’Tis the Season

Ben Wildsmith 

You can’t say anything nowadays, can you? When I was a boy, you were taught from an early age that your birthright as a British subject was to enjoy playground banter about African famines and the disabled people featured on Blue Peter.

Teachers would smile indulgently as we tormented weaker members of the class and generally enacted a pre-civilisational power structure that echoed the British class system.

It was bracing, character-forming stuff that did much to shape the spiteful, emotionally crippled bully I am today.

‘Red Ben’s Poppy Bonfire & Winterval Elf Meat Barbecue’ was conceived as a light-hearted family event between Remembrance Sunday and Christmas; something to brighten up those long, dreary evenings until daytime drinking becomes socially acceptable on December 1.

Apparently, however, the horrors of the trenches are off-limits as raw material for entertainment events of this sort. The proper, respectful form is to stand stock still and festooned with red poppies for two minutes before agreeing with Wes Streeting that World War III is an unavoidable feature of the next decade and accusing anyone who objects of fascism.

It is crucial at this time of year that we remember the lesson of the World Wars: they were fucking ace. All that Wilfred Owen poetry, dulce de leche est pro patria manducari; John Mills saving the day, reluctantly but with stoic resolve; melting the roads in Dresden; the Queen Mother cheekily teaching Princess Elizabeth the Nazi salute on film; Private Pike’s scarf; Hitler’s solitary testicle.

This rich cultural legacy has kept us so busy that we haven’t had time to build anything new in the country since. There’s no need: ‘we’ defeated fascism, so prosperity and peace are ours by right. Are you enjoying it?

Christmas is a time when deeply held religious convictions are expressed through specific wording. The exchange ‘Peace be with you.’ ‘And also with you.’ has been replaced by, ‘It’s not an evergreen tree, it’s a Christmas tree!’

The traditional yuletide scrutiny of labelling in Tesco, ‘Found one, it says seasonal pudding…’ binds us together in faith as a nation.

Christmas message

Leading Christians like Tommy Robinson, Danny Tommo, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, and our own Cristiana Emsley MS have taught us that ethnonationalist pride lies at the heart of the modern Christmas message.

The theology at play here – Christianity arrived at through CS Lewis and the conclusion that Jesus was English because he was a lion – is something we’ve been fortunate to receive since the arrival of Reform UK in the Senedd.

Previous heretical notions of nonconformist rebellion have been swept away by our enthusiasm for the red, white, and blue of the True Faith according to Bishop Nigel. The replacement of communion wafers with miniature bacon sandwiches has drawn many back to the church, where they acknowledge that their poverty was a judgement by Him on their previous socialist blasphemies.

Emulsion

The Newport branch of B&Q has received an order for 2.5 million litres of Farrow & Ball ‘Farage Teal’ emulsion which is earmarked for the rebranding of local chapels. The Reformation has arrived at last.

Enforced solemnity followed by enforced festivity is what makes winter such a special time for so many of us.

As we are funnelled through the extremes of human emotion under threat of social exclusion, we are released from the responsibility to do anything except follow instructions to the letter. Look sad, look happy, shut up, sing.

We’ve a great deal to be thankful for. A great deal.