I Wasn't Welsh

Apparently we were all Welsh yesterday.  At least that's what the media were telling us as, according to them, the whole of the UK rallied behind Wales in their Euro 2016 semi final with Portugal.  The whole UK except me, that is.  I do so hate it when the press presumes to know my footballing loyalties.  No, I'm afraid that as the Welsh let us down over the EU referendum and came out as Brexit Bastards, there was no way that I was going to support them - I've successfully rooted for Northern Ireland, Belgium and Portugal as they successively played Wales in the knock out stages of the tournament.  Finally, Portugal came through for me!  Fact is that, even before Brexit, I've never really trusted the Welsh with their heathen made up tongue and their close harmony singing.  Besides, they take every opportunity to be rude and hostile to the English, so it's only right that we should seize on any opportunity to reciprocate.

Much to the chagrin to the slavering hordes of middle class Corbyn-supporting nouveau socialists who have been eagerly anticipating it for years, the publication of the Chilcot Report was somewhat overshadowed by the Wales match.  Not that it stopped them from getting over-excited at another chance for them to denounce Tony Blair as the anti-Christ and tell us all how they were right about the Iraq war all along.  They must have been very disappointed to find that, upon the report's publication, Blair wasn't immediately arrested for war crimes - something they've been fantasising about for years.  It must have been a bit like the disappointment Leave voters must have felt the day after the referendum: they'd one, but nothing had changed overnight, we were still in the EU.  You'll have to excuse my lack of excitement over the Chilcot Report.  Not only are none of its findings at all surprising, but it is thirteen years too late.  Whilst not wanting to play down the traumatic effect of the war on those injured in it, or the relatives of those who died on both sides, but the fact is that the world has moved on and we're now faced with more pressing problems. I'm guessing, by their muted response to the report, that most of the great British public feel the same way.

Whilst I opposed the Iraq war at the time and believed that Blair had misled parliament in order to get cross-party support for going to war, I was in the minority at the time and, if the general public were really worried about it, they wouldn't have put Blair back into office at the next election.  Unpalatable though it might seem, there is no appetite in the country for 'bringing Blair to account'.  Moreover, no matter how angry Blair's decision to go to war made me at the time, there really is no case for labeling him a 'war criminal' - exagerrating a threat for political purposes simply does not a war criminal make.  I'm not going to say that we should all 'move on', that would be incredibly insensitive to those who lost people in the war, 'moving on' isn't an option for them, their lives will always be scarred by the conflict.  But to keep picking at this festering sore politically is simply unproductive.  It will achieve nothing.  To be sure, there are important lessons to be learned, but using the issue (and the grief of those who lost relatives in Iraq) as a stick to beat sections of the Labour party who supported the war at the time, in a partisan battle for control of the party, as those afore-mentioned self-righteous Corbyn supporters are doing, is downright offensive.

But I've wandered a long way from the football, haven't I?  The truth of the matter is that I didn't even bother watching the match.  Why would I waste my time on a Wales match?  I'm not Welsh, after all.  I instead spent a fair chunk of yesterday evening writing a rambling new editorial for The Sleaze and listening to the latest Overnightscape Central over at the Overnightscape Underground.  I have a segment on this one (I'm third up, if you are interested) which I wanted to listen to again.  When I completed it, I was quite proud of it - but listening back, I'm not so sure.  It takes the form of a series of excerpts from a fake overnight radio show.  The trouble is that all I can hear now are the flaws - the sound levels aren't quite right, some of the editing cuts are too obvious and some of the content now seems weak.  I'm seriously considering remaking it to rectify these issues and releasing it here under the 'Sleazecast' banner.  We'll see.