Fergus Finlay: Make this the year all sorts of dodgy characters finally get their comeuppance

It'd be good to see fitting retribution for some of the world's most vile chancers. Inspired by his daughter — and by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan — FERGUS FINLAY has a little list... 

Donald Trump is not known for his loyalty so it would be fitting if — as seems likely — he is unceremoniously dumped by the people who supported him. He will not be missed. File picture: Ross Franklin/AP

"You know what I’d love?” said Vicky. “I’d love if 2023 was the year of comeuppance.”

She talked for a bit about some of the people — celebrities, politicians, and the like — who might have it coming. I totally got it, especially the list she came up with. 

Vicky (she’s my daughter) is a keen student of politics and current affairs — she knows more about the state of things in the world, and especially the US, than I do.

I used to regard myself as a bit of an authority on all that stuff. But Vicky can describe the minutiae of Kevin McCarthy’s crawl into leadership in the US House of Representatives and has a list of creepy characters that deserve comeuppance in that charade alone.

But when she talks about comeuppance, what I think of is The Mikado. When I was a kid in Bray, my father brought home an electric record player one weekend. You’d never see the like of it now, but my dad was fiercely proud of it. We all had to take instructions on how to, ever so carefully, lower the stylus onto the records. Any scratch and it was like the end of his world.

Having lost Brazil's presidential election, Jair Bolsonaro appears to be hiding out in Florida, having fled there before his term finished. He will not be missed. Picture: Eraldo Peres/AP

The trouble was, there were only two records. We played them again and again, over and over. More than half a century later, I can still be tempted to have a go at a few bars from ‘Tit Willow’, or the famous ‘Card Song’, where the Nine of Spades foretells a terrible future.

The first song was from The Mikado, the second from Carmen Jones. You may not remember either of them, but they’re engraved on my soul. If I hear any of them, or even a snippet, I’m immediately a kid again, watching my dad give the record player a quick polish.

Carmen Jones was based on an opera called Carmen, written by Bizet, one of the great romantic composers. In the version we had, the action was transposed from Spain to America and it took place during the Second World War. I still think some of the transpositions were the best things ever written.

And of course, some of the songs.  

‘El Terrero’, also known as the ‘Toreador Escamillo’, sang an aria that rings out week after week in Thomond Park of all places. I can’t understand a word of it in the original, but in English it’s called (of course) ‘Stand Up and Fight’.

Gilbert and Sullivan, who wrote The Mikado, were a Victorian pair who had both died by 1910. But their work has lived on for years and years — especially The Mikado, which was probably one of the first great political satires. And although he appears relatively briefly in the opera, the Mikado himself, the emperor of Japan apparently, sings the song that immediately popped into my head when Vicky talked about comeuppance.

His goal in life, he sang, is to bring down criminals and chancers of all kinds — but to “make the punishment fit the crime”. 

The example I can sing still is the man who cheats at billiards, who is condemned by the Mikado to spend the rest of his life playing the game “on a cloth untrue, with a twisted cue, and elliptical billiard balls”.

Almost immediately after Vicky said it, we had a real-life example of the best kind of retribution.

Andrew Tate

Andrew Tate, an evidently vile person, a social media creature who has attracted a huge following by astonishing and artfully disguised misogyny, launched a sneering Twitter attack on Greta Thunberg.

She replied eventually, and utterly dismissively, referring briefly to the obvious size of his penis (without of course using the word).

yes, please do enlighten me. email me at [e-mail] https://t.co/V8geeVvEvg

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) December 28, 2022

Enraged, as any emotional 10-year-old would be, he launched another tirade, and in the process, by showing off pizza boxes from a local chain, revealed his whereabouts to police who wanted to interview him about allegations of human trafficking and organised crime. He is still in custody — as Greta said, that’s what happens if you don’t recycle your pizza boxes.

I hope that’s a true account. Some media sources say the pizza boxes were essentially irrelevant to his capture. But it’s poetic nevertheless, a perfect example of comeuppance that couldn’t be more fully deserved.

And even as I’m writing this, it’s just possible that more comeuppance is on the way. 

Jair Bolsonaro

On Sunday, the world watched hordes of Jair Bolsonaro supporters attacking Brazil’s parliament and Supreme Court, doing huge physical damage. 

Akin to the US Capitol attack, far-right supporters of Jair Bolsonaro were ejected after storming government buildings in Brasília on Sunday. They will not be missed. Picture: Eraldo Peres/AP

Just as Bolsonaro himself was an acolyte of Donald Trump, the rioters were following in the footsteps of the thugs and fools who attempted to overthrow the US Capitol two years ago almost to the day. 

And, just like the previous set of thugs and fools, the threat appears to have been stamped out, at least for now. 

Bolsonaro is in hiding — not far from Mar-a-Lago in Florida, of all places, and has taken steps to cover his tracks, with various messages suggesting he favours only peaceful protest. 

Just like the man he admires, I have no doubt that, if the attack had prevailed, Bolsonaro would answer the call to resume power. But for now, at least, his path back to power appears to be stymied.

Bannon, Carlson, Morgan, et al

Astonishingly, it transpires (according to a Washington Post report), that Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo has been to see Trump, and has sought and taken the advice of Trump’s Svengali Steve Bannon, who appears to be interested in inflaming far-right opinion everywhere. 

With the lowest television ratings of his career, Piers Morgan's attention-seeking looks like it is collapsing in a heap. He will not be missed. File picture: Jonathan Brady/PA

Bannon has momentarily succeeded and then failed, in every crazy stunt he has pulled over the years. But even when he fails he does immense damage and leaves corrosive seeds behind.

The Bannons of this world are aided and abetted by the Tucker Carlsons and Piers Morgans of the world, attention-seeking journalists whose idea of a news story is anything that generates controversy for themselves. 

Morgan already appears to be collapsing in a heap, with the lowest television ratings of his career, and I live for the day when Carlson will be found out for the fraud that he is.

If the Mikado had his way, and could make their punishment fit the crime, Carlson, Morgan, and Bannon would be locked into a studio forever, interviewing each other and broadcasting their endless nonsense to ever-dwindling and more and more bored audiences. 

Donald Trump

And as for their hero, the orange resident of Mar-a-Lago, I wrote after his defeat by Joe Biden that Trumpism had been defeated by decency. I was utterly wrong. He has continued to wield a malign influence on his already awful party.

But there have been signs in recent months — and especially in the US mid-term elections — that the Donald Trump magic is waning. I’m usually wrong about Trump because I tend to let my heart rule my head where he’s concerned (and my heart wants him in a federal penitentiary), but I think it’s possible to see the beginning of the end now. 

And he will be undone by people who once swore loyalty to him. 

They owe him nothing now, and his own erstwhile admirers now want to replace him. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate case of the punishment fitting the crime?