Bill Bryson: Britain ideal place for Communism

Thirty years ago, in Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson, the most famous British writer ever to come from Des Moines IA, had this to say about the suitability of Not-so-great Britain for the Communist social experiment.

It has long seemed to me unfortunate...that such an important experiment in social organization [as Communism] was left to the Russians when the British would have managed it so much better. All those things that are necessary to the successful implementation of a rigorous socialist system are...second nature to the British. 

For a start, they like going without. They are great at pulling together, particularly in the face of adversity, for a perceived common good. 

They will queue patiently for indefinite periods and accept with rare fortitude the imposition of rationing, bland diets and sudden inconvenient shortages of staple goods, as anyone who has ever looked for bread at a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon will know. 

They are comfortable with faceless bureaucracies and, as Mrs. Thatcher proved, tolerant of dictatorships. They will wait uncomplainingly for years for an operation or the delivery of a household appliance. 

They have a natural gift for making excellent jokes about authority without seriously challenging it, and they derive universal satisfaction from the sight of the rich and powerful brought low. Most of those above the age of twenty-five already dress like [east Europeans]. 

The conditions, in a word, are right.

Roughly a year after Mr Bryson's highly recommendable book appeared, Sir Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Bliar ascended to the leadership of the Labour half of the Uniparty* and became Prime Minister of the Disunitede Kingdom. Evidently he had read the book, for he did his damndest to turn Britain, if not Red, then deep Pinko.

He failed, of course, because Margaret Thatcher had made it politically impossible to renationalize the steel industry, railways, etc., and not enough Third World migrants -- legal and otherwise -- had been "welcomed" to the green and septic isle to complete the transition to totalitarianism.

Fast forward to July of 2024 when British voters, having tired of a succession of feckless and inept "Conservative" governments, gave the Labourites 411 seats in a general election, whereupon the equally feckless and inept King Charles III invited Sir Keir Starmer (to be played in the movie by Sir Michael Palin) to form the next government and lead Britain down the People's Path to, errr... thingy... you know....

The Starmer government quickly set new records for incompetence, DEI, and geneeral wokeness in the face of common sense. Of 122 ministers appointed by the New Dear Leader, 18 have resigned, 1 has been dismissed, and 20 have left to spend more time with their families. [These figures are from Wikipedia, so should be taken cum grano salis. Ed.]

Given the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to show buyer's remorse, the British electorate gave Sir Keir's Labour Party (and, it must be said, the "Conservatives" as well) a rirhgt thrashing in a local elections bloodbath which saw it routed on English councils, and destroyed in Wales and Scotland. See *"Uniparty politics FAILS in UK...", WWW 10/5/26.

Does this mean that Bill Bryson was wrong? I think not. It's just that his timing was off. If Sir Keir can somehow cling to power through one more election [I'll take that bet. Ed.], he and his Pinko friends may yet reduce No-longer-great Britain to the level which prompted Mr Bryson to  write what he did. IMHO, Britain is fecked (as the Irish say) but I don't expect to be proven right until... maybe this fall!

Krazai Afghan president calls NATO mission "failure"

Maybe Afghan president Mohammed Karzai is not so crazy after all. Maybe he's just telling it the way it is. Or maybe he's trimming his sails to run with the prevailing wind. The krazai guy is quoted in British Forces News today as calling the US-led "NATO" mission to save his country from the Taliban "a failure". Who can argue with that?

You might ask, a failure of what? Walt will tell you. Western intervention in Afghanistan -- for which the Excited States of America must take the lion's share [eagle's share? Ed.] of the blame -- is a failure of foreign policy, a failure of interventionism, a failure of modern military technology, a failure born of ignorance of other cultures and religions... I could go on. How much time have I got? [That's enough failure. Ed.]

If that's not enough to make Dubya and Tony Bliar choke on their cornflakes this morning, Karzai now says he intends to negotiate a power-sharing deal with the Taliban. "I will only be letting the camel's nose half-way in the tent," says the krazai guy, "and I'm sure they will abide by their Islamic promise not to take over everything." Kula haga mumkin!

Walt is only going to say this one more time... today. The rest of the world (particularly the Middle East) doesn't want American-style democracy. You don't have to look beyond the current standoff in Washington to understand why. And there's no reason why America should be the world's policeman. Particularly when it has proven incapable of doing so.

Walt says: forget about the Middle East! It's a sandpit full of heathen savages. Let them duke it out until Mohammed returns... or however the world is supposed to end, according to the Quran. Meanwhile, the money (and lives) saved can be usefully employed right here at home.

Dear Amy: watch your language!

Agent 17 sent the following e-mail to syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon.

In today's Palm Beach Post you were quoted numerous times using "I am like".
This is what I would consider more dumbing down of our language.
This seems to be an affliction of today's youth but I cringe when I see it in print from an educated adult columnist.
If you could explain this trend, I would appreciate it.

Here, as it appeared in pbpulse, is Leslie Gray Streeter's article ["puff piece", surely? Ed.] "Syndicated advice columnist and author Amy Alkon wants you to mind your manners!"

And here's what Ms. Alkon said that provoked Agent 17 to write to her. "So there were these kids in there riding on a Razor scooter, and the workers weren’t saying anything, so I told them that they needed not to do that. And their mother scowled at me like 'How dare you parent my child.' And I was like, 'Well, you weren’t doing it.'"

I agree. I'm...like...so pissed when smart people...like...pepper their speech with these...like...y'know...

I'm tempted to blame the decline of our written and spoken language on American education, but British and Canadian speakers do it too. Yes, George W. Bush, an educated man, drops his g's when speaking from the stump. But Tony Blair (M.A., Oxon.) affects the dreadful glottal stop characteristic of the "Estuary English" spoken by the likes of David Beckham. And Mr. Blair commonly prefaces a sentence with "Hey, look...", just as Ms. Alkon starts with "So..."

This debasement of the language of Shakespeare must be deliberate. I believe it's an attempt by the speakers to bring their discourse down to the level of "the common people".

In other words, "dumbing down". Why? So those whose comprehension stops at the second syllable can "relate" to the speaker. Of course. As Prince Charles might say, "It really is...like...appalling."

Living in the shadow of its own past

Long, long ago, when Walt was a schoolboy, every classroom was adorned with a map of the world, courtesy of a chocolate bar manufacturer. The map showed the British Empire -- all the big and tiny bits of it -- in a deep pink. We could see that it was indeed the empire on which the sun never set.

Today the chocolate bar company has disappeared. So has the British Empire, save for a few rocky specks all but lost in huge seas of blue. But the British are still suffering from the impact of having once had a mighty empire, but being the most powerful nation on earth no more.

So says The Economist in an excellent column in this week's print edition.* The legacy of empire is, according to "Bagehot" the tiger under the dining room table, or the Indian elephant in the living room, which informs British attitudes and thinking even today. Bagehot gives three examples.

Why did Tony Blair overcommit his country to the American war in Iraq? "One theory...is that his militarism and messianism, the mix of responsibility and entitlement that he evinced, are part of the inheritance of all post-imperial British leaders."

"Playing Boy Wonder to America's Batman", as historian Linda Colley puts it, is British politicians' only chance of maintaining a global role. Or it could be that they yearn for long-past greatness because of a fear of being emasculated by America.

According to Bagehot, empire is also implicated in Britain's exposure to the great financial debacle of the last 18 months. It is from the days of empire, he argues, that Britons get their commerical habits -- not the most aggressive or businesslike of nations -- and an "overmighty financial sector", preoccupied with foreign deals and insulated to its detriment from the domestic economy.

And of course there is immigration, "the most obvious domestic legacy" of empire. Coincidentally, the Economist prints on the facing page an article headed "This sceptical isle". It points out that according to a recent survey, Britons are less keen on immigration than most people in Europe and North America.

(It may come as a shock to Walt's readers that Americans and Canadians are generally more tolerant than not. Only a third of Canadians, [only?! ed.] have negative attitudes to immigrants and immigration. Americans are apparently not so tolerant, but still less embittered than Brits.)

"Though notionally welcomed by a 1948 act," Bagehot writes, "colonial immigrants caused alarm when they actually turned up." [Stop the presses! ed.] British attitudes have become progressively blacker ever since, in spite of a 1962 curtailment of entry rights and subsequent tightening of various loopholes.

Now Britons worry, rightly, about the beliefs and actions of the children of immigrants venting perceived "grievances [that] have reverberated through the generations". In other words, Enoch Powell was right in everything about the magnitude of the racial disharmony which he foresaw. (Bagehot didn't say that. I did!)

So what is the upshot of all this? Bagehot opines that the British are still in denial. They have yet to deal with the emotional and intellectual fallout of empire. He calls the British -- and he is one of them -- "deluded and yet morbidly disappointed".

What they must do but have not, he argues, is to somehow "overcome this sense of thwartedness and decline, and come up with a notion of Britishness to replace the defunct imperial version."

* This article is available online only to subscribers to the print edition, thus I can't give you a link. Sorry.