If New Labour and the forces of evil are trying to turn the British public into a bunch of politically correct pro-European Marxist-zombie numbskulls, then it appears to be on to a lost cause, according to a recent poll in The Telegraph:
Despite the British-American forces’ spectacular military successes, only 36 per cent of voters “approve of the Government’s record to date”, only 35 per cent believe that Labour can manage the economy better than the Tories, and only 34 per cent “think the Government has been, on balance, honest and trustworthy.”
In other words, whatever the current voting-intention figures, only about a third of voters appear at all impressed with the Government’s overall performance. If anything, people’s underlying attitudes towards the Government are even more hostile.”
What, no “Falklands factor”? Just as Tony Blair was intending to fast-track us all right into the centre of the new EU superstate, the British public don’t agree with him? Oh dear, what a shame…
Well, as The Telegraph points out:
Tony Blair and his colleagues have staked their reputation on their ability to “deliver” on the economy and the major public services.
And does the British public see any delivery? Well, apparently they think that unemployment has improved and boom-and-bust has ended… but on health only 24% can see positive signs of change, and on transport the figure is a pathetic 12%. And after another six months, then a year, then longer, go by and still everyone is looking through their front window at a non-existent postman… you do the predictions.
But what about those stealth taxes, haven’t we idiots been fobbed off with another round of extortion? Maybe not:
The so-called feel-good factor – the difference between the proportion of people who think their household’s financial situation will improve over the next 12 months and the proportion who think it will deteriorate – is also showing sharp falls.
[…] A 13-point fall in little more than four weeks is extremely unusual.
Something to do with the April tax hikes, maybe?
No wonder then that:
only 34 per cent “think the Government has been, on balance, honest and trustworthy”.
We see rising taxes and still-deteriorating public services everywhere. Despite Blair’s inevitable rise in personal popularity as a result of the war, which British people generally supported, (I wish U.S. troops had access to The Sun and The Telegraph instead of the ludcrous and nasty BBC), most Brits wish he could perform as well at home as he has on foreign policy.
So, all we need now is an anti-Europe, pro-capitalist, civil-liberties advocating, free-marketeering alternative political party to vote for, and whey-hey, off we go!
What, the Tories, you say? That bunch of Neanderthals in the corner fighting over an old dinosaur bone? Oh dear…
Yes, it’s the “oh dear” that’s the worm in the spaghetti.
Just as Labour’s failures make people think, well maybe market solutions, decentralisation, public choice, responsible local government, less “outreach counsellors for traumatised multicultural whales” etc. may be a better way to go, there’s the Conservative Party.
Oh. My. God.
The Conservatives appear unable to find a path forward.
So-called modernisers: “New Labour, enriched with added Toryness! Hey you funky minorities, you’re cool with us, daddy-0!”
Traditionalists: “Under us everything was tickety-boo! Remember? What d’you mean, why didn’t we sort things out during those 15 years? Umm, would have, lost the plans behind the filing cabinet. We should rule! We’re the Tories!”
What really annoys is that as an opportunity in the ideas market opens up, the Liberal Democrats decide what they really want to be is the SWP with good table manners.
Hello, liberalism? Er, Locke, Mill, Adam Smith, Spencer, Green, anyone? Helloo!
(grumble, grump.)
Alice Bachini writes:
“So, all we need now is an anti-Europe, pro-capitalist, civil-liberties advocating, free-marketeering alternative political party to vote for, and whey-hey, off we go!”
I agree with every word, Ms. Bachini – but where is there sign of any such party?
As you go on to say:
“What, the Tories, you say? That bunch of Neanderthals in the corner fighting over an old dinosaur bone? Oh dear…”
Oh dear, indeed. Under IDS the Conservatives are barely bumping along the bottom – even when faced by a government which slips further into disgrace, discredit and contempt with every passing day.
What troubles me is the number of Lib-Dem posters I saw down in rural East Sussex last week. Time was when that area was a wonderful hotbed of UKIP support. I only hope that despair at Blair and the manifest uselessness of the Tories, hasn’t led people to ignore the ideological horror that the Lib-dems are planning.
Exactly my sentiments: where is there any such party? Other questions spring to mind: !. How does the UK electorate express its discontent; 2. Why would anyone vote for the Tory party anyway…
Last General Election I failed to vote for anyone, first time since I became eligible over thirty years ago, and in the absence of Libertarian Party candidates I can only think that this is the best tactic, in order to de-legitimise (assuming enough people did likewise) the “winning” candidate. The Tories are of course breathtakingly hypocritical, and the worst offenders in the Three Party Scam whereby they all conduct a charade of pretending to be divided by great ideological chasms, when in fact each of the major parties merely represents the soggy-Left, welfarist, statist, authoritarian status quo, separated by a very few percentage points of tax & spend.
Re the LibDems, I like John F’s description of them as “the SWP with good table manners” – wish I’d been able to use this when I attended the occasional party of my former neighbour, the Lib Dem candidate last time round. It’s great fun (& terribly easy) to provoke LibDems with canapes & glasses of wine in their hands, by exposing their sweeping claims as expensive, bureaucratic, dictatorial crap. When her extravagant predictions of electoral success failed to materialise, said candidate & her lawyer husband sold up the country cottage of course, and went back (with relief perhaps) to their flash jobs in the Smoke…
“We see rising taxes and still-deteriorating public services everywhere.”
I am not sure if this is on-topic (I’m in the US, and Monty Python is not really a good primer on politics), but I find debtor’s prison a questionable idea and this really seemed horrible –
*Debtor’s Prison* … the elderly are also getting a raw deal. The Oldie is a hugely entertaining magazine for those who are old enough to have benefited from a real education. In the March issue it reports that prisons are to build extra facilities for oldie prisoners, including those suffering from Alzheimer’s. The main reason is that England and Wales are the only countries in Europe that still jail debtors, especially those who default on local taxes, which are in the process of increasing by ten times the rate of inflation.
One couple of 74 and 78 were jailed for 28 days for alleged non payment of a £600 community charge. The husband was suffering from severe epilepsy and arthritis, while the wife, who suffered from asthma and arthritis, was doubly incontinent and wheel chair-bound. An illiterate 71 year old, suffering from terminal cancer, was also jailed, though the sentence was ultimately quashed. At the same time courts were ordered not to jail burglars, as the prisons were over-crowded. Thus not only do the old live out the dregs of their lives in fear of crime (with good statistical reason) and degrading poverty, they must add to that the possibility of imprisonment.
Now that the Chancer of the Exchequer has orchestrated a collapse of the pension system for those outside the public service, the number of old people who cannot cope is certain to rise steeply. Not only are their incomes reduced, but they are required to pay more and more tax to maintain the ever growing bureaucratic army of public employees on generous salaries and pensions (seven million and rising).
What can you say about a Government that is not only mad and incompetent but also unbelievably cruel?
I cannot see any big changes on the horizon at all.
The trouble is that the centre-left/social democratic model of high taxes and regulation has proved very popular with the British public and the argument that a decent society requires a big, heavily funded public sector has pretty much won the day.
The is a lot of grumbling around but the British are always grumbling and I don’t detect any real serious discontent. Even so, if opinion polls are to be believed (and over time that have been consistent) the British are simply not prepared to vote for any sort of tax-cutting, government-shrinking agenda.
Deeply regrettable but that is where we are at the moment.
I wouldn’t take issue with David Carr’s sentiments, but I would remind him how quickly things can change. Being temperamentally uncomfortable with the idea of “leaders”, I still have to admit to what I observe – that having a charismatic leader who can encapsulate a fundamental idea and get it across, can make an enormous difference. Blair’s monotone mantra “schoolsnhospitals”, coupled with Major’s hopeless government, was sufficient to win New Labour its landslide. There was no really deep discontent in the country then, just worry about living standards and disgust for the incumbents.
Today, there is plenty to capitalise on: appalling transport, hospitals and rising taxation (Council Tax having doubled in 10 years!). What is lacking is anyone with an ounce of ability to put that message across. Blair’s tipping point is far closer than it may seem.
“a week is a long time in politics” – remember how fast the tories went from being unbeatable to being the oppostion-in-waiting?
Dissent builds up slowly but acts rapidly.
I agree that there COULD be a tipping point – the polls suggest deep discontent with Labour’s performance on economic and social programmes.
But I can’t see Ian Whatshisname capitalising on this discontent. Maybe a bad performance in the upcoming local council elections will re-open the Tory leadership issue. Bringing back Hague – or choosing anyone with BITE – could transform UK politics in quick time.
I agree that there COULD be a tipping point – the polls suggest deep discontent with Labour’s performance on economic and social programmes.
But I can’t see Ian Whatshisname capitalising on this discontent. Maybe a bad performance in the upcoming local council elections will re-open the Tory leadership issue. Bringing back Hague – or choosing anyone with BITE – could transform UK politics in quick time.
JohninLondon – Admittedly Hague had more bite than IDS and he certainly made a greater impact on the public consciousness, although much of it was very negative – thanks in part to the Blair Broadcasting Corporation (funded by licence payers under threat of imprisonment). However, before we get carried away, let us remember that Hague said several times that he rather liked Tony Blair as a person. To me, this demonstrates a) he therefore didn’t have the stomach for a real fight. He didn’t have the hunger to destroy Blair; and b) he didn’t hate Blair and the Labour government enough. This speaks of a curious lack of perception about what Blair and the Labour government is all about. I don’t think IDS is effective, but he has a visceral hatred, articulated several times, of Blair and “New” Labour. Anyway, this is all academic, because as long as the BBC is bent on stifling debate, any Tory leader is going to be denied the oxygen of fair coverage and balanced analysis. The country is currently being run by the unelected, sinister BBC. Licence-payers are paying to have their democratic right to debate smothered.
I have to sort of semi-agree, and semi-disagree with David Carr! 🙂
I’m in agreement with him that the broad majority of the British do agree to the principle that the government can take as much as it likes from your pocket, and spend it however it will, as long as every four or five years we get a chance to vote on three narrow alternatives.
There’s a long history behind this, of Napoleonic wars introducing income tax, World War I introducing massive state control and government corruption of the money supply, World War II paving the way for the socialist government, which merely extended the massive powers the government had taken upon itself through the war years.
But mainly I think it’s through fear. Most people believe in the “single-line” political spectrum, with communists at one end, and Nazis at the other. They therefore choose to hide in the middle, with the “centrists”. They feel happy with this middle-of-the-road, Radio 2-style position, because it’s “sensible”, “avoids the extremes”, and allows all things in moderation. They don’t actually like this centrist lifestyle (as is evidenced by the majority of the population dislking New Labour, and the way most people avoid tax and pay cash, whenever they can), but feel safe within its statist boundaries. Grumbling and miserable, but safe.
Alas, we eye-popping ranting libertarians (and I describe myself listening to James Naughtie on the Today program 🙂 are seen as being on the rightward end of the single line, right there beside Herr Hitler and his SS goons.
To borrow a phrase from the BBC, we are the “right-wing” nutters, ie. Nazis (The socialism part of “national socialism” is of course, never explored). Therefore we are to be shunned at all costs. Add to this the forty years of brainwashing at Britain’s state propaganda institutes (aka. comprehensives, and the increasingly state-run Universities), and the British people are kept in a cowered state of semi-terror. Believers in the religion of government, then have them where they want them. Eating out of the palm of their hand.
Things aren’t going to change any time soon, but we must keep chipping away (or get on a jet plane to New Hampshire). The first thing we must do is bring down is the BBC. Once we can chip this away, the shield will have gone; the Guardianistas will be exposed at their core.
The health service we can leave to another day, as it will be the last sacred cow we slaughter, but once we’ve done for the BBC, the next target must be the state propaganda brainwashing institutions. We must free the schools, and free the Universities from State control; all of them.
And then, once the sausage machine has stopped spewing out useful idiots, and the people learn that national socialism is merely the most cancerous form of state socialism, and that we believers in freedom are the real centrists, who want both freedom of mind and freedom of body, then we might get somewhere.
As long as the BBC, the Guardian, and the Department of Education successfully link us in the public mind with fascism, right-wing nutters, etc, ad nauseam, we’ll never get anywhere. People will continue to remain afraid of us, and stick inside the sheep pen with their Leftist shepherd guardians.
We must also hang onto the thought that statism always sows the seeds of its own destruction through its failure to acknowledge Truth; history teaches us that one day the champagne corks will fly when Prime Minister Brown and President Blair, are ousted from office. I believe we’re already heading towards a re-run of 1979, when the government will just run out of money; witness the collapse in the City, and the predicted collapse in the housing market. (Let’s just hope Messrs Blair and Brown don’t successfully turn this major financial crisis into a vote for the “safety” of the Euro!)
And then “we’ll” be in, whoever “we” are.
Alas, the Tories are abysmal, but they’re not entirely hopeless. They already have the beginnings of a sensible education policy, and we need to tack onto this a committment to sell off the BBC. All the other nonsense we can get to later.
And there is no other serious alternative route to achieving the two aims outlined above (worse luck). Given that we are where we are, the Tories are our only route to real power. Though it makes me sick to say so.
We have to get them into power, useless statist wets that they are, and better still, take them over as Airey Neave, Sir Keith, and the Blessed Margaret did in the 1970s.
The main thing is to free the minds of the people. Once we’ve done this, we’re 80% of the way there. And then we can do a New Zealand, and slough off the rest.
In Part I Maggie got the state out of industry. It’s our job, in Part II, to get the state out of education. All we need now are charismatic leaders, determination and a big supply of Diet Dr Pepper. A very big supply! 🙂
The Oliver Letwin/Boris Johnson dream ticket may not do it for you, but this is the only realistic answer I can see to the question, “Who will liberate Great Britain?”.
Except a rather horrible alternative: We get sucked into the Euro, and the Euro constitution. In the war that follows 20 years later, to get out of Euroland, the Americans (eventually) rescue us, and make us the fifty-first state; we twin with New Hampshire.
But I really don’t want to go there.
I have to sort of semi-agree, and semi-disagree with David Carr! 🙂
I’m in agreement with him that the broad majority of the British do agree to the principle that the government can take as much as it likes from your pocket, and spend it however it will, as long as every four or five years we get a chance to vote on three narrow alternatives.
There’s a long history behind this, of Napoleonic wars introducing income tax, World War I introducing massive state control and government corruption of the money supply, World War II paving the way for the socialist government, which merely extended the massive powers the government had taken upon itself through the war years.
But mainly I think it’s through fear. Most people believe in the “single-line” political spectrum, with communists at one end, and Nazis at the other. They therefore choose to hide in the middle, with the “centrists”. They feel happy with this middle-of-the-road, Radio 2-style position, because it’s “sensible”, “avoids the extremes”, and allows all things in moderation. They don’t actually like this centrist lifestyle (as is evidenced by the majority of the population dislking New Labour, and the way most people avoid tax and pay cash, whenever they can), but feel safe within its statist boundaries. Grumbling and miserable, but safe.
Alas, we eye-popping ranting libertarians (and I describe myself listening to James Naughtie on the Today program 🙂 are seen as being on the rightward end of the single line, right there beside Herr Hitler and his SS goons.
To borrow a phrase from the BBC, we are the “right-wing” nutters, ie. Nazis (The socialism part of “national socialism” is of course, never explored). Therefore we are to be shunned at all costs. Add to this the forty years of brainwashing at Britain’s state propaganda institutes (aka. comprehensives, and the increasingly state-run Universities), and the British people are kept in a cowered state of semi-terror. Believers in the religion of government, then have them where they want them. Eating out of the palm of their hand.
Things aren’t going to change any time soon, but we must keep chipping away (or get on a jet plane to New Hampshire). The first thing we must do is bring down is the BBC. Once we can chip this away, the shield will have gone; the Guardianistas will be exposed at their core.
The health service we can leave to another day, as it will be the last sacred cow we slaughter, but once we’ve done for the BBC, the next target must be the state propaganda brainwashing institutions. We must free the schools, and free the Universities from State control; all of them.
And then, once the sausage machine has stopped spewing out useful idiots, and the people learn that national socialism is merely the most cancerous form of state socialism, and that we believers in freedom are the real centrists, who want both freedom of mind and freedom of body, then we might get somewhere.
As long as the BBC, the Guardian, and the Department of Education successfully link us in the public mind with fascism, right-wing nutters, etc, ad nauseam, we’ll never get anywhere. People will continue to remain afraid of us, and stick inside the sheep pen with their Leftist shepherd guardians.
We must also hang onto the thought that statism always sows the seeds of its own destruction through its failure to acknowledge Truth; history teaches us that one day the champagne corks will fly when Prime Minister Brown and President Blair, are ousted from office. I believe we’re already heading towards a re-run of 1979, when the government will just run out of money; witness the collapse in the City, and the predicted collapse in the housing market. (Let’s just hope Messrs Blair and Brown don’t successfully turn this major financial crisis into a vote for the “safety” of the Euro!)
And then “we’ll” be in, whoever “we” are.
Alas, the Tories are abysmal, but they’re not entirely hopeless. They already have the beginnings of a sensible education policy, and we need to tack onto this a committment to sell off the BBC. All the other nonsense we can get to later.
And there is no other serious alternative route to achieving the two aims outlined above (worse luck). Given that we are where we are, the Tories are our only route to real power. Though it makes me sick to say so.
We have to get them into power, useless statist wets that they are, and better still, take them over as Airey Neave, Sir Keith, and the Blessed Margaret did in the 1970s.
The main thing is to free the minds of the people. Once we’ve done this, we’re 80% of the way there. And then we can do a New Zealand, and slough off the rest.
In Part I Maggie got the state out of industry. It’s our job, in Part II, to get the state out of education. All we need now are charismatic leaders, determination and a big supply of Diet Dr Pepper. A very big supply! 🙂
The Oliver Letwin/Boris Johnson dream ticket may not do it for you, but this is the only realistic answer I can see to the question, “Who will liberate Great Britain?”.
Except a rather horrible alternative: We get sucked into the Euro, and the Euro constitution. In the war that follows 20 years later, to get out of Euroland, the Americans (eventually) rescue us, and make us the fifty-first state; we twin with New Hampshire.
But I really don’t want to go there.
I have to sort of semi-agree, and semi-disagree with David Carr! 🙂
I’m in agreement with him that the broad majority of the British do agree to the principle that the government can take as much as it likes from your pocket, and spend it however it will, as long as every four or five years we get a chance to vote on three narrow alternatives.
There’s a long history behind this, of Napoleonic wars introducing income tax, World War I introducing massive state control and government corruption of the money supply, World War II paving the way for the socialist government, which merely extended the massive powers the government had taken upon itself through the war years.
But mainly I think it’s through fear. Most people believe in the “single-line” political spectrum, with communists at one end, and Nazis at the other. They therefore choose to hide in the middle, with the “centrists”. They feel happy with this middle-of-the-road, Radio 2-style position, because it’s “sensible”, “avoids the extremes”, and allows all things in moderation. They don’t actually like this centrist lifestyle (as is evidenced by the majority of the population dislking New Labour, and the way most people avoid tax and pay cash, whenever they can), but feel safe within its statist boundaries. Grumbling and miserable, but safe.
Alas, we eye-popping ranting libertarians (and I describe myself listening to James Naughtie on the Today program 🙂 are seen as being on the rightward end of the single line, right there beside Herr Hitler and his SS goons.
To borrow a phrase from the BBC, we are the “right-wing” nutters, ie. Nazis (The socialism part of “national socialism” is of course, never explored). Therefore we are to be shunned at all costs. Add to this the forty years of brainwashing at Britain’s state propaganda institutes (aka. comprehensives, and the increasingly state-run Universities), and the British people are kept in a cowered state of semi-terror. Believers in the religion of government, then have them where they want them. Eating out of the palm of their hand.
Things aren’t going to change any time soon, but we must keep chipping away (or get on a jet plane to New Hampshire). The first thing we must do is bring down is the BBC. Once we can chip this away, the shield will have gone; the Guardianistas will be exposed at their core.
The health service we can leave to another day, as it will be the last sacred cow we slaughter, but once we’ve done for the BBC, the next target must be the state propaganda brainwashing institutions. We must free the schools, and free the Universities from State control; all of them.
And then, once the sausage machine has stopped spewing out useful idiots, and the people learn that national socialism is merely the most cancerous form of state socialism, and that we believers in freedom are the real centrists, who want both freedom of mind and freedom of body, then we might get somewhere.
As long as the BBC, the Guardian, and the Department of Education successfully link us in the public mind with fascism, right-wing nutters, etc, ad nauseam, we’ll never get anywhere. People will continue to remain afraid of us, and stick inside the sheep pen with their Leftist shepherd guardians.
We must also hang onto the thought that statism always sows the seeds of its own destruction through its failure to acknowledge Truth; history teaches us that one day the champagne corks will fly when Prime Minister Brown and President Blair, are ousted from office. I believe we’re already heading towards a re-run of 1979, when the government will just run out of money; witness the collapse in the City, and the predicted collapse in the housing market. (Let’s just hope Messrs Blair and Brown don’t successfully turn this major financial crisis into a vote for the “safety” of the Euro!)
And then “we’ll” be in, whoever “we” are.
Alas, the Tories are abysmal, but they’re not entirely hopeless. They already have the beginnings of a sensible education policy, and we need to tack onto this a committment to sell off the BBC. All the other nonsense we can get to later.
And there is no other serious alternative route to achieving the two aims outlined above (worse luck). Given that we are where we are, the Tories are our only route to real power. Though it makes me sick to say so.
We have to get them into power, useless statist wets that they are, and better still, take them over as Airey Neave, Sir Keith, and the Blessed Margaret did in the 1970s.
The main thing is to free the minds of the people. Once we’ve done this, we’re 80% of the way there. And then we can do a New Zealand, and slough off the rest.
In Part I Maggie got the state out of industry. It’s our job, in Part II, to get the state out of education. All we need now are charismatic leaders, determination and a big supply of Diet Dr Pepper. A very big supply! 🙂
The Oliver Letwin/Boris Johnson dream ticket may not do it for you, but this is the only realistic answer I can see to the question, “Who will liberate Great Britain?”.
Except a rather horrible alternative: We get sucked into the Euro, and the Euro constitution. In the war that follows 20 years later, to get out of Euroland, the Americans (eventually) rescue us, and make us the fifty-first state; we twin with New Hampshire.
But I really don’t want to go there.
I have to sort of semi-agree, and semi-disagree with David Carr! 🙂
I’m in agreement with him that the broad majority of the British do agree to the principle that the government can take as much as it likes from your pocket, and spend it however it will, as long as every four or five years we get a chance to vote on three narrow alternatives.
There’s a long history behind this, of Napoleonic wars introducing income tax, World War I introducing massive state control and government corruption of the money supply, World War II paving the way for the socialist government, which merely extended the massive powers the government had taken upon itself through the war years.
But mainly I think it’s through fear. Most people believe in the “single-line” political spectrum, with communists at one end, and Nazis at the other. They therefore choose to hide in the middle, with the “centrists”. They feel happy with this middle-of-the-road, Radio 2-style position, because it’s “sensible”, “avoids the extremes”, and allows all things in moderation. They don’t actually like this centrist lifestyle (as is evidenced by the majority of the population dislking New Labour, and the way most people avoid tax and pay cash, whenever they can), but feel safe within its statist boundaries. Grumbling and miserable, but safe.
Alas, we eye-popping ranting libertarians (and I describe myself listening to James Naughtie on the Today program 🙂 are seen as being on the rightward end of the single line, right there beside Herr Hitler and his SS goons.
To borrow a phrase from the BBC, we are the “right-wing” nutters, ie. Nazis (The socialism part of “national socialism” is of course, never explored). Therefore we are to be shunned at all costs. Add to this the forty years of brainwashing at Britain’s state propaganda institutes (aka. comprehensives, and the increasingly state-run Universities), and the British people are kept in a cowered state of semi-terror. Believers in the religion of government, then have them where they want them. Eating out of the palm of their hand.
Things aren’t going to change any time soon, but we must keep chipping away (or get on a jet plane to New Hampshire). The first thing we must do is bring down is the BBC. Once we can chip this away, the shield will have gone; the Guardianistas will be exposed at their core.
The health service we can leave to another day, as it will be the last sacred cow we slaughter, but once we’ve done for the BBC, the next target must be the state propaganda brainwashing institutions. We must free the schools, and free the Universities from State control; all of them.
And then, once the sausage machine has stopped spewing out useful idiots, and the people learn that national socialism is merely the most cancerous form of state socialism, and that we believers in freedom are the real centrists, who want both freedom of mind and freedom of body, then we might get somewhere.
As long as the BBC, the Guardian, and the Department of Education successfully link us in the public mind with fascism, right-wing nutters, etc, ad nauseam, we’ll never get anywhere. People will continue to remain afraid of us, and stick inside the sheep pen with their Leftist shepherd guardians.
We must also hang onto the thought that statism always sows the seeds of its own destruction through its failure to acknowledge Truth; history teaches us that one day the champagne corks will fly when Prime Minister Brown and President Blair, are ousted from office. I believe we’re already heading towards a re-run of 1979, when the government will just run out of money; witness the collapse in the City, and the predicted collapse in the housing market. (Let’s just hope Messrs Blair and Brown don’t successfully turn this major financial crisis into a vote for the “safety” of the Euro!)
And then “we’ll” be in, whoever “we” are.
Alas, the Tories are abysmal, but they’re not entirely hopeless. They already have the beginnings of a sensible education policy, and we need to tack onto this a committment to sell off the BBC. All the other nonsense we can get to later.
And there is no other serious alternative route to achieving the two aims outlined above (worse luck). Given that we are where we are, the Tories are our only route to real power. Though it makes me sick to say so.
We have to get them into power, useless statist wets that they are, and better still, take them over as Airey Neave, Sir Keith, and the Blessed Margaret did in the 1970s.
The main thing is to free the minds of the people. Once we’ve done this, we’re 80% of the way there. And then we can do a New Zealand, and slough off the rest.
In Part I Maggie got the state out of industry. It’s our job, in Part II, to get the state out of education. All we need now are charismatic leaders, determination and a big supply of Diet Dr Pepper. A very big supply! 🙂
The Oliver Letwin/Boris Johnson dream ticket may not do it for you, but this is the only realistic answer I can see to the question, “Who will liberate Great Britain?”.
Except a rather horrible alternative: We get sucked into the Euro, and the Euro constitution. In the war that follows 20 years later, to get out of Euroland, the Americans (eventually) rescue us, and make us the fifty-first state; we twin with New Hampshire.
But I really don’t want to go there.
I have to sort of semi-agree, and semi-disagree with David Carr! 🙂
I’m in agreement with him that the broad majority of the British do agree to the principle that the government can take as much as it likes from your pocket, and spend it however it will, as long as every four or five years we get a chance to vote on three narrow alternatives.
There’s a long history behind this, of Napoleonic wars introducing income tax, World War I introducing massive state control and government corruption of the money supply, World War II paving the way for the socialist government, which merely extended the massive powers the government had taken upon itself through the war years.
But mainly I think it’s through fear. Most people believe in the “single-line” political spectrum, with communists at one end, and Nazis at the other. They therefore choose to hide in the middle, with the “centrists”. They feel happy with this middle-of-the-road, Radio 2-style position, because it’s “sensible”, “avoids the extremes”, and allows all things in moderation. They don’t actually like this centrist lifestyle (as is evidenced by the majority of the population dislking New Labour, and the way most people avoid tax and pay cash, whenever they can), but feel safe within its statist boundaries. Grumbling and miserable, but safe.
Alas, we eye-popping ranting libertarians (and I describe myself listening to James Naughtie on the Today program 🙂 are seen as being on the rightward end of the single line, right there beside Herr Hitler and his SS goons.
To borrow a phrase from the BBC, we are the “right-wing” nutters, ie. Nazis (The socialism part of “national socialism” is of course, never explored). Therefore we are to be shunned at all costs. Add to this the forty years of brainwashing at Britain’s state propaganda institutes (aka. comprehensives, and the increasingly state-run Universities), and the British people are kept in a cowered state of semi-terror. Believers in the religion of government, then have them where they want them. Eating out of the palm of their hand.
Things aren’t going to change any time soon, but we must keep chipping away (or get on a jet plane to New Hampshire). The first thing we must do is bring down is the BBC. Once we can chip this away, the shield will have gone; the Guardianistas will be exposed at their core.
The health service we can leave to another day, as it will be the last sacred cow we slaughter, but once we’ve done for the BBC, the next target must be the state propaganda brainwashing institutions. We must free the schools, and free the Universities from State control; all of them.
And then, once the sausage machine has stopped spewing out useful idiots, and the people learn that national socialism is merely the most cancerous form of state socialism, and that we believers in freedom are the real centrists, who want both freedom of mind and freedom of body, then we might get somewhere.
As long as the BBC, the Guardian, and the Department of Education successfully link us in the public mind with fascism, right-wing nutters, etc, ad nauseam, we’ll never get anywhere. People will continue to remain afraid of us, and stick inside the sheep pen with their Leftist shepherd guardians.
We must also hang onto the thought that statism always sows the seeds of its own destruction through its failure to acknowledge Truth; history teaches us that one day the champagne corks will fly when Prime Minister Brown and President Blair, are ousted from office. I believe we’re already heading towards a re-run of 1979, when the government will just run out of money; witness the collapse in the City, and the predicted collapse in the housing market. (Let’s just hope Messrs Blair and Brown don’t successfully turn this major financial crisis into a vote for the “safety” of the Euro!)
And then “we’ll” be in, whoever “we” are.
Alas, the Tories are abysmal, but they’re not entirely hopeless. They already have the beginnings of a sensible education policy, and we need to tack onto this a committment to sell off the BBC. All the other nonsense we can get to later.
And there is no other serious alternative route to achieving the two aims outlined above (worse luck). Given that we are where we are, the Tories are our only route to real power. Though it makes me sick to say so.
We have to get them into power, useless statist wets that they are, and better still, take them over as Airey Neave, Sir Keith, and the Blessed Margaret did in the 1970s.
The main thing is to free the minds of the people. Once we’ve done this, we’re 80% of the way there. And then we can do a New Zealand, and slough off the rest.
In Part I Maggie got the state out of industry. It’s our job, in Part II, to get the state out of education. All we need now are charismatic leaders, determination and a big supply of Diet Dr Pepper. A very big supply! 🙂
The Oliver Letwin/Boris Johnson dream ticket may not do it for you, but this is the only realistic answer I can see to the question, “Who will liberate Great Britain?”.
Except a rather horrible alternative: We get sucked into the Euro, and the Euro constitution. In the war that follows 20 years later, to get out of Euroland, the Americans (eventually) rescue us, and make us the fifty-first state; we twin with New Hampshire.
But I really don’t want to go there.
I have to sort of semi-agree, and semi-disagree with David Carr! 🙂
I’m in agreement with him that the broad majority of the British do agree to the principle that the government can take as much as it likes from your pocket, and spend it however it will, as long as every four or five years we get a chance to vote on three narrow alternatives.
There’s a long history behind this, of Napoleonic wars introducing income tax, World War I introducing massive state control and government corruption of the money supply, World War II paving the way for the socialist government, which merely extended the massive powers the government had taken upon itself through the war years.
But mainly I think it’s through fear. Most people believe in the “single-line” political spectrum, with communists at one end, and Nazis at the other. They therefore choose to hide in the middle, with the “centrists”. They feel happy with this middle-of-the-road, Radio 2-style position, because it’s “sensible”, “avoids the extremes”, and allows all things in moderation. They don’t actually like this centrist lifestyle (as is evidenced by the majority of the population dislking New Labour, and the way most people avoid tax and pay cash, whenever they can), but feel safe within its statist boundaries. Grumbling and miserable, but safe.
Alas, we eye-popping ranting libertarians (and I describe myself listening to James Naughtie on the Today program 🙂 are seen as being on the rightward end of the single line, right there beside Herr Hitler and his SS goons.
To borrow a phrase from the BBC, we are the “right-wing” nutters, ie. Nazis (The socialism part of “national socialism” is of course, never explored). Therefore we are to be shunned at all costs. Add to this the forty years of brainwashing at Britain’s state propaganda institutes (aka. comprehensives, and the increasingly state-run Universities), and the British people are kept in a cowered state of semi-terror. Believers in the religion of government, then have them where they want them. Eating out of the palm of their hand.
Things aren’t going to change any time soon, but we must keep chipping away (or get on a jet plane to New Hampshire). The first thing we must do is bring down is the BBC. Once we can chip this away, the shield will have gone; the Guardianistas will be exposed at their core.
The health service we can leave to another day, as it will be the last sacred cow we slaughter, but once we’ve done for the BBC, the next target must be the state propaganda brainwashing institutions. We must free the schools, and free the Universities from State control; all of them.
And then, once the sausage machine has stopped spewing out useful idiots, and the people learn that national socialism is merely the most cancerous form of state socialism, and that we believers in freedom are the real centrists, who want both freedom of mind and freedom of body, then we might get somewhere.
As long as the BBC, the Guardian, and the Department of Education successfully link us in the public mind with fascism, right-wing nutters, etc, ad nauseam, we’ll never get anywhere. People will continue to remain afraid of us, and stick inside the sheep pen with their Leftist shepherd guardians.
We must also hang onto the thought that statism always sows the seeds of its own destruction through its failure to acknowledge Truth; history teaches us that one day the champagne corks will fly when Prime Minister Brown and President Blair, are ousted from office. I believe we’re already heading towards a re-run of 1979, when the government will just run out of money; witness the collapse in the City, and the predicted collapse in the housing market. (Let’s just hope Messrs Blair and Brown don’t successfully turn this major financial crisis into a vote for the “safety” of the Euro!)
And then “we’ll” be in, whoever “we” are.
Alas, the Tories are abysmal, but they’re not entirely hopeless. They already have the beginnings of a sensible education policy, and we need to tack onto this a committment to sell off the BBC. All the other nonsense we can get to later.
And there is no other serious alternative route to achieving the two aims outlined above (worse luck). Given that we are where we are, the Tories are our only route to real power. Though it makes me sick to say so.
We have to get them into power, useless statist wets that they are, and better still, take them over as Airey Neave, Sir Keith, and the Blessed Margaret did in the 1970s.
The main thing is to free the minds of the people. Once we’ve done this, we’re 80% of the way there. And then we can do a New Zealand, and slough off the rest.
In Part I Maggie got the state out of industry. It’s our job, in Part II, to get the state out of education. All we need now are charismatic leaders, determination and a big supply of Diet Dr Pepper. A very big supply! 🙂
The Oliver Letwin/Boris Johnson dream ticket may not do it for you, but this is the only realistic answer I can see to the question, “Who will liberate Great Britain?”.
Except a rather horrible alternative: We get sucked into the Euro, and the Euro constitution. In the war that follows 20 years later, to get out of Euroland, the Americans (eventually) rescue us, and make us the fifty-first state; we twin with New Hampshire.
But I really don’t want to go there.
Ordinary people don’t watch the BBC news, they watch ITN or (much better) CNN or Sky. And this will continue to happen more and more until the BBC is obsolete.
Alice, you may be right regarding the TV news, I don’t know. But there are more invidious ways of smothering debate than skewing the news, which the BBC assuredly does and which licence-payers now placidly accept. There’s Jeremy Paxman & Co. with a series of flatpack sneers ever ready for facile assembly. There’s Question Time. And similar shows where a very weak conservative thinker is pitted against three uppity lefties with a preselected leftie audience. There’s the loathesome Today programme. There are commentators like the ghastly Fergal Keane who go keening around Third World dictatorships blaming everything on Margaret Thatcher. There’s the unconscionably smug single-brain-celled Jenni Murray. And so on. Andy Duncan is right, although we got it the first time, Andy. There is no way back to democracy for Britain until the BBC feels the crunch of the wrecker’s ball – hopefully with the employees still inside. There is no debate in Britain today not because no one has anything to say, but because only the privileged are accorded a voice. This is a vile situation for a formerly great democracy to be living through
There’s no debate in Britain today because the Tories are too busy being useless and crap to start a debate.
When did Tory last start discussing some serious issue in parliament from a right-wing perspective?
The media aren’t smothering anything. There’s plenty of right-wing media, it’s just that the left-wing stuff happens to be government sponsored (of course! doh!), which is very bad, and that’s why, like milliions of others, I simply don’t listen to the BBC anymore.
But it’s only the middle classes in Britain who ever listened to it in the first place anyway: when did you last see Jim Royle sitting down to a bacon sandwich in front of “Newsnight” ?
Time for right-wing institutions in this country to get their act together and stop whingeing about being silenced. We’re starting to sound like those antiwar celebrity idiots.
see this url for explanation of the Royle reference:
http://www.python.demon.co.uk/royle.html