Spectator Bigot Goes To Portugal

After making my move to Portugal earlier this year, it was inevitable that others would follow: with the inevitability of night following day, the UK is becoming more run down, more indebted and more unloved as the Tories, still backed by our free and fearless press, foul everything up yet more. So it was that someone out there on the right made the same decision.

Lionel Shriver. Now resident in the EU

Not just on the right, too: from the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, the only slightly bigoted Lionel Shriver has admitted that she and her husband should now be somewhere in the country, having penned “I’m leaving Britain - and I feel guilty” earlier this month and assuring readers “Our movers arrive tomorrow”. Did she ask how long that process would take?

Because if her house worth of goods is part of a Groupage, it’ll be several weeks before she sees any of it again. And then there are all those Customs declarations and maybe extra charges. Still, she makes sure to tell “Beautiful beaches extend a 15-minute stroll from our new house, roomier than anything we could afford in Britain; from our awaiting back balconies, the sea glistens on the horizon”. Slow moving mass of water nearby? Mosquitoes, anyone?

Then we get that bigotry. “Not to get stuck into Suella Braverman’s whole multiculturalism palaver, but Portugal is still culturally coherent. The population is only 11 million, and most of them are Portuguese. In the London neighbourhood we’re leaving behind, we have not been living among the English”. Would that mean people who are not white? Surprise, surprise!

Yes, 92.5% of those resident in Portugal are Portuguese nationals. But that does not mean they are all white. Before the expiry of the Estado Novo in 1974, the country held doggedly on to its colonies, claiming that they weren’t really colonies, but parts of a Greater Portugal, honestly.

There was also, until 1961, a Portuguese foothold on the Indian sub continent, in the shape, mainly, of Goa. The Indian Government seized Goa in a brief military operation; the Government of António de Oliveira Salazar attempted to invoke the old alliance with Britain, but Perfidious Albion was conflicted, as the former colonial power. So the UK sat on its hands long enough for Goa to fall. Those talking of old alliances should note that well.

Praça do Comércio, Lisbon. With the Barreiro ferry arriving

Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa has Goan heritage. Many other citizens have African heritage. Ms Shriver may be about to discover the hard way that multiculturalism does not end at the Channel. She is also going to find her other assumptions do not stand up well. Like on energy.

“I’ve watched with growing horror for 25 years while coal and nuclear power plants have gone offline with no serious reinvestment in reliable energy sources”. What’re you doing moving to Portugal, then? The last coal power plant has ceased generation, and there never was commercial nuclear power. But there is an emphasis on renewables, especially hydro power.

Do go on. “I’ve increasingly had the sensation of living in a country that is falling apart”. Like how, and what? “The NHS is in a state of collapse”. There are continual concerns about the SNS, the Portuguese equivalent. Have another go. “For the last year, the prevalence of strikes has been positively Gallic”. Have I got news for you, Ms S! Strikes, you say. Yes, well.

This year’s rail strikes dragged on, but they’ve all been settled. Doctors and other medics? Still going on. Try again. “With a fierce and worsening housing shortage”. Not moving anywhere near Lisbon, then. And then comes “Although improved weather beckons”. Moving just in time for the weather to break, sorry. Starting later this week. And did I mention bureaucracy?

Just wait until she gets to the till at the local supermarket and the person there asks “Contribuinte?” Getting a Social Security number is its own aptitude test. So is being sent somewhere like Viana do Castelo to pursue the all-important residence permit. And getting a bank account? I’ll have to assume she passed that test. After all that, Bem-Vindo a Portugal.

Hopefully nowhere near Pinhal Novo, mind. There are limits to tolerance.

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