Asked for his own judgement on Britain’s prospects, Cummings claimed there is a “black pill” in the fact that few societies escape the dynamics of decline that the country now appears trapped in; the “white pill”, on the other hand, is that Britain’s system has proven surprisingly resilient and adaptable in the past. He then implored the Looking for Growth membership to put aside their start-ups and to help rejuvenate the establishment. Whether and how they respond to this call will be of some consequence to the country’s future.
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Samizdata quote of the day – Dominic Cummings’ new nerd armyOctober 25th, 2025 |
 17 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Dominic Cummings’ new nerd armyLeave a Reply |
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Only two Prime Ministers in my lifetime have tried to roll back the state – Margaret Thatcher and Liz Truss, both were betrayed.
As for Mr Dominic “Lockdown” Cummings – he must decide whether his objective is to “reform” the state, or to roll it back – to reduce its size and scope. If he is interested in “reform”, in making the state more “efficient” (yet more administrative reorganizations, bringing in “better managers” and so on) then I am not interested, but if he is interested in rolling back the state (reducing its size and scope) – they he may be worth listening to.
On the matter of the British system being “resilient and adaptable in the past” – that it is an odd way to describe both the decline of liberty, the rise of the state even as a proportion of the economy, since the 1870s – some 150 years, and also Britain’s relative decline in relation to other powers for roughly the same period of time.
Already by 1876 (when Grant was still President of the United States) America had an edge when it came to where one should invest for the long term – thanks the Disraeli’s Acts of 1875, one of which gave the unions power (cue – the long term relative, relative, decline of British industry compared to other nations – and the emergence of structual unemployment – made worse by the Trade Union Act of 1906), the other Act of 1875 demanding that every city and town government undertake about 40 different tasks – whether or not local taxpayers wanted councils to do these things or not, which made a mockery of accountable government.
Although some parts of Britain, such as Kettering where I live, were still a bit freer than most of the United States up to the 1890s – as School Boards were not compulsory in England and Wales till 1891.
Income tax was the main source of government revenue in Britain, the tariff the main source of Federal Government revenue in the United States – one can argue over their relative merits (or rather demerits) – but in the early 1890s the income tax became “Progressive” (graduated) in Britain – and that is an abomination.
I have been totting up votes in recent council by elections in Britain – and I am rather disturbed by the results.
In spite of the manifest failures of statism – the parties of the left (Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green and Scots and Welsh Nationalist, and others) still seem to have more votes than the parties of the right – and that includes the Conservatives as a party of the right (which some would dispute).
How anyone in Britain, where the utter failure of the state, in everything (apart from in indoctrination – which is the main interest of the British state and establishment), is obvious, can continue to vote for even more statism, even more government spending, taxation and regulations, is baffling – it appears that the indoctrination of the education system and the “mainstream media” (including the entertainment media) is very strong here.
I noticed this during Covid – even the most obvious lies were believed by a majority British people. It was frightening – deeply so.
I did think that most people had finally come to understand that statism had failed utterly and that what is taught in the schools, universities and repeated in the media (including the entertainment media) is a tissue-of-lies, but voting behaviour casts doubt on my recent optimism.
But then, to give an example I have given before, we live in a land where the crippling Poor Law (and other) taxation that destroyed the Irish economy in the late 1840s is described as “laissez faire”. The truth is inverted.
Paul:
As you have said, the British state has been expanding since 1870. It is all people know. Many depend on the state for their existence, and in the circumstances the fact that Reform is polling at 25 to 30% is heartening. But I agree, the idea of people being sick of Labour and voting instead for the Greens, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru or Scottish Nazis makes no sense at all. None.
As for Dominic Cummings, he had his chance and he blew it. He had an opportunity to reform the state given to very few people. He was chief of staff to Boris Johnson, a rather idle prime minister with an 80 seat majority. They could have done almost anything they wanted. Unfortunately they listened to “the science” and closed the country down, with effects which will take years to settle, if they ever do. He also managed to fall out with the third Mrs Johnson, and there would only ever be one winner there. So sorry Dominic, you can say what you like, but you have no more chance of getting it done than I have, which is none.
JohnK
Yes – we British are increasingly dependent on the state, and yet how can its welfare benefits continue to buy anything without real production in the economy? The current madness, “Net Zero” (the highest energy costs on-the-planet) and yet more employment taxes and regulations (dressed up as “rights”) seems designed to destroy what is left of the productive economy.
Yet the people are told that the problem is not the size and scope of the state – but only that the wrong people are in charge, so they vote Green or Lib Dem or Plaid Cymru, or whatever. It is incredibly depressing.
As for Mr Cummings – yes he gave advice to Prime Minister Johnson and this advice was followed, the problem was that it was BAD advice (terrible advise) – for example the insane Covid lockdowns.
Paul:
I remember seeing Dominic Cummings marching down Whitehall wearing his mask. It was a 3M mask with a valve, which meant all his breath was expelled as if he were not wearing one at all. But still, it was a mask.
He also claimed at the covid inquiry that he was following the advice of Bill Gates, as if that was a good thing. Why one should follow public health advice from a rich software salesman was never explained.
Added to this the Barnard Castle nonsense and Dominic Cummings was just a liability in the end. Carrie Johnson was probably right to sack him.
Turkeys just love voting for Christmas…
I mean who can argue with Mr. Cummings? After all was it not he who organized Britain’s amazingly successful response to Covid? Especially his “rules for thee but not for me” policy?
Surely it is self evident that what Britain needs is less entrepreneurs, and a more bureaucrats?
Surely, the key to Britain’s growth is more red tape and less innovative start ups?
Regarding Cummings, something I have been thinking about a lot is why we give air time (and more importantly brain space) to all these failed loosers. I noticed it particularly because everyone is talking about KJP and her dumb new book here in the USA. I mean why? There is perhaps no dumber and less successful person in political life. Well except maybe Kamala Harris, who is apparently also cleaning up with her book and making tens of thousands on the lecture circuit. Same with Hillary Clinton, or even FFS, Chelsea Clinton. I mean these are failed useless people who have proven to be both feckless and evil.[*] Just because they are well known. So I have made it a policy to fast forward over these people and try to blank them from my brain.
[*] I suppose if someone is evil then fecklessness is a positive attribute and not a negative one.
PM – regarding votes for the left
I think there are still quite a lot of those “low information voters” who believe the propaganda coming out of the BBC, Channel 4 et al.. They think (because they have been told so by those outlets) that the Conservatives are a right-wing party that gave them fourteen years of brutal austerity in order to line the pockets of “the rich”. They cannot understand why anyone would vote for such people unless they are (a) evil, and being paid by “the rich” or (b) stupid, and misled by misinformation coming from “the rich” (and routed through sites like this one).
All we can do is keep on trying to reach them.
Tot not the votes, tot the massive media bias and investment by the state to keep it active and effective.
“we British are increasingly dependent on the state, and yet how can its welfare benefits continue to buy anything without real production in the economy? The current madness, “Net Zero” (the highest energy costs on-the-planet) and yet more employment taxes and regulations (dressed up as “rights”) seems designed to destroy what is left of the productive economy.”
I have said many times that I don’t think we vote our way out of this, because the votes aren’t there to do so as Paul Marks is noticing. Things will only change when they have to. When the pound has just dropped 25% overnight on the exchanges, when the market won’t lend to the UK other than at extortionate rates (or in a hard currency only) THEN (and only then) will the decisions be made that need to be made. And who knows at that critical point if those changes will be enough to right the ship? Quite possibly not, because who believes the drunk making promises from the gutter to give up the booze, only to backslide the moment the pressure is off?
There’s too many people in the UK who don’t want to face reality – the country is broke, they aren’t owed a living doing SFA on other people’s money, and it’s necessary to actually work for a living. And to be frank why on earth would they vote for reality, when its so harsh? They will keep voting for free stuff until reality is forced down their throats. And when that happens its unlikely to be a peaceful transition to something different.
Jim – it is indeed a grim situation and it is going to get a lot grimmer.
And the message of Sarah Powell, newly elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, is that the government has not been “bold” enough in its policies of even more government spending, taxes and regulations – in short her message, to quote an old film, is “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”.
Barbarus, Fenster662 and Dan Souter.
Yes indeed – and it is very hard to know what to do in relation to people who say such things as “public spending was cut by the Conservatives” (no it was not) and “Liz Truss crashed the economy” (the lady was not allowed to do anything – and was trying to save the country, but was not allowed to).
Fraser Orr and JohnK.
Yes, the more one more considers Mr Cummings the odder he is revealed to be – for example this is a man who, with Covid (which he kept saying was a deadly disease – and did kill a lot of people) who drove all the way from London to County Durham – with his children with him in the car, supposedly because he wanted his children (filled with his germs) to be with their grandparents if he (Mr Cummings) and his wife died.
As you both say, he pushed for XYZ regulations (because Mr William “Bill” Gates, a man with no medical qualifications, told him to do so) – and then broke all his own regulations.
He also has this obsession with making the state “efficient” – rather than reducing its size and scope.
In the Republic of Ireland “democracy” means only pro mass immigration candidates being allowed to stand for election to be President – the Irish people responded to this by the majority-not-voting and many of those who did vote spoiled their ballot papers (and understandably so).
The winner of this farcical “election” wants (along with other interesting policies) to wipe out the seven million Jews of Israel – this the lady calls an “anti” genocide policy.
And in Britain the newly elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (as I say above) wants even “bolder” policies of more government spending, higher taxes, and more regulations – her campaign slogan might as well be “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”.
It is all quite disturbing.
The only good news viz the Irish Presidency fiasco is that the useless woman has no real power. The Irish presidency is little more than a sinecure for retiring establishment politicians of the right virtue signalling bent.
Which is why Conor McGregor never stood a chance being even nominated, never mind elected.
Not that I give a fiddlers cuss for Mr. McGregor, but he’d still have been more worthy than the Jew hating racist who was actually “elected”.
No. This was a classic establishment stitch up.
Dan Souter.
Not only did most Irish people not vote – but many of those people who did “vote” (i.e. turned up to the polling stations) spoiled their ballots as a protest.
The establishment allowed no anti mass immigration candidates – and what was done in a Presidential election could be done in a Parliamentary election (“we must not have RACIST parties” could be the line followed – with “racist” speech punished by fines and imprisonment) – and not just in Ireland.
There is a massive international cover up going on – most people do not seem to know that most Irish people did not vote (as a protest) and that very large numbers of those people who did “vote” spoiled their ballot papers as a protest against a farcical “election”.
Democracy is being murdered in Ireland – and this may well be a trial run for other nations.
These things are payments in kind for services rendered. Just like the Obaminations book and Netflix series vaporware. Speaking tours serve the same function.
Write a book and get a massive advance. Then have thousands of copies get bought by foundations or your own campaign slush fund. The unwanted books then either end up donated to public libraries or the landfill.
I wondered who actually bought these books.
I did read Margaret Thatcher’s memoirs and Alan Clark’s diaries about twenty years ago and think they’re all good (easy to get 2nd hand cheap too), but outside that I feel absolutely zero wish to read memoirs of contemporary politicians at all.