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]
Fraser Nelson, in the Daily Telegraph today, drops some truth bombs, in the form of educational attainment data, into the analysis of the mayhem in the UK this week:
Take GSCE results, due next week. Passing at least five of the tougher subjects is now called the `English baccalaureate’. Some 62 per cent of Chinese pupils took this challenge last year, as did 51 per cent of Asians and 47 per cent of blacks. White pupils finished quite a bit behind at 35 per cent. If you adjust for wealth, by looking at pupils eligible for free school meals, the picture worsens. Some 45 per cent of Asian pupils on free school meals achieve decent grades (grade 5 or higher) in English and Maths as do 40 per cent of black pupils. But just 25 per cent of white kids do so. in no other ethnic group does poverty seem to have such an impact on academic attainment. At the last count, 76 per cent of teenage girls with a Bangladeshi background went to a university, as did 71 per cent of poor black African girls. But it was just 15 per cent for poor white boys, of whom only 2 per cent ewent to a top university. (Some 42 per cent of poor Chinese girls did so.)
Nelson goes on to ponder reasons for this dispararity, a problem particularly for boys, rather than girls. This is a fact that also throws a wrench in the argument about how girls suffer from a “patriarchy” in terms of education. That seems to be long gone. The teaching profession appears to be largely dominated by women today. Richard Reeves, the British academic now working in the US, recently published an excellent book on the topic. And he’s on the liberal-left, which meant he was quite brave in pushing back at a few narratives.
Nelson:
“Lets take those who appeared in the dock of Teeside Magistrates Court after the Middlesborough riot. Each gave their address, from which you can work out neighbourhood deprivation. In the communities the accused came from, some 26 per cent were on out-of-work benefits, on average.” Further: “The British dream is working for a great many of those who came here to seek it – and we can be proud of that. But the British dream is not working out so well for working-class whites and we should be deeply disturbed by that. Now and again, politicians summon up the courage to talk about this…” Then….”nothing ever seems to be done….But as we look for the truth behind claims of British racial tension and inequality, we do see the problem of left-behind whites slowly becoming a crisis. If [Sir Keir] Starmer wants to pick an agenda from the wreckage of the last few days, he needs to look no further.”
The problem, of course, is that the Prime Minister and his colleagues are so stuck with conventional narratives that making that leap may be beyond them. But they should perhaps reflect, that having been elected to a landslide by just 35% of the electorate on a low turnout, and mainly because of anger at the Tories rather than anything for socialism, that if Labour does not make some credible moves, it is toast in a few years’ time.
This article by Tom Slater is worth reading in full, but I wanted to post these words in particular because they get to the heart, as I see it, of the current mayhem on the streets of certain British towns:
At the very least, elite identitarianism – with its crusades against whiteness and white privilege – has been a recruiting sergeant for a white-identitarian backlash.
Here is an excellent overview of the situation by Helen Dale.
This infernal dynamic is what will make tackling the new sectarianism in our midst so difficult. We have an elite that will almost certainly fight this identitarianism with more identitarianism – not to mention censorship. There’s already talk of clamping down on social media, perhaps even banning ‘Islamophobia’. The pundits are having another one of their McCarthyite spasms, demonising anyone who has ever criticised multiculturalism, mass immigration or Islamist extremism. All of which seems guaranteed to push these conversations to the margins, where blowhards can spew their bile unchallenged. All the while, the state will continue to ignore the myriad other forms of racial and religious sectarianism that have reared their head of late – not least the anti-Semitic, Islamist agitation that has been blighting Britain’s streets for 10 months now.
Those racist rioters must face the full force of the law. We must show our solidarity with the communities menaced by this violence. We also cannot allow the bigoted criminality of a tiny few to become a pretext to silence the concerns and corrode the freedoms of the many. But beyond the days and weeks ahead we also need a much, much bigger conversation about how to confront the racial thinking, ‘multicultural’ sectarianism and identity politics that have brought us to this point.
I also think that some, if not all, of the evil consequences of identity politics and the rest must be traced back to academia and what passes for intellectual activity. This situation has been brewing for years. There are a number of excellent studies about all this, but I think Cynical Theories, by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose, is as good a place to start as ever.
Unpicking all this is going to take a great deal of work. Yes, reducing net immigration, particularly from certain parts of the world, is part of it, if only to give more time for those newly arrived (legally) on these shores to be assimilated. Restricting immigration is only part of it, even if I accept that my views on it are a good deal more libertarian than others on this blog. But far more work is also needed, in my view, to push back against the idea of turning everyone into members of a tribe. Tribalism, along with emotionalism, is the curse of our age. To that point, I also recommend this short book by Objectivist writer Nikos Sotirakopoulos, whose commentaries I follow.
And one way to start changing is not play the game, as so many in the MSM and political world do, of assuming that everyone has to be addressed as part of a “community”, with their self-appointed leaders. A person living legally in the UK is a British citizen, period. No need for hyphens, community tags, whatsoever. If you see newscasters, journalists, MPs or others engaging in this, call them out. Write to them (politely) to point this all out.
And we need to kill an entitlement culture, which I suspect is widespread among the wider public, if not more so, than those who have just legally arrived on these shores. The Welfare State – at least its modern manifestation – has played a part in creating an underclass of people who are prey to the temptations of violence and easy (usually wrong) solutions. In this regard I think of two books, written some while ago, that are worth re-visiting: Mind The Gap, by Ferdinand Mount (journalist and former policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher) and Life at the Bottom, by Theodore Dalrymple, aka Anthony Daniels.
Earlier this week three girls were stabbed to death in Southport. Several others are still in hospital. A 17-year-old of foreign ancestry has been arrested. This has led to protests which in turn have led to disorder. The communist establishment has blamed the disorder on “far right” outsiders. Given how widespread the protests/riots have become we will soon have to conclude that the whole of the British “far right” live at 10A Acacia Terrace, Nether Wallop.
So, who are these “far right”-ists? Well given how often Tommy Robinson and his supporters are labelled “far right” it would seem that either of the two demos he has organised in London this year would be good places to find out. As it happens I attended both of them.
Both times I drafted but didn’t publish a light-hearted piece for Samizdata. For the second – which took place what seems a very long week ago – I imagined what a Nazi might make of it. The long and the short of it was not much but given the events of this week it didn’t seem appropriate to post it.
Given the crowd and their flags one would have to conclude that the “far right” are people who are proud of their countries of origin whether they be England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland (both bits) or Britain as a whole, Canada, Israel or pre-revolutionary Iran. One would also have to conclude that many are far from the stereotypical pissed-up, white, working-class male.
Given the speakers one would have to conclude that they are extremely sceptical about mass migration, deeply suspicious about the way the law is being administered, in favour of freedom of speech, pro-Christian, mostly Reform voters and of all the colours and sexes under the sun.
And very, very angry.
Belfast today. Is there nothing the far right cannot do?
Update I have taken on board Mr Ed’s quite correct comments and kicked myself appropriately. And Natalie’s too. The use of the word “foreigner” is, I accept, contentious.
I was going to write a post about the riot in Southport that followed the random knife murders of three young girls in that town carried out by Axel Rudakubana. Prior to Rudakubana’s name being released, a false rumour spread on social media that the perpetrator was a Muslim, leading the rioters to attack a mosque. Then I remembered I had already made the same points in this post about the riot in Dublin that took place in November 2023 following the attempted knife murder of three young children by Riad Bouchaker. I am not re-using the old post merely to save time: I am doing it to demonstrate that the two incidents have a great deal in common.
In the following quote, replace “Irish” with “British” and “would-be child murderer” with “child murderer”:
It does not excuse the riots in the least if the rioters are correct to think that the would-be child murderer is any or all of a migrant, legal or illegal, or a Muslim, or from an ethnic minority. But the obfuscation from the Irish authorities and media on this point is making the situation worse.
The usual flashpoint for riots throughout history has been a rumour of crimes committed by a member of Group A against Group B. The riots in the Lozells district of Birmingham in 2005 have been almost forgotten because whites were not involved, but they were a typical example of the type, having been sparked by a completely unsubstantiated story that a black girl had been gang-raped by a group of South Asian men.
Sometimes the rumour is true, sometimes it is not.
If, as in that case, the inciting rumour is not true, the best tool for squelching the false claim and quelling the violence is a trusted press, taking the term “press” in a wider sense than just newspapers. If the rumour is true, the best tool for quelling the violence is still a trusted press. It can do things like publicising condemnations of the crime from leaders of the group to which the perpetrator belongs. What a pity that Ireland, like much of the Western World, no longer has a trusted press because it no longer has a trustworthy press.
It’s not “Despite police not revealing the suspected knifeman’s identity or motive, far-Right thugs emboldened by “misinformation” descended on the streets of the capital”, it’s a damn sight closer to “Because of police not revealing the suspected knifeman’s identity or motive, far-Right thugs emboldened by “misinformation” descended on the streets of the capital”. If the official sources of information won’t do their jobs, don’t be surprised when people turn to unofficial sources instead.
Steve Baker, the former Conservative MP (he lost his High Wycombe seat in the 2024 general election), ex-RAF officer, and a business figure in the IT sector, drops some solid truths in his new Substack:
The evidence suggests that we cannot afford the state we have, not now and not in our lifetimes. Taxes are at historic highs and it is implausible to believe they can be raised usefully. Debt is heading into unsustainable territory and the National Insurance Fund will be exhausted in 20 years, putting a date on the currently inevitable default of the welfare state.
Moreover, the evidence is that currencies have been dramatically debased since 1971, manufacturing injustice on a vast scale in ways which are rarely and poorly understood, but which appear to be reflected in commonly-expressed grievances which have been leading to political radicalism.
The situation facing the UK and the world is extremely serious. When Rachel Reeves on Monday tells the Commons we cannot afford present spending, the Conservatives should make the most of it in the public interest.
Read it all. As Mr Baker writes, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, is due to address parliament on Monday (29 July) on the state of the UK public finances, claiming that they are so much worse than originally thought (which is disingenuous, to be polite), and hence pave the way for even more tax hikes. Mr Baker’s essay contains some fairly eye-popping charts and data points about where the UK is in terms of its total tax burden.
As I keep saying jobs are a cost not a benefit. We do not want to go around the world – or even our own country – creating costs now, do we?
No, no, jobs really are a cost, they are not a benefit. Think on it. We have some amount of human labour available to us. So, if we use that labour to do this thing here then we cannot use it to do this other thing over there. The cost to us of using the labour to do this thing is therefore losing the opportunity to do that other thing over there.
Yes, I know, people like to be able to consume. For most of us that means having an income with which we can purchase our consumption. But even to us that job is a cost. The work we’ve got to do is the cost of gaining the income. And, obviously, a job is a cost to the employer – the production is what they desire, the job is a cost of gaining it.
It’s entirely true that renewables require more human labour than other forms of energy collection and or generation. But that means they make us *poorer*.
A MAN has been branded a “criminal” after spending six hours tidying up an overhanging hedge to help locals.
Adam Myers, 22, thought he was carrying out a simple act of kindness when he chopped back grass verges on a stretch of 40mph road in the sleepy village of Broughton Moor, Cumbria.
The young lad, who has autism, jumped at the chance to fix-up the area after residents expressed concern online about walkers’ safety.
Around 10 minutes after the the chaotic bushes were strimmed and the weeds were ripped up, local cops received reports of “criminal damage”.
Adam had shared before and after pictures of his work on Facebook before being hit with backlash from the parish council.
A member of the community group commented on Adam’s post telling him he had broken the law and carried out an act of criminal damage.
The report of the incident in the Sun, quoted above, refers to a “member of the community group” reporting Adam Myers for criminal damage. However other accounts, such as the Telegraph‘s, say that the person who reported Mr Myers for criminal damage was actually a member of the parish council.
That would explain the sequel to this tale. According to the Telegraph link above,
An entire parish council has resigned after a man was reported to the police for criminal damage for clearing a roadside pavement of weeds, stinging nettles and brambles.
All seven members of the Broughton Moor parish council near Cockermouth, Cumbria, have quit following a backlash to news that Adam Myers, 22, who has autism, was reported for strimming grass verges and hedges near his home in the village.
They did not leave without a last petulant gesture:
In a statement posted on the parish council website said “As of June 20, and following an orchestrated campaign of bullying and abuse, both online and in person, against the members of the parish council and the clerk, Broughton Moor no longer has a parish council.
“All future plans for improvements for the village have been cancelled and the community centre has been closed.
If the reactions from citizens of Broughton Moor quoted by the Telegraph are typical, the now former councillors in question will not be missed. But to be fair to them – I always try to be fair to parish councillors, because the ones I know do a vast amount of work for either a tiny allowance or no money at all – there is a potential reason to object to individuals cutting hedges. The Sun may have missed that the person threatening to dob Adam Myers in was a parish councillor, but their account did include a little panel on “the rules” for cutting hedges, which said,
Under Section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, it’s an offence to intentionally damage or destroy a wild bird’s nest while it is being built or in use.
It does not say that was the reason the parish councillor or councillors objected to Adam Myers trimming roadside hedges himself; it just says that it could have been. But for that defence to work, it would have to be the case that the council lovingly inspected every hedge for birds’ nests before trimming them. Now, I have not had much chance to observe how the local councils in the vicinity of Cockermouth go about trimming hedges – though I know of a Samizdata reader who has – but I know how they do it in Essex. When the council gets round to it, which is not often, they send a vehicle equipped with a robot arm tipped by three spinning bladed wheels, whose passage instantly reduces any projecting branches of the hedge to dust. Any eggs or baby birds slumbering in their little home also get the scythed chariot treatment. The point is that someone such as Adam Myers – or such as I, since, dear readers, inspired by his example I have gone forth and done some hedgecrime myself – who laboriously snips the hedge branch by branch is infinitely more likely to see and avoid a nest than the man driving Boudicca’s chariot while wearing council-mandated goggles and ear-muffs.
So, all in all, it looks to me as if the ex-members of Broughton Moor Parish Council were annoyed at this young man for showing them up.
If we had fewer false assumptions, because we were able to connect discrete pieces of information up with their intellectual hinterlands and explain to ourselves coherently why they are likely to be true, the world would become much less “interesting “in this sense — you can’t be surprised by what you already know — but it would become more fascinating in quite another.
But perhaps a would-be technocrat like [Rory] Stewart doesn’t want you to do too much of that sort of thing — you might end up seeing through the soundbites. For all that he frequently says he wants a more intelligent kind of government, in practice he often seems uneasy with treating audiences as intellectual equals.
Over eight in 10 of the 113 temperature measuring stations opened in the last 30 years by the U.K. Met Office have been deliberately or carelessly sited in junk Class 4 and 5 locations where unnatural heating errors of 2°C and 5°C respectively are possible. This shock revelation, obtained by a recent Freedom of Information request, must cast serious doubt on the ability of the Met Office to provide a true measurement of the U.K. air temperature, a statistic that is the bedrock of support for Net Zero. Over time, increasing urban encroachment has corrupted almost the entire network of 384 stations with 77.9% of the stations rated Class 4 and 5, but it beggars belief that new stations are being sited in such locations.
A new green toolkit produced by the Royal College of Physicians tells its members they are “uniquely placed” to raise the issue in consultations and that they should “repeat it often”.
The guidance, which is can be found on the royal college’s website, also tells doctors to work from home on non-clinical shifts and offer remote consultations “where clinically appropriate” to cut emissions from commuting.
They should remain alert to “eco-distress”, depression or anxiety a patient may be suffering because of the changing climate, the document adds.
Critics branded the guidance, which is 11 pages long, “virtue signalling” and warned it could lead to diagnoses being missed.
The comment most recommended by Telegraph readers is this:
Mark Smith
Utterly utterly mad. When guidance like this is issued you know the current system is beyond repair. When patient get 10minutes with a GP, there’s little time to get a proper diagnosis and 5 of those minutes will be to receive a sermon. While the NHS is falling to bits we get this.
closely followed by this:
Andrew Bunting
Speaking as a doctor I find this diabolical.
Who has time on their hands to come up with such tosh?
In January 2011, a man called Jared Loughner tried to murder Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and did murder six others. The media rushed to blame his crime on a map put out by Sarah Palin’s campaign showing a map of the US with states that she regarded as political targets marked by crosshairs, with the names of those states’ Democratic representatives whom she hoped to unseat listed below. Loughner was a paranoid schizophrenic who held a longstanding – and bizarre – grudge against Giffords. There is no evidence he ever saw Palin’s map.
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.
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