FILM Four recently screened Mike Leigh’s marvellous 1999 film Topsy Turvy, dramatising the rivalry between Gilbert and Sullivan in the run-up to the premiere of The Mikado.
Jim Broadbent’s warts-and-all depiction of W S Gilbert is both hilarious and tragic. Gilbert had the acute eye and visceral turn of phrase to send up all the hypocrisy and shenanigans of the politicians and bigwigs of the day. But as he reads a review in the Times, he rages at the outrageous put-down which calls him ‘the master of topsy-turvy-dom’.
Were he to read any of our current newspapers, what on earth would he have made of the sheer topsy-turvy-dom being played out in our supposedly civilised society, in health care, education, and the law? I fear he’d be lost for words.
Take these examples:
The healthcare institution which has protocols for killing patients
Gail Seiler, of Plano, Texas, was hospitalised with Covid in December last year, and requested the early treatment protocols favoured by the Front Line Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), which included ivermectin.
However once staff discovered she was unvaccinated, she lost the right to advocate for her own medical care. No family members were allowed to visit. The physician told her she was going to die because she was unvaccinated. She resisted pressure to take remdesivir (known to cause kidney failure). She was denied the right to see a priest to administer last rites, discovered from her notes that she had been classified DNR, and was required to be ventilated (a process observers have reported ends in death).
Gail’s husband tried to take her home from the hospital, fearing they were going to murder her. They were accosted by police officers – not to help them, but to make her husband leave. Finally he succeeded. Now recovered, Gail campaigns to keep people out of hospitals, to escape what she terms a ‘hospital holocaust’. She saw that people were not dying of Covid but from hospital protocols. So much for ‘First do no harm’. You can read the full horrifying story here.
The education authority that sacrificed safeguarding pupils to promote diversity inclusion and equality (DIE) for teachers.
In Ontario, Canada, a transgender high school teacher has been allowed to teach pupils while wearing massive prosthetic breasts. Film of the situation has gone viral on social media platforms. You can see a picture here.
Parents have expressed fury and pupils have cut classes. But the school claimed it would be illegal to criticise the teacher’s behaviour because it would contravene the Ontario Human Rights Code. The school board said: ‘We strive to promote a positive learning environment, and ensure a safe and inclusive environment for all students, staff and the community, regardless of race, age, ability, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, cultural observance, socio-economic circumstances, or body type/size.’ They are working on a safety plan for the teacher’s security as they prepare for further protests.
However parents at the school are anxious about objecting for fear that they will be called bigots, or worse.
When the rule of law is overturned, or misinterpreted, by the very governments and courts set up to enforce it.
Courts and legislators are Increasingly adopting policies which ensure that victims carry the can, while wrong-doers get off lightly or even scot-free.
TCW’s Monday edition featured Thorsteinn Siglaugsson’s article questioning legal aspects of Iceland’s Covid restrictions and revealing how the rule of law was abolished, including the misuse of credit card data, quarantine requirements and the denial of citizens’ entry into the country without a negative PCR test.
In the UK, Covid rules were incorporated into the Health Regulations 2021, with the proviso that ‘the restriction or requirement is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by imposing it’.
Consider the penalty handed down to Louise Creffield, who took part in peaceful anti-lockdown marches of more than 50 people at a time when meetings of more than 30 were banned. She was fined £20,000.
In 2015, 13 eco-activists from the Plane Stupid group were arrested under the Aviation Act for occupying part of the Heathrow runway, causing serious disruption, and the cancellation of 25 flights. They were found guilty of aggravated trespass, and were given six-week custodial sentences suspended for 12 months.
Since then, activists have continued to enjoy the velvet glove treatment. In 2021, more than 200 were arrested following repeated blockades by Insulate Britain, creating chaos on the M25. Only one has faced court. One activist had already incurred 24 arrests in less than a year, but refused to commit to giving up his activism.
So much for proportionality.
There are some fledgling signs that things might be about to change. The new Home Secretary Suella Braverman has told ‘woke’ police chiefs to give less attention to diversity and concentrate their efforts and resources on fighting crime.
More than 40 MPs have called on Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Business Secretary, to intervene on behalf of customers who are being cancelled by PayPal for espousing ideas which do not conform to the organisation’s values. In Ohio, the liberal arts college Oberlin has finally been ordered to pay almost $40million to Gibson’s Bakery to compensate for defamation, restraint of business and falsely accusing the owners of racism after a black student was caught shoplifting.
Most reassuring of all is the rallying call from rapper and social commentator Zuby, who has encouraged the ‘silent majority’ to stop censoring themselves through fear and intimidation, and speak out whenever they are confronted with a vocal minority trying to impose their radical views on society. He has called this ‘a pandemic of cowardice’, whereby people are unwilling to say things which are objectively true.
We need to take his advice, to ensure we reverse the topsy-turvy-dom of wokism that undermines our basic values. Jordan Peterson, who recently resigned his tenured professorship at the University of Toronto citing the ‘woke monoculture’ of universities, is now Chancellor of Ralston College in Georgia, where the motto is ‘To think is to be free’ and the mission is to revive and reinvent the traditional university for anyone who seeks the truth with courage.
We all need to fight back against the deniers of truth, and the definition of that truth has to be the one we all know – the whole truth and nothing but the truth, the cornerstone of our rule of law and moral authority.
