On US podcaster Joe Rogan’s show last week MP Rupert Lowe, the leader of the Restore Britain Party, bemoaned the fact that his father had had to surrender his gun collection all on account of one murder in Dunblane in 1996. “One murder?” queried the talk show host. “One murder.”
In fact, Thomas Hamilton had entered Dunblane Primary School on March 13th, 1996 with a number of firearms, shot dead 16 children, their teacher Gwen Mayor, and had seriously injured 15 others, mostly children, before he turned the gun on himself. Following this dreadful event, Parliament essentially outlawed the possession of handguns in the UK.
I happened to attend the church service in Dunblane Cathedral yesterday morning, as is my wont. The minister, speaking from the pulpit, was highly critical of this dissemination of misinformation, or disinformation, from across the Pond. You could have heard a pin drop. That was hardly surprising. There were people sitting in the congregation who had been personally affected by that tragedy, and who continue to suffer and endure its effects to this day. The Restore leader’s father had had his guns taken away; members of the congregation had had their children taken away.
Is there a difference between misinformation and disinformation? I would hazard that the former is a factual inaccuracy that might be a slip of the tongue, while the latter is deliberate, that is, the dissemination of a lie. Which was this? I believe a spokesman for Restore made the case that the quote had been taken out of context, and that the word “murder” was being used to refer to an “incident”. The minister in Dunblane was not convinced. Neither am I. In any case, you would have thought that, confronted with the truth, the perpetrator of its exact opposite might put his hand up and apologise for causing so much hurt. Mea culpa. But that is not the modern way. Rather it is to “double down”.
Recently we have seen the extreme right, and indeed the gun lobby, espouse, or perhaps hijack, “Christian values”. The preservation of a “Christian society” is conflated with the need rigidly to control a potential influx of strangers who follow a different creed. President Trump, and his henchmen, have warned that European civilisation will collapse if it can’t control its own borders. This should prompt us to reconsider just precisely what “Christian values” might be. I think of verses from St. Matthew.
For I was hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not…
…inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not for me.
I confess it’s a passage which haunts me. I suppose I’m generous enough with my money; but I’m not generous with my time. And I haven’t done much prison visiting lately. If I may borrow a line from Dunblane Cathedral’s minister, if ever I were persecuted for being a Christian, I fear the case against me would collapse from lack of evidence.
There was, however, a murder, one murder, last week; the murder of Ann Widdecombe, former Conservative government minister and then Immigration and Justice Spokesperson for the Reform Party. I first heard of her passing on BBC Radio 2’s lunchtime Jeremy Vine show on Friday, when there was no inkling of foul play. There were warm tributes. The steadfastness with which she had held her own convictions, and her directness of speech, was much admired, even by her political opponents, as was her sense of fun, and willingness not to take herself too seriously, as evidenced by her appearances on Strictly.
But later that afternoon the police announced that a murder investigation had been launched. The delay to divulge this information to the public was apparently down to the police’s desire to inform next of kin first. But it is also clear that the police were very aware of the possibility, the likelihood, that misinformation and disinformation would rapidly disseminate across social media, and potentially cause considerable unrest. They were at pains to tell us that there was no evidence of a political or terrorist motive to the crime. Be that as it may, Mr Farage has organised increased security for his parliamentarians. I think it was while he was campaigning in Clacton-on-Sea that somebody threw a milkshake at Mr Farage. I wish Mr Hamilton, when he entered Dunlane Primary School, had only been armed with a milkshake.
There is currently much controversy over the financial dealings of Mr Farage, and Reform. Mr Farage says, “Nobody cares.” In a “put up, or shut up” moment, he resigned his seat in order to trigger a Clacton by-election, in which he himself will stand. Let the people of Clacton decide. I wonder if he anticipated that the other main parties would not play along. At the moment, the only person who will stand against him is a man dressed as an intergalactic dustbin. Jeremy Vine interviewed Count Binface last week and I must say I was impressed. He is a sharp cookie. I particularly admired his manifesto policy to invest £100,000,000,000 in Trident, then to divert all the money to the NHS without telling anybody.
Some people think that the whole Count Binface thing demeans politics, and makes the UK a laughing stock. Somebody has written into The Herald today. “When a clown dressed as a dustbin can stand for election to Parliament, we have surely reached the dead end of democracy.” I disagree. All these monster raving loony parties flourish precisely because they exist in a vibrant democracy. Anybody can stand, if they are prepared to put up the deposit. I imagine Count Binface would not be able to stand if he were in China. I remember in 2008 when China handed over the Olympic Torch to London, they were completely bemused by the whimsical, self-deprecatory, farcical trailer for the 2012 opening ceremony. Totalitarian regimes don’t like farce. It is because they know it can undermine them.
So Count Binface has my support. Having stuck my neck out last week re England and the World Cup, I’ll venture another punt. The winner of the Clacton by-election might, just might, be Count Binface.
jamescalumcampbell 