Among those who detest bureaucracy, there is a common criticism. Theodore Dalrymple indicts the British bureaucratic machine with these words:
“… Anthony Blair, with the cunning of the natural born swindler, seized his chance and created a loyal, corrupt, self-seeking nomenklatura class that remains extremely influential and easily able to outwit the blancmange-like David Cameron, who in any case so easily moulds himself to any shape going.”
The idea is simple enough. Bureaucracies represent the interests of the class from which they are drawn. Over time they ossify into a lobby for that class, at the expense of society at large. In Britain’s case, there’s a caste of people most attracted to Blairite ideology, who form the core of the public service. Their predominance explains why Britain is incapable of moving beyond a collection of stale centre-left notions, regardless of the stance of the government in power.
The analysis is a classic one. Aristotle (Politics, 4.1294a; 6.6.1320b18; 6.1.1316bb39-1317a10) and Polybius (Histories, 6.10.4-11; 6.12.4) both see the balancing of different social groups as vital for social justice. It’s not just that there are executive, judiciary and legislative branches of government. These must be staffed with the right combination of groups in order to properly represent the interests of society. If a single class monopolises an institution, the results are bad, regardless of other separations of powers.
But there’s a further perception which, I think, has escaped Dalrymple. Implicit in his criticism is the idea, conscious to him or not, that were British bureaucrats something other than a Blairite nomenklatura caste, that things would be better. That a bureaucracy can be balanced between social groups, just like a parliament, and all will be well.
The training of a bureaucrat necessarily excludes any political virtue. A bureaucrat is a cog in a political machine. His job is to maintain the state’s will despite any turmoil or emergency the country may face.
In this sense the bureaucrat isn’t dissimilar to a soldier. The conservative French philosopher Yves Simon analysed the nature of authority in 1962, sometimes using the army as a metaphor. Much of what he says can be translated over to bureaucracy. Any association of people has a common good and a common action which enables it. The common good of the army is defending the national interest against enemies, so its common action is armed campaign to defeat the enemy. To do this, it must have unanimity: every soldier must know what he’s supposed to do and how to do it.
Now, every soldier is a rational individual with his own opinions and ideas. In an ideal world, each soldier would immediately understand the why and wherefore of an order, and assent to it through reasoned argument. But the reality is that the circumstances of war are so confused, cloudy and ambiguous, that were the army to expect rational assent from every individual to every strategy, nothing would get done. There would always be a cause of doubt; always a valid motive for dissent from a plan. So, there must be a threshold where deliberation stops, and opinion becomes an order. At this point, the soldier substitutes the reasoning of a superior officer for his own. Not because he’s stupid or unable to reason, but because common action demands it.
In the military the stakes are very high: destruction, death, and annihilation. Therefore, the threshold where opinion becomes an order is low, in comparison to other organisations. In a government bureaucracy the stakes are high, if not quite so high: shortage of goods, mass hunger, economic paralysis. This is why, I contend, the bureaucrat isn’t that different from a soldier. The common action of bureaucracy is to keep the country running. Like with war, the task is loaded with ambiguity and unpredictability. So, the bureaucrat is required to frequently substitute the deliberations of superiors for his own.
But this means that an excess of bureaucracy in a country will have similar cultural effects to an excess of militarisation, but without any of the martial vigour. The training of a bureaucrat isn’t to think deeply; it’s to internalise the state’s ideology to keep the country running at all costs. A bureaucrat who thinks deeply is a liability because he’s someone who will constantly express doubts and interrupt the state’s ability to act or respond to problems. So, a society that’s dominated by bureaucrats at every level will be radically conformist, incapable of self-reflection, and unable to undertake serious reform.
The city of Sparta, because it was narrowly focused on warlike virtue, excluded all other virtues and went into decline (Aristotle, Politics, 2.1271b). Sparta made all citizens into soldiers, and so rendered them unable to act as independent rational agents in times of leisure. Once the battle was over, Spartans couldn’t think without orders to follow. Sparta stopped innovating and was outcompeted by her neighbours. Isn’t a bureaucratic state like Britain prey to a similar fate of death by ideological conformity? If the bureaucrat is the model citizen, and not the statesman, artist, philosopher, or craftsman, shall our society not also become a self-regulating idiocy?
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Far-liberal Extremists and The Radicalisation of The Sensible Class
I tend to subscribe to the view that if you resort to personal insults then you have lost the argument, but every rule has its exceptions. When U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene recently told Emily Maitlis to “fuck off”, I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy.
Maitlis, who spent many years at the BBC feigning traditional broadcast impartiality, has had no trouble morphing into her new role as a far-liberal talisman at The News Agents podcast (which has itself become something of a cult among the old gatekeepers of British media).
If I was being uncharitable, I would say that following the viral clip of Ms. Greene telling David Cameron to “kiss my ass” (after a Sky News reporter relayed the Foreign Secretary’s comparison of U.S. lawmakers to Hitler appeasers), Maitlis set out to get her own viral clip.
This wouldn’t be the first example of lazy journalism by The News Agents. The other week, they revealed an exclusive investigation into the GB News investor Sir Paul Marshall. The hard-working investigative journalists presumably worked day-in, day-out to present the public with these devastating findings. Sir Paul has a Twitter account and, as explained by arch-sensible Lewis Goodall amid a backdrop of otherworldly electronic music, has liked some tweets concerning mass migration to Europe. Shocking stuff, I know, but it gets worse.
Goodall presents some examples which he characterises as “quite extreme, especially on Isslaam, immigration and integration”. They include criticism of the Islamic call to prayer being recited inside a Parisian church and a clip of the Prime Minister of Hungary saying his country cannot be blackmailed into “putting children in the hands of LGBTQ activists”. The rest of the ‘investigation’ then finds other ‘extreme’ tweets, posted by some of the accounts which Marshall had ‘interacted’ with. It appears he is guilty of thought crime by association.
Against better judgement, I replied to the bombshell report saying I liked Mr Marshall more now. I did not expect this to provoke Mr. Goodall into asking me if I “approve of the political content of these tweets” and tagging my employer to ask if they were “comfortable with that”.
Maybe I’m a snowflake, but in my mind, that’s not intellectual sparring between journalists, but a measly attempt to instigate my firing from the company for which I work, also known as cancelling. I tried to respond, as Gavin McInnes often describes, by “talking to liberals in their own stupid language”, and stated I was the grandchild of Muslim immigrants (therefore, not ‘Islamophobic’) but I still thought we should be able to discuss our rapid demographic transformation. I was told that ‘no one is stopping’ me from discussing it and asked again to say whether I ‘agree’ with the content of the liked tweets.
As a reasonable person, I said I agree with some and disagree with others, and asked why he was tagging my employer into this conversation. Goodall then revealed his true colours, saying that as I agree with the migration-sceptic sentiments of some tweets liked by Paul Marshall, I should not “be working as a journalist for a reputable news organisation”, adding that the fact I “feel able to come and say that shows how normalised extremism has become”.
You see, we are allowed to say what we like and we have a free media, but if you dare agree with the sentiment of some people’s tweets that others do not agree with, then a public figure with considerable clout will alert your employer and call for your sacking as they accuse you of having extremist views. This censorious and frankly Soviet attitude of our sensible, friendly News Agent is sadly pervasive in our media and even has a strong grip over those working at organisations that explicitly position themselves as working to break this mould.
Many definitions of extremist are tautological, like the Oxford entry “a person who holds extreme views, especially one who resorts to or advocates extreme action.” Collins has gone with “a person who goes to extremes in political matters, a supporter of extreme doctrines.” Merriam-Webster’s entry for extremism is “the quality or state of being extreme, advocacy of extreme measures of views.” Great stuff, but the most interesting definition is given by Cambridge: “someone who has beliefs that most people think are unreasonable and unacceptable.” This is at least definitive. I don’t doubt this is the definition far-liberals subscribe to (consciously or not) but a problem lies within those key words: most people.
Following up their exclusive investigation into Paul Marshall’s Twitter likes, The News Agents have interviewed the other media mogul vying for The Telegraph, Jeff Zucker, who is leading the bid funded mostly by a high-ranking UAE royal and politician. Zucker declared to Jon Sopel, another sensible BBC-man, that The News Agents had “exposed finally that Paul Marshall is unfit to own a newspaper… that was clear from what your reporting last week exposed. We are clearly the best option for The Telegraph and The Spectator”.
Zucker’s decade-long stint as President of CNN saw that channel descend from a liberal-leaning and generally respected outlet to a collapsing parody of itself, irreparably damaged by thousands of hours of hysteria over the now disproven ‘Russia-gate’ allegations.
His reign also saw the network adopt a number of radical agendas including Covid-authoritarianism, accelerating uncontrolled immigration and carbon fanaticism. I’m not an expert on American social attitudes, but I’d expect ‘most people’ to find these beliefs ‘unreasonable and unacceptable’.
Most people wouldn’t agree with many Emirati customs either. Goodall’s view that engaging with critical views of mass migration to Europe from radically different cultures is racist extremism, would not be deemed reasonable by most people. The insistence of Maitlis that the many millions who have thrown their lot in with Trump are “conspiracy theorists” rather than concerned ordinary voters, would not be acceptable to most people.
I’m not trying to say ‘the other side are the real extremists’ (even though it’s an arguable case with this definition). I don’t find this word meaningful or useful – we already have words for those who advocate violence, and demonising people for not sharing an (alleged) majority view is not only unreasonable and unacceptable but the basis of all totalitarian societies.
In any case, watching The News Agents’ current tour of America is fascinating stuff. There’s a palpable sense they view themselves as political versions of Louis Theroux visiting rural Klan members or an Amish village. As a viewer though, the glaring perception gap between interviewers and interviewees cannot be missed. When Maitlis speaks to Congressman Byron Donalds, a black Trump-supporting Floridian, she asks him in incredulous tones whether he finds it “deeply offensive” when he hears Orange Man being racist and bad. Her questioning also includes some interesting remarks: “Donald Trump is trying to target the young black African-American: the masculinity vote”, asserts Maitlis. Her racial characterisations of the visibly bemused Congressman Donalds continue: “[Trump’s] lost a lot of women over the whole issue of abortion, so he’s going after young black men because they like his machismo”. The lack of self-awareness is truly astounding.
What happened to these people? As is often the case, they suffer from many of the afflictions that they ascribe to others. When the gammon awakening first took root at the advent of Brexit and Trump, we often heard about ‘the left-behind’, those people who, unable to deal with the changing world around them, had retreated to echo-chambers from which they sniped and lashed out. Look how the tables have turned!
In 2024, the far-liberals don’t even bother to hide their disdain for the masses with faux-empathy and anthropological labels. They don’t even engage with those they view as ideologically inferior anymore – they are simply to be mocked and then ignored. This is seen in the increasingly preferred format of propaganda, where mid-wit sensibles like James O’Brien angrily shout at and put down their listeners for being thick plebs.
What we are seeing is a radicalisation of those who view themselves as the sensible people in society. They are the dinner-party class and they have reacted to the deplorables breaking into the mainstream and creating thriving new media spaces by embracing their dismissive labels with a new vigour. While in the near-past there was some desire not to alienate the hoi polloi too much by calling them all whatever-ist or something-phobic, now the far-liberals don’t even try to restrain the scope of what they consider to be radical and extremist (as the inclusion of The Conservative Party, GB News, Reform UK, The Telegraph and even this esteemed publication in Hope Not Hate’s recent ‘State of Hate’ report shows).
As such, ‘conspiracy theorists’ and ‘extremists’ (and privately, ‘nutters’ and ‘cranks’) have become magic words for far-liberals to signal their virtue to each other, and to shut down anyone else who they deem politically incorrect. ‘The public are idiots’ and ‘voters are incredibly stupid’ are sentiments heard all too regularly from journalists off-camera. This fully closed mind has given up on intellectual curiosity and severed its connection with facts.
The conspiracies that they deride are often based on genuine intersections of vested interests and power structures, yet they have started to engage in their own conspiracy theories, alleging with little evidence that Boris Johnson is a FSB spy, that Russian interference decided Brexit and that dark shadowy forces are behind groups against lockdown and the endless restrictions on motoring. In their world, conspiracies are not engaged in by the elites against the people, but by the people against the elites – how about that!
These arguments can easily evolve into semantics so allow me to bring us back down to earth for a second – let’s picture in our head a hypothetical ‘normal, ordinary person’, and put to them a few differing positions and imagine what they’d say is the ‘extreme’ position:
- Increasing our population by many millions with spiralling numbers coming from the poorest and most backward parts of the world VS taking in a very small and manageable number who have genuine ties and come from compatible countries.
- Allowing endless thousands of unknown fighting-age illegal migrants from warzones to be escorted on dinghies into our country and to be put up indefinitely in hotels at the taxpayers’ expense VS using our armed forces to protect our borders from illegals.
- Encouraging and subsidising children to mutilate their genitals and take copious amounts of hormones and hard chemicals as part of a legally recognised ‘identity’ and proposing outlawing therapists from talking children out of that VS recognising transgenderism for what it is: a mental illness, often mixed up with autogynephilia and fetishes, made into an identity and promoted by the state.
- Sending billions of our taxes to military contractors via corrupt Ukrainian politicians so that a brutal war of attrition, that could have been ended a month after it started, continues to rage on even at the risk of nuclear armageddon VS telling Kiev that it has to become an explicitly neutral state and normalise relations with Russia so Europe can develop a new and lasting security architecture.
- Systematically discriminating against white people on a political, corporate and cultural level to rectify the microscopic racism that other people face while ignoring heinous crimes like rape-gangs and stabbing epidemics in order to not be racist VS judging people by the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin.
I’ll let you decide which set of views you think Joe Bloggs would find most extreme, but to my mind, there’s no question that the positions of the far-liberals represent the real extremism plaguing our country. They have no sense of proportion or measurement. Despite the negative effects of their Swiss-cheese worldview being all around, ideological sunglasses convince them that they are not only correct but are morally superior. This is insane.
Batya Ungar-Sargon, an American left-wing journalist and big news star has been disowned by elite Democrats for pointing out that the party has lost the working class to the MAGA movement. She recently gave an interesting analysis on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast:
“Working class Americans, whether they vote for Democrats or Republicans, whether they are ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’, they all have the same views. Neither party is really speaking to them, they all agree by and large about the most important issues – polarisation is a totally elite phenomenon.”
We see this here in Britain too. The major parties attack each other in the media while rabble-rousing in Parliament over their cosmetic differences but they agree with each other on all the major issues of the day, and the public by-and-large disagrees with them.
There is nothing sensible or tempered about the policies enacted, both at home and abroad, over the past few decades. There is nothing democratic about the messages sent by voters being disregarded and ignored time and time again. When they try to gaslight you into thinking they are on your side, like Sunak’s recently discovered concern about Islamist extremism, do not forget that it is he who is presiding over the current record levels of both legal and illegal migration, and his party that has enforced failing multiculturalism and indirectly supported radical Islamic terror in the Middle East. All the toys will come out of the box for our Punch and Judy elections, but be in no doubt: all the far-liberal elites are equally responsible for our woes and operate as a uniparty (which neither you nor I am in).
Commentator and author Mark Dice advocates using liberal jargon in reverse, coining phrases like ‘anti-whiteism’ and ‘black fragility’. I think we need to start giving back what we get and incessantly label these dogmatists as far-liberal extremists. Instead of being on the back foot, constantly defending ourselves against smears and allegations, it’s high time to tell these lunatics that we, ordinary normal people, are the real sensibles of this country and that those destroying society with dangerous ideologies are those better described as extremist.
Yet if they still laugh gormlessly in your face, you could always just tell them to “fuck off”.
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For My Ex-Libertarians
The United Kingdom, and especially the Isle of Great Britain, has a very particular legal quirk that sets it apart from Western Civilisation, and possibly most of the uncivilised world as well. There is no legal right to self-defence. Everyone knows that to some extent, “guns are banned” in the UK, and we’re nothing like those silly Americans who can carry so-called assault weapons in Wall-Mart. Yet most Britons will be surprised to learn that non-lethal options such as pepper spray are only available to law enforcement personnel, and that possessing any product “made or adapted to cause a person injury” (aka the most effective way to reasonably defend yourself or those around you) in a public or private space is against the law. Instead the ladies and gentlemen of the UK may purchase a rape whistle, as politely suggested by the West Yorkshire Police on their “Ask The Police” webpage. The UK is so averse to the concept of self-defence that in 2012, American Self Defence instructor, Tim Larkin was barred from entering the country by Theresa May during her stint as Home Secretary.
This is a stark contrast to the continent, where countries like Austria, Germany, and Hungary have strong, codified legal definitions of self-defence with “stand your ground” laws, as well as the option to carry things such as bear spray, and with an easily obtainable permit you can even carry pistols capable of firing rubber bullets or CS gas pellets. In France, similar laws apply, pepper spray, gas pistols capable of firing CN or CS Gas are available to any law-abiding citizen above the age of 18. Whilst carrying them in public for self-defence is not a valid reason, French law stipulates you may use them lawfully to defend your house and person. Of course, there are still problems here. Stéphane Charbonnier, the director of the famous Charlie Hebdo magazine and sports shooting enthusiast applied for a permit to carry a firearm for self-defence, this permit was denied, and he was told he could rely upon his police protection. We all know what happened next.
Following the various terror attacks across France in 2015, the French government permitted all police officers to carry their service firearms whilst off duty. Compare this to the UK, where outside of Northern Ireland, only specialist police are allowed to even think about firearms and have very little support from the government or the courts when they do shoot, despite their enshrined right to kill in service of the state and his Majesty. Imagine if Westminster had decided to arm all British city police services after the Murder of Lee Rigby, or in 2017 after multiple violent terrorist attacks across Britain. Imagine a Britain that allowed off duty police or even current or ex-servicemen the ability to carry a firearm in public for the purposes of self-defence. I digress, the arming of the British Police is another debate for another time.
This all seems rather reasonable and modern, two European democracies with modern, democratic attitudes towards personal self-defence, but that’s not all. Countries like Italy and Spain allow high risk individuals and business owners such as jewellers or cash transit guards to carry firearms on their person, or to be kept in a secure location at their place of work. There are similar laws like this across the less developed nations of Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. But what’s extremely interesting, is that right in the heartland of Europe, there are two countries that stand alone when it comes to modern European firearms and self-defence law, Austria, and Czechia (formally known as the Czech Republic). Both of these countries permit civilians to own firearms for the express purpose of self-defence, and even allow civilians to carry them (Czechia) or very conditionally (Austria). The majority of all firearms held in Czechia are held for protection, and more than half of all Czech firearm owning citizens have a permit to carry a firearm for self-defence. Austria has some more specific use cases, but the general legal position is that if you own any sort of firearm, or any other kind of legal weapon for that matter, it can be used to lawfully defend yourself or your property. Austrian business owners or employees of said businesses (with express legal permission from the owner of the premises) can carry their firearms within their private premises but carrying prohibited weapons in public is illegal without a lawful reason. I don’t need to attack your brain with graphs, stats, and differential equations to prove to you that modern European nations with clear self-defence laws that empower victims with the ability to neutralise threats quickly and effectively to their person, their personal liberty, and their property are better places to live in than any major British city.
If you cannot effectively defend yourself or your property, how can you be expected to defend your country? In 2013, after Lee Rigby was brutally executed on a busy street in broad daylight, there was a lot of discussion about how people in the background are just carrying on with their own lives, walking past the two-blood-soaked Islamic militants as if public beheadings were just a normal part of life in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. A similar discussion has opened up regarding the recent rape case on the tube, about how other passengers just sat there and let it happen. The general public is aghast and shocked at such cruel indifference. But all official documentation from government and law enforcement officials in the UK recommend non-intervention, that your best choice of action is to merely alert the authorities and wait. And even then, there’s a possibility that even a police officer acting in the course of their duty to protect the general public, can be charged with murder. The current UK legal system requires all violent action towards others to be “proportional force” to be considered lawful self-defence, but how do you calculate what is proportional to a man raping an unconscious woman right in front of you? Surely in this instance you apply the most efficient and effective method you have at hand, regardless of how much damage is done to the assailant?
With the official legal advice of the government and all Law Enforcement in the UK advocating a form of learned helplessness, it’s no wonder that when confronted with difficult and violent situations, many can only watch in horror as they wait for the equally ineffective authorities to arrive and diffuse the situation. Now what happens if you are a young woman, and after calling for assistance you are greeted by Metropolitan Police constable Wayne Couzens? After that incident, the complete indifference to the “Near-Eastern Ceasefire of the week” public disturbances, and the overall lack of an effective police presence across any British Urban centres, what’s the point in calling the police? They won’t arrive on time, and it’s more than likely they’ll have you sleeping in a cell when they finally get there.
My own personal experience of the ineffectiveness and apathy from the British Police Services, was last year, when my mother’s car was stolen from her drive in the early hours of the morning. Already prepared for the Brazilification of the UK, the car was equipped with a tracking device. Being model citizens who know better than to engage in vigilantism, we scoped out the location on google maps and informed our police service that the car had been stolen, but we could also provide the police with the approximate location, aiding with the investigation and bringing about swift justice to car thieves! After all this isn’t South Africa, where you have to bring your own pen to the police station to report a crime. Amidst the excitement, our local police service informed us that since the car was now located in Outer London, the case would have to go through a lengthy transfer process to the Metropolitan Police Service before anything could happen. This process could take hours or days depending on how busy things were, and things are always busy for the Met. This immediately put a damper on the celebrations. Who knew how long it would be before the tracker was found, and the car relocated to a secure location beyond the reach of google street-view…
The deskbound officer heard our dismay and informed us that car theft in the UK currently follows a rather specific modus operandi. Cars are stolen to order by professionals, who then take the cars to out of the way locations, blocking the car from view with vans or other large vehicles, then they leave the cars alone until multiple stolen cars can be transported in bulk to the coast and then shipped off into the unknown. Then the officer told us that we could, as private citizens, retrieve our own property, as long as we believed that it was safe to do so. Yes, you read that correctly, the policeman who took our call, told us to go get our car back by ourselves, and to bring proof of ownership and identification because we would most likely be stopped by the police on our way home as we would be in the possession of an “un-stolen vehicle”. When I heard this I actually belly laughed, it was like being back in South Africa again. Nevertheless, we decided to sally forth.
As South Africans, our natural instinct was to reach for the 9mm for some insurance. Sorry, this is a civilised western nation, you can’t have that anymore. And even if we could, British laws would criminalise us for bringing anything with us for self-defence, and we would potentially receive greater punishment than any of the car thieves if we had anything on us which could be used to harm another person. To cut a long story short, despite assurances from police that someone would be dispatched to make sure we weren’t bleeding out on a dodgy council estate, we retrieved the vehicle with zero assistance from the police. It was located on an estate covered in bits and pieces of various luxury SUVs and Saloons, with masked youths cutting up cars on driveways in broad daylight. If anyone came at us with a knife or blunt instrument, my only effective means of self-defence would’ve been to hit them with my car, certainly a gross violation of “proportional force”.
This is what made me realise that the British Police and the legal system have completely failed the ordinary person. We were explicitly told by the police that if we ever wanted to see the car again, our best course of action would’ve been to retrieve it ourselves, providing that “it was safe to do so.” How is retrieving a stolen vehicle from a council estate safe in any capacity? Is “safe vigilantism” the future of law and order in Britain? The British police outsourcing law and order to the general public is not a recent phenomenon, and there have been many other cases where the police have been dependent upon law-bending civilians to enforce the peace.
Now if we were Sikhs, rather than dreaded White South Africans, we would be well within our rights to carry a blade during this endeavour because the legal system makes an exception for a weapon that has to be carried at all times “for religious purposes”. That religious purpose is explicitly self-defence mind you. Despite the fact that carrying any kind of blade explicitly for self-defence is a gross violation of UK law. Quite famously during the 2011 riots, Sikhs took to the streets with swords, bats, and all manner of weapons to defend their communities, and instead of the police disarming the sword-wielding paramilitary forces and dispersing, the Sikhs were praised by the Prime Minister! If I took even a rounders bat with me to rescue my mother’s stolen car I would’ve gone to jail.
The interesting thing about this Sikh tangent, is that the Seax, the famous historical general-purpose knife of the Anglo-Saxons, was considered to be a status symbol of a freeman, and that anyone without one was possibly a serf or a slave. Could an Anglo-Saxon freeman lawfully carry a culturally and religiously significant object like the Seax in modern Britain?
The 2011 August Riots revealed a long-held apathy within the police and the law enforcement caste of the United Kingdom. Across the country, militias appeared outside of Turkish barber shops and kebab bars. This mass mobilisation was welcomed across the political landscape, with no minister brave enough to question why these businesses and community centres had a surplus of edged weapons and baseball bats conveniently ready for an occasion like this. The EDL came out in force in Enfield and North London, and were reprimanded by the police and political establishment merely for being present. None of them were armed with more than an England football shirt, yet received none of the praise the middle eastern baseball enthusiasts got from the then Prime Minister, David Cameron.
I was going to conclude the article there, but since writing began, three more events have come to attention. On the 30th of December, 2023, roughly 50 men from the London Eritrean community gathered in Camberwell, armed with bats and wooden planks, injuring four officers and disturbing the public good. Apparently only eight individuals were arrested during this act, when you can clearly see countless men violating every British weapon law, as well as assaulting police officers and vehicles with weapons whilst the police seem only capable of timidly backing away. 50 or more Eritreans with cudgels fighting a pitched battle with the police, barely any news coverage, less than a quarter of the perpetrators arrested… Why? What’s the point in even showing up? Let the Eritreans bash up their own embassy if you’re not going to arrest them, it’s probably better they harass their own government rather than vent their frustrations on ordinary Londoners.
The second event was the reveal that Lawrence Morgan, the Jamaican Gangster whose deportation flight was prevented by a jumped-up Cambridge grad who now resides in Norway, was scheduled to be physically removed after a string of violent firearm related incidents. In 2016 Lawrence Morgan was imprisoned for only five years and ten months after being charged with the unlawful possession of a firearm, ammunition, and controlled substances. Another two-year sentence in 2017 for drugs charges, and then in 2020 he is caught on CCTV footage participating in a lethal Birmingham gang shootout whilst riding a small bicycle. No murder or attempted murder charges, despite the battle causing the violent execution of his associate, and Morgan himself caught on CCTV firing a pistol with intent. Jailed again in 2021 for only five years. The authorities attempted to deport Lawrence Morgan in 2023, if they fail to do so again (Border authorities have reportedly hired a hanger to stage deportations since they have become completely incapable of doing their job) Lawrence Morgan will most likely be back on the streets of England in a few years’ time. Ideally Lawrence Morgan would’ve been deported after his first firearms offence, but the only reason the authorities have attempted to deport him now was because in October last year, UK prison governors announced that British prisons were rapidly approaching full capacity. How many failed deportations do they let you have before they grant you citizenship?
And thirdly, a horrific chemical attack was carried out by an Afghan Asylum seeker, one let into the country despite a history of violent and sexual offences. The police now seem incapable of finding him and have publicly lamented that it’s “sooo difficult” to find someone who doesn’t use their bank card or a mobile phone. The forces of the state have no issue when it comes to keeping track of every football fan who has ever gotten a little rowdy at an away match, but a violent sexual predator can disappear into thin air as long as they stay away from their smartphone. As an ordinary citizen, no rape whistle or panic button can defeat a lunatic armed with even a small quantity of a corrosive substance. What can you possibly do when threatened with life changing injuries and or death? The legal precedent of proportional force would suggest that ordinary civilians should disfigure or maim an acid attacker, instead of putting the threat down with a human and instantaneous response.
Idris Elba and other lionised television gangsters such as the Labour party have begun a call for the complete ban of items such as machetes and “zombie knives” aka any large single bladed knife or sword, like the various kebab knives and industrial cutting tools that many people use for work, daily life, and the odd riot prevention. Nevermind the fact you’re more likely to be stabbed to death by a supermarket steak knife or B&Q screwdriver than meet your end facing an authentic katana or antique sabre wielding urban youth. There has been nothing from these public figures about controlling the usage of drain cleaner or any other household substances that can permanently disfigure or kill someone, but tools and items used by ordinary citizens, historians, law abiding collectors, and specialist craftsmen must be taken away because their mere existence corrupts the urban children and encourages them to embrace gang culture. As usual, our politicians would rather punish law abiding citizens instead of actually attempting to tackle why the urban populations of Britain prefer smoking weed and carving each other up instead of going to youth clubs and boxing gyms.
I expect Lawrence Morgan and other violent Jamaican gangsters will be back on our streets on “good behaviour”, in no time, and other local roadmen will be offered shorter and shorter sentences. Violent schizophrenic, with a history of incidents, Valdo Calocane, who stabbed three people to Death in Nottingham is not being charged with murder, but manslaughter. Following this trend, after a few years of medication and observation in a secure hospital he will undoubtedly be released back into the general public, to make room for more aggressive mentally unwell individuals.
We can no longer rely upon nautical building accessories like Narwhal Tusks, and have a sensible European approach to the legal right to defend one’s self, one’s property, those around you, and that which you hold dear. If you look at prior days of infamy, such as the Siege of Sidney Street or the Tottenham Outrage, when doing battle with violent aliens, the forces of law and order were joined by armed civilians giving chase themselves, or equipped and supported by civilians. Conveniently enough, the fact that the police during the Siege of Sidney Street were armed with firearms provided by a local gunsmith is left out by almost all official sources such as the BBC and London Police museum exhibitions.
With the appropriate equipment, perhaps it would be possible to galvanise the British public and restore even a semblance of law and order to Urban Britain. If at least one person had ready access to an incapacitating weapon like pepper spray or even a concealable firearm on London Bridge that day, five people would not have been stabbed. Across all of England’s terror attacks and similarly violent incidents, there are multiple references to bystanders resorting to desperate and weird items to defend themselves with like skateboards, tusks, or ornamental spears from historical displays. Granted pepper spray won’t do very much against a Christmas terror-lorry barrelling towards you but merely knowing in a violent situation you would be capable of doing more than cowering in fear and waiting for the royally appointed death squads might encourage the British population to have more of a spine.
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On Science and Conservatism: Is the Relationship Dead?
Why have conservatives have turned against science? This question is a fundamental mischaracterisation of the relationship between science and right-wing thinkers. As a young scientist and a conservative, I find myself straddling this so-called divide and in the unique position to offer analysis on the state of the relationship between the right-wing and science. It is true that today, with issues such as climate change and vaccine efficacy, right-wing criticisms of the scientific elite have overwhelmingly dominated the discourse on scientific distrust. But if one is to truly interrogate the disconnect between modern day conservatism and the scientific mainstream, you must also consider the converse; why has science turned against right-wing thought? Or perhaps more notably, how have left-wing idealogues used science against conservatives?
The left-wing bias of modern academia is well documented, with one recent study published by Nature revealing that only six percent of researchers self-identify as conservative and less than ten percent of academic political donations support conservative candidates. With this troubling trend of progressive overrepresentation in scientific circles, the left has used their advantage to co-opt and manipulate science for its own political ends. This threatens to undermine the very principles of intellectual freedom and academic integrity upon which scientific inquiry depends.
With the left having such a hold over modern science, the tendency on the right has, somewhat justifiably, been outright rejection of scientific thought and practice. This seems a self-defeating proposition. Sustainable prosperity will only be practically achievable if we look to make technological progress within our own borders. To do this we must address some major flaws which have become inherent to scientific thinking, causing both alienation of conservative thinkers and degeneration of the scientific practice.
Suppression of Dissent
Central to the ethos of scientific inquiry is the freedom to question the prevailing orthodoxy and challenge established thought. Yet, in recent years, the left has sought to suppress dissenting voices and enforce ideological conformity within the scientific community. This manifests itself in two ways, firstly through the development of a culture within academic institutions which is antithetical to conservative viewpoints and, perhaps more importantly, through political discrimination in grants and publication, prohibiting conservative viewpoints from being spread in scientific literature.
An often-understated consequence of the leftward shift in academia is the comprising impact on peer-review. Peer-review is the process which underpins science. Academics review the work of other researchers to assess the scientific validity and rigour of their experimentation and argument before the work can be published. Whilst a noble concept, it is easily victim to confirmation bias. If only six percent of academics identify as conservative, how likely is it that the handful of reviewers of a grant proposal or paper will be ideologically conservative or even supportive of controversial proposals? This fear is not merely the musings of a scorned conservative scientist but a reality backed up by research. Half of academics would mark down a right-wing grant application. Four in ten American academics admit they wouldn’t hire a Trump supporter. A third of British academics would not hire a Brexiter. Not only does this inhibit the volume of conservative scientific literature, but it restricts a conservative’s earning capacity from grants and promotion, and therefore their academic influence. What this leads to is the self-censorship of conservative thinkers looking to progress their careers, thus creating a spiral of worsening conservative intolerance on campuses and in academia.
One striking example of this phenomenon is the case of postdoctoral researcher, Dr Noah Carl. Dr Carl graduated from the prestigious University of Oxford with a thesis titled ‘Cognitive ability and sociopolitical beliefs and attitudes’ and was subsequently awarded the Toby Jackman Newtown Research Fellowship at St Edmund’s College in Cambridge. For early-career researchers, such a postdoctoral fellowship is invaluable in gaining a foothold in the cut-throat academic industry. Yet Dr Carl was never able to assume his position as he was dismissed by St Edmund’s College for his alleged association with far-right figures. This so-called association involved attending a conference also attended by race researchers and publishing in a journal with a controversial editor. He advocated for free inquiry into how stifling debates around race can do harm and his research examined common stereotypes. Even a cursory assessment of this reasoning shows how Dr Carl was only guilty of challenging the left-wing orthodoxy. The University had no issue with his research when they appointed him, but guilt by association was sufficient to effectively end a young researcher’s career after left-wing student backlash.
Another case is that of esteemed Professor of Public Law at Macquarie University in Sydney, Andrew Fraser, who published a letter in 2005 in his local newspaper calling for restriction of African immigration, due to its effect on increasing crime rates. Macquarie University initially defended Fraser’s right to free speech, but after pressure from the local Sudanese community, Fraser was suspended, with the University citing how Fraser had affected the university’s ability to operate and offering a public apology to those who were offended. Again, absent from the response was any criticism of Fraser’s scientific rigour. Fraser has long been a proponent of the role of immigration in increasing Australian crime rates, the evidence for which remains strong to this day.
Regardless of your own views on these issues, its inarguable that both scholars faced vilification and professional repercussions for conducting research and providing comment which deviated from the left’s ideological agenda. The cancellation of scholars like Carl and Fraser serves as a chilling reminder of the dangers of ideological conformity in scientific discourse. By stifling dissent and enforcing orthodoxy, the left undermines the very foundation of scientific inquiry, to question and hypothesise, thus relegating it to a tool of political expediency rather than a genuine quest of understanding.
The Rise of Scientism
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of the left’s control over science is the rise of scientism,a quasi-religious belief in the infallibility of scientific authority. In the eyes of leftist ideologues, science has become not merely a tool for understanding the natural world, but an all-encompassing worldview that supplants religion and morality. There is no phrase I personally detest more than, ‘Trust the science.’ This phrase has become a mantra of progressive politicians, but it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific practice. In trying to project science as objective truth, they are committing a major offence of scientific thought, presenting a theory as fact. The scientific method is built around making hypotheses and proving them wrong based on observation and evidence. Anyone that tells you science can prove truth is lying to you. It is fundamentally impossible to prove truth by using the scientific method, as more evidence can always be uncovered to refute any such assertion. In the leftist zeal to elevate science to the status of an objective truth, they conflate empirical evidence with ideological principles, compromising the integrity of the scientific process.
Science was never intended to replace religion or morality but rather to complement and enhance our understanding of the world. Renowned scientist Isaac Newton, for instance, integrated his Christian faith into his exploration of natural laws, aiming to inspire others to appreciate the beauty of divine creation.
“When I wrote my treatise about our system, I had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity; and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose.”
– Isaac NewtonModern scientists are increasingly unravelling new frontiers, from artificial intelligence to genetic modification, prompting profound ethical questions. But unfortunately, as science has progressed, secularism and scientism have gained traction in intellectual circles, causing the influence of religion on scientific discourse to wane. This trend has left a moral vacuum within the scientific community at a time when it is most needed. As we look to address the ethical questions of new scientific frontiers, the increasingly fervent belief in the infallibility of science among the elite is a dangerous precedent to set in our quest for knowledge.
How do we fix it?
It was easy during the Covid-19 lockdowns to argue against science, as it was used to justify draconian government laws. But now this period has passed, such a trajectory is self-defeating. Countless right-wing figures have continued to prosecute against science, yet they largely remain excluded from serious political discourse. Clearly though, a total embrace of the scientific establishment ignores a long-standing hostility and prosecution of right-wing thought.
As we look to wrest control over our own countries back from the leftist elite, conservatives and nationalists ignore science at their own peril. Across the Anglosphere we see conservative parties stagnating. Young people are disengaging from politics. Idealogues are pursuing their agendas. If a truly right-wing presence is going to be felt in politics it must champion cultural revival, national progress, and self-reliance. By leveraging national resources and driving scientific and technological innovation, we can build a future focused economy to our own benefit. Importantly, science can be reclaimed from leftist control by promoting independent domestic research to replace our current bureaucratic institutions, prioritising the protection of conservative thought in academia and rebuilding confidence among the right-wing populace.
So, is the relationship between conservatives and science dead? From suppressing dissenting voices to the promotion of quasi-religious faith in scientific infallibility, the left’s agenda threatens to degenerate scientific practice and undermine its capacity to investigate the world around us. But this should not catalyse right wing rejection of science. Science may have turned its back on right-wing intellectuals, but in a constantly evolving world it would be counterproductive for conservatives to concede science to the Left. It’s only with the input of conservative thinkers that truly free scientific endeavour can help lead us away from regression and embrace a vision for right-wing progress.
