About Right

Insurgent politicians are not given “Life and style” profiles in The Guardian. Zack Polanksi is the authentic voice of the lower upper middle class’s insatiable desire for ever-cheaper servants. He has appeared almost out of nowhere, yet immediately he is almost everywhere. If he had previously been noted for anything, then it was as a very low-level participant in the anti-Semitism scam against Jeremy Corbyn. Rather more prominent in that was Emma Barnett, who should have waited for Zarah Sultana, whose answer to “Would you nationalise sausages?” would have been, “Yes.” It still would be. It would certainly not be, “No.” But even if there had been any truth to the Corbyn anti-Semitism scam, then it would still have been nothing compared to that of which Alan Rusbridger writes:

“BERNARD MANNING!” Nigel Farage shouted at a hapless ITV reporter yesterday. “BERNARD MANNING, BERNARD MANNING!” He raged at the BBC’s Emma Barnett, calling her a “lower grade presenter” and accusing her of asking “despicable, disgusting questions” about him to the Reform deputy leader Richard Tice. He summoned up the ghost of a long-forgotten fictional TV character, Alf Garnett, and demanded an apology from the BBC for some of its comedy shows from the mid-to-late 1970s.

It was not easy to follow his line of argument, but let’s try.

Farage stands accused by multiple of his school contemporaries of behaving in a racist and bullying way nearly 50 years ago. Richard Tice says his accusers are liars. But Farage seems to be trying a different defence.

“If I did it—and I'm not admitting I did,” he seems to be saying, “it was banter. You’re judging me by the standards of 2025, but look at the BBC and ITV: they broadcast lots of material that was considered funny back then, but which isn’t now. So you’re all hypocrites for asking, and is it any wonder half a million people won't pay their licence fee?”

I’m trying to work out how the “Je suis Bernard Manning” defence actually works. For those too young to remember, Manning was a corpulent northern club comedian who revelled in shocking his audiences by saying the unsayable. Typical “risqué” joke: “We’ll have no more Jewish stories tonight. I’ve just discovered that I lost my grandfather at Auschwitz.” Pause. “He fell out of the machine-gun tower.”

One obituarist wrote of him: “It has been said that Manning was banned from television because of his material, but this is not strictly true. He went on to appear on various BBC and ITV shows, but it became evident that he was engaged in a process of self-marginalisation by refusing to compromise, so in effect, he banned himself from television.”

In other words, both the BBC and ITV—even back then—considered much of his material unbroadcastable. Rather than compromise, Manning stuck to the club scene and to his comfort zone of racist gags. In 1995, an enterprising ITV World reporter clandestinely recorded him entertaining an all-male audience of off-duty Greater Manchester police officers with a series of vile jokes which were warmly received.

“Manning’s repartee is notorious,” wrote an Independent editorial, “but that night he outdid himself. Jokes about beating up “n**gers” and “c**ns” were followed by references to the Asian population of Bradford that might have graced the pages of a British National Party freesheet.”

The editorial continued: “His humour is cold and antagonistic—aimed exclusively at easy targets. There is an absence of empathy, warmth or understanding. No black person or Asian could feel comfortable in the presence of such palpable hostility.”

There is a comparison to be made between Manning and Farage, but it’s not necessarily the one he has in mind. The Reform leader is accused by Jewish contemporaries at Dulwich College of sidling up to them and saying things like “Hitler was right” and “gas ‘em,” while making hissing sounds.

More than one school contemporary remembered Farage’s variant of a George Formby song, “Bless ‘em all,” which reportedly ran as follows: “Gas ‘em all, gas ‘em all, into the chambers they crawl. We’ll gas all the Paks, and we’ll gas all the Yids, and we’ll gas all the c**ns and all their f***ing kids.”

Manning, according to an obituary, pronounced himself an “admirer” of Hitler. “Not everything about him, of course,” he’s reported to have told the Sunday People. “I deplore his gas chambers and Gestapo as much as anyone, but I admire him for the things he got right, which I reckon was about 50 per cent.”

So, let’s accept Farage has a point: there are, indeed, similarities between the kind of things he and Bernard Manning found funny nearly 50 years ago. But even in those far-off politically incorrect days there is no way that either the BBC or ITV would have dreamed up running the kind of “jokes” that Farage is alleged to have hissed at his Jewish school contemporaries. And which, at times, he has denied.

Second, there is the issue of intent. Farage thought it was hypocritical of a BBC reporter to challenge him on his Dulwich schooldays because the BBC itself ran a comedy called Till Death Us Do Part, featuring a hideously bigoted character played by Warren Mitchell called Alf Garnett. The writer, Johnny Speight, created in Garnett what the writer Dave Hill called “a loud-mouthed bigot and an impotent tyrant, including within his own four walls, although, as Canning Town-born Speight would regretfully acknowledge, some, perhaps many, viewers embraced Alf as hilariously forgivable or even a heroic reactionary.”

In other words, the intent was satirical. Speight was lampooning the people who revered Enoch Powell and laughed at Bernard Manning’s jokes. It’s a mystery why then, even in the muddled head of Nigel Farage, the BBC should be required to apologise for a piece of 50-year-old satire; or what on earth any of this has to do with a reporter doing their job in questioning a man who sees himself as the next prime minister. 

It’s all a bit Trumpian. Farage’s savage attack on Emma Barnett and the BBC is a tawdry echo of the tactics his friend in the White House deploys against any reporter—particularly, but not only, female reporters—who dare to ask robust questions. The way reporters are supposed to do.

The White House has taken to advising the world to watch GB News rather than the “100 per cent fake” and apparently dying BBC. Which suits Farage nicely. He’s trousered more than £400k in the past 12 months for his GB News show and his personal company, Thorn in the Side, owns nearly half a million shares in the company. GB News’s Martin Daubney recently quizzed Farage on the allegations of antisemitism as follows: “Isn’t it fair to point out you’ve been a very vocal supporter of Israel and the Jewish community since October 7th 2023?”

That’s more like it! We should have more journalists like Daubney, who are not afraid of tickling their interviewees’ tummies with a feather duster. Mr Daubney’s career has included spells as editor of The Sun’s page3.com, and with the men’s lifestyle magazines FHM, Loaded and Nuts. He was elected as an MEP for the Brexit Party in 2019 and, in 2021, was “mightily chuffed” to be appointed deputy leader of Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party. In Farage’s through-the-looking-glass world Daubney is a proper journalist, while Emma Barnett is a poisonous troll and the reason why, if he ever gets into Downing Street, he will do his best to emasculate the BBC.

Je suis Bernard Manning. Bit by bit, Farage is showing us who he really is. As Maya Angelou would say, we should believe him.

Anyone who had really believed that Corbyn was well in with Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA would have treated him very differently from the way in which he was in fact treated by the people who made those claims. As with the absence of Monty Python jokes about right-wing factionalism, real physical fear is why nothing similar is being done by anyone at that level in relation to this, by Nicola Kelly, even if she does place too much faith, namely any, in Hope Not Hate:

There was fervour in Chelmsford’s Tindal Square – and a sea of pink. Hot pink berets. Baby pink Union Jack flags. Dogs with pink rain jackets. This was the ‘Pink Ladies’ protest, an anti-migrant group who portray themselves as being ordinary women trying to “save our kids”.

The organiser of last week’s rally was Orla Minihane, Reform UK’s vice-chair for Epping Forest who previously shared a stage with a member of a neo-Nazi group. Taking to the microphone, she listed five women who she said had been murdered “at the hands of an illegal migration catastrophe”. Behind her, pictures of the women were held up.

An incensed Minihane had a message for the Government. “We are not going to be sacrificial lambs to your multicultural nonsense anymore… They are coming in in their thousands everyday. Why should we have to live like this? We are under attack.”

The Pink Ladies was set up in June, following a series of protests against the Bell Hotel in Epping. During one of those rallies, Minihane spoke on stage and shared a microphone with Callum Barker, a member of Neo-Nazi group Homeland, a splinter organisation from Patriotic Alternative, Britain’s largest far-right group.

In her speech, Minihane is heard saying “If I’ve got to wear a far-right title because that’s what the narrative is, then so be it.” The speech was then shared by prominent voices such as Mark Collett and Homeland itself. Minihane said she had no knowledge of Barker’s views before appearing alongside him.

The Pink Ladies are also financed by Restore Britain, the far-right group founded by former Reform UK member Rupert Lowe, who was sacked following allegations of threats of physical violence against Zia Yusuf.

Lowe has said that Restore provides funding for all street protests including the stages, sound systems and speakers, with promotional material carrying joint branding with Restore. Pink Lady organisers also told Byline Times that Lowe helped to get the group trademarked and that his movement provides legal advice and support. Despite their links to Restore Britain, organisers maintain they are not a far-right organisation.

A ‘Pink Ladies’ stand carrying joint branding with Restore Britain.

Last month a motion was brought forward by two Labour councillors in Tower Hamlets, Mufeedah Bustin and Abdi Mohamed, who stated that “far-right extremists “were leading this movement “under the banner of keeping women and children safe”. In response, the Pink Ladies took to the streets again, this time in Whitechapel, in the heart of Tower Hamlets.

The organisation has consistently protested against Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, attempting to enter the building earlier this month during an investigation session into grooming gangs and blaming him for the rise in immigration.

Despite their links to the far-right, the group has also received the backing of prominent Conservative politicians.

At the time of their protest against Khan, Susan Hall, the leader of the Conservatives on the London Assembly and the party’s former mayoral candidate posted on Facebook, saying the Pink Lady protests was “not hate crime and it’s certainly not terror-related”. Hall has previously been found supporting Enoch Powell on social media, engaging in Islamophobic posts about Khan, and sharing conspiracy theories about the 2020 American election. She is also on the advisory board of Restore Britain. At a recent protest, she said: “I am here because I am a Pink Lady.”

Despite all this, The Conservative party did not respond to questions from Byline Times about Hall’s activity.

The group has also been given multiple platforms by broadcast media organisations, including GB News and Talk TV, where they are regular guests. In July Sarah White, one of their more vocal members,was arrested on public order charges for unfurling a Union Jack flag during an anti-migrant protest against the Bell Hotel. She was given ten minutes live on GB News to settle the score, lambasting the police and telling viewers her arrest was “unlawful and brutal”.

The Channel has also interviewed members of the group alongside Conservative London Assembly Member Susan Hall.

Susan Hall and a member of the Pink Ladies group appear on GB News

Despite the controversies surrounding the group, since October, when the Pink Lady’s Facebook page was set up, their membership has skyrocketed. It now stands at over thirteen thousand. There has been a ripple effect across the country. Several communities have organised local groups, as far north as Inverness and south to the Kent coast, each setting up their own social media accounts as Pink Lady franchises.

Big hitters from Reform like Sarah Pochin have helped to boost their numbers, too. “These are mums like myself who are scared to death to let their girls go into town… We know that the incumbents in [the Bell hotel] and in ones I’ve had in my constituency are more likely to commit sexual assault, if not rape, in our communities. It’s a fact,” she told GB News.

Anti-racist groups say the Pink Ladies are part of a broader anti-migrant movement. Georgina Laming, Director of Campaigns at HOPE not hate, said: “Whilst there is genuine local and peaceful protest around violence against women, it is clear that once again, the far-right are attempting to co-opt this issue for their wider anti-migrant agenda.

“To stop this there has to be legitimate engagement with communities about the safety of women and girls, and proper legal response to the current cases involving people seeking asylum who are accused of sexual assault that prioritises justice for all victims.”

Dr Sharmila Parmanand, Assistant Professor of Gender, Development and Globalisation at the London School of Economics said: “We’re seeing a very deliberate reframing of migration as a threat to women’s safety, but there is no credible evidence that new arrivals are more likely to commit crime.”

Parmanand points out that what limited evidence there is related to violence against women and girls shows that the majority of crimes against women and girls are actually committed by men they know. She added: “Isolated incidents are being amplified, with women sometimes serving as the face of anti-migrant messaging. Unfortunately, this can lend legitimacy to anti-migrant narratives and inoculates them against criticism because any challenge can be seen as dismissing women’s voices and concerns for safety.”

A spokesperson for the Pink Ladies said: “Women in pink standing up for the safety of women and children is not far-right, it’s just right.”

I do of course know of old Patriotic Alternative, the Homeland Party, and that crowd. They even picketed my sentencing, though in such small numbers that no one noticed. Perhaps there would have been more, but they had all fallen out with each other? They do that a lot. And they continue to keep the company acknowledged by the recent proscription of the Order of the Nine Angels. From there is coming an attempt to scupper my weekly magazine. Attribute any delay to Fascism as the backstop of a centrism that originated in liberal theology’s ties to the cults of Saint Paul’s elemental spirits which are Saint John’s fallen angels. My suicide continues to be pursued as a Satanic ritual sacrifice. With as much success as ever. But it does.