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]
|
Labour and its fixation on Net Zero must also take responsibility for the pending death of British Steel. It was Labour, in 2023, that promised to invest in ‘all available clean-steel technologies… innovations to make the UK a world leader in clean steel’. In the same press release, then leader of the opposition Keir Starmer committed to ‘greening the steel that will make the solar panels and wind turbines built to power our homes for years to come’. This was thoroughly delusional. Not only are solar panels and wind turbines not the answer to our energy needs, but there also aren’t even any British factories making solar panels at present.
Similarly, it was Jonathan Reynolds, in February this year, who claimed that decarbonising steel ‘will never mean deindustrialisation’, boasting of Britain’s ‘world-leading research and development capabilities’ in the sector. But this isn’t true. Between 2021 and 2023, Tata, a leading investor in steel research and development, spent just £11million annually on ‘green steel’ research. It will take many more millions (and many more years) for decarbonisation to ever result in anything but deindustrialisation.
– James Woudhuysen
My only objection to this article is it should read “The Labour and Tory fixation on Net Zero must also take responsibility…”
I know he trash-talks. I know that much of what he says is aimed at his base, so it should be taken with a pinch of salt, but this is bizarre. Greenland is not part of the United States and has no desire to be. If the USA wants to enter into trade talks that give them mineral rights or even defensive bases, then fine. But talk of taking it is no different to what is going on in Ukraine – a bigger, hostile neighbour taking by force. In reality, they could do it. Greenland could not withstand an invasion, and despite its tough talk, Denmark would be unable to offer much assistance. Denmark, like the rest of Europe, is weak defensively, and the US administration knows it. Despite the trash-talking, I really don’t think he would go that far.
Would he?
As I say, what the Hell is going on here?
– Longrider
But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at our case and conclude from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?
– Thucydides nails it. For once I agree with Rory Stewart, which is disconcerting.
As most of you will know, I covered the sentencing of the Southport Killer live on Twitter/X as event unfolded in the courtroom on 23 January 2025.
During the hearing, I created a timeline recounting what happened on the day of the attack, minute-by-minute, so that the public could see the full horror of this attack, and what had been kept out of the media.
This was followed by indirect criticism from Merseyside Police who claimed the families had asked for the details of the case not to be published. This had been a lie, told for the convenience of the Police who did not want a riot to breakout as a result of their lies and inaction.
– Charlie Bentley-Astor
Read the whole thing.
Keep comments relevant.
The first lockdown in the UK did not technically have legal force until three days after Johnson’s address. But that didn’t stop police going after people almost immediately. This may sound like a trivial oversight, but it does underscore the authoritarian nature of how lockdown rules were made and imposed. For a brief period at least, police were arresting people on the basis not of laws passed democratically in parliament, but on the mere words of the prime minister, merely because they had been uttered in a television broadcast. This really did bring Britain into ‘police state’ territory.
– Fraser Myers
Why? How many real-life, off-screen cases of femicide has Tate actually been provably linked with? Not as many as a casual newspaper reader may be led to presume. Andrew didn’t bomb all those little girls to death at the Manchester Arena a few years back, did he? Mere days after Adolescence went up on Netflix, the UK’s counter-terrorism tsar, Robin Simcox, released a report into 100 convicted UK-based terrorists arrested between 2004 and 2021, analysing their “mindset material”, like social media activity. This found that, of the 100 studied, 85 could be classed as Islamists, 14 as ‘far-Right’ (whatever that even is now) and… one as being an incel. Appropriately enough, really, for such a committed breed of professional loners.
– Steven Tucker (£)
Defining the benefit of spending as who gets the money rather than what gets bought is economic insanity. We might have a little insight there as to why government control of the economy ends up impoverishing.
– Tim Worstall
“The Russians are deemed to have agency: the could stop the war. Hamas are treated as if they lack self-determination: they are not held accountable for their crimes or expected to release hostages. Excuses are found for them, in a classic case of the racism of low expectations. Every attack on Israel triggers demands that Jerusalem surrenders territory, that it helps those seeking to exterminate it; things are that are (correctly) never demanded of Ukraine.”
– Allister Heath, in an excellent take-down of the double-think that seems to operate with the UK government and much of the political/chattering classes about what is going on in Ukraine/Russia and Israel one against various Islamist forces. (Article is behind paywall.)
Elon Musk should understand that the priority here is that no more Teslas get burned, and that he should not have provoked aggressive lunatics in the first place. He should be told by GM and Toyota, who are brokering a truce, to surrender his ownership stake immediately.
– Tim Newman
“I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. I send them over land and sea, I send them east and west; But after they have worked for me, I give them all a rest.
>I let them rest from nine till five, For I am busy then, As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea, For they are hungry men. But different folk have different views; I know a person small— She keeps ten million serving-men, Who get no rest at all!
She sends’em abroad on her own affairs, From the second she opens her eyes— One million Hows, two million Wheres, And seven million Whys!”
– Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories (1902)
In fact, he wasn’t the only one and, lacking Dan’s modesty, I’m happy to name myself as one of the first journalists to oppose the lockdown policy, along with Peter Hitchens, Allison Pearson, Ross Clark, Julia Hartley-Brewer and a handful of others. But Dan is right to emphasise how one-sided the debate was, with almost everyone falling in behind the government. He singles out human-rights lawyers as missing in action, given that this was ‘the greatest interference with personal liberty in our history’ (Jonathan Sumption), and we can add the ‘neo-republican’ political theorists who champion the Roman conception of liberty as self-rule, such as Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit. Both those intellectual giants defended the policy.
I thought I could count on the Tufton Street mafia to weigh in on my side – after all, aren’t they wedded to the principle that ‘government is best that governs least’? Surely, paying people not to work, forcing businesses to close and increasing public expenditure by £400 billion was anathema to them? But most of the right-wing policy wonks became enthusiastic supporters of the Covid restrictions, a group I dubbed ‘libertarians for lockdown’. Boris Johnson passed the initial test with flying colours, urging the public to ‘take it on the chin’, but soon fell into lockstep with the more cautious people surrounding him, including my political lodestars Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings. As someone who’d shared foxholes with them during the Brexit wars, that was heartbreaking.
– Toby Young
The notion that Russia is inherently stronger than Europe is false, of course — Europe has a lot more people and a lot more heavy industry. All the pushups in the world haven’t prevented the vaunted Russian military from turning in a decidedly lackluster performance in Ukraine. But to the American right, perceptions and posturing and vibes are often more important than numbers and statistics. Russia gives off strength, so it must be strong.
And to the American right, strength is everything in international affairs. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and concepts like the rules-based international order or international law are laughable. If Russia and Europe are to fight, Trump and company want to bet on the side with the shirtless pushups.
– Noah Smith
|
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.
|
