Cod Almighty | Diary

Government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich

13 December 2019

Good morning, Tory Britain! The Conservatives, led by a deceitful liar and a disgraceful human being, will now begin to introduce more food banks, sell off the NHS and ensure more children live in poverty. Not only that, they have an appalling oven-ready Brexit deal taken from the bottom shelf of the supermarket ready to go!

Still, as long as we get our bendy bananas back, it’ll all be worth it.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the fishing fleets won’t be returning to Grimsby. Everything will just continue as it has been. If anything, the life of an honest, working class family will only get harder. Blue is an appropriate colour, and an appropriate emotion, for Great Grimsby this morning. If you already struggle to find a spare £20 to watch the Mariners play at the weekend then, sorry, things are only going to get harder for you.

Politicians from all parties go heavy on the promises but most are light on delivering them. Sometimes you have to make your choice based on the core principles of the party and, in your West Yorkshire Diary's opinion at least, the Tories are about as unprincipled as a political party can be. You only have to look at the man they chose to elect as their leader to understand in an instant how they’re not just tolerant but supportive of a man whose professional history is littered with misogynistic and racist slurs.

Voting this man to be the UK’s prime minister legitimises his views and actions, and that will only make us more divided. Fine, if you’re privileged, wealthy and someone bereft or a moral compass to sweat that small stuff; not so if you’re a good, honest, hard-working individual with a basic sense of empathy and human decency.

Anyway.

Yesterday the Grimsby Telegraph published a splurge of anxiety and frustrations from the Mariners faithful regarding the non-manager situation and the board generally being a big pile of toss. I say faithful, but do any of us have "complete trust or confidence" (as the dictionary defines the word) in Grimsby Town right now?

With a Tory politician pulling the strings at our beloved club, I’m rapidly losing not just my faith but my religion also. John Fenty may be a Town fan at heart — of that I have no doubt — but he runs this club in much the same way the government will run this country. Out of touch with the common people, no empathy, no real interest in mucking in and understanding what it’s like down here. He’s too busy telling us all what to do and how to behave while perched on his snooker table.

It feels like the fun of following Town has been stripped away and all that’s left is a sorry-looking shell of what was once a great club. Our soft belly has been exposed. Our frailties are laid bare. We’re an open wound but Fenty won't pay for plasters, so we just bleed.

The cuts continue. I’m sure he doesn’t mean to, but for every further second he remains at the helm of Grimsby Town, the cuts are going deeper and the road to recovery becomes even longer. Many felt, quite rightly, that losing 5-0 at Braintree, or 2-1 at Chasetown, was our lowest point. We might not be at our lowest point in terms of league position but this is the lowest I have ever felt about GTFC.

It’s not just because we’re managerless, or without a win since September, or without a league goal since October. It’s a cumulative thing. We’ve had nearly two decades of austerity and despite making a profit in the last couple of seasons the money has gone straight to the pocket of the politician and the people on the ground are left with nothing. That's exactly how a Tory government works.

Those profits, remember, are modest and come nowhere close to what’s needed to wipe the Fenty debt. So the only thing us Town fans can look forward to is more of the same.

If we want something different, then we need change. Otherwise we’re all going to go to sleep and the club may never wake up from its deepest slumber. We’ve already failed to make a change in UK politics, and the blame lies not necessarily with the voting public but with the opposition parties and the media (owned, of course, by rich people exploiting our deepest anxieties to get even richer).

We have the power to hold those in authority to account. And yet we just stand by and suffer. The parallels between the way this club has been run, and the way this country is being run, is not a coincidence. It’s a concerted effort from people seeking fortune and glory, and to hell with the rest of us.

If that’s the country we’ve voted for, and the club we continue to put our money into, then we get everything we deserve. I will never support another football club but right now I cannot give any more money to Grimsby Town while it serves just one person. That's not how football, or anything, should work.

Tomorrow we play Carlisle. A budget not fit to compete for promotion from the fourth division. No manager. No signs of a new one. No entertainment. A club stripped back to the bare essentials.

This is Tory Grimsby. This is Tory Britain. Look after yourself — it's the Tory way.