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Samizdata quote of the day

Why does the BBC sneer about Britain’s recovery but go crazy if Euroland’s corpse so much as twitches?

Stephen Glover

In fact I suspect the UK’s “recovery” is as bogus as the Euro-zone’s “recovery” but the approach of the BBC is nevertheless… interesting… in a very predictable sense.

11 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Regional

    How can there be a recovery if debt is increasing?

  • Paul Marks

    The Conservative party had 18 years (1979 to 1997) with a majority in the House of Commons – yet the BBC tax (the “license fee”) remained.

    By the way – if anyone doubts that BBC is far left (not just Social Democrat – but real hard core Red) then listen to their “comedy” shows on Radio Four.

  • Lee Moore

    Why does the BBC sneer about Britain’s recovery but go crazy if Euroland’s corpse so much as twitches?

    First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?

  • AKM

    Don’t worry, the BBC will happily go crazy about the smallest sign of an improving British economy… just as soon as Labour win a general election.

  • Richard Thomas

    Regional, I’m surprised that the economy can function at all with the huge dead weight that modern government is attached to it. It is the enterprise and industry of private individuals (from the ultra-rich “fat cats” to the man on the shop floor) that make things work and make things better.

    When I think of how far we have come since, say, 1950 and I consider the technologies involved and then I let my mind wander to what would have been without government helping themselves to a huge chunk of everything on the way in everything while you have it and everything on the way out, I feel a little sad and have to think of something else.

    Of course, I don’t pick 1950 for any particular reason, f*cked up governments have been holding things back from time immemorial.

  • embutler

    its easier for the bbc to lie about other countries..

  • veryretired

    Just wait until the inevitable crash, at which time the beeb and the rest can breathlessly and indignantly report that it’s all the fault of those evil (jewish) bankers and their corporate running dogs.

    You know it’s coming, and so do they,

  • Paul Marks

    veryretired – agreed.

    The left even managed to pretend that the bankruptcy of the city government of Detroit (for 50 years the poster child of leftist policies) was due to wicked corporations – including the people who (foolishly) lent it money to keep go going.

    They will do the same when Illinois goes bankrupt – indeed when the West in general crashes (as you rightly point out that it will).

    The “Occupy” crowd are also full of anti-Semites – but the msm does not report this.

    As for British anti-Semitism – somehow Muslims killing Muslims in Egypt was the fault of the Jews (lots of people telephoned the BBC “Any Answers” call-in show to explain why this was so…..).

  • Nick (nice-guy) Gray

    A Jew was sitting next to a gentile at a pub, and the gentile was in a foul mood.
    “You know, you Jews are to blame for all the major disasters! WW1 and WW2, the Great Depression, the sinking of the Titanic-”
    “Now hold on there!”, interrupted the Jew. “You cannot possibly blame that on us! That was an iceberg!”
    “Iceberg, Steinberg, Rosenberg, you’re all the same!”

  • Paul Marks

    Nick I know it does not make any sense – and my instinct is to laugh at it.

    But Europe (unlike Australia and New Zealand) has a tradition of these mad bastards (and I use the words “mad bastards” quite cold bloodedly – I have not lost my temper) gaining power.

    And I must stress that the people who the telephone in to BBC talk shows (and so on) are nice middle class people, “well educated” and regular readers of the “Guadian” and the “Independent”.

    No doubt for the above I will be “accused” of thinking in terms of good and evil (a “charge” to which I plead guilty). Evil does exist – and many people often do evil things in the full knowledge that what they do is evil.

    I knew many such people at school – and in 20 years as a security guard I met many more. People who do evil things (to the helpless) that in no way benefit them (other than the joy they get at the suffering of others) – and they KNOW what they choose to do is evil.

    Intellectual history point….

    The above shows that Plato and co (“evil” is just an error of knowledge)) are wrong – and that Harold Prichard, Sir William David Ross (and so on) are right.

    And, unlike R.G. Collingwood, I do believe that the correct way to approach the history of thought is to first ask “what did this person believe” (the historical question) and then ask “were they right” (the philosophical question).

    Collingwood (and others) argued over hundreds of pages and with incredible complexity that this is the wrong approach.

    General rule of thumb….(not always true – but often true).

    If someone has to use incredible complex language – they are WRONG.

    What is normally needed is NOT “deep” thinking – what is needed is BASIC thinking (Common Sense).

    The less intelligent person may actually be better at this than the more intelligent person – as the very intelligent person may trap themselves in the complexity of their own thinking.

    Fail to see the obvious.

  • Pardone

    There is no recovery. The economy is like a dying rat, pooping and vomiting and limping along. Osborne is wasting billions of taxpayer’s money on Baby Boomer Welfare. The media is dominated by the self same smug Islingtonites who are milking the system for their own gain.

    The amoral, narcissistic Baby Boomers will refuse to leave the trough, of that we can be certain. They will throw the rest of us under the bus and have us pay their pensions while they strip away ours. Scum.

    > Ponzi economy built on pretend money
    > Falling wages
    > Rising inflation
    > Rising tuition fees
    > Artificially Inflated House Prices (entirely for the benefit of Boomers and politicians)
    > Ridiculously expensive (and utterly crap) public transport, where Britons pay to subsidize German trains. Why should the UK taxpayer be funding German railways, indeed why should the UK taxpayer be funding any railways?
    > Bloated, fat foreign energy cartels; again, the Briton finds himself subsidizing foreign (French) energy. I’m sure that’s nice for the French, but not for us.