SARAH VINE: Whether in the name of war or the name of woke, it’s always women who get it in the neck

The idea of ​​going to Glastonbury has never really appealed to me. I’m sure it’s a lot of fun if you’re into damp sleeping bags, overpriced veggie burgers, warm beer, chemical toilets and middle-aged women in sequins, but strangely enough, that’s not me.

But even if I were suddenly overcome with an irrational urge to spend five nights in a tent, slowly basting myself on my own juices, I don’t think I could bear it. Not so much because of the swarms of influencers taking selfies, or the New Age charlatans hawking their wares – but because it has become so incredibly political.

Let’s face it, Glastonbury isn’t really about the music these days (this year’s line-up was anything but exciting) – it’s just a chance for left-wing enthusiasts to get on stage and spout their one-sided, half-baked opinions in front of a audience of adoring fans too naive or too drunk to do anything but voice their approval like a herd of lobotomized sheep.

Exhibit A: Damon Albarn, lead singer of Britpop band Blur, takes the stage and instructs the audience: ‘You need to show us what you think about Palestine. Are you pro-Palestine?’ to loud cheers and much waving of Palestinian flags.

Irony really is dead. Rich, white, middle-aged man rallies crowds of festival-goers to cheer on a nation in whose name the military wing of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have carried out an attack on – wait for it – festival-goers in Israel (the Supernova Festival in Re ‘im) where revelers were kidnapped, raped and murdered in ways so barbaric as to defy imagination.

A message in support of Palestinians and condemnation of Israel is projected onto the Woodsies stage screen at the 2024 Glastonbury Festival

Young girls were mutilated and defiled, the acts of their killers gleefully documented on film and widely circulated on social media.

Who can ever forget the images of Shani Louk, her half-naked, broken body being driven through the streets of Gaza in the back of a pickup truck as paramilitaries rest their boots on her and civilians spit on her shouting ‘Allahu Akbar ‘chant?

Any of the beautiful young people in the audience at Glastonbury, with their sequin-strewn makeup and tattoos, could have been Shani. Any one of them could have been mercilessly hunted, shot, raped and set on fire, as happened to those festival goers.

And yet, who are they cheering for? Who do they worship? Is it the memory of these fellow festival goers, whose lives were cut short in such cruel, unimaginable circumstances? No. It is Palestine in whose name Hamas committed these atrocities. Palestine, a state whose people have elected Hamas as their political leaders. Guys, seriously: what the hell is wrong with you?

I am not for a moment saying that Israel has not carried out its fair share of violence in this unholy conflict, nor am I suggesting that the Palestinian people have not suffered terribly as well, especially in the aftermath of those attacks.

But what happened on October 7th was a whole new category of brutality, comparable to what Isis did to the Yazidi women in Syria, or what Boko Haram did to those Nigerian schoolgirls just over a decade ago. And it happened to the same sort of people who are currently enjoying a fun weekend of music at Worthy Farm.

The fact that Albarn does not even acknowledge the victims is, in my opinion, an act of shameful cowardice. A man in his position, revered by so many, has a responsibility to use his influence wisely. Of course, we certainly call for an end to the suffering in Gaza. But don’t pretend, as he did, that there aren’t two sides to this conflict. Do not ignore the victims of October 7 for the simple reason that their fate does not fit into his narrative or political agenda. Don’t play the crowd for cheap cheers. That is not only unfair, it is also dangerous.

But Albarn has form at this sort of thing. In 2010, Gorillaz – its spin-off band – became the first major British group to play in Damascus, Syria, which is of course run by President Bashir Al-Assad.

Syria under Assad is a close ally of Iran and supports a number of groups that carry out attacks on Israel. Albarn described the event at the time as “a wonderful experience.” That may not be everyone’s interpretation of a trip to one of the most anti-Semitic countries on the planet, but go ahead, Damon. Do your thing.

But there is something else, a hint of misogyny. Many of the victims of the Supernova Festival were women, attacked with that oldest and most despicable weapon of war, rape. Killing civilians is bad enough; raping them before you do is an act of humiliation designed to dehumanize your victim. And we’re not even talking about a war crime.

It’s also an act of male violence against women. Which brings me to Exhibit B: the other colossal cockwomble of the week, another virtue signaling rich, white, middle-aged man who likes to tell others what to think: David Tennant.

He accepted a gong at Britain’s LGBT Awards and used the occasion to launch a vicious attack on Kemi Badenoch, the Minister for Women and Equalities, over trans rights, saying he wanted a world where ‘Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist’.

Behind the scenes, he went one step further and said his message to trans youth was: “It’s a small bunch of whining assholes who are on the wrong side of history and will soon all disappear.”

He is, of course, referring to what trans activists demonize as Terfs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists), i.e. any woman who expresses even the slightest peep of concern about male individuals participating in women’s sports, or sharing locker rooms in schools, or serving time in women’s prisons, or having access to women-only spaces, or even just in the way that we, as biological women, are expected to call ourselves “cis” (a horrible, ugly word).

You’d have to be a real misogynist to describe women who care about the rights of other women as ‘whiny little bastards’. I imagine that in the gentlemen’s clubs of Mayfair in the early 1900s, much the same was said of people like Emmeline Pankhurst in her campaign for women’s suffrage. Woman, know your place.

The truth is that whether it is in the name of war or in the name of awakening, it is always women who get it in the neck. It is our rights, our bodies and our dignity that are replaceable.

That is the message Albarn sends by failing to acknowledge the victims of October 7 while glorifying the enemies of Israel; that is the message Tennant sends when he calls women like Badenoch little f***ers and wishes they would disappear.

I don’t care what you call me, I’m not ‘going away’. And neither is Badenoch, nor JK Rowling, nor Sharron Davies.

If this country elects a man on Thursday who has yet to express a clear opinion on whether women can have penises, we ‘whining little f***ers’ will have our work cut out for us. It’s going to take more than an arrogant, entitled man like Tennant to stop us.