As cultural marxists finish off colonising the institutions of the western world, The Critic will hang round to point out the triumphs and occasional defeats of the warrior Woke. Such victories as the stale, pale, male and our otherwise collaborating or false consciousness-ridden allies achieve will be faithfully recorded here. But expect mostly to see, in this new series, a catalogue of defeat, decline and despair.

The feature is named Scullionbait at editorial insistence – I cringe at the immodesty – because it’s in part a tribute to the “Dreherbait” which has fuelled the work of The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher for so long. These stories doubtless, in so many senses, constitute “hate reads,” but we may as well laugh at them as we go down to ruin by their hands.

All Rhodes lead to Stone
Jealous of iconoclastic rioters, Labour led councils across England and Wales announced they would examine all of their statues for links to slavery with a view to taking down any that had a whiff of it. An east London authority has already taken down a statue of Robert Milligan at West India Quay in London’s Docklands.

Rescue mission?
Save our Statues campaign and www.nochange.org tracks petitions calling for statues to be removed and encourages people to sign counter petitions. The campaign founder has also started laying flowers spelling the word “hero” on monuments all over the capital, including Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament square and Clive of India on Horse Guards road.

Has Rhodes fallen?
Not yet. Oriel College, Oxford have set up an independent inquiry to look into the potential removal.

Will Rhodes fall?
Commission members are said to include broadcaster Zeinab Badawi (Whose great-grandfather fought against Kitchener’s British forces at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898), Michelle Codrington-Rogers, (the first black national president of the NASUWT teaching union) Shaista Aziz, (Labour party councillor and Black Lives Matter supporter) Laura Van Broekhoven, (director of the Pitt Rivers Museum and Black Lives Matter supporter),  former Conservative shadow culture secretary Peter Ainsworth and Oriel College’s alumni advisory committee chairman Geoffrey Austin.

You be the judge – or rather, you won’t be.

Reds Under the Beds
The Mail suggests Boris Johnson planned to scrap reforms that would make it easier for people to change their legal gender but now is going ahead with them after being handily influenced by fiancee Carrie Symonds.

Womxn Watch
US broadcaster CNN was ridiculed after calling on ‘individuals with a cervix’ to start cervical cancer screening to avoid implying that men cannot become women because they lack the relevant DNA or body parts.

Individuals with a cervix are now recommended to start cervical cancers screening at 25 and continue through age 65, with HPV testing every five years as the preferred method of testing, according to a new guideline released by the American Cancer Society https://t.co/gUhYdIIx69

— CNN (@CNN) July 30, 2020

Cancel Culture is a myth pt. 1235
An Edinburgh railway station advert in support of author JK Rowling was removed for being too “political” and potentially offensive. The poster was paid for by Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, a campaigner against reform of gender recognition laws that would make it easier to self-identify as a given gender. A man saw it and complained. Our voices are louder and deeper than yours, so let’s not have any more of this snark about ‘free speech for billionaires.’ 

Oh, and Australian taxpayers are funding a guide to ensuring your children don’t read the author-who-must-not-be-named, whether they like it or not.

Re-Education
A YouGov poll of 820 academics found that nearly a third — 32 per cent — of those who say their political views are “right” or “fairly right” have stopped openly airing opinions in teaching and research, compared with 13 per cent of those in the centre and on the left.

The Times also reports a primary school is facing calls to drop Rhodes from its title even though the man whom it is named after has no links to imperialism. Proper nouns might be the most hateful words of all.

Long live the Vanguard
You might have seen the Oxford Black Lives Matter leader, Sasha Johnson using racial slurs against a black man and standing in a town centre calling for a black militia.Her embryonic revolutionaries have since been caught in minor scuffles with the Met but so far the revolutionary leader’s only weapon seems to have been a megaphone. However, cosplay freedom fighting doubtless has a very encouraging effect upon morale.

Costly Virtue Signalling for Tories
The Sunday Telegraph reports the Chancellor is keen to recognise ethnic minorities on bank notes.  The ‘Banknotes of Colour campaign’, led by former Conservative candidate Zehra Zaidi, has impressed the chancellor with some proposed historic figures, including the first Indian and Gurkha soldiers to receive the Victoria Cross. and the Jamaican British nurse Mary Seacole. It’s a grave indictment of Boris Johnson’s racist government that it’s not already Seacole, VC.

How?
A Canadian EO took the word ‘Chief’ out of her CEO title because it was potentially offensive to indigenous people. It’s not known yet how many words Canadian indigenous people have to express their gratitude for this totem.

Failing to educate yourself

According to YouGov, 68% of the public don’t think the BLM protests should have gone ahead during the coronavirus crisis. 71% of people oppose protesters physically damaging or pulling down status linked to slavery, and 69% of people think “Land of Hope and Glory” and “Rule Britannia” should remain part of the Last Night of the Proms.  Sadly this last question failed to determine whether anyone would prefer them not to be included if the soprano insists on waving a gay pride flag during the final verse and singing the verses in a funny voice.

 

Right side of History
White liberals are significantly more likely to say that they sometimes, often or always secretly wish for bad things to happen to those who disagree with them politically. And to say that they’ll say it. Because what’s the point of privilege if you don’t exercise it? This series will continue indefinitely, or until we’re cancelled by an EU directive following the Jolyon Maugham crowdfunder to end all Referendum results. Please keep the tips coming in to [email protected].