‘RUDE’. by Katie Hopkins.

by Hannes Wessels

The title of this book should not have been ‘Rude,’ but ‘Bloody Rude’, because it is; but it is also bloody funny and it is also sad, but never a dull moment and extremely enlightening. She writes as she appears to live life; with a swagger; being brutally blunt; obnoxious; dishing it out, but happy to take it on the chin. The opening chapter is titled: “I Am Not A Twat”, and then follows with the opening line; “Well not a complete twat anyway…”, and that sets the tone.

On every subject she broaches, which includes matters sexual, social, physical and political, she covers all aspects in sometimes outrageous, flabbergasting, detail. For the first time I was introduced to the word ‘foof’, and after reading the chapter on this particular part of the female anatomy, I shall never forget what it means.

She takes the fact that roughly half her countrymen and women absolutely hate her guts in her stride and with a smile. That’s partly because she’s tough. She won a commission into the army at Sandhurst but had to relinquish it for medical reasons. She developed a chronic condition of suffering serious epileptic seizures which have seen her hospitalised several times in a critical condition.

After her discharge from the army she pursued a career in journalism and broadcasting. Since then, I don’t think the words ‘persecuted for her beliefs’ is out of place here; she’s been hounded out of jobs where she performed professionally and successfully, banned from media outlets and has been financially crippled in the courts. Her most recent sacking was from LBC Television (Leading Britain’s Conversation), and this came after a series of open discussions covering the ‘grooming gangs’ of Rotherham and other UK conurbations. This sort of publicity would have been deemed offensive to the Pakistani Muslim community and in deference to them she was shown the door. She argues her fear of Islam is rational based on the simple fact, “… that most men who want to stab my children … with a 12 inch hunting knife on one of London’s bridges are in fact Muslims no matter how skewed the interpretation of religion is.”

What is obvious throughout the book, is her resilience and ability to fight back is deeply rooted in her love of her country, her firm belief in herself, her values and what she sees as bad for Britain. While she loves her homeland, she’s not slow to criticise: “One third of the British public has an IQ below 85,” I was surprised to read. “That’s the sort of intelligence you will need to be introduced to your own reflection in the mirror.”

She explains she is simply offering opinions which are not right or wrong and expects tolerance, which is not to be found on the Left because she believes, ‘Liberalism’ in the classic sense has lost its way. ‘Neo-liberals’, she writes, far from encouraging freedom of speech, have become intolerant of dissenting views, transforming themselves into the ‘fascists’ of the modern day, seeking to stifle open debate and control thinking. The liberally inspired brainwashing, she reports is starting early in UK state-schools. She suggests their call to ‘hope not hate’ only applies to people who agree with them; why, she asks, do they ‘hate’ her so much for merely venturing an opinion.

Unsurprisingly, she holds the BBC, seen as a flagship for ‘liberal fascism’, in complete contempt and accuses it of squandering vast amounts of public money on delivering a mediocre service that would not survive without state protection. She provides an interesting example of how dysfunctional the corporation is by referring to the firing of Jeremy Clarkson. Despite being the BBC’s biggest star and presenter of its most popular and lucrative show, he was canned on orders from Television Director, Danny Cohen, who she describes as, “.. a liberal idiot deafened by diversity quotas and globalist nonsense, unable to hear the roars of laughter from the rest of the UK for a program they loved.”

Hopkins dismisses Liberal feminists as awful hypocrites, guilty of being highly selective in who they target, reserving their self-righteous rhetoric and activist wrath for only the offenders they identify in Western society. Beyond the West, they seem to see no harm being done to adolescent girls forced into early marriage or with the ongoing practise of FGM (female gender mutilation). And why, she asks, are LGBTQ groups so silent on homosexuals being pushed off tall buildings in Islamic countries?

A long list of ribald, but sometimes hilarious rants follow.

• “It is officially ‘fattist’ to say that it’s not healthy to stuff some of the fridge in your face and then expect the taxpayer to pay for a new hip.”
• “It is misogynistic to say anything other than woman are awesome and their vaginas are made of steel.”
• “It’s fascist to say that Trump was democratically elected as the 45^th president or that Brexit was won with 52% of the vote.”
• “It is racist to say that Castor Semenya should not be allowed to compete in the female 800 m race because she has internal testes and hormone levels three times that of a normal female.”

On vegans she is ruthless: “I think living as a vegan and gluten-free pescatarian is a perversion and a direct result of having so few real problems in your life that you have to make some up. When you run out of first world problems and need to make some up, you need a new job. Or a better hobby. Or better sex. With someone other than yourself.”

The list goes on, but what was chilling for me to learn was the content of the new UK CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) rules on what actually constitutes ‘hate’ for the purposes of a criminal prosecution and the fact that simply perceiving someone to have the capacity to ‘hate’, without any proof, may be sufficient to convict.

This, we discover, may apply when, “…it is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person’s race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.”

Taking into account the wide-ranging powers afforded the police, along with the frightening array of sophisticated technical devices now available for surveillance, this takes us beyond the dystopian world that the prescient George Orwell feared.

Like this lady or loathe her; I defy anyone to accuse her of lacking guts. If she were a man, I’d suggest she would be the owner of the biggest balls in Britain.