Yes, I know a Tweet is a long time in Brexit, but try to cast your mind back a few days and remember when England were doing well in the World Cup.
Strange things began to happen to our Left-wing friends and family.
Many were alarmed that people were happy and that it was nothing to do with them. They suffer from a sort of reverse Schadenfreude. They take great pain from others’ joy.
The condescenti use crude instruments to weaponise absolutely everything. The entertainment industry has become a platform for ‘winning the conversation’ about Donald Trump. (One myopically Left-wing editor of a satirical comedy news show actually tweeted that phrase). Who’d want even to talk with someone who wants to ‘win’ a conversation? Let alone listen to their jokes, which are usually variations on the theme that Britain is full of racists Brexxing their muscles. They constantly promote the idea that the country is a hellhole that can only be civilised by Jean-Claude Druncker.
Comedians are always repeating themselves, first as tragically unfunny, then as fuss. To them, unsanctioned joy is dangerous because it cannot be controlled.
My sister, being a Corbynista, is a good barometer of Left-wing thought. I love her, but I fear I’ve lost her to the cult. We can agree on most things, but she goes from nought to 666 in three seconds flat if politics rears its ugly head. That’s why I don’t want everything to be politicised.
We were both enjoying the football when I mentioned that Left-wing people were taking it badly. There are signs of them trying to hijack the beautiful game and stage-manage it. There was a very dubious incident on Kevin Maguire’s LBC phone-in show, when a supposed angry England fan phoned in and said he didn’t like the World Cup because the team is multi-racial. I refuse to believe this was not staged. It had all the hallmarks of fakery, so perfectly did it fit the Left-wing narrative that all football fans are racists.
I mentioned this to my sister and ranted a bit about how unsettling it is for Left-wing people when the populace enjoy themselves. Newsnight reject Paul Mason, the man for whom the phrase ‘misery loves company’ was coined, was so bamboozled by the fun everyone was having that he became an unconvincing convert to football, painting an England flag on his face like a Plastic Prawn Sandwich Prole.
It’s embarrassing when they fake bonhomie. I can never forget a column by Matthew Norman in the Evening Standard, which began with an anecdote about how Brian Clough had built a team around the left winger John Robertson.
If you’ve only kicked a ball once in your life, you’ll know that you build a team around the spine. Not a winger. Basic error. To put it in the terms Norman might understand, it’s like saying that Richard Rogers found an ashtray and built the River Cafe around it.
How on earth did this buffoon get to write about football? Because our great game became colonised by lounge Lefties when Nick Hornby invented football for them. And that’s when merit goes out the window.
The other myth put about was that ‘nationalism is on the rise’ if England win. There is no evidence of this, other than some footage of a couple of idiots jumping on an ambulance. But they were probably Labour Party agitprops, getting it wronger than Matthew Norman’s unconvincing cross-dressing as they tried too hard to ‘get the look’ of unbridled joy.
Anyway, the Corbynista Sister was not to be placated. The fact that we won a few football games and people were getting along with each other was a cause for alarm in her book.
I must say that the evidence I saw in The Porter and Sorter suggested otherwise. My home town, Croydon, is pretty multicultural. When England went one nil up against Croatia there were people of all colours celebrating in the pub. Nobody rioted when we lost. Everyone was enjoying the sense of community too much. That is the worst nightmare for the Divisity Officers of Socialism.
Therein lies the distrust of football felt by the advocates of Divide and School.
They can’t stand the egalitarianism. Or the meritocracy of such a simple game.
The World Cup recognises the individuality of nation states. There’s no Jean-Claude Druncker figure meddling in the internal politics of each team. Although Sepp Bladder had a bloody good go.
It’s a celebration of patriotism, populism and individual sacrifice to the cause of the team.
You can see why the commentariat hate it. I’d like to end by invoking the spirit of Norway’s Bjørge Lillelien, the world’s greatest ever football commentator.
Owen Jones, Jeremy Corbyn, Emily Thornberry, Will Self, Matthew Norman – can you hear me, Matthew Norman? You boys did a hell of a bleating!
