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The burning of effigies...

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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Fri Feb 03, 2012 3:00 pm

Problem is that the clowns who went in for this venture have a history of such efforts that goes way back.

The same branch were also responsible for the burning in effigy of (Lord) David Owen in protest at his treasonous behaviour in negotiating the settlement that gave Zimbabwe its independence from the Queen!!

This apparently was a failure on his part to recognise the superior role of the Empire in assisting in ruling the world and was in their eyes a slap in the face of the Queen.

Which seems to be a major part of their tweed-bedraped personas. From wherever it derives - and public school is probably one of the safest bets on the planet - they seem imbued with the notion that they regret the setting of the sun on the Empire, when days were good, all was well with the world and that even now, in some long forgotten parts of the Empire, there are places where her portrait takes pride of place and is saluted as the port is passed and "chaps" discuss the latest cull of wildlife in the vicinity.

All steeped in some sort of mythological perception of the world that is long long outdated and bears no resemblance whatsoever to any sort of reality any of the rest of us recognise.

Which naturally enough sits comfortably in line with what ever else they learn while at certain seats of learning in respect of the lazy work shy working classes who no longer know their place, their concern at oiks being afforded a place at University and those damn Socialist and fellow travellers who have foisted on THEIR country the notions of equality, universal suffrage and women - of all people - being educated in more than being the perfect hostess.

And for what? There is nothing in Obama's record that smacks of anything criminal or uncivilised or flouting any of the precepts of civilised behaviour. There is little doubt that his Inauguration speech and his promise that the United States, for instance, would shake the hands of any people's who unclenched their fist, has seen "results" in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt to name just a few. In some parts of the worls, the perception of what the United Stats stands for is changing.

And for this the Tweeds see fit to burn him in effigy? As some form of protest?
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby wild_quinine on Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:55 am

The Cellar Bar wrote:Problem is that the clowns who went in for this venture have a history of such efforts that goes way back.

The same branch were also responsible for the burning in effigy of (Lord) David Owen in protest at his treasonous behaviour in negotiating the settlement that gave Zimbabwe its independence from the Queen!!

This apparently was a failure on his part to recognise the superior role of the Empire in assisting in ruling the world and was in their eyes a slap in the face of the Queen.


I am assuming that this was done contemperaneously to the circumstances and not, for example, last week. If so, and not that I don't think the body as a whole should be judged, or their misdeeds remembered, but most students in St. Andrews won't have been born at the time you're describing - in fact most students in St. Andrews since shortly after New Labour first came into power won't have been born then - so I don't think this should have specific bearing on a judgement as to whether a current crop of students were behaving in a specifically racist way. Indeed it's all the more clear that they were following an old tradition of burning political adversaries in effigy.

Now I'm no fan of Empire, I'm not arguing in favour of the tradition, and I'm not supporting their worldview which, at best, can be described as 'cute'. But, that said, I don't think that's necessarily the kind of free expression we should be appalled at. It's more... laughable, surely? And I don't necessarily think that they should be stopped, much less officially punished. I think their opinions rather speak for themselves, which is all the more reason to give them a bit of rope.

And for what? There is nothing in Obama's record that smacks of anything criminal or uncivilised or flouting any of the precepts of civilised behaviour.


Nobody is perfect. Recent events (whitehouse SOPA statement) notwithstanding, his take on Intellectual Property is, and always has been, pretty lousy. If I were American I would vote for him in a heartbeat, but I'd be lobbying him on his appalling pandering to the disproportionately powerful media industry.

I very much doubt that putting him on a bonfire was an expression of anything so nuanced. I think it was just ignorant. I think it was ignorant of the perceived effect, and I think it was ignorant of Obama's true position in the conservative world: he has bigger conservative balls than any hoorah henry I ever met, just because of which country he's a democrat in.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Sun Feb 05, 2012 11:18 pm

hey wild_quinine.....

and yes - I'd agree - and no doubt about it - that it is somewhat unfair, not to mention reasonably irrelevant, to cite something from back in the day when their predecessors also acted in a similar way.

My point tho overall was that in terms of one of the strands of this thread that talked about "education" and PC and all the rest of it, and how "Britishness" was being slowly and deliberately eroded apparently by trendy lefties and their fellow travellers, that there are certain parts of the education system that are still spawning the same ideas that existed back then.

No matter the social changes and attitudes that might have adjusted since then, there seems to be a recalcitrant and stubborn body that still "educates" their charges with such views of "Britishness" and Empire and the like.

Yes it is probably unfair to "blame" current members of a society for previous acts by their predecessors. But what bothers me is the fact that such examples of the system are still being churned out and still trotting out the same old, same old tired ignorant cliches of forty years ago.

In that respect, I don't actually consider the burning in effigy of a political "opponent" as being racist. That it smacks of some auto-da-fe notion that was used against dissidents more than two or three centuries ago is worrisome in itslef as something they might resort to. But overall, the act wasn't racist as such. They probably would have done the same to any political opponent of any colour. As you rightly say, it was a pretty foolish, assinine form of behaviour.

And if nothing else, in that respect, doesn't reflect too well on any sort of political or social education that was so expensively bought for them.

Racist - no? Typical of the breed? Yes!!
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby Hennessy on Wed Feb 08, 2012 8:32 pm

And of course, "Jackson is a devotee of the school that says people should drag themselves up by their bootstraps."....... not for him the notion that this "ethic" flies fully and energetically in the face of the first three words of the Declaration of Independence - "We the People" - with the imperative and implication that it is as a combined unit that the "new country" was to flourish. It was in fact only in later years, after the Bushes and Rockerfellers and others got to work that that notion of working together - barn raising parties and all - was abandoned in favour of all-out attention to self and let others rot.*


Sorry I missed the part where the Declaration of Independence was a Marxist tract! "We the People" goes on to define "of the United States", ie defining it geographically and setting it against the UK. Surely that's what it meant?

So eminently summed up by his "true conservative" icon of Thatcher who so memorably declared that "there is no such thing as society, only family and friends"


I really would like someone to define nebulous concepts like "society" or even "community" in terms that can be applied in the real world. "The aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community" is a literal meaning - as you can see it's hardly precise there is it? "Community" is my pet bugbear, it's become a word you can use to define any group of people without directly stating who, hence the saturation levels of it on the TV and radio after the riots - I'll give you three guesses as to which group of people it was really aimed at. Did you guess:

a) Inner city blacks?
b) Inner city blacks?
or, the popular choice:
c) Inner city blacks?

Of course it was, of course it was .....and not, as has been recognised by many actually on the ground in London,

err... I was "on the ground in London." With reference to what you're about to say I have never heard this raised as a cause of the London Riots of 2011. I was just making sure you were actually referring to London.

"even remotely connected to the fact that all the benefits and work and reward associated with the Olympics in London, promised by the likes of construction companies, went out of the window when same businesses shipped in cheap labour from Europe to do all the work. At the expense of the area already blighted by unemployment and social deprivation for which the Games promised so much in terms of employment. See above *"


Now that made me laugh. So the riots were because people were angry Europeans were being shipped in to do all the work!? Have you ever been to London? Europeans - it's teeming with 'em! No doubt stealing our Olympic birthright in between fixing toilets and trying to raise families. I think if we're going to cast stones about crackpot theories I'll go with the man who says it was because my city has a deep rooted problem with a small minority who feel entitled to whatever they like whenever they want it, not because we lost out on a couple of building contracts and as a consequence burned down our neighbours homes. No, that's what we call a 'polite fiction' I believe. Deprivation I can understand, we have pockets of it all over London, but causing public chaos is not excused because you had a hard upbringing.

And the article's relevance to whether or not the education system in this country still allows "graduates" of public schools to burn in effigy anyone with whom they disagree and who see a mix of King Arthur and good ole John Bull to be relevant to the future of 21st century Britain?


Well we started rowing back towards the subject but got sidetracked initially by yourself if I remember correctly. I was just trying to demonstrate a starkly opposing point of view that I thought contributed somewhat. Reading the dreary agreement Wild Quinine and you seem to go on to cement, thanks to the saving grace of your own little web of comforting lies and half-truths, it seems it was more of a breath of fresh air than I'd thought.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Thu Feb 09, 2012 2:46 pm

Hennessy
if you want to go down the lines of pedantry then someone should point out that there was no such thing as "the United States" at the time of the Declaration of Independence. And for the life of me I can't remember it, in any case, declaring themselves to be "We the People of the United States" within or without any particular geographic boundaries.

The straightforward fact is that it declared "The People" to be capable of government and rejected the notion of being in thrall to any monarch or other single individual. It's quite amazing tho that you (well not really) should define that statement as a "Marxist tract" - altho it does stand out as some sort of Pavlovian reaction among those who have been inculcated with such views. What you perhaps should also know is that in reality the people of the United States don't talk of it as "The American War of Independence" - such a comforting term for some I suppose - but actually know it as the "American Revolution". Which preceded - but gave guidance and heart - to the following French Revolution and the the Russian Revolution. What you see - and presuambly hope - to be the very bastion of conservatism and self was in fact the first Revolution that overthrew the old status quo.

A Revolution that was based on political power being removed from a small minority and put into the hands of the majority. A Revolution that was also based on the notion of co-operation - a precept that was eventually overthrown in turn after the Industrial Revolution after the corporations took on and the destroyed the Unions in the '20's. And then the notion of anything remotely "socialist" in the 50's.

And "society". You have as problem with the notion of "society" in the terms Thatcher and others used. What Thatcher was essentially saying was that she did not believe that anyone should have any sense of social responsibilty or involvement with others - even tho living in a country/society which had developed notions such as the NHS or a State education system that was essentially open to all. That no-one should really consider it their responsibility to be concerned with the welfare of others or their children but that is should be essentially a case of "every man for themselves" and let the others stand or fall as best they could.

And you probably were "on the ground" at the time of the London Riots. Yet more of the same sort of OCD pedantic notion of being geographically thus located. Whereas the term in wider parlance - and certainly meant here - was that those who then took on the task of investigating the reasons for the riots from a professional and experienced aspect, quickly found that underlying them was the sense of frustration and anger and sense of "non-involvement" felt by many in the areas. They - these reports - showed that, for instance, all three major parties had essentially abandoned any interest in winning constituency seats there or of resisting the cuts in education and social services and Youth services which are vital to the well being of any area. They - the people - were seen as a lost cause, of little intrest to the parties and were essentially left to rot.

It's difficult to understand how you could have missed that fact that in the aftermath of the riots that many people did cite the lack of "investment" in local workers. The fact is that after the announcement of the Olympic venue, much was made of how this would bring in much needed work to deprived and blighted areas of London. Of how this would revitalise the area and bring much needed work to the area. It wasn't just for a "couple of building contracts". It was for a set of projects whose extent dwarved practically everything else in past 30 years in London.

None of that actually happened. As I thought I had said, the construction companies and others then promptly ignored the indigenous population and shipped in cheaper labour from Europe to do the work. At the expense of the local population. Creating even more frustration and sense of being ignored and conned by the "powers that be"

All of those elements are freely available from the reports that have since been published and discussed. It's just a pity that you seem unaware of their existence but seem happier to recant yet again the notion that you seem to have that those who complain are of the great unwashed selfish lazy workshy breed of whom you learned so much at - presumably - some of the more expensive and presitgious seats of "learning".
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby Humphrey on Fri Feb 10, 2012 3:14 pm

The Cellar Bar wrote:What Thatcher was essentially saying was that she did not believe that anyone should have any sense of social responsibilty or involvement with others - even tho living in a country/society which had developed notions such as the NHS or a State education system that was essentially open to all. That no-one should really consider it their responsibility to be concerned with the welfare of others or their children but that is should be essentially a case of "every man for themselves" and let the others stand or fall as best they could.


No that's not what ' The Iron Lady' was saying. From 'The Downing Street Years':

My meaning, clear at the time but subsequently distorted beyond recognition, was that society was not an abstraction, separate from the men and women who composed it, but a living structure of individuals, families, neighbours and voluntary associations. I expected great things from society in this sense because I believed that as economic wealth grew, individuals and voluntary groups should assume more responsibility for their neighbours’ misfortunes. The error to which I was objecting was the confusion of society with the state as the helper of first resort. Whenever I heard people complain that ‘society’ should not permit some particular misfortune, I would retort, ‘And what are you doing about it, then?’ Society for me was not an excuse, it was a source of obligation.

I was an individualist in the sense that I believed that individuals are ultimately accountable for their actions and must behave like it. But I always refused to accept that there was some kind of conflict between this kind of individualism and social responsibility. I was reinforced in this view by the writings of conservative thinkers in the United States on the growth of an ‘underclass’ and the development of a dependency culture. If irresponsible behaviour does not involve penalty of some kind, irresponsibility will for a large number of people become the norm. More important still, the attitudes may be passed on to their children, setting them off in the wrong direction.

I had great regard for the Victorians for many reasons — not least their civic spirit to which the increase in voluntary and charitable societies and the great buildings and endowments of our cities pay eloquent tribute. I never felt uneasy about praising ‘Victorian values’ or — the phrase I originally used — ‘Victorian virtues’, not least because they were by no means just Victorian. But the Victorians also had a way of talking which summed up what we were now rediscovering — they distinguished between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving poor’. Both groups should be given help: but it must be help of very different kinds if public spending is not just going to reinforce the dependency culture. The problem with our welfare state was that — perhaps to some degree inevitably — we had failed to remember that distinction and so we provided the same ‘help’ to those who had genuinely fallen into difficulties and needed some support till they could get out of them, as to those who had simply lost the will or habit of work and self-improvement. The purpose of help must not be to allow people merely to live a half-life, but to restore their self-discipline and through that their self-esteem.


The Cellar Bar wrote: Whereas the term in wider parlance - and certainly meant here - was that those who then took on the task of investigating the reasons for the riots from a professional and experienced aspect, quickly found that underlying them was the sense of frustration and anger and sense of "non-involvement" felt by many in the areas. They - these reports - showed that, for instance, all three major parties had essentially abandoned any interest in winning constituency seats there or of resisting the cuts in education and social services and Youth services which are vital to the well being of any area. They - the people - were seen as a lost cause, of little intrest to the parties and were essentially left to rot.


It's partly that but the major factor has to be massive youth unemployment - much of it due to the great recession but even before that (as you point out) due to the arrival of abundant unskilled workers from Europe (much of them Eastern European with a strong work ethic and good experience). In the States - in cities like Philadelphia - youths began conducting flash-mob attacks on businesses and co-ordinated these with cell-phones and blackberries. Gangs in the UK took the same techniques and used them to devastating effect.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Tue Feb 14, 2012 4:47 pm

thanks for chasing down the quote Humphrey.
I'll not take it apart line by line given its size but what I would say overall is that is smacks very definitely of being a revamp of what she actually intended - largely in order to undo the damage that had been created by her original spouting.

She talks of "subsequent" misinterpretation, for instance. Suggesting that it was some months or years after the event that any reaction occurred. Truth to say, that "subsequent" "misinterpretation" came about 15 seconds after it was heard - and was accompanied by the crashing sound of a multitude of jaws hitting the ground in disbelief that anyone - let alone the Prime Minister of a country - could come up with such a view.

Nobody at the time "misinterpreted" what she meant. In fact, it essentially summed up her philosphy and policies in the preceding years in as crystal-clear a fashion as any critic could have come up with. Throughout her time, it formed the basis of her petit middle class view of the world, doubtless ground into her watching her father at work as a grocer as she grew up.

She was also "assisted" by the efforts of the Adam Smith Institute - God help us all but a formulation of this very University - who quite simply put flesh on her attitudes. And what is probably also surprising, is the speed with which that attitude was adopted and "improved" by the Middle Englanders who voted for her. Views which included the expressed confusion as to why "we" as childless couples - if not in fact unmarried - should see some of "our" taxes spent on the education or the health care of others since they saw no direct benefit to themselves.

Views which were inexplicably mindlessly translated into the forced sale of council houses by local authorities on the incredibly uneducated basis that "council house tenants vote Labour, home owners vote Conservative" therefore if we turn them into home owners then there will be a migration of voters to the Conservatives. What it actually did was to see the devastation of provision for a new generation of affordable housing and the social dislocation that it then oversaw.

It is also the case, that at no time - not during thqat interview or in subsequent months, did she make any effort to undo this "perceived" misinterpretation. She had ample opportunity - but, like I said, it was only later that the ghost writers saw fit to embellish the "I was misunderstood" notion that this quote embodies. She essentially stood by it - and was probably confused at the chorus of plunging mandibles it caused...........................................................
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Tue Feb 14, 2012 5:01 pm

......................
what I would say in respect of the Olympic projects and the reaction in London itself, is that the workers who did appear thereafter weren't actually those already here.

After the fanfares and promises of increased opportunity and employment had died away, the workers specifically contracted to work on the projects began to appear. They were not in any respect those already here and described elsewhere as the fixers of recalcitrant toilets. They were brought in specifically for the purpose of working on these projects and added to those already working and living here.

And there is no doubt that a body of feeling against their employers did begin to grow. Places like Tottenham and eleswhere had been offered at least the sense of a brighter future because work on a massive scale - amounting to something like 6 or 7 billion pounds - was about to arrive in the area. But that pretty quickly translated into the realisation that the work had passed them by. What makes the "defence" of their presence even more unlikely is that the Daily Mail readers of this world - opposed to the watering down of "Bwitishness" and the loss of King Arthur and John Bull - were already at work. There were already tensions caused by the middle classes complaining about the presence of foreigners and their "ways" - all the projects did was to widen the animosity to those who were suffering the direct consequences.

Add to that the fiscal and politcal realities that were at work and you basically have a tinder keg festering in the background. Like I said, none of the major political parties were interested in the constituences, education budgets had been slashed - both in terms of materials and infrastructure. Youth Working projects were likewise hammered into the ground. Such projects are crucial in offering somewhere that young people can be attended to by adults inclined to give direction. The alternative is for young people to look around, see a neighbourhood falling apart, coming to recognise that no-one could essentially give a rat's ass about them.

Throw in the murder of Mark Duggan by the Police..........and the rest is history. Riots are never planned. They are invariably the culmination of a series of ills and what sparks it rarely has anything to do with the real reasons for the frustration and antipathy.

The fact that this time around they were the "work" apparently of "inner class blacks" as some would have it is pretty much coincidence. Given the way large parts of the population have been shafted over the past years, I wouldn't bet the farm on it being exclusively one particular part of the population who are the centre of anything that might come our way.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby Humphrey on Tue Feb 21, 2012 6:57 pm

The Cellar Bar wrote:thanks for chasing down the quote Humphrey.
I'll not take it apart line by line given its size but what I would say overall is that is smacks very definitely of being a revamp of what she actually intended - largely in order to undo the damage that had been created by her original spouting


Hi - no problem. As it happens I was just looking through the memoirs, mainly because of the movie that came out recently and the Falklands crisis which has reared its ugly head again.

I probably shouldn't be quoting stuff uncritically from a politician's recollections but I think - based on what I have read - what she says is fairly close to the truth. It is the old Conservative notion that the state has taken on too many responsibilities and should be reduced with those responsibilities shifted to the people. Its not so much that she is arguing - like Ayn Rand and her acolytes - that instead of society you should have individuals and uncaring pursuit of personal self interest; it is more that society exists primarily as a set of relationships between individuals. It's based on her semi-mystical view of British society as a family united by common values. It probably also derives from the classical Adam Smith view (extended to society rather than just economics) that a multiplicity of individual decisions (free from government interference) will work their magic for the greater good.

Of course - as transpired - this was pretty unrealistic.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby RedCelt69 on Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:40 pm

Humphrey wrote:I probably shouldn't be quoting stuff uncritically from a politician's recollections but I think - based on what I have read - what she says is fairly close to the truth.

I remember her saying the words. I don't remember her recanting them. Ever. The premise remained long-afterwards and was often used by her opponents and critics (and never rebutted or explained away). Bernard Ingham, her press-secretary, decided to withhold her genuine thoughts, too.

But she said so in her biography, many years later, so that must be the truth.

I'm so grateful that people too young to have known her reign can enlighten me as to what she was really like and what she really believed. Let's hope that when I'm really old a generation still-unborn can tell me that Gaddafi was a misunderstood political genius who loved all of his people and that Asad of Syria should jolly well be left alone... you silly Bin Laden hating old man, you.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby Humphrey on Wed Feb 22, 2012 4:25 pm

RedCelt69 wrote:
Humphrey wrote:I probably shouldn't be quoting stuff uncritically from a politician's recollections but I think - based on what I have read - what she says is fairly close to the truth.

I remember her saying the words. I don't remember her recanting them. Ever. The premise remained long-afterwards and was often used by her opponents and critics (and never rebutted or explained away). Bernard Ingham, her press-secretary, decided to withhold her genuine thoughts, too.

But she said so in her biography, many years later, so that must be the truth.

I'm so grateful that people too young to have known her reign can enlighten me as to what she was really like and what she really believed. Let's hope that when I'm really old a generation still-unborn can tell me that Gaddafi was a misunderstood political genius who loved all of his people and that Asad of Syria should jolly well be left alone... you silly Bin Laden hating old man, you.


Well OK; let's look at what she said:

I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.

Now, I happen to think the original quote sounds more like my interpretation than Cellar Bar's. If she's saying there is no societal obligations and we should all be selfish individualists then why this stuff about having a duty to look after our neighbour? She isn't repudiating entitlements either - instead she saying they need to be met by obligations. Anyway you can't boil a person's entire political philosophy down into one quote (especially if it is polemical).

Now I accept you are probably a more reliable contemporary source that I am given I was a toddler at the time. But you might also come with your own set of biases - you are the 'Red Celt' after all.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:21 pm

I think the point about the quote Humphrey is that she didn't actually "say" it. What is in this quote is a reworking of an incident, very likely done by ghost writers and not by her, to answer criticisms of something that she had said years before and caused the furore in the first place.

The quote isn't "first hand". It doesn't refer back to anything else she said at the time which attempted mitigate it and explain it more fully - at the time. There were no interviews the day after or the week after which sought to explain it "properly". It simply stood as a statement she was obviously happy with at the time and stood by.

And as I said - it did in fact represent what she and others believed and then attempted to pursue. She wholeheartedly believed in the ethic of the individual and the individual's pursuit of wealth or success. And further believed that it was not the responsibility of the State to either put into place any more legislation than was absolutely necessary to protect potential victims of that pursuit.....or to question the "morality" of dealings such as arms sales to repressive regimes....or to lead or at least instigate policies to protect those less well equipped to deal with the consequences of "rationalisation" or "merger" or any of the other means by which a few could exploit the system. Don't forget - in her time, profit and "success" came largely not from expansion of a business but from the contant whittling down of costs. Including greater workloads on employees, full time adult workers being sacked and replaced by kids on "Work Experience" courses paid for by the tax payer and similar "cute" devices.

And more than anything else, her influence and the influence of others, created an environment of "if you want it, take it". Coupled with a belief that it was not the responsibility of those who whole heartedly supported her attititude that it was somehow their responsibility to contribute to the overall well-being of society or people as a whole.

What's also missed by later commentators is that it flew full in the face of old style Tories. Those from a past era who had supported and concurred with Gladstone's view, for example, that with power goes responsibility to others in society. They were as stunned by her view as any on the left of politics. The so-called "Shire Tories" despised her as much as anyone because of her inability to understand that with power, with wealth goes duty.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby Hennessy on Sun Mar 11, 2012 10:56 am

To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.
Milton Friedman, Capitalism & Freedom, Introduction


The great and common mistake in analyzing Margaret Thatcher is to view her economic and social policies as an aberration, a one-off never to be repeated. In fact if you read Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek (or any others of the Austrian school) you can see the context of her remarks being set down thirty or forty years before she said them. In that respect she is a culmination of philosophy becoming politics. She held back from going to the extremes these men recommended, but still heavily imbibed their ideas, along with the grand British tradition of personal and economic liberty from the state (Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill etc).

Gladstone was in many ways a typical paternalistic Victorian, a strict moralist and a utopianist. He was a product of the contradictions of a Victorian society aspiring to an unreachable moral code while becoming more affluent than ever before. Much of his political philosophy reflects this, as well as his desire to punish himself and others around him for falling short. His ideas could not sustain themselves past that horrific denouement of Victorian principled pathos, the First World War, and certainly have no relevance a hundred years after that.

It is personal vanity and public tyranny that assumes one must force others to behave as charitably as you do, and uses the power of the state to achieve this. Using the state this way betrays a basic distrust of your fellow human beings, a suspicion their morals and principles are not "good" enough and must be improved by you, their appointed paragon and champion. You are elected, but rely on force to bring them into line whenever they stray. You are, after all, going to build a utopia from all this hand-in-pocket largesse, perhaps with one or two statues of yourself smiling paternalistically down upon your morally correct slaves.

Is this "society"? Gladstone's utopia, certainly.
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Re: The burning of effigies...

Postby The Cellar Bar on Mon Mar 12, 2012 4:02 pm

I don't think anyone who knows anything about Thatcher's time in power is llikely to forget or overlook the influence of Friedman or Hayek. To a great extent, it underpinned what she probably brought into politics to begin with. What none of us forget either is the fact that only two other countries in the world took on Friedman's views with any similar enthusiasm - Chile and Israel. Both economies and societies suffered the baleful effects with Chile in particular achieving inflation rates of 130% and a general further breakdown in society and an even greater proportion of the wealth falling into the hands of the few. Which is why both countries dropped the theories like hot potatoes long before Thatcher did.

Over here, there was also the influence of the Institute of Economic Affairs and our very own Adam Smith Institute. Both furthered the notion of "reducing the influence and power of the State". Both questioned and offered grist to the mill for those among us as to why childless couples should contribute to an education budget. Or why those with private health care should contribute to the NHS. Both in fact, played a critical role in opening up such debates to the rest of society as to why any or all of us should contribute or participate with others in the shape society should take. And met with a strong body of support from particular parts of society as to why they should contribute to any great degree to the society they actually lived in.

Reducing the influence and power of the State is all good and well. Intrusion into privacy through interception of e-mails, surveillance of those who are public opponents of the "State's policies", heavy degrees of pressure on media channels which might offer opportunities for opposition views, the placement of "place men" in critical positions of influence to ensure "suitable" conformity are all elements of a repressive "State" - or at least political party in power and need to be resisted. The only problem is that over Thatcher's time those things actually increased - not decreased.

But to argue that the "State" - ie the general population at work - organising parts of what is crucial to us all - notably health and education - is somehow "personal vanity" and "public tyranny", just misses the essential mark totally and altogether. But does expose a particular personal view towards others in society.

It misses the point just as the lamentable Pirie and Butler did and still do. It misses the fact that there is a long social tradition in both Scottish and English society - that Adam Smith dedicates virtually half of the "Wealth of Nations" to - that those who are "better placed" in society have an obligation and a duty to contribute more than the "widow's mite". Lords of the Manor and others were brought up knowing of the expectation that they should make a greater contribution to the Sunday Church collection than others. And were frowned on by all - including their peers - if they showed no such inclination. That goes back over 5 centuries, even further back to the much vaunted days of King Arthur, , to the time of "Feudalism" and the social contract that existed even then involving rights AND responsibilities between "lord" and "serf". With power came responsibility and the expectation that those with power also lived up to responsibilities that were essentially Christian and Church bound in nature and formed part of the cohesion that existed even then.

And supporters of "new" Adam Smithism missed that point entirely. His views that each individual has the right to use the power of "hand and brain" - recognise the reference to Clause 4?? - to "advance" themselves. No problem there. But what Thatcher and the likes of the "Adam Smith Institute" declined to discuss was the fact that he also argued strenuously that with that power came the obligation to contribute more to those in the rest of society. That that power came through the efforts of others - including employees - and that with that power came the "Christian" obligation to contribute more to where we all lived. Which is why, benefactors existed, why schools and hospitals were built, why public parks were built in towns and cities, why patrons supported the progress of talented yet poor students. Why Scotland believed in the notion that "it takes a village to raise a child".

It's nothing to do with an "unreachable moral code". Nothing to do with "punishing oneself" for failing to reach certain standards. And everything to do with the acceptance that no-one can succeed on their own. We'd known that and accepted that for close on a thousand years before Thatcher turned up.

Private education, for instance? No problem......pay on chaps. But tell me.....who built the building? Who laid the tarmac and rail tracks to it? Whose taxes paid for the electricity generator station to keep it lit and warm? Whose taxes paid to educate the teachers at the school? And why should it be that they and their children should be exposed to the threat of ignorance and disease simply because their "status" means that they aren't in a position to meet those threats from their own income?

"Modern" society has simply attempted to put that tradition of recognising that we are all in need of help and support on a more efficient intelligent footing.

And before I'm accused of a "socialist diatribe" what I have to mention are three names.......Charles, William and Harry. Three grown men whose attitude and approach shows their awareness of the fact that with social status and power comes responsibility and duty. They represent that tradition that there IS in fact such a thing as society far better than any jumped-up middle class suburbanite accountant who resents and sees no need to participate or assist beyond what they can possibly get away with when it comes to paying one's way.
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