Owen Jones: Idiot

Another in our irregular series that highlights the idiocy of the teenage trot. This time it’s music.

What’s not to love? A queer opera singer exuberantly waving the Pride flag in front of a cheering audience at Last Night of the Proms, broadcast to millions of people. It is the sort of thing that is guaranteed to send every pink-faced Home Counties golf-club reactionary into paroxysms of rage. But at the risk of inviting predictable groans, watching the symbol of queer liberation being dramatically brandished during a rendition of Rule, Britannia! left me somewhat queasy.

This is a fairly classic case of the regressive left looking for something over which to take offence. And when it comes to regressive behaviour, Jones is a master.

An overtly jingoistic song dating back to the mid-18th century, it became an anthem of a British empire that imposed anti-gay laws from India to Africa. Indeed, 35 of the 53 Commonwealth nations – mostly ex-British colonies – have laws criminalising homosexuality, some designed by colonisers who themselves passionately sang along to Rule, Britannia!.

Notice how he slips in the non sequitur there. The anti-gay laws pretty much summed up the period and since the collapse of empire, several of those former colonies do indeed still have anti-gay laws – but they are brown people so that’s okay because reasons. And, no, it has nothing whatever to do with us or our erstwhile empire because those ex colonies have had plenty of time to repeal such laws but have chosen not to. Naturally, only John Bull is guilty of homophobia because Empire.

It is just symptomatic of how the British never came to terms with the legacy of empire:

Drivel. Utter, utter drivel. The only people who have not come to terms with the legacy of empire are the regressive left who keep fucking banging on about it. Owen Jones – fucking idiot.