Christoforge Column: Trump, Brexit, and World Cups

Trump Visits The UK

Prime Minister Theresa May may not be the most popular politician in the country, but one man in America makes her look like a hero of the people. That particular man recently decided to visit the UK, and not surprisingly pissed off a few people in the process. I would love to know how many of those protesting a single man entering the country also advocate for open borders, but that's beside the point. Donald Trump is such a villain to the UK populace that hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in cities all over the country any time he even dares take a step near our borders. The most recent protests in London had an amusing centerpiece depicting an infant Trump stuck onto a balloon flying above Parliament Square. That's classic British humour, although in truth the final piece was a bit pathetic. Sure, I enjoy berating every foreign visitor to the country as much as anyone, especially when they're a bit of a prick, but is this really the best protestors could come up with? I saw more effort put into individual signs than this balloon costing five grand. I don't know what fucking moron decided to phone up the cowboy builders, but for over five grand I was expecting a whole fucking airship. You might hire that balloon for a fancy dress party as decoration, not put it on display at a national protest. The worst part is the Mayor of London signed for this shit. Come on Sadiq Khan, you're the mayor, put some fucking effort into making your city look great. At the moment you've got surging knife crime rates over the whole city, so if there was ever a time to impress people it would be now.

I understand Donald Trump is not exactly a popular man in Britain for reasons that are mostly justified, but I don't follow the view that we should ban him from visiting this country. At this critical moment in our political history, where we're severing ties with key allies, is it really wise to be effectively flipping the bird to the most powerful man on the planet? If there's one quality that Trump has it's that he's not going to fluster over half-assed decisions, so pissing him off is hardly going to end in a similar awkward relationship that Theresa May has with the European Union. It pains me that Great Britain now has to side with a man who claimed we could, and should, sue the EU, but this is the political climate we live in today, and Britain is as vulnerable today as it ever has been. Let's stop burning bridges quicker than we can build them.


A Quick Word on Brexit

Whilst we're dabbling in the subject of Brexit I thought I'd give a quick update for you all. It's totally fucked. It's always been a complete farce, and now the main proponents are dropping like flies. Maybe it was a good thing these individuals resigned from these top positions, but it hardly makes this farcical political position look any better.


The French Winning at Something

It may have come to your attention that there was a minor football tournament held in Russia over the last month. The most important part of that tournament was, of course, the English football team not embarrassing themselves in their usual pathetic way, but there were also a lot of other stories that nobody could have ever predicted. We were treated to stories like the unfancied Russian side getting past the Spanish side to reach the quarter-finals, or the German side crashing out to South Korea in the group stages. In the end the French football team finally fulfilled their massive potential and won a major tournament. Comisserations to runners-up Croatia, who gave spirited and well-organised performances in almost every single one of their games. France were consistently the best team in the tournament, so Croatia can have little regrets with their losing efforts against such a prolific footballing powerhouse. As a Brit I hate having to congratulate France, but whilst many have joined in my show of support there are other hopping on the bandwagon and using this triumph to support their political views.

A notable example of this behaviour came from South African comedian Trevor Noah, who in a celebratory fashion claimed that Africa, and not France, had won The World Cup. I'm aware this is a joke, but that doesn't excuse the idiocy on display. In case you weren't aware 21 of the 23 players in that French squad were born in France, and not a single African side made it out the group stages, so I don't quite understand how you could possibly claim this whole continent won this international tournament. Certainly many French players are from African heritage, but these players are representing France, and not the countries of their ancestors. This joke also completely ignores the idea that football is a team sport. If this French squad were an African team then they would be missing players such as Antoine Griezmann and Hugo Lloris, and so you seriously have to wonder whether they would have triumped without these critical figures.

The idea that the French team are predominantly African is such a strange line of argument as well. It's almost as if these idiots are trying to delegitimise these black players from being French citizens, which if I'm not mistaken is a line I would expect from a far-right neo-nazi group. In fact it's very similar reasoning to the British extremist idiots over at the BNP, who like to think that being black excludes you from being British. That attitude would rightly get 'woke comedians' like Trevor Noah jumping all over it, yet here's Noah condescendingly parading his race-based politics to suck all the celebrations out of the French victory. Is the message behind this joke that immigrants can't be considered true citizens of a new country even after multiple generations? That's what it sounds like to me. Maybe it's time for people like Trevor Noah to stop shoehorning political issues in America into every single event on the planet, and have some fucking respect for the achievements of those French players.