“In that lies the unspoken truth about the English and protesting. Reader, we are crap at it. The French shut down Paris, lose lives, and burn down municipal buildings in protest at a raise in the pension age, all we can manage are posh girls mucking around with soup, blue-haired Oxford undergrads sticking themselves to a floor, or railwayman who now openly admit a year of strikes has been pointless.”
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Samizdata quote of the day – dopey UK protests editionJune 2nd, 2023 |
 11 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – dopey UK protests edition |
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Hmmm,
How successful has the french penchant for destructive protest been at keeping them out of the globalist clutches, or from being a bitch of Germany?
The only time I’ve ever joined a protest was during one of the Westminster debates that had thus far just delayed brexit. I think if Westminster hadn’t actually taken us out, anyone of us would’ve been justified to storm the place and lynch its members. They like to tar people with the brush of attacking democracy yet in the instance, they were guilty if it. I think Boris saw what was brewing and mostly out of opportunism gave us a democratic solution.
It still makes me sad that the majority of Britons don’t understand what the eu is and follow the false focus of economics peddled by the establishment and media.
The French protests were a failure – and it was good that they were a failure.
I do not like President Macron, to put the matter mildly, but the idea that the French people could all retire younger than I am now, was utterly insane. The “protestors” were totally irrational – which is why I was prepared to upset some people on Twitter by saying so.
I was then told that I was a tool of the WEF and so on – when, in reality, I am just an old East Midlands councillor who has sat on audit committees a long time and knows that passion does not repeal the laws of arithmetic.
The British protests are also, mostly, pointless – demanding more money (when there is none), or more censorship (when then there is already vastly to much censorship), or an end to the use of hydrocarbons (oil, gas, coal and wood) which would mean millions-of-deaths. Such a policy really would mean the deaths of millions of British people.
I was tempted by the anti lockdown protests – but I did not go because I do not agree with the general politics of the leader of those protests, Mr Piers Corbyn. Perhaps it was cowardly of me not to go – and I was just looking for an excuse not to go.
I told myself I was waiting for a libertarian protest against the lockdowns and the rest of the insane Covid policies – protests led by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and so on, but they all seem to have been too busy reading the Economist magazine about how still higher taxes (when taxes are already at a record high) are a wonderful idea.
Why an ever-bigger-government publication (the Economist magazine) is described as a “free market” publication and put in the entrance area of the IEA has long puzzled me – I may have mentioned this before, a few times.
My recollection is that Boris was powerless to give us a democratic solution. The only way we got a general election was because the LibDems broke Remainer ranks and supported an election, assuming they would gain lots of seats. Whereupon realising that there was going to be an election anyay, Labour stopped oppsing one.
In other words it was Remainer and specifically LibDem miscalculation that got Boris off the hook constructed by Tory refuseniks, whereby he couldn’t call an election without a Commons majority calling for one. The Remainers had him by the goolies, and foolishly loosed their grip.
Boris then blew it by letting most of the Tory Remainer rebels back within the fold rather than sticking to his original, correct, decision to put their heads on poles. Naturally, they were foremost in assassinating him in due time.
Lee Moore – in 2019 Mr Johnson won a majority of 80 in the election.
He won the election – but then lost by his failure to push a clean break with the European Union and follow a policy of rolling back (rather than increasing) government spending and regulations.
On Covid the anti lockdown instincts of Mr Johnson were correct – but he then he came under terrible national and international pressure, and he cracked. Although, to be fair, even his most trusted advisers, such as Mr Dominic Cummings turn out to have been working against the United Kingdom – I thought the claims about Mr William “Bill” Gates were paranoid, till Mr Cummings admitted following the “advice” of Mr Gates on the lockdown that did such terrible harm.
Prime Minister Johnson did not realise, till too late, that his most trusted adviser was working against him – and working against the United Kingdom.
The thing about “British Protesting” is that the people running the place have generally been smart enough to defuse and remove the cause for protests. That’s why things didn’t go full-on “French Revolution” nuts back when, and why 1848 wasn’t a huge deal in the UK.
That was then, this is now… I suspect that they’re rather more into ignoring the pressure relief valve, and painting over the gauges, these days. Which will inevitably accrue some different results than we’re used to, historically.
The British public is still capable of going full-on goblin-mode on the people running the place, and when those idiots have convinced enough people that they really, truly need to do that? It will be a lot uglier than historical examples, and you’ll be unable to put an easy stop to it all.
Same thing is going on here in the US. You simply cannot demonize and marginalize the majority population demographic without getting significant push-back once they realize what is going on. We aren’t there yet, but you can see “there” from here pretty clearly, if only you’ll look.
There’s some truth to this for sure. I came across a history journal paper a few years back about 19th century election campaigns in England and about how relatively low level but common mob violence was rife at election time. Although not officially condoned a lot of the fighting and rioting was seen as almost routine. I do wonder if this kind of thing let some of the pressures to be let off and that reacting too draconially to what in most cases wasn’t much more than drunken hooliganism would have been very counterproductive.
On the other hand unlike some of the other European states who got more swept up in revolution in 1848, Britain had far away colonies it could send at least some of the most dangerous trouble makers to (Australia). England apparently had the most well organised police forces in Europe at the time. Prussian officials came over to England to try to learn from the English at the time. Perhaps crucially, England had a significant counter-revolutionary class willing to have skin in the game. Thousands of volunteer special constables were recruited to help keep order. Similarly during the 1926 general strike lots of people volunteered to temporarily replace strikers in key areas of economy. The 1920s Tories were actually very good at popular mobilisation.
Some people have suggested that Prime Minister Johnson “lied” when he said that the agreement with the European Union would mean no border down the Irish Sea, real deregulation, and real British control of the borders (no more European Court of Human Rights, originally a totally different thing from the European Union but in recent years joined at the hip with it, control of the borders and-so-on).
I do NOT think that Mr Johnson did “lie” – I think he did what politicians nearly always do, rely on the “advice” of government officials and government lawyers.
I remember Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher supporting the “Single European Act” in the mid 1980s – because the lady had been told (by officials and government lawyers) that it was a free trade agreement – it was, of course, nothing of the kind. It was legal authority for the soon to be European Union to drown us in a Tidal Wave of regulations.
Always get independent legal advice before signing any legal document.
“But Paul the system does not allow ministers to get independent legal advice from conservative lawyers – one has to follow the advice of officials and government lawyers”.
In which case democracy does not really exist – the officials and government lawyers are in charge, if one may not get-and-follow independent legal advice from outside lawyers of one’s own choosing.
I’ve heard this opinion several times before.
If we Brits burned down buildings and rioted we’d probably be told by the same people that it’s as sign of the breakdown of our society, an indication of the UK’s remorseless decline helped by our laziness, racism and stupidity.
But when such things happen in France it’s foreign, European, and therefore glamorous and even sophisticated in the minds of those who always run down the UK and idealise other countries.
“But the system can not survive if ministers seek and follow outside legal advice – and do not trust officials and government lawyers”.
In which case the administrative system is rotten to the core – and should be done away with.