Dear Fabian,
Chief Minister, Gibraltar
Good day to you from the Cathartic Monkey from Sheffield.
Yesterday’s personal experience of Gibraltar’s National Day, contrasted sharply from my very first escapade six years earlier. Back then in 2018, I actually missed hearing your key note speech on National Day, owing to police intervention taken against me that morning, before that is, Ian McGrail had me released, whereas yesterday, owing to front line police engagement at its finest, I actually got to hear your speech live. I was glad of that.
In the spot as pictured above, two unfamiliar women police constables had asked me to reveal my face shortly after entering Casemates. Known to the police for my non-compliance over putting on face masks, I complied by revealing my face. One of the two female police officers recognised my face, once unmasked, which nicely helped matters. Jokingly, I showed off my large syringe, describing it as a biological weapon, which is exactly what Pfizer’s much smaller needle injections are. I was asked what the liquid solution was inside my large syringe. Sea-water saline, was my instant answer. Just like I’m reliably informed that you were injected with, instead of the Pfizer kill-shots that everyone else was injected with. I was told that under no circumstances must anyone get squirted. I wholeheartedly agreed, in full approval of the officers safety consciousness. Having watched in recent weeks the outbreaks of violent disorder and community tension between the police, and Starmer’s far-right thugs in the UK, it was a pleasure to see large well-behaved crowds, mingle so well with the cops on the Rock.
Plenty of people looked at the front with my Mpox display message, which the monkey in me had hastily cobbled together at short notice. Jokingly, I tried to make the crowd smile yesterday morning by declaring monkey-me to be the first case of fake Mpox in Gibraltar. It worked more often than not. The wording of the message, that many people saw and agreed with and took photos of, had been suggested to me by The Gibraltar Messenger and His team.
It gives me some pleasure to say that my little space in Casemates yesterday was kept as a tension free-zone in spite of me showing such a controversial message. Hopefully, the cops yesterday appreciated that, and helpfully in their conduct contributed to that end. I do like to give credit where credit is due.
Temporarily, I left the board unattended, to get closer to that stage, so that I could better get to watch your speech, hopefully in your direct eyeline and from a safe social distance. I’ll refrain from commenting on the finer details of your own speech, except to say that I for one was struck by your emphatic reference to the colours red and white, at the near total exclusion of the colour blue. I left before your speech ended.
When I returned to the display, I noticed there were more cops, stood very close to the display board. Front and back, they did not seem the slightest bit concerned with the messages displayed on my little improvised school chalk board which The Lord had gifted me.
May be the wearing a blue cap, with the castle on the flag, likewise coloured blue, not red, made me extra sensitive to your words, especially given the last time I had heard you speak was prior to the summer break, when you berated people operating under a cloak of anonymity with on-line profiles that were fake.
On The GBC’s Needle – 23rd July 2023
Fabian Picardo
If I can tell you that there is a cancer today in our democracy, it’s those fake profiles, those people who are putting about lies, slanders, libels, making threats of violence against people,who go into public life. That is the worst of the worst. That is the biggest existential danger that our democracy has seen, and I don’t see enough people speaking out against it, because that’s what’s going to undo the great world that we can otherwise leave our children.
Jonathan Scott
And what can we do to combat that?
Fabian Picardo
Call it out! Block them! Ignore them! Not retweet them. Not laugh at what they are saying, and understand, that if somebody’s hiding behind a cloak of anonymity in a developed democracy like Gibraltar, it’s not because they cannot speak their opinion, or they cannot say what they see is happening for fear of repercussion.
There will never be any repercussion against anybody who speaks the truth. Not the truth as I see it, but the objective truth. The only repercussion will be in respect to somebody who is defaming, slandering, libelling a person who is then subject to any individual who is so libelled, slandered, defamed taking legal proceedings, against them. It is a great lie and a fallacy, if there is such a perception that people in Gibraltar, at least in the government, are somehow going to suffer a detriment because they express an opinion that is contrary to mine. I will go to my grave defending people’s rights to have whatever opinion they may wish to have, in particular, contrary opinions to mine. But I will also go to my grave defending the right of individuals to defend their reputations, in particular, against these cowards who hide behind fake profiles, say things that are untrue about people who are giving their lives to public service in the government, in opposition, or not even in the parliament, and make threats of violence against them and their families.
In the interim, Helen Carter had been on GBC, talking about Gibraltar’s position with respect to the World Health Organisation’s declaration about Mpox being a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), aptly pronounced “FAKE” to us who have the “eyes to see” (Matt. 13:15-16).
Talking of fake, the day after National Day, is the infamous date of 9/11, with its mother of all fake government narratives which continues to curse Western nations as the lies get parroted by crooked politicians from around the world. I was happy to throw away my police career rather than be complicit in that murderous act of tyranny. But, I’m sure you would not want to upset the global elite on that score so your only retort to that point, in your wilful blindness, is to call me out and declare me a conspiracy theorist.
John 8:23 And ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free. (King of kings’ Bible)
Tony Farrell
The Cathartic Monkey from Sheffield
PS. I invite you to listen to this audio on the following X post: