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Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
15 days ago

Excellent essay. MH identifies the issues very well, and offers some potential solutions. Good stuff.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Tory bedwetting after spending 15 years destroying the country and appointing ever more bug eyed loons to make things worse.
She and Jeremy Clarkson and the rest of them had their shot and made an almighty balls up of it. Time to sit down and keep quiet. Some hope..

Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan Andrews
14 days ago

They did idea make a shocking mess, so bad, indeed, that they’ve let in something worse.

Martin M
Martin M
14 days ago

I don’t recall Jeremy Clarkson ever holding a role in the government.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
14 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

CS hasn’t got to the modern history part of his GCSE yet.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
14 days ago

I might be losing my memory, but I’m struggling to remember when Mary Harrington and Jeremy Clarkson led the government.

C C
C C
14 days ago

Sadly they never have but I’m all for giving them a chance

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
14 days ago

Some hope indeed. Things can only get worse for you guys, I’m afraid. A roaring US economy, driven by cheap energy, de-regulation and AI, is going to suck every last penny of investment capital out of Europe and the UK. We’re all going to get massively poorer whatever Starmer and his colleagues do. Even if Labour survive in power until 2029 they’ll never be elected again. Watch and learn.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

FYI GB is in Europe ..not in the EU for sure, but neither is it in Asia, America or Africa..

Derek McLellan
Derek McLellan
11 days ago

The coupling of champagne and socialist seems like an oxymoron. I associate champagne with wealth and prosperity, and socialism with misery and poverty. As Churchill said in the House of Commons in October 1945, ‘The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.’ Socialism claims to be kind, but really, like an intravenous drip of euthanasia, it kills the patient.

Last edited 11 days ago by Derek McLellan
Deb Grant
Deb Grant
8 days ago
Reply to  Derek McLellan

Great comment. Thank you for highlighting a Churchill quote which is still relevant. I call socialism Levelling Down.

Everyone wants to eradicate poverty and violence. We just disagree on how best to deliver upward mobity and prosperity for the most.

As sure as eggs are eggs, it won’t be by demonising or disincentivising the people who invent, design, make and sell things.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
10 days ago

I think you get a buzz from downticks. Still, whatever floats your boat.

Deb Grant
Deb Grant
8 days ago

Socialist bedwetting after being found wanting so soon, and feeling stupid in believing there was a magic money tree.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
14 days ago

Great essay – but one that somehow forgets or avoids the untouchable pillar of Net Zero.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
14 days ago

Yes, of all the threats to our society, NetZero is the worst. For some reason, people are frightened of tackling this one. Maybe because of the confusion between climate prognoses and attempts to tackle them – two completely different things.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago

My reply to Brendan should have been made to you Caradog. Churchill always found World Peace an unimpeachable objective, only believed there must a way of getting it other than simply demanding or expecting it.

Norfolk Sceptic
Norfolk Sceptic
14 days ago

NET Zero policies are a non-solution to a non-problem.

It’s the Sun that influences the weather: the Solar Flares, Coronal Mass Ejections (CME), the Coronal Holes and the Electromagnetic connections that transfer the Energy that varies most from the Sun to the planets, including the Earth. What ever Carbon Dioxide does, it’s effects have been saturated: it’s past the point of changing the Earth’s temperature.

And the NET Zero policies, although they may work at very small scale, with subsidies, turned into the country’s main method of Energy production, will only destroy Industry, Manufacturing and make the country poorer, very poor indeed.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
14 days ago

I assume you have read the book by Vinós, which is undoubtedly correct. But knowing you are correct is not enough – you have to convince other people. I am a physical scientist and I found the book difficult – not because of the science but the jargon.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago

Non solution yes, non problem, no! Climate change is very real but it’s doubtful it’s (all) man-made.. It needs to be catered for, not defeated as the latter is impossible.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
14 days ago

Sure, when a dangerous animal approaches, the most effective solution is to close your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and chant ‘La-La-La’. More sophisticated actors can spend their time proving that the animal does not exist, and that anyway it is immortal so there is no way to avoid it. Either way you can feel happy and content and be free from any uncomfortable need to do things you would rather avoid, right up to the point where reality – and the animal – bites.

Last edited 14 days ago by Rasmus Fogh
Bill Wylie
Bill Wylie
14 days ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

No, when a dangerous animal approaches, the most effective solution is to take the safety off your rifle and put a couple of k-ll shots into the animal. My parents thought me to be prepared and be a survivor.

Stefan Mochnacki
Stefan Mochnacki
10 days ago

As an astrophysicist, I can categorically say that the Sun does influence climate, but that since the 19th century, human-caused drivers have had in inceasingly greater effect and are now more important. However, the biggest climate problem now is the industrialisation of China, India, Brasil and other developing nations, and the solution has to involve all countries. Furthermore, an even more immediate threat is the imperialism of Russia and the need to defeat this sick rogue state and its culture, just as Germany and Japan had to be comprehensively defeated and re-educated some eighty years ago. This more immediate threat actually requires more hydrocarbon energy production and transportation, as well as massive non-GHG producing development.

Ian Campbell
Ian Campbell
12 days ago

It starts with repeal of Climate Change Act 2008.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago

I re-read The Gathering Storm recently. The experience was a bit like reading fiction, only instead of being transported from the present one was transported to it. Replace “World Peace” with Net Zero – and I found it hard not to confuse the two – I thought I was reading the news.

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
14 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

It’s about 20 years since I read that. Good idea!

Chris Van Schoor
Chris Van Schoor
14 days ago

A two-day climate conference in Prague, organised by the Czech division of the international Climate Intelligence Group (Clintel), which took place on November 12-13 2024 in the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic in Prague, “declares and affirms that the imagined and imaginary ‘climate emergency’ is at an end”.
The high-level scientific conference also declared:
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which excludes participants and published papers disagreeing with its narrative, fails to comply with its own error-reporting protocol and draws conclusions some of which are dishonest, and should be dismantled.”
The conference also: “calls upon the entire scientific community to cease and desist from its persecution of scientists and researchers who disagree with the current official narrative on climate change and instead to encourage once again the long and noble tradition of free, open and uncensored scientific research, investigation, publication and discussion”.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
14 days ago

How come nobody in the press reported about it or did I miss it? Wonderful news!

Fred D. Fulton
Fred D. Fulton
14 days ago

In Canada, Trudeau wants to make it illegal to even question aloud his net-zero mandates. Similarly, he will make it illegal to question the official narrative about reported harms relating to “residential” (First Nations) schools.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
14 days ago
Reply to  Fred D. Fulton

It is what you would expect from the literal love child of Fidel Castro. His mother was a rock-and-roll groupie at the time. Pierre Trudeau introduced them.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
13 days ago

Did that conference conclude there is NO climate emergency? ..or that it does exist but is not man-made?
And did recommend any action to cater for (as against halt) climate change? I know I should research it myself but I’m lazy…

Walter Schimeck
Walter Schimeck
13 days ago

All of this is admirable, I suppose, but it is also just arguing from authority: replacing one authority (the IPCC) whose narrative you don’t like, with another, (clintel) whose narrative you prefer. CO2 is incontrovertibly a greenhouse gas. There is a significantly higher concentration of it in the atmosphere than there was 100 years ago. That should be the starting point for any discussion about whether climate change is real or not. The focus now should be on how best to deal with the coming effects of it.

Bruce Buteau
Bruce Buteau
12 days ago

Please explain the causes of the Medieval Warm and subsequent cooling.

Betsy Arehart
Betsy Arehart
11 days ago

It’s telling that this conference has occurred in Eastern Europe. Due undoubtedly to their experience of CommuSocialism, they seem to have more Common Sense.

Last edited 11 days ago by Betsy Arehart
Gordon Welford
Gordon Welford
10 days ago

An interesting piece,ignored by the media,as is the paper by Professors Lintzen and Happer in July 2024 stating that additional C02 will have little effect due to saturation and that net zero policies will have trivial effect on temperature and disastrous effects on people worldwide.Noone is better qualified than these two

Gordon Welford
Gordon Welford
10 days ago

I now see that Prof Lintzen is a signatory to the Clintel paper

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
14 days ago

I agree it is a great essay, but I am not sure about Thatcher breaking the unions “by closing the mines and de-industrialising the country, in favour of the service economy that now dominates Britain” and this a question that deserves an answer.
As Mary says elsewhere in the article “In that unhappy decade, post-war recovery proved so difficult because Britain had recently lost many of its former imperial markets and supply chains. We’d nationalised major industries,..” Might these two factors have been significant in the demise of British industry?
Add to that joining the EEC in 1973, and consequently having to abolish the import tariffs on manufactured goods imposed in the aftermath of WW1, and throwing British markets open to European countries who had been able to reindustrialise after WW2 while the UK continued to spend disproportionately on defence.
Also there was the impact of north sea oil which made the pound a petrocurrency and British Industry uncompetitive in much the same way as the Euro made German manufacturing more competitive than it should have been. I remember Nigel Lawson recounting being asked by representatives of British industry “Can’t you keep the bloody stuff in the ground”.
I would be very interested to see these issues addressed
As to “Perhaps HMRC will resort to robbing ice cream vans.” I do not think they would dare do that any more than they would look at taxis, Turkish barbers, and takeaways, all of which are key to laundering the proceeds of crime.

Nicholas Taylor
Nicholas Taylor
13 days ago

“European countries who had been able to reindustrialise after WW2 while the UK continued to spend disproportionately on defence.” Meaning Britain was stuck with its old industries and tooling? I remember all the different companies making warplanes – three types of nuclear V-bomber, just to be on the safe side. Was that the fault of Europeans (apart from their war)? “… north sea oil which made the pound a petrocurrency and British Industry uncompetitive”. I believe Norway had some oil too. I remember when you could get four Swiss Francs to the pound. Now you are lucky to get one. Is Swiss industry uncompetitive? The thing that stands out about Britain (and even more its close cousin the USA) is its social inequality.

Stefan Mochnacki
Stefan Mochnacki
10 days ago

Four types of strategic bomber… don’t forget the Sperrin as the less ambitious “spare” in case the others didn’t pan out.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
14 days ago

I totally agree. NetZero is the biggest folly of all, which is already destroying our current life in the West. I put my hope in the new Trump Administration and that it will tackle and smash this pseudo-science. We need some brave people to swim against the huge tide of foolishness. All our current and future ventures will depend on reliable cheap energy and this will certainly not come from nature destroying windmills or solar panels.

Last edited 14 days ago by Stephanie Surface
Mark Cornish
Mark Cornish
14 days ago

The biggest threat to our society is the slavish adherence to a ‘net zero’ policy which fails on every single level. Watch the Yanks champion cheap energy again and see their productivity rocket.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago

..not to mention spending billions on a hopeless war and an expensive genocide.. oh, yes, and bloated corporate profits and the lack of wealth tax..

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
13 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Obviously most Unherd readers approve of fighting an unwinnable (and dangerous) war, approve of the costly genocide, approve of bloated profits and are opposed to yhe obscenely rich paying tax.. How odd? Are 16/23 Unherd readers billionaires??

Rob C
Rob C
10 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

What hopeless war and expensive genocide?

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
13 days ago

Net Zero is a part of the second sacred cow you mention.

Peter D
Peter D
15 days ago

The sad state of affairs in Britain and the West are that the longer the can is kicked down the road, the worse the solution will have to be. The more bitter the pill is that we will all have to swallow if we as a society want to survive this “call it what you will”. And this pill will be reimmigration. History is littered with such events and to think that it will not happen here is ludicrous. The question will be carrot or stick? The carrot will be the lure of wealthier parts of the world (UAE, Saudi, Singapore, perhaps even India) or the stick of the far right. While the carrot is preferred, it holds no guarantee. The far right on the other hand leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth because they are unpalatable. I personally put the far right under short term pain for long term gain. There is no way that the far right could ever enthrall a population for long enough. With time, the far right will become more moderate. They are certainly not the evil boogeyman that the MSM portrays them to be.
It is a bitter pill to swallow, but multiculturalism just does not work. Rather than see it as a horrible thing thought by racists. We should open our mind to the possibility that humans are capable of being very culturally diverse and that this is a wonderful thing.
I might not have put this as eloquently as others do, but before you crucify me, have a think about it.

Chris Whybrow
Chris Whybrow
14 days ago
Reply to  Peter D

What an inane comment. Multi ethnic societies have been the norm for thousands of years. Our problems don’t stem from immigrants but the stupidity of our leaders. That’s the entire point of the article.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
14 days ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

It’s both of those things.

Adrian Smith
Adrian Smith
14 days ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

That’s because you don’t see the really important difference between multi-ethnic and multicultural.
Whilst I am fully in favour of deporting people with no right to be here and foreign born criminals who through their criminality have forfeited their right to be here, I do not see significant re-migration as remotely realistic. The answer has to be putting significant effort into integration so that we return to being a more mono-cultural society, whilst remaining multi-ethnic.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  Adrian Smith

I’m curious: “monoculturism” What does that actually look like? I’m thinking of how people spend their time, culturally that is:
Are you saying: read only GB literature, read and speak only English, eat only English food, drive GB built cars, watch only GB made TV and films, only GB news media?
I’m curious as to how it might all work, especially as the biggest employment sector in GB is Indian restaurants!

Stefan Mochnacki
Stefan Mochnacki
10 days ago
Reply to  Adrian Smith

Rather than “mono-cultural”, I think you mean “integrated”. For some reason, the “integration” which was so much the goal of 1960’s activists has become a forgotten or dirty word, perhaps due to the essentialist nature of today’s ideology. Integration does not necessarily mean the “assimilation” feared by defenders of multi-culturalism, but the ability of immigrants, or at least of their children, to participate in and fully absorb the history, culture and society of their adopted home (the two most recent Tory leaders being good examples of integration).
In my long experience as the son of refugees, and of living in several countries, I conclude that this requires that immigrants not be so concentrated as to form enclaves or “ghettos”, in which contacts with the general population are limited. It’s always easier to speak one’s own language and to behave in the same old way than to have to make the effort to really learn a new language and culture. With the advent of worldwide cable TV and the Internet, even the living room (or pocket) media can be in one’s old language and culture. Integration is harder to achieve than it used to be. Nevertheless, socially it is easier to integrate outside one’s ethnic bubble. That does infer that lower rates of immigration should lead to better integration by reducing the concentration leading to such bubbles or enclaves.

A Spetzari
A Spetzari
14 days ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

Multi ethnic societies have been the norm for thousands of years

Not on this scale. Perhaps only in smaller mercantile trade cities and city states – but never on a large scale at this volume at the nation state level.
This is new territory – to say otherwise is wholly misguided.

A Spetzari
A Spetzari
14 days ago
Reply to  A Spetzari

Actually I will correct myself – though it’s hard to compare like for like with (almost) ancient history.
It is probable that the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain was not unlike this – large volumes of immigrants arriving over time that were to replace the native Britons/Romans/Celts.
No idea what stage we are at – and no direct comparisons as relatively little is actually known about the Anglo-Saxon migration except that it wasn’t sudden, and probably wasn’t particularly violent/bloody.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  A Spetzari

How many ‘Brits’ immigrated into other countries? We have 5 million Irish on our island but over 70 million in other countries, including yours btw!

Julian Hartley
Julian Hartley
12 days ago
Reply to  A Spetzari

How many place names in England are Celtic? None.

Oliver Nicholson
Oliver Nicholson
14 days ago
Reply to  A Spetzari

And in many of the historic multi-religious polities there was a milet system.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  A Spetzari

I disagree; factor in the much smaller indigenous populations into the equation.. Angles? Saxons? Vikings? Norman’s? Irish?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
14 days ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

The problems are built into social democracy. As the state expands, acquires more and more spending power and centralises, so it attracts growing numbers of parasites. Eventually the parasites become oligarchs, taking wealth from the state and reinvesting it via weak politicians like Starmer to get more. No matter who you elect what you get is Lord Alli, Dale Vince, George Soros and Nick Lowles.

The only remedy is to dismantle the whole apparatus and replace it with radically de-centralised, democratically accountable institutions along Swiss lines. Most importantly, the bureaucrats need to be divested of any control of education.

David Morley
David Morley
14 days ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

There’s some confusion over multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multicultural. By multiethnic I assume you mean a group which is racially and historically distinct (or believes it is), with a distinct sense of identity, culture and set of beliefs.

Assuming this is the case, could you give some examples where this has worked long term and peacefully. Preferably where this has not been as part of a larger more powerful empire that actively kept these groups in check.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  David Morley

ALL groups have to be kept in check! Just look at English football supporters! I think the system is called The Law.. with police and judiciary involved..

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

You expect our judiciary to do anything to protect our rights?

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
14 days ago
Reply to  Chris Whybrow

Look how it worked out for the native Americans, Australians, New Zealander etc.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  Peter D

if you’re advocating for ‘reimigration’ perhaps you should consider that maybe you yourself are far right.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
14 days ago
Reply to  Peter D

It may well be that multicultualism does not work, but an aging society with few births and lots of jobs the locals will not take does not work very much either. As it happens, several European countries are making long-term plans for where they can import labour once the supply of intra-EU migrants dries up. Before you make grand plans for expelling all those immigrant workers you had better consider where and how to get the people who will keep the country running once they have left.

Peter D
Peter D
14 days ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

Well I really threw the cat in amongst the pigeons there!
First to address your point, and it is a great point about the workforce and low birthrates. Firstly, we really need to encourage larger families and encourage parenthood in general. It is one of those maturing steps that every person takes in their life. Children also bring a sense of possibilities, of a future. The upside far outweighs the downside.
The other side of the equation is the necessary workforce. Whenever there is an article about AI and robotics, it also mentions the scary thought about millions of jobs disappearing. Yet somehow, this point always disappears when the topic of immigration is raised. Just connecting just these two points shows that we most likely will not need the millions of migrant workers.
True, there are a lot of boring jobs, horrible jobs, jobs that many think are beneath them. I think that it is people like yourself and many of my critics here who need to have a good look in the mirror. Such snobs who think that poor little bastards from whichever s***hole can come here and do the jobs you are obviously too good for. When I left home, these kinds of jobs were almost a right of passage. I’ve done plenty of these sorts of jobs because I was not molly coddled through life and school. There is an honesty to such jobs that is character building. Something that obviously many are now too good for.
And still….
Most of you missed the bleeding point. Reimmigration is not about blindly kicking out anyone who can’t pass an ethnic test. So I suggest that you take a step back, acknowledge the brainwashing that we have all had, because we have all been brainwashed to think a certain way.
It is not about ethnicity; it is about those large groups of people who live in the UK like it is some far flung country and where white people dare not tread. You could take any random quiet little white English village and plonk a person from wherever in there and they would be looked after. There are parts of the UK now where you can’t plonk a random white person and they would be safe. We have to stop thinking that this is ok, because it is not.
We all have to stop worrying about being called racists because oddly enough, permitting such behaviour is actually being racist because you ARE treating them differently BECAUSE of their race.

K Tsmitz
K Tsmitz
13 days ago
Reply to  Rasmus Fogh

We first need to dismantle the welfare benefits system and put our own parasites back to work before we consider importing labour to fill those jobs.

Kiddo Cook
Kiddo Cook
14 days ago
Reply to  Peter D

The “far right” , I see no Nazi extermination troops or Stalinist pogroms. I do see the ICC supporting Islamic terrorists , yes, they’ll be those perpetrating genocide against Jews and Christian’’s and whom Keir Starsi is only too keen to back in his DEI and Marxist policies.

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
14 days ago

A very good essay – which amongst other things points out the perils of British Socialism. But sadly the author omitted to say anything about the necessary driver of any modern economy (affordable and plentiful energy) nor the hugely damaging delusion which is Net Zero 2050.

PGB
PGB
14 days ago

Such a refreshing article. I feel almost cleansed! The big question is how? How will any of this happen? Will Kemi push the Tories down this road? Does Farage even get it? Or a backward looking Labour? But on the whole, I am in full agreement with the author. Radical change is needed now, not more sticking plaster.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  PGB

Bring back flogging eh?

J Bryant
J Bryant
15 days ago

find a leader who is both in tune with vox populi, and also willing to ignore its protests. Who actually likes ordinary British people. And who will do whatever it takes — even the currently unthinkable — to free us from this death-spiral.
Sounds like Mary is talking about a British Donald Trump. That person will, indeed, have to be unusual to withstand the onslaught of all the vested interests that will be challenged. Like Trump, he’ll also have to accept the real likelihood of an assassination attempt.
The question is whether Brits are willing to pay the high price of radical change?

Richard Ross
Richard Ross
14 days ago
Reply to  J Bryant

I hope Britain has not already passed the tipping point which will make radical recovery impossible. The US would have passed theirs, had Kamala carried off the last election. But isn’t the BritTrump already on the stage? “Five minutes, Mr. Farage”.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  Richard Ross

Farage has no solutions. The fact is, these are all very difficult problems to solve no matter what party is in power. But Reform would have no idea whatsoever how to deal with them, even if they ever got near leading the country, which they won’t.

Mark Cornish
Mark Cornish
14 days ago
Reply to  J Bryant

Kemi Badenoch is the answer. She’s already ‘said it how it is’ when talking about the fact that not all cultures are of equal value. It was a joy to behold when Laura Kuenssberg took the moral high ground about her statement and was then reduced to shuffling awkwardly in her seat when Kemi said what any reasonable person already knows.
She exhibits the same honesty about net zero, Britain hating race baiters and the lunatics that are the trans activists.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  J Bryant

..but you already have Nigel Farrage??

Peter B
Peter B
14 days ago

Excellent. She’s really crystallised the core problems here:
“It’s just the pillars of stagnation that are different. In the Seventies it was national ownership, industry, and the unions. Today it’s non-contributory welfare (including the NHS), and a morality industry shaped by a monolithically progressive “third sector”, and enforced by an activist judiciary armed with “human rights”. It’s all underwritten by the third pillar: the mass immigration that keeps the whole show on the road”
Not sure if she’s originated the phrase “morality industry”, but it’s a keeper for the army of value destroying sanctimonious hypocrites constantly telling us how we must live and think.
She also nails the deliberate use of immigration ever since 1997 as a quite deliberate easy way out for politicians to fight inflation. I noted at the time that the sudden disappearance of inflation as an embedded structural UK problem was due to the decision to import huge quantities of unskilled labour. Of course, the underlying causes of inflation in the UK remain untreated and are all still there.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  Peter B

..do you mean bloated profits and the rip-offs that abound everywhere?

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
13 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Oh, no bloated profits then? Really? No rip-offs either? Wow, you British are so lucky!

Jon Kilpatrick
Jon Kilpatrick
14 days ago

A textbook example of why MH is a gift for which we should be very grateful. An incisive, intelligent, well informed, and non-ideological common sense assessment. If only our leaders were mature enough to pay attention.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  Jon Kilpatrick

Not really. It’s full of flaws. For a start, she is following the Daily Mail narrative of 70s events – the winter of discontent and other catchy media hysterics like the burying of corpses only lasted a matter of weeks, they hardly define the 70s except for Tories to leverage as resistance to any rolling back of their atrocities since.
She also repeatedly refers to the NHS as non-contributory, which it isn’t in any sense.

Sue Sims
Sue Sims
14 days ago
Reply to  Q T

Not media hysterics. Born in 1952, I lived through the seventies, and they were pretty awful. It’s quite true that individual strikes tended to last for weeks rather than months, but that was because the government or employers tended to give way pretty quickly. The worst thing was the runaway inflation, partly (though certainly not entirely) provoked by the circularity of settling strikes: prices rose, so workers struck, and their pay rises meant higher prices. Here are the figures:
1970: 6.4% 1971: 9.4% 1972: 7.1% 1973: 9.2% 1975: 24.2% 1977: 15.8% 1978: 8.3% 1980: 18.0% I didn’t vote for Mrs Thatcher, and disliked the woman intensely, but she did a reasonable job of curbing inflation.

John Tyler
John Tyler
14 days ago

I assume whoever started the petition was neither expecting a fresh election nor that Labour would rise to the bait, though the latter is precisely what Sir Keir has done. He’s right in saying it’s not the way our system works, of course, but he and his party did not respond in the same way to the Brexit referendum; far from it! Yet another instance of rank hypocrisy.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  John Tyler

Labour did nothing to resist Brexit, at the time or since. You must remember events incorrectly.

John Tyler
John Tyler
14 days ago
Reply to  Q T

Are you being serious? or is this a piece of irony?

Kiddo Cook
Kiddo Cook
14 days ago

Hey Mary, it called catharsis and you better get used to it, you appear to be getting there

: “ Pace Elon Musk, modern Britain is a long way from being a genuine police state. But if we continue on this track, that’s what we will have to become, to suppress with the fury that I already feel approaching boiling point — especially among the shrinking proportion of the population that makes things, pays up, pitches in, and picks up litter.”

Last edited 14 days ago by Kiddo Cook
Pedro Livreiro
Pedro Livreiro
14 days ago
Reply to  Kiddo Cook

I thought for a moment you had written “Hail Mary, full of grace……”

Kiddo Cook
Kiddo Cook
14 days ago
Reply to  Pedro Livreiro

the Lord is with thee….

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
14 days ago

Maybe Britain will be the next thing Elon Musk buys.

Ian Barton
Ian Barton
14 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

It might not be long until Britain is worth less than Elon Musk paid for Twitter. I suspect he would carry out all of Mary’s excellent suggestions very quickly.

Last edited 14 days ago by Ian Barton
Francis Turner
Francis Turner
14 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

OK as long as he sells Northern Ireland to Canada.. they deserve each other!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  Francis Turner

Pray heaven, he would deal with the murderous Irish republicans. No one else seems to be willing to do so.

Christopher Elletson
Christopher Elletson
14 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

How would that help get him to Mars?

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
14 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Haha, soon his money is going to run out

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

..not sure it’s a great investment though? Still, he bought Twitter and Trump wanted to buy Iceland remember? So, who knows.. it depends what price the Zionists set for the sale?

Timothy Camacho
Timothy Camacho
14 days ago

Most private sector workers (all included) can probably broadly agree on this assessment.
However, 5 short years ago, 13 million believed that Corbyn was a solution. That is just a hard fact, we cannot just ignore it.
If the people prefer fake security and status quo, why expect any politician to pelter alternatives? If in the popular perception being successful is wrong, and trickle down economics a fabrication, why bother?
That said, Thatcher didn’t just land as a PM. She was the spearhead of a think tank, she was at least 10 years in the making. In other words, there was within and outside of the party a powerful intellectual movement. Today? Who can doubt that 2TK will eventually follow the daily winds, a la Boris le Clown? The Tories in particular are an empty vessel, the upper deck has not mingled with the engine room in decades. At least Labour is faithful to the old recipes. They have never worked, ever, not once, anywhere in the world, not even by mistake, but hey, this time, they will. Er, well, until the next time.
Labour could save itself. It is in the tittle. Minimum wage workers pay over 50% in consolidated taxes. That is an obscene amount – and increasing. For ever dwindling returns. Which is a collective suicide pact.
My point is this: any of the political parties could and should tackle this road to nowhere. Nobody wants to listen. The reality is that it is too easy to hide our cowardice behind the traditional politician hate figure.

Peter Stephenson
Peter Stephenson
14 days ago

Timothy, have you just pointed to the way that large sectors of the British population have become overly dependent upon the state and psychologically dependent on remaining dependent? As if there is a deep character change in the British which will first have to be faced down and, if possible, changed somehow? I believe this was Frank Field’s finding, for which he was sacked by Harriet Harm.

Last edited 14 days ago by Peter Stephenson
Timothy Camacho
Timothy Camacho
14 days ago

State intervention, distortion, followed by more state intervention, more distortion, have made it impossible to see any other solution than further state intervention. The ones with state guaranteed revenues are living a totally different reality from the ones taking risks and exposed to free market economy. It is noteworthy that very few politicians anywhere in Europe have private sector experience. They have become remarkably negligent in how they spend without any understanding of how the wealth is created in the first instance. It inevitably leads to a fractured social fabric, with the return of the cast system (particularly France). The ones who see themselves as guardians of the status quo are increasingly intolerant and prone to state intervention to safeguard their intellectual claim to.. for want of a better word, “goodness”. Macron is a perfect example. A dangerous one at that. He does not represent any ideology, just his cast.
But that is probably more belief than fact, a case hardly worth presenting outside of a polite pint in the pub.
Maths are a much better tool, analysing 50 year old trends, following key indicators (ratio productive/ unproductive). Until we can as a country look at these numbers and understand what they mean, and especially, where they are leading us, there can be no consensus, unlike Scandinavian countries in the 90’s.
Consensus is the key to any future successful reform. I doubt consensus can be forced. It will happen naturally, but not soon enough to stop the adage “Afraid of very poor person coming in, afraid of every rich person coming out” being true for a few more years if not decades.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago

Nonsense. Your issue is binary thinking – anything remotely left-leaning is communism, which doesn’t work (I mean Cuba have a far better health service than ours so we could do with examining why). Many successful countries are far more left wing than ours – consider the Scandinavian countries.
Corbyn would have returned things more to the centre. The actual centre, not that faux centre that those who hold more extreme views than they would like to admit, wear. The thought that he or anybody else could suddenly revert the country to a state prior to 40+ years of mainly Toryism is ridiculous. And even if he could, he still couldnt because the world and the country have changed beyond belief.
The solution is, and always has been, balance.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
14 days ago
Reply to  Q T

(I mean Cuba have a far better health service than ours so we could do with examining why)
Is that why, when Fidel’s health declined, he left the country in search of better alternatives?

Timothy Camacho
Timothy Camacho
14 days ago
Reply to  Q T

Belittling, passing judgement, assuming nostalgia before advocating balance?
I am not of the left or right, could not care less, have lived in Scandinavia during their reforms, much prefer the Swiss health system to the Cuban, it costs far less and delivers infinitely more, our NHS is absolutely without comparison with anything else in the world and communism on a small scale, ie, where data can be processed naturally by the individual within a collective consciousness works and always has.
In other words, there is plenty to chat about without being rude.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  Q T

Such blind ignorance and bigotry!

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
13 days ago

..you think ‘trickle down economics’ actually works do you? I thought no-one believes in that garbage anymore.. unless of course by TDE you mean a wealth tax.. that kinda qualifies I s’pose?

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
14 days ago

“…the now widely loathed architecture of “human rights” that privileges the safety of foreign paedophiles over that of British nationals.”
Uh-oh. Mary’s going to get a visit from the speech Bobbies. Should we start collecting for the defense fund now?

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
15 days ago

I suggest a simple solution – look at those nations that have done well with far less, and perhaps change a few things along those lines. There are solutions – they must be found. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu said: “You must find the way.”

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  Samuel Ross

The problem with that thinking is that all nations have wildly different geopolitical contexts. The assumption that copying Singapore or the Germans or whatever will make our country be like them is deeply flawed. We have our own strengths and weaknesses, the key is to identify and work on them rather than trying to be somewhere else.

Jacqueline Walker
Jacqueline Walker
14 days ago

Very well said, though I notice that the writer did not mention net zero as another self-inflicted and politically untouchable constraints. I noted the same issue reading commentary on the upcoming General Election in Ireland. Commentators were propounding the ‘challenges’ facing any incoming government, contrasting Ireland’s problems (severe housing shortage, pressure of high immigration, high energy costs and inflation generally, dysfunctional health system) with those of some of its EU counterparts (France: huge and growing budget deficit issues, Germany: energy crisis and resulting deindustrialisation) and all without even noting that most of these issues (whether in Ireland or the EU) were at root self-inflicted by the ridiculous self-righteous performance politics being practised by all parties. And any parties who do not perform these are cast out as populist or far right.

Martin M
Martin M
14 days ago

I see Starmer is wearing a North Face puffer jacket in the photo at the head of the article. That must be good for a bit of a drop in his popularity rating.

Dylan B
Dylan B
14 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Starmer in North Face. Rishi in his adidas.
Maybe they’re on sponsorship deals.
What’s next, Kemi in a Supreme hoodie?!

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
14 days ago
Reply to  Dylan B

.. driving the new electric Jaguar.

Peter B
Peter B
14 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Depends who paid for it ?

Gordon Arta
Gordon Arta
14 days ago

There is indeed a class war going on, but not the traditional one. There are only 2 classes still, but they are the responsible class, those who as Ms Harrington says are; ‘the shrinking proportion of the population that makes things, pays up, pitches in, and picks up litter.’ and, at the top and bottom of the social scales, the parasite class, which takes far more than it contributes. The parasites are now threatening the health of their host, which has the choice of sloughing them off or dying a long slow death.

Francis Turner
Francis Turner
14 days ago

Britain is actually fast becoming a police state!

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  Francis Turner

We barely see the police, who were hugely scaled back under the Tories. More like we are fast becoming an anarchic state.

Chipoko
Chipoko
14 days ago
Reply to  Q T

The reason you never see the police (other than rushing by in chequered vehicles) is because they are seated behind computer screens monitoring our social media posts for hate crime or Non Crime Hate Incidents!

DenialARiverIn Islington
DenialARiverIn Islington
14 days ago

I don’t think of this petition as pevish, particularly. I think it’s a signal of concern that needs to make its voice very much heard. I don’t think such a petition is going to “work” as such; and I very much doubt that many of the signatories thought that it would. Personally, I think the basic point is to send a clear signal of concern about incoherence and incompetence.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago

All it says is that people are impatient for solutions to long-standing issues that were mismanaged by the Tories. Anyone expecting immediate results is an idiot, as evidenced by the fact that they think it worthy of their time to sign such a petition believing it would actually have an effect.

carl taylor
carl taylor
14 days ago
Reply to  Q T

I signed it. It took me seconds. Do you really think the signatories are dumb enough to think it will result in the calling of a GE? Most, like myself, signed it to cause embarrassment and to send a signal of discontent; they may even have to debate it in parliament.

Kiddo Cook
Kiddo Cook
14 days ago
Jonathan Story
Jonathan Story
14 days ago

What is the “unthinkable”? .
Give priority to GB rather than to “influence”.Looking first at expenditures to cut when thinking budget.Simplifying tax: uniform 20% tax for all voters; 12% capital gains tax; no death tax; limited indirect tax.Clamp down on stealing, hooliganism, ditch woke crimesAssert British interests in the seas around the UK, revive fisheries(186 constituencies)5-6% gdp in defence, the aim being to speak politely but wield one hell of a lethal stick if any foreign power should be tempted.Say to international business, you are here because GB’s aim is to be the best place in the world to do business-especially for British-owned businesses.Rewind most of Brown-Blair “reforms”: Make sure that the Crown in parliament is sovereign, and that lawyers revert to implementing parliament’s laws rather than inventing their own.ie human rights do not trump UK security.Make clear that hard work, aiming for the best, reaps rewards.

Pamela Booker
Pamela Booker
14 days ago
Reply to  Jonathan Story

Spot on. Hear hear.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
14 days ago

You would have my vote.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
14 days ago

Where is JW to explain to us that all is for the best in the best of all Orwellian worlds?

Matt F
Matt F
14 days ago

Excellent article; the best I’ve read so far from Mary Harrington.

Peter Stephenson
Peter Stephenson
14 days ago

Excellent, and then some. And one of the aha! moments is this – if I get MH right, that governments might do well to openly appoint their own senior implementers of policy in the civil service, to dispense with a supposed neutral civil service which is nothing but a facade of leftism, thicko leftism at that. This will require a leader with the nerve of that pilot who landed a passenger jet on the Hudson River, and followers who can stay firm in the face of an almighty onslaught from the thicko, degenerate left.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago

The civil service is politically neutral by definition.

Chipoko
Chipoko
14 days ago
Reply to  Q T

The civil service might be politically neutral by definition; but it most certainly is not in practice – i.e. Left Wing Woke in its orientation and sympathies.
Just consider the trajectory of one former top, ‘politically neutral’ civil servant, who secured his civil service knighthood, and who currently occupies No.10 Downing Street!
Quod erat demonstrandum!

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
14 days ago

Mary is surely wrong on one count: Mrs T did not “de-industrialise” the country; that was well on the way before but certainly after WW2, partly because of the obduracy of the unions in resisting change to working practices; partly because of the old fashioned hopelessness of most industrial management, partly because Brits just hate success in business but prefer landownership and farming. Ship building, heavy engineering, and car building in particular utterly failed to modernise and faded away. Indeed, the successful battle against the miners actually increased industrial efficiency by removing capital from mining, hopelessly outdated in its production methods, and making us use new and cheaper energy sources, making viable new businesses in hi-tech, electronics, and chemicals. By 2000 we were making more cars and car parts than ever, after the Thatcher reforms.
It is the ghastly E Miliband who will deindustrialize us!

Ernesto Candelabra
Ernesto Candelabra
14 days ago

I’ll say it because no one else will; Mary Harrington is a holy woman.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
14 days ago

if you ever wondered “how in the world did Donald Trump become possible, let alone elected?” the first part of this article covers it. When the usual suspects fail to deliver results, people start to look beyond party loyalties to anyone who can.
In Thatcher’s assessment, Britain’s problems could only be solved by tackling the power-bases that held the country to ransom. Before things can be fixed, it must be acknowledged that they are broken, and as with Thatcher, the results will not be all unicorns and rainbows. Every decision carries trade-off. Few things are universally beneficial; you just try to do the most good for the greatest number of people. But first you have to confront the problem, be it the blog, the moral scolds, or something else.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
14 days ago

This is all so sensible I expect your name has gone on several lists and in time two constables with backup out in the street will knock on your door.

Richard Ross
Richard Ross
14 days ago

Wonderful essay, very even-handed in its overview, looking over the heads of political parties of all stripes as MH outlines the situation.
With “vision, radicalism, and courage….someone willing to exit our current care-home mentality and go directly at the sacred pillars of stagnation, based on a coherent, positive vision of Britain’s future”, she seems to clear the field of all current contenders – except one, but wisely does not offer an endorsement. Yet. A couple of more winters may be necessary.

carl taylor
carl taylor
14 days ago

There’s not much to disagree with in this article, but what I find bizarre about it, is that it is so out-of-date; Harrington talks as though we have only two parties to choose from. When it comes to discontent with wokery, two-tier justice, illegal migration and mass immigration, many voters – as evidenced by a string of recent local by-elections – are choosing a relatively new third party. I wonder what it’s called?

Edward Seymour
Edward Seymour
14 days ago

Mary you just made the case for Farage and Reform UK. I’m already in and I would love you to join us.

mike otter
mike otter
14 days ago

Net zero is avoided in the same way as the 70s industrial sabotage was avoided. Some of the workers struck for a better deal, more still for days off to do “foreigners” or “homers” as they were known. (Or even go fishing, to football or have a “green day”) The union leaders however had no such parochial concerns – most were allied to the USSR and hell bent on destroying this country to make it part of Russia’s “utopia”. Those that rejected the USSR were generally in with Hoxa and his Albanians or the Sandinistas LOL. So plus ca change (cba to the accents). Net zero is yet another trojan horse like the TUC in the 1970s and 80s and is traceable to the same violent, criminal scheme masquerading as ideology – socialism in both its National and International forms. If history is a guide i doubt it will end peacefully – hoping for a Thatcher figure TBH – tho we could be a lot worse off – how about poor Italy in the 70s with its red brigades adn “revolutionary nuclei” etc.

Matthew Powell
Matthew Powell
14 days ago

This is the problem with democracy as it currently is. Once vested interest groups have coalesced around each of the major parties it’s impossible to break their strangle hold and win an election without them. Only once we are in a state of complete economic collapse are we able to break these impasses and by that time it is far too late.

Rob N
Rob N
14 days ago

MH for PM even if XX?

andy young
andy young
14 days ago

I hope Kemi Badenoch reads this & takes it on board. She’s the only real hope I see a the moment, although if she has the clout to kick the Tories into shape is problematic, & she’s going to offend a lot of sensitive types (i.e. women) with her lack of touchy- feeliness.
We’ll see. I’ve got everything crossed.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  andy young

Badenoch is a joke. Watch PMQs – she’s a kid in a room of adults.

Granville Stout
Granville Stout
14 days ago

When all else fail, we go to war.

Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
14 days ago

Yes STUFF. You have the stuff you make or steal. The UK is no longer in a position to steal stuff so she must make stuff. When only perhaps a quarter of the population are making stuff, poverty is inevitable.

Tyler Durden
Tyler Durden
14 days ago

There’s an interesting convention at play here.
If a Party Manifesto is a contract between a British political party and its voters, then Labour have grievously broken this contract over the last 6 months.
These broken pledges on economic growth and tackling illegal immigration have been compounded by memories of a record low popular vote last summer. The 20% share of the vote for Labour caused by tactical voting for the Liberal Democrats and a big anti-Tory vote for Reform on the part of right-wing and working-class provincial voters.
Hence, in a roundabout way the 2024 British general election might be argued illegitimate for breaking one convention and highlighting the broken nature of the second one (the voting system).
In that sense it’s the opposite of the US elections. Nothing has been decided as neither clear approval or disapproval has been given for a governing mandate.

Phil Mac
Phil Mac
14 days ago

Do you want the job? I’ll vote for you in the basis of this essay.

Joyce Stack
Joyce Stack
14 days ago

Fantastic read. Thank you

Jimmy Snooks
Jimmy Snooks
14 days ago

Superb article. I can’t find a lot to disagree with here.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago

You’re speaking about our Nigel aren’t you . At the end of your article. He will be(I hope) the Thatcher of my children’s generation and boys o we need him

Jane Hewland
Jane Hewland
14 days ago

We could do worse than have Mary Harrington run the country! She must be one off the smartest most insightful people in Britain today.

J Boyd
J Boyd
14 days ago

Best article Mary Harrington has written.
Spot on!

P & E King
P & E King
14 days ago

I thought that the basic re-thinking of how to restore the fabric of society – beginning with the family and the local community, and not letting homo oeconomicus be the measure of everthing – was what got the new leader of the Opposition elected,

Stephen Feldman
Stephen Feldman
14 days ago

As an American I wonder what the British military is for other than patrolling the skies and coastal waters of UK. Bit of change there?

Emmanuel MARTIN
Emmanuel MARTIN
13 days ago

This is a call for an English Lee Kuan Yew
BTW I pay my Unherd subscription to get articles like this one.

Last edited 13 days ago by Emmanuel MARTIN
Claire Grey
Claire Grey
14 days ago

Tremendous.

John Stevens
John Stevens
14 days ago

It would have been helpful if the author defined the “Anglosphere” she seeks. Does it include the US or not?

Graeme Crosby
Graeme Crosby
14 days ago

Excellent Mary, really excellent.

Dave Canuck
Dave Canuck
14 days ago

It’s not just Britain, discontent is coming everywhere, with tariffs and trade wars, unsustainable debt, cost of living and housing crisis, how can it be otherwise. The system is broken, collapse is inevitable

MICHAEL NARBERHAUS
MICHAEL NARBERHAUS
13 days ago

Mary should become the next PM.

Martin Smith
Martin Smith
10 days ago

All the structural issues you mention have been in play for a hundred years and havebecome increasingly intractable to allgovernments. What we now face though is an increasingly rapid erosion of our basic liberties as subjects.This process could begin to be reversed by electing a government committed to our historic rights and responsibilities even if the ecpnomic and systemic issues remain.

Alexander Thirkill
Alexander Thirkill
13 days ago

To add balance, what about the power of Property and un-earned income?

Soon as you say people who own more than £3 million worth of agricultural land have to pay inheritance tax – at half the rate of everyone else and have 10 years to pay it – the big agri lobby loses its mind.

And then it makes front page news.

Also, what about the rent seeking corporations who siphon off public money via PFI or massive state subsidy?

Or the £600 billion borrowed during Covid to keep the gravey train rolling, or the £137 billion to bail out the banks.

A lot of the state in recent decades has been redirected to corporate welfare through subsidy and contracting out.

It would have been great if we’d bought something with if, but it’s basically been a way of shifting money from the little people to the wealthy.

Ken Ferguson
Ken Ferguson
12 days ago

“That would mean making the case against non-contributory welfare, and for insurance-based healthcare. It would mean kneecapping the NGOcracy — from defunding the pseudo-independent “third sector” policy launderers to reining in an activist judiciary, and modernising the now widely loathed architecture of “human rights” that privileges the safety of foreign paedophiles over that of British nationals. And it would mean closing the borders, reforming asylum policy and naturalisation rights, and riding out the screeching that would follow from every vested interest.”
Only Reform UK will do this.
“find a leader who is both in tune with vox populi, and also willing to ignore its protests. Who actually likes ordinary British people.”
That would be Nigel.

Last edited 12 days ago by Ken Ferguson
Derek McLellan
Derek McLellan
11 days ago

As what I’ve come to expect from Mary Harrington, this article is thoughtful, informative, and well-written. In the 1920s, Churchill warned against socialism (see Vol. 5 of his official biography) but there were wiser men and women who knew better. One hundred years on, we can no longer ignore its bitter fruit.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
10 days ago

Fantastic synopsis. Very real and totally believable. Please stand for Pariliament.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 days ago

I’d like to forward this but your forwarding icon doesn’t work.

Deb Grant
Deb Grant
8 days ago

A very good analysis, with some wonderful turns of phrase.

The only element left out was the prickly issue of unrealistically high expectations regarding continued growth in prosperity, versus the effort that the current and future workforces are prepared to put in to achieve it.

Charles Reese
Charles Reese
14 days ago

Let’s see. But I think Kemi Badenoch is a serious contender to sort these problems out. She is genuinely working from first principles to do so.

Citizen Diversity
Citizen Diversity
14 days ago

There’s a possible fourth pillar to consider.
This is the legacy of the Second World War. This has become a moral scripture for Britain, Europe, Russia, and the USA. A justification for their existence in their present form. This burdensome legacy constrains thought and action.
Britain’s victory in the War is supposed to have come from the superiority of democracy; as if the war was a medieval trial by combat. Labelling any other country’s leader as a Hitler and the present time as forever 1938, the past is brought into the present and recreated. Recreated to the point that it is almost taken for granted that Europe is in a ‘pre-war’ situation. Diplomacy and negotiation are appeasement, or even surrender.
That this is a pillar can be seen in the way it is still impossible to have a dispassionate discussion about Britain’s activities in the Second World War, such as Air Marshal Harris’s area bombing campaign. What was unacceptable to most people in the 1930s is defended today by people who are constrained by this legacy.
If there is no elected political leader who will, like Samson, bring down the other three pillars of the temple, who will dare to bring down this fourth one? Not when a minor army officer is marketed to bolster the government’s healthcare strategy; complete with sentimental crooning about meeting again some sunny day (a rap version wasn’t even necessary).
Not when a new public holiday is to be created to commemorate the victory in 1945. An event, that being a lifetime ago, should be even more of a distant myth than the Iron Lady. Who among the public celebrates Waterloo Day or Trafalgar Day? (Though we can now travel on a railway line named after the bombers of the WSPU). A new public holiday at a time and in circumstances when, if all else is failing, there can be war and the memory of war.
How strange – and yet how revealing – is the constraint of this burdensome legacy that the victory of 1945 is not seen as something that unifies Europe and the USA on one hand with Russia on the other.

Peter B
Peter B
14 days ago

Russia was on the other side for 40% of the war (mid 1939-mid 41). They started WWII in alliance with Germany by invading Poland. No getting away from the facts here.
But I agree that there’s a certain amount of mythology about WWII that may be holding us back and that what we have chosen to remember may not be telling us the whole story and some of the lessons we’ve learned may not be that helpful.

Norfolk Sceptic
Norfolk Sceptic
14 days ago
Reply to  Peter B

Britain had a ‘piece of paper’ on the eve of WWII too:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time

Q T
Q T
14 days ago

“Britain’s victory in the War is supposed to have come from the superiority of democracy”
Do you not find it to be self-evident? You’d prefer to live under an authoritarian regime, then?
“Recreated to the point that it is almost taken for granted that Europe is in a ‘pre-war’ situation. Diplomacy and negotiation are appeasement, or even surrender.”
Which would would be a sensible conclusion at this juncture. Given Putin’s proclamations, only a fool would conclude that a concession in Ukraine would be the end of his advances. And what of the rights of the Ukrainians to self-determination, what does it say to the world of the entire notion of democracy if a bully is seen to win? How does this influence shape future events?

Amelia Melkinthorpe
Amelia Melkinthorpe
14 days ago

“Peevish”, Mary? That’s mean-spirited and unworthy of you. Try Harder.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago

I take it you signed the petition, then. Peevish is a mild assessment of a group of bloody idiots who want instant solutions to problems decades in the making.

John Ramsden
John Ramsden
14 days ago

I was about to take you to task slightly for criticising Mary for calling Starmer “peevish” when it seems a perfect description of him, but then I remembered it was the petition she described thus!

Although one normally thinks of “peevish” as a criticism, of a grumpy old git for example, there are times when peevishness is fully justified, and this is one. Peevish or not, this petition has obviously struck a chord, and publicly highlighted how unpopular Labour has rapidly become, and left Labour themselves in no doubt of it. So that is a worthwhile result in itself, even if the petition is bound to fail in its stated aim.

Jack Martin Leith
Jack Martin Leith
14 days ago

That’s down to the sub-editor. The writers have little say, if any.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
14 days ago

Interesting and refreshing – an idea not only about what is wrong, but what one might do about it.

Regrettable that your recent embrace of Trump’s slash-and-burn approach means there are grave reservations about your judgement, and about what kind of society you actually prefer.

Last edited 14 days ago by Rasmus Fogh
Chris Whybrow
Chris Whybrow
14 days ago

I don’t particularly favour closer ties with the Anglosphere. Especially not with North America, they have far too much influence over us as it is.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
14 days ago

Wow.. I knew Mary was very right-wing but this is a bit OTT isn’t it? And no mention of the two great elephants in the room! To talk at such length about economic problems and not even mention them is really not good enough.
1. Is GB poorer than it was 10 years ago or has its wealth grown? If the latter surely there cannot be too many problems? Oh, there’s plenty of wealth alright but it has been sucked out of the 80% into the greedy arms of the already filthy rich making them now obscenely rich.
And do they invest in GB? Eh no.. much better returns abroad, including Israel.. And do the billionaires spend their illgotten wealth in GB? Eh, no.. not much left after buying the French yacht, the Italian villa and the Greek island.. Just enough to fritter away in the Med on luxurious holidays or Epstein’s Island even..
2. Even though public money is in short supply the sky’s the limit on wasting billions to fight an already lost war in Ukraine.. And yes, billions more to fund the genocide in Palestine.. But then GB is Zionist isn’t it, now that the wrong sort of Jew has been expelled or silenced from the Labour Party along with every Leftwing politician.
So, why not stop supporting the Zionist genocide and the hopeless war in Nazi Ukraine? And how about a WEALTH TAX.. nothing revolutionary about a wealth tax.. a perfectly ordinary mechanism for redistributing funds (that make their way, back up the slippery pole, into the hands of the wealthy eventually).. That used to be the system and it worked perfectly well. Until that is, the wealthy decided it would be cheaper to buy the government than pay wealth tax, which of course resulted in the conveyor belt grinding to a halt.
Obviously there’s a limit to how much you can squeeze already over-squeezed income tax payers, and there is a limit to his much you can overinflate prices in order to bloat profits (no mention of that either Mary?) before diminishing returns slows the gravy train to a crawl..
What’s needed in GB is a Leftwing Party to root out those legally stealing and wilfully giving away GB’s wealth by sucking hardworking Brits dry..

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
15 days ago

Government by petition? I think not, regardless of whatever Elon Musk and his minions may think.
Election was held, Labour won in a huge landslide and will govern until the end of their 5 year mandate or until they lose the confidence of Parliament. Nothing a weirdo racist scumbag says is going to change that, however much you people may hang on his every dumb utterance.

Mark Cornish
Mark Cornish
14 days ago

Musk is a real thicko, isn’t he. He’s obviously blagged his way to being where he is! It’s a shame he isn’t over here sorting out the Civil Service!

j watson
j watson
14 days ago

Author routinely misses the impact Neo-liberalism had on many of the problems she then outlines. Instead she seeks and identifies other scapegoats. Has she not paused long enough to see the v rich have done even better over the last 30yrs and perhaps ask herself how can that be if things got so worse for many others. Does she not grasp the massive deflection operation underway? Perhaps not because she’s part of it.

Guy Haynes
Guy Haynes
14 days ago
Reply to  j watson

We can all see that – it’s a recurring theme. Some recent examples:
Covid – small businesses closed down, people put on furlough, but the biggest businesses made millions, also massive profits for the global pharmaceutical companies; anyone questioning the orthodoxy was cancelled or censored.
Climate change – huge increase in costs for your average man on the street, huge increase in taxes for the middle class, the money from which appears to have gone straight into the hands of a handful of rich corporations, many of which have politicos among their shareholders. Look how rich Al Gore is nowadays.
Multiple wars – cost to the taxpayer of trillions. Men go out and die. Benefit goes to multinational corporations, whether that be ferrying weapons around the world, or reconstructing the wastelands that the wars have caused.
Immigration – massive disruption from a cultural perspective to people who can’t afford gated enclaves, crimes covered up by governments, reduction in job prospects and wages at the lower end of the wage pool. Huge benefit to large corporations whose wage bills remain depressed and profits increase.
Farming – new legislation has ensured that many small farming families will not be able to afford the IHT bills, meaning farms that would otherwise remain in local family hands will be sold. New regulation coming in that will massively increase the cost of fertilisers, following similar regulation across Europe. Beneficiaries are large agribusiness and the super rich who have recently shown a penchant for buying up farms across the world.
So yes, we can all see what is going on. I’m sure Mary can as well. But it’s Governments – of all colours – that are driving this on behalf of the super-rich. Anyone who deviates from the orthodoxy is brutally cancelled, character assassinated, and, increasingly, prosecuted for “crimes”.
What I find bizarre, in your case JW, is that you rail very aggressively against any politicians or writers who oppose the current status quo, defending said status quo in the process, without offering anything in the way of solutions.
What’s the solution JW?

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  Guy Haynes

The flaws in your thinking are issues with framing and correlation. It’s true that those events led to large profits to corporations, but they were making large profits anyway and would capitalise on events no matter what they were.
Small farmers won’t be affected by the inheritance tax – which everyone else has to pay, btw – the policy is to close a tax loophole for the super rich like Clarkson (sure, he REALLY cares about farmers and not the money he parked in the countryside) and Dyson.

John Tyler
John Tyler
14 days ago
Reply to  j watson

The rich have indeed grown wealthier, as has the general population. The differential may seem huge, but is nothing compared with the wealth gap in Russia, China, most of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and so on. We may not be perfect, but I wish people would stop making out that our political system is a total disaster.

Richard Ross
Richard Ross
14 days ago
Reply to  John Tyler

Agreed. Most people in the West don’t care that we have great wealth and comfort at our disposal as much as we are angered by the fact that a few people have even more of them.

Graeme Laws
Graeme Laws
14 days ago
Reply to  j watson

The folks who have got very rich, like Musk, have had the vision and the bravery to build businesses and employ thousands of people. The folks who have had similar vision, but on a smaller scale, have built successful SMEs and have become wealthy by making and selling stuff that people want. Wealth creation is what pays for all the desirable social goods like the NHS. Wealth creation. Value adding. Nothing else. The idea that Governments have actually conspired to make a few people rich at the expense of large number of not so well off is just a Marxist rant, supported by neither evidence or logic.

j watson
j watson
14 days ago
Reply to  Graeme Laws

There is no wealth creation if society fractures and falls apart. Even the best gated residence won’t save you. Wealth is built on the shoulders of others too.
Now I’ve no problem with some making great wealth. It’s v important for incentives. But it’s the growing differential within some western economies from earlier eras that’s striking. We often forget growth rates were higher too when society was more equal. Musk not the best example either. He does generate jobs and more obvious trickle down. Many v wealthy do not and instead spend to protect their privileged position. Ownership of media being a long standing tactic.
The points relate to the Author’s article where she finds others to blame without any reference to how the rewards and insecurity in society have grown. At best she’s focusing on symptoms and lacks a broader economic perspective if one wanted to be charitable. At worst she’s part of the same racket.

Andrew R
Andrew R
14 days ago
Reply to  j watson

For goodness sake JW how many times do you need to be told. Mass immigration and unfeasibly low interest rates (something I imagine that you were in favour of) led to the massive transfer of wealth to the 1% but sure, keep on deflecting and projecting.

j watson
j watson
13 days ago
Reply to  Andrew R

You imagine wrong AR, partly because you tend to jump in with a comment before you think through what’s actually been written. Too tribal in reflex I would contend, but that may mask a failure of comprehension. I would totally agree QE, Furlough and Covid Business Loans all consolidated further wealth with the richest. And too much of UK capitalism built on asset accumulation that doesn’t share the proceeds of capitalism.
The migration has been too high too, but our need for a significant amount won’t go away. Someone going to be needed to pay for you in your dotage. Demographics don’t bend to slogans.

Andrew R
Andrew R
13 days ago
Reply to  j watson

You have written a load of rambling nonsense (again) that says Mary is wrong in her analysis.

It’s quite simple, the electorate DID NOT ask for mass immigration. When house prices were clearly outstreching incomes, interest rates were kept low while mass immigration went uninterrupted. Wages remained low while profits increased with little innovation or investment. Why, because it’s easier to accumulate assets.

When the financial crash came nothing changed, ultra low interest rates and continued mass immigration. Our taxes are the highest for 75 years, our infrastructure and service are buckling under the pressure.

Governments, Labour and Tory have pushed these failed policies over and over again when it’s clear to everyone they only benefit the richest.

You have to be unhinged from reality to think you can keep on importing over 3 million people per decade without there being social and environmental collapse.

Q T
Q T
14 days ago
Reply to  Graeme Laws

corrected :
and employ abuse thousands of people.

Guy Haynes
Guy Haynes
14 days ago
Reply to  Graeme Laws

Graeme, are you denying the existence of lobbying or political donors? Take a really obvious example in the news recently, Dale Vince. In case you don’t know, Dale Vince is a labour donor, who owns a company producing plant-based food, and is currently lobbying the government to withdraw meat from school diets, and introduce taxes and legislation penalising the meet industry. Do you not think that the fact that he has donated to the labour party makes it much more likely that he is going to be successful with his endeavours?
This is happening more and more and takes a variety of different forms. In the US, bills are often sponsored, and sometimes even written, by large corporate donors. In the UK there is a vast lobbying network. Rich individuals sometimes “invest in” judges to ensure that the justice system works in a certain way. Many politicians can be seduced by the offer of future employment or well paid work on behalf of massive global organisations such as the WHO, the EU or the WEF. You have Bill Gates sniffing around the newly-elected Keir Starmer.
I have news for you, these lobbyists and donors are not acting out of altruistic motives, and they most certainly do not have the wishes of the average man or woman on the street at heart. And, sadly in my view, politics is now a career rather than a vocation – meaning, like any other career, politicians want the best job prospects and remuneration that they can, and it’s quite clear that nowadays, it’s in many politicians’ best interests to represent the interests of their lobbyists and donors, rather than the people who elect them.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
13 days ago
Reply to  j watson

Clearly, almost every Unherd contributor is filthy rich or a sycophant to the filthy rich, judging by the unpopularity of getting the rich to contribute. How about, instead of calling it a wealth tax you call ot a patriotic tax.. ask those who have gained most (by buying govt.) to give some back for the sake of the country; to save it from complete collapse?