As we march at pace to a third World War, the media makes clear its own priorities. Innocent people being killed and maimed? Yeah, there’s a bit of that. The potential of revenge attacks at home and abroad? Hmm, hadn’t thought of that one. Devastating economic consequences? Oh fuck, aye: petrol prices going up again. But the big one, exclusive to all newspapers, radio stations and TV news outlets is always the same: rich holidaymakers.
The Guardian, that bastion of left wing politics, is just as bad as anyone else as they lead with, ‘It was surreal’: holidaymakers on first flight out of Abu Dhabi describe petrifying experience. Ed and Jane from Coventry, we learn, got to Abu Dhabi’s airport and saw the shattered glass. “It’s put me off going for quite a while,” said Jane. They were relieved not to be in Dubai where they normally holiday, where buildings were struck by Iranian missiles and people died. Play me the world’s smallest violin.
I am not saying that rich Brits, either staying in the gulf areas or passing through on the way home from luxury holidays elsewhere, as the Guardian also gushingly explained (We read that Pen Harrison was part of a group of friends undertaking a cycling tour in Sri Lanka, who had been on a stopover in Abu Dhabi: just your everyday holiday for the superrich, then) deserve to be on the end of attacks from the Mad Mullahs of Tehran, but what kind of news is this and more importantly why are they there in the first place?
Cards on the table, I would not be seen dead in any of these places, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the like, because, and I know this is an old fashioned point of view, I have no wish to visit places operating under Sharia Law, where women and especially gay people are treated extremely badly, to say the least, and migrant workers who help create much of the wealth in the first place are effectively slaves. In fact, I go much further. I would not visit any country where people are so viciously oppressed and discriminated against and for me that would include international stopovers and also package holidays in places like Tunisia. Knowing what we know about what things are really like, I struggle to have any sympathy for the likes of Ed and Jayne from Coventry given that they clearly don’t give a toss about anything other than their own hedonism.
One bloke, Dave Richards from Winchester whined: “We didn’t get much support from the UK government”. Oh diddums. What was he expecting? Food rations? A Fortnum and Mason hamper, perhaps? Immediate flights home, in business class, of course? All paid for, naturally, by the British taxpayer. When I do my weekly volunteering stint at the local food bank this week, I’ll make a point of holding a whip-round from our callers for those suffering in luxury Middle Eastern hotels. But hey, my thoughts and prayers should be with the “300,000 Britons in the region” rather than the 7.5 million Britons living in food poverty. Because that, it seems, is The Big Story across all the media.
The Guardian concludes thus: ‘Right now, thousands of Britons remain stranded, with no clear picture of the government’s evacuation plans.’ I’ll bet the rest of the gutter press – and yes, I now include The Guardian as part of the gutter press – is even more angry, as their largely middle class hacks froth at the mouth as people just like them find themselves locked in a war zone. Many of the people over there will be migrants from Britain, people like the right-wing hack Isabel Oakeshott, who have moved to places like Dubai in order to avoid tax. At least Oakeshott, whose boyfriend is Richard ‘Dick’ Tice, deputy leader of Nigel Farage’s far right Reform UK Ltd company, says she is “digging in” rather than wishing to come home. The further the likes of her remain away from the UK, the better, as far as I am concerned.
I don’t wish ill on those people who have migrated to the Middle East, nor those who are on holiday there, or are simply passing through. All I am saying is that given how potentially combustible the area is, you must be prepared for consequences like these, especially when the leader of the western world is completely unhinged, desperately trying to deflect attention from the Epstein files and likely suffering from Frontotemporal dementia. When I book my foreign holidays, I tend to avoid places where there is even the slightest possibility of unrest, never mind the beginnings of the Third World War. Maybe the so called ‘ex pats’ (migrants) and holidaymakers who are whining, like Dave Richards from Winchester, should reflect on their own living and holiday arrangements before expecting people with far less wealth to pay for their repatriation. Many people of wealth complain about poor people relying too much on the state. As they stare out of their luxury hotel rooms, being waited on hand and foot, perhaps they might care to reflect on how pampered and privileged they are and how pathetic they sound?
