England beat Wales last night. In case you missed that. Or in case you live in China. In which case you’d have heard the result which most aligns with Communist Party narrative of the moment. And if President Xi is feeling more pleasantly disposed to the Welsh, because of England’s ‘hard line’ and Rishi’s ‘robust pragmatism’ against the horrible dictator, then what’s the Chinese for ‘WELL DONE WALES!!!!’?

And that, really, is my issue with not just Xi, but the Ayatollah, with Kim Jong Un, with all horrible, oppressive dictators. The poor people under their control really know absolutely nothing about what is going on. Either in their home country or, especially, in the outside world. And for China, the latter is the scapegoat for all the evils that happen in the former. Blame England, blame America, how will the people know any different? And now, also, blame social media. Because even someone as ruthless as Xi can’t completely control that stream of information. Even he can see that there would be absolute rebellion if the 1.6 billion people in China were not able to see what Kim Kardashian ate for brunch on Tuesday.

It’s always about the people. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, the ordinary citizens are fed news from state-run, politicised ‘news’ channels, with no other sources of information available. They get the party story and nothing else.

I remember when we had our last dictator, Boris Johnson, who was eventually sacked because no-one could believe a word he said. Ok, he did loads of stupid things. They were forgivable. But the lying about them, the fictional and feeble attempts to cover them up, that was the true crime. Because we couldn’t trust him to tell us the truth. And I hated that. Because if you can’t trust the man at the top, (I would de-genderise that and say ‘or woman at the top’ but there are no dictators who are either women or even who identify as women. At the moment. And ‘in their own homes’ doesn’t count), then you feel very uneasy and helpless.

Your either buy into the story or you question it, but without information that’s difficult. Which is why so many older generation Russians support the war in Ukraine. And the prevailing ethos of ‘don’t upset the apple cart’ reinforces the desire to believe the state’s narrative.

The people of China watch the World Cup edited so that you can’t see the faces of the crowds and realise they’re not wearing masks. Because of their president’s obsession with ‘zero Covid’ they’re locked up for months, brutally, tested randomly and regularly, and have been living March 2020 for nearly 3 years. But with armed enforcement. Because of this, they’ve never reached ‘heard immunity’ and with a pathetic vaccination programme with a third rate vaccine, their ‘Covid rate’ creates a much higher death rate than anywhere else.

So there is rebellion, of sorts, in China. By extremely brave people. Most of whom will never be seen again.

Boycott China. Stop buying glasses at Specsavers. And bury Alexa at the back of the garden.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx