused on them. Sure, they may have thrown in the odd platitude about opposition to welfare cuts and made the right noises about the cost of living crisis but everyone, especially the people who voted for them, knew that it was about Gaza. Another repeated it in a newly formed constituency, one with a significant Muslim electorate.

And that’s the problem. It’s not just that last year proved how the FPTP system could be used to reward a newer, more nakedly divisive kind politics, one that prioritised identity above all else. Or that it highlighted how voter apathy might be reasonably be predicted to occur and could well have been instrumental part of the campaign strategy; to get their voters to vote whilst calculating other voters would not bother to. It signalled a shift towards more ruthless politics, one not primarily concerned with traditional, broader and more structurally real class based struggles, but of ever more divisive and contentious notions of identity.   

The incredibly fragile basis upon which a coalition of temporarily mutual convenience is doomed by its own contradictions Is neatly illustrated by the political absurdity of what is known as the ‘Islamo-left.’ Broadly, the term describes an alliance between elements of the political left and various Islamist groups, based upon opposition to Western foreign policy, capitalism, and globalism. Specifically, and in relation to the Britain of 2025, its main unifying features are opposition to the war in Gaza, anger at – bogus –  claims of genocide, starvation and other nonsenses committed by Israel in that war, and fury that Israel had the temerity to be winning the war.

Equally broadly, the two main groupings who I contend make up the Islamo-left, are Greens and Muslims. Greens are known for their staunch defence of homosexuality and transgender rights. And also on assisted dying and abortion. That’s possibly why people support them. But the policies their supporters support so much are diametrically opposed to the values of more socially conservative Muslim. It’s not me just making this up either. Earlier this year, a Green Party councillor and practising Muslim, Mothin Ali, appeared reluctant to sign a set of ‘pledges’ on behalf of LGBTQIA+ Greens, Feminist Greens and other similar groups. This provoked a comment from the MP for Blackburn, Adnan Hussain, one of the pro Gaza five, who observed. ‘It’s no secret that Muslims tend to be socially conservative.’

Such alliances are doomed because of their fundamental incompatibility, no matter how much short-term political expediency might initially suggest otherwise. And that the uncomfortable truth I mentioned earlier is actually comprised of other smaller ones.

The truth of how easy it is to sow division and create political opportunity. The truth of how poorly served by the way we conduct elections we are, and of how those who have benefited from it haven’t been minded to change it. The truth of the power of the mob, those keyboard warriors and the permanently protesting and how willing officialdom is to appease them. The truth that the failures of our media – even as they are revealed, and even as the BBC has been exposed to having being guilty of  – will only be repeated. 

The truth that all of this truth is only going to get truer. 

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November 4, 2025

33:64 presents “Mandy Rice-Davies.”

I feel sorry for the former Prince Andrew or Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (AMW) as he is now. How could one not? He has done nothing wrong, certainly nothing he has ever been charged with and crucially, nothing prosectors in a criminal trial have convinced a jury he deserves to be convicted of.

Yes he may well be many things, some of which may well be behaviours or ways of conducting himself which we might find objectionable. But then if we doIf we do, we should  also ask ourselves how, if we’d have had his ridiculously privileged upbringing which from his birth had him treated with constant indulgence by his equally privileged family or by the fawning sycophants they employed, might we have behaved any different? 

That isn’t to excuse what he’s done. But here’s the thing. Only one person knows for certain if he did any of the things everyone assumes he did, and that’s him. Everything else is a mixture of guilt by association, allegations, conjecture and speculation. Which is essentially gossip, rumour and hearsay. Anyone can allege anything about anyone. Doesn’t make it true.

But that’s to forget that the public had been successfully groomed by the press for decades into imagining that AMW was an insatiable philanderer who enjoyed a ‘colourful’ and ‘chequered’ love life. ‘Randy Andy’ they called him. He was news, and it didn’t hurt that the women he supposedly trysting with didn’t look like they urgently needed the services of a plastic surgeon either. If the press were ever to be challenged over their breathtakingly hypocritical double standards, the question is; who would ever challenge them? Who would demand to know how it was possible to go from being  enthusiastic chroniclers of AMWs sexploits in the 1980’s and 90’s but then to became more critical of same as Britain emerged into a new Century?

Possibly they’d claim the public mood had changed, that what was once seen as titilating was now tawdry, that social mores were changing and all they were doing was simply reflecting this attitudinal shift. Which conveniently, and disingenuously, overlooks the fact that well before the advent of the faux outrage’s, judgmental pile-ons and quixotically censorious hysterias of social media, it was the press that shaped determined who or what was unacceptable. Far from merely reflecting social mores back at us, the press had decided what these new mores were, were projecting, reinforcing and reframing an ever changing set of morals upon us.

In all of the endless words the press has devoted to crucifying AMW, one thing has struck me as curiously absent. Why, when they speculate on where he’ll live once he leaves wherever it is he is now, they never follow through by asking how it is that his brother just happens to have a few gaffs lying about empty.

They never question why we have a monarchy. Or question why it is that in a society that is so seemingly obsessed with proclaiming its virtue by rubbishing its past, endlessly detects evidences of -ism’s, – phobia’s and -ions, and tears down statues, removes ‘triggering’ artworks from galleries, and has institutions denouncing their founders when it does, why does the single most powerful symbol of privilege still exist?

Because if it didn’t, whilst wealth and privilege would still be with us, newspapers would have to do actual reporting, AMH would be just another citizen and Virginia Giuffre might still be alive.

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October 31, 2025

33:64 presents ‘Michael Myers.”

Today is Halloween. I know! They kept that one quiet. There were no adverts on TV. There was nothing in the shops. No costumes, no accessories and no pumpkins either! It was like how Britain used to be. Only joking. No-one wants a return to the Britain of old, back when women didn’t have penises, but the Labour Party did have socialist ideals and where the salt of the earth weren’t seen as the scum of the earth.

Because things are so much better now. They just are. And one of the things that helps make Britain better is us finally coming to terms with the fact that we are America. Not the proper one, not North America, the Moms apple pie, cheerleaders and the Hollywood one, but the South American one. Without the violence, temperature or exuberance, but still.

And proof of this is demonstrated by just how enthusiastically we’ve embraced Halloween. Although to be fair, its the retailers who’ve done the enthusiastic embracing – of the the massive commercial opportunity – and have convinced consumers to consume. How much more American can one get? Identify and create a market and then sell to it. Its capitalism 101.

So whilst we pretend to care about the environment and pay lip service to the whole ‘keeping it the ground’ thing, the one thing that would really help the environment, would signal ones commitment to a more sustainable future far better than wearing a t-shirt or going on a march, would be to keep it ones pants. Sadly however, Halloween is proof that this isn’t happening. 

The only reason why consumers consume Halloween themed tat is because fledgling consumers pester them into it. And we all know that children are the most important people in the world. Because soon they won’t be children, they’ll be having them. And their memories of childhood will inform the childhood they will want to give to their children. And repeat, repeat, repeat…

One thing that has baffled me about Halloween over recent years is how it has escaped the opprobrium visited upon other forms of cultural appropriation. I know that it originated here and then the founding fathers took it with them on the Mayflower back in olden times. But their version of Halloween was all rooted in religion and superstition, of the dead rising from the grave, not of children dressing up and knocking on doors demanding sweets.

How is it not cultural appropriation of a specifically American tradition? Unless the children are dressed up as morris dancers, Beefeaters, or one of Henry VIII’s wives how are they not further compounding the appropriation. How is dressing up like a mummy not appropriating Egyptian culture? Or wearing a ‘Day of the Dead’ skeleton suit equally not as offensive to Mexicans. If they really wanted to dress up and go for something culturally relevant, they could go as Victoria guttersnipes or dolly-mops. 

It’d certainly put the trick into trick or treat.

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October 26, 2025

33:64 presents “Bob Dylan.”

The defeat suffered by Labour in the Caerphilly by-election would be incredibly ironic were it not for the fact of it being an ominous portent.  

To begin with, the irony is that the same electoral discontent that propelled Labour into government is exactly the same as that which caused them to be so  comprehensively rejected in Wales. Just as how their victory in the general election of 2024 wasn’t evidence of some long dormant upswell in Labour values amongst the voters, more than that it reflected their collective disenchantment after fourteen years of Tory Government, so to does its defeat last Thursday indicate less of a desire for Welsh independence than to send a message to Stymied.

No matter how much Plaid Cymru (PC) might claim otherwise, their basic shtick to the people of Caerphilly was ‘We’re not Reform’. Which was a shrewd piece of electoral maths. Anyone that might have otherwise have voted for Labour, the Conservative, Liberal Democrats or the Greens would have calculated that tactical voting was far more important than the result of one inconsequential by election.

Because no amount of testiculation can alter the fact that by-elections are the medieval equivalent of the government of the day being dragged to the stocks by voters and then pelted with rotten fruit, eggs and faeces. They prove only how unpopular a government is, which can be discerned from the both the voter turnout and who it was that the voters bothered to turnout for. 

Which in this case amounted to 50.43% of them, of whom only of those 47.4% voted for PC of which significant proportion of those were the aforementioned tactical voters. The change in vote share bears this out, the short version being that Labour and Conservative vote share collapsed from the general election and from which PC benefitted. 

My point is that this not only highlights voter disaffection generally – as evidenced by by the low turnout – but also a specific disaffection with the options open for them to choose from. If the main reason for your electoral success is from hoovering up ‘x’s from voters who detest another party more than they support your one, then that isn’t good.

It is also ominous because if we consider the success in 2024 of the six Independent Alliance MP’s and the barely over 30% of the vote they got on a roughly 40% turnout, and then factor that in with the collapse of traditional voting allegiances, then its clear that times are indeed a changing. Gone are the old class based loyalties. There was a certainty about them, rooted as they were in tangible differences which essentially boiled down to rich or poor. 

Yes they were simplistic but the Britain of  1970’s, 80’s or even the 90’s, were simpler times, there was no hint of just how complicated politics were to become. But whilst the Britain of 2025 is still one of simpler times, it is not the simple one of of recent history, but rather the simple dvision of identity politics. 

This is an inevitable consequence of a society that champions, rewards and celebrates an ever greater division based on identity.  One that is increasingly partisan, intolerant and self-righteous but also a society which rewards those politicians that seek to fashion that discontent into political opportunity. By perpetuating the very division proclaims it opposes and by fostering more grievances, more reasons for division, they are like political alchemists; they turn impotence, frustration and alienation into electoral opportunity.  

With little or no broad policy agenda – other than being opposed to things – and with scant regard for voter engagement beyond their core base and having no upside in remedying that, we are seeing a new kind of politics. Typified by Rasin, who hasn’t just divided along traditional political sectarian lines – left and right – but also among left and far left, and incredibly, those in the far left who don’t share her vision of what the far left is. 

But then again, is she all that different to Stymied or The Cunning Stunt? Only by degree’s, not by instinct or motivation. They have spent the last eight years vilifying people who believed in the wrong kind of democracy. Would ideally prefer that it had never happened, traduced and impugned the reasons of the people who caused it to happen and ignored their point of view. How different is her divisive politics to those politicians who can’t accept that Brexit happened?

How is her continual repetition of the lie of there having been a genocide in Gaze not too dissimilar Stymied and Co banging on about the racist, xenophobic or bigoted motivations of Brexit voters? Or her pandering to disaffected former Labour voters, those who imagine themselves progressives or else those who feel more than they think any more cynical than than those politicians who citing Russian interference, manipulation by the ‘far right’ or fundamental ignorance as comforting explanations for Brexit?  

It’s all on the same spectrum. I disagree with you and because you’re wrong, you’ve forfeited any right to be treated with the same respect I demand of others. That’s why the tactical voting in Caherphilly was so ominous, not because of what it was so much as to what it foretold. A growing willingness on the part of the electorate not to vote for who they want but to prevent the election of someone they want even less, And along with that, the idea that society should prioritise your grievances, needs and values above any other concern. 

Now there’s a cheery thought.

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