Many of us have been clanging the alarm that the rot in our institutions would eventually lead to a national crisis and as 2025 dawns, it appears we have well and truly arrived at this point.
Covid did it. The first "in the open" experiment in "what will the people put up with?"
The result. They will comply with all they are told to. They'll take an experimental gene therapy jab, authorised as an emergency and way off the completion of even first phase clinical testing) without so much as a "I don't want to".
Fair play to all those who said no, and lost their jobs. In their cases, the Nuremberg Code was broken and nothing happened.
We hanged people who did this during the war. Now? Nothing.
The only consolation is that this Labour government is so so bad (recommended - David McGrogan's stack, "News from Uncibal" - today's post sums up HOW FUBAR we are, but that there are signs of movement in the right direction.
God willing. At 73 I never thought I'd be called to the barricades, but if needed, I'll be there; or at our local farm gates, brandishing a pitch fork.
I couldn’t agree more but given the deliberate programme of ‘Common Purpose’ which has permeated our institutions i doubt anything will change in my lifetime. Deeply saddened by the state of my beloved country.
I first encountered that organisation 20 years ago and was invited to join - I informed them that I thought their project was a slippery slope to fascism - the collusion of state and business, the politicisation of institutions and wold result in groupthink which would destroy our society by increments.
Perhaps another symptom of moral disintegration is the rise of careerists who value their career progression over the values or the organisation? It's easy to ignore organisational failures when your eyes are on your next promotion, the next career achievement.
There's a lot of sense in 'The Way Forward'. If I had to pick one item as the most important it is naming and shaming leaders who fail to act. Tricky in today's litigious world but a good journalist should be able to pull it off, and exposing gutless executives to public censure is a social punishment for dodging responsibilities.
The expenses scandal of 2012 the first explosion in front of us, the great unwashed, followed in 2016 by the patent attempt by the House to scupper Brexit, with our sociopath leader spending two years trying to overthrow the referendum.
And a state that allows a party for whomp one in five voted to get such a huge majority has had it. I am no fan of PR, and FPTP has worked well - but that's buggered now, as many se no point in voting anyway.
God will that the second American Revolution takes place, and that Trump, who has the power to wound psych Starmer fatally, does so.
my latest article looks at the chilling impact the assault on freedom of speech has had on political participationhttps://open.substack.com/pub/cjstrachan/p/in-the-uk-the-current-default-is?r=3leiou&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
The people at the top support people like themselves. They close ranks, exclude the objectors, trouble-makers, independent thinkers. If this wasn't so then there would only be hobbyists writing articles here on Substack and I'd be watching the BBC News.
I don't see any way to hold anyone to account because nobody is responsible for anything and any telling off that goes on is done by the same class of people. I don't see Matt Hancock, for example, being held to account for any of his poor decisions during the pandemic. He just walked away. Paula Vennells isn't being held to account for the Post Office fiasco - a bit of public weeping and off into the sunset with her. Chief Executives of hospital trusts, police forces, county councils simply move on to a new part of the country or move sideways into a different area of "public life". I mean - Tony Blair is still walking the earth as a free man!
There does not appear to be a way of holding anyone to account for anything.
Unfortunately I suspect you are correct. The only possible remedy will be if change is forced on us through economic necessity. If the markets demand it.
I'm deeply Sceptical about whether this would happen until we were a total basket case as Argentina was.
And Argentina was a basketcase for absolutely years. My husband's family lived in Peru after the war. His father believed strongly in showing that he had confidence in the country he lived and worked in and so kept his money in Peru. His uncle had no such confidence and kept his money in US dollars outside the country. His father lost the lot in the early '70s when the government changed and threw the foreigners out. Ironically, his uncle lost the lot when the oil crisis hit a few years later and there was a run on the dollar (or maybe it was something Jimmy Carter did? I wasn't there!). So, I would advise keeping an eye on whether people carry on keeping their money in the UK or not as we slide into being a third world basketcase country.
Hear, hear. But as someone who came to the UK 30 years ago and knowing two other countries and people quite well, the USA and Germany, I must also tell you that this unwillingness to take personal responsibility has been prevalent and almost genetic in the UK 30 years ago already, and then still in contrast to those other countries: the "wrong kind of leaves" syndrome.
Sadly, though maybe good for Brits relatively speaking, that syndrome, general attitude and its lack of consequences leading to the now dysfunctional businesses and states, has spread to every other country in the West since about the financial crisis of 2008/9.
I didn't think that things would get this bad so quickly. Perhaps it's a good thing but I detect people still sticking their heads in the sand.
Covid did it. The first "in the open" experiment in "what will the people put up with?"
The result. They will comply with all they are told to. They'll take an experimental gene therapy jab, authorised as an emergency and way off the completion of even first phase clinical testing) without so much as a "I don't want to".
Fair play to all those who said no, and lost their jobs. In their cases, the Nuremberg Code was broken and nothing happened.
We hanged people who did this during the war. Now? Nothing.
The only consolation is that this Labour government is so so bad (recommended - David McGrogan's stack, "News from Uncibal" - today's post sums up HOW FUBAR we are, but that there are signs of movement in the right direction.
God willing. At 73 I never thought I'd be called to the barricades, but if needed, I'll be there; or at our local farm gates, brandishing a pitch fork.
As my wife and I say all the time
"They can all fuck off"
https://newsfromuncibal.substack.com/p/endgame
I couldn’t agree more but given the deliberate programme of ‘Common Purpose’ which has permeated our institutions i doubt anything will change in my lifetime. Deeply saddened by the state of my beloved country.
I first encountered that organisation 20 years ago and was invited to join - I informed them that I thought their project was a slippery slope to fascism - the collusion of state and business, the politicisation of institutions and wold result in groupthink which would destroy our society by increments.
Perhaps another symptom of moral disintegration is the rise of careerists who value their career progression over the values or the organisation? It's easy to ignore organisational failures when your eyes are on your next promotion, the next career achievement.
There's a lot of sense in 'The Way Forward'. If I had to pick one item as the most important it is naming and shaming leaders who fail to act. Tricky in today's litigious world but a good journalist should be able to pull it off, and exposing gutless executives to public censure is a social punishment for dodging responsibilities.
And that politics became, rather than a vocation, a career. Especially for useless lawyers...
The expenses scandal of 2012 the first explosion in front of us, the great unwashed, followed in 2016 by the patent attempt by the House to scupper Brexit, with our sociopath leader spending two years trying to overthrow the referendum.
And a state that allows a party for whomp one in five voted to get such a huge majority has had it. I am no fan of PR, and FPTP has worked well - but that's buggered now, as many se no point in voting anyway.
God will that the second American Revolution takes place, and that Trump, who has the power to wound psych Starmer fatally, does so.
Brexit really did flush them out into the open though - the mask slipped utterly - and they openly showed their contempt for the plebs
my latest article looks at the chilling impact the assault on freedom of speech has had on political participationhttps://open.substack.com/pub/cjstrachan/p/in-the-uk-the-current-default-is?r=3leiou&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
How do we "hold leaders to account"?
How do we *do* anything to change all this rot?
The people at the top support people like themselves. They close ranks, exclude the objectors, trouble-makers, independent thinkers. If this wasn't so then there would only be hobbyists writing articles here on Substack and I'd be watching the BBC News.
I don't see any way to hold anyone to account because nobody is responsible for anything and any telling off that goes on is done by the same class of people. I don't see Matt Hancock, for example, being held to account for any of his poor decisions during the pandemic. He just walked away. Paula Vennells isn't being held to account for the Post Office fiasco - a bit of public weeping and off into the sunset with her. Chief Executives of hospital trusts, police forces, county councils simply move on to a new part of the country or move sideways into a different area of "public life". I mean - Tony Blair is still walking the earth as a free man!
There does not appear to be a way of holding anyone to account for anything.
Unfortunately I suspect you are correct. The only possible remedy will be if change is forced on us through economic necessity. If the markets demand it.
I'm deeply Sceptical about whether this would happen until we were a total basket case as Argentina was.
And Argentina was a basketcase for absolutely years. My husband's family lived in Peru after the war. His father believed strongly in showing that he had confidence in the country he lived and worked in and so kept his money in Peru. His uncle had no such confidence and kept his money in US dollars outside the country. His father lost the lot in the early '70s when the government changed and threw the foreigners out. Ironically, his uncle lost the lot when the oil crisis hit a few years later and there was a run on the dollar (or maybe it was something Jimmy Carter did? I wasn't there!). So, I would advise keeping an eye on whether people carry on keeping their money in the UK or not as we slide into being a third world basketcase country.
Hear, hear. But as someone who came to the UK 30 years ago and knowing two other countries and people quite well, the USA and Germany, I must also tell you that this unwillingness to take personal responsibility has been prevalent and almost genetic in the UK 30 years ago already, and then still in contrast to those other countries: the "wrong kind of leaves" syndrome.
Sadly, though maybe good for Brits relatively speaking, that syndrome, general attitude and its lack of consequences leading to the now dysfunctional businesses and states, has spread to every other country in the West since about the financial crisis of 2008/9.
Oh yes, there was nothing new but there was at least diversity of opinion in leadership teams and organizational culture back then.
And yes, this malaise infects the West in particular.