Think Once, Think Twice, or End Up Like Richard Tice
Enough is finally enough. The replacement of line judges at Wimbledon is yet another example of un-Britishness. And Dubai-based Tice wants his country back.
I don’t particularly enjoy watching tennis. I don’t know why, it just doesn’t grab me in the way that football did, and cricket continues to. I enjoy the tactical head-to-head of the NFL, and there’s something slightly mesmeric about baseball. The blood, thunder, brawls, and chill of ice hockey is great fun, while I enjoy dipping in and out of the Winter Olympics like a hokey-cokey fanatic. But tennis? Yeah, it’s not for me.
So, I’d completely missed the fact that the height of the British sporting summer, Wimbledon, was on right now. And, in amongst the froth and spittle concerning Bob Vylan’s set at Glastonbury over the weekend, it turns out that this most conservative of British sporting pastimes has finally sent Reform’s deputy commissar, Richard Tice, over the edge.
Had they renamed Henman Hill? Raducanu Rise, perhaps, in honour of Emma (mixed Romanian and Chinese heritage)? Sonay Slopes, maybe, after Sonay Kartal, a British player of Turkish descent.
Not even.
A spectacular tweet, even by his own lofty standards, saw the sitting MP for Skegness and Dubai, stating;
“We want our country back
We want Wimbledon line judges back
Enough is enough”
Wimbledon, it seems, has followed other sports, such as cricket, American football, and rugby union, in using technology to rule over line calls, rather than relying on the fallible human eye. Now, I’m no fan of AI. However, using it in sport to rule on matters of fact rather than judgement, ie, whether a ball falls inside or outside a line, is a good thing. It removes doubt, increases the pace of the match, and we can all just get on with things without invoking the rule of McEnroe.
While I accept that Tice’s comments about line judges are part of a wider think piece for the Telegraph that I haven’t read because 1) it’s behind a paywall and 2) it’s in the Telegraph, this feels like a little bit of an odd social media molehill for Tice to die on.
But, y’know, line judges. Enough is enough!
The Right are becoming increasingly frenzied about carrying their pitchforks onto strange social media molehills. Matthew Goodwin, a professor of political science, it seems, posted a heartbreaking ode to London, bemoaning pretty much everything that happened on a single day in our nation’s capital while making sure to emphasise just how many goddamn non-white, non-British people he managed to encounter. And, he encountered this brand-new phenomenon. Homeless people.
Enough is enough! London is so over, Goodwin whimpered.
Since then, Professor Goodwin has been crying endlessly into his Rice Krispies (obviously, he doesn’t want his milk turned chocolaty) about White Britons becoming a minority in their own capital city. Interestingly, in a recent Daily Mail article, he quotes a recent Thames Water study that found up to 600,000 illegal migrants may be living in London, “flouting our laws and taking taxpayers for a ride.”
I’ve italicised and bolded the word in that sentence that’s doing an awful lot of heavy lifting.
You see, several right-wing newspapers, including the Telegraph and Express, were forced to print corrections in January after quoting the Thames Water study in articles claiming that 1 in 12 people in London are “illegal” migrants. This figure, which in a survey of 7 million people equates to around 600,000, included those with indefinite leave to remain and British-born children of irregular migrants.
How unusual for someone on the right to inaccurately use statistics.
Meanwhile, Darren Grimes, right-wing rent-a-shrill turned elected councillor in Durham, posted a video of London’s Soho Square from the 1950s.
“London in the 1950s. Peaceful, patriotic, and pretty - what on earth happened?” he posted, misty-eyed with sentimental grief. Enough is enough!
Otto English seized upon Darren’s wistful lament on BluSky by helpfully posting a modern-day image of Soho Square, desecrated by the loony, Brit-hating left, and the effects of rampant, open immigration. Prepare yourselves if you’re of a nervous disposition. The difference is shocking!
Finally, but also not remotely finally, Rupert Lowe - an MP who’s even unpalatable to Tice, Farage, and the rest of Reform UK - recently launched Restore Britain. It’s not a political party, but a movement for changing the way Britain is governed. “I do not have all the answers,” Rupert (who once ignored my email on behalf of my 5-a-side team when he was Chairman of Southampton FC when I approached him for permission to speak to Peter Crouch about joining our small-sided collective named in his honour) states. “I am not a politician,” he goes on to admit in a rare moment of self-awareness.
Want to join? You have to share Restore Britain’s values (presumably those British values the right always bang on about but never specify) and be in favour of “low tax, small state, slashing immigration, protecting British culture (which is??), restoring Christian principles, fighting lawfare, empowering individual enterprise, and plenty more.” Unsure about what some of that means? Don’t worry, you can be sure that Restore Britain will provide “substance, detail, a plan.”
Thank goodness! Roll on The Great Repeal Act in 2029.
Indeed, in Rupert’s own Enough is Enough moment today, he sent this tweet, which, remarkably, accused Southampton FC of indulging in racist filth. Southampton’s discriminatory action was to launch a 2-year academy coaching role as part of a Coach Inclusion and Diversity Scheme that’s open to all. Everyone. Indeed, their only crime appears to have been to encourage applicants from Black, Asian, and mixed heritage backgrounds, as well as women, all communities underrepresented in football at all levels.
Terrible stuff. Shameful. Booo! Ban this sick filth! Make ‘em walk the plank! No parley! Enough is enough!
Of course, Rupert’s masterstroke was uncorking his own racism for all to see, which, to paraphrase the great Barry Davies, is simply marvellous.
While Donald Trump begins to roll out his chain of concentration camps in Florida, chaperoned by Ron DeSantis, it’s refreshing to see Britain’s reactionary band of right-wingers focusing on what truly matters.
Bring back our line judges. Or we’ll riot whine like fully grown man babies in our online echo chambers.
Enough is indeed enough.