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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

Mrs May is like a self-inflicted bullet lodged near the heart of the Conservative Party after a botched political suicide – Cameron’s resignation. Leaving it there for now or operating are the options. The risks of the general anaesthetic, cutting open the chest and infection seem rather unattractive to the patient, who has a mountain to climb, but leaving the bullet in risks fatal damage upon any exertion.

The bullet seems to think that it has a mandate to go on and dig deeper, like a Nazgûl knife blade fragment going for Frodo’s heart.

Mr. Ed of this parish

19 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Jacob

    “a botched political suicide – Cameron’s resignation”

    So, you, suddenly, miss Cameron?

  • pete

    Somebody has to be Prime Minister during the post-Brexit political chaos which we now experience.

    It doesn’t really matter who it is. There is nobody who wouldn’t have struggled in the job after such an event which shocked and appalled the vast majority of the UK’s political class, and left them bewildered and unsure how to implement something they dislike.

    Once we are out of the EU things will settle down.

  • Once we are out of the EU things will settle down.

    Optimist sighting! You don’t think the establishment is going to do everything they can to slow down and possibly even stop the process? If only to punish all you louts who ruined their party, they’ll be pouncing on every opportunity to honour the memory of Fabius Maximus.

  • Mr Ecks

    Mr Ed–a nice piece of prose.

    Apart from being FAR too polite to the stupid evil bitch of course.

  • RRS

    Looking on from afar, I wonder what is the remaining role (or function) of “Party” in the Britsh parliamentary system (provision for an executive).

    “Afar” includes space and time.

    Have there been changes of the kinds observed in the U S in the past 70+ years I have been a participating voter?

  • Eric

    It doesn’t really matter who it is. There is nobody who wouldn’t have struggled in the job after such an event which shocked and appalled the vast majority of the UK’s political class, and left them bewildered and unsure how to implement something they dislike.

    It may be any person in her position would be facing a daunting task, but she’s made particular hash of it. It’s difficult to imagine how she could have been worse.

  • John Galt III

    I assume you are all patriotic and lovers of your country, but at what point do you just pack it in and emigrate? Western Europe from here looks hopeless. In the US we can at least go to Texas and similar places. I personally know Germans who have moved to the Visegrad Group of nations, but where would you Brits likely go?

    Just askin’

  • Chip

    They are leaving. About 1 in 10 highly skilled British workers now lives overseas, according to a UCL study a couple years ago.

    Meanwhile, new arrivals are 6 times more likely to have never worked, and a quarter of all innumerate people are immigrants.

    At some point Labour will succeed with its plan to forever tilt long-term demography to the Left.

  • Nicholas (Unlicenced Joker) Gray

    Don’t come here to Australia! We had a Fathers-day tv ad cancelled because it was thought to be ‘political’ in our current arguments over same-sex marriage. We also have a Prime Minister who is supposed to be right-wing, but could also lead the Labor Party, he is so centralist. We are also debating what to do with statues commemorating historic people- i.e. was Captain Cook a good guy for discovering Australia, or should the Aborigines blame everything on him?

  • Edward

    John Galt III wrote:

    I assume you are all patriotic and lovers of your country, but at what point do you just pack it in and emigrate? Western Europe from here looks hopeless. In the US we can at least go to Texas and similar places. I personally know Germans who have moved to the Visegrad Group of nations, but where would you Brits likely go?

    Just askin’

    NEVER. Never EVER give up. We stand and fight HERE. That’s the point of Brexit, to prove that you can always bring freedom back, no matter how bad it appears.

    We have to take freedom back. We can’t keep running; all too soon you’re out of places to run to. We won’t run; we’ll stand, and we’ll fight!

    Maggie started it, the Brexit vote continued it, and now we’ll finish the job! The banner of liberty will wave once more over this blessed plot, this earth, this realm.

    This England. This Great Britain.

  • Tomsmith

    At what point do you just pack it in and emigrate?

    There is nowhere to emigrate to. All of the Anglosphere countries are afflicted with this disease. And the other European countries are worse.

  • PeterT

    the other European countries are worse

    Not entirely true by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, by many measures the Anglosphere countries are worse, at least culturally. There are notable exceptions like Sweden, which totally jumped the SJW shark a long time ago (by some, this country might be considered insane and devoid of any sense of self preservation), but Switzerland, Czech Republic and so on aren’t as bad as the UK.

  • Watchman

    JG III,

    You realise we just voted to get out of the western European morass-organisation, and despite the views of the pessimists (why do pessimists think optimists are unusual anyway? We’re hardly hard to find) there is no real chance of this not happening? One major party is committed, the other major party’s leader wants it, as do their traditional voting base (who are now so soft anyway so can’t be alienated – the MPs in Labour seats in the north are not supporting the idea of not really leaving that some of their metropolitan colleagues seem to be pushing) even if they have a vocal metropolitan tendency trying to portray a different image, and there is no major popular support for revoking the vote (actual analysis of voter views indicates that far more who voted remain want us to leave following the vote than those who voted leave who want us to remain – the counterimage is a myth pushed without any evidence that I’ve seen). Apparently the demos of the UK respect democratic decisions far more than the political classes and media types.

    So we can stand and fight on our own rules soon. Should be fun. No need to go anywhere else (and isn’t Texas due to become majority Hispanic at some point – not that that is really a separate ethnic identity in any real sense, but it seems you Americans take it seriously).

  • Tomsmith

    Not entirely true by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, by many measures the Anglosphere countries are worse, at least culturally. There are notable exceptions like Sweden, which totally jumped the SJW shark a long time ago (by some, this country might be considered insane and devoid of any sense of self preservation), but Switzerland, Czech Republic and so on aren’t as bad as the UK.

    The Anglosphere countries are worse than countries like Spain, France, Portugal, Greece in the sense of a well developed self hatred, manic and perverse left, rampant PC I agree. Countries like those though have a deep seated political corruption that does not exist in the Anglosphere and those people are probably more likely to be straight up betrayed by their leaders. Culturally they are not as much of a mess as the Anglosphere, politically more so.

    Countries like Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway are much worse off than the Anglosphere and are well on the way to disappearing.

    Countries like Hungary, Poland, Czech are currently not as much of a mess in either sense as the Anglosphere but are unlikely to be strong enough on their own. They have probably just not been interesting enough to destroy until now.

    Switzerland is an anomaly, but it is still changing fast. It is also small.

  • James Hargrave

    Nicholas Gray

    So you think that Malcolm Turncoat is centrist? If he were, that would be an improvement. And look at the rest of his cabinet… most unmemorable except when exhibiting particular ineptitude.

  • Paul Marks

    According to the “mainstream” media and the “educated” classes – Mrs May is a hardcore free market type and British patriot. I suppose compared to those utter scumbags Cameron-and-Osborne the lady looks that way – but no she is not.

    Sadly many of cabinet (including the Chancellor and the defacto Deputy Prime Minister – Comrade Green) are actually worse than Mrs May – people such as Hammond and Green (and others) are fanatical in their hatred of this country and their support for the “educated” elite. As usual if anyone wants to send me a cyanide capsule it would be well received.

    We voted to leave the European Union – to recover our independence, not be subject to the laws of the European Union any more. Yet we have a “Remainer” Prime Minister (the unelected leader of the Conservative Party) whose Orwellian named “Great Repeal Bill” does not repeal a single E.U. regulation (on the contrary it incorporates all of them into British law – en bloc) and “Remainers” in most of the key positions of government.

    Independence can only be a success if it is real – if it actually means deregulation, low government spending and low taxes. And that is the last thing “Remainers” such as Philip Hammond and Damian Green want. And who appointed these useless people? Another “Remainer” appointed them.

  • tomsmith

    Independence can only be a success if it is real – if it actually means deregulation, low government spending and low taxes.

    I guess in a way it would also be “real” if it meant Corbynism and the UK changing into Venezuela.

  • Paul Marks

    tomsmith – the Corbyn Labour Party supports “soft Brexit”- i.e. the power of the European Union to impose any regulations it feels like on life inside the United Kingdom (those who imply that the “Single Market” is about Free Trade – lie).

    That does not sound like real independence.

    Tomsmith – look at the fertility rate of countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain. They are actually “disappearing”. Not “strong cultures” really.

    And Political Correctness is common in the European Union – indeed spreading it to countries that do not want it, is part of what the European Union is about.

    The idea that the E.U. is some sort of alternative to an “Anglosphere” that is corrupt with Frankfurt School of Marxism ideas is mistaken – because the E.U. is just as corrupt with Frankfurt School of Marxism ideas.

    As I often point out – it was Frankfurt Germany, not Frankfurt Kentucky.

    Donald Trump has many faults (as I have often pointed out over the years) – but he is not P.C.

    What Western European country could someone as un P.C. as Donald Trump be the head of government of?

  • Paul Marks

    There is more noise about P.C. in the context of the United States – because there is resistance to it there.

    In Western Europe it is accepted – almost without discussion.