Rod Liddle

Another honours list comes and goes and yet again my name is not on it. I don’t think either the Prime Minister or Jeremy Corbyn realises the hurt that this flagrant oversight engenders, both in myself and of course in my public. For countless years I have tried, selflessly, to make the world a better place, to illuminate the poor and the downtrodden with the light of love. I have endeavoured, wherever I can, in my own way, to bring comfort to the sick — not only those who are physically infirm, but also mentals. And yet — nothing, nix. More pertinently, with regard to the latest honours list from David Cameron, I was at a party at the end of last year and offered Sam Cam a fag.

I went to a restaurant in Middlesbrough back in the spring. It’s called the Brasserie Hudson Quay and occupies a rather beautiful and defiantly urban space between the football ground and the river Tees, with views over the various mystifying riparian sculptures you southerners have kindly paid for out of your taxes, I would guess, to cheer up the locals. We were off to see the Boro play a midweek night game, so the location of the restaurant was very handy. But that was not the main reason we went. Me and the missus had been on TripAdvisor to choose a meal for the evening and settled on the Brasserie Hudson Quay because of the response of someone called ‘Pete’, presumably the duty manager of the place, to every negative review.

Jesus H Christ. Is this what it comes down to? A smarmy post-Tribunite nonentity swathed in unrealistic ambition, versus Chauncey Gardener? It is close to pointless wondering who to support between these political titans, Owen Smith or Jeremy Corbyn. If Smith wins, which I doubt very, very, much, he is no more adept to change the nature of the party than is Corbyn. He has not the nous, balls or means to challenge the activist base and thus recapture those Labour votes which, since 2005, have been winnowing away to Ukip, or the Tories, or to nowhere. Nor even that much support within the PLP. There are two big issues upon which Labour has lost its votes: immigration and welfare.

My favourite comment about Angela Eagle came from some unnamed spiteful Corbynista MP who, with reference to her twin sister Maria, a former cabinet minister, observed that Angela was ‘the lesser of two Eagles’ and ‘not even the best politician in her own family’. Perhaps he was the bloke who chucked a brick through Mrs Eagle’s office window this week, or left the succinct, if politically incorrect, answerphone message for her: ‘fucking bitch’. Although there are two or three hundred thousand semi-house-trained infants in the Momentum movement who might well have behaved likewise, I suppose. Feelings are running a little high across the political spectrum, aren’t they? This is becoming the Summer of Visceral Loathing.

Still the furore whips around. Some remain monkey showed me a bunch of pie charts 'proving' that the vote was unsound. Another described all 17.4m of us as being 'racists, bigots and xenophobes' (can you be a racist without being a xenophobe?). And no matter that the government has decided we shouldn’t have a second referendum, there are still marchers, and petitions and bile and loathing. So I have attempted to heal. Above is a video I did giving ordinary – and eminent – Remainers their say.

There’s something a little-dispiriting about waking up one morning to find that our elected politicians are even more psychopathic, deranged and-disloyal than one had always suspected. I don’t just mean Gove and his cackling, somewhat ambitious missus. Charming though Michael undoubtedly is, and agreeably owlish in-public, I have imagined him in-darker moments standing in a blood-splattered hallway with a kitchen knife in his hand muttering over and over: ‘I did it for you, Mummy, I did it for you.’ Somehow I always thought that was in there, with Michael.

Nigel Farage is the most important British politician of the last decade and the most successful. His resignation leaves a hole in our political system. With enormous intelligence and chutzpah and a refreshingly unorthodox approach, he built Ukip up from nothing to become established as our third largest party and succeeded in his overriding ambition – to see the UK vote to leave the European Union. He is also extremely good company and likeable – unless you are one of those infants who screams 'fascist!' whenever his name is raised. Or if you are BBC PM’s presenter Eddie Mair, who – fatuously enough – seemed to suggest Farage was to blame for racist assaults taking place in the country. What happens now to Ukip?

There is a slap Michael Gove game on the internet, and it’s very popular. All you have to do is slap him in the face. I must admit I was tempted when I read his synthetically pious toss about how he had felt forced to stand as leader, deep sense of regret, false humility leaking out of every pore. I always liked Michael, but he has not behaved terribly well, has he? And now he’s going to lose, heavily. Meanwhile, students are saying they are “too depressed” to take their exams because of the Brexit vote. And – for those of you who are collecting whining Remain idiocies – howzabout this. My wife was asked by another parent at school how she had voted. “Leave,” she replied. Cue and aghast expression and: “But you’re a MOTHER!

A quick update on the BBC TV News. At ten o clock last night the programme ran a report from its idiotic northern correspondent, Ed Thomas, which attempted to suggest that the Leave campaign was responsible for nasty things being said to immigrants. Thomas is an appallingly partisan correspondent and presumably has his job because he is only person within the BBC with a vaguely northern accent. He chose to interview two neanderthals. Then over to the inestimable Laura Kuenssssberg, who referred to the UK’s 'likely' exit from the EU. No, Laura: exit. We have to keep watching these patently parti-pris buggers. The subtle and not so subtle way they attempt to drive the political agenda. Keep an eye out especially for Thomas.

It’s all looking very grim for Lammy. My petition to have him removed as MP for Tottenham has now soared past the 3,000 mark. He surely cannot hang on much longer. Another 2,000 signatories and we will have proved, beyond all doubt, that he is not fit to sit as an MP, because he does not understand democracy. Either that or he – and all those other caterwauling and whining ponces (as Julie Burchill wonderfully put it) – on the Remain side will understand that a petition is basically the charter of an idiot and has no force.

The petition to demand a second a referendum has now reached 2.8 million signatories. There’s an awful lot of people in this country who do not understand democracy; they can scream abuse at Boris and demonstrate in central London, write long anguished letters to the Grauniad and act like petulant children, but they still will not get their way. Twinkly, smiley Physics professor Brian Cox has asked (‘mischeviously’) what would happen if the petition reached 17 million. Well, Bri. Do the math. You’re supposed to be good at that. It still wouldn’t be enough, would it? Meanwhile David Lammy MP, who should know better, has insisted that Parliament take the fatuous petition seriously and debate the need for a second referendum. Ok, David.

RIP Jo Cox MP. A hugely talented young politician possessed of great clarity of thought and principle. Shot and stabbed by a piece of human filth, a piece of white human filth, while attending her surgery in West Yorkshire. God bless the woman and look after her family, please. This sort of savagery and vileness has been on the cards now for quite a while. We are drifting towards the febrile territory of a banana republic, or at best the USA. The claims on either side of the Brexit debate are hyperbolic, exaggerated, idiotic. And the mutual loathing spreads daily across social media, a shrieking absolutism divorced from reality on both sides of the argument. Call the vote off, as a mark of respect. We are in no fit state to vote anyway, to judge by the level of debate. Call it off.