A blast of vituperation

A refreshing blast of vituperation from Jonathan Meades in the Critic. It is a warning that France should take a hard look at journalist Boris Johnson before replacing Emmanuel Macron with journalist Éric Zemmour. The piece reminds me of the late Auberon Waugh's remarkable talent for vituperation. A sad loss, but this is pretty good.

A once major power is led into nightmarish catastrophe and chaos by a journalist of sorts. A cruel mendacious antinomian narcissist, an aspirant dictator who revels in destruction (judicial powers, free speech, constitutional safeguards) having learnt the joys of destruction and ostentatious oafishness at, astonishingly, a seat of “learning”. The oaf’s only creation is a shivering, starving bedlam hidden by a policy of coarse populism, formerly trading as bread and circuses. They bring hope to the gullible millions. They are instruments of delusion.

Another once major power is rashly taking little notice. France persists in believing in the Ingerlandland of Major Thompson, frigidity and the stiff upper lip. It has not registered the country’s emotional incontinence. It has quite failed to see through the Prime Shit’s threadbare mask of amiable bumbling clown and children’s entertainer, and is becoming excited by the probability of a journalist’s candidature in next spring’s presidential elections.

Good stuff, it's a pity we don't see more of it.

It should be heeding the warning from outre-Manche. Polls in mid-October put the ubiquitous broadcaster and columnist Éric Zemmour in second place behind Emmanuel Macron. He has overtaken Marine Le Pen, the loser in every election in living memory who has, by moderating her policies, alienated her core vote. All this, even before he has confirmed that he will stand.