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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 – the Uniparty is not even hiding that it is the Uniparty anymore There are also no prizes for guessing why Sir Keir is behaving in such an anti-democratic fashion. “If there is a Conservative government, I can sleep at night,” he said. “If there was a Right-wing government in the United Kingdom, that would be a different proposition.” He couldn’t have summarised the phenomenon of the uniparty any better if he’d tried.
Labour and the Conservatives, in this conception, are competitors: Reform is an enemy: an existential threat to a consensus both parties have played their role in promoting.
– Sam Ashworth-Hayes (£)
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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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Yesterday the thought occurred to me of the possibility of a government of “National Unity” – Lab, Con, LibDem. All they need is an existential crisis which may be genuine due to absurd policies such as Net Zero or could be manufactured. Perhaps this is why there is so much ultra-hyped fear-mongering about Russia. If you ignore the nukes Russia is a failing regional power. Perhaps the suspension of some local elections for “admin purposes” is a dry run…
Here’s Neil Kinnock:
There were many real people of the right in the last Conservative Party government – but they found that they had no power.
NO POWER.
Being elected, whether to local or to national office, is no good – if you find you have NO POWER.
There must be institutional changes (a true Counter Revolution) to address this – officials, “experts”, and “independent bodies”, must have their power ended – they must be removed from public life.
But such a Counter Revolution would not just be against a trend that started with the arrival of Prime Minister Blair in 1997 – this trend towards more and more power in the hands of officials and “experts” stated long before that.
As far back as 1929 Chief Justice Hewitt denounced it in his book “The New Despotism” – and it can be traced back all the way to the mid 19th century with the creation of the Civil Service (and other things).
Even Margaret Thatcher, a very strong willed person with a clear agenda, often found herself helpless – every document the lady got to see being written by the enemies of her Conservative agenda, and every “choice” influenced by endlessly lies dressed up as “information” and “advice”.
Hence such things the failure to repeal the race laws (the string of Statutes passed from 1965 to 1976 – and on into our own times with such things as the Equality Act) which undermined both Freedom of Association and Freedom of Speech – in 1979 even the first of these Statutes (the 1965 Act) was only 14 years old, and the 1976 Act was only three years old – but it was declared (by the entire administrative machine) that it was “impossible” to do anything about them.
The government led by Margaret Thatcher came into office pledged to recognise the black (yes black) led government in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia – but the entire international (international – even back then) establishment said that was impossible – and that power “had to be given” (after a fig leaf “election”) to Robert Mugabe and his Marxist Zanu PF – vast numbers of people (most of them black) died because of that.
That it was in 1980 – a helpless Margaret Thatcher looking on in despair.
In 1986 we had the Single European Act.
As a young person at university I knew this was handing over power to the EEC (which later became the EU – European Union), but Margaret Thatcher did NOT know that – as the lady was a prisoner in a castle of lies, with every source of information the lady got to see – controlled by her enemies (who were also the enemies of this nation) – Margaret Thatcher was told it was a “free trade agreement”.
A “free trade agreement” that, in reality, gave what became the European Union a stranglehold over the laws of this island.
Note just how radical the lies of the establishment were – even back then. They lied to, and manipulated, a Prime Minister – and they did so without shame, indeed they were proud of their evil actions – and the establishment are vastly WORSE now.
The old idea that being Conservative, or being “on the right”, means “preserving the institutions” does not work when all the institutions (all of them) are rotten to the core – as they are NOW. Today, 2025 and going forward, ALL of the institutions of the United Kingdom are rotten to the core.
If the Reform Party came into office – it would, now, have to carry out a Counter Revolution – smashing the entire establishment.
Does Mr Farage understand this?
And does he understand that it might (might) not be a peaceful process?
I had some practical experience of Mr Farage before the local council elections of May 2025.
The Gentleman went around the country, including Kettering, promising lower Council Tax and claiming that waste and inefficiency was the problem – “send in the auditors” he said, repeatedly.
Lots of money was spent on auditors (both internal and external) every year – so “send in the auditors” was a spectacularly ignorant (I mean no offence by using the word “ignorant” – I mean it literally, as lack of knowledge, NOT as an insult) thing to say (and it was said repeatedly) – nor do such auditors (internal or external) really identify savings.
High local government spending is a result of Adult Social Care and Children’s Services – both of which are mandated by national government (by the national laws and bureaucracy – the “experts” and officials).
Voting for the Reform Party is NOT going to stop the Council Tax, in such local authorities (authorities that have responsibility for Adult Social Care and Children’s Services) going up by 4.9% every year – regardless of who you vote for. And it will not stop new taxes being introduced on top of that,
And when did national government start telling local councils they MUST spend money on XYZ regardless of what local taxpayers wanted?
1875.
Yes – 1875, the Disraeli Act which mandated about 40 things that local councils must do, whether local taxpayers wanted the council to do these things or not.
Yes (yes of course) things are vastly worse now – but do you see how far back the decline goes?
Effective reform (or an effective Reform Party government) would have to mean a Counter Revolution – a real Counter Revolution. A smashing of the present system of government, the smashing of the institutions – just about all of them.
Does Mr Farage understand that?
In case people do not know……
The institutions of this land (just about all of them), the officials and the “experts”, have led to a situation where we have a population of around 70 million people (vastly bloated by mass immigration and the natural increase, births, of these new population groups), and we import more food and more raw materials than ever before – the situation has never been extreme, yet on-top-of-this we import manufactured goods.
Yes we also export manufactured goods – but we import much more than we export, and we import raw materials and food (more than ever) on top of this.
We also have the highest energy costs in the world – which are killing off what remains of manufacturing industry, and we have ever more taxes and regulations (and pro trade union laws and practices) which will lead to MASS UNEMPLOYMENT – indeed it already exists, but it is hidden by putting vast numbers of unemployed people on other forms of benefit.
The idea that a nation of some 70 million people can be supported by the Credit Bubbles of “The City” is absurd – even if the “The City” could carry on as it is – which it can NOT. And neither can New York or the other “financial centers”.
The overall situation in the United Kingdom is truly terrible – as will become obvious over the next few years.
The chances of us getting to the next General Election, supposedly to be held in May 2029 (to coincide with the next major local government elections) are, tragically, low.
If you can leave – leave.
Those of us who have to remain are not going to do well.
Paul,
On the subject of energy costs you might find this map informative…
Paul: As an American, I had not known about that part of British—may I call it constitutional history. We have enough problems in the United States, but they mostly take the form of financial aid from the federal government to the states, and the threat of cutting it off if the states don’t comply; there’s not out and out compulsion. What you apparently have is an appalling legal arrangement, and one that shows why conservatives, such as Disraeli, are unreliable allies for libertarians and classical liberals: They tip too easily into collectivism and out and out authoritarianism.
Perhaps, but then consider it was the classical liberal Gladstone who was one of the key individuals responsible for civil service reform that turned into a permanent professional body and not Disraeli, who was generally against that.
While I’m far from favouring everything Disraeli did, I don’t think he did anything quite as inimical in the long-term to British liberty as Gladstone initiated with civil service reform. I’ll concede Gladstone was a million times more well intentioned than the opportunist Disraeli, but good intentions often lead to worse unintended consequences than opportunism.
I’ve probably mentioned this before. The two other partners in my father’s firm back in the ’90s were prominent figures in two parties apparently at daggers drawn. (I won’t name names, but although their activities were largely confined to Scotland, there’s a fair chance you might recognise one.) And we’re not talking Labour and the LibDems here; publicly, the hatred could hardly be more visceral. He always said that once they got talking, it was obvious they had more in common with each other than either did with him.
Of course, as Adam Smith told us, people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public. And their trade, as my dad often noted with annoyance, wasn’t law; it was politics.