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Samizdata quote of the day – things are going to get ugly

In a previous post – borrowing from C.S. Lewis – I used the word “unconciliatory” to describe Sir Keir Starmer, and I increasingly find it the most appropriate one when thinking about the tenor of governance to which we are now subject. Labour’s victory in the 2024 election was artificial and its well of support is ankle-deep; since only one in five of the electorate actually voted for the party it was already unpopular at the very point of taking office. Politicians who were not thoroughgoing mediocrities would, finding themselves in such a position, be prudent. They would recognise their priorities to be consolidation, calmness and concession – their aim would be to lay stable foundations for future governance with quiet competence. But the current crop do not really understand the word ‘prudence’, or like it. So we are patently not going to get that. We are instead going to get a programme of improvement imposed upon us from above: eat your greens, do your press-ups, and do as nanny says (oh, and hand over your pocket money while you’re at it).

This will all unravel very quickly. People will not get with the programme, because people never really do, and certainly not when it has been designed by those they actively mistrust and sense have nothing but disdain for them. And therefore, in short order, as the truth dawns on the Government that the people are not on board with its plan of action, the sense of disappointment it feels is going to turn to rage. This will in turn have the inevitable result, as the rage becomes nakedly apparent, that the population will start to kick back – mulishly, and hard.

David McGrogan

I highly commending this article, read the whole thing.

10 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – things are going to get ugly

  • bobby b

    I have two tee-shirts that simply say across the back “Kulak.” Got them at an Arizona rally last year.

    Y’all should buy some, and then wear them as you watch the upcoming trial of Dr. McGrogan for “hate.”

    (Great article. Can he say those things there?)

  • Tony Harrison

    Sorry fellas, looks like Keith has been borrowing ideas from NZ Labour and Princess Cindy….

  • Phil B

    Once again, I am reminded of Terry Pratchetts’ quote from his novel Night watch:

    People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

    As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn’t measure up.

    Seems about right for the situation at the moment.

  • Paul Marks

    Sir Keir Starmer is a typical member of the new establishment – he may even be less extreme than much of the Labour Party.

    The establishment detest liberty – especially Freedom of Speech (“Repressive Tolerance”, Herbert Marcuse, is what they think of Freedom of Speech) and wish to control every aspect of life.

    It is older than Marxism – Jeremy Bentham, perhaps NOT as a young man – but certainly in his last years, taught that every aspect of life should be under the direction of the state – that this would produce the “greatest happiness of the greatest number” and Sir Keir is merely carrying on with that line of thought and action. So are the rest of the Labour Party.

    Was the Conservative Party government a fearless defender of liberty? Hell NO – of course NOT, I myself was a victim of “Central Office” and so were colleagues (the stab in the back for saying the “wrong” thing).

    But there is a massive difference between a confused and weak (weak in fighting the officials and “experts”) government – and what we have now.

    What we have now is a House of Commons most of whose members are very much on the same page as the officials and “experts”.

    Dr David Starkey was fond of saying that the House of Commons was the one great institution that was NOT “Woke” – but now it is.

    There is now no conflict between elected politicians and officials (including “experts”) – both now have a common objective, the objective of liberticide, of the extermination of liberty.

  • Mark

    Become nakedly apparent?

    How much more apparent can it get!!

  • Fraser Orr

    @Phil B
    it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

    I think that about sums up the situation here in the US. What sort of country is stupid enough to vote in Kamala Harris as President? Apparently the people of the USA.

    As to Starmer, I suppose you all knew what you were going to get. You have to suffer his depredations to hit rock bottom before you can have hope of any form of political recovery. And just to be clear, rock bottom is way further down than you are now.

    Though TBH I didn’t actually care for the OP article. I don’t think that the government does think of the people like a machine in the sense described there. Really more a pool of resources to be mined to their own advantage. And their unwillingness to cooperate as an annoyance. I don’t think they “want them to obey” they really just want them to pay up, and not make too much of a fuss about it.

  • Paul Marks

    Fraser Orr – it is always possible that even in an honest election (unlike the election of 2020 which was as straight as a corkscrew) the people, out of lies or fear, will vote for the worse candidate.

    Franklin Roosevelt stole all monetary gold from the people, and violated all contracts, public and private, and this is just one example of his criminal behaviour (there are many others) – and he was re elected by 60% of the vote in 1936. One can talk about how people were brainwashed by the radio companies (who had to be pro “FDR” or the FCC would hit them) – but people knew what he had done, and they voted for them (so the buck stops with the voters).

    The Great Depression terrified most people – they did not understand that the Credit Money expansion had been pushed by the Federal Reserve in the late 1920s, and they did not understand everything the government (under Hoover as well as Roosevelt) had done to “fight the Depression” had made things WORSE (and had actively prevented recovery). They, the 60%, thought that if they did not vote for “FDR” they would starve to death – that only government could save them, that government was the source of all good things. That all the bad things that “FDR” had done were, somehow, necessary – and part of “saving” them.

    They, the 60%, knew, for example, that the officials of “FDR” had gone around destroying farm animals and crops to put up prices – whilst pretending to care about the poor. But, unlike the father of future President Carter – Congressman Carter, they did not care – it was all part of some “necessary” plan, which was, somehow, about “saving” the population.

    But K. Harris? Daughter of the leading Marxist Donald Harris. K. “Equity” Harris?

    Anyone who votes for K. Harris is going a lot further (vastly further) than voting for Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 – they are voting to be slaves.

    If most Americans really want to be slaves – well then bleep them, it is just a pity for the people who do NOT want to be slaves.

    Still the Dems will take no chances – they will, most likely, rig the election. Just as they did in 2020.

  • bobby b

    Sadly, for about 45% of the American voters, the analysis goes only as deep as “the Dems are the Nice Guys and the R’s are the Meanies.”

    We don’t spend enough effort showing people why economic conservatism is actually the “nice” strategy.

  • Paul Marks

    bobby b – it has gone beyond economic policy.

    Franklin Roosevelt, whatever his economic policies, was a cultural conservative – he believed in the family and other traditional cultural institutions (at least in public).

    Franklin Roosevelt would not have campaigned against the 1st and 2nd Amendments – nor would he have supported “Trans Rights” for CHILDREN (eight year old children – as Joseph Biden did, or rather was told to do so, in 2020, in the campaign that got him “81 million votes” but NOT from 81 million voters).

    The modern Democrat Party wishes to actively destroy society – they are evil, and I mean the word evil.

    It goes way beyond economic policy – as you know from the State Attorney General of your own State of Minnesota (also the State of Governor Waltz).

  • Runcie Balspune

    People will not get with the programme

    Especially after the excess deaths report comes out in Q2/2025.

    By Labour’s own admission, when they opposed May’s winter fuel allowance cut, about 4,000 old people will die.

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