KATIE Hopkins is to appear in Belfast and Derry in June as part of her Batshite, sorry Batshit, Bonkers Britain stand-up tour.
Squinter didn’t know Katie was a comedian – he thought she was a woman who keeps saying horrible things then complaining about being cancelled and then turning up again.
Her two dates in the Europa Hotel are sold out, according to her website, but there’s still availability for the Everglades Derry if you like jokes about:
People with laptops in coffee shops.
Brown and black people.
Supermarket queues.
Brown and black people.
The price of train tickets.
Brown and black people.
The weather.
Brown and black people.
Snickers versus Marathon.
Black and brown people.
But there’s a rustling of opposition in the undergrowth, with them Derry wans in particular beginning to mobilise to stop the performance. On Twitter Squinter wished the good people of Derry the best of luck with the campaign to stop the show – and cue the howls of outrage from the feral free speechers.
It’s as much a philosophical question as it is a political one, isn’t it? If she’s got the right to say the things she says without bothering a jail cell, then why shouldn’t Squinter enjoy exactly the same privilege?
Katie’s got the right to compare migrants to “cockroaches”; indeed so complete is her right to do it that when she did it she didn’t even get her collar felt by Constable Plod, even though the law theoretically takes a very dim view of such things.
In the wake of the bombing of the Manchester Arena in 2017 by Islamic extremists, she had the right to call for a “final solution”. She did come to attention of PC Plod this time after her tweet was reported to police, but again, she remained stubbornly uncuffed.
The list of controversial things that Katie says goes on and on – race and religion being recurring themes. And if Katie says a “final solution” is required for troublesome types like Muslims, what’s wrong with Squinter saying he hopes she doesn’t get to say such things in Belfast and Derry?
Is Squinter expressing a belief in the right of a community to sideline people who say horrible things an attack on free speech? Or is it his free speech?
‘Ah,’ comes the reply as the Gammon harrumphs and fiddles with the zip on his sleeveless gilet, ‘stopping someone from talking is very different from saying controversial things.’
‘Ah,’ says Squinter, steepling his fingers and narrowing his eyes, ‘but what might Katie’s “final solution” for Islamists look like?’
Would it consist of stern letters to the Daily Mail? No-nonsense contributions to radio phone-ins? A tenner to Nigel Farage’s latest fighting fund?
Or is there anything – a historical example, perhaps – that gives us an idea of what the term “final solution” might actually mean?
Froggy Farage invokes the Ra (not for the first time)
SPEAKING of Nigel Farage, Toad of Toad Hall has been having his say on the Kneecap Bafta thing. The Daily Telegraph speed-dialled him for a quote on Kneecap director Rich Peppiatt winning the Best Debut Bafta and in a beery blast the leader of Reform plc said: “This is an insult of the worst kind to all the good people of the RUC and British Army who were murdered by the IRA.”
Fair enough, that’s a widely-held view in England and it’s an opinion that’s as familiar to the columns of the Telegraph as migrants being responsible for everything and Brexit being the best thing union jack socks.
But Squinter can’t help wondering if a movie about a rap trio is as big an insult to RUC officers and British soldiers killed by the IRA as Froggy expressing support for the Ra for the sake of sixty quid.
CHUCKY: Nigel Farage in a clip from ‘that’ video
Farage’s main source of income is as unknown to Squinter as it is to everybody else, but as well as drawing down a salary and expenses for being MP in a constitency he doesn’t visit, the veteran Europhobe earns a few extra bob by taking time now and then to send a short, smiley message to anybody who’ll bung him sixty smackers. Well, it was about sixty when Nige made the Ra video, but it’s £75.05 plus VAT now, according the website of Cameo, the company through which Froggy offers his messaging service.
Staring at the camera like a captured pilot, Froggy said in a message from October 2021: “This message is for Brian Kelleher, Brexiteer, and I hope you have a great birthday. This comes from your good friend Aidan. Now, it’s a bit early in the day, so all I’ve got, actually, is coffee. But I hope you enjoy a few pints with the lads tonight. Up the Ra!”
Of course Froggy hadn’t a clue what he was saying. Speaking to the Daily Mail (very loudly, no doubt, so’s he could be heard over the belly-laughter) he said: “If I saw ‘Up the Ra!’ I would have looked at that as something very innocent, and wouldn’t have even known there was an implication to it.”
In other words, what he said is not to be take seriously because it’s in a movie. A very short movie, but a short movie
And – pay attention here, Froggy and fans – Rich Peppiatt won a Bafta for making a...
Go on, you can say it.
