The new politics of decline

Chris

I had hoped the Spectator would improve with a new editor. Instead we get this semi-literate rant from a Murdoch lackey. There is plenty that could be said about Britain's modern role in the world. This article doesn't bother to say any of it. Don't employ this man again.

Red Rag

It comes to something when you are importing writers from the S*n.Has anyone explained to him what the bigger words mean?Why not use the title "I always kiss Camerons backside, come and join me"? Or are the Spectator looking to pick up some of the page three readers?

a taste of honey

Even if Cameron has the political intelligence of a Kindergartener, which he doesn't, the mere fact that he is the epitome of an English gentlemen will be to Britain's advantage. Foreigners must be sick and tired of seeing Labour ruffians like Broon parading pompously on the world stage when their every mannerism gives them away for what they are - rubbish.
Put that in your pipes and smoke it, anti-Cameronians ruffians!

AB

The Sun sells nearly 3m papers a day. It's so typical of Red Rag and the rest of the sneering left to attack the working class readers of the paper. It illustrates perfectly their attitude to ordinary people in this country. If you don't subscribe to their student politics inspired view of the world then you're not worthy to share in the socialist utopia that they're building, they'd rather ship you off to Afghanistan and Iraq to die.

Major Plonquer

If Frodo Baggins was here his sword would be glowing blue...

Methinks I smell Labour TROLLS....

Boudicca

The most important decision Cameron has to communicate to the electorate is his intentions on the EU - and in particular on the LisbonConTreaty if the Irish are daft enough to vote YES.

If we don't extricate ourselves from the socialist mess in Brussels, Britain will NEVER be great again. The huge sums we pay over to run the bureaucracy of the EU would go a very long way to repaying the debt Gordon Brown has saddled us with.

PSJ

Great article. Ignore the Labour hacks above. I've got nothing to add, except that I think your view of the decision to give independence to the Bank of England is too favourable.

John Francis

Kavanagh has taken the Murdoch shilling and it shows.

Fe

From their comments, I'd guess that Chris - "semi-literate rant" - and Red Rag - "I always kiss Camerons backside" - haven't read this piece any further than the byline.

Andy Carpark

Barometre of decline? I'll give you barometre of decline.

Barometre of decline is when an old stooge chairs a government enquiry on the suicide of a biological warfare expert, when his report is leaked in advance to a newspaper owned by a foreign national, and when said newspaper's political editor smugly declares that only a handful of freaks and conspiracy theorists disagree with the resulting whitewash.

Ring any bells?

David

I thought that this was a pretty compelling article. It sums up what pretty well everyone knows to be the truth.

Hysteria

I thought this was a good article -

cometh the hour, cometh the man - cometh the conference, cometh the Cameron?

Suki

Oh, no, he writes for The Sun!

Look out, Trevor, you're Rush Limbaugh!

Great article from a great writer.

j Kenn

This government never had a reason, other than power for the sake of it. Holding on to power has been its only success.

Eddie Longshanks

Too late and irrelevant to make Britain great again - time to lay GB to rest - Home Rule For England is the future !

mac

Relaying the party line from the affronted bunker Chris and Red Rag? When there's nothing left to say in defence of this moribund government then smear the messenger.

Mike

A searingly accurate analysis, pity the snobs decry the man rather than absorb the message.

GHS

One of their so called success's, Nothern Ireland, only reveals the moral degeneracy at the heart of Labour and the person responsible - Tony Blair.
The men who used Libyan explosives and weapons to murder civilians, poliemen and soldiers now sit in Goverment. No wonder Brown initially didn't want to support the victims calls for Libyan compensation. And the mind set that allows these murderers to sit in power has no difficulty in releasing a mass murderer for oil.
After the disaster of the 70's I couldn't understand people voting for Labour. People who voted for them in '97 and onwards should keep that shameful fact secret and reflect on what THEY have done to this country.

Michael

Sadly the criticisms of labours record are true but what is worse is that it omits some of the other major blunders by this Govt. (e.g. destruction of the private pension system).

"I always kiss Camerons backside, come and join me"? is wide of the mark, there is no endorsement of Cameron and the writer is uncertain whether Cameron has the right kind of courage and leadership: "Thatcher had it. Heath did not. But does David Cameron?"

Colonial

Chris and Red Rag. How sad. What colour is the sky in the world you live in? Still unable to see how that petty, guilt ridden and spiteful group from the insidious urban middle class Left have so totally gutted Britain since the end of WW2. Blair and his mob just finished the process with a saber.

Will Cameron fix it? I doubt it. Partially at best. He's more Lib Dem than Tory. Like most Brits he's been cowed and conditioned to, deep down, accept a negative view of themselves and what could make Britain great.

MrJones

Good stuff. I'm not entirely convinced how openly radical Cameron should be as yet. It might be needed, practically speaking, but still seems like it's his to lose now rather than ZNL's to win so careless talk might cost votes.

peter

You just keep Right on preaching to the converted.

And eulogising your very own Boy Wonder, who played so admirably to News International's and Bush's galleries, while luxuriating in the comfort of their nice deep pockets.

Johnathan Pearce

TK is a top class political journalist who has his finger on the pulse. Shame on those on this comment board who sneer at him.

David Short

When someone from the Sun writes for the Spectator, you know that Andrew Neil and his fellow vulgarian Scots have done for the magazine.

Moraymint

Absolutely superb analysis.

I am one of those despairing Conservative voters (maybe; maybe not) who looks on at Gordon Brown, stupefied by the man's gross and sinister incompetence and the untold damage he's visited upon this country, whilst at the same time observing David Cameron and listening to his vacuous pronouncements and thinking, "This guy's simply not up to it".

If ever there was a time when the old adage, "Cometh the hour, cometh the man" was needed, this is surely that time.

The frustrating thing about our predicament is that neither the mainstream media (least of all the BBC) nor the Great British Public has shown the slightest comprehension of just how grave is the situation in the United Kingdom these days.

And dare I say, Mr Kavanagh, you didn't even touch upon the all-enveloping and money-consuming monster that is the EEC, nor did you weave in the shocking state of the UK's energy security.

My money, what little I have left, is on the UK spiralling in to little short of a socio-economic catastrophe over the next 3 years ... unless the Tories get a grip. I'm not holding my breath.

Abdul Abulbul Emir

Reading this from a Murdoch Media Circus hack is like listening to Goebbels complain about Churchill's human rights record.
Murdoch and co were right behind this appalling government from the start.
When did they start to turn I wonder ?

perdix

I can agree with much of the article. But I can remember when Trevor and the Sun prostrated themselves before NuLabour.

Minnie Ovens

Possibly one of the best indictments of Labour 1997-2009 I have read and a very accurate assessment of Cameron, his problems and opportunities.
How the worm turns for a revitalized Sun.
And my compliments to Mr D'Ancona for a good decision to print.

Paul, Southampton

Trevor Kavanagh is political columnist for the Sun.

That would the the same The Sun that supported Labour in the last three general elections. Still, better late than never, eh Trev?

gareth

superb article.
Labour's propaganda dept. are out in force, I see.
As usual its "destroy the messenger tactics"
No reasoned defence for them. The facts have been stacking up for a decade, resonating and reinforcing against the usual white noise, until they stand alone and in all their terrible reality. I can't put a brave face on it. It's going to be a rough ride and only wisdom and integrity can save us. Can Cameron deliver?

helene Davidson

Great article - and while touching on the highlights (or maybe that should be lowlights) of the Labour government, space precluded the other and more domestic aspects: an incredibly swift loss of efficiency; an incredibly penal approach to workers and savers who seek advancement (in favour of their City friends) and the loss of a pension system that was once the world's best. For these reasons, as for the many detailed above, the people's verdict will be delivered.

Mailman

Never mind labour supporters. Once the fetid carcass that is this labour government is swept aside, you will be left to bark at the moon like a little puppy dog :)

To everyone else, don't get your hopes up about Cameron and co fixing the problems Labour has created. After all, there is only so much one can do after 10 years of complete and utter mismanagement from labour!

BUT here are a couple things they could do straight away.

1. Cut the bbc tv tax! There, an instant £140 back for each and every house in the country (who actually pays this insidious little tax!).

2. Ban political correctness! This will save councils money because they will no longer have to reprint staff menu's! :)

3. Leave the EU. That would at least save a few billion and guarantee the Tories at least another term in office :)

4. Force crims to suffer the consequences of their actions (actually, lets force that upon the entire country...face up to the consequences of your actions. If you are a child and you are rude to an adult, don't come crying to me, Argentina, when you get a clip around the ears!).

Bah, I could go on for hours but its home time and I need a beer!

Mailman

John Law

Trev, mate you are dead right, what a shame your organ supported this bunch of filth and helped keep it in office for so long, when this simple working class boy could see what was going to happen from day one.

We need the Sun's help now, along with an apology.

Herbert Thornton

The article identifies many of the problems, but ignores the biggest one of all, while pretending that Cameron has the solutions for everything. He doesn't.

That problem is as obvious as were Hitler's ambitions for conquest, that he expressed loudly and clearly before WW2. The British Establishment at the time was equally uninterested (until it was almost too late) in doing anything about those ambitions, and equally deluded into thinking - in Cameron fashion - that it was sensible to try to understand them and even sympathise with them.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can that the gravest problem of our time consists of the presence in Britain of militant Islam and its adamantine and implacable ambitions - all expressed as freely and openly by radical clerics in British Mosques and elsewhere as Hitler expressed his intentions in Mein Kampf.

Fortunately for Britain, it did not, in 1939, have several million German Nazis living in Britain. Cameron is not so lucky as was Neville Chamberlain. In Chamberlain's case it might now be said, accurately, that even a worm would turn. In Cameron's case, alas, the worm is not for turning.

It should surprise nobody that support for the BNP is growing - who else is there?

Contravariant

"All that is requires is the right kind of courage and leadership". I wish. How about a couple of generations of decently educated people, who have learned that there are things worth doing that aren't always 'fun'. Oh, and you forgot to mention that we'll be running out of electricity in a few years anyway. Turn off the lights anyone?

David Short

Moraymint and the other people roped in to support the tragedy of a Sun writer being published in the Spectator should be ashamed of themselves.

Which he isn't!

I wonder when the Barclays will realise they backed a loser?

John Hawkins Totnes

Everything depends on Cameron! You'e got to be joking. There is NO SALVATION in politics. That's the trouble; too many think there is.

R.McGeddon

It has taken rather a long time for The Sun to break cover and list just a small proportion of Labour's catastrophic shortcomings of the last 'fag-end' days of their tyranny. How so ? Surely it has been abundantly clear that this Nation has been imploding under the Blair/Brown socialist dystopia for years and years now ?
Better late than never, Mr. Kavanagh; let The Sun shine brightly now and disinfect the New Labour bacteria out of our system !

Simon Stephenson

I wonder whether Trevor Kavanagh can give us some idea how much Labour Government policies have been tempered by the need to appease influential journalists, writing for powerful media magnates, such as the one, also called Trevor Kavanagh interestingly, who wrote this piece for The Sun in 2001:-

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/143178/Thank-Gord-for-Brown.html

Cover your head in shame.

Paul B

Top class article by the best political journalist.I agree with every word he writes.More articles from him please Fraser and Pascoe Watson also.

Moraymint

David Short ... "Moraymint and the other people roped in to support the tragedy of a Sun writer being published in the Spectator should be ashamed of themselves"

Certainly I don't get roped into anything for anyone. Nor do I set about shooting a messenger.

I'd like to see someone dissect Kavanagh's analysis and explain where/how it's quite wrong and, therefore, point to Brown's finest achievements as the most powerful man in the land for the past 12 years.

In fact, Brown has squandered power with a vengeance; he's rubbed our faces in it; the depth and breadth of the mess he's made of the economy alone almost defies description. Now, for the next decade and more, the poor bloody British citizen will pay for it. Mark my words.

And, to rub it in, Brown will live comfortably for ever after. The electorate will forgive neither him nor the Labour Party for this shambles.

Mark Adrian Solomon

Why do people including the writer persist in seeing the independence of the BoE as a triumph? If all politics these days is economics, where is the accountability if the responsibility for economic policy is shuffled off to some unelected committee of experts? If this recession proves anything, it proves that getting economic policy right is a politician's first responsibility to the electorate because on this all else depends. How can this be done under the present set up as more than half the weapons are not under political control? It removes the argument for not joining the Euro - economic sovereignty may still lie nominally in Britain but personally I would prefer it be held by UK politicians or European bankers with a track record of success (the ECB being based on the Bundesbank).

The other crucial mistake was in cutting the ties to the bank of England, Gordy reduced the liquidity requirements therefore making British banks uniquely vulnerable to runs, something devastating across the banking sector. You don't need to go as far as Australia to quote a major economy with sound banks - Spain, where I live, a much larger economy than Oz, whose banks are buying up the UK's, has had no problems outside a couple of minor regional savings banks.

On of course the terms of reference for the committee running the BoE famously make no mention of indebtedness as something to keep an eye on - so surprise surprise, banks failed to manage it properly.

The uniquely British failures that have crippled the UK economy far worse than anyone else were all Gordon's as Chancellor - there is at least some justice to him now being PM and reaping the electoral consequence of his own incompetence.

Jason Dack

Why the hell is it so important for Britain to punch above her weight. We should not be committing to such costly international adventures. All it does is massage the egos of people like Blair and Cameron. To everyone else it's 'why are we getting involved?'. It's time other countries did their fair share.

Brian Smith

Very good article, and surprised (probably unfairly) when I found it had been written by a Sun columnist. One major disagreement. There is little evidence Cameron and his cohorts will reverse the decline of this country. I've taken the leap from Tory straight to BNP and by-passing UKIP and its SH Jaguar salesman Farage. The structural faults in Britain are so great - uncontrolled immigration, no-go town areas, total subservience to the EU, the threat from Islam, wars in Afghanistan etc., etc. that a party uncontaminated by any of the major party trends needs to be given a chance.

13th Spitfire

"Why the hell is it so important for Britain to punch above her weight. We should not be committing to such costly international adventures. All it does is massage the egos of people like Blair and Cameron. To everyone else it's 'why are we getting involved?'. It's time other countries did their fair share."

It is important, Jack Dack, for once we had a reputation now tarnished to pieces, that few would dare to question.

We punch above our weight because if we do not someone will punch us. France does not punch above her weight and accordingly people brand the French "cheese eating surrender monkeys". We used to be exempt from such slander, not any more.

Erik

"a sudden, embarrassing discovery"??.
Oh come on, your so called "Empire" has been on the decline since 1939.

steve whitefield

It's obvious from some of the comments on here that sinister new labour stooges are employed. How pathetic and desperate you leftie people are.
Goodbye and good riddance, roll on the election!

Adrian

I'd like to add one word that was missing: entrepreneurship. For me one of the best part of the 1980s.

We could start with bringing back the enterprise allowance scheme. There are many people, skilled and dynamic, who have through no fault of their own lost their jobs. Let's help them create new products and services. Move forward. I think at the moment entrepreneurship is seen as dubious at the department of work and pensions.

Colin

Two things...

Firstly, I agree on the pint about there being no real enthusiasm for the Tories. The danger is that the electorate may take a "better the devil you know" approach.

Secondly, where were you and all your Sun and other News International chums, when all this was going on. As far as I'm concerned, you're just as culpable as the regime.

Talk about rottweilers in retirement, poodles in office...

David

Margaret Thatcher had one thing Cameron has not got and that is a huge potential wealth of the North Sea Oil. If Dave has the courage to pull out of the EU then there is a glimmer of light but if not then we are finished and we must ask thw question " do we need to be a big power in the world " the main thing is that we can defend these Islands.

Roy

Appears to be a good sound honest assessment. It makes for optimism, which leaves some hope for the future. Some would have thought Britain dead or dying! Although from an antipodean perspective hard to qualify the gross mismanagement that one suspects has taken place. But from relatives on the spot the country is the pits. Tell me I'm wrong?

Benjamin

It is the aftermath of Labour's forthcoming electoral defeat which will be pitiful to observe: a prolonged gorefest of zombie flesh-eaters tearing into their dispiriting phantom policies, no doubt it will be all splattered out in public.

strapworld

Mr Kavanagh writes well. But he and his colleagues in The Sun, Times etc have been singing from the Hymn sheet provided by and dictated by Rupert (now James) Murdoch, who have been telling us all for years how great Blair has been!! and what a great chancellor (sorry IRON chancellor) and prime minister Brown has been.

They have helped prop up this incompetent and disgraceful party for the years they have pulled this country down the plughole.

It would be nice if these journalists, who have gladly taken the Murdoch shilling,and who now change their colours again,( presumably because Murdoch has signalled an all out assault on Brown and Co),apologised to the Country for getting it wrong for so long.

It does highlight the problems when our print media is owned by people who have no allegiance to our Country, can have such control over our elected politicians.

Just what has Cameron promised this unelected alien?

Dwight Vandryver

This country is called the "UK", not "GB" any longer. Calling it "UK plc" is probably nearer the truth. A Public Liability Company can become insolvent, and if it does so, its creditors can get stuffed. No wonder, then, that the Chinese are hoarding gold instead of dollars and sterling.

Simon Stephenson

strapworld (10.56am) calls for an apology from News International journalists for their vociferous historic support for a Party they have now decided requires the severest of criticism as demonstrated by Trevor Kavenagh's article.

What use is an apology? Apologies are things given by children who don't have the power to put right what they have done wrong. What many of Murdoch's journalists have done is to tub-thump for the prevailing consensus in order to sell more newspapers, and in so doing caused a major distortion in UK politics by glorifying emotional mob rule at the expense of rational and principled debate. Correction of this requires more than an apology. We need an irrevocable commitment from newspaper owners that commercial considerations will never again lead to such an abasement of political principle.

Failing this there needs to be understanding of the power of the media to form opinion, and barriers put in place to limit severely the power of owners to interfere in editorial judgment.

logdon

Would the Kavanagh sneerers prefer Michael White?

At least the former acts on received knowledge and his own perception rather than the dogma ridden efforts of that over promoted Guardian hack.

Kavanagh has nailed the salient points. His paper, remember, 'It's the Sun wot won it', will be instrumental in removing this disgusting cabal from power, hopefully for decades.

If that is the outcome we should all rejoice.

OK, Cameron is an opportunistic man for all seasons but given the drubbing his predecessors received from the press, including the Sun this article represents a major stepping stone and at least points in the right direction.

In fact having just re-read the piece, I'd say it is the best broad sweep thing I've read up to now.

No Matthew Parris style fence squatting caveats here, it's all bad as far as Brown is concerned and that for me, is all good.

Ron Phillips

The writers here who criticise Trevor Kavanagh's articles prove just one thing - they haven't read his articles.

For many years now, Mr. Kavanagh has been a lone voice in "The Sun" comprehensively tearing to pieces all aspects of this incompetent Labour government and, specifically, reducing Gordon Brown to rubble.

His broadsides, constantly conflicting with official Sun policy, must have had Rupert Murdoch in apoplexy. We should praise Trevor's immense courage in persisting with such attacks - particularly as his views must have influenced so many of the Sun's pro-Labour reader to abandon their party.

Criticise the Sun itself by all means (particularly for its support of EU Membership and the ludicrous Global Warming threat) but give credit where it's due: Trevor Kavanagh is one of the most brilliant political writers in this country today - and one of the best weapons we have in bringing this nightmare Labour Government to an end.

Jamal Akhbar

Kav was wrong about the MPC, it was never neutral: you could only sit on it if Brown wanted you there. I think we are looking forward to the day when Hugo Chavez welcomes the Labourite political refugees after the Conservative victory into his socialist paradise.

mouse1

"It is about the shifty, furtive and ultimately disastrous management of a country which, in 1997, had every conceivable chance of becoming great again."

Which your paper urged its readers to vote for, I seem to remember.

Plenty of people saw this coming - why didn't you? You could have actually done something about it.

Charlie

"Margaret Thatcher had one thing Cameron has not got and that is a huge potential wealth of the North Sea Oil."

David, and not even she had the guts to do anything other than hose it onto the welfare state.

HAD she followed the example of Singapore, and created a central fund, this country would be in the position of power Kavanagh writes wistfully of.

One horrible thing that Labour did, was the relentless attack on one woman: Thatcher is evil. Thatcher is evil. Thatcher is evil. One of the most spiteful things I have ever seen. So why did the journos fail to note that countries that still followed 'evil' Thatcherite economic principles, like... Australia and South Africa, were doing rather well with no national debt?
One thing I would like answered: the incompetence of these clowns was clear within about a year of them getting office.
So WHY did Britain keep voting for them? Anyone?

Brian Taylor

With last week's conviction of the three muslims who planned to blow planes out of the sky -
and those who plotted to wreak similar carnage at The Ministry of Sound nightclub - still parts of the political class are not fully aware of the danger and destruction of radical Islam. With MI5 stating that maybe up to 4,000 muslims in this country could be classified as representing a real threat - and no-go muslim areas in some of our cities - it will take a man of substantial more mettle than Our Dave to face up to the situation.

boz robinson

TK has got the analysis exactly right. The Bastard Brown seems intent on ever more destructive activity before he is finally booted into - "the House of Lords"? What a farce the whole charade of Nu Labour has been and from much of this comment we can clearly see that traitors still abound among us. Add them to the Islamists and what hope is there? Maybe time to leave the sinking ship? My heart goes out to David Cameron; thank God there is anybody prepared to tackle the mess that Brown has almost single-handedly created. Blair should have sacked him many years ago. I bet he is filled with regret that he did not. Anway TK - well done. The truth will out but are there enough sufficiently well-educated Brits left to appreciate the truth? Chris and Red Rag suggest that there may not be!

Simon Stephenson

Ron Phillips : 1.55pm

"For many years now, Mr. Kavanagh has been a lone voice in "The Sun" comprehensively tearing to pieces all aspects of this incompetent Labour government and, specifically, reducing Gordon Brown to rubble."

Have you actually read this article?

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/143178/Thank-Gord-for-Brown.html

Not much "reducing Brown to rubble" there, from what I can see. When did Mr Kavanagh actually see the light, how long was this before the Murdoch empire decided to back a different favourite, and what did Kavanagh do to prevent himself being a party to a similar act of commercially opportunistic political distortion in the future?

David Price

This is absolutely spot on - a brutally frank, unromanticised view of a country that's been roundly 'rogered' by New Labour. I really don't think Blair wanted this, and his greatest error was to not sack Brown, but it is this sword that place in history will fall by.

We did have such a great chance; strong sustained growth (thanks to Ken Clarke) for a decade. We could have taken all the hard decisions then, when we could afford it. Now we're borrowing absurd sums just to stay (only slightly) above water, as the boat goes down, full of holes. Cameron has no choice; he has five years to conduct dramatic and painful surgery, without which it's terminal. Whether he's up to this is questionable.

Thankfully, he's not hamstrung by a maniacal, economically illiterate chancellor, desperate for his job and briefing against him all the time. Here's hoping and praying.

Ignore the predictably myopic, head-in-sand posts of the naysayers here, Trevor. Just like Gordon Brown, they'll never understand what their ideology and recklessness has done to the country.

Moraymint

C Powell - "This government is a menace to Britain, to democracy and freedom. I loathe and despise it with an intensity and vitriol which I would never have previously imagined. I want to see it humiliated and obliterated at the next election etc".

Yes, before this Government came along I was a measured, reasonably contented, professional, middle-class citizen (with 20 years previous commissioned service in the armed forces) with no particular interest in politics or politicians. Generally, I thought, our political elite made a reasonable fist of it.

And then along came the cynical, sinister Blair/Brown/Balls triumvirate and the despicable mafia that was/is the Labour Party. I would never have voted for them; I never did vote for them; I never would vote for them. They looked shady then; they stink now.

In the relatively short space of a decade my attitude to politics and polticians has been transformed to match C Powell's view. I can barely believe the extent to which Gordon Brown and the cowards, gangsters and shysters that circle and fawn over him inflame daily my frustration, anger and disgust at the incompetence and immorality of the Soviet-style elite which now holds sway over our lives.

It is both remarkable and a shocking indictment of a British political party that it could have wreaked such havoc on a stable democracy like ours in such a short space of time with such appalling long-term consequences. We have been utterly shafted by the Labour Party in government, like nothing else in modern British history.

It's also a sad indictment of the gullibility of so many British citizens that they fell ... more than once ... for the deception and spin that defines the governance of the UK for the past 12 years. It has been a 12-year sham.

Now we're all going to pay for it; and some. Meantime, Brown and his cronies will of course live comfortably ever after, laughing all the way to the bank.

And our political elite wonders why it so despised.

Peter Wales

This is just silly season stuff.

jon livesey

This article is embarrassingly bad. It's a typical exercise in declinism, which is a topic commentators pluck out of their back pocket when they have nothing else to say.

The big giveaway is that the "evidence" that the author presents is mainly opinion from other publications. This is MSM commenting on what MSM says about MSM. Intellectually, it's on the level of celebrity reporting. Who really cares what Newsweek says?

I think you can analyse what a terrible job Labour have done for the last two decades without misrepresenting the UK's current situation. Nothing about the UK today is uniquely bad, not production, not unemployment, not public finances. They are bad only in the sense that things are bad everywhere.

The UK remains a "normal" country with "normal" problems. Back in the sixties, when MSM reporters first became addicted to declinism, that certainly was not true.

John

I really do not understand the concern about Britain projecting its power throughout the world. Better we sort our ourselves and leave others alone

martin

What else could ever have resulted from an absolutely and institutionally corrupt nulabor government whose destruction of this country has been cynically deliberate? If we ask ourselves why, the answer will provide a solution.

Herbert Thornton

Reading the article was depressing enough, but I have just read in the Daily Telegraph for September 12th (on the Internet) this headline, that made me feel actually sick to my stomach -

"SAS ordered by government to train Libyan troops"

It may sound like hyperbole to use the word "treason" but imagine the government, in 1943, ordering Alan Turing to go abroad and give to a country friendly to Hitler all the details of the decoding operation at Bletchley Park. Would that have been treason?

40 Degrees S

One of the features which is said to differentiate the US from your country, and from mine to a lesser extent, is the politics of envy. It is often summed up in the differing responses of ‘ordinary’ people to someone driving past in a BMW, or a Merc, or a Rolls: in the US – an acknowledgement that the driver probably worked hard to be in that position; in the UK (and somewhat less so in Australia) – hope the effin’ bastard stops close by so’s I can scratch it.

At the intro session to a Cambridge Summer School over 20 years ago, we from the Commonwealth and from the Continent hosted by St Catharine’s College were warned about leaving cars parked in the nearby streets and lanes. Sure enough, two things happened: (i) we heard drunken yobbos ‘keying’ cars in Kings Lane that night; and (ii) some participants found out next morning that their vehicles were among the vandalised.

Welcome to that great British / English cultural development, the politics of envy.

Since, say, the 1960s, your country has had its history and heritage, culture, institutions and traditions thoroughly trashed by a soft-left claque of herd-thinkers in your BBC and in much of your other media, and in your schools and universities. What began as a helpful and healthy critique of the customary narratives of an imperial Great Britain, has long ago degenerated into the sort of pathetically nihilist whinge which, . . . well, most readers will recognise what’s meant.

Americans are as ready as any OECD nation to critically examine the faults and failings of their nation, as is witnessed by the fact that most current anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist thinking originated there.

But their critics can do that without totally trashing their own country. Your (largely derivative) lot can’t.

A lot of posts to these sorts of blogs come from British ex-pats, who have decided that today’s UK is not worth living in. There is a mixed sense of relief at having got away coupled with one of deep sadness at having to live OS.

Are there enough people left in Britain who want to take back their own country?

Enoch P

BNP anyone?

Morvan

40 Degrees S September 12th, 2009 2:18am

"Are there enough people left in Britain who want to take back their own country?"

I am afraid that the answer is most probably NO.

Morvan

martin September 11th, 2009 11:53pm

"If we ask ourselves why, the answer will provide a solution."

How about this story?

'Majority of teachers don't want to promote 'brainwashing' patriotism to pupils'

Ron Phillips

Simon Stephenson:

There's little point in delving back into a writer's past to imply that his current work is worthless. The words 'hang him', 'bad name' and 'dog' spring to mind.

In the early stages of Nu Labour's tragic government, practically all the political writers supported Gordon Brown's activities and acclaimed his record. Have a look at the extravagant praise bestowed on him at that time by the Daily Mail's Peter Oborne (who described this incompetent politician as "one of the country's most successful Chancellors") before he rumbled the incredible level of stupidity in the man.

I repeat that the reason we should support Trevor Kavanagh is that his courageous Sun articles are bringing a clear
picture of this Government's horrendous failures to the attention of the masses for the first time.

In the Daily Mail, they're just preaching to the converted.

Simon Stephenson

Ron Phillips : 12.55

"There's little point in delving back into a writer's past to imply that his current work is worthless. The words 'hang him', 'bad name' and 'dog' spring to mind."

All I'm saying is that when a writer has demonstrated the tendency to add 2 and 2 together and make 7, it's wise not to look at the writer's future "definitive" offerings on the basis that he has subsequently found out that 2 and 2 in fact only equals four. It's far more likely that he's found a pair of different 2's, but is still driven to apply his flawed powers of reasoning to make them add up to 7.

People who make catastrophic errors of judgment tend not to learn from them. They tend to continue making them throughout their lives, because the very overrated self-belief that causes them to make the error in the first place also prevents them from accepting that they were at fault in doing it. They are not able to see anything flawed about themselves so they go on making the same mistake over and over again.

The reason why really capable people don't go in for Tabloid hyperbole is because they understand that nothing, absolutely nothing, is as simple as the tub-thumpers make it out to be.

John Richardson

GHS.

You are absolutly correct to say that the real and lasting damage to our beloved country has been done by those who voted for these criminals.
Pretending otherwise,pretending that New Labour somehow 'tricked' the electorate,means people can blame the politicians for the decline of GB.
No you stupid,greedy idiots,it was you.
You would vote for the devil himself if your house's price rose and Old Nick promised you an index linked pension.
Blaming Blair or Brown puts you in the hilarious position of dreaming 'Dave' will somehow come up with a cunning plan to save National independance or civil society or the public finances or whatever.

No-one thinks that will actually happen as Mr Kavanagh intimates.

PS dissapointed to read Mr Carparks comments regarding that most convenient of 'suicides'.I thought Kavanagh was 'a pretty straight kinda guy'.
Oh well.

Ron Phillips

Simon Stephenson:

Well put. But your views are a generalisation whereas I am referring to a specific case.

Trevor Kavanagh has now spent years castigating Nu Labour and all its works. I have agreed with and hugely enjoyed every word of his destruction of this benighted party.

If Kavanagh's current attacks are indeed examples of continued "catastrophic errors of judgment" - and I have been so impressed by them - then I have been led into error myself. I must try to correct that and remember that this Labour Government is an edifice of shining virtue and incorruptibility.

My own view, however, is rather different from yours. I prefer to view Mr. Kavanagh (and indeed Mr. Oborne) as examples of "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth....."

Simon Stephenson

Ron Phillips : 6.08pm

"If Kavanagh's current attacks are indeed examples of continued "catastrophic errors of judgment" - and I have been so impressed by them - then I have been led into error myself. I must try to correct that and remember that this Labour Government is an edifice of shining virtue and incorruptibility."

Or you could decide that you don't have to inhabit one or other of these poles of opinion. You could realise that when George W Bush asserted "you're either with us or you're supporting the terrorists" that he was wrong, because there are a whole panoply of ways of disagreeing with US policy that don't involve supporting the US's enemies.

My point is that tabloid hyperbole trivialises politics into right/wrong, black/white, good/evil judgmentalism, and that the desire to find the truth, which almost always encompasses elements of both sides, becomes obliterated by what is seen as an overriding need to win the argument. Just as making money is not necessarily the same as creating wealth, so winning the argument doesn't always mean being right.

As it happens I agree that the last 12 years of government have been a long way from being perfect. Some of this is down to the inadequacies of the people involved and their ideologies, but no small part of it is due to the popular expectation that every policy decision must tick the boxes of majority approval. Good government just can't operate like this. It needs the freedom to make unintuitive decisions without having to justify them in simple terms, and without being flayed in the media for being anti-populist. For democracy to be effective, and not self-destructive, it needs to operate at a level of reason and intellect some way above that exhibited in the mass-media slanging matches that pass for political discourse in the UK.

Allan@Aberdeen

And those of the former 'right-wing' still don't get it: Blair/Brown's trashing of our country through its engineered bankruptcy and importation of 3rd-world criminality and disease was not incompetence. Blair/Brown must have ruined our country deliberately because no-one, absolutely no-one, can be that 'incompetent'. As to why, it has long been the wish of the infantile left ot bring ruination to the UK and that generation of students who openly held such views - check out Straw, Darling, Brown et al (don't know about Blair but his dangerous wife certainly did) - is now in power. The results should not be a surprise.

BL

Thatcher was a disaster - from which some parts of the country have yet to recover.

Well written rubbish by the Sun's chief Labour-hater.

Herbert Thornton

"Everything now depends on Cameron"?

Not, alas true. Everything now depends on whether the British electorate see through Cameron and decide that the only leader they can depend on is Nick Griffin.

meltonmark

Agree much with the gist of the article. However, it seems to me that the next election will be fought on the basis of race and immigration, not the economy, education, or the NHS. The demise of these institutions is seen as the result of mass immigration, perhaps more than poor government. The problem Cameron et al face is how to manage racial tension. This has not yet reached its peak. If Cameron says too little he risks being written off as another appeaser. If he says too much, he risks civil war.

Ron Phillips

Simon Stephenson:

We obviously won't have a meeting of minds on this subject, so I'll depart from it before we are reduced to counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

However, if you really believe that democracy can still be effective in this country, I'm afraid you will be disillusioned - as will be demonstrated at the next General Election.

P. Albion

It's little wonder so many Brits choose to live overseas.

john

Labour governments have always left a mess even with much smarter members than this present bunch of losers