Protesting about protests

If I had ever found myself wIth enough of a marketing budget, I had planned to arrange to be ‘interviewed’ by several magazines. High end stuff mind you: the type of rag that gets seductively scattered atop smoked glass tables in private jet centres before being stolen by drivers when out seeking coffee.

These mock interviews would finish with the article adding “…and do not imagine you can just book Chirton Grange. No, you have to know someone who knows someone before they even consider you as a suitable client.”

No contact details would ever be printed. The piece de resistance to my cunning plan would require nerves of steel that saw us actually turn down high profile and wealthy clients with the ultimate insult of “However, I might be able to recommend another company who’d better suit someone like you.”

Annabel’s nightclub in Berkeley Square, London, operated this reverse psychology for years and it’s where I stole the idea. To apply for membership to this exclusive pub-with-rooms you needed to invest an initial £2,000 which got you no more than to be considered by a panel of seven judges, who, no matter who you were or your net worth, could and would turn down anyone they pleased for no logical reason.

Obviously this drove the wannabe members crazy because no one had ever said no to them before. So what did they do? They looked for any which way to gain access into what had become the must-have membership in London. Genius!

“Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see”’ is something I wish the morons inhabiting this country at the moment had taken a beat to consider when they listened to the BBC glibly splutter forth a news report containing the words “shortage” and “crisis”.

This came about after BP decided to temporarily close a dozen or so of its 1,200 forecourts due to a lack of a few drivers. The government – and the media – scurried to light the blue touch paper and let the zombies out of the asylum to stockpile fuel.

In reality, there is no fuel shortage or any crisis, there is only a driver shortage, but that didn’t stop the companies supplying our fossil fuel from jumping on the opportunity to whack up the prices by as much as 10p per litre. Then, when we do manage to get the fuel gauge moving upwards, we pull on to motorways disrupted by retirees with bollocks all else to do but use their arthritic fingers to squeeze out the last of their dentafix and use it to stick themselves to the tarmac.

These idiots are walking out onto one of the world’s busiest motorways without a care or consequence to what could happen should traffic have to swerve to avoid them. Arrogant, selfish narcissists.

Believe me, I do not agree with Extinction Rebellion’s modus operandi but can at least respect the fact they are fighting for a just cause like climate change. These lobotomised lemmings are championing…home insulation! Home insulation? Perhaps they think child poverty and modern slavery aren’t worthy enough issues?

The BBC and other media outlets created an illusion that did not exist. They created the need for people to crave a full tank of fuel. We have seen first hand, on forecourts across the country, punch-ups, arguments, shouting and swearing and even a knife pulled on one guy in south-east London. Utter madness! Why is it that we drivers, professional or otherwise, are forever blamed and punished? We remain the most heavily taxed, frequently fined and constantly harassed group in existence today. Which would be bad enough when using the car to simply get to and from work or on the school run but becomes a whole different animal when seeking to drive professionally as we do especially after a global pandemic when we didn’t work for 18 months! Why are we the ones victimised? How come they leave 10 Downing Street alone? Why are Home Insulation factories not the ones blockaded? What the f*** has this got to do with drivers? The answer to my question is simple – apathy. Apathy is drivers loosening trouser belts to bend over so “they” can shaft us good and proper. Apathy is the “yeah, but what can we do?” mentality. When all we actually do is moan and groan like a porn star with toothache and do very little to support our case.

Licensing authorities should be helping their clients, because that is what we are, we are their customers and we dutifully pay the piper. What is the point of the Guild of this or the Association of that if they aren’t using their collective strength to challenge the injustice to their members?

I would happily pay any subscription dues for clear access off junction 14 of the M25 over a lapel badge or certificate! Much like my clever advertising idea, when an illusion is created, as the BBC and other media outlets managed to do a couple of weeks back, then fools will follow. It was too easy for those at the Beeb to sit on the red sofa over a cup of breakfast tea and deny they said anything wrong before completing the piece to camera by announcing “now get ready for a shortage of turkeys this Christmas”’…watch this space!

Where is our fight? Our rebellion? How many of you reading this were punks back in the day, rockers or Mods scrapping on Brighton Beach? We need to rage against the machine once more and stop apologising for being drivers, we have done nothing wrong.

Ask yourself, would the younger you be proud of what you have become in later life? Some of you fought against racial and religious injustice while others stood firm and refused to be judged for your sexuality. We need that tenacity now!

Let us drive around to the homes of Insulate Britain protesters and block their streets, their route to work. Let’s stop their ambulance taking their sick mother to hospital. Let’s park our cars on their begonias beds, rev our engines and sing ‘I fought the law’ at full volume for four hours. Let’s see if the police arrest us or enquire as to whether we need sun cream, bottled water or “anything else that made us comfortable!” We can be a force to be reckoned with, there are more of us than there is of them, we just aren’t shouting the loudest.

Stop moaning, stop apologising and start rebelling!

If you want to get together and kick things off you’ll find me in Annabel’s most evenings.

Power to the People! n Kevin Willis runs Chirton Grange, contact@chirtongrange.co.uk