Sunday West 51

Election fever!

Good morning, and a warm welcome to new subscribers, especially to those in the Netherlands. My post on why we find Dutch so funny did well so I would like to say, in my best Steve McClaren voice, thank you.

It’s election fever in Britain now, and by fever I mean vague feelings of unease, discomfort and tiredness. Following Rishi Sunak’s courageous decision to hold the vote early, I wrote about how bad a Labour government would be and how the return of Nigel Farage spells doom for the Tory Party.

Some people on the Right take great glee in this destruction but it makes me feel rather sad, not just because I don’t want a Labour government and because there will be some good people losing their seats (yes, I know, smallest violins etc), but because I feel some emotional loyalty, despite everything. But they seem intent on self-destruction, and as for the Chancellor calling this the ‘immigration election’, well I wouldn’t open with that.

From an obviously selfish point of view, I rather wish my book about the decline of conservatism was coming out now, rather than just after the last election, as it did, when many Tories were fooled into thinking the future belonged to them – when they in fact represented a coalition in decline but briefly and unusually united. I will post about this soon, in yet another ‘I told you so’ piece.

On other topics, I wrote about my trip to the beautiful kingdom of Jordan, sadly suffering from the fall-out to the Gaza War, on the ancient city of Petra, and on the issue of Arab and Jews forced to flee their homelands.

I also wrote about Soho, once London’s liveliest district, and how its nightlife was suffocated by special interests.

I wrote about Ireland’s anti-migration protests in the context of the country’s history of rebellion.

On how the Anglo-Saxons were being erased by North American academics.

On whether mobile phones were responsible for the huge drop in crime.

On the maddening phrase ‘Global majority’.

On Cornwall, King Arthur and soft power.

I was also interviewed by Ian Silvera for the Political Press Box. You can listen here and here.

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Elsewhere, I’m very late to this but this Alex Kaschuta piece was very good.

An outsider can have a free affection for a culture. They are not burdened by the fixations, humiliation fetishes, and virtue signaling baked into the culture's conception of itself. Because I come from a place lacking some particular virtues, noticing and appreciating them in the UK was easier. At the same time, for the outsider, the constant self-deprecation comes off as weakness. You can only call yourself criminal, cruel, and irredeemably colonial a few times until people start to believe you. I understand that this is a luxury belief and there are class advantages in holding it, but it’s utility may soon run out. In life, like in love, those who don't respect themselves will never get respect. They will attract mistreatment and people who scan the world for vulnerability. 

The UK is full of creativity, intelligence, openness, broadness of spirit, friendliness, cooperation, moral fiber, and deep resources beyond sticks, stones, and precious essences found in the soil. I miss the people, their humor, politeness, and understated charm. Living in Romania has convinced my Anglo-transplant husband that these virtues are not necessarily human universals. There's a concept here called "nesimțire," with which he's now becoming very familiar. It could be loosely translated as "thoughtlessness," or "unfeelingness," or, maybe, more colloquially, acting like an asshole. Not that London doesn't have its fair share of individual assholes, but I wouldn't call that a culture. Low-trust countries often have a defect-defect equilibrium regarding interactions with strangers, translating into an odd combination of intense friendliness and hospitality for people you accept into your inner circle and a devil-may-care attitude to everyone else. Cutting in line, charging their cars at you while you're pushing a stroller on the crosswalk and weaving around at the last second, burning plastic trash in the neighborhood every day and denying it.

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Neil O’Brien on the graduate visa route. Even though I’m obviously biased, I don’t feel it’s my place to say how people should vote in elections - but if any of my subscribers live in Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, it would be a huge shame if Neil loses on account of a government he has consistently held to account.

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Conor Fitzgerald on why some Irish people think the anti-immigration protests are directed by the British. It’s understandable for historic reasons although, like with Russians who believe that the British control the world, sadly overestimates our power or ability. But in this case it wouldn’t even be in Britain’s interests to encourage Irish nationalism. I remember there was also a common theme during the Syrian Civil War when locals would blame outsider jihadi fanatics for sectarian atrocities that were in fact carried out by locals. People don’t want to accept that their neighbours and compatriots actually believe the things they do.

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Eric Kaufmann has a book out about the roots of woke progressivism. Read here for a teaser.

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Katja Hoyer on growing up in a post-Christian society, in this case the former East Germany. Fascinating, and rather sad to me.

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Sad in part because what follows is less rational, and less happy. Freya India wrote about that subject this week, on about how almost every part of our lives assumes we are the centre of the universe.

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At Works In Progress, Nick Cowen on how the war on drink driving was won.

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Helen Dale on how different personality traits suit different ideologies.

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At the Critic, Phoebe Arslanagic-Little on practical pro-natal policies. I was on Louise Perry’s podcast last month discussing the issue and I’m not really sure there are solutions as such. Meanwhile, not a single province in South Korea has a fertility rate above 1.0. (I finally read The Children of Men after reading this Perry article on why it was actually better than the reality, and there is some truth in it.)

And on ‘the web’:

1 In German cities which became a part of Prussia after Napoleon’s rule, parents were 20% more likely to give their kids national first names compared to non-Prussian German cities.

2 El Salvador now has a murder rate lower than 47 US States and is even below two EU countries. Bukele, meanwhile, has some ‘serious drip’ going on, as middle-aged men like myself would say.

3 An important breakthrough in treatment of certain types of lung cancer. Via Saloni.

4 Why does voting in England follow the map of the Danelaw? Who knows, but some voting patterns do have ancient origins.

5 Pop music is becoming stupider and more miserable.

6 Britain’s young are way more liberal than counterparts on the continent.

7 Thread on the colour Orange.

8 Civil servants in 1982 were asked what salary would be required to make them move out of London. I have to admit, I’d never heard of ‘Scarplands’ - apparently it’s some made-up region running from Somerset up to Lincolnshire.

9 A cemetery was built near Lyon built to resemble West African mud brick fortifications and is the resting place for nearly 200 colonial Senegalese troops massacred by the Wehrmacht in June 1940.

10 It really is the case that early Christians were disproportionately poor, not the urban elite.

11 The Chinese Communist Revolution consolidated its power by taking land from the elite. In the following generation, the previous elite once again reclaimed their social advantage.

12 Joseph Henrich used unpaid parking tickets by diplomats at the UN in New York as a good measure of WEIRDness and corruption, since these were instances of cost-free cheating - British, Swedes, Canadians and Australians were the lowest. Here are the latest TFL stats on which embassies owe the most Congestion Charge fines. The US refuses to pay out of principle, apparently, because it’s a tax.

13 For Orthodox countries the collapse of the USSR led to an increase in religiosity but in Catholic countries, it didn't.

14 The new Heathrow design has been criticised. Why aren’t many airport terminals designed to be beautiful? Presumably it’s down to costs, but railway stations in the 19^th century were seen as the new cathedrals, and in this case of St Pancras, deliberately designed to resemble them.

15 An interesting account with photographs charting the fall of Liverpool.

16 Most people think things were best when they were teenagers. It’s not surprising that music shows the greatest effect, since musical taste is so crystalised in our teenage years and is so evocative for the rest of our lives. Personally, films and the economy were great when I was in adolescence, but it certainly wasn’t the most moral society.

17 Amusing watching this debate and the reaction of one panellist to Briahna Joy Gray saying that Hamas just want ‘a state more like what we have in the United States of America.’ Do people actually believe this? I’m never sure.

18 A new paper on cousin marriage has come out, which I will be writing about soon.

Thanks for subscribing, and as you say in your country, Fijne dag!