This: "The army stands behind the police. And SF stands behind the army. If we destroy SF, there’s nothing left to preserve order…"
The attack on the foundations of the state’s military power seems to be literal insanity.
Meanwhile very interested in DC’s thoughts on the recent appearances of David Betz saying that civil war in Britain is inevitable within the next five years. This interview is probably the best articulation of his case:
So the I/C is FULLY aware of everything the public is thinking and feeling AND is - according to Betz - DELIBERATELY TARGETING the White population for any signs of dissent and then using every State instrument to immediately snuff these out, whilst at the same time APPEASING the Islamist forces in every possible way.
As you say, DC, Betz and you are right to view all this as a civil war recipe. Here's my question: why do you think Betz is 'advising' the I/C instead of seeking to demolish it like you wish to do?
You've been highly critical of the Ukraine war from the outset — and with good reason. What’s particularly striking is how closely the trajectory of this conflict mirrors the early phases of the Vietnam War, especially when viewed through the lens of David Halberstam’s The Best and The Brightest. That book isn’t just a chronicle of policy failures; it's a psychological profile of elite hubris — the belief that technocratic competence and military superiority could override the cultural, historical, and political realities on the ground.
In both Vietnam and Ukraine, we see a pattern of Western leaders clinging to optimistic intelligence, ignoring dissenting voices, and escalating involvement under the illusion that victory is just one more aid package, airlift, or counteroffensive away. Halberstam exposed how American officials in the 1960s talked themselves into a prolonged disaster by mistaking tactical clarity for strategic wisdom. The same can arguably be said about the NATO consensus around Ukraine — a narrative built on moral righteousness and realpolitik inertia, but dangerously detached from long-term strategic viability.
I cannot see any possible connection to Vietnam which is not in Europe and figured little in the western mind. It is not as if North Vietnam had any history of threatening the west, no years of propaganda about invading the west or making America Communist. There was no figure like Putin trying to restore an empire (Ho does not remotely compare) and obviously there had been in the recent past no invasion and subjugation by tanks of independent European countries by North Vietnam. Yes there were Communist super powers in the background of the Vietnam war but they stayed there while (quite unlike Ukraine) America flooded Vietnam with troops in a way that now looks ludicrous as the Berlin air lift emphatically does not. And if the Vietnam war narrative was based on 'moral righteousness', it was one that was hard to grasp and specious. Not so with the straightforward invasion of Ukraine, breaking all treaties and agreements by a country that had once occupied by force in living memory several European states . 'The Best and the Brightest' is a great book but Halberstram would be astonished by the conclusion you draw.
There seems to be a very radical change in your political position. You have stated here often (I could quote) that you pursued Brexit in large part to escape the racism of Farage and his followers. You have also stated in public quite recently (just before the last GE) that Reform was essentially a single issue anti-immigration protest group. And that Farage had a clear voting ceiling because a very high proportion of the electorate loathe him. Polling-wise incidentally that seems still to be true ie YouGov currently https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Nigel_Farage
49% is a very high dislike factor for a man who has never held public office at all here, Farage is close to equal with Starmer in this respect but Starmer has the baggage of government.
Meanwhile Trump is on 66% dislike in the UK and rising sharply. So how can that possibly work for Farage? He still seems to take much of his style (and at least one senior staff) from WWE wrestling and it seems (from asides only I grant) you actually approve of that a bit or at least it strongly amuses you. So is it then just you want anything that can go up against the current system? If that is so, surely Trump and his little puppet Farage are truly terrible models for anything but chaos?
I think that's DC's exact point. If Reform remain (pardon the pun) a one man band, their popularity will tap out. But if they can hire high quality candidates, if newly elected councillors and the Mayor for Greater Lincolnshire can do well, then that for the moment is our best chance on pushing regime change through.
Interesting and you may be right (perhaps Dom will tell us) but if you are I would see it as an extremely high risk strategy which is more likely than not to have dreadful consequences. What chance after all is there that Farage would not insist on dominating completely such a party when it 'pushes regime change through'? He would be pretty well bound to and might use well-meaning mayoralities and councillors as a fig leaf to enable him to do so. Of course his base would cheer but there are awful echoes from the US. The last thing (almost) anyone wants in this country is some mini-Trump.
We are stuck in limbo, a long time from an election and stuck with buyers remorse having elected a huge Labour majority that immediately plunged in the polls the second they took the reins.
The British electorate are war dialling for a political solution, but because of the slow election cycle it could be a long time before we get a good hit.
Reform look set to win in 2029, with the polls yawning wider and the incumbent parties now widely recognised as the zombie organisations they are. Two communications generations past obsolescence it’s time for them to die.
I half expect the BBC to turn on Labour and move to the even more pious Greens. How can edgy celebrities continue to support an unpopular incumbent government? No, they need to switch allegiance to an underdog to escape the “dork signal” and be cool again.
2029 might be a three way with Reform, Lib Dems and Green. Because no self respecting person under 80 will vote Tory or Labour by 2029.
I’ve been predicting and advocating the death of the two main parties on this blog’s comments section since 2022, not surprised we are finally here.
But I suspect completely different and as yet unformed parties will contest 2034.
But the thing the UK is really missing is a coherent vision for the future. Nobody has told the British what their place in the world is, or what they are. Someone needs to do that.
Personally I believe we should be a pioneer nation, if China is the world’s workshop, we should aim to be the world’s laboratory.
We are actually extremely good at R&D, have world class universities and every major international company should have a major R&D lab in the UK, even if the tech is then commercialised elsewhere, this would give us huge stacked benefits. The UK would be living 5 years in the future, similar to the Victorian era when we lived 40 years in the future.
Who is advocating an aspirational vision for the future to the British? Nobody.
We just have snake oil people selling pseudo-solutions to paper problems.
And also the world's laboratory for political change to match the reality of change in the electorate . To start with I would favour tax simplification , raising more tax locally , more local solutions to health , education , social services , simplify the central redistribution of the Barnett system , more direct national voting , less state and more personal responsibility . Why have an educated electorate the deny them a regular input into policy and implementation ?
DC is massively underestimating the capacity of 'SW1' to reorient itself. See Denmark's present Social Democrat government's SEAMLESS reorientation that has cut immigration by 90% in less than three months! As for parties, although Kemi is doomed as Tory Leader, the Tories will be transformed shortly by the arrival of Jacob Rees-Mogg as the new MP for North East Somerset and Hanham. JR-M's manifesto is more radical than both that of Farage and DC. He's a top media performer and, unlike Farage, he's democratic enough to share power democratically with others in a reoriented and therefore transformed Tory party. 'People first ...'.
I really like DC's invaluable collections on AI. These save me a huge amount of time in relation to this present and future dimension.
On the topic of moving someone, you're comparing two different things:
*Voluntarily moving* vs *being forcibly moved by the state*
Snyder is wrong to say that moving someone doesn't change their jurisdiction, but this doesn't mean the legality of having moved them can't fall under the jurisdiction of the country that moved them. It was an active choice by that country and therefore can fall under the jurisdiction of the country's courts.
This is obvious and you're either dishonest or stupid for not acknowledging his actual point here.
The actual results are always the true policy, so; IF ‘They said they’d stop the boats and then said they couldn’t stop the boats because of the HRA which they prioritised’ THEN… the policy was a massive wave of immigration.
See also the child rapists, etc etc.
As for defense, I know soldiers well including some of yours; I can certainly understand why elites want a weaker military.
Strauss is too continental. He may guide those who must rebuild the Holy Roman Empire, but he is not a good guide to the restoration of the Anglosphere. A good Burkean wants the best from German philology, but he will not permit himself to be drawn into it, except as an object of study.
It looks reasonable enough to begin with, but deteriorates gradually until we get:
"Burke comes close to suggesting that to oppose a thoroughly evil current in human affairs is perverse if that current is sufficiently powerful; he is oblivious of the nobility of last-ditch resistance."
This is a turning point in his argument against Burkean liberty, where Strauss relies on a contrived and opportunistic reading of the text. He misrepresents Burke's humble attempt to elicit protective and righteous anger from the noble reader as if it was a smug projection of intellectual superiority. A very modern reading born of History, a bit like Hanania these days. Strauss embodies the thing he resents, biting his own tail. Naturally he finds it coextensive with individuality. But it's a mistaken identity, his own.
Enjoyed the political philosophy, indeed republicanism should really be examined even further. The thinkers of before and during the French revolution believed not only in Republicanism but that humanity had reached a state of "enlightenment" where republics and even large republics could exist.
You and Strauss acknowledge this but effectively almost all significant post 18th century political philosophy and debate is an attempt to found a republic in a large state. The revolutionary idea was that a republic need not be a city like Geneva , but a huge state like France. The notion of solidarity, republican virtue, and patriotism could be fostered across a large area beyond the bonds of kin was truly revolutionary. Critics like De Maistre, (who seems to be ever more popular) said that a large republic was a chimera as the city of government would always rule over and make an empire out of the rest of the territory. Trying to spread the ideal of the classical city to a country and a state was the dream of not only the French revolution, but also early socialism and 19th century nationalism.
Against this there is commercial empire which most in the 18th century think is awful and doomed to failure. Even Adam Smith wrote that Britain should cast off its "shewy equipage of empire". Most believed that by basing your state off trade in the manner of Carthage you would succumb to decadence and the dangers of fortuna. Or like Athens the commercial society would be destroyed by the land power of Sparta. Obviously the Napoleonic wars didn't prove this hypothesis
The success of Britain's model of commercial empire is partly why British/Anglosphere politics is different to European or American politics. As it has less of a republican element and is by its very nature a commercial imperial system even if it doesn't have an empire. The danger of an commercial imperial society which ancient and modern political philosophers pretty much agreed on was that like in the case of Rome the republic which founded the Empire would become a subject of the Empire itself. I would suggest this dynamic is still useful when considering modern American politics and to an extent British politics. Both cases being a living or dead liberal commercial empire meeting resistance from those who assert the republic should in the case of America reassert control over the empire and its bureaucracy, or in Britain that the ghosts of empire should be thrown off to "take back control" of the republic .
This went on apologies for the huge sentences and I can happily provide reading if anyone is interested.
Skimmed this. Will read with care.
This: "The army stands behind the police. And SF stands behind the army. If we destroy SF, there’s nothing left to preserve order…"
The attack on the foundations of the state’s military power seems to be literal insanity.
Meanwhile very interested in DC’s thoughts on the recent appearances of David Betz saying that civil war in Britain is inevitable within the next five years. This interview is probably the best articulation of his case:
https://www.louiseperry.co.uk/p/the-coming-british-civil-war-david
Yup, linked to that in an earlier post.
Reflects non-public discussion in I/C etc...
So the I/C is FULLY aware of everything the public is thinking and feeling AND is - according to Betz - DELIBERATELY TARGETING the White population for any signs of dissent and then using every State instrument to immediately snuff these out, whilst at the same time APPEASING the Islamist forces in every possible way.
As you say, DC, Betz and you are right to view all this as a civil war recipe. Here's my question: why do you think Betz is 'advising' the I/C instead of seeking to demolish it like you wish to do?
You've been highly critical of the Ukraine war from the outset — and with good reason. What’s particularly striking is how closely the trajectory of this conflict mirrors the early phases of the Vietnam War, especially when viewed through the lens of David Halberstam’s The Best and The Brightest. That book isn’t just a chronicle of policy failures; it's a psychological profile of elite hubris — the belief that technocratic competence and military superiority could override the cultural, historical, and political realities on the ground.
In both Vietnam and Ukraine, we see a pattern of Western leaders clinging to optimistic intelligence, ignoring dissenting voices, and escalating involvement under the illusion that victory is just one more aid package, airlift, or counteroffensive away. Halberstam exposed how American officials in the 1960s talked themselves into a prolonged disaster by mistaking tactical clarity for strategic wisdom. The same can arguably be said about the NATO consensus around Ukraine — a narrative built on moral righteousness and realpolitik inertia, but dangerously detached from long-term strategic viability.
Strongly agree
this sounds like it was written by chatgpt
I cannot see any possible connection to Vietnam which is not in Europe and figured little in the western mind. It is not as if North Vietnam had any history of threatening the west, no years of propaganda about invading the west or making America Communist. There was no figure like Putin trying to restore an empire (Ho does not remotely compare) and obviously there had been in the recent past no invasion and subjugation by tanks of independent European countries by North Vietnam. Yes there were Communist super powers in the background of the Vietnam war but they stayed there while (quite unlike Ukraine) America flooded Vietnam with troops in a way that now looks ludicrous as the Berlin air lift emphatically does not. And if the Vietnam war narrative was based on 'moral righteousness', it was one that was hard to grasp and specious. Not so with the straightforward invasion of Ukraine, breaking all treaties and agreements by a country that had once occupied by force in living memory several European states . 'The Best and the Brightest' is a great book but Halberstram would be astonished by the conclusion you draw.
By the way Dom take a look at Ian Proud on the tragic state of the RN:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thepeacemonger/p/how-russias-navy-became-bigger-than
Interesting how the Chinese take Strauss seriously: https://newrepublic.com/article/79747/reading-leo-strauss-in-beijing-china-marx
yup linked to that in an earlier blog if you search on Wang Huning
d
The Chinese have also begun to rehabilitate the german jurist Carl Schmitt as well
https://academic.oup.com/icon/article/18/1/130/5841486
There seems to be a very radical change in your political position. You have stated here often (I could quote) that you pursued Brexit in large part to escape the racism of Farage and his followers. You have also stated in public quite recently (just before the last GE) that Reform was essentially a single issue anti-immigration protest group. And that Farage had a clear voting ceiling because a very high proportion of the electorate loathe him. Polling-wise incidentally that seems still to be true ie YouGov currently https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Nigel_Farage
49% is a very high dislike factor for a man who has never held public office at all here, Farage is close to equal with Starmer in this respect but Starmer has the baggage of government.
Meanwhile Trump is on 66% dislike in the UK and rising sharply. So how can that possibly work for Farage? He still seems to take much of his style (and at least one senior staff) from WWE wrestling and it seems (from asides only I grant) you actually approve of that a bit or at least it strongly amuses you. So is it then just you want anything that can go up against the current system? If that is so, surely Trump and his little puppet Farage are truly terrible models for anything but chaos?
I think that's DC's exact point. If Reform remain (pardon the pun) a one man band, their popularity will tap out. But if they can hire high quality candidates, if newly elected councillors and the Mayor for Greater Lincolnshire can do well, then that for the moment is our best chance on pushing regime change through.
Interesting and you may be right (perhaps Dom will tell us) but if you are I would see it as an extremely high risk strategy which is more likely than not to have dreadful consequences. What chance after all is there that Farage would not insist on dominating completely such a party when it 'pushes regime change through'? He would be pretty well bound to and might use well-meaning mayoralities and councillors as a fig leaf to enable him to do so. Of course his base would cheer but there are awful echoes from the US. The last thing (almost) anyone wants in this country is some mini-Trump.
will write separately on this but cf. previous long blog on UK domestic scene for these issues
What to do about the UK?
We are stuck in limbo, a long time from an election and stuck with buyers remorse having elected a huge Labour majority that immediately plunged in the polls the second they took the reins.
The British electorate are war dialling for a political solution, but because of the slow election cycle it could be a long time before we get a good hit.
Reform look set to win in 2029, with the polls yawning wider and the incumbent parties now widely recognised as the zombie organisations they are. Two communications generations past obsolescence it’s time for them to die.
I half expect the BBC to turn on Labour and move to the even more pious Greens. How can edgy celebrities continue to support an unpopular incumbent government? No, they need to switch allegiance to an underdog to escape the “dork signal” and be cool again.
2029 might be a three way with Reform, Lib Dems and Green. Because no self respecting person under 80 will vote Tory or Labour by 2029.
I’ve been predicting and advocating the death of the two main parties on this blog’s comments section since 2022, not surprised we are finally here.
But I suspect completely different and as yet unformed parties will contest 2034.
But the thing the UK is really missing is a coherent vision for the future. Nobody has told the British what their place in the world is, or what they are. Someone needs to do that.
Personally I believe we should be a pioneer nation, if China is the world’s workshop, we should aim to be the world’s laboratory.
We are actually extremely good at R&D, have world class universities and every major international company should have a major R&D lab in the UK, even if the tech is then commercialised elsewhere, this would give us huge stacked benefits. The UK would be living 5 years in the future, similar to the Victorian era when we lived 40 years in the future.
Who is advocating an aspirational vision for the future to the British? Nobody.
We just have snake oil people selling pseudo-solutions to paper problems.
And also the world's laboratory for political change to match the reality of change in the electorate . To start with I would favour tax simplification , raising more tax locally , more local solutions to health , education , social services , simplify the central redistribution of the Barnett system , more direct national voting , less state and more personal responsibility . Why have an educated electorate the deny them a regular input into policy and implementation ?
on Machiavelli, Maurizio Viroli has been writing extensively over the course of his career at Princeton https://www.google.com/search?q=maurizio+viroli&rlz=1C5MACD_enGB1124GB1128&oq=maurizio+viroli&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQLhiABDIOCAIQRRgnGDsYgAQYigUyBwgDEAAYgAQyBwgEEC4YgAQyBwgFEAAYgAQyBggGEAAYHjIGCAcQRRg80gEINjc1NGowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
How do you envision Reform winning a majority? Surely the maths is against them. How do they draw votes from Labour?
DC is massively underestimating the capacity of 'SW1' to reorient itself. See Denmark's present Social Democrat government's SEAMLESS reorientation that has cut immigration by 90% in less than three months! As for parties, although Kemi is doomed as Tory Leader, the Tories will be transformed shortly by the arrival of Jacob Rees-Mogg as the new MP for North East Somerset and Hanham. JR-M's manifesto is more radical than both that of Farage and DC. He's a top media performer and, unlike Farage, he's democratic enough to share power democratically with others in a reoriented and therefore transformed Tory party. 'People first ...'.
I really like DC's invaluable collections on AI. These save me a huge amount of time in relation to this present and future dimension.
On the topic of moving someone, you're comparing two different things:
*Voluntarily moving* vs *being forcibly moved by the state*
Snyder is wrong to say that moving someone doesn't change their jurisdiction, but this doesn't mean the legality of having moved them can't fall under the jurisdiction of the country that moved them. It was an active choice by that country and therefore can fall under the jurisdiction of the country's courts.
This is obvious and you're either dishonest or stupid for not acknowledging his actual point here.
on US tariffs and debt problem: https://carnegieendowment.org/people/michael-pettis?lang=en and his books especially https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300261448/trade-wars-are-class-wars/ but also Keynes' GT final chapters (notes on mercantilsm etc)
Ser Cummings can you give the link to McNamara broke US DOD procurement? Cannot locate.
Thank you.
Yes will do - if you read my paper on Systems management and apollo youll see some of the story but will return to this soon
The Trump Plumbers? No.
“Sounds like Trump’s team should set up some sort of unit inside the WH — maybe a permanent small elite task force of FBI, CIA, NSA.”
The actual results are always the true policy, so; IF ‘They said they’d stop the boats and then said they couldn’t stop the boats because of the HRA which they prioritised’ THEN… the policy was a massive wave of immigration.
See also the child rapists, etc etc.
As for defense, I know soldiers well including some of yours; I can certainly understand why elites want a weaker military.
Strauss is too continental. He may guide those who must rebuild the Holy Roman Empire, but he is not a good guide to the restoration of the Anglosphere. A good Burkean wants the best from German philology, but he will not permit himself to be drawn into it, except as an object of study.
It looks reasonable enough to begin with, but deteriorates gradually until we get:
"Burke comes close to suggesting that to oppose a thoroughly evil current in human affairs is perverse if that current is sufficiently powerful; he is oblivious of the nobility of last-ditch resistance."
This is a turning point in his argument against Burkean liberty, where Strauss relies on a contrived and opportunistic reading of the text. He misrepresents Burke's humble attempt to elicit protective and righteous anger from the noble reader as if it was a smug projection of intellectual superiority. A very modern reading born of History, a bit like Hanania these days. Strauss embodies the thing he resents, biting his own tail. Naturally he finds it coextensive with individuality. But it's a mistaken identity, his own.
Enjoyed the political philosophy, indeed republicanism should really be examined even further. The thinkers of before and during the French revolution believed not only in Republicanism but that humanity had reached a state of "enlightenment" where republics and even large republics could exist.
You and Strauss acknowledge this but effectively almost all significant post 18th century political philosophy and debate is an attempt to found a republic in a large state. The revolutionary idea was that a republic need not be a city like Geneva , but a huge state like France. The notion of solidarity, republican virtue, and patriotism could be fostered across a large area beyond the bonds of kin was truly revolutionary. Critics like De Maistre, (who seems to be ever more popular) said that a large republic was a chimera as the city of government would always rule over and make an empire out of the rest of the territory. Trying to spread the ideal of the classical city to a country and a state was the dream of not only the French revolution, but also early socialism and 19th century nationalism.
Against this there is commercial empire which most in the 18th century think is awful and doomed to failure. Even Adam Smith wrote that Britain should cast off its "shewy equipage of empire". Most believed that by basing your state off trade in the manner of Carthage you would succumb to decadence and the dangers of fortuna. Or like Athens the commercial society would be destroyed by the land power of Sparta. Obviously the Napoleonic wars didn't prove this hypothesis
The success of Britain's model of commercial empire is partly why British/Anglosphere politics is different to European or American politics. As it has less of a republican element and is by its very nature a commercial imperial system even if it doesn't have an empire. The danger of an commercial imperial society which ancient and modern political philosophers pretty much agreed on was that like in the case of Rome the republic which founded the Empire would become a subject of the Empire itself. I would suggest this dynamic is still useful when considering modern American politics and to an extent British politics. Both cases being a living or dead liberal commercial empire meeting resistance from those who assert the republic should in the case of America reassert control over the empire and its bureaucracy, or in Britain that the ghosts of empire should be thrown off to "take back control" of the republic .
This went on apologies for the huge sentences and I can happily provide reading if anyone is interested.