A Clash of Cymbals

There’s a peculiar modern habit of dressing up Ringo Starr as some sort of underappreciated rhythmic genius – a sort of percussive Van Gogh, tragically unnoticed in his own time. I’m not having it.

Ringo was fine. Solid. Dependable. The musical equivalent of a Volvo estate – never offended anyone, but never set the room on fire either. He kept time, stayed in his lane, and occasionally surprised us with a quirky fill like a dinner guest who suddenly knows a bit of flamenco. But he wasn’t driving the bus. Half the time he was just hoping no one asked him to take a solo.

Now Bonham – Bonham was different. Bonham didn’t just play the drums – he threatened them. He made the entire band pivot around his groove. When Bonzo was being Bonzo, Led Zeppelin weren’t playing a song – they were riding a thunderstorm. The man had feet like pistons and hands like artillery. His hi-hats had more swing than a dancehall, and his kick drum could realign vertebrae.

People say, “But Ringo influenced loads of drummers.” So did the metronome. The point is: Bonham redefined the bloody job. When he died, Led Zeppelin folded. When Ringo briefly left the Beatles, they didn’t even notice until someone else started playing the toms-toms.

Comparing Ringo to Bonham is like comparing a boiled egg to a vindaloo. Both edible – but only one of them makes you sit up, sweat, and remember it the next day.

Perhaps it's an age thing....

Labour Strategy

There’s a whiff of something in the air – and no, it’s not Farage’s aftershave. It’s the scent of a political era ending, and the faint but deliberate crackle of something new taking shape.

The Conservative Party – the most ruthlessly effective, shape-shifting machine in modern democracy – is finally crumbling under its own contradictions. Its long success wasn’t built on ideas or decency, but on a few cold, brutal truths:

• Leaders are expendable. Thatcher, May, Truss – dumped the moment they became inconvenient.
• Ideology is a costume. From Macmillan to Johnson, consistency was always secondary to power.
• Appeal to comfort, not fairness. A house, a pension, someone to blame.
• Command and control. Tight messaging, brutal whipping, no freelancing.
• Play the long game. Shape institutions quietly. Bury your changes deep.

That’s how they governed for so long – not by inspiring the country, but by rigging the weather.

Now, at last, the weather is changing. Brexit has backfired. Johnson imploded. Truss detonated on impact. And Farage, like a dog that’s caught up with the car, has no idea what to do next.

And Labour – quietly, surprisingly – is beginning to look like it’s learning the Tory trade. Not the cruelty (although that's a moot point). Not the nationalism. Just the method. And behind much of it is Morgan McSweeney.

McSweeney knows what Labour’s long lacked: that power isn't won through moral clarity alone. It’s won through sequencing. Choose your ground. Control the tempo. Make your enemies swing at shadows while you move the real agenda.

I’ve made this case before – that Starmer’s strategy is to concede where the press is loudest and bake in reforms where it’s quiet. So I won’t labour the point. But what happened with the Welfare Reform Bill marks a clear shift in tempo – and if it continues, it could be the start of something far more durable.

The clause on retrospective application – unlikely to pass – was left in as a sacrificial anode. It was always going to corrode under pressure. That was the point. It drew the backlash. The Labour left revolted. A few even dusted off their Twitter bios.

Then – on cue – the clause was dropped. Concession made. Unity restored.

It was the political equivalent of herding cats by throwing them a fish. The clause was the fish – dramatic, inflammatory, and already half-dead. Once it hit the floor, the cats pounced. “Victory!” they cried, tails twitching with righteous satisfaction. Meanwhile, the real reform – reshaping PIP for future claimants – slipped through the chamber almost unnoticed.

Treasury had originally pitched the full reform package as saving up to £5 billion a year. That figure’s now softened with the retrospective clause gone – but billions in savings will still accumulate, incrementally, as new claims are assessed under the updated criteria. It’s the kind of change that won’t grab headlines, but quietly shifts the fiscal balance in Labour’s favour. A public demonstration of “tough but fair” – and a private repositioning of the budget for bigger reforms to come.

That wasn’t luck. That was design. In my opinion.

It was a trial run – a dry rehearsal for governing with staying power. The kind of manoeuvre the Tories used for decades: give the public a headline, make a show of concession, embed the real change underneath.

This time, Labour did it.

That’s McSweeney’s touch: offer up the obvious, protect the essential. And if Labour keeps governing this way – calm, strategic, quietly reformist – it may yet achieve what it never has: not just a term in office, but a lasting majority that reshapes the country.

To do that, Labour needs to stay the course. 

– Keep its discipline. 

– Resist the urge to perform. 

– Think in parliaments, not polling days. 

– Use government to build resilience, not headlines.

The Tory Party once ruled by embedding its values deep into the wiring of Britain. Labour, if it’s serious, must now do the same – but in the name of housing, dignity, security, decency.

The Tory era is cracking. But something new isn’t guaranteed. Labour has begun well – even if most people haven’t noticed yet.

If McSweeney’s approach holds, this won’t be the last time Labour concedes a headline and wins a decade.

And if that’s the shape of the new era – no fireworks, no slogans, just methodical, cumulative reform – then it may be the most radical government we’ve had in half a century.

And about bloody time. However, there's no denying that democracy is dying and there's an inexorable drift to populism, with corporate feudalism hiding just around the corner.

2nd Trial Fitting

Some say restoration is a noble art. Others know better – it's mostly swearing, compromise, and learning the limits of what you can jam into a Triumph engine bay. 

Click on the photos to enlarge.

First I had to evict the father-in-law's Jag from his garage, nextdoor to mine, and wheel the tub on its old chassis into it to make room in my garage.

Then my replacement chassis was bright from the top car park and rolled into place.

Then the Mazda MX-5 engine was lowered into place on a clean, bare chassis, unencumbered by a tub, assisted by No.2 Son. 

Since the tub has never been on this replacement chassis, there’s freedom to trial fit the engine without constraints. It makes it easy to assess mount positions, pulley clearance, sump height, and everything else the body would otherwise obstruct.

Chassis Geometry: The Mounting Problem

The stock MX-5 engine mounts might have done the job if the driver-side chassis rail hadn’t come with a rebate – a well-meant feature for the original GT6 engine that throws off the level. As a result, the engine sits at a slight cant, like a wonky picture frame, with the alternator fouling the turret.

Fix: Plate over the rebate. Then take two extra angled brackets (MX-5 style), rotate them 90°, notch them and then weld them into the inner corners of the chassis rails. This allows the standard rubber isolators to sit squarely and correctly.

Crank Pulley and Rack Clearance:

The stock crank pulley, with its dual grooves, flirts too aggressively with the steering rack. The answer is clear: a single-groove pulley (as I've deleted the PAS pump pulley, which runs on the outer groove), preferably lightened and aluminium. VMS Racing in the USA makes one, but it's dual groove but they don't ship to the UK.

Solution: Either have a standard pulley professionally machined down to just the back pulley and have it balanced, or get a friend in the US to forward the VMS part and have that machined to a single groove. The latter would be better, as it saves crank weight and hence reduces rotational  resistance.

Sump Clearance:

The sump is currently sitting on the crossmember, but the fabricated / modified mounts on the chassis rails should give a centimetre of two of clearance.

Alternator Clearance:

Still an issue, but due mainly to the slight tilt of the engine toward the driver side, occasioned by the rebate in way of the driver side engine mount. Will be solved by the mount mod and, if there's still not enough clearance, slight shaving on the suspension turret by a centimetre.

The Coil Pack Scuttle Issue:

I mentioned this on the 1st trial fit post, but the BP4W's coil packs sit too tall for the Triumph's recessed scuttle. A video exists showing a fabricator cutting into this area, but it leaves the 'how to tidy it all up' bit to the imagination.

Fix: Cut a precise rebate into the scuttle and weld in an L-shaped flange reinforcement, 6cm in from the edge, across the full recessed span. The top of the L faces upwards to restore rigidity.

Transmission Tunnel: 

Not Carbon, Not GRP. Aluminium is the smart choice. Heat-resistant, workable, and light, it beats GRP or carbon fibre in this context. A GRP or plastic tunnel might still serve as a plug for templating the ally version.

The Supporting Cast

• Inlet manifold bracket: Originally fouled the turret. That’s no longer an issue.
• Scuttle brace: Will be added post-rebate, possibly full-width, to reinforce the mod.
• Clay or cardboard mockups: May be used to shape the new inboard  engine mounting bracket before committing to metal.
• Steering shaft & rack: Forgot to bloody well check, but it's simple enough to swap the chassis over and refit the engine to see if there's enough clearance; however, from the photos I took it looks reasonably clear.

Conclusion

This is not a story of clean bolt-ons. It’s about wrestling two sets of engineering logic into uneasy alignment. The new chassis offers opportunity and headache in equal measure. With clever mount fabrication, pulley slimming, and scuttle reinforcement, the BP4W is beginning to look like it belongs. Photos document the war wounds. The triumph, if it comes, will be well earned.

I'm nearly in a position to get the tub on a rotisserie - I just need to weld a couple of braces across the door apertures to prevent the tub twisting when it's off the chassis. If I weld the underneath with even the slightest twist in the shape, it will never come out and rest square on the replacement chassis. Door shuts would be all over the place. 

My main problem is that I don't understand modern engines with all the fluff that goes around them - they're nothing like the simple engines I took apart in my 30s. All the electronics are quite confusing and require some deep research, added to which, the Haynes Manual is next useless for the engine I have, falling between two main variants. ChatGPT does help though - I take a photo of a part and ask ChatGPT what it is, hoping to get a sensible answer, which is not always the case.

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National self Harm

Of all the baffling British traditions – queueing in the rain, celebrating wartime rationing as if it were a moral virtue, and thinking “Sorry!” is a valid response to being punched – vinegar on chips may be the most enduring act of national self-harm that’s somehow been rebranded as “flavour.”

Now, I’m no culinary snob. I’ll happily eat food off a wooden fork while sheltering from drizzle under a chippy awning. But let’s be honest: soaking perfectly good chips in vinegar is like pouring battery acid on a roast potato and pretending it's elevating the dish. It’s not seasoning – it’s sabotage.

The worst part? It’s rarely even real vinegar. What we’re actually subjected to is “non-brewed condiment” – a euphemism so sinister it sounds like something MI5 would pour on you to make you talk. It's not malted. It's not brewed. It's a Frankenstein’s monster of acetic acid and caramel colouring, dispensed from a sticky bottle with a crusty nozzle that could legally be classed as a biohazard.

And yet we lap it up, dousing our chips in this acidic affront with a zeal bordering on masochism. Why? Because we’ve been conditioned – like lab rats with Stockholm Syndrome – to believe that chips without vinegar are somehow incomplete. Heaven forbid you should want your food crispy instead of sodden.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the civilised world, people are putting truffle oil on fries, or aioli, or parmesan – things that suggest progress, refinement, perhaps even joy. But here? No. Here we assault our chips with the culinary equivalent of a slap round the head and then call it “proper.”

So the next time you’re at the chippy and they ask, “Salt and vinegar?” – have the courage to say no. Say it loud, say it proud. Let your chips be free – dry, golden, and not smelling like they’ve been pickled in a factory accident. That, dear reader, is true patriotism.

So, Could We Stop Beginning Every Bloody Sentence with “So”?

So, it’s come to this. We now live in a world where no sentence is safe from that most irritating of modern verbal barnacles – “so.” Not content with invading every meeting, podcast, and dinner table anecdote, it has now colonised directions too. “So, turn right.” Not “Turn right.” Not even “You’ll want to turn right here.” Just a breathy, self-important “So… turn right,” as if the speaker is delivering a TED Talk on the theory of junctions.

What was once a perfectly respectable coordinating conjunction – a hardworking little word that bravely linked clauses together with logical purpose – has now become the linguistic equivalent of a shrug in skinny jeans. It’s filler. Padding. A conversational marshmallow plopped onto the start of every thought to give it faux gravitas. “So, what do you do?” So, I begin every sentence like I’ve just solved Fermat’s last theorem, but I’m actually just asking if you’ve seen EastEnders.

Let’s be clear: beginning a sentence with “so” isn't technically wrong. The grammar police – those joyless souls who twitch at every split infinitive – would have to let it go. But being allowed to do something doesn’t make it a good idea. You’re allowed to wear socks with sandals too, but that doesn’t make you a style icon. At best, “so” is a sign you’ve spent too long on Zoom calls; at worst, it’s the verbal equivalent of standing in a room and announcing, “I am now going to say something intelligent,” only to follow up with, “It’s raining.”

And let’s not pretend this is harmless. Like “literally” used to mean “figuratively,” or “journey” to describe a contestant’s time on Bake Off, this trend is linguistic rot. It undermines the simple elegance of just saying what you mean. “Turn right.” Clean. Precise. Confident. “So, turn right.” Suddenly you’re not giving directions – you’re narrating your own satnav documentary, full of implied backstory and motivational subtext.

It’s the same tone of voice used by people who start sentences with “Let me just unpack that” – except there's nothing to unpack, it’s a bloody suitcase full of air. "So" gives the illusion of thought, like a furrowed brow on an empty head. It’s the verbal tick of a generation trained to hedge, delay, and sound clever without actually risking opinion.

So, where does it end? “So, I now pronounce you man and wife”? “So, I sentence you to five years’ imprisonment”? “So, we are gathered here today to mourn the death of unpadded speech”?

Let’s have some backbone, shall we? Speak plainly. Ditch the performative throat-clearing. Start a sentence like you mean it, not like you’re trying to win a BAFTA for Best Supporting Conjunction.

So – sorry – enough already. But language evolves.....

Voting at 16

Apparently, 16-year-olds are too wet behind the ears to vote. Poor lambs. They know how to file a tax return, work full time, even get married (with parental consent) – but hand them a ballot paper and they’ll melt like a snowflake on a hot bonnet. That’s the argument, at least, from the Keep Voting for the Past brigade – a coalition of the wilfully condescending and the tactically terrified.

Let’s be clear – the experience argument is a fig leaf so small it wouldn’t cover a gnat’s undercarriage. If we’re going to start dishing out the vote based on wisdom, insight, and an informed grasp of the modern world, then half the electorate would be sent home with a biscuit and told to brush up on reality.

Take the Brexit vote. A decision so complex and far-reaching that even the people who campaigned for it now spend their days blaming others for the fallout. And who carried it over the line? Largely, the 60- and 70-somethings – those stalwart warriors of nostalgia, marching into polling stations with memories of rationing and the firm belief that somehow, somewhere, a Polish plumber had stolen their birthright.

Now, I’ve nothing against the elderly – I’m one myself – but let’s not pretend every grey voter was consulting the European Commission’s trade protocol over breakfast. Most were voting on gut, flag-waving fantasy, or something they heard from the bloke down the pub who once met a lorry driver who couldn’t get into Calais.

Yet these same people are apparently fit to decide the future of the country, while 16-year-olds – who live the consequences daily, who study current affairs, who pay VAT on tampons and bus fares, and who will live with the mess – are told to sit quietly and leave it to the grown-ups. The same grown-ups who voted for Farage, fell for the bus, and now whinge that “Brexit hasn’t been done properly.”

It’s laughable – or it would be, if it weren’t so contemptible.

The truth is, the experience line is a smokescreen. It’s not about maturity. It’s about control. Young people tend to vote differently – less xenophobic, more progressive, more future-facing – and that terrifies the soggy middle-aged men who’d rather set fire to the house than let the kids choose the paint.

“No taxation without representation” was once a revolutionary cry. Now we’ve got teenagers paying income tax, council tax, and national insurance, yet still being told they can’t vote because they haven’t yet had the life-shaping experience of shouting at the One Show. You couldn’t make it up – but they do, every day, in Parliament.

So let’s stop pretending this is about experience. It’s about demographics, it’s about electoral maths, and it’s about clinging to power by any means short of barricading the polling station with Daily Express back issues.

Let them vote. They’re not the problem. The real threat to democracy isn’t young people getting involved – it’s the older generation pulling the ladder up behind them and blaming the EU for the splinters.

The Rules Based Order

The so-called rules-based international order is the diplomatic world’s version of a chivalric code: lofty, self-congratulatory, honoured in the breach, and useful for beating others over the head while insisting on your own virtue. It's a system built on handshakes, hypocrisy, and hegemony, and it owes more than a passing nod to a man who knew a thing or two about controlling the chaos of international affairs while draped in silk and scented with absolutism: Klemens von Metternich.

Ah, Metternich – the Austrian puppet-master of Europe. After Napoleon was finally bundled off to Elba (and then unbundled and rebundled again), Metternich convened the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15 to restore what he called the natural order of things – monarchs on thrones, revolutionaries in dungeons, and Austria smack in the middle of every diplomatic map. His grand idea was to build a Concert of Europe, a gentleman’s agreement among the great powers to consult, cooperate, and above all keep the plebs quiet.

It was, in effect, the first modern attempt at a rules-based order – but only for those who mattered. Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia would decide how Europe was carved up, and everyone else would be expected to smile politely and pay their tithes. The Metternich System was reactionary in the extreme – chivalry in epaulettes – but it worked, after a fashion. Europe avoided another continent-wide war for the best part of a century. The rules were made by the powerful, for the powerful, and enforced with a mix of diplomacy, repression, and the occasional bayonet.

Fast forward to 1945, and the post-WWII settlement was essentially Metternich with a UN logo. The new ‘order’ was constructed by the victorious powers – this time with America replacing Austria as the power behind the curtain – and it was designed not to liberate the world, but to stabilise it in ways that kept the big players on top. The UN Security Council? A modern-day Holy Alliance. NATO? The new Prussian garrison. The IMF and World Bank? Financial instruments of containment. And much like Metternich’s Congress, this system had no enforcement mechanism beyond "We know where you live, and we have tanks."

It even had its own moral wrapping paper – human rights, democracy, sovereignty – all noble ideals, as long as they didn’t interfere with US strategic interests, British oil contracts, or French post-colonial tantrums.

In this, the modern order mirrors not just Metternich, but the feudal codes of chivalry and bushidō. These weren’t universal systems of ethics – they were elite operating manuals. Chivalry applied to knights, bushidō to samurai, and the rules-based order to countries with embassies in Geneva and a half-decent air force. The rest – peasants, serfs, or what we now call ‘developing nations’ – were expected to bow, bleed, and be grateful.

The language of these systems is always the same: duty, honour, restraint. In practice, it means the strong pledge not to abuse their power, unless absolutely necessary, and the weak are told their suffering is the unfortunate result of defending a higher principle.

And, like those older codes, the rules-based order thrives on myth. Chivalry gave us the noble knight, despite the frequent rape and pillage. Bushidō gave us the loyal samurai, conveniently ignoring the courtly backstabbing. The rules-based order gave us the image of a peaceful, civilised world... while drone strikes, coups, and economic coercion told another story.

Just like Metternich’s Europe, it held together while the balance of power did. But now? The gentlemen have left the table, and the poker chips are being swept up by populists and autocrats. Trump smashed the crystalware and called it realpolitik. Putin’s doing his best Napoleon impression without the charisma. China plays the game when it suits, rewrites the rules when it doesn’t. The global order, such as it was, has become a glorified brawl in a faded ballroom, with Metternich's ghost tutting disapprovingly in the corner.

So let’s not kid ourselves. The rules-based order, like chivalry or bushidō, is a performative dance of restraint – as long as it's convenient. When it no longer is, the sabres come out, the rules are burned, and the polite phrases give way to the iron truth: the world runs not on laws, but on leverage. Metternich knew it. The modern powers pretended otherwise. Now the illusion is cracking.

And when it finally collapses, don’t be surprised if the next Congress of Vienna is chaired by someone with a TikTok account, a missile silo, and absolutely no time for treaties.

The Politics of Playing Dead

So the government scraped through its welfare vote – but not without drama. The headlines are full of it: Starmer humiliated, Labour in disarray, biggest rebellion yet. You’d think he’d turned up in a Margaret Thatcher wig and tried to bring back the poll tax. But take a step back, breathe in the spin – and exhale the reality.

What actually happened was a textbook exercise in controlled detonation. Starmer’s front bench knew full well there’d be backlash from the left – you don’t wade into disability benefits and work capability assessments without setting off every moral alarm bell in your party. But instead of panicking, they did what any competent strategist does: they offered just enough meat to the rebels to give them something to chew on.

The result? The so-called "rebel alliance" got to thump their chests and parade a few scalps – most notably the shelving of the PIP changes – while the government still walked away with its bill intact. Slimmer, yes. Hollowed out, probably. But still standing. And all those who voted against? They now get to brandish their credentials as defenders of the vulnerable, without having actually blocked the bill.

This wasn’t Starmer losing control – it was Starmer letting the engine backfire, so it looked like he wasn’t driving. The PIP reforms were kicked into the long grass, pending a review, and lo – the rebellion melts. The projected savings shrivel from £5 billion to a rather soggier £2 billion, and somehow we’re supposed to see this as a strategic failure?

The right, bless them, are spinning this like they’ve caught Labour stealing lunch money from pensioners. Labour's class betrayal! The working man stabbed in the back! Conveniently forgetting their own party once tried to charge the disabled for spare bedrooms and make the poor pay for austerity with their teeth. Let’s not pretend the Tories have suddenly found a conscience down the back of the George Osborne sofa.

The truth is this: Starmer’s team knew they’d take a hit, but the aim was never to pass the bill unscathed. The aim was to pass it. And in politics, as in warfare, victory isn’t always clean – sometimes it looks like a retreat until you realise you've held the field.

So while the Daily Mail’s frothing away about chaos and betrayal, Starmer has ticked a box, dulled a rebellion, and moved on. The left got their moment, the right got their headlines, and the centrists, as ever, got their way – quietly, methodically, and with just enough noise to make it look like they’d lost.

It's All a Scam

 A whole month early:

Well that’s it then. The Crocosmia have spoken. June – June, mind you – and they’re already out like it’s the second week of August. I suppose next week we’ll be raking leaves off the lawn and carving pumpkins in our flip-flops.

But let’s not jump to conclusions. It can’t possibly be climate change. No no – that’s all a scam, isn’t it? Dreamt up by sandal-wearing yoghurt-knitters with degrees in interpretive dance and a vendetta against diesel. Never mind that the bees are coming out in February and the daffodils are blooming on Boxing Day – it’s just weather, mate. Always been a bit up and down, hasn’t it? Nothing to see here.

Forget the melting glaciers, the vanishing insects, or the fact that every year is now the hottest ever recorded. My Crocosmia are flowering early, and that’s just a coincidence. Probably something to do with sunspots. Or immigrants. Or both.

Meanwhile, the government’s still licensing oil fields like there’s no tomorrow – which, at this rate, might be accurate. But let’s not panic. So long as the lawn still crisps up to a golden husk by July and the hosepipe bans come right on cue, everything’s perfectly normal.

Carry on. Nothing’s changing. Except everything.

Selective Outrage and the Illusion of Principle

We like to imagine that British justice is blind – steady, impartial, above the political fray. In truth, she’s squinting through the blindfold, nervously checking what’s trending before reaching for the scales. Because these days, justice isn’t a matter of law – it’s a matter of optics.

Start with Lucy Connolly. She tweeted that migrant hotels should be firebombed. It was vile, dangerous, and rooted in a political climate that has already seen real-world arson attempts. She was arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to 31 months in prison. No debate. No talk of context. And rightly so.

Now jump to Bob Vylan, who stood on stage at Glastonbury and chanted “Death to the IDF!”, to thunderous applause – and a national broadcast via the BBC. A blunt chant, delivered mid-war, about an occupying foreign military force. Not subtle. Not metaphorical. And yet: no arrest. No prosecution. Just a limp statement from the organisers and the police “reviewing footage,” which is official-speak for “we’ll do nothing unless it makes the Mail.” Although the police are now pursuing a criminal investigation, but probably under pressure. Farage, ever the opportunist, says a vote for Reform means taking your country back from these lunatics but, as usual, is light on what Reform would actually do.

And so enters the battered workhorse of British hypocrisy: Free Speech. Suddenly, everyone’s a freedom absolutist – but only for their side. The right, who shrieked about Connolly being silenced, are now demanding Vylan’s arrest. Chris Philp, Shadow Minister for Crime, wants him prosecuted immediately. Labour, meanwhile, offered the usual blend of hand-wringing and inaction: Wes Streeting called the chant “appalling”; Keir Starmer said it shouldn’t have been aired. But neither backed prosecution. Because free speech, it seems, must be defended – but only if it doesn’t damage your demographic.

This isn’t a defence of the chant. But let’s be clear: “Death to the IDF” has layers. Like “Death to America”, it can be read as a call for the end of a system – not the people within it. Criticism of the IDF is not, in and of itself, anti-semitic – though many would like it to be, because conflating criticism of Israeli military policy with hatred of Jews serves a powerful rhetorical function: it shuts down dissent. But context is everything – and screaming it from a stage, in the middle of a conflict, without explanation, pushes it from protest into provocation. Especially when, in the UK, many conflate the Israeli military with Jewish identity – and the line between rage and hate becomes razor-thin.

So where’s the line? Because while politicians were clutching pearls over lyrics, an Israeli airstrike hit a beachfront café in Gaza, killing at least 20 civilians. No slogans. No chants. Just smoke, fire, and the kind of carnage that never makes it into the outrage cycle. We're criminalising metaphor, while real people die in cafes. And no minister calls that “appalling.” No front page calls for a tribunal. Because those deaths – though real – are inconvenient.

And then there’s Palestine Action, now designated a terrorist organisation. Not for murder. Not for bombs. But for criminal damage – including to an RAF plane. Serious? Yes. Terrorism? That depends – not on legal principle, but on whether the government needs to look tough this week. So let’s review:

• Chanting for the destruction of a military organisation = edgy performance.
• Smashing up defence equipment in protest = terrorism.
• Bombing a café full of civilians = diplomatic silence.

This isn’t about justice. It’s about managing dissent. The Tories wrap themselves in free speech when defending statues and slurs – but not when someone shouts the wrong slogan at Glasto. Labour speak in grave tones about balance and standards, but want laws that equate paint and glue with terrorism. Between them, they’ve turned principle into PR.

And what about actual free speech? The kind that matters when it’s inconvenient? That’s gone. If your speech offends the wrong people, it’s criminal. If it offends the right people, it’s brave. We haven’t abandoned free speech – we’ve rebranded it as a subscription service, where your access depends on your alignment.

Apply the law evenly and you’d need to arrest poets, protesters, punk bands, Ukrainians, and half the cast of Glastonbury. But we won’t. Because what we really have isn’t the rule of law. It’s a reputation management strategy, dressed up in legalese.

Connolly goes to prison. Vylan goes viral. Palestine Action is banned. Gaza burns. And the public is told: you can be angry, but only in the direction we approve of.

This isn’t justice. It’s theatre. And the standing ovation is already priced in.