We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Writers who hate a lot are often more compelling to read than pleasant, nice folk. We want some, if not all, of our newspaper columns to have a fair measure of sulphur, a bit of bile and a pinch of basic malice. Rod Liddle of The Spectator comes to mind. Christopher Hitchens, when he is on form and slaying some religious nonsense or attacking George Gallway, fairly curls the edges of a newspaper. But the supreme purveyor of sustained, gratuitous nastiness is AA Gill. He sometimes hits the target with great accuracy, but there is this level of personal animus that he directs to certain targets that makes me wonder what exactly is eating this man, or whether he is ever so slightly off his trolley (“Nurse!”). Many of his targets seem to come from the same background, in terms of income, culture and education, as himself. There seems to a lot of score-settling between that small, suffocating clique of London media types going on, if you read between the lines of Gill’s writings, which must leave a lot of ordinary folk bemused.
Consider this paragraph about a recent TV documentary by Ian Hislop. Hislop profiled the founder of the Boy Scouts, Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the movement 100 years ago. Hislop was rather kind to the man, and although he mentioned the imperialistic overtones of the Edwardian times in which B-P operated, generally urged us to admire the old fella. For Gill, who clearly loathes so much about England and its history, Hislop’s sin is unforgivable:
Hislop is good at documentary TV. He has a bright, hobbity enthusiasm and is smarter than he looks, which, frankly, isn’t much of a stretch. He comes from a great tradition of English pamphleteers and iconoclasts who are very eccentric and partial about the bits of the Establishment they want to put on the tumbril and those they want to preserve in aspic. Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys was, predictably, a good thing, though very few of today’s scouts were allowed to sully the halcyon, Hentyesque nostalgia for a simpler, stiffer, perter time.
He has half a decent point, of course. Hislop is editor of Private Eye, which unfailingly hammers away at all manner of targets, not all of them deserved. On the Have I Got News for You satire programme, Hislop and his opposite number, Paul Merton, send up the news stories of the week through a generally left-liberal lens (a lens that I suspect is shared more or less by AA Gill). But occasionally Hislop goes “off the reservation” and says nice things about people, which must clearly upset Gill. Hislop once, memorably attacked the European Union on the show, to the horror of his fellow panelists. Hislop is also a devout Anglican Christian and clearly has a lot of affection for many of the traditions of this country. He comes from the sort of upper-middle class background that formed much of the backbone of institutions like the old Indian Civil Service. Gill’s insult about his intelligence is a cheap shot and damaged what could have been an actually quite decent argument (Hislop may be selective in his choice of victims and heroes.) But Gill’s vileness gets the better of him and masks the point. A shame. If you read the link to the article and read his first point about another, awful TV programme, you can see why Gill remains the master of sustained and justified invective. But he needs to cut out the personal and thank his lucky stars that the practice of duelling is now outlawed.
A lot of people are getting hot under the collar, and with some reason, about the decision by David Cameron to pour scorn on grammar schools. Grammars, since the 1944 Education Act, have selected pupils by a rigorous examination at the age of 11 – hence it is known as the Eleven-Plus exam, and an often make-or-break test in a person’s life. In the late 60s, the-then Labour government began a move to scrap grammars and replace them with so-called comprehensive schools, adopting a fiercely egalitarian policy. The collapse of grammars accelerated, ironically, when Margaret Thatcher was an education minister in the government led by Edward Heath. There are now only a few grammars left.
Cameron dislikes grammars, he claims, because they do nothing to advance the interests of bright, working class kids. He may have half a point in that for many people, the 11-plus can be an arbitrary point to decide a pupil’s future. Unfortunately for Cameron, however, his stated hostility to grammars only reinforces the image of him being an upper class toff who is determined to kick the ladder of upward mobility away from the unwashed proles underneath (his recent daft idea of hammering cheap flights with tax conveyed much the same patronising, bugger-the-plebs message).
But the Tories, in wrestling with education policy, are missing the point, as they often do. The fundamental problem is that education between the age of 5 to 18 is compulsory, a fact that ignores the fact that many youngsters are bored by school much earlier and should be allowed to work and if need be, pick up their education at a later date (it amazes me that some people find this idea so incredible). The Tories are also ignoring the need to focus on choice. Rather than schools selecting pupils, by exam or some other criteria, we need a genuine and broad market for education, in which parents and their children choose the school instead. I have my reservations about vouchers – they can give the state a potential lever over private schools – but a radical boost to parental/pupil choice of school is a reform that urgently needs to be put in place.
David Cameron: what is the point of this man?
By some strange para-constitutional principle, it is now assumed that the deputy leader of the Labour Party will be Deputy Prime Minister. That itself is not a huge prize, being a post with no constitutional status in the UK, and thus worth even less than the Vice Presidency of the US: The DPM’s power is entirely in the gift of the PM. It has mostly been a perch for a flightless bird.
Why then is the competition for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party apparently so well funded? You could see why the candidates might want the job. But what do backers get for their money if their man or woman wins?
The New Statesman is frequently frightening to read. But this week’s contained a scary extra: a full colour insert for the Peter Hain campaign. Running a national campaigning organisation on an issue that affects everyone in the country, I can’t afford to do that. Mr Hain may be an exotic shade of orange but is not in other respects politically colourful. His rivals have marginally different emphases in policy and are some more, some less personally likeable than he is… and that’s it. None can offer to change the country; and none is even offering to keep peace in the Labour Party. So who cares? Where does the money come from? Do they all – there are six contenders – have rich and indulgent mothers?
On the BBC television news programme this morning, I glimpsed a brief and largely uncritical segment on the rollout of what are called Home Information Packs. These will be compulsory for people looking to sell their property and cost, so the BBC programme stated, about 500 pounds (a nice revenue earner for the government). The packs, or “HIPs”, will have to include details about the energy efficiency of a house and they are driven, in part, by the current focus on environmental issues. It is further evidence of how the green movement is replacing old-style socialism as a prime driver of regulation and tax.
The BBC programme profiled a number of people who have taken up the stirring job of checking people’s homes. They will inspect properties, take all manner of measurements, and generally have a wonderful time poking around the homes of would-be sellers of properties. The people on the show seemed a fairly pleasant, if faintly bland bunch – not the sort of people to get Britons irate. The image presented by the programme was all, so, British in its “what a jolly sensible idea to let people check around your home” sort of line that is bog-standard BBC these days. It was vaguely reminiscent of those old 1940s public information films shown in WW2 urging us all to cut the amount of water we use when taking a bath and to keep our gasmask with us at all times.
Tim Worstall, a blogger focusing on economic and environmental issues, has a suitably sceptical line on the need for compulsory Home Information Packs. If they are such a great idea for buyers and sellers of properties, then surely the market would react accordingly. I agree.
But leaving aside the daftness of these packs as a compulsory measure, the broader point here is how enforcement of HIPS is adding another layer of people to the public payroll. True, the HIP inspectors are not state employees, but self-employed. Even so, their jobs have been made possible by the HIP rules. This demonstrates that a lot of jobs today owe their existence to often-questionable legislation rather than consumer demand.
Remember, more than 900,000 public sector jobs have been created since 1997, at vast cost to the wealth-creating part of the economy. People are being recruited to inspect pubs and restaurants to ensure that consumers – even if they have the consent of the property owners – do not smoke. The increasing crackdown on cars in big UK cities means that traffic wardens are also a growth industry. Since 9/11, meanwhile, the security industry has expanded enormously, swelling the profit margins of firms like Kroll or Reliance. The trend is likely to continue. All this is a deadweight on the economy, even though in some cases, such as counter-terrorism and protection against thievery, it is necessary.
We keep wondering at this blog at what point Britons will ever start to seriously complain. ID cards? Not much of a general stir. Erosion of the right to trial by jury? Yawn. EU Arrest Warrant? Yawn again. But maybe things are moving. The recent proposal by the government to impose road pricing across the land and enforce it by tagging cars drew forth a deluge of complaints via the government’s own internet-based petition system. I wonder whether the prospect of busybodies crawling all over a home before it is put up for sale will have the same effect. Let’s hope so.
“Vote Blue” the Tories say, “Go Green”
You think the promise unforeseen?
Have you forgotten when instead
We voted Blue and still went Red?
– Sean Gabb. To see him on 18 Doughty Street discussing the Resignation of Tony Blair, go here.
I am quite fond of the Scots Nats, but then, I am English. The BBC has/had a headline today (which, because of the unique way the BBC is … interpreting web conventions… may disappear without warning) that for a moment made me love them:
SNP planning to cut down cabinet
Wouldn’t that make politics a bit more exciting? Sad to say, it is an administrative detail in Holyrood, not a plot to draw claymores in Whitehall.
The only substantive issue on which David Cameron declaimed that made him in any way preferable (or to be more accurate, distinguishable) from the Blairite Labour Party was the issue of ID cards.
Cameron (eventually) came down against them once he realised just how unpopular the scheme was. Well it seems that the impending Brown government is also going to give ID cards the heave-ho, which if true is indeed a good thing.
So, no excuse left for actual conservatives not abandon the Tories and vote UKIP then.
Before all the waffle obscures matters it is worth remembering what the government headed by Mr Blair actually was – a continuation of the government headed by Mr Major.
The same policies, more government borrowing, especially in the latter years of the Blair government, more government spending on health, education and welfare (and undermining of the armed forces), more regulations, and more power handed over to the EU.
On Afghanistan and Iraq it is hard to see the government of Mr Major not supporting the Americans (especially in the post 9/11 climate) so no difference on this either.
It is true that there has been so ‘rebranding’, for example the New Labour people seem to have a hatred of any name for a government body that implies a connection with the Crown – and they like sinister names like ‘the Ministry of Justice’, but how important this will prove I do not know.
I suppose the only real difference might be Mr Brown’s ‘stealth taxes’ with lots of complex ways to increase taxes whilst hoping no one will notice. Such as the Robert Maxwell style raid on the pension funds – which (counting lost interest) has cost about one hundred billion Pounds since 1997 (not much if one says it quick). Of course this might lead to a discussion of all of Mr Brown’s Enron style PFIs and other complex schemes – but I find the subject too depressing.
Anyway there is nothing that Mr Blair’s choice for Chancellor has done that Mr Major and ‘Ken’ Clarke might not have done (even the pension fund raid was under consideration by these people – and I bet they would have sold most of the gold reserve for half what it was worth just as he did), remember the ERM exchange rate rigging?
It was supported by all parties (Labour, Liberal and Conservative) with Mrs Thatcher finding herself forced to go along (with hindsight Mrs T. should have resigned rather than go along with it – after all the swine turned on her soon anyway).
Mrs Thatcher was interesting. Mr Blair (like Mr Major) was just another statist politician.
Instapundit noted that we did not rush to comment on the announced departure of Tony Blair but speaking for myself, the reason I felt no need to dash off an article is that I do not really give a damn because it is actually not that important. Glenn expects us to be cheering, but why? About the prospect of Gordon Brown running our affairs? Sorry but that is nothing to cheer about and I cannot really see that this will make a great deal of difference to government policies.
You sometimes hear of how London’s taxi drivers like to regale their passengers with their views on matters of public affairs. Maybe it is their self-employed, independent nature that lends itself to a certain feistyness of attitude. I do not always agree with what I hear from taxi drivers but often or not, they have their fingers on the pulse. Well, it turns out that the news service Bloomberg is polling the men and women who drive the London black cabs for their views on the state of the economy. If their views are correct, the UK economy is slowing down.
To hell with the official government statistics. The cabbies have spoken.
He is an admirable character in many ways. He has achieved tremendous success in his professional life; he is by all accounts a devoted husband and I have read that he is good company. It therefore rather a shame even for the most one-eyed follower of Chelsea FC that Jose Mourinho is such a petulant jerk. It takes quite a lot to make me sympathise with Alex Ferguson, the long-standing manager of Manchester United, or for that matter, his highly-paid football stars, but I think the Chelsea boss has achieved that feat.
Class continues to be a sore point in English sport (I am not really qualified to know about how this works in Scotland or Wales). Football has traditionally been thought of as a working-class game although these days the cost of buying a season ticket are beyond the reach of all but the fairly affluent. Cricket is a mixture; rugby union is thought of as middle class, tennis is the same, yachting is for the posh, ditto polo, etc. (I am not quite sure if Formula 1 fits a neat mould any more. It used to be quite posh, since only rich people could afford to drive fast cars). But in football, there is still a strong working class aspect. So I really do not understand why, if the Chelsea manager is going to insult someone, he brings up poverty and humble origins as a reason to abuse someone. In fact, if a person comes from humble origins and becomes an international sports star, like George Best, Tom Finney or Bobby Charlton, that usually counts in their favour.
By reading Samizdata for several years, I am one of the Americans that has received a major enlightenment regarding Tony Blair. I recently received this link from regular commenter RAB and decided to post it for the benefit of other Americans on the site.
Tony Blair, who was swept into office in 1997 amid higher hopes and greater goodwill than any incoming British Prime Minister in modern times, will leave it a few weeks hence with his reputation in ruins.
An opinion poll earlier this month showed that only 11 per cent of voters still like him; 51per cent think that “he manages to convince himself that whatever he has decided to do must be morally right”.
Some 57 per cent say he has stayed in Downing Street too long, and only five per cent agree that he is “in touch with ordinary people”.
Just 27 per cent think Britain is a more successful society than it was in 1997, and 61 per cent believe that it is a much less pleasant one.
…
Tony Blair has shown himself the most accomplished political actor ever to occupy the premiership.
He is an orator of near-genius, a performer who has for years dominated party conference platforms, TV studios, Parliament, White House press conferences, even the U.S. Congress.
Put him before an audience in his heyday, whether of three people or 3,000, and he could weave a spell worthy of Gandalf.
But now let us step over the camera and lighting cables, walk past the brilliantly painted frontage of whichever modern temple of glitz he is patronising – the Millennium Dome would be appropriate – and venture backstage.
Examine the real Britain after ten years of Blair.
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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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