From the Caveman III

The never ending comedy show that is Hull City Council truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Net zero, Pride, multiculturalism, slavery, anti-fascism and women and girls, you name it and we ‘celebrate’ it.

The zero carbon insanity continues in the shape of our local heat network. This project of turning rubbish into heat by incinerating it in the heart of the city (what could possibly go wrong?) recently reached a major milestone when: ‘A number of modules vital to the new Hull District Heat Network this week completed the 111-mile journey from Blackburn to Hull, marking a major milestone for the city-wide scheme.’ Talk about a slow news day or what?

We were gearing up for Pride in Hull – taking place as I write this in Brisbane airport (thankfully) bound for Hong Kong – which this year will feature a line-up of B-list acts and has-been celebrities. I mean, how desperate must we be to have a former Steps star and the Cheeky Girls on the bill. I guess if anyone tried to ‘touch (their) bum’, they’d be marched off to the plodhouse pronto. Amongst the other things that I’ll be grateful to miss are ‘Ru Paul’s Drag Race winner (Season 5) Ginger Johnson plus sets from Coco, Miss Fanny, Sheila Diamond, Kerry Ellis, Xtina Live and Zara.’ If my plane crashes into the Australian outback, don’t bother to send a search party.

It wouldn’t be Hull without our Freedom Day celebrations. Ostensibly, this is to celebrate our links, through William Wilberforce, with the cessation in slavery in and by the British Empire. Little thanks we get, however, as those we liberated seek reparations. I have never graced this event, but in years gone by we had major names such as Florence and The Machine on stage. Now it just seems to be a bunch of nonentities. This year the celebrations feature: ‘Acrobatic robots, marching bands, outdoor circus shows and powerful art installations are gearing up for one of the region’s biggest arts festival. Hull’s Freedom Festival is poised to transform the city with its annual four-day festival, having previously unveiled this year’s bold new theme - peace.’ Peace? I wonder how long it took the overseeing committee to come up with that original idea? Hold me back, is all I can say.

Following a call from Labour councillors to commemorate the day in 1936 when Hull played its part, if local mythology is to be believed, in Hitler’s downfall. The so-called Battle of Corporation Field took place when Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists turned up here but were chased away by local trade unionists and socialists. The council have decided to provide ‘seed funding’ for a memorial to celebrate the event. This means, essentially, that they want someone else to pay for it. I’m no supporter of fascism, but this is clearly less to do with celebrating an event that nobody currently alive knew about than a reminder that in the present day the greatest threat to society comes from the mythical ‘far right’.

Girls of Achievement was the theme for a day held in the city when the Hull & East Yorkshire Children’s University and Women in Industry joined forces to mount a Girls of Achievement day. The day was held to: ‘explore a world of future career opportunities. In other words, a jobs fair. ‘Each organisation was represented by women from its workforce’. Can you imagine the hoo-ha there would be if an event were held only for boys and where industries were represented solely by men? I have four girls, all of whom have great careers and all of which they achieved without being singled out as special. Events like Girls of Achievement are divisive and simply reinforce rather than eliminate stereotypes. Girls are being brainwashed into thinking that they cannot achieve anything without a leg-up, from other women.

Sticking with the female theme we have a Feeding Futures exhibition running which, for reasons I cannot fathom, is an exhibition of ‘Breastfeeding through the eyes of Hull children’. Niche or what? Words fail me on this one. Apparently, the local health trust has a team – there’s always a ‘team’ isn’t there? – which goes around primary schools raising awareness of breastfeeding. Call me old-fashioned, but can’t we just leave the kids alone to learn about reading, writing and arithmetic with which so many struggle these days? They probably struggle because we fill their heads with stuff they don’t need to know about. All my children (eight of them) were breastfed, and my wife did not have the benefit of having her awareness raised at primary school. Remarkably, she more or less worked it out for herself.

None of these initiatives, taken in isolation, is the end of civilisation. A Pride festival here, an anti-fascist memorial there, a breastfeeding exhibition somewhere else. But taken together they paint a revealing picture of a council that seems permanently distracted by fashionable causes while the mundane business of running a city slips ever further down the agenda. Roads, bins, housing, public safety and value for taxpayers’ money are simply not exciting enough. Hull City Council appears to have convinced itself that its purpose is not to administer a city but to educate, campaign and moralise. As long as that remains its priority, residents can expect plenty more virtue-signalling, and rather less competent local government.

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK. His Substack can be found here.