I don’t suppose any of our readers can have failed to notice the patina of despondency that has, of late, descended upon this corner of the blogland.
I am the usual and evergreen suspect. Optimism has always stood in stark contrast to my natural grain and my comrades have long-since stopped denouncing me for it and learned to live with my periodic predictions of impending doom. However, I am but Pollyanna herself compared to Paul Marks, the poster-boy of the Euthanasia Movement.
There was a time when our brooding presence was felt but nonetheless heavily diluted by the ebullient, thematic jolliness of the remaining Samizdatistas. But now Perry de Havilland seems to have stumbled into a pit of despair and even the stomach-churningly cheerful Brian Micklethwait has ‘fessed up to an onset of the highly contagious Carr-itis.
But why, I hear you inquire. Is this a neurological condition brought on by over-exposure to the internet? Is it because we are perenially-disappointed libertarians? No, it’s because we are British:
“People are growing increasingly pessimistic, with a majority believing that Britain is “grinding to a halt”, a YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph has found.
The survey shows a country depressed by the prospect of falling pension values, failing hospitals, pot-holed roads, unspoken fears of terrorism and a possible war against Iraq.
Eighty five per cent of people worry that they can no longer rely on public services, while 53 per cent agree with foreign media reports that “nothing in Britain works”.
See, for all these years I was not being contrary, I was merely ahead of the curve and now that all my compatriots are conforming to national type, I can take nought but scant consolation in feeling vindicated.
All exhortations to cheery optimism are futile. It’s too late for therapy and prozac won’t work. We’re not depressed, we’re just British. Pity us.
David
No need for pessimism. The future is bleak enough without wishing it upon yourself. Besides, you can’t ever imagine how bad it is actually going to get. For example, “Vauxhall Motors”.
Eamon
Depending on any government to provide the wherewithall for life will only bring despair to the citizenry.
People in government are not lacking in good intentions. They are only lacking (and totally) in the abilities to provide those wherewithalls.
Be of good cheer- the Third Test starts on Friday.
How sad that all those questioned exhibit a fatalism as though they couldn’t do anything about it when all they have to do is vote for candidates who will take a different course.
What a pathetic mindset that shows to have surrendered so completely.
All very well to say, but in a country where there are basically two political parties who’ll ever get any say in what goes on, and they’ve both converged to about the same point, the choice isn’t very inspiring.
Re Pessimistic Britain.
I am surprised that it has taken this long for the general populace to realise what an absolute scam any form of Government welfare is, whether it is the NHS or the ponzi pension scheme or even the education system, which somehow has declined from being one of the best in the world to being the worst.
I now live in America, and the optimism which abounds here is so refreshing. I liken Britain to the Lowry painting of the workers leaving the factory with heads bowed, all grey and depressing. Here everyone walks with heads held high and a ready smile, and a sense of optimism….
On a recent visit to UK my overwhelming feeling was of total disappointment, everything was so third rate, old and dirty.The USSR with a thatched roof!.
I could write a book on why I think this has happened, but suffice to say that since the 1950’s I have developed o total hatred of anything Socialist, and especially when I see the damage that the Unions have wreaked on the NHS (which really was a ‘jewel in the crown’, for the first twenty years), and on Education.
Unfortunately, people have come to rely on the Welfare state, and it would take nothing short of a revolution to wean them from their reliance on it.
The very thought of the state pension being so paltry, after a lifetime of contributions is enough to make anyone depressed.
Unfortunately the Tories would not be any better, they too believe in ‘big’ government, and they are really no more than right wing socialists.
I really love England, but it is an England that I remember, and was brought up to appreciate and respect, not this current, overcrowded, socialist hell hole. Like many expat Britons here, I feel that I was forced to leave to find a decent way of life and standard of living.
Thank you for allowing me to rant. It doesn’t take much to get me going…. it’s the disappointment you know!
The problem is Her Majesty’s Government administers the entire UK. In the US if one state leans too far to the left, the productive people start to leave. We need nobody’s permission to get the hell out. I wonder how hard it really is to emigrate to the US from Euroland? How many slots are there a year?
Ernest… i fail to understand how unions have ruined the NHS, when most NHS workers are paid abonimable joke wages. Surely if the unions had been successful, at the very least nurses etc. would be well rewarded.
David, I remember exactly how it felt. I left Britain after 13 years back working in London (where I was born) in 1996 and settled here in Cape Town where paradise is here and now. Nothing much works but no one cares much, there’s a lot else going on.
The combination of having to use the Northern Line daily, 8 months of winter, extreme job insecurity, crap services, rip-off builders, and at that time IRA bombs going off in the City and near Canary Wharf (in each case places I was working at the time), not to mention a huge Islamic one in Finchley (where I lived) … oh, and a car theft and two attempted break-ins at my home… enough was enough.
Now it’s all starting again, I see: the transport chaos, the frenetic lawmaking, the strikes. And still South Africans leave here for Britain, their promised land.
Still, I do sometimes miss English irony, irreverence for authority, great bookshops, real Christmases, occasional good television.
Then I just dive into the pool, hit the beach or walk up a mountain behind my house, and the feeling goes away.
Thinking of you all …
Eighteen years to forget, five to remember
Right, that’s enough. The UK is the best most Libertarian country in the world in all sorts of ways. Why do we think so many cool folk want to live here? The food?
(Actually the food here is brilliant now as well. So there).
Where else can you meet literally quite a few intelligent interesting people who actually get the first thing about how politics *really* is, in a small flat in Pimlico with chocolate biscuits served on plates?
Excuse me, but where do most of the Samizdata people actually live?
Brian, a blog about how cool England is, if you please.
(walks off tutting and shaking her head)
Well of course the “poster boy of the euthanasia movement” must comment.
Someone suggested that we in Britain vote for different people. Who?
For example today 100 billion pounds of borrowing was announced (over the five years) – on top of vastly higher taxation and endless new regulations.
The Liberal Democrats go along with all this (and say it is too moderate).
And the Conservatives? Well Mr Howard (the Conservative finance spokesman) was asked what his policy was (on B.B.C. Radio 4) – he replied that he had not worked out a policy yet.
As for workers comming out of factories with bowed heads – what factories?
I am a security guard – all the factories that are not already closed are closing (I guard warehouses and runied former factories).
If an enemy wished to attack the British economy they would have difficulty finding any targets to bomb.
OK, if everyone hates the place that much, my suggestion is they leave and I can have more of it to myself.
Any problems with that?
Although, once you have left, will you please stop being nasty about my homeland and slag off your chosen new homes instead?
Thank you! (big smile)
The darkest hour is just before dawn.
Statism and socialist ultimately don’t work. The Brits (and even ultimately the continental Europeans) have a limited capacity to put up with this crap. We’re not there yet and things will get a bit worse before they get better. But get better they will – because the tolerance level will inevitably sooner or later be breached. What I foresee is not so much a wish list as a real expectation:
Throwing tax money at unreconstructed state monopolies and pandering to trade unionism will make zero impact on improving public services. Germany will look ever more like Japan. The left will be be voted out by an incensed middle class. The right will make the needed reforms. We’ll all calm down.
… & you mock marx for making grand and unrealistic social predictions?
This sounds as close as dammit to the essence of his arguments about why revolution was inevitable.
>>Eighty five per cent of people worry that they can no longer rely on public services, while 53 per cent agree with foreign media reports that “nothing in Britain works”.
But you cite this as if the dawning enlightenment of the British people were a bad thing. It looks like a glowing opportunity for libertarians to me.
Britain used to be called great due to it’s global influence during the empire.
This is no longer the case, and many other nations have awakened to this (all American software calls us U.K. not Great Britain!)
The past is were we where, not where we are now.
We say that we have this free healthcare, but is it.
One, it is not free (NI contributions are 10% employee and 10% employer) and you have to pay 6.20 for an item of medication. *WHAT*, 6.20 for medicine that would cost little over a pound in Europe??? If you have three medicines on a monthly basis, the price is rediculous.
Two, is it really healthcare. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has heard of bad experiences in hospitals. Cases are displayed in the media of negligence (albeit from over worked Doctors and Nurses). Why is it like this? Because there is no comeback, you can’t sue the NHS!!!
Why doesn’t everyone accept that 40 years of fiddling politians, and wasted money on administration has left us where we are now – Small Britain.