A Just Stop Oil protestor at Manchester University (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
The King will open Parliament on Wednesday. Or at least, that’s what he thinks. First, he’ll have to contend with whatever obstacle is posed by Youth Demand, an upstart direct-action campaigning group and splinter faction of Just Stop Oil, which has announced its cunning plan to “disrupt” the occasion.
Wearing their constitutional knowledge commendably lightly, Youth Demand’s Twitter/X account explained to its followers that the state opening of Parliament is “an outdated, farcical parade” in which the “King will ride in a (literal) golden carriage” and “welcome in” Keir Starmer “as the new head of a blood-stained Parliament”. Only by disrupting the event in a way that will prove “impossible to ignore” does the group think it can achieve its aim: an “end to genocide”, starting with an Israeli arms embargo, and — a little incongruously, but they might as well read the whole shopping list while they’ve got your attention — a prohibition on new licences for oil and gas exploration in the UK.
Parliament is an appropriate target for rebuke because, as the group emphasises, whether “Tories or Labour, it all means genocide”. “Young people are not stupid,” they insist, perhaps pre-empting a charge sometimes levelled at this stage of the sales pitch. Rather, they “see through the bullshit” obscuring the fact that UK’s is a “rigged political system”.
As should be clear, in idiom and action Youth Demand is a fitting addition to the paramilitary wing of the student-led activist movement. As of April this year, it already claimed a 10,000-strong mailing list, with representatives at 17 British universities. Among its recent political achievements, it has spray-painted Labour Party headquarters and the Ministry of Defence, and staged a creepy protest involving children’s shoes outside the Starmer family home in Kentish Town, leading to three of its members being convicted of public order offences. (Apostates being worse than infidels, it is the Labour Party that seems to come in for the worst of Youth Demand’s ire, despite the group’s offhand acknowledgement of the Conservative Party’s responsibility for “14 years” of unspecified “atrocity”.)
It is tempting to think that the rapid turnover of political fashion over the past decade has had a curious effect on protest-oriented youth. More than at any point in recent history, today’s student protestor must be a generalist rather than a specialist. In a style characteristic of a conspiracy theorist, their background theory of the operant forces in society encourages them to see every injustice as standing in close explanatory connection to every other: and a failure to see these sometimes quite obscure links can be a worrying symptom of bad faith, privilege-induced blindness, or something even more culpably malign.
Under such pressures it is easy to acquire the monistic belief that there is really only one political problem — though one that perhaps has different manifestations — as people have started calling it, the “omnicause”. In the mouths of today’s protestors, what often seem like quite different political objects of disapproval — global capitalism, the patriarchy, white supremacy, Gaza, environmental terrorism, settler colonialism — are slurred over in a way that makes them seem fungible. They are all vantage points on the same monolithic oppressor. Something like that deflationary urge might always have been with us. But unlike their ancestors, who would have urged each other perfunctorily to “stick it to the man”, today’s activists feel shamelessly compelled to spell out the weird consequences of their background theory. Hence, the unabashed existence of vividly maladaptive movements such as Queers for Palestine.
The resulting political movements are characterised by an unhealthy mix of political disengagement and global fixation. The ordinary mechanisms of electoral politics are judged too feeble to be of any service to the extravagance, urgency and scale of their cause — which is, at the limit, the whole world and its unjust past and endangered future — and are promptly bypassed.
It is of course easy to find activists led astray by such a totalising theory a comical spectacle (or an obvious anti-social menace, depending on how nearby they happen to be). They are in a straightforward way politically short-sighted: the immediate, local, and graspable problems of political life seeming to them blurry and unimportant, only expansive, universal, and unobtainable objectives snapping into focus.
Such moralism arguably involves a practical mistake. Its proponents misidentify the sorts of problems universities, book festivals, private firms, political parties, or even national parliaments are suited to solving. As a means of effecting political change, such mistakes are a recipe for making oneself irrelevant and one’s cause disliked; though one could litigate the exceptions, indiscriminately-targeted direct action has a comparatively poor track record of securing lasting political progress. This shouldn’t be surprising: its aims are often ill-defined, and its methods deliberately calculated to avoid engaging the socially established channels of political action.
At a theoretical level, however, comical though it undoubtedly still is, such moralistic overreach is at least an intelligible form of error. The fact is that moral and political progress in the past often has been achieved by gradually expanding the sphere of ethical concern both outward in space and forward in time. The extension of moral concern provides one easily-grasped paradigm of moral progress. Most psychologically normal people, however, find it clear that uncontrolled reliance on this heuristic quickly yields silly results. In fact, part of the comedy of Just Stop Oil, Youth Demand, and their fellow travellers, is that despite their grandiose dogmatism the meagreness of their actions reveals that they, too, find it difficult to take their theory at anything close to face value. (If the fate of the earth really were at stake, action more drastic than the spray-painting of Taylor Swift’s Jet or boycotting book festivals would be morally required.)
More curious than the way young activists misunderstand the collective interest is the way they routinely fail to understand even their own self-interest. Though charitable interpreters will be inclined to think that youthful idealism, even in overreaching, serves as a socially useful corrective to a jaded and politically unimaginative status quo, from another point of view it represents a gross diversion of political resources.
Despite the widespread trope that they are excessively self-centred, one of the most striking facts about people in their teens and twenties is their near total neglect of their distinctive interests as a political class. Young people form an increasingly natural constituency for political solidarity, yet time and again age is overridden by dividing lines of more doubtful importance. In fact, to learn of the agenda of a misleadingly-named group like Youth Demand would lead you to think that the young had no political causes of their own worth pursuing and so had generously moved on to solving the world’s problems.
The complete absence of a sense of intra-generational solidarity among the young is, in a way, baffling. The dysfunctional political decision-making of the recent past has been utterly prejudicial to their interests. Electorally outnumbered by a politically active gerontocracy, the young now leave university with mountains of debt. They can look forward to a future cramped by an effective graduate tax on even small earnings, national infrastructure degraded by long-term under-investment, a chronically under-supplied housing market, and little hope for the life-enhancing arrival of economic growth. All of this is the political legacy of older generations who, unlike the young, vote in high numbers and ruthlessly in their own interest. According to the CPS, someone born in 1956 will extract £1.2 million in state benefits, and someone born in 1996 only half that. These are the basic ingredients of intergenerational injustice.
The totemic political betrayal of the young in recent years — the casual use of lockdown as a tool of public health policy — involved a catastrophic transfer of wealth and opportunities away from children and young adults, towards the elderly. The ongoing and expensive Covid inquiry will presumably reach no holistic judgment as to whether this was a justified action. Recent university cohorts had their A-levels cancelled, were placed under effective house arrest in their university accommodation at their own expense, and then had the delivery of their final university grades delayed by university strikes. That all of this was accepted in a spirit of compliant resignation makes it hard not to want to blame the young for their want of vitality.
Such political quietism is the natural accompaniment of a style of activism which is pathologically moralistic and holds the actual practice of politics in contempt, as today’s frontline student activists do. Is it too much to expect that, at least as a default, student activism should be about students’ interests?
All this is enough to make one nostalgic for the anti-tuition-fee riots of 2010: perhaps the last time an impressive number of students mobilised in their own interest. Then, as even The Daily Telegraph recorded, “perhaps because their cause was justified… [the protesting students] had none of the swaggering, self-righteous manner of the student protestors of legend”. City traffic ground to a standstill; students occupied the Millbank tower; Conservative Party headquarters were graffitied over with a crude drawing of an ejaculating penis accompanied, ironically or perhaps not, with the message “don’t kill the arts”. Nick Clegg took to the airwaves to explain cravenly that he should have been “more careful” in making his ill-fated manifesto pledges; days later, as Clegg was delivering the Guardian’s Hugo Young lecture at Kings Place in London, students outside the building brought out a Clegg-like effigy which they sentenced to death and promptly executed while chanting “Nick Clegg, shame on you, shame on you for turning blue.” All very invigorating stuff.
It is hard not to warm to these protestors in a way not possible with the student activists of today: grounded self-interest is so much more sympathetic than unworldly moralism. They had a just grievance — they had been misled, perhaps even lied to, at the ballot box. They owned their own cause. They had a realistic grasp of the party political structures they were attempting to influence. Best of all they had a lively sense of their own material interest. That is a precondition for getting a political hearing though by no means a guarantee of one.
Today’s student activists could do with being a little less self-involved and little more self-interested.
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Great article! This reminds me of the quote from G. Micheal Hopf, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times”. Hope there is a Lion waiting in the wings for the sake of all our Western nations.
I always wondered where that quote came from. I’ve used it so often.
Beat me to it.
And: “Wars happen when the government tells you who the enemy is. Revolutions happen when you work it out for yourself.”
I think Richard Dawkins might have just worked it out:
‘My entire @facebook account has been deleted, seemingly (no reason given) because I tweeted that genetically male boxers such as Imane Khalif (XY undisputed) should not fight women in Olympics. Of course my opinion is open to civilised argument. But outright censorship?’
Ideology will always trump scientific fact to those on the left.
Because most scientific fact now is not scientific or fact. It’s paid for words thats all.
Dawkins was cancelled by the American Humanist Association for challenging gender ideology. An organisation that is supposed to value reason and science over faith and superstition.
See my previous comment. Dawkins is bright enough to.spot the danger. He has for some time set himself as a Cultural.Christian. He does criticize his friend Aayan Hirsi Ali for going the whole hog,church and all,but he has ‘got’ that only recognizing earthly power is very dangerous
Unfortunately tribal affiliation to the organisation will always trump reason. It will always allow the person to justify their own absence of self awareness
Truth needs to be validated by God. American Humanists cannot value knowledge and truth, but only their faith-derived superstitions.
And as befits a canny man like Dawkins he has for some time made it clear that,atheist though he may be,he is also a Cultural Christian. That is very sensible of him. Indeed a high number of well known atheists have now,not GOT JESUS but have chosen to align themselves with Christianity being bright enough to see the importance of claiming first allegiance to a higher spiritual force than any earthly power. It’s also very dangerous of course but thats life.
I would have censored you for other things, such as clinging to silly conjectures and debunked theories when there is n9 evidence and science has long since disproved it, respectively. But, like Al Capone you got done for the minor crime.. suck it up Dqickie!
With no happier results, in general.
I dunno. You may get to be a martyr and shine in everlasting glory throughout history after.
If there is a war it’s going to be those that Starmer and the BBC label as “far right” that will fight for their country.
The people on the other side, so loved by Starmer and the BBC, will be heading for their homeland.
Recent decades have seen, for the first time in human history, huge numbers of women in positions of power and influence. How might this alter the validity of the ‘hard times/good times’ aphorism?
Women lack the physical strength to be lions and also the necessary ruthlessness. They are more inclined to stigmatise, guilt trip, exclude, be two faced and hypocritical (without necessarily being aware). Women are more strongly associated with emotion. They silenced men by accusing them of sexism and making sexism illegal. The pursuit of logic and reason to identify and destroy propaganda and develop insight has for the most part been the endeavour of men. Weak men will adopt feminine strategies.
Evil has its own agenda and spreads through the unconscious if allowed to. It has its own strategies presenting good as evil and vice versa. People infected tend to genuinely believe they are on the right side of history/ morally right. It is why Jung believed it imperative people acquaint themselves with their shadow side. Evil is terrified of being exposed by the light of truth. Truth is like the crucifix held up in front of the possessed.
So you are suggesting, “hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times try women in charge, and women in charge create … hard times?
Accurate. Have you seen the state of publishing and education? How ‘bout those Lilliputian Secret Service agents assigned to protect Donald Trump? Counting on a 5’2” 180lb pudding to carry you out of a blazing building?
We women are very good at many, many things that men can’t or won’t do, but we rely on our lions to protect us while doing them.
To see the fruits of a female false prophet just watch Australia’s female Olympic breakdance competitor. She has a PhD in breakdance and knows all about the evil patriarchy. Unfortunately, for her, the judges awarded her nil point. They are clearly not au fait with the theory behind her approach which includes not practising much. In Australia, they must have received the brief as she did have to qualify.
The MSM talked her up coming into the games as a gold medal favourite. Plenty of coverage, a lot of hype.
We normal Aussies ourselves silly when she failed to pick up a point. Then my wife showed me one of her “dance battles” and she best summed it up with Fremdshaemen.
On behalf of all Aussies to anyone who had the misfortune of watching that as a sports fan, I truely apologise.
No need to apologise, it was hilarious – laugh out loud funny. It’s even funnier if the Australians actually believed she had a chance of gold. It’s been a weird Olympics. The opening set the scene when the French trashed their own reputation for culture and sophistication. Then the Olympic committee trashed their reputation as a serious governing body by claiming it’s impossible to tell the difference between men and women (to defend men beating up women) despite almost every sporting category being divided into men’s and women’s. Then to lighten the mood, the Australian’s trashed their reputation for sporting excellence by ensuring the world will remember Raygun’s performance which is indistinguishable from a toddler making up moves to some random music (What I don’t understand is why she didn’t accuse herself of cultural appropriation given her politics.) and forget about the medals the rest of the Australian team won. And of course, while all this was going on, the United Kingdom trashed its reputation for justice and fairness with two tier policing and prosecution. A prime minister who genuflected to BLM rioters perceives white working class rioters to be truly evil and insists they must be destroyed not by the full force of the law but by punishments that far exceed the crimes.
..flush it down the toilet.
Did that “reply” make any kind sense, even to you?
Margret Thatcher was a lion and sadly got outfoxed.
Margaret Thatcher was not a typical woman. She is frequently disowned by feminists. Admiring her has been greatly stigmatised.
Are male lions typical men?
Well they are definitely not effeminate.
I’ve noticed Thatcher’s reputation is making a bit of a comeback, if the number of “likes” for clips from her speeches on Instagram and Tiktok are any indication.
And when you compare her with all the hollow men (and women) we have lording it over us now… no wonder.
I find it odd that Margaret Thatcher should be ‘lionised’. She was not a popular figure for many of the British population, and her destructive side should not be forgotten, in spite of her accomplishments. Parts of the country are still suffering from her policies. When she stepped down, most people were glad to see the back of her. She was not the saviour of the nation that nostalgia seems to want to make of her.
You might like to research to what extent Arthur Scargill was responsible.
I’m quite familiar with that, thanks. I’m no fan of Arthur’s either.
All that may be true, but is irrelevant. She was a lion brought down by foxes.
Some lions are better than others.
Yeah, take that Margaret Thatcher! F*ck the Poll Tax too! Yeah.
Mrs Thatcher had some admirable personal qualities and a good character. And I’m not a fan and I’ve never voted Tory in my life. But she SOLD OUT. When she declared RIGHT TO BUY she showed her True allegiance to The Dark Side. She may actually not have known she was playing her part in a centuries old LONG GAME but she was.
Agree.
My thoughts entirely.
Hear, hear.
Not so sure about the lack of ruthlessness: Maggie Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, Golda Meyer, and any number of female bosses. Techniques may differ but some women are entirely capable of being ruthless.
It’s true women are equally capable of ruthlessness but generally it is covert. The overtly ruthless women are in a minority. Most women spout love and peace whilst cheering on murderous intent. Just look at the women surrounding the Labour councillor calling for the slitting of throats of dissenters.
Not half.
Margaret Thatcher?
You’re overgeneralizing. You did have a lioness back in the Eighties, and one day I’m sure that we will have one too. That person certainly isn’t Harris.
Not always, Aphrodite. When I worked with teens from lockup situations on wilderness trips, I recall a woman counsellor refusing to go on a trip with girls. She said, “Boys have a code; girls don’t. A girl will pluck a flaming brand from the fire and bash you in the head with it.”
Women are generally more easily controlled by social constraints so I guess this was female behaviour free of social constraints.
This is what I would have written if I’d thought of those brilliant words. This is what my post says but much less elegantly
Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher were lions. There may be another one waiting in the wings of the Conservative Party. There doesn’t seem to be anything except frightened foxes in the Labour Party.
Kemi ?
Oh dear Afrodite Rises. Oh deary me!!!
You obviously suffer from a sense of moral superiority. Rather than reading ill-informed propaganda, you would benefit from reading the Greats: your spelling as well as your mind would probably improve enabling you to properly articulate a response.
Boudica
I agree with much of this, with the caveat that there have been, throughout history, & still are, lots of weasley weak men (far less smart than foxes) who have f***ed things up for everyone, using propaganda to do so.
Today’s examples include Starmer, Macron & Trudeau, among many others.
But should we have far fewer women in government, the media, & especially academe? Yes please. ‘Kindness’ (actually, bitchy schoolgirl in/out group selection) should be an absolute irrelevance in all these fields.
I complete agree. I have never been a feminist believing in (reasonable) equality but difference. Feminists tend to define success in male terms and denigrate traditional female roles.
I have always thought it was weird that men would claim to be feminists. I understand the desire to fight for justice but activist feminists were never about justice. When I read Simone De Beauvoir’s writings, I realised the tragedy in her life was that she wanted a monogamous, committed relationship with Sartre but he wanted an open relationship which caused her immense pain but she couldn’t actually state that as it was against her politics. Jordan Peterson considers a man claiming to be a feminist is a seduction technique by men who otherwise would be unlikely to be successful.
Absolutely agree. I used to enjoy some of the 2nd wave feminists: the ones who emphasised the _differences_ between men and women – differences we ignore or deny at our peril. But since then, much feminism has become BS, including nearly all of the 3rd wave. I lay a lot of blame at the door of universities lowering standards by /& introducing ‘women’s studies’ & other ideological degrees – a phrase which should not exist.
The downstream effects of these ‘ideas’ have been disastrous. Instead of focusing on what should be the basics of feminism: protecting women and girls from violence and rape – both here and abroad – feminists are mostly busy campaigning to protect misogynistic sexual minorities and immigrant men.
I just want to applaud your series of excellent posts on this board. I wondered where you’d gone and I’m glad to see your screen name again, Ms Rises. Unlike me if I’m honest, you rarely post petty or trivial things, and have an incisive critical edge that I really like—as long as it’s not pointed at me!
Cheers,
AJ
Thank you AJ. I had stopped reading Unherd because I no longer found the articles interesting but recent events drew me back in. What I enjoy is articles which stimulate interesting debate. I find it helps me clarify and develop my own ideas. It’s strange, I have never been a particular fan of Kathleen Stock and in the past given reasons why to a multitude of downvotes. Her article this week was not well received and disappointed her fans but her position in the article is exactly what I would have expected for the reasons I have stated previously. It was entirely predictable. I learn a lot by studying people very carefully. I am becoming strongly convinced the underlying problem with western politics is the failure to separate politics and religion. Another enigma I am trying to understand why – gays for Palestine – which is clearly batsh** crazy. I have made some progress. I am thinking about writing an article. I am almost ready to use my own name except I can’t because there is a journalist with the same name.
Does Charles post anymore?
I fear that Mr. Stanhope, to whom I think you refer, is either incapacitated or no longer with us. Haven’t seen his ‘handle’ in several months.
I know he had cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. It is a sad loss. I shall light a candle and pray for him next time I am in church. He was an outstanding historian, it is a great loss.
He had a love of devilish advocacy that could be trollish, but would admit as much if you cornered in a way he respected. Maybe a sort of “lion in winter”. If he has departed, may he rest in peace, and perhaps even meet a Presence he did not believe in.
*Let me add that Charles had impressive Classical learning, along with a wide and deep general knowledge of history, which he didn’t use ONLY for show. I frequently disagreed with him but he was sharp and there was plenty of good in him, I’d say. That patrician pagan will be missed. I hope my honest remarks don’t sound disrespectful.
He was a committed atheist and yet it was my comments on religion and spirituality that interested him most.
He was surely more complicated than many of his quips. We got into some lengthy exchanges about the legacy of Jesus, which he took delight in ridiculing, treating it as little more than a successful publicity stunt.
I defended the teachings of Jesus (and some aspects of institutional worship); he played the firebrand nonbeliever. But he was willing to grant points here and there, for example allowing that bibles in the home for the common people of about 300 years ago was better than no books at all.
It’s quite absurd to wax nostalgic about a website’s previous year, but I’d like to see a return to the energetic, good-faith engagement that was more characteristic of UnHerd in 2023. Ah…the good ol’ days!
I suspect his reaction to religious/spiritual comments mirrored an inner struggle. Given his age, Christianity would have formed part of his upbringing.
An apt observation. My ex-Catholic parents are in the same broad category, though more open to so called spirituality.
That would be, ““Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create women leaders, and women leaders create hard times”. Don’t think that’s fair, though. Feminine energy certainly correlates to the Fox leadership profile. The premise of the article is spot on — you need to sustain balance between the two leadership types to maintain prosperity.
You know, I was always a feminist and I always wanted women to have more power, now that I see they do, I am not anymore so sure that this is the answer. Many women really don’t get it and they don’t get men and how they think. And then suddenly I am thinking: Look what happens with those small niche communities in China where women are in power and where men are utterly useless. Do we want that? No. I have to say, I do not know what the answer is, but I know one thing: The Left got it damn wrong! I was my whole life a Liberal, or so I thought. But I changed camps now since October 7th, because I think that this event and its aftermath opened up the eyes to many people in the world and what the Left is all about. And I am now a National Conservative. Not in a Tory sense, but in a real sense of the word’s meaning. Against Globalists and for strong Nation States.
If you believe that the government should help the poor, replace the family in providing care, etc – ie you are a typical modern “social democrat” – than you’ll probably believe we need our “leaders” to be kind. And women are particularly good at persuading people that they’re kind.
The problem here is that the Will to Power and kindness rarely go hand-in-hand, so if a politician is peddling kindness, then chances are they are even more dishonest than the ones who aren’t.
The essence of government is coercion. As Ibn Khaldun observed, it is that institution in a given area that punishes all “wrongdoing” except its own.
People have come to think that this institution, which ultimately only has violence as a tool, can best deal with social problems that have nothing to do with fraud or illigitimate violence.
The results of this belief are all around us.
Hear hear. If you haven’t moved away from the Left since 7/10, you are either not concentrating or not comprehending what’s really going on or are just not a good person (to put it mildly).
Facebook does not like anyone who opposes their viewpoint. In my opinion you were absolutely within your rights to say what the vast majority of us view as the plain and simple truth….XX female, XY male; basic human biology.
Not at all, except to say “people” instead of “men”.
And all making a total bollocks of things from the British economy (Thatcher),to the Post Office (that church going bird),both TalkTalk + Track n Trace – Dido.Harding also Lady someone,the Met Police , the aptly named Miss d**k. It’s obvious no one talked to her,she sat in her office every day ,totally out of the loop commanding no respect from her men and getting sidelined and ignored. And it’s no.good blaming nasty men,thats a,lol,cop out. Everything in the late 20th century that a woman has been put in charge of has gone,ha ha ha,tits up. And dont get me started on lady vicars.
Tarts for Jesus.
I was a great fan of Jeffrey John. He was genuine and his sermons and lectures were excellent (though he did have a weakness for wokeness). I just cannot relate to the new female dean at all. I find she flattens the spiritual rather than connecting with it. I was excluded from a prayer group for pointing out the Church of England, unlike the Catholic Church, has no room for the feminine. Though I have met some lovely Anglican nuns.
Clearly current problems in the West show why overpromotion of women leads to bad outcomes.
Women can only exist in positions of power when men cede those positions and only within the modern, technologically advanced society that men designed, built and maintain.
Women are the foxes.
Not surprisingly, you excellent comment garnered a couple of down votes – no doubt from our own lurking foxes.
Plenty of foxes here. Quick with a cutting quip, but go missing when things heat up…
Or a Lioness
The problem is that the decline and fall process described in the article usually takes a very long time, even after it has become obvious. That means ordinary citizens in the West may live out their lives in very unpleasant, totalitarian, police states. The Post-War period was unusually good, but the hard times are here.
Note first that N.S. *Lyons* is a pen name of a man now arguing for more “Lions” and that he is based in Washington not the UK.
Read Aris Roussinos’ article for an objective but embedded view on the anti-immigration riots.
This article is a rehash of the much used quote Unherd Reader reproduces above.
Lyons is arguing for a strong-man or warrior type leader that never worked in the medieval period or Renaissance – heroic leaders tended to be followed by their ineffective offspring (Henry V) or brothers (Richard I) and European states were locked in perpetual warfare. The more effective Roman Empire rarely had great emperors (the majority were bumped off by the Praetorian Guard), it was the bureaucracy and effectiveness of the army that maintained and enlarged the empire.
And these observations about the past fail to note the obvious about the present: nuclear weapons have the potential to wipe out the human race. A strong-man leader would have to show that he was willing to use these and would eventually come up against other strong-men willing to do the same. The outcome of such a conflict can never be described as “good times” without a Kubrick-level sense of irony.
Not to mention that powerful leaders, just like powerful and censorious governments, historically and now, always act in their own interest and rarely in the interest of their peoples.
Mr “Lyons” and his fellow members of the right-wing Washington commentariat should be careful what they wish for. A real strong-man (this doesn’t describe Trump of course, he’s an easily-manipulated toddler) wouldn’t tolerate intellectual journalists for long – see Xi.
Why would a strong man (or woman) necessarily need to resort to the use of nuclear weapons? It’s a stretch to equate strength with aggression or violent tendencies. Strong leaders don’t have to be warmongers.
We are now IN WW3 and neither side wants to use nukes because the elites aiways knew the MAD thing was a media myth to keep US subject to control and they prefer continuous low level grumbling rumbling inconclusive never ending war,or conflict as no one has declared war anywhere in any formal,legal form. This is where the profit is.
It always amazes me how a certain type of British person feels very free to sneer and complain about any American – even such brilliant ones as N.S. Lyons – commenting or saying anything at all about British politics while at the same time feeling it’s ok to comment on their politics, President, gun control, economy or whatever.
The vast majority of Americans have no interest whatsoever in Britain or its politics. If they think of Britain at all it’s all London and the Royals so I think it is quite wonderful and refreshing to have the opinion of someone smart and thoughtful who has taken the time to study the issue from the outside and is not swimming in the water.
I do not think Trump is an ‘easily manipulated toddler’ and I think it is rude and insulting to say so. It doesn’t make you sound smart – just makes you sound like you have TDS and are lazily following a crowd instead of thinking independently.
I would say anybody who is shot with a bullet in an assassination attempt and can stand up immediately to reassure the people and tell them to fight is a warrior and a lion.
People seem to have forgotten this astounding bravery already – I would say the foxes have deliberately manipulated so the people would forget.
Gina, sneering at someone whose pen name is “Lyons” arguing for more “lions” in leadership is unavoidable for anyone with a sense of humour.
Lyons has not studied British Politics, nor is his article a piece of original thought, it is an extended facsimile of Unherd Reader’s well-used trope “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times”. But this is not a truism at all, strong men – Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Stalin – often create very bad times indeed.
Finally, isn’t Trump derangement syndrome the characteristic of believing that standing up after receiving a grazed ear constitutes enormous bravery? (To be fair, claiming that rioters in Netflix-tribute antlers constitute a coup is equally silly). Primary school aged kids can recover quicker after worse.
Forcefully argued, somewhat persuasively.
I suppose we could stretch our categories to include vicious and cruel leaders who are not strong in any good sense, but merely ruthless or deranged (Amin, Assad, et al.), and those who are weak or indecisive, but not fox-like (Chamberlain, Herbert Hoover…).
There is certainly a widespread form of undiagnosed TDS amongst many of Trump’s supporters, under which those who don’t march in worshipful lockstep are called deranged, but never themselves or their fellow devotees.
Where are these intellectual journalists of whom you speak? All I see are toadying sycophants parrotting government propaganda, demonising anyone who dares to dissent, and omitting stories that are inconvenient to the orthodoxy.
In the U.S. his name is Trump
Machiavelli was writing 500 years ago. The author is trying to show off but bends the facts to fit the theory and creates a hell of a mess. The UK in 2024 is nothing like medieval Italy or Ancient Rome. This essay would struggle to get a C in A’ Level Politics or History. The rioters, incited by right-wing extremists, were a tiny minority of useless, dispossessed drunks. The UK is not about boil over unless another Churchill rocks up. Unbridled immigration should stop, of course, but most people realise we just need to get on with those already here. This article shows no respect for the calm, adult, civilized response to the riots.
That’s a bit like dismissing Aristotle’s Kyklos theory as outdated because modern leaders don’t wear linen smocks or write on papyrus.
The Right wing rabble who rioted are just the tip of the iceberg, an iceberg that voted Reform, and will almost certainly swell and grow as the pie shrinks due to decades of the foxes’ stupid panderings to Greens and Xenophiles.
ie, your objection to Lyon’s piece would itself “struggle to get a C in A’ Level Politics or History”
Whereas what we’ve seen is different: good times accustom people to greed which takes the good times away. Shareholder value for example.
Lions led by donkeys.
(Apologies to donkeys.)
Yeh, I don’t think the implication is that lions are 100% positive though, just that they have the utility of maintaining power and preserving stability.
Of course most of us are sick of foxes by now, so we know they aren’t 100% positive either.
The quote is originally from Babur, founder of the Moghul empire, as far as I know.
This article says it all.
Great article. Dark times. Stand strong my British friends. This problem is not unique to one country. It’s Global but your country has shown a unique ability to overcome these stressors.
The ideas of Locke will outduel the Authoritarianism of Hobbes.
Devastating.
But the alternative to a lion asserting power (typically in the midst of chaos) is widespread non-compliance by individuals (insert clever animal name here). If even 10% of citizens ridiculed and declared these foxes to be the ones not following the law, accepting that some who stand up will post the short term price, the foxes will have no leverage. But when 95% fear paying a short term price and choose to be complicit with the lies, it enables the further disintegration being enacted by the foxes.
Honeybadgers!
Love it
Few people have the courage of a Farage or Robinson. Most of us are O’Briens, unfortunately.
Who is O’brien?
James O’Brien of LBC, perhaps. Or wasn’t there a Tory MP called Neil O’Brien who was compiling a ‘list’?
O’Brien is the torturer of Winston Smith in 1984 and also a talk show host on the far right radio station LBC. Consequently, in the UK, the name is a byword for authoritarian brutality.
BINGO!
So LBC is far right now? I cant keep up.
I have been a lion in the past but was too indiscreet. I have learned to be more careful and am biding my time.
Interesting essay for sure. I think it’s clear that wealthy, western democracies are experiencing some kind of decay and rot. The anglosphere seems better off than Europe, but the disease may be more advanced in Britain than North America. It’s easy to become nihilistic about this stuff, but maybe we can turn it around.
The rot is built into social democracy. The more spending power that the state acquires and the more centralised it becomes, the more parasites it attracts. Eventually the productive economy collapses under the weight of their demands. This is particularly true in Britain where a rigged housing market has combined with corrupt immigration and monetary policy to create the largest upward transfer of wealth in our history – while a dishonest media class talks about something, anything, else.
Absolute bingo.
I think one of the author’s key points was that the existing order of foxes needs to (and will inevitably) collapse before the next “saviour” lion arises in the resultant disorder, and is accepted and followed by the people.
This is in line with Strauss and Howe’ “Fourth Turning” and the Ancient Greeks’ Kyklos theories.
It seems ever less likely that the social, cultural, and political sequences described can be halted and undone. I can’t remember when I last observed a lion, while the foxes are now everywhere. Each of us may soon be obliged to find their own way to survive what not long ago was unthinkable but has become easier to imagine. We commenters may soon lose even venues such as this one to express ourselves and be forced to retreat silently to what Victor Davis Hansen calls “the monastery of the mind”. Perhaps some of you, like me, post things here that you know cannot be safely spoken at dinner parties, at work, at school, or even to our families; both for fear of significant consequence and out of realization that we are unlikely to persuade anyone who doesn’t already agree.
No, pay the price if it’s true. Walk across the line to the other side if that is what is more important to you. Say what’s right to your family and dinner party guests if you care about them.
Have done just that for most of my life. The cost has been both expensive and ineffective. Standing up for the truth to one’s dinner party guests is the fast lane to having no dinner party guests and never again being invited to anyone else’s party. When the critical mass of people in a society who are receptive to the truth shrinks below a certain level, standing up for it becomes futile. Cancel culture is not confined to young people on social media, it is ubiquitous.
This could be a behavioural style issue. I so often see people banging the table, full of emotion, pushing their point. Logic is not persuasive.
The trick is to pretend to go along with the consensus, but ask an awkward question, which you claim is troubling you, to get the smarter guests thinking. Persuasion is often best done by making people believe they thought of something themselves!
Awkward questions are good. When someone gives me a pat answer based on preconceived dogma (which to my mind has no basis in reality), I ask, “Why?” The jaw drops, the lip quivers, they stammer, momentarily speechless. Perhaps, one hopes, that’s the beginning of self reflection. Or perhaps not. But it’s a powerful little word.
The wife gets abit upset, but I never start it.
It’s an archetypal ‘Emperors New Clothes’ situation.
Who will play the role of The Innocent?
You’re only a wee laddie. How about you do it?
Russell Brand does it. Of course they had to search and found a lame brain learning challenged 16 year old who seems to have remained at that age for 40 years,but I’ve been 9 years old for 70 years so I can’t cast aspersions there. And sex,even rape cant just be consensual or non consensual penetrative sex,we are all so blase now,having been instructed over 40 years not to be shocked or outraged by anything anyone does sexually -judge not that ye be not judged (but you will be anyway) so “sex crime” has to extra outre, outrageous, cruel,violent and pornographic.
Fortunately we have secret ballots. One of the major advantages of democracy is that someone should emerge to challenge the foxes, once the scales fall from enough people’s eyes, before the horror that allowing the wolves to take over can happen.
Yes, but the foxes control the narrative. Just look at how the entire media on both ‘left’ and ‘right’ have promoted the same lies about some mythical ‘far right’ for weeks now without any challenge.
A narrative only goes so far. Eventually the narrative has to modify itself to fit events, or die.
Those lions better bloody hurry up or we’ll be faced with a different set of Lions, we weren’t expecting. Today, 37% of UK primary schools are made up of BAME pupils. 36% in secondary schools. By the middle of the century it’s quite conceivable an Islamic party could form the UKs official opposition if not the ruling party.
The Muslim population of Britain is 8% . They are typically concentrated in some inner city areas. Even if they all voted for the same Muslim party, which is very unlikely, the British electoral system would only give that party a tiny number of seats.
Official Muslim population.
The demographic curve is not linear. If you look at the mass of old people in the UK who will likely die in the next ten years it is overwhelmingly white-British-native. As the commenter above noted the number of very young has a quite different composition. That, combined with differential birth rates and additional new immigration, is what will change things a lot in a short period of time.
The way things are going, people with no intuitive feel for exponential curves are in for some very nasty surprises in the next few decades!
Get.real matey. In the support for Gaza marches in London which a lot of Jewish people went on too,it chilled the blood of the Islingtonians to.see en masse so many brown skinned Muslim men ( and women) all filling London streets. Scared them shitless. 8% -.and the rest.
Their numbers are leveraged by their designation as a sacred minority by the Progressive establishment, so they have a relatively stronger influence than the feminised, tolerant Christian / Atheist indigenous population. We are only foxes, but they are lions.
We saw the armed Muslim jihadists on the streets last week. All men of military age.
I wouldn’t be too complacent about secret ballots. The increase in postal voting for example will erode it.
It all depends on how they re-define “secret”, doesn’t it?
And electronic voting in USA is just made for being tinkered with and thats not even digital
sadly we dont. Your ballot paper number is recorded against your name. It is easy to find out how you vote.
Yeah, but you can’t find out who voted who wasn’t legally permitted to vote.
I’ve known a number of people who could have voted twice if they chose..I don’t think they did but could have. A young woman.still registered at her Mum’s address but also registered at the flat in which she lives with her boyfriend. A student registered.at.his parents home AND at his student lodgings. It’s more common and widespread than we think
Who cares when 30% of the vote gives a huge majority in Parliament? A vote does not constitute democracy. It is the consequence of the vote that matters.
How could you know if a corrupt official simply throws some mailed ballots away? Also, in the U.S. it is legal for individuals to take ballots to places like old age homes where they distribute them and then collect them, without a mechanism in place to ensure that the ballot harvester is not providing partisan influence in assisting the sometimes demented voters, or is not disposing of ballots marked contrary to the harvesters’ political orientation, or that they even actually go to the old age homes and instead just mark them themselves.
Who givers a thumbs down to concerns about how the electoral process can be abused? Does electoral abuse now have a constituency?
I noticed that a decade or so ago. It’s creepy.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the descendants of communist parties kept winning elections in previously communist countries, because no other party had both the ability to compete effectively in elections AND the stomach to fight the communists.
What good is voting when the candidates are uniformly incapable of ameliorating the problems? There are no lions emerging to challenge the foxes and, if one did, he/she would be quickly neutralized by the legions of foxes. That is the point of the essay.
As for ballots and democracy, the U.S. continues to inch toward banana state elections where the legitimacy of every election back to Bush has been challenged, while both sides continuously connive new ways to warp the electoral mechanics to their unscrupulous advantage. Gerrymandering, abuse of mail-in and absentee ballots, ballot harvesting, differential funding of voting precincts according to political ideology, lack of reliable voter ID, manipulation of the voting franchise to harvest votes trending favorably to the left such as lowering voter age, enfranchising non-citizen immigrants, and re-enfranchising incarcerated felons.
I like that phrase “monastery of the mind”. I have a fantasy of retiring to a seaside town and spending my evenings reading old fashioned hardback, improving novels or studying mathematics accompanied by a glass of whisky and a pipe (even though I don’t smoke).
Not so long ago such a (little bit silly) fantasy would have been possible. Now, while the Internet makes things easier ( communications, banking, shopping) it brings with it, to those with limited self-discipline (me) doom scrolling and rabbit holes of “handcart to hell” stories.
The writer’s point about a state which cares little for what is moral is well made but it’s also very hard to escape and pretend it happens to others.
I once saw an elderly man sitting in front of his beach hut on Southwold promenade, smoking a cigarette and gazing out to sea. I figured he was contemplating life, the universe etc. and figured that was a pretty good way of ending one’s days. At the time, I had no idea how exorbitant the price of a beach hut overlooking the beach at Southwold is.
Mind itv.ight be worth it for the fish and chips
“I can’t remember when I last observed a lion”
Thatcher.
Maybe Badenoch
Yes, maybe.
She has my vote
Don’t confuse lions with psychopaths!
Your comment will help us with that distinction.
Milei.
I’m not sure a “collapse” is coming, but it’s fairly sure I think that the tendency toward a totalitarian regime – the one being set up by the Guardian set — will continue. I’m transferring capital to my wife’s country in the South Pacific, which is where I currently am, and intend to consolidate there. It’s a far less politically tense environment, largely free of the Imperium, except for fly-in fly-out do-gooders trying, mostly superficially, to transfer the whole gamut of imperial ideology to the locals. These more chaotic societies on the fringe are difficult to repress with global ruling class counter-insurgency psyops style governance (as described by Jacob Seigel), unlike the situation in the major Western countries. I really don’t like totalitarianism.
Donald Trump is no savior, but he is speaking the things that cannot safely be spoken about the foxes, and it has driven them insane with rage.
If you’re familiar with Donald Trump, you observed a lion, and not just when he was shot and got right back up, fist in the air. He’s been fighting the foxes since 2016.
Yet he inducted fox after fox into his administration.
Sessions?
Wray?
Jared Kushner?
Bolton, for God’s sake?
Not sure I’d call John Bolton a fox, more like an irate honey badger!
You can often safely make a point by asking a question with the right tone of voice. Tone can be as important as the words. A trivial example: a few days ago someone told me he opposes Trump because he’ll adopt Agenda 2025. I asked him why he thought so when Trump disavows it himself and only his enemies attribute it to him. Why, I asked him, does he disbelieve Trump in this case and instead believe one of Trump’s enemies? It’s true enough that either one could be lying or telling the truth, but how could he choose? He had to admit he had no answer, and he didn’t get angry because I was careful with the tone.
I’m of an age where it doesn’t make any difference.
Me too.
Very good piece of writing.
An excellent essay, although one might find it peculiar that it was written by someone called Lyons. Conflict of interest?
Well spotted! Maybe there’s something to nominative determinism after all!
Good essay! The author hasn’t referred to the population as sheep though, as that’s what we are really.
Better to live one day
Like a lion than a thousand sheepishly
Say dead Orientals…
Divine Comedy
‘Or as one planner described it, the whole effort is intended to serve as “an anaesthetic for the community”.’
That’s sinister bureaucratic jargon for soma.
This article takes sophistry to a completely new level. So let’s get right to the point; absolute bollocks! Reading that was a complete waste of my morning tea.
With best wishes,
Foxy
This article is bollocks. The author once read a clever Renaissance book about political philosophy and is now bending facts about the modern world so he can show off a theory from it that he likes. The riots in the UK involved a tiny minority of thugs incited by far-right extremists. There were fewer than 100 attacking the immigrant hotel, for example. Yes, there is an immigration problem and, yes, we should shut the doors as much as possible, but the idea that the country is about to boil over unless another Alexander the Great appears is nonsense. There are four million Muslims in the UK, 6.7% of the population, and half were born here. 99.9% are not fanatics and do not want a Shariah state. They just want to live in peace. And most are now integrated into their local communities. Of course there should be no more, because they will soon reach a critical mass, but the rioters do not represent the attitude of most UK people, who sensibly accept that there is nothing to be done with those who are already here except get on. Otherwise there would have been thousands smashing things, not hundreds. Most of the rioters were bored, poor, stupid, talentless, hopeless and, of course, drunk.
I appreciate your forceful pushback against the stampeding consensus here. I admit that I like Lyons as a writer, and may be taking too favorable a view of his binary model. From comfortably across the Atlantic, it seems that one might understand the more widespread frustrations that underlie riotous behavior, but still denounce the outbursts. Do you think it all comes of nativist menace and bigotry?
I hope you are correct in asserting that only 1 British Muslim in 1000 is a fanatic. That sounds like a very optimistic ratio.
As Machiavelli observes the true statesman combines the fox and lion characteristics. We do not want the return simply of the warrior Lion but one who combines both characteristics.
What in practice would this involve? For a start it would involve the enforcement of law equally on all communities. Indeed there should be no concept of separate communities with informal “leaders” at all. All should be treated as Britains expected to conform with traditional British practices.
The private observance of religion should be accepted but no recognition should be given to any religion having a special privileged place in public life. While Christianity has formed the core of British practice and morality today official Anglicanism no longer serves to bind the country together but has become a foxy mushy irrelevance in public life. Still less should Islam be permitted special privileges through Sharia Courts or hate crime legislation.
The excessive manipulation of the fox through social engineering should be reigned back and the depredations of the foxlike Woolf through various scams should be ruthlessly suppressed.
Becoming a Britain with the social and financial support implied should be regarded as a privilege to be earned not something given away to all who can sneak across the boarder.
There are a lot of ‘shoulds’ there… but what we really need is an ethical background to help them flourish. I suggest we need only two things – a recognition of the value of free speech and the insistence that there are only ‘crimes’ and no ‘hate crimes’.
These two ethical stances remove the camouflage deployed by ‘foxes’ to confuse the general population. You can not accidentally(?) promote division if there is free debate and single tier policing.
The British elite’s information control, aka the BBC, took the line that the only reason people were rioting was because of some false information on social media. This approach was similar to their information control when the elite realised the pro-Brexit campaign was doing well.
There are none so blind as those who will not see. The triumph of the superficial.
And when Brexit passed, the foxes basically just refused to implement it by tying it in impenetrable knots of bureaucracy, slow-walking, and outright dishonesty.
The problem with implementing Brexit is that there were too many vested interests (and I include voters here) who stood to lose out short term by any real reforms to our customs and excise regime, not to mention the whole Northern Ireland conundrum.
What would be best for the average Brit would be to jettison our ties to that benighted chunk of Eire, sell the Falklands to the highest bidder (while offering the islanders a cut of the proceeds), stop colluding with the American empire, sell off the carriers and other appurtenances of military adventurism, drop the Green nonsense and drill, baby drill! while gearing up our nuclear industry.
Pivot from raising government revenue from income to resource monopolisation (ie, implementing LVT).
Written constitution similar to the US guaranteeing free speech.
Slash the size of the military but introduce National Service alongside a constitutional guarantee that conscripts can never be deployed overseas (to prevent the inevitable psychopaths like Blair using them as cannon fodder for military adventurism)
Keep our nose out of Eurooean (or other) conflicts.
Enable pigs to fly.
Ah yes. History shows it has always worked out well when a weakened nation, tired of petty bureaucrats, demands a ‘strongman’… ahem, I mean Lion!
Not much comes up when you Google “Home Office” “controlled spontaneity”. Perhaps some journalist could put some flesh on the bones of this story?
Use Perplexity , not Google.
Use it now before Starmer closes it down.
A Perplexity search gives the following ;-
Overview of Controlled Spontaneity
Purpose: The primary aim of controlled spontaneity is to shape public responses towards empathy and unity rather than anger or violence after terrorist attacks. This is achieved through a series of pre-prepared media campaigns that can be quickly deployed in the aftermath of an incident.
Implementation: The government prepares hashtags, posters, and statements in advance, which are activated following an attack. For instance, after the London Bridge attack in June 2017, a coordinated effort included social media campaigns and public vigils that were planned ahead of time to ensure a positive public response.
Examples: Historical instances of controlled spontaneity include:A media campaign following the beheading of British and American aid workers by ISIS in 2014.The use of hashtags and public vigils after the London Bridge attacks.The organization of inter-faith events and political statements that were pre-negotiated to control the narrative and public sentiment post-attack
Implications and Critiques
Public Perception Management: By controlling the narrative, the government aims to prevent public outrage and instead foster a sense of community and resilience. This approach has been likened to using propaganda techniques to manage the emotional landscape following traumatic events.
Concerns: Some critics argue that this blending of emergency response with media manipulation can distract from meaningful public discourse about the underlying causes of terrorism. There are worries that such strategies may trivialize genuine public grief and concern, reducing complex issues to mere media spectacles.
Just as well the Home Office remains as dysfunctional as it has been for decades. So whatever they attempt will at least be incompetent and botched.
Indeed. Did anyone think the aftermath of Manchester Arena bombing was anyhing other than psyops? Never trust your state – they are not there to serve the people, as Starmer has conclusively proven this week.
So, when you see an ‘anti-racist’ demo in a black part of Birmingham which consists exclusively of middle aged whites with ‘public sector’ written all over them, as we did this week, what you’re witnessing is Controlled Spontaneity?
Thanks for the tip about Perplexity. Downloaded.
See here : https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/mind-control-secret-british-government-blueprints-shaping-post-terror-planning
That’s what the Perplexity search found, and summarised it for me.
Hamas propaganda has no place in Unherd
Roussinos referred to it here about a week ago in ‘How Britain Ignored its Ethnic Conflict’. Within the piece there’s a link to an article devoted to the government unit behind ‘controlled spontaneity’.
‘Controlled spontaneity’
From Middle East Eye in 2019:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/mind-control-secret-british-government-blueprints-shaping-post-terror-planning
Google?? LOL! Now, who do you think they work for?
What a load of utter bilge. “Lions” such as Hitler, Stalin or Mao? All that ended well!
That’s the problem with 4th turnings. A wolf always emerges, but be careful what.you wish for – as likely to be Stalin as the New Deal.
No. I think he means lions such as Churchill, Thatcher and Reagan. But your BBC style spin it quite impressive all the same.
There are no ‘lions’ or ‘foxes’, there are only differing degrees and manifestations of psychopathy.
Hitler, Stalin or Mao
No. They were wolves. The left does not produce lions.
If only we had Mrs T to lead us now….she was a lion. “She died before the Western liberal establishment had begun to convulse itself over such things as whether our culture was ‘transphobic’ and whether young people needed to be protected from harm ‘triggered’ by its great works of literature. In fact – thanks to a long mental decline (the unlucky consequence of repeated mini-strokes) – she missed out on having her say about much of the cultural transformation effected in the 21st century West by its university-educated progressive clerisy. But what would she have had to say had she been in her prime in 2023?
She would certainly have called a spade a spade, loud and clear and damn the consequences. But she would have done it in the manner of a strict mother wanting to curb our nonsense for our own good. She would not have fallen into the rhetorical rabbit hole of trying to frame arguments against ‘identity politics’ using its own tendentious terminology. Asked to discuss issues relating to the LGTB+ community she would probably have told the interviewer to stop talking such nonsense. She would have said it insistently and would not have shut up however impolitic the subsequent verbal joust became. Asked to comment on ‘systemic racism’, she would have wagged her finger and asserted that Britain was the least racist society that had ever been and how crazy to have lurched – in a couple of generations – from racism against coloured people to racism against white people…….” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/mrs-thatcher-and-the-good-life
Umm…Thatcher was more than happy to set the police on working class people and it seems Starmer is set on doing the same
Hmmm, I think Starmer is more weasel than lion.
“Controlled spontaneity” what a fabulous oxymoron
Really interesting article, discernibly reflects aspects of present reality.
Is migration an option or is nowhere a safe place to be? OR do we just wait for the roar of lions?
Excellent essay!
Basically, since the 1960s UK has had mainly government by foxes and this has contributed significantly to the development of a foxes’ den of public servants. The foxy civil service, academia, etc is now pretty much in charge, whichever politicians are in government. It will take a very strong lion to regain control.
Well I’ve spent plenty of time in “lion” countries where state violence is used to rule and let me tell you I’ll take the foxes any day.
So would my friends but unfortunately they’re stuck there.
Yes, it’s not a very helpful metaphor for the modern age. Which flavour psychopath would you like to destroy your life…?
You have either misunderstood the article or have a limited grasp of history.
They are wolves, not lions.
It’s a great pity that Machiavelli is typically only ever mentioned in connection with the sort of deviousness that the article accurately ascribes to the fox instead of the lion. In fact, as stated above in respect of the ideal leader, he was a man who understood and valued the mentality of both types of leader.
My favourite phrase of his is “War is not to be avoided, only deferred at one’s own expense”. The reason I Iike it is that it’s so often misunderstood as implying bloodthirst, when in fact it is merely a pragmatic insight that since leaders rarely possess any control over events outside their own spheres of influence, the option of not being at war very often simply doesn’t exist. Leaders must very often face the inexorable calculation that there’s no cost-free option where blood and treasure is concerned, a reality that idealists usually fail to understand.
This is particularly relevant now, with both the Ukraine and Israel/Palestine war happening precisely because various leaderships of the major power blocs in recent years often failed to understand this lesson.
Machiavelli wasn’t saying this is what you should do,he was saying,this is what works. There is a distinction there. But as humans we do.usually go for what works.
Good Article
Maybe, but unlike ¨Dave” (PR man) Cameron, Starmer fought for his position by kicking Corbynistas in the teeth. We shall see what happens.
Selective history !
Starmer twice took a leading role in campaigning for Corbyn to be PM. He has a long, long history of pretty left wing politics behind him.
I’d further suggest that there was very little “fighting” involved in Starmer’s purge of the Corbynites and that this was largely the operation of the Labour machine as much as any actual leadership and risk taking by Starmer. Nothing at all compared to Neil Kinnock taking on Miltant Tendency.
But the Labour government foxes are supported by a compliant media, and a vast public sector with a considerable vested interest in promoting its narrative. The wolves and lions have been defanged long ago by consumerism, infantilism, and the parallel reality of the internet.
I wouldn’t have called Augustus one of the lions, as his predecessors like Sulla, Marius, and of course Julius Caesar had been. Augustus was the first archetypal fox! Fox example, after defeating Mark Antony at Actium, and thereby becoming sole ruler, his first act was to decommission at least half of the 60 legions he had inherited.
Only thirty were needed for maintaining the Empire. The other thirty were engaged in mercenary civil strife at the behest of one wealthy Roman or another. Augustus was well aware of the threat they posed as he had used them to his own advantage.
This is lazy macho nonsense that relies on reductionism and a neat story to sound compelling. Feels like the narrative that leads to militias and book burnings.
If we can distinguish between lions and wolves, why can’t we distinguish between foxes and snakes?
How many lions ever succeeded for long without a supporting cast of foxes?
Not saying there isn’t a problem with our current snakepit elite, but I would rather be governed by foxes than snakes, wolves or a knuckleheaded lion.
Also what about the owls, badgers and hedgehogs? I’m sure we could develop a really sophisticated political philosophy if the whole cast of the Animals of Farthing Wood were brought into play.
Ignoring the sarcasm, I suspect AA Milne had most of human endeavour covered with the characters of Winnie the Pooh. So actually, not a bad idea.
You are governed by foxes. How’s it working out?
No, i’d say by snakes. But they’ve been called foxes here so let’s stick with that. I vote for a coalition of owls and badgers. Why is the answer to corrupt/inept managerial style of government (“foxes”) the muscle/machismo of a lion rather than competent/honest/sane “nerds”? And why do we have to say that using brains rather than brawn is “effete” as a way of discrediting it?
“And why do we have to say that using brains rather than brawn is “effete” as a way of discrediting it?”
I think the difference is that governing with brains is only in danger of becoming effete if the people doing the governing have no other option. The article points out that ideal leaders are capable of both brains and brawn, and therefore can intelligently decide which to use in any given situation.
Why is the answer to corrupt/inept managerial style of government (“foxes”) the muscle/machismo of a lion rather than competent/honest/sane “nerds”?
Because the nerds have tried and failed to penetrate the thick skulls of the govt foxes. How long have people talked about immigration, warned of the implications if left unchecked, pointed out that it only works if new populations assimilate into existing culture? Those people were competent, sane, and honest, and for their troubles were either ignored or reviled. They were also correct and instead of the foxes recognizing their mistake, they double down on the same tactics.
You have to place it in context. For instance, Margaret Thatcher was a lion not a fox, yet at no point was Britain ever even remotely close to the authoritarianism you imply. There will be many other examples.
In context of this essays analogy:
“Nations are founded by lions, who are a society’s natural warrior class — its jocks, so to speak. They establish and expand a kingdom’s borders at the point of a sword, pacifying external enemies”.
Thatcher was strong, and nothing like our insipid current politicians of either stripe, but she wasn’t a Boudicca. I reckon she’s more like my owls and badgers.
Very hard to take a call for Machiavelli’s lion as anything other than a request for a military strong man.
I disagree. I realise the Falklands War was only a very small conflict in the scheme of things, but one thing is true about it: the consensus of the political establishments of the world at the time of the invasion was that no rational statesperson would bother defending a couple of tactically-irrelevant islands 8000 miles away. That was the consensus of foxes. They were wrong.
And, of course, Thatcher was a crucial part of the victorious side of that far greater, existential conflict that ended with the fall of the Berlin wall. Reagan, Thatcher, Kohl and many others – all lions.
And the analogy described by Machiavelli doesn’t allow for any convenient addition of other types of animal, especially not merely for the purposes of straw-manning the debate, so if you want to classify Thatcher in this context, it’s fox, lion or wolf, no other options.
As has been pointed out by others, Machiavelli described the successful ruler as one who made himself necessary to those he ruled.
This successful ruler has to make the governed dependent on him. As long as he is ‘delivering’ for the people, he is wanted by them. In the absence of rule legitimised by hereditary or the divine right of kings, this ‘service’ is the only way to legitimise the ruler.
Sir Kier has promised a government of service. But what if the people are not given what they want? The King can say he is a servant. But as a king he isn’t a servant. If legitimacy of the ruler is based on delivery and their is none, what of the legitimacy?
The author of this piece doesn’t describe an example of the ruler that combines both the characteristics of the fox and the lion. Can the fox be a lion by proxy? In supporting the lion of Kiev, can the fox of Downing Street become a lion, at least in its own estimation?
The Lion is one of the supporters of the British arms. The beast, now aged and mangy, cannot himself walk abroad to cause the foreign pigeons to flutter in alarm. This once-king now tries to walk in his own demesne in a regal manner. But all he can manage is to purr indulgently at creatures that herd insolently at his water hole. He prefers to aver that the serpents are asleep and that the hyenas are merely chortling.
The other supporter of the British arms is the Unicorn. A creature both mystic and pure. The Unicorn is not only a medieval fancy but a chimera. If the British state is buoyed up by the reality of the Lion, it is also succoured by the illusions of the Unicorn. Illusions are mighty but must sometime face a reckoning with this world. The Unicorn feigning that heavenly harmony permeates British society is unable to foresee the actual consequences of the domestic policies of the now-decrepit Lion.
Great article.
“That would take lions. But the foxes of the Western elite are even more scared of lions than they are of wolves…”
I’m glad you finished the article referring to the Western elite and not just the UK. This phenomenon is everywhere, including here in the US.
We’re not ruled by politicians, you fool.
Outstanding. Shame that the foxes wouldn’t recognize themselves even if they were to read this perfect description of them.
Is there perhaps a third phase, where the foxes are superseded by a committee of hamsters, lemmings and peacocks who are neither strong nor cunning, can’t do sums and have basically given up on serious thought.
The rule of foxes relies on the ruled being sheep. When the citizen herd refuses to play along, things get interesting.
I find this analysis overly simplistic. Ray Dalio provides a much more nuanced and comprehensive view of how historical cycles bring the rise and fall of countries and empires. A very simplified version: It starts with strong work ethics, strong education, drive to innovate, rule of law, etc. Think the industrial revolution and the beginning of the British Empire. As a society becomes rich it turns lazy and risk averse and tries to keep what it has with minimum effort, producing less and borrowing more. Productivity and innovation drops. Social mobility decreases, inequality increases, bringing conflict. Think our country today. Eventually it collapses, often after conflict with a new power that emerges powered by the same fundamental factors.
What our country lacks is a vision and a drive for the future, not a “lion leader”.
Excellent article! I will add that our predicament is caused by ruthless, lying, cheating, backstabbing, bottom feeder, self serving weasels.
Superb article! In a nutshell, you have perfectly captured the essence of Donald Trump in the U.S. versus the weak and ineffective ruling class. We are amidst a revolution that has nothing to do with Republican versus Democrat, Left versus Right, Liberal versus Conservative. Trump’s movement is widely populated by former Democrats and disaffected Liberals. That’s why the Republican elite hate him as much as the Democrats.
Someone needs to Lion up before we become like lambs abandoned by doctrine.
So much extension and consideration of the utility of the metaphor when, perhaps, in the case of the UK, it is apt only in relation to England’s women soccer team and to the British Lions in rugby
The current Project 2025 attacks are classic Machiavellian / fox narrative warfare. What do I mean? Take an earnest and wordy set of ideas that your opposition party puts forward by one of its more ideological think tanks (the Heritage Foundation is a mainly Christian think tank, and Project 2025 is 900 pages). Enlist every media outlet at your disposal and “out it” as a project to bring hell on earth – make it all up if you like, because no one will have read it and everyone will believe your media.
The Heritage Foundation are already successfully “outed” as a hateful, bigoted group of Christian Supremacists who want to re-enact “The Handmaid’s Tale” (which is why that show was written, by the way) – to sell a narrative: “Never trust a devout Christian – they are all religious fascist racist neo-Nazis”.
This is where conservatives look like idiots because they are guileless in their politics. Heritage put out some nice stable ideas to put common-sense back on the political agenda and now no one will touch Heritage with a ten-foot pole, because in the media they just became Hitler because of the powerful viral oh-my-gosh “Handmaid’s Tale” meme.
It’s all total lies, and totally false, but it wins elections.
What’s the remedy? All you can do is keep exposing the truth.
There is no Handmaid’s Tale in our future. It’s fear-mongering. It. Can’t. Happen. Machiavelli is at work selling memes. They are lies. The more extreme the better. Polar bears are dying because of climate change! Except they aren’t – more polar bears than ever. Hurricanes are increasing because of climate change! Nope, fewer hurricanes. Forests are burning! Mismanagement. Hottest day in history! It isn’t.
If the news makes you feel outraged, you are being played. On either side of the aisle. All politician’s lie. It’s election time. Your job is to do your own research, and my advice is to start with what choreographed media is calling ‘misinformation’.
Don’t know about Atwood’s original novel, but I assumed that the TV show was a take on Iran and Islamic State. So many of the most brutal elements of those regimes were included.
And attributed to hardline mysogynistic Christians. Odd that.
One has to assume that Simon doesn’t know that The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985.
No great surprise there. One doesn’t expect frothing-at-the-mouth lunatics to know the basic facts of what they rant about.
The reason for the handmaids is the sudden mass infertity of human beings.Fertile women are found and corralled to ensure the survival of humanity. The rest is propagandist garbage.
First rate article. A concise synopsis of what is actually going on. Worth the subscription on its own. Bravo!
Your appraisal of the current situation in Aesopian terms seems very apt indeed. Thank you for an enjoyable and thought-provoking article, N.S. Lyons.
“the Home Office’s “controlled spontaneity” programme” seems to have many different elements not least of which is forcing the media to parrot its messages. I am surprised at The Times and The Daily Mail using the slur of “far right” in every single report on what is happening. I am certain they have been forced to do so and it should be a huge scandal.
Why are you certain they’ve been forced? “Far right” is a perfect slur. It sounds serious and in-the-know, like you know what you’re talking about. It seems to explain all things and be getting at an essential point. And for reporters, it’s quick to use — you don’t have to think too much. Moreover, the elite can’t get enough of it — it’s just the kind of intellectual fast food the professional managerial echelon loves to uncritically gobble up.
Why, Unherd, is it that when I look at an article over a few days old all of the comments have zero up or down votes? Are you trying to manage opinions?
The entire world, with the exception of the strongmen, is ruled by these clowns. Or, more truthfully, have been bought and sold my the rich dudes or countries who know they will sell out to the highest bidder.
Is this why the government banned fox hunting? All those riders wearing red coats. Very military.
After all, at the time, a New Labour apparatchik declared that this ban wasn’t about concern over cruelty inflicted on foxes. It was all about who ruled England.
I agree we have fallen into the fox way of operating, but only because factions (parties) and their surrogates in media have come to own the body politic and must continually mince word to keep their jobs. If common citizens had a venue, you might hear someone saying what they are thinking.
Bravo!!!!!
“Effete”? What is happening to UnHerd? Found it and subscribed for Harrington and various legitimate TERF critiques. But won’t be staying much longer, due to the collapsing quality of the articles… like this one…
“Britain is run by girly men”… FFS.
I was hoping UnHerd was going to be a place for quality journalism, not Right Wing clickbait.
There are foxes and lions, yes, but there are also donkeys. I fear our leaders are the third of these. No wisdom, only kicking and mulish stubbornness to change course …..
Excellent article, thank you. I wonder who the lion is
I don’t necessarily disagree. However the “jocks vs. nerds” analogy is weak.
I think it is designed to resonate with Americans.
“Weak men create hard times”: I wasn’t aware until now of this quote but it more than aptly describes the times we are living in!
Excellent article by N.S. Lyons to which one could add that today’s Western Governments are weak to the strong and strong to the weak…
Utter cobblers.
A right wing missive trying desperately hard to absolve the Right of the shambles of the last 14yrs and the longer term failure of neoliberalism by concocting some pseudo psychological twaddle to blame an invisible elite.
How about, as just one example, starting with blaming Thatcher and the Right for selling off council houses and not allowing councils to replace them if you are truly interested in the condition of the working class?
Nope let’s move between blaming migrants and some concocted elite.
It’s not moronic. It’s deliberate and malign.
Wow, great read and spot on! Same situation on this side of the pond. A whole lot of foxes in government & the MSM!
Thank you indeed. You have just explained the reasons for the parlous state of the hierarchy of the Church of England of the last 10 – 20 years.
Does N.S.Lyons know the difference between the United Kingdom; (Great) Britain; and England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? It would appear not.
Possibly not, but N.S. Foxes surely does.
It would be better not to try no shoehorn complex stuff into facile metaphors.
Another variant of Lions and Foxes:
Peace makes plentie, plentie makes pride,
Pride breeds quarrell, and quarrell brings warre:
Warre brings spoile, and spoile povertie,
Povertie pacience, and pacience peace:
So peace brings warre and warre brings peace.
—-George Puttenham, The Art of English Poesie, 1589
“Like Sparta’s Lycurgus or Rome’s Augustus”
Augustus was no jock or lion. As a young man he was rather sickly. He was not a notable commander in war. He was politically astute, however.
It seems to me that the lawfare attack on Trump is the Baldrick’s cunning plan to show that Trump is a Lion.
And Nigel Farage’s win on the Coutts debanking thing is another Lion act.
Just sayin’.
UK and EU, both are in this idiotic dance of bringing more and more immigrants into a stagnating economy. Short term and on the surface yes it is the impact of crime, annoyance with immigrants, some nastiness on the right but those are just symptoms. The root cause is the destruction of economic growth, and ongoing de-industrialization, by the climate fanaticism in the UK, Germany etc..The idea that newcomers will be excited just given the opportunity of contributing to the UK and EU pension plans, and reducing CO2 emissions, in the shackles of centrally planned economy, is just just one example of the current elites morbid stupidity. And they have still enough of useful idiots on their side to drive the whole continent over the cliff.
‘….combined most spectacularly in the Home Office’s “controlled spontaneity” programme‘
Chief Constable Chris Haward told the Telegraph very recently – ‘Large crowds and gatherings didn’t mobilise spontaneously.’
Gosh, I always thought the large crowds and gatherings singing ‘Don’t look back in anger’ were totally spontaneous, just like reported in the media at the time.
A genuinely superb essay: balanced, well stated, and well informed. The lions and foxes model, a bit too reductive on its own, is given some real teeth and claws by Mr Lyons (I guess we knew the author’s preference from the start!).
With notable exceptions, many people have a combination of leonine and vulpine traits. And you can add weasels, doves, dogs, snakes, sheep, and wolves into the mix—for starters.
Great essay, excellent comments. The BTL commentariat here often makes a mediocre article worth clicking on. But it takes a good, or at a well-considered and thought-provoking piece to bring out the best.
Thanks UnHerd!
Fantastic article. I have bought The Machiavellians by James Burnham and am reading it. Talk about fitting the facts …it all makes much more sense now.
The police acting as a ‘colonial’ force is a startling insight
I’m with him on lions. Churchill was a lion. So was Bevin. The present lot are not foxes. Rabbits more like.
Thatcher?
How the writer manoeuvred his way around the large elephant in the room was deft.. credit where it’s due.. No mention of the Brexit con job (I know, boring..), nor the resultant economic crash, nor the soaring cost of living, nor the general hopelessness pervading a country grossly failed by an oligarch driven, US vassal government that is happy to spend billions on foreign wars but can’t afford the basics at home!
I submit the great unwashed are lashing out at whatever is to hand rather than attack the real culprits that have ripped them off to enrich the already obscenely rich and impoverish ordinary British working people! Attacking migrants that have nothing whatever to do with the real issues, egged on by the the rich Nigel and useful idiot Tommy Robinson at least one of whom is – like the bulk of UK senior politicians – slaves to the US (and their masters Israel) especially the Z¡on¡st lunatics supporting a genocide and a hopeless war against an unbeatable enemy!
The whole thing` is a sick joke!
So, to sum up, it’s all the fault of the Zionists? Is that your point?
I’m sorry this is just ridiculous. Summed up as, “wealth makes you weak.” This is the oldest of chestnuts and shows a profound lack of imagination. The Greeks and the Romans were complaining about this at the very dawn of recorded history, it was dumb then and it’s just as dumb now.
Government sponsored psy-ops, really? This is the very worst of Youtube conspiracy fueled nonsense. The author clearly has no experience of how bureaucracies actually work. In fact this article is so silly, I think it might be a hoax. Nice one Unherd, you almost got me. For fucks sake.
The moderators pulled my comment yet again. f**k them. I’m done with this purveyor of bad faith opinion. Where’s Mary Harrington gone? About 4 months ago all these no-nothing twots started posting poorly researched click-bait pieces. Have you noticed that none of them have bios? I have to Google them to find out if they actually have any credibility. Few have. I’m not a fan of Edward Lutwig, but at least some people thought he knew what he was talking about. He had form, unlike this load of clowns. My subscription ends on the 21st Aug. It’s only a pound a week but it’s a pound that I now begrudge. Sad isn’t it?
It’s a good analogy: Chamberlin v Churchill springs immediately to mind. But it ignores that it talks only of a political class. The large scale immigration of the last 20 years has been demanded by, and implemented by it’s political puppets, the UK’s capitalist class, forever wanting new, fresh, hard working and cheap labour.
I venture to suggest that Britain is not ruled by an ” elite” but by a diametric opposite: a tribe of essentially lower middle class people, 2 generations away from the working class that they now eschew vigorously, in an attempt to show ( mainly their neighbours and fellow tribe members) how ” far they have travelled. Although now filling mainly minor public schools with their offspring, they at the same times having a neo pathological loathing of those whom they consider have enjoyed undeserved privelige, including Etonians Harrovians, members of clubs that they do not have access to, Household Division ex officers, fox hunting, shooting and landowning people.
I first encountered this tribe at my childrens prep school a few years back: their job/ car based snobbery was actually funny, but their snobbery towards parents whom they considered of lower status was as risible as their shamrock green resentment of parents who came from the category, as above, that they disliked. When I was on a board at Cambridge University, I noted with interest how, in the same way, grammar school undergratuates had a similar chip about those from smart public schools.
These people, who so often seem to number solicitors and accountants and those in certain bits of the insurance industry and IT amongst their number, now run this country.
What the government has been suppressing since at least 1948 is that they have been cooperating with and sponsoring a bunch of terrorists with Nazi sympathies and cracking down on those who show any sympathy for the victims of these terrorists. In all my years of watching and reading news in the media, I have heard mentioned only once that the zionists engaged extensively in terrorism when Spackman tackled Moshe Arendt about it for a passing moment.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-06-21/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/zionist-military-org-efforts-to-recruit-nazis-in-fight-against-the-british-are-revealed/00000188-d93a-d5fc-ab9d-db7ae0ea0000
Well a fox is always vermin, a wolf can be verminous in the wrong place, but i can’t think of lion being verminous