We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Samizdata quote of the day We need successful people in frontline politics. Indeed, there should be more of them. I’d take Sunak any day over a person filled with resentment and spite who imagines Westminster to be a forum to carry out revenge attacks on anyone who has been successful in life.
– Douglas Murray, writing about UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak. He has been getting heat over how his wife, who is an Indian citizen, is very rich via her family, and who has benefited from the entirely legal status known as being a resident non-domicile. Whatever else I might write about Sunak (his tax rises, such as for National Insurance Contributions, are indefensible), attacking a legal tax status of a spouse because the spouse is “rich” is nothing more than a mob baying over someone who has more than they have. It is ugly for various reasons. If Brexit is to to succeed, being a country full of resentful socialists is unlikely to work.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
If they aren’t resentful, they probably aren’t socialists.
Everyone sitting round the cabinet table is nothing more than a PR person for their department, no actual ability is required or desired. What difference to policy did replacing Matt Hancock make? None whatsoever. I’ll never forget that that political titan Jaqui Smith was supposedly home secretary.
Had Sunak argued the country couldn’t afford lockdowns I’d be happy to back him for PM, but he appears to have been content to go along with it and is now trying to claw back money which should never have been spent in the first place.
There is clearly an internal Tory Party “we need to do Sunak’s legs” operation going on, meaning the Boris faction thinks Boris is vulnerable due to Partygate & sees Sunak as the main threat.
Putting the non-dom status to one side, I think he’d still be politically vulnerable in the current climate because the wife has shares in her father’s company, which up until yesterday, seemed to have quite close links to Russia and the Putin government. Whether that makes them fair game for criticism I don’t know, but in this climate having any financial links with Russia is definitely going to be a magnet for criticism.
Perry, I don’t doubt that the Boris J supporters are trying to get Sunak. At the same time, the Labour Party knows, sadly, that going on about rich people is red meat to a lot of voters who won’t pick up the nuances of these issues when taxes and energy costs are going up. (The voters won’t stop to reflect on how Labour supported much of the Johnson spending splurge and has shown no desire to rein in spending, and hence tax.)