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]
|
This week it was announced that Manchester City FC – which has dominated English football in recent years – has been found guilty by an independent panel of 114 charges relating to the breaking of the Premier League’s financial rules.
- The essential charge is that the owners of the club – in essence the Government of Abu Dhabi – spent more than they were allowed to. Money was funnelled through various off-balance sheet means.
- I am not sure I am using “balance sheet” correctly.
- The judgement leaves little room for doubt. There were only ever 115 charges. The Premier League’s language is not diplomatic.
I doubt that the “appeal” will amount to much.
- I am in two minds about the rules themselves. On the one hand, I think people should be allowed to waste their money in any way they choose. On the other, I don’t like seeing clubs go bust.
- Everybody knew. This always stank.
- The investigation only came about because emails were hacked and published in – of all things – Der Spiegel. Before that the Premier League in traditional British style had turned a blind eye.
- Manchester City seem to think that denial and obstruction is the way to go. They have to know that is not the case. This may be a cultural thing.
- And a political thing. The Prime Minister has thought it a good idea to wade in. It is even beginning to look as if British politicians can be bought. Well, to those who didn’t already think that British politicians could be bought.
- Such machinations do not bode well for the integrity of the government’s recently-formed “independent” football regulator.
- Politics and sport don’t mix. The whole point about sport is that it takes you away from politics.
- This is about sporting integrity: the idea that everyone is playing by the same rules, on and off the pitch. And it is not just the principle of the thing. Sporting integrity sells.
- The Premier League must understand it will take a hit from this. A huge hit. The only real question is how big and for how long. A few years ago I took to watching the Indian Premier League (that’s cricket). It turned out that the team I had been supporting had been bribed to throw games. I haven’t watched cricket since and I doubt I ever will.
- The punishment must be severe. It is the only way that sporting integrity can be rebuilt and shown to be being rebuilt.
- There could be all sorts of claims for compensation: “…We would have had this player. We would have won this. We wouldn’t have been relegated” etc. This could take years to settle.
- Punishment must also be swift. The fans will have their say. There is going to be a very unpleasant atmosphere every time Manchester City take the field. If they take the field… What would happen, I wonder, if clubs refused to play them?
- None of the above has anything to do with the fact I am a Watford supporter and am looking forward to the day when my team wins the FA Cup despite suffering the biggest-ever defeat in a final.
Here’s a topical joke from The Ministry of Wit:
In case the link disappears, it says “Co-pilots must not stab the pilot. This is called assault.” It is parodying a Home Office leaflet called “Understanding behaviours and expectations in the UK: a guide for asylum seekers” (non-illustrated version here), which helpfully explains on page 5 that “In the UK, both people must say ‘yes’ to sex. This is called consent.”
To be fair to the Home Office, given that the top ten countries from which asylum seekers come are, in order, Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iran, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, Turkey* and Vietnam, there is a need to educate many men from the first eight of these countries that in the UK women have the legal right to refuse sex. In those eight countries marital rape is not a crime. The furore about the leaflets was because they reveal that the government knows damn well that education on sexual consent is particularly necessary for men from Muslim countries. It just doesn’t want to say so because the official ideology is that all cultures are equal. There is an ongoing legal case concerning the government’s reluctance to reveal crime figures analysed by nationality of offender.
It came after the Centre for Migration Control (CMC), a think tank, asked the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to reveal the total number of convictions broken down by nationality and offences for the seven years under freedom of information laws.
The MoJ initially refused, saying that to gather the data would be too expensive and that publishing the information could lead to the identification of individuals in breach of their rights to privacy.
Both arguments were rejected by the information watchdog. However, The Telegraph revealed last month that David Lammy, then justice secretary, sanctioned legal action seeking to overturn this ruling.
Opposition parties claimed the MoJ’s actions amounted to a “cover-up”.
One of the first political demonstrations I ever attended, over forty years ago, was in defence of refugees and asylum seekers. I still have great sympathy for those who seek freedom from oppression, such as Iranian Christians fleeing the Islamic Republic, and for the genuinely moderate Muslims – the almost comical over-use of that phrase does not mean they do not exist. But the current UK asylum regime is an illustration of the old medical saying that “the dose makes the poison.”
*My auto-correct tried to change “Turkey” to “Türkiye”. No.
“In a way, these Palestine enthusiasts resemble medieval Crusaders, who dreamt of recapturing Jerusalem because it was the place where Jesus died and rose again. Muslims, of course, detest the word `crusade’, partly because they deny the crucifixion of Jesus and regard the symbol of the cross as idolatrous, but their mentality is similar, from the other side of the religious fence. The equivalent of a crusader is a jihadi. Some of them assert a sacred right for Muslims to control the third holiest place in Islam, Jerusalem – by force if necessary.
Even those mainly white pro-Palestinian activists, presumably including Mr Polanski, who have no interest in religious questions, regard the place as holy in their political world-view. To them, it is the crucible of the `colonial’ oppression of the `wretched of the earth’ by Americans and British and `Zionists’, with their vast powers conjured up in their fevered imaginations. If I were a voter in Holborn and St Pancras, I would feel angry with any candidate playing this game. And if I were a Jewish voter, I would be afraid.”
– Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph (£)
Moore is writing about next week’s by-election for the parliamentary seat of Holborn and St Pancras. A leaflet image from the Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, a candidate, features a flag in the background that is unidentified but not the flag of his party. It is red, white and green. The unnamed flag is that of Palestine. So a candidate in an election to the House of Commons chooses, as his main flag emblem, that of a disputed geographic area, for as Moore says, Palestine isn’t and has never been a country with its own laws and government.
The late Rod Liddle, who knew how to be rude in his articles with tremendous enthusiasm, once dubbed Mr Polanski a “snaggle-toothed halfwit”. The danger is that it is too easy to dismiss this man as a fool. He is undoubtedly a very foolish man in some ways but he has a certain scruffy cunning.
Ethnicity is not an opinion, but a fact of history, intermarriage and statistics of known populations: Romano-British, Anglo-Saxon, a few Scandinavian and, later, Normans. If you care to look up ethnogenesis, pedigree collapse and “identical ancestry” you can learn that, over several hundred years and assuming intermarriage, these groups have by now mixed almost entirely.
The population statistics of England are particularly favourable to this analysis because there wasn’t much immigration, from anywhere, from the 11th up to the mid-20th century. If your family were all here in 1900, it’s reasonably probable, with the exception of a relatively small influx of Huguenots and Irish, that they were all here in 1100 and that most of them were here much earlier than that.
English ethnicity, at the end of those several centuries, is more clearly defined than most. To deny an English ethnicity is to say ethnicity does not exist, which would pose quite the shock to parts of our current political establishment.
– Isabel Paterson
David Harewood wrote a piece called “I have seen with pride how British overseas aid saves children’s lives. That is why I say cuts should be reversed”. He describes, movingly, how while visiting a hospital in Sierra Leone,
… I noticed a UK aid sticker fixed above a tiny incubator. Inside was a premature baby fighting for breath. Nearby stood oxygen equipment that staff explained had been funded through UK support. I learned that when power outages struck the hospital, as they often did, that equipment helped keep vulnerable newborns alive.
Being in the presence of these sometimes inconceivably small children, seeing the UK aid sticker labelled across the incubators that were keeping them alive, emotion completely overcame me. It was not only sadness. It was pride. Pride that people in Britain, most of whom would never meet that baby or their family, had helped make survival possible. Seven years later, that moment remains one of the most impactful of my life.
Many years ago, I turned against foreign aid – well, against most government-to-government foreign aid except immediately after natural disasters. How can I justify such a stance? Don’t I want premature babies in Sierra Leone to have incubators? I do want it. I want it very much. But take a look at this graph comparing the change in GDP per capita in current USA dollars of Sierra Leone and South Korea from 1960 to the present. In 1960, South Korea was at $158.8, a little higher than Sierra Leone’s $142.0, but still desperately poor. The next year South Korea’s figure ($94.2) was actually lower than Sierra Leone’s $142.3. I don’t know why that sudden year-on-year dip in South Korea’s wealth happened or if the effect were even real, but there can be no possible doubt about the reality of what happened over the next six and a half decades. The GDP per capita of the Republic of Korea is now $36,227.0, forty-three times higher than that of Sierra Leone, which is $846.7.
I want Sierra Leone to have incubators the way South Korea has incubators.“The Republic of Korea (South Korea) maintains excellent maternal and newborn health outcomes through its advanced healthcare system. With a maternal mortality ratio of approximately 8.1 deaths per 100,000 live births and a neonatal mortality rate of approximately 1.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, the country ranks among the world’s safest for childbirth.” South Korea did receive some foreign aid in the 1960s and 70s. Then it stopped. The country is now a donor rather than a recipient. Sierra Leone has received orders of magnitude more aid, and it has never stopped. In terms of things you can point to, like the incubators Mr Harewood saw, no doubt all that aid did some good. But in terms of that which is not seen, I believe that aid did more harm than good. The unceasing torrent of money made it less likely that Sierra Leone would do as South Korea did and so get South Korea-like outcomes.
So I’m not a fan of foreign aid. You knew that. Bet you didn’t know until you saw the headline to this post that Guardian readers are scarcely more enthusiastic about it than I am. Here are the top-level comments to Mr Harewood’s article ordered by number of recommendations:
misterrusty
27 Sep 2026 8.51
133
If Africa, which is 3 times the size of Europe stopped all the tribal infighting, it might become rich enough to support itself. The question is why a continent with such huge resources is so poor it has to rely on aid.
–
aunib
27 Sep 2026 9.07
120
We’re currently running a 4% GDP deficit and the interest on our debt is £110B a year. Charity is for surplus cash, and our government doesn’t have any of that at the moment.
–
Manchotte
27 Sep 2026 8.52
110
But the question remains: when will these African countries be able to support themselves? Sixty years since independence and they are still relying on British aid. Where did all the £100 billion go? apart from Swiss bank accounts!
–
Firtree
27 Sep 2026 9.26
92
Can someone please explain to me how it is okay for the government to borrow 10s of billions every month to keep us afloat while giving a big chunk of of it to others for free?
–
Bathreader
27 Sep 2026 8.50
83
Foreign aid is laudable but has to take its place with other priorities.Defence is the urgent priority after years of underspend.
–
The Guardian does its best to hide this preponderance of aid-sceptical sentiment among its readers by taking all eight of its “Guardian picks” from among the pro-aid comments, but anyone who sorts by “recommends”, as most people do, cannot fail to note that it is only on the sixth comment down that we finally reach one that is unambiguously in favour of foreign aid.
Edit: if the link to the graph comparing historical GDP per capita for the Republic of Korea and Sierra Leone is too much for your browser, you can generate it yourself by going to the World Bank “GDP per capita” page, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD , and entering both “Sierra Leone” and “Korea, Rep” into the search bar.
The sad reality here is that virgin steel production in the rich countries is a dying technology. We just don’t need it any more. Pretty much every steel we do want can be made from scrap in an electric arc furnace. And those few – very few – steels that cannot be won’t cover the costs of running our own blast furnace. It’s over, like hydraulic power companies and thorium lamp mantles. This is, of course, what happens with every company, every technology, eventually. It stops being worth doing so people stop doing it.
The only thing of value here is what lefties and socialists put on manly men doing manly things, buffly. And while that’s a perfectly acceptable, even sensible, kink there’s no reason why the rest of us have to pay for that. But there we are, nothing so conservative as a socialist or lefty. Nothing can ever be allowed to die off, all must be preserved.
And, you know, wouldn’t it be nice if they’d thought through what their plan was going to be before they spent the half billion? With that more – ooooh, much more – to come?
– Tim Worstall
The economist who says a policy will probably raise employment, other things being equal, is telling the truth as far as it goes. The one who says employment will rise by exactly 2.3% has mistaken a guess for a measurement, and dressed the guess up in a suit it did not earn.
Markets do not work because they are mathematically optimal but because they let millions of separate judgments, made by people with knowledge no central model could ever gather, correct each other in real time. That is not a formula. It is closer to a conversation, conducted in prices instead of words, and no economist has yet written an equation that listens as well as a market does.
– Madsen Pirie
Months before Starmer’s departure, Dominic Cummings appeared on Michael Gove and Madeline Grant’s Quite Right podcast and issued Nigel Farage with an extraordinary warning. Cummings predicted that senior figures around Whitehall would conclude that they had made a historic mistake by allowing Brexit to happen and would not repeat it with Reform. In the imagined voice of this establishment, he said: “Let’s smash the absolute living shit out of Farage and make sure that he doesn’t win it by fair means and foul.”
Cummings went further. He predicted leaks of medical records and tax records, phone bugging and the disclosure of private information.
– John Hardy (£)
Interesting factual summary from Commander Salamander…
This is where it scratches the old Cold War itch while addressing the very real fact that regardless of what happens in the Russo-Ukrainian War and with the demographics of those nations in the coming decades, the geography is not changing.
Russia is not going to disappear.
“BBC removes 11 Mitchell and Webb comedy sketches from iPlayer,” reports the BBC.
You want to see the sketches more, now, don’t you? Thank you, “Basil the Great”.
Edit: And here’s the Civil War re-enactors sketch, courtesy of Giop Saus on YouTube.
Season 2 of “That Mitchell and Webb look” was made in 2007. At that time, TM&WL’s style of comedy was seen as mildly left wing and definitely anti-racist. They certainly saw themselves that way. Almost twenty years later, the Civil War sketch is genuinely thought-provoking comedy. Within the context of the sketch, I instinctively get why Mitchell’s character stops the re-enactment after Webb’s character says, “I am going to kill you with this big machete” in an African accent. I think the fake accent coupled with a portrayal of motiveless savagery tips it over to being racist (remembering that the whole thing is a act within an act, and the man waving the machete is portrayed as being frightfully worried that his portrayal of a “real” Sudanese machete-waver might be racist). But if asked to point out exactly why the whole idea of white British people re-enacting the Second Congo War is racist, my hand does several mid-air circuits without ever quite coming in to land. Why is it perfectly OK for a man to put on a great big wig and wave a sword about in order to play a Royalist officer in the English Civil War but not OK to put on a great big wig and wave a machete about in order to play a militia leader in the Second Congo War? Is it because the re-enactor played by Webb is white and presumably is descended from ancestors who might well have fought in the English Civil War but no one (so far as I know) looking like him fought in the Second Congo War? If so, would it be equally unacceptable to have a black British re-enactor play the Cavalier – as seems to be the fashion these days?
Related post: The fact that a British person’s ancestors were not British is not shameful and need not be concealed
The charge that followed was not that I phrased it badly. It was that my position was racist.
I have two children. Both were born in England to British parents who each came here from somewhere else. They are not English either. They’re British. I said this in the very same podcast Sunak pulls quotes from in his article.
My kids also happen to be whiter than a Michael Buble Christmas album. So either I’m a racist against my own white children, or this isn’t an argument about race.
Suella Braverman, Sunak’s own former Home Secretary, responded to the row about my comments by penning an article in which she argued that as a proud British Asian she herself is not English. Is she racist against herself or is there perhaps more of a substantive discussion being had than people would like to pretend?
– Konstantin Kisin, responding to Rishi Sunak
He is even a bit of a joke by his own metrics.
|
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.
|
Recent Comments