I was in the local shop this morning when I saw an old chap pay for his copy of The Daily Mail before dropping a few quid into a RBL tin and taking a little paper poppy with him.

As is always the case in these situations, I said to myself “Now that’s ironic Alanis” in reference to Alanis Morissette’s 1995 hit ‘Ironic’ that wasn’t ironic in any shape or form.

I felt like saying something to the chap but I didn’t want to ruin his or my day because, as you may recall, the last time I had a confrontation with someone older than me, it was highly disturbing.

Of course, when you put money in a poppy jar, you are supporting troops who perished in wars, more likely than not, thinking about two appalling World Wars in the 20th Century. In the second World War those British and allied soldiers who lost their lives were, without teaching you how to suck eggs, fighting fascism.

What people don’t seem to know so much about, is how popular fascism was in Britain in the 1930’s. This was a time when Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts were actively supported amongst many members of the aristocracy including Lord Rothermere, the proprietor of The Daily Mail.

Fascism was faced down in Britain but it was not until unsavoury incidents at a rally in Olympia when Blackshirts beat up dissenting voices in the crowd, The Mail withdrew support.

Still owned by The Rothermere family, The Daily Mail has always tried to distance itself from its 1930’s support of fascism. However, in the last few years, it has once again become more brazen, targeting immigrants, single mothers, judges, and this week, university lecturers, in its pursuit of power and halting laws that will hold its non-tax paying proprietors to account.

You may or may not have read it, but this week, The Mail published an email address encouraging students or university employees and contractors to report to them any lecturers who may be showing a pro-remain bias with regards to the EU.

That is extraordinary and that my friends is out and out fascism. British universities are worth £9 billion to the British economy and produce some of the best minds in the world as well as unbelievable amounts of scientific and medical research and here are The Daily Mail trying to control, name and shame their lecturers.

That is the stuff of 1930’s Berlin as was the ‘Enemies of the State’ headline last year when judges made a Brexit ruling according to British Sovereign law.

I guess that if you believe in authoritarian state control, secret police and so on, it is your right of ‘freedom’ to do so, but whenever there is a rise in populism it turns ugly in the end, with pitiful amounts of suffering, so please think about it before you buy this shitrag, even if the Femail section and the puzzles are quite good.

Nothing good will come from supporting The Daily Mail or its owners, so if you respect those who fought against fascism, whether it was against Hitler across Europe or at Cable Street and Olympia against Moseley and his Blackshirts, give all your pennies to the RBL and none of them to these vindictive non tax paying excuses for human beings.

To do both is at best naive, at worst, hypocritical, and I would like to believe most British people are better than that.