Feathers, Empire, and the Great British Amnesia

You don't see many Boer War memorials these days. Not because they’ve been toppled by vegan anarchists from Islington, but because most people haven’t a clue what the Boer Wars were. Say “South African conflict” today and half the population will think you’re talking about a rugby match.

Yet there it is – in the heart of Carmarthen, which we recently visited – a granite tribute to the lads who died for Queen and Country in a war that was, when you scratch it, less about honour and more about gold mines and imperial sulking. A British soldier cast in stone, staring bravely into the middle distance, his resolve undimmed by the pigeon slowly defecating on his pith helmet. If you want a symbol of Britain’s imperial legacy, look no further – a forgotten war, a forgotten army, and a forgotten statue, now used as a lavatory by birds.

The Boer War – or to be pedantic, the Second Boer War – ran from 1899 to 1902. It was a bloody, sprawling mess kicked off when the British Empire, with all the subtlety of a drunk uncle at a christening, decided it didn’t like the Afrikaners running their own affairs in a patch of land inconveniently sitting on top of gold and diamonds. We sent over half a million men – half a million – to fight a few tens of thousands of Dutch-descended farmers who, inconveniently, could shoot straight and knew the terrain.

Enter the Welsh, the Scots, and the Irish – the backbone of the British Army, as ever. Working class boys in redcoats and khaki, off to fight for Empire in a war they barely understood. Entire regiments from South Wales, especially the Carmarthenshire lads, shipped out from ports they'd never left before, only to find themselves dodging Mauser bullets on the highveld. Some died in battle. Others succumbed to dysentery, poor rations, and the kind of military planning that makes Chris Grayling look like Rommel.

And what did it all achieve? Britain won, technically. The Boer republics were annexed, the gold was secured, and the Union Flag was hoisted. But we also invented the concentration camp – 26,000 Boer women and children died in British-run camps, most from disease and starvation. We called it “civilising.” The rest of the world called it barbaric. The Empire, though, called it Tuesday.

Fast forward a century and the Carmarthen memorial is one of the few reminders that this war even happened. No school syllabus covers it in detail. No politician touches it – there's no mileage in commemorating a war that makes us look like the baddies. So the pigeons carry on their quiet commentary, decorating the heads of empire with democratic dollops of scorn.

The lads who died in that war deserve more than polite forgetting. They deserve more than patriotic bunting and a Costa in the background. They deserve recognition not for imperial glory, but for being the working-class cannon fodder of empire – disposable assets in a boardroom war.

But that’s the rub, isn’t it? The same voices who today wrap themselves in Union Flags and talk about “taking our country back” have no interest in remembering what the Empire really was. They don’t want history. They want myth. They want a world where Britain always wins, always leads, and always smells faintly of warm beer and moral superiority.

Well, here’s your monument. A soldier on a plinth, outnumbered by pigeons, fighting a war we no longer care to explain. A small, proud reminder that the real cost of Empire was always paid in blood – just never the blood of those who profited from it.

Fine. We’re out. So now what?

Brexit was sold as a revolution and delivered as a slow puncture. We were promised sovereignty, prosperity, sunlit uplands - we got customs paperwork, labour shortages, and the geopolitical relevance of a pub quiz team.

If Brexit is ever going to mean more than a flag-waving bonfire of competence (read: catastrophic mismanagement in Union Jack wrapping), it needs dragging out of the fantasy swamp and into the realm of adult governance. That means rebuilding trade ties with Europe - not rejoining, just cooperating like we haven’t lost our collective minds. Align on food standards, fix the Northern Ireland mess, and stop treating Brussels like Voldemort with better infrastructure.

End the performative nationalism. No more “enemy of the people” judges or pretending migrants are the root of every problem from rent to rainfall. Create legal routes for essential workers. Train British ones. Stop using immigration as a blunt weapon to keep the tabloids warm at night. Build something — literally. Infrastructure, green energy, tech, manufacturing. Use Brexit’s so-called freedom to design a future-proof economy, not just put on a Poundland tribute act to an era nobody under 50 asked for.

And here comes Starmer. The grown-up in the room, yes - but one too nervous to call the fire a fire. He’s patching things up with Europe quietly, fixing the worst of the trade damage, rejoining Horizon, scrapping Rwanda. Great. But it’s all happening behind a curtain, as if admitting Brexit’s a disaster would somehow summon Farage from the underworld like Beetlejuice in a union flag tie.

He won’t mention the 4% GDP hole. Won’t even whisper “single market.” There’s no grand vision — just a careful shuffle back toward sanity, hoping no one notices. It’s technocratic triage - managing the symptoms while refusing to acknowledge the diagnosis. Better than Tory mayhem, sure. But it’s still politics paralysed by fear of the Daily Mail’s front page.

So if you’re expecting vision - forget it. Starmer’s plan is to do just enough to look competent while tiptoeing around the gaping Brexit-shaped crater beneath his desk.

If we want to make Brexit even remotely functional, we need honesty, investment, and a government with more courage than a focus group. Otherwise, we’ll keep staggering around pretending this wasn’t the biggest own goal in post-war British politics - and clapping for the managers tidying up after it.

And while Labour fumbles toward reality, the other end of the political gene pool offers us Reform UK - the final punchline in this evolutionary joke.

Amazing, isn’t it? After millions of years of human brain development - from fish to apes to tool-wielding Homo sapiens capable of mapping the cosmos - we’ve arrived at the pinnacle of neurological achievement: people who think Reform UK is a serious answer to complex 21st-century problems.

You'd think somewhere between inventing fire and sequencing the genome, we’d have evolved a basic resistance to being hypnotised by a bloke in a pub shouting “Common sense!” while waving a pint and a Union Flag. But here we are proof that natural selection occasionally clocks off early and lets Facebook do the parenting.

Honestly, if the brain really is the most complex object in the known universe, Reform voters are nature’s way of saying: don’t get cocky.

Economic Vandalism

So the economy contracts by a modest 0.3% in a single quarter and up pops Sir Mel Stride, the political equivalent of a paper jam warning, flapping that it’s “Rachel Reeves’ economic vandalism.”

Vandalism? Oh do pull the other one, Mel – it’s got a gilt-edged bond on it. Mel. Mate. If that’s vandalism, what in God’s name was Liz Truss’s budget? Performance art?

Let’s not forget, your lot gave us the shortest Prime Ministerial tenure in history – a fever dream of libertarian cosplay where Kwasi Kwarteng blew a £45 billion hole in the public finances, set fire to the bond markets, tanked the pound, triggered emergency Bank of England intervention, and somehow still found time to crash the pensions sector before lunch.

That wasn’t vandalism. That was Grand Theft Economy – and you all clapped like seals as she did it.

Meanwhile, Brexit – remember that? The one thing you still won’t name in public like it’s Voldemort with a blue passport – shaved 4% off GDP permanently. That’s not a crack in the window. That’s reversing the country into a tree and declaring it "sovereignty."

But now, after a fortnight of grown-up government, you spot a 0.3% dip – entirely in line with forecasts, global conditions, and 14 years of your economic bin fire – and suddenly it’s “vandalism”? Please.

If Rachel Reeves were a vandal, she’d need to crash the pound, hike everyone’s mortgage, fire the grown-ups at the OBR, tank growth, and then strut about in a power suit pretending it was all part of some masterplan. But that’s been done already, Mel. By your party. Ring any bells?

So unless you’re planning to denounce actual economic vandalism – the kind that comes with a Tory membership card and a lettuce shelf life – maybe take a seat. We’ve seen what vandalism looks like. And it signs its name with a budget, not a spray can.

Cracking Nuts with Sledgehammers

So, here we are again. Another round of dog-whistle politics dressed up as concern for women’s rights – this time in the form of banning the burqa. Because nothing says “liberation” like the state telling women what they can’t wear, under the pretence of saving them from being told what they must. Orwell would have a field day.

Let’s start with some basic arithmetic. The number of women in the UK who actually wear a burqa or niqab is vanishingly small – a fraction of a fraction. You’ve probably got more people in Britain still playing the lute. And yet, somehow, this has become the battleground for “British values.” It's the sort of manufactured outrage we excel at – a crisis with a costume, designed to rally the fearful and distract from the real rot.

Now, if this were really about secularism or integration, as France and Denmark love to claim, you'd expect a bit of consistency. But no one’s banning nuns’ habits, Sikh turbans, or Haredi wigs. Apparently, full religious dress only becomes a threat when it’s worn by a Muslim woman. A cassock is quaint. A niqab is a crisis. Denmark talks up “social cohesion”, but doesn’t bat an eyelid at a mitre or a yarmulke. This isn’t about religion in public life – it’s about policing particular religions that make certain people uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, the UK already has laws to deal with actual coercion. Since 2015, coercive control – including emotional abuse and forced dress codes – has been a criminal offence. Add to that forced marriage laws, domestic abuse protections, and trained social services, and we have all the tools we need. What we don’t have is consistent enforcement or proper funding. Much easier to swing a legislative hammer and pretend a ban will solve extremism, integration, and gender equality in one go.

And let’s not kid ourselves about who’s pushing this. It’s not the women involved. It’s not the charities helping victims of abuse. It’s Reform UK and their kind – the ones who conflate hijab with jihad, who think a headscarf is the thin end of the caliphate wedge. They don’t care about women’s rights. They want Muslims out of sight – and if possible, out of the country. This isn’t about liberation. It’s about projection – the projection of fear, cultural insecurity, and political failure onto the nearest convenient scapegoat.

So let’s be clear. If a woman is coerced into wearing a burqa, the law already allows the state to act – with support, compassion, and legal force. What we don’t need is another bout of grandstanding that punishes the very women it pretends to protect. Because when you start banning what women wear “for their own good” while leaving other religious dress untouched, it’s not secularism. It’s bigotry in a powdered wig.

And let’s think this through to its logical end. If we start banning the burqa here, under the guise of cultural assertion, what exactly do we say when countries that don't currently mandate it turn around and insist our women must cover up when visiting them? Do we suddenly become champions of cultural sensitivity? Or is that different because – well – we’re the ones doing the dictating? You can’t have it both ways. Either women have the right to choose what they wear, or they don’t. And if our stance is “our country, our rules,” don’t be surprised when the same is thrown back at us – only this time, it's your daughter being handed a headscarf at immigration.

The Schrödinger’s Pensioner Paradox

You can set your watch by it. Every other day, the Express or Mail slaps a trembling old dear on the front page – tartan blanket, 40-watt bulb, sad mug of tea – as if rationing’s just come back and Churchill’s still warming up in the wings. “Forgotten generation betrayed again!” they cry. “Elderly forced to choose between heating and digestives!”

And for a moment, you’d think they gave a damn.

But turn the page and suddenly, anyone proposing a modest rise in National Insurance – which actually funds the very pensions they’ve just declared sacred – is labelled a Marxist saboteur. “Tax on work!” they howl. “Job killer!” “Punishment for aspiration!”

It’s political schizophrenia in broadsheet form. On the one hand: Saint Doris, who built Britain with her bare hands and deserves a medal and a winter fuel allowance. On the other: any attempt to fund her retirement properly is met with the sort of hysteria normally reserved for Brussels directives on bendy bananas.

Here’s the thing they never say out loud: today’s pensions aren’t funded by wartime heroism or quiet dignity. They’re funded by National Insurance. Not magic, not clapping, not flag-waving. Just the pay-as-you-go whip-round that working people contribute to every month – so that Doris can keep the immersion heater on and the cat fed.

And yet, the same press that bangs on about pension justice decries any increase in NI as an assault on the British way of life. They want pensions – just not the mechanism that pays for them. It’s like demanding a roast dinner and declaring gravy immoral.

It gets worse. These are the same publications that supported Brexit – which has done wonders for the economy in the same way woodworm does for antique furniture. A shrinking tax base, a smaller workforce, stagnant growth – and then surprise! The money for pensions starts to dry up. Cue yet more headlines about betrayal, this time blaming... well, anyone but themselves.

And don't even try to discuss reform. Suggest means-testing? You’re punishing savers. Raise the pension age? That’s a war on the elderly. Immigration to boost the workforce? “Too many foreigners.” Taxing wealth? “Class warfare.” The list goes on.

It’s not economics. It’s pantomime. A carefully choreographed drama where pensioners are wheeled on stage as noble victims, while all serious solutions are booed off with tabloid rage. Never mind the arithmetic – as long as there’s outrage to be mined and paper to be sold.

And the columnists leading this charade? Most are nowhere near the State Pension queue. Their retirements are stitched into consultancy fees, buy-to-let empires, and cushy directorships. But they still trot out teary monologues about Doris in Doncaster – not because they care, but because she’s a convenient symbol in the culture war against tax, reform, and reality.

So let’s drop the pretence. If you oppose National Insurance, then you oppose pensions. You can’t venerate the elderly while starving the system that supports them. And if you're counting on the Mail to save your pension, best of luck – their concern for Doris ends at the edge of a tax rise.

This isn’t about defending pensioners. It’s about defending a delusion – one where money grows on flags and public services are funded by nostalgia. Meanwhile, Doris is still cold, still skint, and still being used as bait in someone else’s political theatre.

Not All Education is Created Equal

It’s often said that the more educated you are, the more likely you are to lean to the left. And broadly speaking, that holds true – especially among graduates who’ve actually had their worldviews challenged. But if that’s the case, how do we explain the endless parade of Eton- and Harrow-educated politicians thundering away from the right-hand side of the Dispatch Box, slashing budgets while quoting Cicero?

Simple: not all education is created equal.

When we say “education makes people left-wing,” we mean the real kind – the sort that pries open your assumptions, exposes you to the lives of people not like you, and teaches you to question where power comes from and who it serves. Universities – especially those that haven’t been hollowed out into corporate vending machines – still manage, at their best, to do this. Not always. But enough.

That is not the sort of education you get at Eton, Harrow, Winchester, or any of the other fortified nurseries of Britain’s ruling class. These institutions don’t educate – they inculcate. They don’t expand minds – they reinforce hierarchies. Their job is not to lift the veil on injustice, but to polish the self-belief of those destined to inherit power, wealth, and the unshakable conviction that the world should be run by people like them.

And it works. The result is an upper crust of beautifully spoken reactionaries – men (and it’s still mostly men) who treat food banks as regrettable PR issues, regard protest as vulgarity, and see social mobility as a threat to be managed, not a goal to be encouraged. They’re not the best and brightest – they’re the most entitled and least troubled by doubt. Groomed to rule, fluent in obfuscation, and incapable of saying "I don’t know" without prefixing it with "Well, as Aristotle said..."

Take Boris Johnson – a man whose idea of statesmanship was Churchill cosplay mixed with undergraduate mayhem. He wasn’t educated; he was trained to perform intelligence. Or Jacob Rees-Mogg, who seems to think compassion went out with the Corn Laws. His brand of genteel cruelty didn’t come from books – it came from an environment where the poor are a theory, not a presence.

And then there’s Liz Truss. Not Etonian, true, but Oxford through and through – and a fine example of how elite education can inflate certainty while starving judgment. Her brief tenure was like handing a box of fireworks to someone who thinks warning labels are for Remainers.

But even beyond the gilded halls of Eton and Oxford, the same pattern holds. Nigel Farage – the pint-wielding "man of the people" – was educated at Dulwich College, an old, respectable public school founded to churn out the next generation of City boys. And lo, straight from Dulwich he marched into the commodities markets, pint in one hand, deregulation manual in the other. Farage didn’t go to university – but he didn’t need to. His views were already fully formed by the time he left a school where Empire nostalgia came with the blazer.

So this isn’t about envy. It’s about a structural flaw: a society that confuses polish for depth, and schooling for wisdom. These people weren’t educated to lead us – they were programmed to run us. And the programme hasn’t changed in centuries. Keep calm. Carry on. Preserve the order. Protect the interests. Look plausible while doing it.

The next time someone tries to defend Britain’s privately educated elite by pointing to their academic credentials, remind them: it’s entirely possible to be highly schooled and politically barren. Eton doesn’t make you woke. Nor does Dulwich. They make you Farage with better cutlery – angry at the world, but too well brought-up to shout. Except when it's about boats.

Turkish Tamer

There are moments in life when you realise you’ve accidentally stumbled upon a breakthrough. Penicillin. Velcro. The Post-it Note. And now – Turkish delight as moustache wax.

It all began with noble intent: to recreate that wobbly, perfumed delicacy beloved of sultans and Edmund from Narnia, using nothing but supermarket staples, misplaced optimism, and a saucepan of questionable lineage. Recipes warned me of the long haul – stir constantly for 40 to 60 minutes, they said. Until amber and glossy, they said. I braced myself for a slow alchemy, the kitchen equivalent of hand-laying mosaic tiles or waiting for the Tories to admit Brexit’s a mistake.

But no. Five minutes in, mine practically flung itself out of the pan like a clingy toddler in a supermarket aisle. It reached amber so fast I wondered if I’d invented a new shade: Resigned Citrus. The mixture slid from my non-stick pan with such enthusiasm, I suspect it was attempting escape. Either that, or non-stick pans are the devil’s shortcut in a world that still pretends effort equals virtue.

Then came the spoon incident. A rogue lick. A moment’s inattention. And suddenly, I had fused orange-flavoured gelatine to my moustache. The effect? Astounding. Better than any Bay Rum. It held firm through cups of tea, painting the GT6 fuel tank, and a mild existential crisis brought on by LBC Radio. It smelt of a Seville summer and had the tactile resilience of Victorian morals.

So let it be known – if your Turkish delight sets too fast, smells of fruit, and adheres to facial hair like a lobbyist to a Tory – rejoice. You’ve not failed. You’ve diversified. One moment a soft-centred treat, the next a citrus-infused grooming aid. L’Oréal can jog on.

And while mine may not have had the wobble of Ottoman splendour, it did lend my upper lip a sense of purpose. Edmund may have betrayed his siblings for a box of Turkish delight – but I’d go to war for the hold this stuff has on my handlebars.

In conclusion: next time, I’ll use rosewater. But the orange one? That’s going in a tin, with a warning label: For external use only – unless you’re emotionally prepared for the consequences.

Trump's Operation Flash-Bang

I recently watched a rather good docu-drama on Wyatt Earp – all moustaches, gun smoke, and constitutional tension. One moment in particular stood out: the then-President’s attempt to deploy the U.S. Army to help Earp and his marshals go after the Cowboy gang – which Congress promptly voted down.

It wasn’t because the Cowboys didn’t deserve justice. It was because even in the lawless world of Tombstone, there was a line: the Army is not your local police.

Congress’s refusal was rooted in principle. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, passed just a few years earlier, barred the federal military from enforcing civilian law. The only exception was the Insurrection Act, meant for rebellion, not cattle rustlers. Congress understood that letting the president use federal troops against civilians set a dangerous precedent.

Now fast-forward to 2025 and Donald Trump, who just deployed 2,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles without the governor’s consent, after unrest broke out in response to federal immigration raids.

This wasn’t about restoring calm. It was about staging control. Trump – a man with all the restraint of a dog in a squirrel sanctuary – federalised California’s National Guard, wresting them from Governor Newsom’s authority and sending them into a protest zone sparked by aggressive immigration enforcement.

And what a set-up. ICE – that’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for those lucky enough not to have it kicking down doors in their neighbourhood – conducts heavy-handed sweeps in a Latino area to meet deportation quotas. Protests erupt. Tear gas flies. Federal agents clash with civilians. Then the White House calls it “lawlessness” and rolls in the troops. A crisis manufactured for the cameras.

But to understand how Trump got away with this, you have to understand why the National Guard exists at all.

Formally created by the Militia Act of 1903, the National Guard was designed to replace the chaotic tangle of 19th-century state militias with a more professional, dual-role force. It serves two masters:

• The state governor, for domestic emergencies.
• The president, when national defence or insurrection demands it.

Legally, under Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Guard remains under state control (even when federally funded). But under Title 10, the president can federalise it – transforming it into a federal military asset.

However, this isn’t meant to be done on a whim. The conditions for federalisation include:

• A national emergency.
• A collapse of civil authority.
• An insurrection, rebellion, or active obstruction of federal law.

None of those applied in Los Angeles.

Local law enforcement was intact. No governor asked for help. And Trump didn’t even invoke the Insurrection Act, which would have required legal justification and scrutiny. Instead, he sidestepped the process entirely with a Presidential Memorandum – and deployed troops to enforce a narrative, not law.

That’s where this gets dangerous. Because while federal troops are normally barred from policing civilians under Posse Comitatus, the National Guard can – but only when under state control. Federalising them should mean pulling them away from civilian policing duties, not pushing them into it.

Back in Tombstone, Congress said no. They recognised the danger. In 2025, Trump just did it anyway, under cover of chaos of his own making.

Governor Newsom condemned the move. Mayor Bass called ICE's tactics "terror." Trump responded with his usual all-caps bombast, promising to deal with “RIOTS & LOOTERS” the “way it should be solved.” We know what that means. We’ve heard it before.

What’s most galling is the choreography. ICE triggers unrest, then the administration declares a breakdown of law and order, and suddenly the Guard is needed to mop up the scene they helped create. It’s a circular justification for federal overreach – the arsonist acting as fire marshal.

And let’s not ignore the language. “Invasion of illegal criminals.” “Feckless Democrat leaders.” This wasn’t public safety. This was campaign material with uniforms. The National Guard wasn’t being used for its intended purpose. It was being used as a prop.

And if you can use it for this – for suppressing a reaction to your own policy failure – what next? Climate protesters? Strikers? Governors who don’t fall in line?

This is the precedent now. A president can strip a governor of their own forces, drop troops into a domestic protest, and bypass the legal mechanisms that are supposed to guard against exactly this sort of abuse.

The National Guard was created to balance state and federal power. Not to tilt the scales at the whim of a populist with a vendetta.

Back in Wyatt Earp’s day, the system held. Congress upheld the boundary. In our day, it’s being trampled – by executive memo, by militarised rhetoric, by the creeping normalisation of federal force in response to domestic dissent.

You want to know what creeping authoritarianism looks like? It doesn’t always arrive with tanks. Sometimes, it comes in boots and body armour, flying the flag, with a press release in one hand and a canister of tear gas in the other.

Welcome to Operation Flashbang. The lights are bright, the noise is deafening – and constitutional limits have just been marched off the street.

Reform Incompetence

So, Reform UK finally got what they wanted – power in a few dusty council chambers and the chance to run things instead of just shouting from the sidelines. And what did they do with it? Cancel meetings, miss their own inaugurals, and implode in a flurry of Elon Musk cosplay and burqa-banning brainwaves. The party of common sense, ladies and gentlemen.

Let’s start with the local council chaos, where Reform swept into town like a toddler with a sheriff badge – all noise, no nappies. Thirty-three meetings cancelled in just nine weeks. Not delayed. Cancelled. Apparently the heady responsibility of “governance” was too much. And who could’ve guessed that managing waste collections, potholes, and planning committees might require more than a TikTok account and a Nigel rosette?

In Kent, they ditched nearly half the scheduled meetings – including one called “governance and audit,” which, given the direction of travel, was probably the first casualty. Across the board, councillors failed to turn up. Some were probably too busy Googling what a council actually does. No doubt some are still waiting for instructions from headquarters, or possibly the Mothership.

And speaking of headquarters – or rather, headless chickens in blazers – let’s talk about DOGE, Reform’s idea of a Department of Government Efficiency. Modelled on Elon Musk’s efficiency drive, but without the rockets or, crucially, the competence. This was supposed to be their masterstroke – parachuting in unelected operatives to show all those dusty councillors how to save money by “cutting the woke.” Like a sort of reverse Robin Hood who robs from the poor and gives it to... Reform UK. They should have started by sacking the Reform councillors. 

But then – disaster! Their own appointed overlords, Zia Yusuf and Nathaniel Fried, resigned in protest. Why? Because someone in the party blurted out that they wanted to ban the burqa, and Zia, bless him, had the temerity to point out that this was both idiotic and unworkable. Naturally, he was shouted down by Lee Anderson, the intellectual black hole of the movement, and Richard Tice, who appears to believe policy should be decided by TalkTV phone-ins.

Zia’s departure was followed by Nathaniel’s. And just like that, DOGE was dead. No more digital dashboards, no more empty charts, no more consultants with clipboards asking parish clerks whether rainbow crossings represent a threat to the budget. What a loss.

The irony? A party obsessed with waste managed to waste its own initiatives within a fortnight. A party championing strong local government can’t even manage a quorum. A party screaming about free speech sacks the only bloke who used his – to question whether banning religious clothing might not be the winning message they thought it was.

Meanwhile, Reform voters are left wondering where all that common sense went. Spoiler: it was never there. What they’ve got instead is a half-baked culture war, a fantasy economics department, and a council calendar emptier than Lee Anderson’s reading list.

But don’t worry – if it all goes tits up, they can always blame the ECHR, the blob, or the Muslims. The dog ate their homework, and now the DOGE has legged it too.

Democracy, Reform-style: one cancelled meeting at a time.

Anti-Vaxx Contradiction

I’ve often wondered – in the quiet moments, usually while waiting for my Gaggia to hiss its morning sermon – how it is that some of the most fervent anti-vaxxers, bulging with distrust for science, government, and anything that doesn't come in a hemp sack, are now injecting themselves with Ozempic like it's the second coming of penicillin.

Here they are – the "my body, my temple" brigade, who recoiled at the very idea of a COVID jab because it contained "chemicals" (as opposed to, say, coffee, shampoo, or human blood) – now lining up to pay £300 a month to jab themselves with semaglutide. Not just any semaglutide, mind – brand name semaglutide, because if you're going to sell out to Big Pharma, best do it with a glossy leaflet and some influencer endorsement.

You see, the vaccine was a step too far. That was "mass control" and "government tyranny". That was Bill Gates trying to embed a microchip in your shoulder, so he could track your thrilling weekly trip to B&M. But Ozempic? No, that’s not tyranny – that’s a glow-up. That’s “empowerment”. That’s self-actualisation via pharmacology. Same needle, different branding.

It’s funny how the same person who told you they “don’t trust what’s in the vaccine” will cheerfully inject something with a side-effect list longer than their local pub’s menu. Apparently blood clots are freedom when they're boutique. And that hunger-numbing feeling? That’s not appetite suppression – that’s your inner warrior finally breaking free from the shackles of Greggs.

And the irony, of course, is as thick as the cholesterol in their veins. A drug developed by Novo Nordisk, a global pharmaceutical behemoth, is now the go-to for those who claim to have "done their own research". One wonders where this research was conducted. TikTok? A Facebook group titled “Essential Oils and Liberty”? Or perhaps a bloke named Clive down the gym who “knows a nurse”?

The truth is, it was never about the needle. It was about who held the syringe. If it's a nurse in an NHS centre offering you protection for free, it's part of a sinister plot. If it’s a private clinic with white walls, subtle lighting, and a softly spoken receptionist named Natasha, it's a lifestyle upgrade.

So here we are. The people who railed against the pharmaceutical-industrial complex are now paying through the nose to be part of it – not to save lives, of course, but to shave two inches off their waistline. That’s not science. That’s marketing. And boy, has it worked.

Welcome to Britain, where injecting yourself is a violation of liberty... unless it helps you fit into last summer’s trousers.