But there is a darker, more sinister, side to this kind of nostalgia-propaganda – when it employs real people as instruments of this mythology. Again, to some extent, this is something British propaganda has always done, but in the main this instrumentalisation of people has either been in the abstract – as in the token image of a silhouetted soldier at a comrade’s graveside or the Unknown Soldier – or in its use of historical figures – such as Winston Churchill being voted the ‘greatest Briton of all time.’
Humiliating Our Activists
Saturday is important here because on Saturday a small group of concerned Scottish people went to the border and held up a banner to traffic coming north over the border reading: ‘STAYCATION – KEEP SCOTLAND COVID FREE.’ Not a word of a lie, this is true. It’s all over the internet. Look it up. And almost immediately members of the Scottish government – MSPs and MPs – reacted. And what a reaction! Scotland’s Justice Minister, Humza Yousaf, a man touted by many to be the next First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party – Scotland’s pro-independence party...
Boris Johnson’s Cull
But let us be absolutely clear on one thing, no matter what he has said in his latest panicked announcement, neither Boris Johnson nor the British government have been on this track from the beginning. In fact, they are extremely late to the party. Our hope – and it is a sincere hope – is that these measures will be enough, but the greatest likelihood is that the gate has been closed long after the horse has bolted. People were always going to die of this virus. There is no way to stop a virus. But Boris Johnson has by his wilful inaction and arrogance set Britain up to fail – and fail bad.
Random Public Journal 