Inglorious Emp Watch🎗

The John Lewis Christmas ad is secretly far-right propaganda... At first glance, the John Lewis Christmas ad is a cliché of a woke advert - mixed race family, subtle trans signals, an apologetic posh white woman, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, struggling to connect with her grandchildren. A talking toy dog persuades her to replace cash gifts with a room transformed into a festive “Gran Cave”. So at least this advert is trying to sell us something, even if “gran cave” sounds like a euphemism for Madonna’s vagina. But is this advert actually satirising wokeness and giving a subtle critique of contemporary leftist values? You’ve got the grandmother, played by Kristen Scott Thomas, the classic white English woman. She lavishes her affections on her mixed-race grandchildren (the “new” Brits, the Yookay), and these affections aren’t reciprocated. But still, she perseveres because she’s such a good woman. It’s her duty, and she believes that if she treats them well enough, they’ll treat her well too. And these ungrateful grandchildren have no respect for her beautiful home that she spent so long making perfect. They jump all over the furniture and the cushions. She gets her traditional English toys, her culture, down from the attic and gives it to the children. They don’t care. To paraphrase Jean Raspail, her universe has no meaning to them. They will not try to understand. They will be tired. They will be cold. (Well, actually, they’ll be well fed and warm thanks to your own efforts, but they’ll still trash your home). So she tries straight-up bribery, doling out cash to buy their affections as if she’s a left-wing government buying votes and peace. Then she goes into the city and takes an unlicensed rickshaw to John Lewis. On Christmas Day, the kids get cards, and they can’t believe there’s no money inside. They shake the cards as if it will make money appear, like a cargo cult building an air traffic control tower from bamboo. The advert tells us that such people don’t know how the money gets in the cards, they only know the cards have money in them. Then they get the real gift, and it’s a room in her house that she’s filled with beads and mirrors and sparkly things. A temporary, ephemeral distraction, with music for them to dance to, because according to the advert, that’s what these people like. I mean how on the nose could this be? Someone at the ad agency has managed to sneak an excoriating critique of weak, lefty Britain and demographic change into an ad that looks woke. Kristin Scott Thomas is the wealthy, well meaning old Britain who invites migrants into her home. The kids are the new Brits - entitled, with no respect for the home, no affection for the existing occupants, demanding handouts. The most far right propagandist couldn’t come up with something like this. This advert is reminiscent of the “Aesopian language” used in the Soviet Union: authors, playwrights and film makers used allegory, satire, double meanings and coded references to convey criticism or truth that could get past the Soviet censors. For example, a story might ostensibly criticise a tyrannical king in a distant country, while readers understood it as a comment on their own rulers. The surface meaning gave the author a defensible explanation. Soviet readers learned to “read between the lines” to recognise the intended message. And Britain in 2026 is basically the Soviet Union with pride flags. Bravo to these brave advertisers!

It's mad how, depending on your race, the government will either give you an Arts Council grant or a "hate crime" prosecution for expressing this sentiment: