Hi Bettina. Lovely to hear from you. You are incredibly kind. But we’ve met, you know I’m no genius, just a confused man in age inappropriate clothing.
When I read your essays I thank God I don’t live in the UK. At the same time I weep for what my country has become. The Immigration of people who will not integrate into the British culture and values has destroyed us. We are governed by simpering, cowardly nobodies with no knowledge of the real world because they have never worked in a company which had to make money to survive. Instead they believe in the bollocks theory of the Magic Money Tree which allows them to print and give money to anyone who shouts loudly at them.
Yes integration is the key. I’m all for people who want to come and be part of the gang. Unfortunately we’re encouraging people to come and start their own gangs, while telling them that ours is worthless. Not a recipe for social cohesion. Or economic success. Your shouting point is a topic all on its own, it’s essentially identity politics in a nutshell. Lovely to hear from you older.
The Tory party abandoned the last vestiges of Toryism in that 1997 election, going full bore down the globalised/GDP loving route. The closest they produce are financier parodies of Toryism like Rees-Mogg
Labour don't have the same appeal they had in '97, and I'll personally always rate Blair as one of the most destructive leaders any country has had in the last 80 years. Plus that 1997 success was partly built on Labour taking Scotland more or less entirely which I don't see happening in the next election.
The public overwhelmingly wants a lower cost of living, better NHS, lower immigration, more equitable financial conditions and a slightly more moral and conservative social policy. You see it every time - to the right of Labour on social policy, to the left of the Conservatives on economics.
But the public don't count, and we'll get what the big donors want which is pretty much the exact opposite.
Exactly this Samuel. As far as Blair is concerned, recollections may vary, but I quite liked him at first, at lot of us did. But in the round I think you are probably right.
Your analysis. Left on economics, right on social issues seems spot on. That echoes the findings of Matt Goodwin and Steve Davies of the IEA-who wrote a v good pamphlet on the Brexit realignment if you can be bothered to dig it out.
The public not counting is the fissure which could split the rock I think.
Thanks Peter. Getting this out to a wider audience. I’ll take all the help I can get. Re stacks, recommendations, all welcome. I dont really do Twitter though. It’s just a forum for arguments it seems….
Well said! The next decade is going to be tough but, to paraphrase HL Mencken, you get the government you deserve - good and hard.
The more centralised our governance becomes the worse it seems to be. Politicians, their cronies and their acolytes in the bubble have lost the plot and we have stood by and allowed this to happen.
I believe that running a modern state is simply beyond the calibre of people we elect to do it. In fact, it's beyond the abilities of any cabal however wonderful their publicists say they are.
That’s a very very interesting take jim. The trouble is I think that the anti-democrats agree with you. That’s why they say we should do away with the politicians altogether, and let the technocrats run everything. I’m not so sure about that. But it does seem to be happening more and more. More power to unelected bodies, judges etc, less power to the elected representatives. I have no idea what the answer is. I’d automatically say localism, but look at Devolution, it’s been a disaster. Thanks so much. Lots to think about in your comment.
I think the anti-democrats would disagree with my claim that running a state is beyond any cabal. I should have made it clearer that I include unelected cabals too!
The work-in-progress that I've termed panocracy is, I believe, a way to avoid most of the issues you mention with unelected bodies, whether they're technocratic, oligarchic or tyrannical. It was motivated precisely by the moves toward incompetent and malicious centralism that have accelerated recently.
I'd be grateful for any comments you (or anyone else) may have on panocracy!
I actually got quite emotional reading that, in parts it was hilarious but others read like an obituary to Britain. Please don’t take that the wrong way, it’s an excellent piece as always, it’s just made me very sad!
I want to cut and paste this article, highlight it in neon, and stick it up somewhere, to view every day. Many, many great points, LSO, you are a treat!
Maybe more traditional Christmas decorations would find favour with your family Giulia, but having said that, you have my full permission. Many thanks for your lovely comment.
Trenchant and entertaining as ever, LSO, but I had to really think about 'podgy-gal' before it clicked! 'Call me Dave' has been eating porkies, as well as telling them. ;¬D
So accurate. Much of where we are now us the result of the Covid madness and entirely predictable, but they chose to make it even worse. I'm self-employed and struggled through 2020 (no government money for me) but as a result I very much begrudge giving my hard-earned cash to these plonkers to waste. Last year I made too much money and I will cry copious tears when I send my tax payment in January. I've learned from that and so far am looking proudly at the notice in my accounting software net profit: "You have made 8% less this month than the same time last year." That's the spirit! Expenses up, profits down and less tax to pay. Crazy that making less money is a key goal for this year.
Yep. Exactly this Pilgrim. When your high value, high skilled workers are working less hours to save money, then you clearly have something fundamentally wrong with your economic model. I also received nothing during Lockdown. I’ve always said if all government employees had been forced to take a 20% cut in wages during Lockdown, the whole thing would have been over in six weeks. Great comment. Thanks.
Thanks David. I’m definitely not a racist. Even though malign forces keep insisting that by virtue of my skin colour I must be one. I refuse to fall into the trap of blaming other regular people, of whatever race, for our governments’/the elite’s failings. It’s the Pitchfork People Vs Torch People cartoon for me. If you know that one. https://www.americatransformation.org/p/pitchfork-vs-torch-people
I’m really interested in seeing how Reform will do. I don’t feel they are quite for me, I’d be more drawn to the SDP if they were a bit tougher on the economics.
Ha ha . Oh yes. I’d forgotten that. I had to look up oleaginous, you’re spot on and I’ll be using it in future. Thanks!
I noticed that Netflix have made something based on Kendi’s work. Genuinely my heart sank when I saw it.
Yes. When we stopped listening to Dr King and started listening to people like Kendi we started on the road to self destruction. Loving ‘Burn Loot Murder’. I also heard ‘Buy Large Mansions’.
I really appreciate this comment. There has to be a space between the so-called anti-racism of Kendo and barely concealed racism of the Reformists. If you find it, I’ll join you there.
Peter Hitchens has long been saying that our alleged Conservative Party needs to die in order for an actual conservative political institution can take its place. This seems to at last be happening, but the downside is that we will likely have to endure either five years of Labour terror or else a period of real political, economic and civil instability. I suspect that it may be the latter as I don’t by the hype concerning another Labour landslide. Starmer is not Blair, and I don’t see Labour taking anywhere near the amount of Scottish seats as in 1997. As for the Red Wall, I suspect there will be mass abstentions, people not voting out of disgust at our vapid and incompetent political class. And who can blame them. We are cursed to live through interesting times.
Maybe you are right. I agree with your take on Labour, Starmer and Scotland. But I really think the Tory voters will stay away in droves. I know I wont vote for them. Interesting times indeed. Also. I agree with Hitchens.
Oh I agree and think Con voters will eschew the polls as well as the Red Wall. There’s only so far you can humiliate your base before they decide enough is enough.
Hitchens has been the perennial Cassandra of the commenteriat for years. He saw their spinelessness and cowardice laid bare when ‘heir to Blair’ Cameron and his homonculus Gideon Osborne reanimated the party’s corpse.
A bravura performance with so much succinct analysis and a prognosis that is becoming cleare and clearer by the day.
"But what’s so great about ‘green jobs’ anyway ?
If you scrap your petrol driven tractor, and get twenty men to pull your plough instead, then well done, you have created nineteen ‘green jobs’. But it’s hardly progress."
Blindingly obvious when explained so succinctly and accurately.
It’s hard to see clearly bc the word government suggests some kind of common interest between its members and the public. But this doesn’t exist. Why should R Sunak care if if Britain is impoverished? He’s doing alright. Far more important for him is his prestige amongst the international opinion makers and his access to global career opportunities. For him there is no failure only the end of a stage in his glittering career.
Excellent analysis as always and delivered with biting humour! What is your view on what would be worse, a small Labour majority were the extreme elements would have a de facto veto or a huge Labour majority where they are nullified? Confess it’s one of those would you rather lose an arm or a leg questions (losing neither, please).
It’s a really interesting question P. I don’t think the extreme elements will ever be nullified. They seem to hold most of the levers of power now, under a supposed Tory government. I think I’d rather the Labour Party got a fair crack at it. At least that way they’ll have no excuse when and if it all comes crashing down. But it’s definitely a great question. What do you think?
The thing about the extremes is that in a healthy democracy one does not need to 'do anything' about them -- their numbers will always be so small that they can almost be ignored. Take the Bund in America before the war -- FDR just ignored them and sure enough their numbers were never high enough for them to be much more than an embarrassment.
Nice historical reference. My understanding is that even if FDR publicly ignored the Bund, he was very happy to let the full weight of the, then not insubstantial, British intelligence and highly organised propaganda machine loose on undermining them and destroying their credibility, which they achieved. Do you think the Bund could have kept the US out of WW2, had that dirty tricks campaign not happened?
It's a matter of degree depending on the specific circumstance. My point is that the democratic ideal relies on the solid majority of the people being reasonably sane and decent people, and the freaks and maniacs being, usually, insignificant. That's not to say that steps might not, occasionally, need to be taken (Mosley), it's that most of the time the government does not need to 'save us' from them. The government does not need to 'do something' about the Moonies or the Scientologists or the Masons or, even maybe the KKK, it needs to cultivate the democratic spirit in the population at large.
Take the point about not nullifying the extremes, but looking at some of what Michael Crick has written it looks like Starmer is attempting to stack the potential new seats with “his” people. On balance I’d probably opt for a large majority on two counts. Firstly, as you say, Labour would then own what comes next. The second is the more Labour has, the less the Conservatives have. We really need the space to open up for something to happen to shake up the status quo. This requires one of the two establishment parties to lose massively and this time round that will not be Labour, only the Conservatives are vulnerable. In view of that my ideal outcome would be a massive Labour majority on a sub 50% turnout, to delegitimise them from the start.
OMG this is so brilliant. You take gallows humour into the stratosphere. I've never laughed so much at something so awful. You are a genius!
Hi Bettina. Lovely to hear from you. You are incredibly kind. But we’ve met, you know I’m no genius, just a confused man in age inappropriate clothing.
Hah! It is well known that a sense of humour is the best indicator of intelligence - and look at me in the picture on the left - still in my nightie!
I'd Like to laugh.
Yes - the article's well-written and humourous - but it's not really funny, is it, what's deliberately happening to our country?
"Not by wrath, but by laughter do we slay" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche)
When I read your essays I thank God I don’t live in the UK. At the same time I weep for what my country has become. The Immigration of people who will not integrate into the British culture and values has destroyed us. We are governed by simpering, cowardly nobodies with no knowledge of the real world because they have never worked in a company which had to make money to survive. Instead they believe in the bollocks theory of the Magic Money Tree which allows them to print and give money to anyone who shouts loudly at them.
Yes integration is the key. I’m all for people who want to come and be part of the gang. Unfortunately we’re encouraging people to come and start their own gangs, while telling them that ours is worthless. Not a recipe for social cohesion. Or economic success. Your shouting point is a topic all on its own, it’s essentially identity politics in a nutshell. Lovely to hear from you older.
The Tory party abandoned the last vestiges of Toryism in that 1997 election, going full bore down the globalised/GDP loving route. The closest they produce are financier parodies of Toryism like Rees-Mogg
Labour don't have the same appeal they had in '97, and I'll personally always rate Blair as one of the most destructive leaders any country has had in the last 80 years. Plus that 1997 success was partly built on Labour taking Scotland more or less entirely which I don't see happening in the next election.
The public overwhelmingly wants a lower cost of living, better NHS, lower immigration, more equitable financial conditions and a slightly more moral and conservative social policy. You see it every time - to the right of Labour on social policy, to the left of the Conservatives on economics.
But the public don't count, and we'll get what the big donors want which is pretty much the exact opposite.
Exactly this Samuel. As far as Blair is concerned, recollections may vary, but I quite liked him at first, at lot of us did. But in the round I think you are probably right.
Your analysis. Left on economics, right on social issues seems spot on. That echoes the findings of Matt Goodwin and Steve Davies of the IEA-who wrote a v good pamphlet on the Brexit realignment if you can be bothered to dig it out.
The public not counting is the fissure which could split the rock I think.
Thanks so much for your comment.
Unfortunately a devastatingly accurate summary. Please get this out to a wider audience!
Thanks Peter. Getting this out to a wider audience. I’ll take all the help I can get. Re stacks, recommendations, all welcome. I dont really do Twitter though. It’s just a forum for arguments it seems….
Well said! The next decade is going to be tough but, to paraphrase HL Mencken, you get the government you deserve - good and hard.
The more centralised our governance becomes the worse it seems to be. Politicians, their cronies and their acolytes in the bubble have lost the plot and we have stood by and allowed this to happen.
I believe that running a modern state is simply beyond the calibre of people we elect to do it. In fact, it's beyond the abilities of any cabal however wonderful their publicists say they are.
That’s a very very interesting take jim. The trouble is I think that the anti-democrats agree with you. That’s why they say we should do away with the politicians altogether, and let the technocrats run everything. I’m not so sure about that. But it does seem to be happening more and more. More power to unelected bodies, judges etc, less power to the elected representatives. I have no idea what the answer is. I’d automatically say localism, but look at Devolution, it’s been a disaster. Thanks so much. Lots to think about in your comment.
I think the anti-democrats would disagree with my claim that running a state is beyond any cabal. I should have made it clearer that I include unelected cabals too!
The work-in-progress that I've termed panocracy is, I believe, a way to avoid most of the issues you mention with unelected bodies, whether they're technocratic, oligarchic or tyrannical. It was motivated precisely by the moves toward incompetent and malicious centralism that have accelerated recently.
I'd be grateful for any comments you (or anyone else) may have on panocracy!
Poor ol' H.L., he is not quoted nearly enough.
I know. And I feel bad. He’s a big subscriber to LSO so it’s nice when we can give him a mention.
I actually got quite emotional reading that, in parts it was hilarious but others read like an obituary to Britain. Please don’t take that the wrong way, it’s an excellent piece as always, it’s just made me very sad!
Well Matthew, your kind comments have made me happy, so it all evens out in the end.
I want to cut and paste this article, highlight it in neon, and stick it up somewhere, to view every day. Many, many great points, LSO, you are a treat!
Maybe more traditional Christmas decorations would find favour with your family Giulia, but having said that, you have my full permission. Many thanks for your lovely comment.
Trenchant and entertaining as ever, LSO, but I had to really think about 'podgy-gal' before it clicked! 'Call me Dave' has been eating porkies, as well as telling them. ;¬D
Ha ha patrocles. Yes it doesn’t quite work. But I liked it, so I kept it in to treat myself. Ha ha your joke is better.
So accurate. Much of where we are now us the result of the Covid madness and entirely predictable, but they chose to make it even worse. I'm self-employed and struggled through 2020 (no government money for me) but as a result I very much begrudge giving my hard-earned cash to these plonkers to waste. Last year I made too much money and I will cry copious tears when I send my tax payment in January. I've learned from that and so far am looking proudly at the notice in my accounting software net profit: "You have made 8% less this month than the same time last year." That's the spirit! Expenses up, profits down and less tax to pay. Crazy that making less money is a key goal for this year.
Yep. Exactly this Pilgrim. When your high value, high skilled workers are working less hours to save money, then you clearly have something fundamentally wrong with your economic model. I also received nothing during Lockdown. I’ve always said if all government employees had been forced to take a 20% cut in wages during Lockdown, the whole thing would have been over in six weeks. Great comment. Thanks.
Excellent exposition, LSO.
Personally, as a fully accredited fruitcake loony no-longer-so-closet racist I'll be voting Reform.
Thanks David. I’m definitely not a racist. Even though malign forces keep insisting that by virtue of my skin colour I must be one. I refuse to fall into the trap of blaming other regular people, of whatever race, for our governments’/the elite’s failings. It’s the Pitchfork People Vs Torch People cartoon for me. If you know that one. https://www.americatransformation.org/p/pitchfork-vs-torch-people
I’m really interested in seeing how Reform will do. I don’t feel they are quite for me, I’d be more drawn to the SDP if they were a bit tougher on the economics.
My comment was a paraphrase of the assertion by the oleaginous David Cameron concerning UKIP voters!
https://audioboom.com/posts/1079562-david-cameron-ukip-a-bunch-of-fruitcakes-loonies-and-closet-racists
I'm not a racist by Martin Luther King's definition, but by Burn Loot Murder and Ibram X Kendi's standards, most definitely!
Ha ha . Oh yes. I’d forgotten that. I had to look up oleaginous, you’re spot on and I’ll be using it in future. Thanks!
I noticed that Netflix have made something based on Kendi’s work. Genuinely my heart sank when I saw it.
Yes. When we stopped listening to Dr King and started listening to people like Kendi we started on the road to self destruction. Loving ‘Burn Loot Murder’. I also heard ‘Buy Large Mansions’.
I really appreciate this comment. There has to be a space between the so-called anti-racism of Kendo and barely concealed racism of the Reformists. If you find it, I’ll join you there.
Peter Hitchens has long been saying that our alleged Conservative Party needs to die in order for an actual conservative political institution can take its place. This seems to at last be happening, but the downside is that we will likely have to endure either five years of Labour terror or else a period of real political, economic and civil instability. I suspect that it may be the latter as I don’t by the hype concerning another Labour landslide. Starmer is not Blair, and I don’t see Labour taking anywhere near the amount of Scottish seats as in 1997. As for the Red Wall, I suspect there will be mass abstentions, people not voting out of disgust at our vapid and incompetent political class. And who can blame them. We are cursed to live through interesting times.
Maybe you are right. I agree with your take on Labour, Starmer and Scotland. But I really think the Tory voters will stay away in droves. I know I wont vote for them. Interesting times indeed. Also. I agree with Hitchens.
Oh I agree and think Con voters will eschew the polls as well as the Red Wall. There’s only so far you can humiliate your base before they decide enough is enough.
Hitchens has been the perennial Cassandra of the commenteriat for years. He saw their spinelessness and cowardice laid bare when ‘heir to Blair’ Cameron and his homonculus Gideon Osborne reanimated the party’s corpse.
And by the way, Low Status Opinions for Prime Minister and Dominic Frisby for Chancellor.... that would be a good start.
We’ve discussed it and he isn’t prepared to take that role. So I’m going to ask Diane Abbot instead.
😂😂😂
A bravura performance with so much succinct analysis and a prognosis that is becoming cleare and clearer by the day.
"But what’s so great about ‘green jobs’ anyway ?
If you scrap your petrol driven tractor, and get twenty men to pull your plough instead, then well done, you have created nineteen ‘green jobs’. But it’s hardly progress."
Blindingly obvious when explained so succinctly and accurately.
It’s hard to see clearly bc the word government suggests some kind of common interest between its members and the public. But this doesn’t exist. Why should R Sunak care if if Britain is impoverished? He’s doing alright. Far more important for him is his prestige amongst the international opinion makers and his access to global career opportunities. For him there is no failure only the end of a stage in his glittering career.
I wish I was British, so that I might have enjoyed that essay even more than I already did.
I think I have the power to make you an associate member Ray. Let me look into it. Thanks so much.
I don't know what that means, but it sounds good :-)
It just means you are now an Honorary Englishman Ray. I’ve put your new passport, and signed photo of Michael Caine in the post.
Well that's very nice. Just so long as I get to be a real Englishman of course as opposed to a 'new' Englishman, if you get me.
Excellent analysis as always and delivered with biting humour! What is your view on what would be worse, a small Labour majority were the extreme elements would have a de facto veto or a huge Labour majority where they are nullified? Confess it’s one of those would you rather lose an arm or a leg questions (losing neither, please).
It’s a really interesting question P. I don’t think the extreme elements will ever be nullified. They seem to hold most of the levers of power now, under a supposed Tory government. I think I’d rather the Labour Party got a fair crack at it. At least that way they’ll have no excuse when and if it all comes crashing down. But it’s definitely a great question. What do you think?
The thing about the extremes is that in a healthy democracy one does not need to 'do anything' about them -- their numbers will always be so small that they can almost be ignored. Take the Bund in America before the war -- FDR just ignored them and sure enough their numbers were never high enough for them to be much more than an embarrassment.
Nice historical reference. My understanding is that even if FDR publicly ignored the Bund, he was very happy to let the full weight of the, then not insubstantial, British intelligence and highly organised propaganda machine loose on undermining them and destroying their credibility, which they achieved. Do you think the Bund could have kept the US out of WW2, had that dirty tricks campaign not happened?
It's a matter of degree depending on the specific circumstance. My point is that the democratic ideal relies on the solid majority of the people being reasonably sane and decent people, and the freaks and maniacs being, usually, insignificant. That's not to say that steps might not, occasionally, need to be taken (Mosley), it's that most of the time the government does not need to 'save us' from them. The government does not need to 'do something' about the Moonies or the Scientologists or the Masons or, even maybe the KKK, it needs to cultivate the democratic spirit in the population at large.
Take the point about not nullifying the extremes, but looking at some of what Michael Crick has written it looks like Starmer is attempting to stack the potential new seats with “his” people. On balance I’d probably opt for a large majority on two counts. Firstly, as you say, Labour would then own what comes next. The second is the more Labour has, the less the Conservatives have. We really need the space to open up for something to happen to shake up the status quo. This requires one of the two establishment parties to lose massively and this time round that will not be Labour, only the Conservatives are vulnerable. In view of that my ideal outcome would be a massive Labour majority on a sub 50% turnout, to delegitimise them from the start.