“If you don’t understand how close tens of millions of Britons are to wanting a full-blown revolution, let alone fail to understand why, then you have no value as a political commentator,” wrote Christian Calgie, the Daily Express’s
senior political correspondent on X. The absurdity of “tens of millions” apart, the post by Calgie, a former Tory staffer and hack for the hard right Guido Fawkes website, appears to have been triggered by an upbeat essay in the Times by Fraser Nelson, about how crime is largely down and actually Britain is still a splendid place to live. But Calgie is far from the only right wing commentator predicting a bloody uprising.
Last month, Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson seemed to yearn for the army to overthrow Keir Starmer’s government, posting on X: “Anyone else hoping for a military coup?” Elsewhere, Calgie’s Express colleague Carole Malone wrote how the country was “like a tinderbox that’s set to explode” and Isabel Oakeshott wrote from Dubai how things would soon “get really ugly” when “exasperated communities… turn vigilante”. How disappointed they’ll be if we get to the end of the summer without civil war breaking out!
