Politics

[Winchester White]

1 hour ago, paulhanley said:

A piece by the brilliant Janet Daly of the Telegraph. I hope you enjoy it.

The BBC is panicking at the public’s rejection of its arrogant Left-liberal worldview

 

This is nearly over – this weird disconnect between what most of us understand as reality and the world as seen through the eyes of an all pervasive Authority that was apparently appointed (although we never knew by whom) to establish the limits of public discourse. The crisis of confidence at the BBC – and make no mistake, it is a full blown, all alarm bells ringing, catastrophic crisis – is probably the most visible sign of the shift but it is much bigger than this.

So bear with me: I promise that the whole column is not going to be about the BBC, even though it is easily the most infuriating and useful exemplar of the problem.

 

But no, what could be about to implode is not just the sublime, unlimited self-regard of the broadcasters. It is nothing less than the whole interlocking set of preconceptions that are so embedded in the consciousness of those who decide what it is acceptable to think that they must ignore or traduce anything that contradicts them.

Of course, self-doubt should have begun with the Brexit referendum result but that scarcely slowed them down: if a majority of the country were benighted bigots then it was up to the enlightened ones to lead them out of the darkness. Or to bully them out of it. And believe it or not, a good many of the Enlightened actually believed they had succeeded in this – hence the demand for a second referendum which would allow the masses to repent of their ignorance.

 

Then came the general election which was, in effect, a second referendum. And that was the end. You could hear the sound of an edifice falling to the ground and smashing into pieces as you watched the television coverage of this cataclysm. It was such a resounding and utterly unexpected repudiation not just of the mindset of the BBC but of virtually all of the broadcast media – and the cultural circles in which their denizens travel – that it will probably be a generation before they recover. If they ever recover.

Indeed, we must hope that the vainglorious arrogance never does return. What we want is not another set of sacred tenets which can be enforced with monolithic certainty, but humility: a genuinely liberal regard for differing opinions. But you know all this. Everybody knows it – except apparently the broadcast executives who are now running around in crazy circles like ants whose nest has been demolished.

Presumably this sense of mission to enforce a moral doctrine and prescribe its rules to a grateful nation emerged from the post-war period when rationing and rebuilding dominated the country’s priorities. The most charitable interpretation of this phenomenon is that it began as a belief that it was the duty owed by the educated classes to British working people who had endured terrible deprivations and danger.

If you listen to the patronising tone of the many public information pronouncements of the time, this is what you hear: we are going to create a new future with better housing, a fairer distribution of resources, state-run services and comprehensive health and welfare provision. You must trust our judgment in all things: we know better than you what is needed. Which is pretty much exactly the tone that the political descendants of those public policy managers adopt today, only now they are talking about climate change, multiculturalism, economic globalisation and gender identity.

 

Arguably, a good many of the solutions that the Enlightened Benefactors imposed on society even in that earlier incarnation were wrong-headed or dangerously skewed by the political fashions of the time. Were vast council estates really a social improvement on the old Victorian terraces which might have been renovated rather than demolished? Were rationing and the nationalising of public services actually ways of ensuring fairness, or just a handicap to economic recovery?

 

But at least back then it was plausible to claim that most people in the country bought into those beliefs. The trauma of the war had created a genuine sense of national unanimity. There had probably never been such widespread agreement on priorities and so much willingness to make sacrifices for the general good. If the specific programmes were questionable, they would be challenged only by a small and rather unpopular minority of sceptics.

 

Needless to say, that is not the case with the doctrines being enforced by the great unidentifiable Authority now. Even if you accept that climate change is a fact, you might want to see less shrill alarmism and more attention paid to possible solutions that do not involve pauperising the developing world. (The BBC recently put Sir David Attenborough’s announcement of imminent climate crisis at the top of its main news bulletins. With great respect to the saintly Sir David, something that he says is not the most important news story of any day.)

 

You may welcome migrants of all colours and backgrounds, and have limitless compassion for the disabled, without wishing to see classic literary texts re-written and programme presentation rotas designed to ensure their visibility. You may sympathise with the problems of sexual minorities but be disturbed by the proportion of attention that is devoted to their demands. In other words, you may be angry and frustrated by the implicit assumption that you and your reservations are beyond the pale.

 

I am sure it is not an accident that adversaries of the official enlightened wisdom are only invited to participate in broadcast debate under the most loaded and disadvantaged circumstances, to be set against a solid phalanx of the upholders of Virtue – which is why so many of us have given up trying. It is really rather difficult to argue with people who think you don’t have a right to exist (quite literally, in the case of Israel).

But the truth has finally hit. To adapt a notorious Corbynism, we are the many and they are the few, and it is time we were given our proper place in respectable conversation.

 

 

Well, that's certainly an opinion...

[Winchester White]

Double post

Edited January 25, 2020 by Winchester White
Double post

[mickbrown]

Can someone teach Paul how links work?

Ta very much. 

[bolty58]

5 hours ago, paulhanley said:

A piece by the brilliant Janet Daly of the Telegraph. I hope you enjoy it.

The BBC is panicking at the public’s rejection of its arrogant Left-liberal worldview

 

This is nearly over – this weird disconnect between what most of us understand as reality and the world as seen through the eyes of an all pervasive Authority that was apparently appointed (although we never knew by whom) to establish the limits of public discourse. The crisis of confidence at the BBC – and make no mistake, it is a full blown, all alarm bells ringing, catastrophic crisis – is probably the most visible sign of the shift but it is much bigger than this.

So bear with me: I promise that the whole column is not going to be about the BBC, even though it is easily the most infuriating and useful exemplar of the problem.

 

But no, what could be about to implode is not just the sublime, unlimited self-regard of the broadcasters. It is nothing less than the whole interlocking set of preconceptions that are so embedded in the consciousness of those who decide what it is acceptable to think that they must ignore or traduce anything that contradicts them.

Of course, self-doubt should have begun with the Brexit referendum result but that scarcely slowed them down: if a majority of the country were benighted bigots then it was up to the enlightened ones to lead them out of the darkness. Or to bully them out of it. And believe it or not, a good many of the Enlightened actually believed they had succeeded in this – hence the demand for a second referendum which would allow the masses to repent of their ignorance.

 

Then came the general election which was, in effect, a second referendum. And that was the end. You could hear the sound of an edifice falling to the ground and smashing into pieces as you watched the television coverage of this cataclysm. It was such a resounding and utterly unexpected repudiation not just of the mindset of the BBC but of virtually all of the broadcast media – and the cultural circles in which their denizens travel – that it will probably be a generation before they recover. If they ever recover.

Indeed, we must hope that the vainglorious arrogance never does return. What we want is not another set of sacred tenets which can be enforced with monolithic certainty, but humility: a genuinely liberal regard for differing opinions. But you know all this. Everybody knows it – except apparently the broadcast executives who are now running around in crazy circles like ants whose nest has been demolished.

Presumably this sense of mission to enforce a moral doctrine and prescribe its rules to a grateful nation emerged from the post-war period when rationing and rebuilding dominated the country’s priorities. The most charitable interpretation of this phenomenon is that it began as a belief that it was the duty owed by the educated classes to British working people who had endured terrible deprivations and danger.

If you listen to the patronising tone of the many public information pronouncements of the time, this is what you hear: we are going to create a new future with better housing, a fairer distribution of resources, state-run services and comprehensive health and welfare provision. You must trust our judgment in all things: we know better than you what is needed. Which is pretty much exactly the tone that the political descendants of those public policy managers adopt today, only now they are talking about climate change, multiculturalism, economic globalisation and gender identity.

 

Arguably, a good many of the solutions that the Enlightened Benefactors imposed on society even in that earlier incarnation were wrong-headed or dangerously skewed by the political fashions of the time. Were vast council estates really a social improvement on the old Victorian terraces which might have been renovated rather than demolished? Were rationing and the nationalising of public services actually ways of ensuring fairness, or just a handicap to economic recovery?

 

But at least back then it was plausible to claim that most people in the country bought into those beliefs. The trauma of the war had created a genuine sense of national unanimity. There had probably never been such widespread agreement on priorities and so much willingness to make sacrifices for the general good. If the specific programmes were questionable, they would be challenged only by a small and rather unpopular minority of sceptics.

 

Needless to say, that is not the case with the doctrines being enforced by the great unidentifiable Authority now. Even if you accept that climate change is a fact, you might want to see less shrill alarmism and more attention paid to possible solutions that do not involve pauperising the developing world. (The BBC recently put Sir David Attenborough’s announcement of imminent climate crisis at the top of its main news bulletins. With great respect to the saintly Sir David, something that he says is not the most important news story of any day.)

 

You may welcome migrants of all colours and backgrounds, and have limitless compassion for the disabled, without wishing to see classic literary texts re-written and programme presentation rotas designed to ensure their visibility. You may sympathise with the problems of sexual minorities but be disturbed by the proportion of attention that is devoted to their demands. In other words, you may be angry and frustrated by the implicit assumption that you and your reservations are beyond the pale.

 

I am sure it is not an accident that adversaries of the official enlightened wisdom are only invited to participate in broadcast debate under the most loaded and disadvantaged circumstances, to be set against a solid phalanx of the upholders of Virtue – which is why so many of us have given up trying. It is really rather difficult to argue with people who think you don’t have a right to exist (quite literally, in the case of Israel).

But the truth has finally hit. To adapt a notorious Corbynism, we are the many and they are the few, and it is time we were given our proper place in respectable conversation.

 

 

Thank you once again Paul. A brilliantly written piece which generally sums up the views of many of us despised white working class males - many of whom delivered an 80 seat Conservative majority.

They will only ever learn if they take note and I very much doubt that the holier than thou virtue signallers of this world ever will.

Edited January 26, 2020 by bolty58

[paulhanley]

5 hours ago, bolty58 said:

Thank you once again Paul. A brilliantly written piece which generally sums up the views of many of us despised white working class males - many of whom delivered an 80 seat Conservative majority.

They will only ever learn if they take note and I very much doubt that the holier than thou virtue signallers of this world ever will.

You spend years telling these people what to say. think and believe and then they get in to a ballot box and do what they bloody well like. 🙂

 

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

4 hours ago, paulhanley said:

You spend years telling these people what to say. think and believe and then they get in to a ballot box and do what they bloody well like. 🙂

 

You're probably the poster with the most faith in the idea that Brexit will offer us greater opportunities to trade on better terms with the rest of the world, so I'm just wondering if you're able to point to an article which rebuts the arguments made in the article posted by Winchester White?

I'm not suggesting that there isn't one or that you can't, but I'm less invested in the culture war than you seem to be (I'm not even a Remainer, nevermind a "Remaoner") and am more interested in the practicalities of leaving.

[paulhanley]

I've read several such articles. There are 3 examples below including one from the Guardian The EU is a protectionist racket with rules and regulations that choke the life out of aspiration and innovation. That leads to inefficiency in industry. That's a contributory reason as to why the parts of Europe inside the EU are the slowest growing part of the world. So is the dead-hand of the mentalist single currency.

The stuff in the article posted by Winchester White? Well .... we've heard it all before. You've just got to remember that EU lovers have been wrong about just about everything since the 90s while you're reading stuff like that. It's Project Fear mark 7,349. Why the hell should we believe it any more? The world outside the EU does just fine.

I'm totally sure not everyone will be a beneficiary and I'm sure there'll be some initial hassles. There's never a panacea whatever route you go down. It's a big old change after 40 odd years. But the overall picture will be positive through the 2020s  We will be nimble in resolving problems because the decision making will be all our own and not dependent on the views of scores of officials from 27 other countries whose interests in reality diverge from each other but who sign up to a political project regardless. A political project within which politics trumps economics when it comes to key decisions - to the detriment of the people who live within its confines.

On top of all that we get the full return of democracy as enshrined in the Magna Carta. The people will be fully sovereign. If we don't like those in whom we have invested power we will get rid. You can't do that with EU technocrats and Commissioners.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/22/respect-eu-britain-outside-left-economy

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/20/industries-could-winners-britains-divergence-brussels/

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/why-britain-like-iceland-will-thrive-outside-the-eu/

 

[Mounts Kipper]

11 minutes ago, paulhanley said:

I've read several such articles. There are 3 examples below including one from the Guardian The EU is a protectionist racket with rules and regulations that choke the life out of aspiration and innovation. That leads to inefficiency in industry. That's a contributory reason as to why the parts of Europe inside the EU are the slowest growing part of the world. So is the dead-hand of the mentalist single currency.

The stuff in the article posted by Winchester White? Well .... we've heard it all before. You've just got to remember that EU lovers have been wrong about just about everything since the 90s while you're reading stuff like that. It's Project Fear mark 7,349. Why the hell should we believe it any more? The world outside the EU does just fine.

I'm totally sure not everyone will be a beneficiary and I'm sure there'll be some initial hassles. There's never a panacea whatever route you go down. It's a big old change after 40 odd years. But the overall picture will be positive through the 2020s  We will be nimble in resolving problems because the decision making will be all our own and not dependent on the views of scores of officials from 27 other countries whose interests in reality diverge from each other but who sign up to a political project regardless. A political project within which politics trumps economics when it comes to key decisions - to the detriment of the people who live within its confines.

On top of all that we get the full return of democracy as enshrined in the Magna Carta. The people will be fully sovereign. If we don't like those in whom we have invested power we will get rid. You can't do that with EU technocrats and Commissioners.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/22/respect-eu-britain-outside-left-economy

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/20/industries-could-winners-britains-divergence-brussels/

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/why-britain-like-iceland-will-thrive-outside-the-eu/

 

The article from the Ex Iceland prime minister is really interesting and from someone with first hand knowledge of being outside the EU. 

[Casino]

And zero knowledge of being within

[frank_spencer]

Are we going to tax things at Icelandic levels too so we can pay for everything?

I'm all for that but I doubt many are.

[paulhanley]

24 minutes ago, Mounts Kipper said:

The article from the Ex Iceland prime minister is really interesting and from someone with first hand knowledge of being outside the EU. 

The one from the Guardian columnist too. Different agenda but for the same reasons.

Re the Icelandic chap, him and millions of people in nations all over the world are outside the EU. How do they cope?! They must have clever ways of hiding that they are really on the breadline. How cruel it must be to be outside the boundaries of the enlightenment.

Edited January 26, 2020 by paulhanley

[Casino]

As i said years back

My lifes fine

Why take a chance on it going tits up while you and your ilk find out if youre visionaries or utterly clueless cocks

Anyway, we will find out over the next 50 years so lets bring it on

[paulhanley]

7 minutes ago, Casino said:

As i said years back

My lifes fine

Why take a chance on it going tits up while you and your ilk find out if youre visionaries or utterly clueless cocks

Anyway, we will find out over the next 50 years so lets bring it on

Because its not just a question of what happens when we leave, its also a question of what would have happened if we'd stayed. And all the signs are that it is not going to end well for the EU. Every empire in the history of the world has over-centralised and over-regulated and ended up collapsing. It's a well worn path. The EU is on it.

[Mounts Kipper]

34 minutes ago, Casino said:

And zero knowledge of being within

We’ve got that knowledge. That’s why we voted to leave. 

[Casino]

We will see

[Boby Brno]

41 minutes ago, Casino said:

We will see

Why didn’t everyone just say that after the vote. It would have saved everyone a lot of wasted time. 
(I voted remain)

[Escobarp]

Just now, Boby Brno said:

Why didn’t everyone just say that after the vote. It would have saved everyone a lot of wasted time. 
(I voted remain)

Because those who voted leave didn’t know what they were voting for and it was essential that we were shown the error of our ways by those more superior than us. 

[Tonge moor green jacket]

1 hour ago, Mounts Kipper said:

We’ve got that knowledge. That’s why we voted to leave. 

Perhaps that's why they haven't joined!

[Mounts Kipper]

Just now, Tonge moor green jacket said:

Perhaps that's why they haven't joined!

The comment from the Iceland prime minister said it all, if we’d have joined we wouldn’t have been able to recover so quickly after the financial crash and would have ended up like Greece. 

[royal white]

I think we all know what will happen over the coming months.
Anything positive = “that’s because we were in the EU”

Anything negative = “Thats because of BREXIT”

Same happens in America, anything good that happens is down to Obama, anything bad....blame Trump 

[paulhanley]

11 minutes ago, royal white said:

I think we all know what will happen over the coming months.
Anything positive = “that’s because we were in the EU”

Anything negative = “Thats because of BREXIT”

Same happens in America, anything good that happens is down to Obama, anything bad....blame Trump 

Yep. That is indeed very, very predictable.

[Cheese]

I think we all know what will happen over the coming months, and has happened for the last 3 years.
Anything positive = “That’s because of BREXIT”

Anything negative = “Thats because we're in the EU”

Same happens in America, anything good that happens is down to Trump, anything bad....blame Obama

Edited January 26, 2020 by Cheese

[Jol_BWFC]

37 minutes ago, Cheese said:

I think we all know what will happen over the coming months, and has happened for the last 3 years.
Anything positive = “That’s because of BREXIT”

Anything negative = “Thats because we're in the EU”

Same happens in America, anything good that happens is down to Trump, anything bad....blame Obama

Yes. That is indeed very, very predictable.

[Escobarp]

5 minutes ago, Jol_BWFC said:

Yes. That is indeed very, very predictable.

You’re much much better than that. 
 

there will be folk on both sides Here doing it and that will be evident on here 

 

[royal white]

6 minutes ago, Escobarp said:

You’re much much better than that. 
 

there will be folk on both sides Here doing it and that will be evident on here 

 

It appears not.