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Samizdata quote of the day – we are so screwed The Tories are delivering us trussed up and oven ready for full on, overt socialism/globalism/neo-fascism rather than the underhand stuff we’ve put up with for the last 12 years.
– Spectator commenter MaryR accurately summing up the UK’s future for the next few years (£)
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14 years really but yes, the comment stands. We really are screwed.
British politics is a complete charade. A bunch of clowns competing for powerless sinecures. You could send the lot home and turn the palace of Westminster into a museum of democracy for all the difference it would make. The power in British politics is in Whitehall, not Westminster.
Ever seen yesterday’s announcement I’ve been kicking myself for not following my instinct and making more effort to deal with business and personal issues in the last financial year. Now we’re looking at an October/November budget with potentially several extra months for Labour to break with convention and affect the current year “for the good of the country”.
Colleagues and advisors have told me I’m wrong and nothing can happen until 2025/26. I hope they’re right. We’re screwed anyway, that hasn’t changed, but there was a window of opportunity to take some preventative measures.
From Wikipedia:
Arguably the main parties (and some of the others too) have been, or are willing to be, political Judas goats leading us wherever the Masters of the Universe want us to go.
So, you have several years ahead of simply being wreckers.
That’s not entirely bad – it might even be fun, if you can get your own personal financial ducks in a row first. Just avoid being a Kulak.
Mr Sunak’s speech yesterday was a masterstroke in destroying his party, he stood in the pouring rain like The King of Pain, reminding everyone that he was deeply involved in the government that told you how many times a day you could leave your house (in England, it was devolved elsewhere), as if that was an achievement, and reminded us all the roaring inflation and massive fraud and waste of furlough scheme and associated plans.
If he wasn’t a Manchurian Candidate designed to destroy the Conservative Party, then why has he done such a good impression. As Hirohito said ‘We must endure the unendurable’. A few days after taking office Labour might remove Sir Keir Starmer KCB, KC in a coup and then we will see the even more blatant face of socialism, without the fake ‘cool’ of the late 1990s to cheer it along.
6 weeks to emigrate, but to where and how?
Mr Ed.
I had considered a Ken Livingstone/GLC situation but I’m fairly sure under their constitution a leader can only be removed at the party conference in September.
In a perverse way Sunak’s decision to hold an early election has also shortened the timescale before a real nutter can be installed by the commons members of the PLP. If he’d only waited until November Sir Keir would have been safe for the best part of a year.
Mind you the NEC could always have called an emergency conference for this purpose. That would have been a pretty clear indication of which wing of the party holds sway.
Yes the likely Labour government will be worse than the present elected government – which, from time to time, does put up some resistance to international leftist doctrine (not very often – but sometimes).
I am again struck by how little power a Prime Minister has – Mr Sunak is not a stupid man, indeed he is a man of rather high intelligence, and he can understand a weather forecast. But, as with Liz Truss before him, the officials and “advisers” told him to go and stand in the rain – and he did, knowing what he would look like standing-in-the-rain as he read out the statement.
President Trump or even some (some) of the State Governors would not allow themselves to be ordered about like this – there is something wrong, very wrong, with the British system of governance.
I know the sort of thing that would have been said – “you can not use the interior of Number 10 for a party political purpose” (a made up rule) or “it is a security matter Prime Minister”, or just “it is POLICY Prime Minister”. But a Prime Minister, even in 2024, could still just say “BUGGER OFF – I am going to do what I want to do, not what you want me to do”. And it would most likely be supposedly loyal “political advisers” who were pushing the Prime Minister – not Civil Servants.
“But Paul – a Prime Minister who used such language would get a charge of bullying laid against them and would have to resign as Deputy Prime Minister Raab did”.
And it was admitted that Deputy Prime Minister Raab did NOT do the things the complaint said he did – but he had to resign anyway, because a (false) complaint was made against him.
So stand in the rain it is – because one is told to do so.
The United Kingdom is ruled by officials (not just the Civil Service – the “independent regulators” are even worse), “experts”, and “advisers”. That is a very bad system of governance.
“Disraeli warned that this could eventually come to pass – 150 years ago” – I know he did, and this is just about the only matter in which I have to say that Disraeli was correct.
Very odd timing. By having a summer election, Sunak has almost guaranteed a Labour victory. It’s always been my experience that Labour voters are long in the mouth, short in the trousers. When election day comes many can’t be bothered to actually go and vote. The more overwhelmingly certain that they are that Labour will win, the less they feel individually responsible for actually going to vote. Rainy days amplify this characteristic so a May election (where weather is uncertain) or a November election (where rain is almost certain) is highly beneficial. As the last general election was in December, Sunak could easily have held on in October, November or December without even appearing to be manipulating the circumstances any more than usual. So to have it in July is strange indeed, and having it on the 4th is just plain weird.
Regarding Kier Starmer and his potential replacement with a more openly socialist “leader”, I am not sure why so many of you fear this eventuality. I actually think Starmer is more dangerous. At the moment Labour is winning more from the fact that the Conservatives are repeatedly doing the stupidest of stupid things, most people I talk to seem not too keen on Starmer. However he is very bland and forgettable, which is harmful to Labour in a GE but would be a beneficial attribute as a PM. The media don’t dislike him much, he’s more than a bit reminiscent of Teflon Tony in the way he manages to shrug off criticisms and not much sticks to him. As for his personal views, they are quite dangerous enough. He has a track record of being strongly against free speech, supports all the usual positive rights rubbish and any government he leads will be extremely authoritarian in dealing with what few liberties survive in England and Wales. I am much more worried about him than any so-called socialist, none of those type would actually be allowed to do anything anyway. If Truss was “in office, but not in power” anyone like Corbyn who actually became a PM would be equally “in office, not in power”. Starmer on the other hand is just of the same kind as the technocrats who really run the country, so he actually may be allowed to do things and the things he’ll choose to do based on his track record worry me greatly.
I agree with Alex – it’s largely been the Labour ‘moderates’ – Wilson, Blair, Brown – that are more damaging and pernicious than the earnest far leftists. Blair’s government was very revolutionary but did it in a way that lulled much of the public, press and markets for many years. A Corbyn figure would most likely be subject to a kind of ‘market shock’ similar to what pulled the rug from under Liz Truss.
The only small potential upside from the early election is that Nigel could decide to get back in as leader of the Reform party. 6 weeks of stomping around Britain then he’ll be free again.
You actually believe the “market shock” narrative?
Isn’t it the case that every generation needs to have close up and personal experience of socialism before they get it that it is a terrible idea that doesn’t work? Unfortunately Isn’t it also the case that, even after experiencing it, there are some that still don’t?
No I don’t (hence the quotation marks), but that was the narrative used to make her position effectively untenable, and plenty of people clearly did and still do believe it, or at least maintain that they do.
The whole “market shock” line was the deep state unseating a Prime Minister, very easily with next to no opposition or even awareness from the general public. Most people I’ve spoken too about this still believe it, they say “that horrible woman Liz Truss destroyed our economy”. I was no fan of hers even before she became PM but I was disappointed at how easily she was removed from power by vested interests and how effective the propaganda against her was.
Sorry for the errors in the above: “spoken too” should be “spoken to” obviously and for “removed from power” read “removed from office”. Lesson of the day is not to write comments after a long day of programming.
Yes Perry – the “Liz Truss crashed the economy” narrative is propaganda – but highly effective propaganda, showing (as with Covid, Climate and other matters) that the establishment (from the Bank of England to the media) can still play the public like a fiddle – which is deeply depressing. And the international establishment are no friends of free enterprise – “capitalists” they may be, in the sense of being very rich, but “capitalism” is something they hate – deeply hate (after all their wealth comes from Credit Money expansion – and relationships with governments, it does not come from the free market).
As for why Mr Sunak choose this election date – did he choose it? After all surely no one would choose to go and stand in the rain (without even a coat or hat – or any form of protection) in what looked very much like forced ritual humiliation – he was clearly told to do that. Was the Prime Minister also told when the election date “had to be”? I do not know. Perhaps the Prime Minister really did choose, himself, to go stand in the rain, even after seeing how Liz Truss was mocked for following instructions that “you can not use the inside of Number 10 for a party political purpose” a made-up “rule”, and had to go and stand in the rain.
As for Labour – they are worse on everything, but the “it’s their turn” insanity comes into play, as the historian David Starkey has pointed out – the British people seem about to elect a party (the Labour Party) that represents the OPPOSITE move to what the British people want.
It is the most brutal joke in British history – and, perhaps, the end of British history as a Labour government would remove what half hearted limits on mass immigration that still exist, and remove any resistance to the “Diversity and Inclusion” indoctrination and persecution agenda (with vicious levels of censorship – so no “we will back in five years” not for “racists” and “Islamophobes”) – the next few years may well be the end of “this island story” as Churchill put it. All things eventually come to an end – there is no divine right to exist, it is just unfortunate to be alive at a time when a once great culture comes-to-an-end.
John seems to be asking where to go as the United Kingdom, tragically seems to be coming to an end – I do not know, as similar trends can be seen in the Western world generally.
Perhaps there are counter arguments to all of the above – hopeful things that I am presently unable to see. Let us hope so.