I wouldn’t recommend it

Going away for a long weekend at the beginning of March sounds like a good idea but I wouldn’t recommend it. You come back ill, cold and slightly bemused about just how mad our country is at the moment. 

I was out of the Country when Suella Braverman launched her latest round of attacks on the ‘invading boat people pouring into our country’ as one of Sunak’s five-point plans. We also missed her upsetting the Civil Servants who are supposed to get this Bill into a shape where it is legal enough to be used by writing an email where they were described as an ‘activist blob of left-wingers.’. 

Holidays aren’t how they were in the Eighties, where you were desperate for news from home and you would grab a  two day old copy of the Sun from the corner shop at 3 times it’s normal price just to see what you were missing. Now, you can use your £2 daily data allowance (free before the new Brexit benefits) to check your favourite news sites through social media. You can have a highly personalised experience of what is going on. But I didn’t. News? No thanks. I enjoyed the weather, which the locals kept apologising for, but meant I didn’t have chilblains. 

I arrived back on the day the Home Secretary smirked in parliament about her policies but due to airplane bugs I was focusing on staying alive. 

I did notice Gary Lineker’s first tweet on the subject before falling into a snot filled haze.

I thought it was interesting that she was calling her own bill illegal (everyone knows it won’t get through the Court of Human Rights) and Gary was right, it was a beyond awful video for many reasons. 

I missed the Tweet that really upset. 

The tweet that proves that this Country really has gone mad. 

I missed Question Time and the discussion over whether Gary needed to be shown the red card.

The programme that nails BBC’s partiality. 

And then I noticed what was going on. Gary Lineker pulled from Match of the Day, all his co-workers pulling the ‘I am Spartacus’ trick and football is going to be broadcast to the strains of soothing classical music. Sounds perfect. No more shouting. No analysis over who was the luckiest (they never say that). I might even watch it.  Gary Lineker is a nice guy: a popular man who is pretty good at his job; not someone anyone is willing to throw under a bus to get their foot on the greasy pole. (Yes, I know I’m mixing my metaphors). He hasn’t done anything awful. The tweet was just an example of Godwin’s law - The longer something is discussed online it is inevitable that someone will compare it to Nazi Germany. The migrant debate/Brexit has been debated so often online that it’s almost impossible not to be the one that lets Hitler slip. 

The BBC will argue that their most high profile stars shouldn’t be allowed to make political statements and coming up to an election they don’t want to be seen to take sides. (Even faced with idiotic policies that are designed to whip up hate) However he has always tweeted his political opinions, so it does seem bizarre that they pick now to stop him. 

The tweet they object to, although are not showing on any of their News programmes and now seems to have been deleted is this:

Whether you like him or his opinions it would be hard not to know that he is one of the most naturally gifted presenter anyone has ever seen and that’s before you even think about crisps. Even Piers Morgan is supporting him. The wrong person to pick on - or the right one depending on what you are trying to do.

Now, forgive me for being a conspiracy nut but I have a theory. 

The master manipulators are at it again.

• A conservative government doesn’t want to fund public broadcasting. They believe everything should be run like a business.
• For years people have been trying to get us to believe that the BBC is horribly biased and should be de-funded.
• Those with a left-leaning politic understand that if all broadcasters are run like a business then unheard stories don’t get told.
• Most of the work was done on the right leaning public by describing the BBC as a left-wing blob.
• Left wing voters now need to be convinced that it’s time for Aunty Beeb to make her own way in the world.
• Time to get the BBC to ban socialist National Treasures. Gary Lineker to get the sports lovers, Attenborough for the nature nuts
• Get everyone angry. Stop funding untold stories.

I wouldn’t recommend it but like you, I’m not going to stop going away in March or getting angry on Gary Lineker’s behalf that something he could say on Twitter last month is something that will get him sacked this month.