Derangement

First we had TDS, then BDS and now we have CDS.

Imagine living in a country where bishops intrude into political life and demand that the elected leader ‘repent’ for his political sins. Or a country where former police chiefs make televised denunciations of elected politicians and their ‘sophistry’. Or a country where incredibly wealthy women offer financial reward to rogue civil servants who are seeking to undermine the democratically elected government. Or a country where a mob turns up at someone’s home denouncing him as ‘demonic’ and shouting at him about death, and the political class doesn’t condemn such behaviour but rather cheers it on.

Indeed. The idea of the police accusing others of sophistry is pretty rich, mind. But O’Neill is right here. Political disagreement is healthy, however, what we are seeing here is not.

J K Rowling’s offer to pay for the salary of a rogue civil servant is missing the point by a country mile. The civil service is supposed to conduct the business of government impartially – yet we have one of them at least telling us that they are not impartial. Sacking this person is right and proper, for they cannot abide by one of the most fundamental parts of their job. That Rowling is prepared to put that impartiality aside of the sake of petty party tribalism says much about her and it isn’t positive. That you don’t like the party in power does not make them liars and charlatans any more than the other lot are. But if you are a civil servant, you keep your personal feelings under your hat – or resign.

As for the bishops, the less said about them, the better, frankly. Perhaps they should go the whole hog and convert to Islam at least the deranged progressives will fall in love with them again.

Yes, O’Neill is right – the whole thing is more toxic than cyanide and the Cummings affair has exposed it – if Brexit hadn’t already. Which, of course, is what this is all about. They really, really don’t like democracy when it goes against them and this temper tantrum is the result.

Well, if you’re reading this article in the UK, you already live in this country. This is Britain in 2020, in the grip of Cummings Derangement Syndrome. The ceaseless, media-manufactured hysteria over Dominic Cummings’ trip to Durham, and whether it broke the lockdown guidelines instituted by his own boss, PM Boris Johnson, has been an extraordinary affair. We are told, constantly, that Cummings has committed an unforgivable moral and political transgression, and yet the evidence continues to pile up, hour upon hour, that a far greater transgression is being committed by the anti-Cummings mob. Their behaviour threatens democratic norms and reasoned public discussion far more than a car journey during lockdown ever could.

Indeed. But that’s okay because reasons.

I am no fan of the Tories – not least because they long since ceased to have any relationship with Burkean principles – but the mob we are seeing and the sheer tribal derangement is sickening. Anything the Tories might say or do pales into insignificance when compared to the behaviour of their opponents. They really are the good guys here, which is a bit disturbing.

The use of such emotional blackmail – suggesting a withdrawal of the CofE’s support for the government’s efforts against coronavirus until Boris repents for his sins – shows what a morally unserious institution the church has become.

I think the best response to this is “bring it on and don’t let the door hit you in the cassock on the way out.” I can almost understand why Anne Widdecombe converted to Catholicism.

This is possibly the most serious transgression in Cummings Derangement Syndrome. We have allowed people’s private homes to become sites of political protest and political anger.

Indeed. This behaviour is way beyond vile. The people who are responsible are utter scum.

What is most striking about this is that the people who are supporting, or just not commenting on, the transformation of Cummings’ private home into a site of political fury are the same people who have spent the past few years telling everyone to mind their political language and curb their political emotions before a politician ends up getting hurt, as Jo Cox did.

It has been an oft repeated trope, but this is because it is true. If these nasty, vile, wicked scumbags didn’t have double standards, they would have none at all.

His haters trot out the line that ‘It’s one rule for the elite and another for everyone else’, when the fact is they are using this controversy to try to restore their elitism; they are using it as yet another platform to reassert their cultural values against a throng they loathe and an elected government they despise. Do not for one minute be fooled by the phoney anti-elitism of the Cummings haters, because their increasingly mad campaign against Cummings is precisely an attempted revenge of the elites that the people rejected.

Indeed.