Everything the Tories did to crash the economy, Labour criticised them for doing too little of.
– Guy Herbert
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Samizdata quote of the dayAugust 5th, 2022 |
 13 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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The natz outbid Labour in their criticism of the Tories, and outperformed the Tories in harming their country. Scotland had longer lockdowns and higher rates of infection, and at times had to ask the UK for help in keeping ambulances running, etc..
However, just to show how nationalist they were, their Scottish contact tracing app was incompatible with the UK one – you could not have both installed on your phone simultaneously. It made a great excuse for border-crossing Scottish Brits like us to use neither.
Also their threats of what they’d do to any traitors who tried to cross the border to the land of (alas, very relative) freedom, and what they’d do to any such who succeeded but then tried to return home again, were as aggressively spoken as all their other commands, but in our experience their actual ability to patrol Scotland’s southern border was more Bidenish.
The Tory Party is run by people incompetent, ignorant, disconnected from reality, baselessly self-confident.
It’s therefore a wonderment, a genuinely amazing achievement that Labour manages to be absolutely worse on every level, all across the board.
That is not just a phenomenon of the UK.
Now that Labor [their spelling] is in Government here in Oz they are now setting out to outdo the so called conservatives they have replaced on the Government benches and had failed to go to the extremes demanded by Labor [their spelling] while in opposition.
Perhaps it’s just business as usual?
In ‘The Revolution Was‘ Garet Garrett quotes Aristotle:
They had forgotten their Aristotle. More than 2,000 years ago he wrote of what can
happen within the form, when “one thing takes the place of another, so that the ancient laws will
remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about revolution in the
state.”
The blame lies with those who implemented the actual policies and spending, not with those who might have been worse.
However, remember that in 1997, John Major boasted in the General Election ‘We have spent more than Labour promised to spend’ (in 1992), as it it were an achievement.
Guy Herbert and Niall are correct – both the Labour Party and the so called Nationalist parties suggested (and in the case of the SNP imposed) even more extreme lockdown policies and more wold government spending.
However, Mr Ed is also correct – the people who imposed a policy must carry the blame for it. And that means Prime Minister Johnson, and Chancellor Sunak.
One can not spend over 400 Billion Pounds on-top-of an already bloated budget – and be considered fit for public office.
As for the lockdown policy – it did NOT “save lives” and was done largely because it was the international fashion to follow the (alleged) example of the People’s Republic of China (whether China ever really had a nationwide lockdown I very much doubt). People such as Dominic Cummings and William “Bill” Gates are not medical doctors – no one should have listened to them. No Secretary of State for Health should have gone down the lockdown road.
I am afraid I can not remember the name of the Secretary of State for Health at the time of the lockdowns – but whoever they were, they should not be in high office again.
As for the injection policy – it was repeatedly claimed that the injections were “safe and effective” neither of these claims has stood the test of time.
Arrogance Ignorance And Greed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u2ill7yOZo
It was Matt Hancock.
CJ Nerd – thank you. Yes like the computer man (again not a medical doctor) Professor Ferguson of Imperial College, I believe that Mr Hancock broke his own lockdown rules with sexual activity. Why can these people not control themselves? And as they do not control themselves – why should they have the right to control anyone else?
By the way – we have left a few things. Government spending was going up well BEFORE Covid, and the “Net Zero” agenda has also done terrible harm to the economy.
I voted for Mr Johnson – but I have to admit he was not a good Prime Minister, even before Covid government spending and government economic regulations were going up (not down).
Mr Johnson was far more in the tradition of Disraeli than Lord Liverpool – and I think he would agree with that assessment. That Mr Johnson would be proud to be associated with Disraeli (lots of “Social Reform” – i.e. bigger and more interventionist government) – and would be dismissive of Lord Liverpool (overlooking the winning of the Napoleonic Wars, the restoration of Gold Money, the abolition of Income Tax, the getting rid of the Death Penalty for many crimes…..).
Even the Conservative historian David Starkey is a Disraeli fan – being a Conservative in the Nationalist sense, rather than a roll back the state sense.
As for the “argument” that the problem was “arrogance, ignorance and greed” Firstly it is not an argument – no argument or evidence is presented, just a song. This is the problem with trying to engage with the “left wing mind” – as they reject mind (reject reason), as Mises used to say they “measure a room, announce that it is too small – and then assume they have made an argument for state intervention, when they have done nothing of the kind”.
As Guy Herbert pointed out in the quote that is the post (is it really too much to ask that someone reads a post before commenting upon that post?) the Labour Party asked for a more extreme version of all the economically damaging policies the British government followed.
So if the British government was directed by “arrogance, ignorance and greed” one must conclude that that the Labour Party was even more directed by “arrogance, ignorance and greed”.
It is possible that the people singing the song hold that position (the logical conclusion of their “argument”), but I suspect that this is unlikely.
As for being paid in “gold” (yes I did listen to the song) – well, yes, this would be wonderful – but it is not the case in the United Kingdom, or any other country that I know of.
The difference being, the Labour party told us what they would do. The ‘Tory party’ lied, lied, and lied again.
We gave the Tories the largest and most secure majority for years, yet Johnson squandered it utterly!
Just like we knew what to expect from the labour party, we had reasonable expectations from the Tories.
Those expectations didn’t include the nationalization of the entire economy, introduction of a police state and fascist medical kleptocracy.
@Paul Marks
“As for the “argument” that the problem was “arrogance, ignorance and greed” Firstly it is not an argument – no argument or evidence is presented, just a song. This is the problem with trying to engage with the “left wing mind”
I don’t often disagree with you, but this one time it needs to be pointed-out that Show Of Hands might be old-school liberal, but certainly not “left wing” as a definitive and set position.
Exhibit A (m’lud) – “We Need Roots” – from the same source, and Al Beeb deemed that too right-wing. Or perhaps too “traditional”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5h4PFBuzvw
And we learn to be ashamed before we walk
Of the way we look, and the way we talk
Without our stories or our songs
How will we know where we come from?
I’ve lost St. George in the Union Jack
It’s my flag too and I want it back
Make people feel ashamed of their own history? Doesn’t that theme sound familiar to Samizdata folk? “We Need Roots” could even be an Anti-Woke theme song.
Sure, true enough, but whatever, I think the salient points here are:
(1) there are currently no meaningful political alternatives on offer. It is either the Stupid Party or the Evil Party.
(2) this also needs to be thrown in the faces of Labour types acting as if they are in any way better. They are worse, and that is quite an achievement.
There is currently no solution to this problem, unless Liz Truss is vastly better than I expect her to be.