THE red flag flies over the White House. Self-described Bolsheviks throng Washington’s streets in celebration. The reactionaries are quiet for now – stunned – but everyone knows a counter-revolution is coming as the United States finds itself polarised like never before, or at least since the Civil War.

You may, with some justification, accuse me of over-egging the pudding here. But let’s agree on one thing: socialism is on the march in America. For now, the White House remains a distant destination. But the Left is on the road that leads to it and is starting to make some progress.

Remember what leading Marxist moderate Mao Tse Tung once said: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, which I guess is true, even if he later took the bus. Apart from which, it was the Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu who said it first. He also favoured small government, which Mao misread as “huge government”.

And government of some size is what socialist presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders wants in America. He’s calling for “democratic socialism”, something we never thought would ever get a hearing in the world HQ of capitalism.

America’s health system reminds us that the wealthy superpower has always had one foot in the Third World. But Bernie is calling for an NHS-style system there. He also wants a minimum wage. These are communist measures that you and I support enthusiastically. But, in America, not so long ago, you could get shot for even mentioning such stuff out loud.

Beyond such moderate measures, Bernie’s more extreme grassroots supporters speak of “revolution”, and they’re not using it in the mild sense. They mean in the Bolshevik sense. And, beyond Bernie’s “democratic socialists”, a further left has developed that waves hammer and sickle flags and wants the full communist monty. They’re like something out of Britain in the 1970s.

Even mainstream Bernie supporters at meetings chant: “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” The words were originally those of Karl Marx, though as with Lao Tzu there’s a school of thought that he was mistranslated and that “chains” should have read “reading glasses”.

Bernie’s mainstream campaign, however, focuses on “working class people and the young”. Bernie is “for the people”. His Democratic rivals for the party’s presidential candidacy are “for the moneyed people”.

The pitch appears to be working. The first caucus in Iowa saw Bernie lose by a mere 0.1 per cent to Pete Buttigieg (just looked it up: it’s a Maltese surname meaning “chicken owner”), and he’s also polling well in New Hampshire, which votes on Tuesday.

For my part, much though I admire bits of Bernie, I’m not wholly convinced by him. That could be down to personal prejudice. During the impeachment show-trial of President Trump, he sat repeatedly dabbing at his beak with Kleenex, a practice that I cannot abide. Just as I’d never date one of these woman who keeps a paper hankie up beside the wrist-cuff of their pullover – disgusting! – I could never vote for such a man.

However, perhaps that’s just me. Many voters in America are clearly more tolerant, or less principled, which has led to senior establishment Democrats being “scared to death” that they could be going down the road first tarmacked by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over here.

In other words, for all the grassroots hullabaloo, Bernie will get trounced by Trump, just as Jeremy was by BoJo. In truth, I can’t see socialism getting a real sniff of power any time soon in America. Apart from anything else, as over here, it carries the albatross of liberalism rounds its neck, with the same woke insanity, Pelosi-style gimmicks, and manipulative legalistic attempts to subvert democracy.

That said, it’s a mystery why America has never had a socialist movement until now. It had early martyrs and a strong trade union culture, but the whole gun-totin’, “everyone can make it” schtick remains deep-rooted in the popular psyche. And they seem to have a penchant for that peculiar old concept that they see as incompatible with socialism: freedom.

Red flag over the White House? Never going to fly, I’m afraid. At least not for some time to come.

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SHOULDERGATE gripped the nation this week, after Labour culture spokeswoman Tracy Brabin flashed flesh from the controversial clavicle area of her body in the House of Commons chamber.

As so often, the nation was bitterly divided over the issue. Traditionalists, and others people who uphold decency, thought the former Coronation Street star’s frock – if that is the word – was inappropriate wear in such a sombre sanctum of deliberation and waffle.

Feminists, however, said she should be able to flash as much flesh as she wanted, but hell mend anyone who looks at it. They dressed the issue up, so to say, as “women’s right to blah-blah”, which pretty much equates to the way a sulky teenager will say: “Do what I want.”

At any rate, it was all good publicity for the frock-makers under advisement, as the £35 garment has since flown off the shelves at online retailer ASOS.

At the time of going to press, it remains a mystery why the same phenomenon has not followed the controversial wearing of double-breasted, pinstriped suits by top Tory toff, Jacob Rees-Mogg. Although a role model for many young men today, his sartorial tastes remain distinctly niche and unavailable at many fashion outlets.

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THE impressive taking out by police of a terrorist knifeman in Streatham, London, has been applauded by all right-minded people. However, not everyone is in their right mind.

Soon, the usual jaw-dropping allegations of “Islamophobia” and the shooting being “too extreme” appeared online.

What are people making such claims, readers? Correct: these people are nutters. I was going to say you could probably even find some complaining that the cops were white males, but I see now that you can take out the “probably”. Jeez.

However, one deeply disturbing aspect of the incident that has received little attention was the attire of the plain-clothes counter-terrorism officers. They were wearing … hoodies!

Is a terrorist attack a legitimate excuse to lower sartorial standards like this? You could argue the habiliments were practical, providing a disguise by which the officers passed themselves of as being as slovenly as the average British citizen.

But that’s not how matters were dealt with by Colin Firth in Kingsman, where the undercover agent rendered himself inconspicuous by wearing a well-tailored, pinstriped suit and a pair of highly polished Oxford shoes.

We trust the officers involved in the Streatham incident received a dressing down on returning to base.

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IN an arguably controversial move, a co-founder of mental environmental group Extinction Rebellion (XR; not to be confused with ER, which is the Queen) has called for civilisation to be “taken down” and for humanity to return to a “feral” state of consciousness.

Simon Bramwell, speaking at an event headed “By Any Means Necessary”, urged activists to “sabotage” civilisation in order to save the planet. Sounds like a plan. But not a good one.

Jolly Mr B added: “Extinction Rebellion is the spirit of our age. It contains every dichotomy and absolutely every flaw and beauty that our present society encapsulates.”

Expanding on this, he went on, tongue in cheek we trust, to speak of XR being “white-supremacist”, “racist” and “deeply patriarchal”, meaning – I think – that it was a broad church containing all sorts of nutters.

Later, XR issued an official statement saying the movement was indeed a broad church – “including lawyers, doctors, electricians, nurses, farmers, teachers” and other hooligans – and adding that Simon’s views didn’t represent “the position of Extinction Rebellion as a whole”.

Schism! When you’re in a whole, stop digging, guys. In the meantime, let’s toast Simon. All together now: “Feral he’s a jolly good fellow, he’s …”

Read more: Neds and their ... er ... trousers, talking politics and secret passwords. Ban them all I say