Gary’s coming back!!! He’s possibly forgiven? Probably restrained? Warned? Instructed?? Reprimanded? Who knows? What goes on at the Beeb, stays at the Beeb. But everyone’s favourite footballing smooth-bastard is returning to Match of the Day on Saturday night, with his full team of strikers (Shearer and Wrightey), plus a few midfielders (Danny Murphy, Jermaine Jenas), and the odd defender (Ashley Williams, Martin Keown) to ensure the flow of drivel continues as always. Before ‘the lost weekend’. And Lineker will undoubtedly make comment about his enforced purdah. And it will be smug (I won!!) and it will make you cringe.

Gary drew his own close on the issue yesterday, after his liberation, with a(nother fucking) tweet. Saying ‘however bad this weekend was, its nothing like being forced from your home in fear of death and getting on a little boat… blah, blah, blah’. So full of righteous indignation and compassion and empathy for the dispossessed that I read it and instantly vomited into the waste paper bin at work.

Gary ‘feels for you’. From his 5 million pound house. Or possibly whilst traveling only ever in the back of a big, black SUV. Never a rubber dinghy.

But heh, we need rich people to show feeling and sympathy and ‘show us the way’ to understanding and helpfulness. Surely, though, we need that understanding to come in an informed and balanced manner, rather than an off-the-shelf, hard-left sound-byte of stunning simplicity which completely fails to address any of the real complexity of the situation.

The ‘Germany in the 30s’ comment was tragically ill-conceived. Corbyn would have loved it, Ken Livingstone applauded it. But we are talking about controlling who enters our country illegally. Germany in the 30s was about evicting, eliminating, murdering people who were completely legal citizens, in many cases quite upstanding, who’d lived there for generations, fought for ‘their nation’ in the Great War and were an integral part of society. Big fucking difference, Gary.

We all want compassion and to offer protection to the unfortunate. Yet really don’t want the drug-dealers, rapists and free-loaders who tend to accompany them. It ain’t easy, but something must be done. With or without Gary’s permission.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx