1960 NO SURRENDER

It’s time I reactivated this blog; its title has become peculiarly relevant once more.The title started life as a joke. I grew up at the time of the troubles in Ulster, but they never really affected me much, (I am half-Irish, but my ancestors were Dubliners and Corkmen.) Having found out about Artane, the Christian Buggers, the Magdalene Laundries etc., I suppose I’m a 32-county Unionist. Nationalists anywhere in the world are stupid, and very much up the nasty end of stupid.) 

But at the time of my 25^th birthday it occurred to me that a certain Loyalist slogan could be amusingly twisted, and I did so. But it wasn’t a joke with a particularly long shelf life. That’s changed. We are in the middle of a war between the generations. Old Labour people like me have been displaced – by perfectly fair democratic majorities – by a younger crowd with their own interests and their own programme. That’s the way of the world, of course, but I and several of my contemporaries fear that they are leading us over the cliff like a herd of Gadarene swine. 

Now, mentioning my birth date is a call to arms. The centre-Left of my generation have been made homeless. The younger generation appear to think we have outlived any usefulness we might have had – although it doesn’t stop them worshipping Jeremy Corbyn, King of the Dad-dancers (born 1949) – and that we are in any case white supremacists, defenders of the patriarchy, racists, fascists, imperialists and lots of other names which we might accept or reject if they had any objective meaning. Worst of all (and it’s heartening to know that one is clearly on the same side as the Blessed George Orwell here) the millennial fuckwits are engaged on an all-out assault on the concept of objective truth. They will tell you there is male truth and female truth – and of course, trans truth as well – white truth and black truth, truth belonging to whoever is shouting most loudly. (Not, of course, that you can get anywhere by saying “I AM RIGHT BECAUSE I’M YOUR FUCKING FATHER”).

I don’t like this. I will be fifty-eight this year, Deo Volente. I am no longer in regular employment, which means I do what I like, I don’t do what I don’t like, and I have nothing to lose. I’m a pensioner, and NO-ONE fucks with pensioners. We vote, every time, whereas the under-35s only vote when they can strike a pose by doing so (damn that pesky secret ballot!).

I’m surprised the economy doesn’t make more use of us pre-millennials. We’re not poverty-trapped as so many younger people are: we (or some of us) have adequate incomes, and so we’ll only work if you really make it worth our while. (I don’t mean just in financial terms: in my last ‘proper’ job I was managed by a woman who was half my age and half my IQ, but it was probably a mistake to tell her so in so many words.) And people who were educated before 1980 can read, write and count as well.

In so far as I have a political programme, it is basically the following, though we are talking ‘work in progress’ here. But I couldn’t give a shit whom I offend, nor who offends me.

People talk about 'hard left' and 'hard right'. Let's hear it for the hard radical centre. No wets or liberals. Sensitive people can just fucking man (or woman) up. As many first-rate women in the front ranks as we can find, but no more second-rate ones. Muslims welcome, so long as they declare allegiance to us and not to any fricking ummah. Support for Israel an absolute deal-breaker. Millennials in army recruitment camps being made to grow up by old-fashioned sergeant-majors. 

But also proper (sky-high) taxes, properly enforced, and machine-guns at immigration for tax-dodgers trying to re-enter the country. The only exemption from top tax rates to be putting money into social foundations for charitable and cultural purposes, or for the financing of community work. Property rights for crappy and greedy landlords abolished. A secular church to be established alongside the present one, in which readings from the works of St George Orwell form the centre of proceedings. Attendance at either Christian, Jewish or secular services to be compulsory. I could go on. And I will. On and on and on and on. Now, where have we heard that before?

Anyway, there it is. Now let’s have some fun. 

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