"Lee’s memoirs are filled with anecdotes about foreign politicians, and his relationships with British leaders features prominently: ‘Harold Macmillan was of my father’s generation, an Edwardian grandee in appearance and manner with a deceptively languid air and a lofty approach to young colonials like me. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was the nicest of them all — a real gentleman whose manner on television belied the shrewd geopolitical thinker he was.’ Wilson was ‘the most politically skilful.’"
Harold Macmillian is possibly my second favourite British PM of the 20th Century after Churchill. I consider him to be an Antoninus Pius like figure, a dignified patrician who presided over an era of relative prosperity and peace before turbulence.
One trend I find particularly sad in most Western countries since roughly the end of the Cold War, is the disappearance of veterans from most heads of government over the subsequent decades. In the USA, the last veteran president was George Bush the elder and in my view it is no accident that the quality of the executive branch has gone steadily downhill since then.
I for one hope to see Vance in the White House in the near future at least. As an Iraq War vet, he would be almost the perfect Vespasian to Trump's Nero.
"He also saw Britain as too class-bound and inflexible, and contrasted their labour relations with the ascendant Japanese. On one occasion he asked a Japanese manager why local workers were less productive, and was given the answer that they, the Japanese, were more multi-skilled and flexible; managers were willing to undertake work that soiled their hands, seeing themselves as all grey rather than white or blue-collar workers, a mindset which contrasted with Britain’s class structure."
The impact of having their home turned into a virtual wasteland by World War II had a major leveling effect on the Japanese. Walter Scheidel in his book "The Great Leveler" has a whole chapter devoted to Japan and notes how at the start of the 20th Century, it used to be one of the most unequal countries in the world akin to Latin American countries. But the combined effects of the war and American restructuring efforts afterwards radically changed that.
"On top of this, Lee always found the Americans harder to deal with than the British. In 1961, after one of many disputes, he told his staff that ‘remember all the time that we are not dealing with an enemy, but the bloody stupidity of a friend’. He also came to believe that, in their promotion of liberalism, ‘Americans have become as dogmatic and evangelical as the communists were’. "
Imagine how Lee Kuan Yew saw the days when Progress Pride flags and BLM banners decorated US embassies around the world. At that point he might find the Viet Minh more reasonable!
"Lee would address the audience first in Malay, then Hokkien, and finally in English. Hokkien would later be replaced by Mandarin, even though ‘for many Chinese Singaporeans, dialect is the real mother tongue and Mandarin a stepmother tongue’."
The Jungle Girl riots seem deeply disturbing.
"Lee’s memoirs are filled with anecdotes about foreign politicians, and his relationships with British leaders features prominently: ‘Harold Macmillan was of my father’s generation, an Edwardian grandee in appearance and manner with a deceptively languid air and a lofty approach to young colonials like me. Sir Alec Douglas-Home was the nicest of them all — a real gentleman whose manner on television belied the shrewd geopolitical thinker he was.’ Wilson was ‘the most politically skilful.’"
Harold Macmillian is possibly my second favourite British PM of the 20th Century after Churchill. I consider him to be an Antoninus Pius like figure, a dignified patrician who presided over an era of relative prosperity and peace before turbulence.
he was a very decent chap. His experiences in the trenches obviously shaped his paternalism.
One trend I find particularly sad in most Western countries since roughly the end of the Cold War, is the disappearance of veterans from most heads of government over the subsequent decades. In the USA, the last veteran president was George Bush the elder and in my view it is no accident that the quality of the executive branch has gone steadily downhill since then.
I for one hope to see Vance in the White House in the near future at least. As an Iraq War vet, he would be almost the perfect Vespasian to Trump's Nero.
The caning of Michael Fay also inspired the classic Bart Vs Australia episode of The Simpsons.
"He also saw Britain as too class-bound and inflexible, and contrasted their labour relations with the ascendant Japanese. On one occasion he asked a Japanese manager why local workers were less productive, and was given the answer that they, the Japanese, were more multi-skilled and flexible; managers were willing to undertake work that soiled their hands, seeing themselves as all grey rather than white or blue-collar workers, a mindset which contrasted with Britain’s class structure."
The impact of having their home turned into a virtual wasteland by World War II had a major leveling effect on the Japanese. Walter Scheidel in his book "The Great Leveler" has a whole chapter devoted to Japan and notes how at the start of the 20th Century, it used to be one of the most unequal countries in the world akin to Latin American countries. But the combined effects of the war and American restructuring efforts afterwards radically changed that.
"On top of this, Lee always found the Americans harder to deal with than the British. In 1961, after one of many disputes, he told his staff that ‘remember all the time that we are not dealing with an enemy, but the bloody stupidity of a friend’. He also came to believe that, in their promotion of liberalism, ‘Americans have become as dogmatic and evangelical as the communists were’. "
Imagine how Lee Kuan Yew saw the days when Progress Pride flags and BLM banners decorated US embassies around the world. At that point he might find the Viet Minh more reasonable!
I reached the second word of this piece - should be "led" not "lead".
I deserved to be caned for that.
Maybe I'm being too picky - perhaps your partiality to Saxon history means you'd rather be Aed than Ed.
"Lee would address the audience first in Malay, then Hokkien, and finally in English. Hokkien would later be replaced by Mandarin, even though ‘for many Chinese Singaporeans, dialect is the real mother tongue and Mandarin a stepmother tongue’."
https://sjquillen.medium.com/one-china-one-chinese-9f30aca4d66a
Here's a good article on the Hokkien/Mandarin dispute.