Reporting News and opinions
The "Great British People" Facebook page, which purports to be from Yorkshire, has had 1.3 million views for its latest video of an elderly white British man crying about his pension. Other videos show reporters discussing "the overwhelming scale of mass immigration" and asking viewers if they miss "the Britain we used to know".
The performance requires a villain. Africa has been performing that role for free, and at some cost to itself for considerably longer than it should have.
History doesn't repeat, but it does enjoy a good remix. The Loony Left had its turn playing council-level foreign policy. Now the Loony Right is giving it a go with environmental policy. Same schoolyard energy, different decade, fresh set of headlines. One can only wonder what the right-wing papers will call them. The Sensible Pragmatists? Or will the satire wheel turn full circle?
The immigrant today exists simultaneously as two incompatible creatures. On one hand, he is portrayed as a lazy welfare dependent draining public resources, crowding hospitals, filling council housing lists and surviving on benefits paid by hardworking natives. On the other hand, that same immigrant is somehow an unstoppable economic superhuman taking all the jobs, dominating industries, suppressing wages and outcompeting local workers in both skilled and unskilled sectors.
Farage’s latest stunt, abruptly resigning as the MP for Clacton to trigger a theatrical summer by-election is a masterpiece in the fine art of political distraction.
