Not Coming Home

So, football isn't coming home after all.  But racism is - although, in truth. it never really went away.  I'd like to say that I was shocked or surprised by the outpourings of racist abuse and violence from many England 'fans' in the wake of the football team's defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final, but I'm afraid that it is only to be expected.  This sort of 'nationalistic' fervour is what the Tories have been incubating since they returned to power in 2010.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: they decided to play with fire by deciding that the key to retaining power was to shift the UK's political discourse far to the right in order to attract the votes of the right wing fringes.  It started with Cameron and his various campaigns to turn any vulnerable minority, from single parents, through the disabled to immigrants into the 'enemy', in attempt to create hate figures with which to unite his new extremist alliance.  The likes of Gove and Johnson then used the EU referendum to take it all a stage further by invoking the spectre of unbridled immigration in their bid to capture Nigel Farage's army of Brexit bastards.  Since then, it has been nothing but phoney culture wars from them, as they attempt to divide people against each other, invoking false narratives of the disadvantaged 'white working class' - disadvantaged at the hands of those non-white immigrants, of course.  Then they feign horror when it all erupts in an orgy of racism and bigotry.

Still, England's loss let Johnson off the hook in one respect - he doesn't have to follow through (or more likely perform another U-turn), over that bank holiday he was hinting at if England won.  Obviously, he had no intention of ever granting any such thing - Johnson is just full of shit and will promise anything if it will make him popular, then wriggle out of it when it looks like he'll have to make good on his false promises.  It's no surprise that with someone like him in charge of the country that the racists and bigots feel empowered and emboldened.  Not just because they believe that Johnson and his cronies are dependent upon them to maintain them in power, but because they recognise that Johnson himself is one of their own.  Oh sure, he's an Old Etonian and boasts of his ability to read the classics in the original Greek and Latin, but let's not forget his newspaper columns where he describes black people as having 'water melon smiles' or as 'picanninies'  Not to mention describing Muslim wearing traditional dress as 'pillar boxes'.  Then there are his various outbursts against other minorities - homosexuals are 'tank top bum boys', for instance - and various vile misogynistic comments.  Eddie Mair hit the nail on the head when, in that BBC interview, he confronted Johnson with all of this - and more - ending by describing him as 'a thoroughly nasty piece of work'.  Is it any wonder that this country has become so ugly with scumbags like that in charge?  For most of my life, the UK seemed to be progressing, becoming more tolerant of minorities, kinder toward our new citizens, but for the past decade it feels like we've been going backwards.  It really is quite depressing, but only to be expected with this bunch of wreckers in control, who will destroy anything - the rule of law, civil society, decency and values, if they think that it stands in the way of their retaining power and continuing to milk the economy for everything they can get out of it.