Murdoch’s latest Covidiot declares war on our freedoms
Oped writer at The Times Clare Foges used to be David Cameron’s speechwriter. She’s a 30-something rentaview mediocrity who studied English at Southampton University, and then took an MA in poetry at Bristol. This is the headline/gist of her latest effort for News International:
Clearly guided here by her extensive knowledge of civil rights and responsibilites gained while studying pomes, Clare says only Big Brother can help us beat Covid19…and that ‘greater State surveillance’ is thus entirely justified.
Writing speeches at the tender age of 27 for the illiberally blasé joke who coined the term “non-violent extremism” (was it her idea?) brought her to the attention of another Proper Charlie, and so she is now an OBE. It is apt, I think, that the only heir to the Throne in our history who has been the patron of all three intelligence agencies was the chap to bestow the Award upon her:
She’s bought the élite’s Contrick19 narrative as if it might have been Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale – ‘the weariness, the fever, and the fret’ – and thus declares that a virus of potential threat to 2 in 10,000 is easily worth chucking away the freedoms we took 900 years to get:
‘…if we are to beat a path out of this pandemic without destroying our economy, overblown concerns about threats to our liberties must be countered by pragmatism. To recover some semblance of normality before a vaccine is found, we must accept the need for the state to access more information about ourselves, our health and our whereabouts — and not waste precious weeks arguing about it….’
The concerns are not overblown, but the need for a vaccine is. The bit between her teeth, Our Clare repeats the must imperative of her ignorant opinion, just in case we missed the TINA element the first time around:
‘We must now take seriously the example of other nations who have successfully restored some normality to life, and rapidly develop a system of digital surveillance that is comprehensive and useful enough to map and break chains of infection extremely quickly. Arch civil libertarians might not like it, but our health, prosperity and freedom depends on it.’
My God yes, our freedom depends on ignoring civil libertarians who are merely ‘arch’. Our liberty depends on embracing Big Brother. Arbeit macht frei. Strength is Joy. Ignorance is bliss.
Clare Foges, perhaps, thinks liberty is somewhere naice Conservative gels shop.
I am a pacifist, a radical believer in free speech, and a passionate opponent of promotion for the least qualified.
By all means let Ms Foges continue her career. But I promise her this: wherever her work appears, if it’s as seriously daft as her latest column, I will be on her case in every medium I can find.
Dear God, we are beyond help. Tomorrow I shall be posting an exclusive analysis of precisely why and how Clare Fogues is an apologist for dystopia. She will of course dismiss it all as wild conspiracy theory…..in exactly the same way as she condemns Edward Snowden as ‘the patron saint of the paranoid’.
The Slog 