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