Nikki Stix – Mum, Wife, Friend, Legend.

You don’t have to have been on Twitter for long to realise that it can bring out the worst in all of us. Emboldened by the anonymity the platform affords, we can pretty much say what we like to whomever we like. Socrates, had the great man been around today, would have been appalled at how far we’d drifted. He’d have urged us to think before we tweeted. ‘Is it true, is it kind or is it necessary?’ he’d ask.  Alas, the great man is not around and so, in the absence of his wise counsel, we forget to ask ourselves those three questions, and we carry on regardless.

Yet occasionally – and it really is rare - you come across someone who rises above all of that. Someone who is instantly ‘special’. Someone who stands out from the rest. Someone who wants to make the world around them – and that includes their virtual world – a better place. Nikki Stix – for it is she – managed to do all of that.

Nikki was instantly likeable – fun, engaging, amusing, clever. And the Brexiteer’s Brexiteer. She was passionate about it and campaigned hard for us to leave. She hated the division it caused and her tweets would always accentuate the positives, never the negatives. Sure, she had a pop at Femi, Grayling and O’Brien from time to time – but who on our side worth their salt did not? But her aim was always to bring together, not divide. She lamented how the discourse had deteriorated over the four years. But despite this deterioration, she remained upbeat, strong, and principled. Easy for even those on the ‘other’ side to see.

Nikki’s battle with cancer was well documented – she shared her struggles with a candour and openness that helped many – people who were also ill, people who had lost loved ones, and people who were going through struggles of their own. But she shared never to garner sympathy, only ever to inform and inspire. And she did it effortlessly, with humour and with good grace - never afraid to give a little bit more of herself to build up those around her.

But today, Twitter became a little darker for many of us. Somewhere, a light was switched off. All of us knew Nikki was ill and we knew that the last few months had been bad – she’d kept us updated as she had always promised she would. Yet despite that, today’s news came as a bolt from the blue. A cruel kick in the teeth at the end of a cruel, relentless year.

This morning, as usual, we’d logged in, coffee in hand, and scrolled as we always did. And as usual we’d see a tweet from someone we follow and we’d chuckle and nod or perhaps tut and shake our heads. As usual, we’d like, reply, maybe retweet. But we’d already moved on with our day. Actions barely important at the time, becoming so quickly inconsequential.

But then a tweet that stopped us in our tracks. We didn’t move on with our day. We sat, staring at Mike’s message, barely able to take it in. Tears for someone we’d never met, but who all of us knew so well. Tears for someone who’d invited us with her on her journey. Tears for someone who had shared, selflessly, her ups and downs. But this final ‘down’ was crushing. We’d not been prepared for that.

Comments started pouring in. Thousands within minutes. She was described as a ‘force of nature’, an ‘inspiration’, a ‘member of the family’, a ‘fighter’. And she was all of that, and more. And amongst the comments, names familiar to all of us. Names I mention not because they are any more important than the thousands of others, but proof that her appeal and influence transcended the usual twitter bubbles: Iain Dale. Dan Hodges. Alex Deane. Madeleine Grant. Adrian Hilton. Dan Wooton. All of them expressing their shock and sorrow. But perhaps it was Claire Fox who said it best:

Oh, I am devastated to hear this. She was such a good friend to me on here, and a voice of reason. She will be missed so much. You were a real fighter for freedom and fought your own health fight with guts. What a woman!

But of course, sad though we are, our loss is nothing - nothing at all - compared to that of Nikki’s family, Mike and their little dictator. It’s hard to imagine what Christmas will be like for them, this year and for every Christmas after. But when Mike has the time, he’ll look through the messages sent today. He’ll see the impact she had on so many lives. And he’ll keep them safely stowed away. And as the original 3 foot dictator becomes the four foot dictator, then five, who knows, maybe even six, she’ll always be able to look back at what her mother meant to so many people whom she’d never even met. And she’ll be proud to say: ‘That, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, was my mum.’

RIP Nikki Stix. You absolute legend. X

What Would James Do?

It’s not difficult - if not altogether pleasant - to imagine James O’Brien’s routine just before he goes to bed at night. You can see him, blue-striped pyjamas, top tucked into the bottoms, clambering into bed, his LBC headphones still on, asking: ‘Now, James, what would you like to say?’ In response, he will read – aloud, naturally - a few pages from his best-selling pamphlet. And, sated by his own wisdom, he’ll lay his head on his pillow, checking before he closes his eyes that a small notebook and pencil are on his bedside locker. Because James knows that his best tweets are composed at night. He knows pearls of wisdom will come to him in the darkness and that they must be scribbled down - no matter what the hour - before they are forgotten. In the morning, he’ll piece his notes together, draft and redraft and then throughout the day, release his ‘impromptu’ tweets to his legion of adoring fans.

Now, don’t laugh, but I have recently discovered that it’s not only his fans who should be digesting O’Brien’s tweets. Every one of us should be taking the time to read them. Because within those carefully crafted 280 characters, lies wisdom, within every tweet, a pathway to truth. Allow me to explain.

In evangelical churches in America, it’s not uncommon for Sunday School children to be given colourful bracelets inscribed with the letters ‘WWJD’. When faced with a situation where they are unsure of the right thing to do, the children are encouraged to look at the bracelet, ask ‘What would Jesus do?’ and act accordingly. It’s rather a quaint way of reminding children of what is right and what is wrong. 

O’Brien’s Twitter feed is my WWJD bracelet. If ever I’m unsure what side of an argument to take, I ask a similar question:  ‘What would James do?’ But unlike the American Sunday School children encouraged to ask the question and do exactly what they believe Jesus would have done, I ask the question about James and take precisely the opposite stance. And I’ve discovered that as a strategy, it’s absolutely failsafe. 

Ever since he brought out his book, an enjoyable pastime for many has been to highlight just how often a man who had the chutzpah to call his book ‘How To Be Right’ had been shown to be hopelessly wrong. On Nissan, he was wrong. On Darren Grimes, he was wrong. On Frank Lampard, he was wrong. On Arkadiusz Jóźwik, he was wrong. On regulatory alignment in the Good Friday Agreement, he was wrong. On the shipping of meat from Australia to the UK, he was wrong. On the recent election, he was wrong.  And most famously, on paedophile Carl Beech, he was horribly, dangerously, irresponsibly wrong. 

But while it is fun to laugh at James O’Brien and his unerring ability to be wrong, there’s a much more serious side to the lies that he peddles. We are told repeatedly how divided we are as a country. But this is a division that is stoked and encouraged by the likes of O’Brien himself. A self-appointed voice of liberal progressives, he - just like his chums Grayling, Campbell, Simor, Dunt and Maugham – won’t accept opposing views. If you disagree with him, not only are you wrong, you’re morally bankrupt to boot.

Take this weekend for example. The protests right across the UK - ostensibly about the murder of an unarmed black man in America – surprised no one when they turned ugly. London witnessed a complete breakdown in law and order with 27 police officers injured, despite an incredible claim from the BBC that the protests had been ‘largely peaceful’. The protests continued on Sunday with attacks on war memorials, Union flags and Churchill statues - events largely unreported by our mainstream media. 

Events down in Bristol, however, were given almost wall to wall coverage. Because there, we had the ‘good’ kind of agitation. A statue of former slave owner Edward Colston was torn down, rolled through the streets and dumped in the city’s harbour, to cheers from the assembled mob.  But while many cheered, there were just as many across the country – including the Home Secretary, Priti Patel – who were left uncomfortable at the way the police in Bristol had capitulated. It was a discomfort that O’Brien took little time to exploit:

‘How you feel about that statue is how you feel about slavery. Don’t let anyone pretend otherwise.’

A tweet wrong and objectionable on so many levels. There’s not a man, woman or child in the UK who looks back on slavery with anything other than disgust. How you feel about ‘that statue’ says absolutely nothing about how you feel about slavery. 

While there may be arguments for the removal of a statue erected in the memory of a renowned slaver, the erasing of history – no matter how distasteful we find that history to be – is a dangerous and slippery path. We mocked the Taliban, revelling as they did in removing historical artefacts with which they disagreed. The truth is very few heroes of British history share the values we cherish today. Most of them will have done things uncontroversial at the time, but disagreeable to us now. But we examine history not lazily to shame its participants, but rather to learn from it. To be cautious about the removal of a statue is to be cautious about the expunging of history and says nothing at all about how we feel about slavery.

And even if we do agree that the statue should come down, allowing a rabid and feral mob to make this decision is to admit we no longer live in a country where law and order matter. This is not how such decisions should be made. On Sunday, many questioned the ‘how’, if not the ‘why’ of the statue coming down. Indeed, a YouGov survey today showed that 53% of Britons support its removal, but only 13% approve of the way it was done. This suggests a preference for democracy over mob rule and says nothing at all about how we feel about slavery.

He knows all of this, but division is his stock-in-trade.

For anyone following O’Brien’s feed over the last 12 weeks, his interventions at the weekend will have come as no surprise. Since the outbreak of the virus, his LBC phone-in and his twitter feed have been awash with anti-government bile. You could be forgiven for thinking that in a time of national crisis, old enmities might be set aside, that ‘the common good’ might trump time-honoured rivalries. But not O’Brien. Not only has he refused to do this, but he has actively and openly wished for our government to fail. And if you wish for your government to fail on Covid-19, it necessarily requires that more people must lose their lives. 

It explains the relish with which he announces the latest numbers. ‘The worst in Europe!’, ‘The second worst in the world!’, ‘The carnage in our care homes!’ He knows that the numbers are not yet comparable with countries whose method of counting deaths are different to our own. He knows that attempting to measure rates at this stage in a pandemic is premature. He knows that both population size and density are factors. He knows our care homes have not been hit as a hard as many in Europe. He knows that the UK is not New Zealand.

He knows all of this, but division is his stock-in-trade.

Brexit is, of course, how he made his name. In the four years following the vote, O’Brien dedicated every waking hour to ensuring that the wounds from a fractious campaign be opened further still. The country had voted and the time for debate was over. The time had come, no matter how you voted, to work together to make sure that Brexit was a success. But again, not for O’Brien. He was in Barnier’s camp, not Britain’s. He backed Juncker, not Johnson. He wanted the EU to hold the upper hand so that his prediction of a broken economy could come to pass. He wants Brexit to fail. And if Brexit is to fail, it necessarily requires people to lose their livelihood. But that they might, remains of less importance to O’Brien than being able to remind us all that he'd told us so.

And just as he suggested that if you didn’t agree with a statue being torn down you somehow supported slavery, his mantra over the four years was that if you voted Brexit, you were not only stupid, but racist. That you didn’t like ‘brown’ people or Polish people. And yet he knows that the UK has consistently been shown as one of the least racist countries in Europe. It’s demonstrable, as O’Brien himself might say.

He knows all of this, but division is his stock-in-trade.

The truth is, O'Brien is part of the problem. If you want to understand something of the current divisions in our country, studying his perennially miserable Twitter account is a perfect place to start. He preaches inclusion, but only ever moves to exclude. He preaches tolerance, but brands those who disagree with him fascists and Nazis. He preaches progressiveness, but his rhetoric sets the country back years. He preaches love, but only ever offers hate. In short, he encapsulates everything that is wrong with the modern-day 'progressive' left. 

Anyone who has any interest in playing a part in building a more united, hopeful, successful Britain should always remember to ask themselves: ‘What would James do?’ And then, without hesitation, do precisely the opposite. 

The Brexit Proxy War

‘We’ve left the EU and therefore the Leave/Remain argument is over. The only argument now is what sort of deal we have with the EU’

Heartening words, indeed, from the Labour leader yesterday, in an interview for the Telegraph’s weekly political podcast. Perhaps this intervention, from a man who battled so hard for three years to reverse the Brexit vote, was a sign that the country was finally exiting the four years of bitterness and division that the 2016 referendum had unleashed.  Perhaps it indicated a brighter future that would see erstwhile political opponents come together to fight for a brighter future. Yes, well, not quite. Just as Starmer was declaring the Leave/Remain argument over, a story was breaking that demonstrated that far from being over, the argument was just as bitter as it had ever been before.

For the weekend was about to be dominated by one major story – that of a disgraced, lying, and hypocritical charlatan of a political advisor. But in addition to the ubiquitous Alastair Campbell’s round of unchallenged media interviews, another storm was brewing – one involving present day political advisor, Dominic Cummings. The Mirror revealed that he and his family had travelled 250 miles from London to Durham, breaching lockdown advice in order be closer to family as both Cummings and his wife battled the virus. The story changed often throughout the day – Cummings’ parents were replaced by his sister in one version, babysitting was replaced by food deliveries in another. It was all Alastair Campbell could do to keep up in advance of his next media appointment.

One of the most amusing aspects as the story unfolded was how the left were suddenly able to describe with absolute precision the government’s lockdown policy – a policy which for weeks they’d dismissed as ‘vague’, ‘difficult to understand’ and ‘confusing’. Not since the scales fell from the eyes of a stricken Saul of Taursus deep within the old walls of Damascus had clarity been so quickly restored. Suddenly, the rules couldn’t have been easier to understand, with everyone now an expert. And yet time and time again, they failed to pinpoint exactly how Cummings had broken the law.

The government, unsurprisingly, backed their man, with Cabinet Minister after Cabinet minister tweeting support. Shapps, sent out by captain Boris Johnson as the night-watchman, batted watchfully in the press briefing, ducking the inevitable bouncers that were sent down. He reached close of play – but only just. Next man in must surely be Johnson – he simply can’t afford to slip any further down the batting order if he wants to turn this around. Coming back from injury is hard – but more than ever, he needs a captain’s knock.

But inevitably, as the Cabinet rallied around Cummings, there was much talk in the media about the government’s loss of moral authority. That by refusing to bow to the pressure to dispose of PM’s advisor, the government was losing credibility. But here’s the thing. This government was elected with one of the highest shares of the vote since the heady days of the Blair government and enjoys one of the safest majorities of any in recent years. Yet despite this – and solely because of Brexit – it is a government that is both at once hugely popular and deeply loathed. And those that loathed it before this weekend, deeply loath it just as much today. Those who voted for it in December would vote for it again tomorrow. 

And just as Left-leaning Twitter was embarrassing itself, so too was the UK media. Andrew Marr, a man who Andrew Marr regards as one of the UK’s most formidable interviewers, was reduced to asking a bemused Grant Shapps how many toilet breaks Cummings Junior had taken on the way to Durham. He pretended that the fact that Shapps was unable to provide these details was ‘extraordinary’. But unlike Marr, surely most of the country must have been relieved that the Secretary of State for Transport was unfamiliar with the toilet habits of someone else’s 4 year old child. I know I certainly was.

But of course, aside from the despicable media pile-on – at a time when there is so much we should be talking about - there’s another, altogether more sinister angle to this story. This is a story that only has legs because someone in Durham decided that it was their job to regulate the lives of Dominic Cummings, Mary Wakefield and their 4 year old child. Surely it was never the intention of our lockdown to pit the public one against the other in some kind of macabre Maoist nightmare. Perhaps it’s for this reason more than any other that we should hope Johnson and Cummings don’t bow to the pressure. Instead, we need them to end this lockdown and allow us as quickly as possible to return not to a ‘new normal’ but to the old.

Anyone who is willing to be honest this weekend knows that Dominic Cummings’ real crime was not driving to Durham. It wasn’t stopping at the side of the road for a toilet break. It wasn’t even his dress sense – although that probably does require intervention at the very least from the fashion police if not necessarily their metropolitan counterparts. No, Dominic Cumming’s crime was to deliver an unlikely Brexit win and a stonking 80-seat Conservative majority that would allow the Withdrawal Bill finally to be passed. Everything else this weekend is simply noise.

Most people seem to agree that Dom Cummings is not a particularly nice bloke. I certainly hold no torch for him. But this weekend’s witch hunt says significantly more about those baying for his blood that it does about Cummings himself. Were they not so blinded by hatred, they might more quickly see what kind of people Britain has become. But while they continue to refuse to see this, nothing Keir Strarmer says will make any difference – the Brexit argument will run and run and run.