I moved to the countryside from London because it felt less “relevant” - at the time, there were news helicopters hovering above my street, broadcasting the family home of Jihadi John to the world.
To paraphrase, “may you live in an interesting area” is a curse!
The elite in ancien regime France were completely out of touch by the 1780s. This was because they lived in the 'Versailles bubble', divorced from the reality of life in France; and even in Paris. Thye literally hadn't a clue. Arguably, if the royal family had remained in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the 1789 Revolution might have been averted. As it was, they danced and laughed their way toward the precipice. Our present UK 'elite' have far less excuse but they are similar to the old French nobility: completely out of touch, but far less elegant or witty. Nor do they have the excuse of living in Versailles, although the Westminster-Whitehall bubble seems just as effective an insulator. This country can only be regenerated by some great internal upheaval. But woe to those who find themselevs involved.
It annoys me because I know they’ve chosen their wording to make it conform to the tenets of social justice religion. The sacred identities must be celebrated, but not always named. It’s a bit like Islamic prohibitions on depicting Muhammad.
I am at risk of going on about this, but it is maddening that the decision to fully decriminalise abortions from the mother's perspective was inaccurately framed in the context of abortion being under threat. In fact Britain had a firmly established and exceedingly liberal regime, and abortion pills by post had only made it easier to access abortion. The other day a Marie Claire article continued to talk up the threat from American evangelicals funding anti-abortion campaigns, but Christianity is held in contempt in Britain and there is scant chance of such efforts leading to legislative change. Even Reform has indicated it's not interested.
Regarding the chaotic schools post, I don't know if you have read up on stereotypes of Generation Alpha being notoriously wild, feral, unruly, and airheaded. Very much the opposite of Millennials and kind of similar to young Boomers.
I read this after Dominic Cummings' latest substack offering, and I sort of expected yours would be less depressing, but I don't think it was.
fyi I run a U3A Current Affairs Group and the only thing one lady who voted Labour in 2024 has ever praised about Labour in government is that they stopped the riots. Lucy Connolly's terribe two-tier treatment was clearly a factor in that.
As for student loans, if we can't close down 50% of our "universities" straight away, we should charge them for the unpaid student loans of their students, on the basis that they must have provided a degree in a subject which was unfit for purpose. That would just ensure a lingering death for the superannuated polytechnics and disguised immigration scammers in the tertiary sector..
"As Alexandra Wilson explains, some of this is downstream of the incentive systems within academia."
In many ways, universities have always been the smokescreen. It's been a feature of conservative discourse since roughly the late 1980s that "tenured radicals" in universities constitute a primary and growing threat to free societies, Western Civilization, etc...and if only these armchair radicals could be brought to trial in the style of the Gang of Four after Mao Zedong's death, we could once again live in the land of Liberty(TM).
But in terms of the agenda/sensibilities/taboos of the cultural left, the main victory was not primarily in universities but rather in corporations (especially those associated with the knowledge economy), via the growth of the diversity industry.
And the cultural left succeeded there because, after all, corporations are not "Enlightenment" or "classical liberal" organizations where free citizens are entitled to fundamental rights like freedoms of expression, conscience, association,etc. Rather they are closer to pre-modern, feudal orders.
As Musa Al-Gharbi put it relatively recently, canonical "radical" thinkers like Foucault, Marcuse, Crenshaw, etc, are actually not ubiquitously read in academia and many of their beliefs actually refute many cultural left dogmas.
That Musa Al-Gharbi essay is one of the most refreshing takes on the issue I've read in a while - thanks for the link. As someone working in academia, I do often feel like Stepan Trofimovich in The Devils, looking with horror at my radicalised offspring!
Peers rather than parents, I think. But I also think we ought to be looking much more closely at what is taught in primary schools. "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man."
I think you're right that it originated in academia. But it's been infused into.the wider culture now, and students arrive with those ideas already in rheir heads.
Are these things being raised in Parliament by the Tories or Reform? E.g. the illegal immigrant attacks, the NHS promotion of cousin marriage? If not, why not? The PM or his ministers need to stand there and answer on these matters.
I've started reading books about the gulags in the Soviet Union as those, alongside accounts of torture, are the only things left that induce me to count my blessings.
I had to look up Jason Stanley and now know he is a Professor of anti-American Studies.
Wow, England is turbof*cking itself into oblivion and having no fun doing it, even. Have some fun in the ruination! Declare EPL football haram, arrest Jimmy Page for domestic terrorism, and open an abortion /MAiD clinic inside Canterbury Cathedral, offering 2:1 coupons. Go all the way!
"The plans follow Defra-commissioned reports that claimed the countryside would become “irrelevant” in a multicultural society,"
Irrelevant to what? Irrelevant to whom?
They are ‘former places’, to adapt the Bolshevik term
"Former places" like Gizhinsk, in The Midwich Cuckoos?
A depressing reference
I moved to the countryside from London because it felt less “relevant” - at the time, there were news helicopters hovering above my street, broadcasting the family home of Jihadi John to the world.
To paraphrase, “may you live in an interesting area” is a curse!
The elite in ancien regime France were completely out of touch by the 1780s. This was because they lived in the 'Versailles bubble', divorced from the reality of life in France; and even in Paris. Thye literally hadn't a clue. Arguably, if the royal family had remained in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the 1789 Revolution might have been averted. As it was, they danced and laughed their way toward the precipice. Our present UK 'elite' have far less excuse but they are similar to the old French nobility: completely out of touch, but far less elegant or witty. Nor do they have the excuse of living in Versailles, although the Westminster-Whitehall bubble seems just as effective an insulator. This country can only be regenerated by some great internal upheaval. But woe to those who find themselevs involved.
Boring hackneyed analogy. Move along Alistair!
That’s not very nice
Sorry, you’re right. Apologies Alistair. A rash and uncalled for comment.
"I don’t think the press habit of referring to foreign offenders as ‘Newcastle man’ or ‘Burnley man’ really helps the situation."
The one that most winds me up is the euphemism "born in this country".
I think most people read that as 'but his parents weren't'
'the man, whose ancestors arrived on these shores with Horsa and Hengest, was remanded in custody....'
Yes, of course they do. Impossible to read it any other way, which is why it's so annoying that they feel the need to use it.
It annoys me because I know they’ve chosen their wording to make it conform to the tenets of social justice religion. The sacred identities must be celebrated, but not always named. It’s a bit like Islamic prohibitions on depicting Muhammad.
It's not the Newcastle that gets me, it's referring to a 19-year-old hooligan as a "man".
I am at risk of going on about this, but it is maddening that the decision to fully decriminalise abortions from the mother's perspective was inaccurately framed in the context of abortion being under threat. In fact Britain had a firmly established and exceedingly liberal regime, and abortion pills by post had only made it easier to access abortion. The other day a Marie Claire article continued to talk up the threat from American evangelicals funding anti-abortion campaigns, but Christianity is held in contempt in Britain and there is scant chance of such efforts leading to legislative change. Even Reform has indicated it's not interested.
Regarding the chaotic schools post, I don't know if you have read up on stereotypes of Generation Alpha being notoriously wild, feral, unruly, and airheaded. Very much the opposite of Millennials and kind of similar to young Boomers.
I read this after Dominic Cummings' latest substack offering, and I sort of expected yours would be less depressing, but I don't think it was.
fyi I run a U3A Current Affairs Group and the only thing one lady who voted Labour in 2024 has ever praised about Labour in government is that they stopped the riots. Lucy Connolly's terribe two-tier treatment was clearly a factor in that.
As for student loans, if we can't close down 50% of our "universities" straight away, we should charge them for the unpaid student loans of their students, on the basis that they must have provided a degree in a subject which was unfit for purpose. That would just ensure a lingering death for the superannuated polytechnics and disguised immigration scammers in the tertiary sector..
"As Alexandra Wilson explains, some of this is downstream of the incentive systems within academia."
In many ways, universities have always been the smokescreen. It's been a feature of conservative discourse since roughly the late 1980s that "tenured radicals" in universities constitute a primary and growing threat to free societies, Western Civilization, etc...and if only these armchair radicals could be brought to trial in the style of the Gang of Four after Mao Zedong's death, we could once again live in the land of Liberty(TM).
But in terms of the agenda/sensibilities/taboos of the cultural left, the main victory was not primarily in universities but rather in corporations (especially those associated with the knowledge economy), via the growth of the diversity industry.
https://www.amazon.ca/Race-Experts-Etiquette-Sensitivity-Revolution/dp/074252759X
And the cultural left succeeded there because, after all, corporations are not "Enlightenment" or "classical liberal" organizations where free citizens are entitled to fundamental rights like freedoms of expression, conscience, association,etc. Rather they are closer to pre-modern, feudal orders.
https://books.google.ca/books/about/Private_Government.html?id=hXSYDwAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
As Musa Al-Gharbi put it relatively recently, canonical "radical" thinkers like Foucault, Marcuse, Crenshaw, etc, are actually not ubiquitously read in academia and many of their beliefs actually refute many cultural left dogmas.
https://musaalgharbi.substack.com/p/censorship-is-primarily-a-problem#_
That Musa Al-Gharbi essay is one of the most refreshing takes on the issue I've read in a while - thanks for the link. As someone working in academia, I do often feel like Stepan Trofimovich in The Devils, looking with horror at my radicalised offspring!
So if it’s not academia that’s indoctrinating students, what is? Their parents and peers?
Peers rather than parents, I think. But I also think we ought to be looking much more closely at what is taught in primary schools. "Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man."
But then where do the peers get these ideas? I’m not disagreeing with you, I just can’t help but think the origins of this worldview is academia.
I think you're right that it originated in academia. But it's been infused into.the wider culture now, and students arrive with those ideas already in rheir heads.
Are these things being raised in Parliament by the Tories or Reform? E.g. the illegal immigrant attacks, the NHS promotion of cousin marriage? If not, why not? The PM or his ministers need to stand there and answer on these matters.
Everyone's rather on edge at the moment, aren't they ?
You speak of 'homicide' when I think you mean murder
I think these are all homicides (murder and manslaughter) although maybe I misread.
(a) "a regular exercise in demoralisation."
(b) "I’m just a natural Telegraph reader."
This is surely not mere correlation, but I wonder in which is cause and which effect.
I really feel that some of this requires a Dave Barry reminder: "I'm not making this up."
Any substack channel that is pro-Jewish, which yours is, is not a patriotic channel.
I've started reading books about the gulags in the Soviet Union as those, alongside accounts of torture, are the only things left that induce me to count my blessings.
I had to look up Jason Stanley and now know he is a Professor of anti-American Studies.
Wow, England is turbof*cking itself into oblivion and having no fun doing it, even. Have some fun in the ruination! Declare EPL football haram, arrest Jimmy Page for domestic terrorism, and open an abortion /MAiD clinic inside Canterbury Cathedral, offering 2:1 coupons. Go all the way!
Peak madness, surely!