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.
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Many weeks ago I wrote a posting here about how (a) England just might win the forthcoming Rugby World Cup, and that (b) this might work to the advantage of the Conservative Party. Well, England did win the Rugby World Cup, so how might this help the Conservatives?
I certainly didn’t have in mind that England’s front rooms will now be echoing with the claim that “now we’ll all vote Conservative then”. No. This is more the sort of thing I had in mind, from Adam Parsons in yesterday’s Scotland on Sunday.
It is easy in such times for the rest of us to fall prey to hyperbole, so let’s tread carefully here. But I think it is true to say this is an achievement of great importance, something that everybody can cherish. Not just because a British team has won the cup, nor that it is at last crossing from the bottom of the world and going to the top. It is something to do with the people who won it, and what they stand for.
England’s squad are a decent bunch of people. The likes of Josh Lewsey, Ben Cohen, Jason Leonard, Iain Balshaw – these are genuinely engaging characters, blokes you’d have a drink with.
In other words, they feel so very different from the image most footballers have come to represent over the past few years. On the one hand, we have people who have become the best in the world by training relentlessly, yet retain the level-headedness to acknowledge their supporters as their emotional crux; on the other, players who increasingly come to represent a streak of overpaid self-importance.
It is naive, I suppose, to hope that rugby could, even for a short time, replace football in the national affections, but I hope this victory will at least reverberate.
British soccer (as opposed to merely the English version) took two further knocks last week, when, in among all the England rugby fervour, both Wales (agonisingly) and Scotland (humiliatingly) failed to qualify for the European soccer championships next year.
This relative rise of rugby in the affections (England) and respect (elsewhere in Britain), and the relative decline in the esteem felt towards football, has, I feel, something of an end-of-era feel to it. It all adds to the sense of that New Labour/Princess Di/Things Can Only Get Better bubble bursting back into nothing whence it came. To put it rudely, that brief moment when the English told themselves (or were told by their newspaper columnists) that they preferred emotional incontinence to the old manly virtues of stoicism, calmness under stress, and grace and dignity whether one is victorious or defeated, to the uncontrolled emotional display of weeping copiously and in public when someone utterly unconnected with you dies, or running about like an escaped mental patient when you’ve scored a goal. → Continue reading: England’s Rugby World Cup win and the retreat from emotional incontinence
This remark by ‘G’ posted by Iraqi blogger Salam Pax pretty much perfectly sums up why I have such contempt for most of the protestors:
[T]ell your friends in London that G in Baghdad would have appreciated them much more if they had demonstrated against the atrocities of saddam. And if you could ask them when will be the next demonstration to support the people of north Korea, the democratic republic of Congo and Iran?
Amen to that, Bro!
Some literary wag (and I think it was Gore Vidal but I am sure I will corrected in short order if it wasn’t) once quipped that politics is showbusiness for ugly people. Regardless of the provenance of the quote, I am quite sure that it must have been coined in honour of the Stop the War Coalition. Never in all my days have I cast my gaze upon such a motley collection of bedraggled, unsightly, grotseque and snaggle-toothed specimens as gathered today in Central London. An alarmingly high number looked as if they had been dragged from the wreckage of a motorway pile-up.
I can attest to this first-hand because, as your intrepid Samizdata correspondent, I took it upon myself to get ‘down and dirty’ with the Anti-Bush protests this afternoon.
I took my camera along because, frankly, I was expecting sparks to fly but as I stepped out of Goodge Street Underground Station into the pre-demo melee, I detected an atmosphere that I judged to be disappointingly muted. Perhaps I had set the bar of my expectations too high. The gathering protestors seemed to me to be quite bouyant but way short of combustible. You don’t spend three decades attending soccer matches in England without developing a sense of smell for impending mob violence. There was not even a whiff of it here.
But there was a full compliment of ‘usual suspects’ complete with the by-now-ritual paraphernalia of street protest; whistles, drums, claxons, flags, banners, costumes, papier-mache puppets, rubber masks and pink cardboard tanks (I was sorely tempted to point out that it more closely resembled a half-track but I suspected that displaying even that rudimentary level of military knowledge would be sufficient to mark me out as an infiltrator). → Continue reading: “Bush, Blair, CIA… How many kids did you kill today?”
David Frum has a strong editorial in today’s Telegraph writing about the anti-Bush demonstration in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London last night.
The war on terror has glaringly exposed the moral contradictions of contemporary political radicalism: a politics that champions the rights of women and minorities, but only when those rights are threatened by white Europeans; a politics that celebrates creative non-violence at home but condones deadly extremism abroad; and, perhaps above all, a politics that traces its origins to the Enlightenment – and today raises its voice to protect militantly unenlightened terrorists from the justice dispensed by their victims.
He talks about how obtruse the ‘protesters’ were about answering his questions or generally engaging with him, warning each other about how he is bound to misquote them or quote them out of context. This is what he has to say to that:
I agree that context is everything, and the context of this week’s events is that many thousands of British people intend to converge on central London to protest against the overthrow of one of the most cruel and murderous dictators of the 20th century – and to wave placards calling the American president who ordered the dictator’s overthrow “the world’s number one terrorist”.
It’s a deeply shameful context, and though I would not quite endorse the verdict of the taxi driver with the poppy stuck in his dashboard who dropped me off at the demos (“Not many of them traitors out tonight, I see”), he at least saw something that they, with all their apparently abundant education could not: that the two leaders they most scorn are the latest in the long line of Anglo-American statesmen whose willingness to use force to defeat evil secured them their right to make bloody fools of themselves in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and through the streets of London to Grosvenor Square.
Although there is no love lost for Bush on this blog and we do endorse the taxi driver’s verdict, the article contains sentiments that we hope are shared by more people in Britain than the current coverage seems to suggest.
There are a wealth of compelling and passionate arguments both for and against capital punishment and I do not intend to go into them now.
I would rather comment on the state of British politics in the light of what I regard as a rather surprising development:
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, yesterday demanded the reintroduction of the death penalty.
In his first interview since his appointment last week, Mr Davis backed the return of capital punishment in cases of “clearly pre-meditated and cold-blooded murder”. He favours the use of lethal injections over more antiquated methods such as hanging.
I must admit that this came as something of a shock to me. From what little I know of Mr Davis I gather that he is a man possessed of definite principles but (in common with the rest of his Conservative colleagues) has been too timid to give voice to them.
This is quite revolutionary really. For the last decade at least, the Conservatives have been on the run. Having lost every scrap of moral legitimacy to their opponents on the left (even before they were booted out of office in 1997) British Tories lost whatever ability they had to influence the national discourse. In fact, so beleaguered and timid did they become, that no senior Tory could stick his or her head over the parapet of national life without getting promptly chased back into their hidey-holes by a contemptuous and excoriating press.
It would have been sufficiently comment-worthy had Mr Davis merely made some squeaky, semi-apologetic noises about taxes and regulations. But this? This is a bombshell. Capital punishment was abolished in Britain in 1965 and while there was some serious campaigning for its re-introduction for many years afterwards, the issue has since lapsed into total disrepute. For the last decade at least, calls for restoration of the death penalty have been considered ‘beyond the pale’ – a hobbyhorse for neanderthals and wierdos but not the kind of thing that proper, grownup people discussed in proper, grown-up circles.
By puncturing this taboo, Mr Davis is not just launching an attack, he is going straight for the meta-contextual jugular and I get the feeling that the predictable eruption of spluttering outrage will not make him back down an inch. He must surely have realised what impact his statement would have and he still felt sufficient confidence to utter it publicly and utter it now.
This was not a policy statement. Not yet anyway. It was a shot across the bows of the Guardian-reading classes. It will not be the last. The Conservatives have got their nerve back.
There’s an interesting – more to the point decidedly respectful and even somewhat nervous – profile in the Guardian today of the “Chief Executive in all but name” of the Conservative Party, Maurice Saatchi. You can feel the political wind shifting around by the day here in Britain. Maybe it won’t shift enough to shift Labour at the next election, but it will surely make some sort of a dent in them.
This bit about soundbites particularly caught my attention:
In a swipe at William Hague, who scoffed at the “slickness” of New Labour, Lord Saatchi said that the Tories should embrace the new media age by overcoming two key “myths” – that soundbites and focus groups are wrong. “If you can’t reduce your argument to a few crisp words or phrases it probably means there’s something wrong with your argument,” he wrote.
He said the history of the world had been built on slogans, including ones loved by Tories. “The next time a senior Tory tells you that soundbites are ineffective or immoral, remind the speaker of these: ‘Your country needs you’; ‘One man, one vote’; and ‘No taxation without representation’.”
We wouldn’t endorse any of those soundbites here with much enthusiasm, but the point is, good or bad, soundbites bite. Part of the point of things like Samizdata, it seems to me, is to craft good ones – good not only in that they get around and strike home, but in that they embody good and true ideas.
By the way, I’m not saying that I lie awake at night telling myself that the Conservatives ought to win the next election, nor do I think that if they do it will make that big a difference. I’m just saying that Conservative chances are now visibly improving. But, given the scorn which both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have heaped upon them at this blog, I perhaps ought some time soon to do a posting about why party politics, disgusting though it is, does make some difference.
Compulsory state ID cards are a monstrous assault on individual liberty, as well as useless in protecting us from the increasingly sophisticated terror groups who threaten us. That much is clear.
So here’s a question. At every possible occasion, we should ask Conservative MPs, including new party leader, Michael Howard, whether his party would abolish any such compulsory ID scheme put into place by the current Labour government. Similarly, selection committees for prospective parliamentary candidates should be urged to select those who pledge to reverse any ID card law.
Of course, when he was Home Secretary in the 1990s, Howard proposed ID cards, and his record on civil liberties is, to put it mildly, dismal. But he has a chance to repent, to start anew.
So to repeat the challenge – Tories – stand up and fight the ID card.
A question for all those people who support the introduction of a national ID card scheme.
Cattle get tagged.
And slaves get branded.
Which one are you?
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has announced that it will be pressing for a ban on using technological techniques to allow parents to choose the gender of their children. The Telegraph reports:
The British public has firmly rejected the idea of couples being allowed to choose the sex of their babies for purely social reasons. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) will announce today that it is recommending a ban on social sex selection to the Government following a year-long consultation and an independent Mori poll.
[…]
Prof Baldwin also said the view that selection might “upset the balance of sexes” was not a powerful reason for preventing sex selection in this country and that few people were interested in selecting the sex of their babies. The recommendations were welcomed yesterday. Prof Alison Murdoch, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said: “We think that it is important that this technique is regulated, and that the regulations take into account the real concerns of the public at large.”
[…]
Dr Michael Wilks, chairman of the ethics committee of the British Medical Association, said: “Sex selection purely for social reasons is unacceptable.”
So what we are being told is that the main reason for banning this technique is that it is distasteful to the majority of British people. Not that it is inherently bad, just that it is unpopular. This is enough for millions of people and all of government to justify the threat of violence against anyone who dares to try and order their private lives a certain way.
As a result, I am wondering why when someone says something else about another widely unpopular and abominated practice, far from the Tribunes of the People leaping to book legislative time in Parliament to pass more laws, they are investigating the speaker of these words for possible criminal prosecution. Speak out against homosexuality, even though only the most purblind would claim the majority of people do not find homosexual practices really distasteful, and you will find yourself up in front of the Beak with some explaining to do. Why not just give the force of coercive law to what ‘The British Public’ think about that too? Why not lend the hammer of state to every prejudice that is widely held by ‘the people’?
Next time you hear George Monbiot or Peter Hain talking about making society more democratic, I suggest you take the time to figure out what that really means.
The news today seem to be full of ‘juicy goodness’. And yes, that is sarcasm. Not only ID cards loom on the horizon at a £40 pound a pop, hold the civil liberties, but another ‘venerable’ British instutition, the BBC is attacking your wallet. Next April, the TV license that finances the BBC is to increase to £121 ($194) a year.
Ms Jowell has already insisted the BBC’s core public service output would be protected for at least 10 to 15 years.
This settlement is designed to enable the BBC to provide a strong and distinctive schedule of high quality programmes and remain at the forefront of broadcasting technology.
Or perhaps help them pay for more ‘coverage policemen’ to monitor their bias.
And quite eminent men to boot:
A powerful cross-party group of peers will seek today to begin a national debate on whether Britain should stay in the European Union by demanding a parliamentary investigation into the economic benefits of membership.
Their action reflects a growing feeling in the House of Lords that withdrawal from the EU might be preferable to signing up to a new European constitution that would erode British sovereignty.
They may not get the debate they want as it is highly likely to be scuppered. Even if they get the debate they want it may not produce the result they want. And even if it does produce the result they want said result will have no legal or political effect whatsoever.
But it will have an effect, albeit a marginal one.
To date, the idea of British withdrawal from the EU has been unthinkable in any respectable circles. It is the Great British Political Taboo. Discuss our relations with Europe by all means and criticise the EU if you must but suggest we pull out?!! Are you mad?
But the problem with taboos of this nature is that they will not bend so they can only break and it only takes a few people to start thinking the unthinkable before they begin to look fragile. If people start saying the unthinkable (and keep saying it) then it is only a matter of time before the cracks begin to appear.
We are not there yet. Not even close. But if more people just keep talking publicly about withdrawal then that emboldens others to do the same and eventually the drip, drip effect begins to eat away at the consensus. What starts as a few whispered heresies can grow into a chorus of raucous disapproval.
So, more and faster please.
De Great White Colonial Adminstrator, Tony Blair, him be most worried about stirring up de
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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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