Rod Liddle

There were not many moments of gloom on election night. I spent most of it, so far as I can recall, in a state of inebriated euphoric gloating — enhanced by the fact that I had hitherto been extremely worried about the outcome. Winning goals are always the most enjoyable when scored, unexpectedly, in injury time. In this case, the exit poll at ten o’clock, a little later confirmed by the equivalent of VAR, Blyth Valley going blue. And then Stockton South — even the local Tories, whom I know well, had not expected to win. From then on it was a mirth fest, reaching its apogee when the fabulously witless Labour MP Richard Burgon was wheeled out to explain the debacle, which he did in the manner of a village idiot attempting to explain the theory of relativity.

Staraya Russa. About two thirds of the way from Moscow to St Petersburg, in the historic Novgorod Oblast, once the eastern outpost of that much preferable European union, the Hanseatic League. Beautiful cathedral square, lakes and forests, timber-clad museum where Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov. There’s a rather grand house for sale — about 5,000 sq ft, five beds, nice garden — for £143,416. From where I’m sitting, as terrified Tories insist the polls are narrowing and Magic Grandpa is within inches of winning, you’d be mad not to. From where you’re sitting, too, a little later in this awful week, if the Tories were right to be terrified. Staraya Russa. No infantile gender wokeist faddism there, believe me.

It was pleasing to see that old clip of Gerry Adams endorsing Jeremy Corbyn re-emerge, just before the acts of carnage were carried out at London Bridge. It reminded us all, should we have needed to be reminded, of Jeremy’s genial relationship with terrorists who murder British citizens (or indeed Israeli citizens). The question, I suppose, is: will it sway any opinions? You would doubt it, such is the kind of deranged certitude in which the his supporters bask, where everything bad about Mr Corbyn has actually been made up by Boris Johnson, or people like me. Even as the first reports of the atrocity were coming in, Corbyn’s Momentum acolytes were all over social media suggesting that it was an establishment plot to scupper Labour’s chances at the election.

Many of you will be waiting, with much excitement, for the Great Lammy Firewall, which will be introduced by our new Labour government just as soon as they’ve nationalised the internet. Free broadband for everyone, except for those reactionaries who contravene one of 756 stipulations written in the inevitable community code of conduct agreements (i.e. most of the people who pay for this stuff through their taxes). That’s me offline, then — and, after a while, probably you too. Imaginary hate crimes will see you sent to the Lammy Sin Bin or, if they’re considered serious enough, the thought police will be round with their black plastic bags and BBC camera crew. You think I’m joking? I am not joking.

I was chatting to a young medical student, a very bright chap from West Africa, who was nonetheless perplexed by a certain element of his course. The puzzle, for him, was the point of offering cervical smear tests to men who had transitioned to become women. The course module was very clear, he said, that these people must not be left out, despite not possessing a cervix. I hope a later part of the course teaches him how to behave while carrying out a cervical smear test on a non-existent cervix, so as not to cause offence. Poke around a bit with that spatula thing in whatever has recently been excavated, and perhaps comment admiringly, along the lines of: ‘My goodness! What a splendid cervix. I don’t think I have ever seen one quite so robust or pristine.

I wonder if we are beginning to see the end of assortative mating. For a long while now we have tended to select our life partners from the place in which we work — rather than, as before, from our home towns or places of education. This process began with the long march of women into the workplace in the early 1970s, a development which, while overall being undoubtedly both benign and just, nonetheless slightly widened the gap between rich and poor. Men and women who worked together had a tendency to, if I can put it like this, cop off. This meant we had many more families where both parents worked, and many more families where nobody worked. Assortative mating of this kind was exacerbated by the fact that we were ever more transient and mobile, and marrying later and later.

I was on my way to the pub the other evening, about seven o’clock, rain lashing down on my head, when I saw that there was a dim, yellowish light on in the bookshop. Peering closer through the downpour I could see five women sitting on a circle of chairs around either a table or a cauldron, talking animatedly to one another. Or perhaps chanting, I don’t know. I crossed the road and stood directly outside the shop window with my arms outstretched, mouthing at those inside: ‘Where’s my book? Where’s my book?’ Six weeks previously I had wandered into the shop to see if they were stocking The Great Betrayal: they weren’t. And when I asked the lady behind the till she became somewhat evasive.

You’re surprised? Really? What are you surprised by? The specifics — that 11 non-elected, mostly public-school-educated judges, and doubtlessly Remainers I’d guess, should put the final nail into the lid of Brexit? Yeah, sure — that knocked me for six. Never saw that coming. Or was it the generality that surprised you — we’re not getting Brexit after all? If it’s the latter, I don’t think there’s much hope for you. What seemed to me fairly plain on 24 June 2016 — that they, meaning our liberal establishment, would never let it happen — became an absolute certainty by the turn of this year. By January it was either no Brexit or Brexit in name only.