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Samizdata quote of the day – we are now the nation Tony Blair wanted What we are living through today, in a phrase, is an unprecedented break in national continuity. As a country we are disconnecting from the old Britain. The Britain of our national story is disappearing, the Britain of the Romans through the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, the Tudors, Nelson and Wellington, the two world wars and even the Attlee settlement.
Gone is the Britain of Christianity and the Church as a core component of British identity, and moral judgement has become utilitarian, about what is convenient, disconnected from any traditional, let alone transcendental, set of values.
Fast receding is the Britain of real state capacity and national ambition, as we move from Victorian St Pancras to the hole in the ground at Euston, from the first nuclear power station back to the windmill.
Our national character is changing. We are, at last, becoming the “young country”, the country without a past, that Tony Blair wanted.
– David Frost (£)
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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.
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From Wikipedia:
…and perhaps Tony Blair knew that to make things different this time required the dismissal of previous comparable events.
This is no surprise if you take a long term point of view. This has always been cunningly disguised communism/socialism. No borders, no middle classes, get rid of the old and the weak, the State reigns supreme, hate speech, eternal war (now within our borders so that social control is even more effective). And people are still mystified by Reeves and her budgets and Starmer and his social policies. It’s all going towards the same goal-Reeves destroys private enterprise, Starmer destroys the British nation and erases it’s history.
Sadly Lord Frost is correct.
It does seem to be the case in the UK, that despite him leaving office 18 years ago, it doesn’t matter who you vote for in the UK, you end up with Blairism. If you’d asked me 15 years ago I’d have said differently but I now think Blair has had a much more significant long term influence on UK politics than Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher even said Blair was her greatest achievement, but when you look at the governments after Blair, a lot more have been in the Blairite mould (Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Sunak, Starmer) than the Thatcherite mould (Truss).
In terms of policy you could say ‘Brexit’ was a major break with Blairism, but the way it was implemented and policies followed in the aftermath (‘Global Britain’, immense mass immigration, technocratic trade deals, slavish foreign policy) suggest Blairism adapted to ‘Brexit’ quite well and contained it.
Also see the influence Blair has through the Tony Blair Institute. By far the most powerful still living PM. Arguably has more influence with many foreign governments than Starmer’s government has.
Martin – interesting points Sir, and I think you are correct.
I would not say we are becoming a “young country” – more “not a country”, which is what Prime Minister Blair really wanted – for this land to become part of world governance, to have no real identity of its own.
As Lord Frost knows, such as system will-not-work – it will collapse, horribly so.
I am American bred
I have seen much to hate here – much to forgive,
But in a world in which England is finished and dead,
I do not wish to live.
-Alice Duer Miller
England is not yet “finished and dead” – but in a few years it is likely to be so.
But PLEASE people – do not react to that by ending your lives, there is still much that is good in the world.
By the way – in reply to Alice Duer Miller’s “Are Women People?” (1917).
Yes – female taxpayers should have the vote, indeed they did have the vote in such States as New Jersey up to the early 1800s when the franchise was taken away from female taxpayers.
In Britain women who paid the local Property Tax (“the Rates”) had the vote for local councilors and Poor Law Guardians – but women who paid the Income Tax did not have the vote for Parliament, which is clearly not consistent.
However, Alice Duer Miller assumes, as so many people do, that law should be “made” by a “legislature” – that is not a good way to “make” law, although law “made” by officials and political judges is even worse.
Law should not be “made” – law is the application of the principle of justice, the non aggression principle, to individual cases – it is FOUND not “made” (or, at least, should be found – not made).
As for the ladies’ point about members of a “legislature” being “paid” – well perhaps they should not be paid, up to 1911 there was no salary for being a member of the British Parliament – there is no evidence that paying people money to be in Parliament produces a better Parliament.
The great danger in having a “legislature” is that people then think it should “make law”.
Let’s call a spade a spade. The problem is not Blairism, but large scale immigration of people from cultures that do not share our values and do not value our past. Yes, there are other problems but they are not as significant.
It is not inevitable, there will be a reaction further down the line. Hopefully peaceful but unfortunately people aren’t good at making changes until the consequences of their actions or inactions are staring them in their faces.
Jon Eds – I do not deny what you say.
But part of “Blairism” was to massively increase immigration – to “drown the right in diversity”.
For some Conservatives, such as Alexander Boris Johnson, to go along with this (to encourage mass migration themselves) was insane – they were digging their own graves.
Sadly we are now (2025) at the point that John Enoch Powell warned of in 1968.
Mr Powell warned that one day natural increase would take over and, after that point, stopping mass immigration would NOT prevent the unfolding crises.
We have now reached that point – even if all mass immigration stopped today, natural increase (births) would lead to crises in a few years – civil conflict on a terrible scale.
It could have been prevented, the coming horror was not inevitable.
Contrary to Mr Hume and others, humans are beings – we have free will (moral agency) different decisions could have been taken – and if mass immigration had been ended in 1968 (or even a bit later) the coming conflict would not have occurred.
We must hope that other nations, such as Hungary and Poland, learn from our terrible mistake – and the terrible mistake made in France and other nations.
President Charles De Gaulle warned against the policy that France, and Germany and other Western nations, later followed – but his warnings were ignored.
It is astonishing that our “liberal” establishment calls people with the opinions of Charles De Gaulle and Winston Churchill (for Churchill also warned against the policy) “Nazis” – when then were the leading ANTI Nazis of their time.
John Enoch Powell also fought against the Nazis in North Africa (in their little journey over the desert he taught his companion about Greek – whereas his fellow soldier told him stories about Fox Hunting, something that Mr Powell had NOT been involved in before the war) – and slept on railway platforms in India rather than going to European only clubs, and was one of the few members of the House of Commons to protest about the harsh treatment of “Mau-Mau” suspects in Kenya.
It is not “Nazi” to want to save your own nation – it is Nazi to wish to exterminate other nations, not to want to save your own.
Ethnic nationalism is entirely normal and in no way Nazi – Zionism (to give an example of ethnic nationalism) is not “Nazi” contrary to the claims of the left.