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FLASHMAN'S FUSILLADE

[A PC NIGHTMARE]

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George MacDonald Frazer died this week. As well as his Flashman novels, he wrote a series of essays on why he believed Britain had all but destroyed itself over the past 50 years. You may disagree, but anyone who cares about this country should read his views...

SATURDAY ESSAY

by

George MacDonald Frazer

When 30 years ago I resurrected Flashman, the bully in Thomas Hughes's Victorian novel

TOM BROWN SCHOOLDAYS

political correctness hadn't been heard of, and no exception was taken to my adopted hero's character, behaviour, attitude to women and subject races (indeed, any races, including his own) and general awareness.

On the contrary, it soon became evident that these were his main attractions.

HE WAS POLITICALLY

INCORRECT

with a vengeance.

Through the Seventies and Eighties I led him on his disgraceful way, toadying, lying, cheating, running away [as many of our politicians still do today in 2008]  treating women as chattels, abusing inferiors of all colours, with only one redeeming virtue -the unsparing HONESTY with which he admitted to his FAULTS, and even gloried in THEM.

And no one minded, or if they did, they didn't tell me. In all the many thousands of readers' letters, I received

NOT ONE OBJECTED.

In the Nineties, a change began to take place. Reviewers and interviewers started to describe Flashman (and me) as

POLITICALLY INCORRECT,

which we are, though by no means in the same way.

THIS IS FINE BY ME.

Flashman is my bread and butter, and if he wasn't an elitist, racist, sexist swine, I'd be selling boot laces at street corners instead of being a successful popular writer.

TO BE CONTINUED

Last column of a five :

We did not know the stifling tyranny of a liberal establishment, determined to impose its views, and beginning to resemble

George Orwell's

MINISTRY of TRUTH.

Above all, we knew who we were and we lived in the knowledge that certain

VALUES and STANDARDS

held

TRUE

and that

OUR COUNTRY

with all its faults and need for reforms was

SOUND at HEART.

 NOT ANY MORE

I find it difficult to identify a time when the country was so badly governed as it has in the past

50 YEARS.

We have had the two worst Prime Ministers in our HISTORY-EDWARD HEATH (who dragooned us into the Common market) and Tony Blair. The harm these two have done to BRITAIN is

INCALCULABLE and almost IRREPARABLE.

Whether the public can be blamed for letting them pursue their ruinous policies is

DEBATABLE.

Short of assassination there is little people can do when their political masters have forgotten the

TRUE MEANING

of the

DEMOCRACY

of which they are forever prating , are determined to have their own way

AT ALL COSTS

and hold

PUBLIC OPINION in CONTEMPT.

I feel I speak not just for myself but for a huge majority of my generation who think as I do but whose voices are so often lost in the clamour.

We are yesterday's people, the over-the-hill gang. (YES! the old people -not the senior citizens or the time-challenged, but the

OLD PEOPLE.)

Those of the ultra-liberal views may take consolation from this - that my kind won't be around much longer, and then they can get on with wreaking civilisation in peace.

BUT THEY SHOULD BEWARE.

There may well be more who think like me than the liberal Left establishment likes to think.

When my views were first published in book form in 2002, I was not surprised that almost all the reviewers were unfavourable.

I had expected that my old-fashioned views would get a fairly hostile reception, but the bitterness did astonish me.

I had not realised how offensive the

PLAIN TRUTH

can be to the

POLITICALLY CORRECT

how outraged they can be by its mere expression, and how deeply they detest the

VALUES and STANDARDS

RESPECTED

50 YEARS AGO and which dinosaurs like me believe in,

GOD HELP US.

But the readers' reactions to the book were the exact opposite of the critical opinion. I have never received such wholehearted and

GENEROUS SUPPORT.

For the first time in 30 years as a professional writer I had to fall back on a printed card thanking readers for writing, apologising because I could not reply personally

TO THEM ALL.

Most of the letters came from the older generation, but by no means all. I was made aware that among the middle-aged and people in their 20s and 30s there is a groundswell of

ANGER and FRUSTRATION

at the

DAMAGE done to BRITAIN

by so-called reformers and

DISHONEST POLITICIANS

who hardly bother to conceal their

CONTEMPT

for the

PUBLIC'S WISHES.

Plainly many thought they were in some reactionary minority. They had been led to think that they were muttering to themselves in the

WILDERNESS.

WELL, YOU ARE NOT.

THERE ARE MORE OUT THERE THAN YOU REALISE-VERY MANY MORE, PERHAPS EVEN A MAJORITY.

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[Font Altered - Bolding & Underlining Used - Comments in Brackets]

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EDITED extract from

The Light's On AT Signpost

by George MacDonald Frazer (published by Harper Collins)

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JANUARY-2008

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THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN-IS THE EU COMMISSION LISTENING? * Ditch the EU TREATY after IRISH REJECTION SAY VOTERS by Daniel Martin Political Reporter [Daily Mail-Wednesday, June 18,2008] MORE THAN HALF of voters believe Britain should drop the controversial European Treaty in the wake of its rejection in last week's IRISH REFERENDUM' The poll comes as the Tories launch a last-ditch bid in the HOUSE of LORDS today to delay the RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY. And 10,000 people have signed a PETITION on the DOWNING STREET- WEBSITE within the past few days JUNE16-2008 , calling on the GOVERNMENT NOT TO RATIFY THE BILL [WHY DON'T YOU?]   Downing Street website is http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/ * JUNE 18-2008

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