Daniel Hannan

new puritan · **Posted:** Wed Aug 15, 2012 8:39 pm

God, I really can't be doing with this smarmy fucker.

Quote:

Capitalism was supposed to destroy the middle class, leaving a tiny clique of oligarchs ruling over a vast proletariat. In fact, capitalism has enlarged the bourgeoisie wherever it has been practised. Capitalism was supposed to lower living standards for the majority. In fact, the world is wealthier than would have been conceivable 150 years ago.

What's interesting is this process seems to have gone into reverse across much of the west in the neoliberal era - employment has become more insecure, jobs for life and trades are for most a thing of the past. It's reproletarianisation, in effect.

Quote:

The whole market system was supposed to be on its last legs when Marx and Engels were writing. In fact, it was entering a golden age, hugely benefiting the poorest.

Says a lot about Hannan's worldview, this. Life in the mid-1800s really was nasty, brutish and short for most - which was why it was a period of such intense social unrest. It wasn't until the end of small-state laissez-faire that living standards for the majority started to pick up. Even Marx admired the productive capacity of capitalism, but he also observed that left to its own devices, it tended towards plutocracy and as a system is dependent on coercion and exploitation. Which, er, it does and is.

Quote:

You’d have thought – I did think – that the collapse of the Warsaw Pact regimes in 1989 would have definitively refuted revolutionary socialism. Yet successive generations continue to fall for it.

I thought the same thing about neoliberalism in 2008, but I underestimated governments' religious faith in it. I note that Hannan doesn't discuss what happened in the former Eastern Bloc regimes in the post-communism years. Russia, of course, was subjected to a catastrophic dose of neoliberal shock therapy, with its healthcare system collapsing and both mortality rates and substance abuse going through the roof. It now takes a deeply authoritarian and repressive regime to prop it up. But it's a capitalist regime, so that's alright.

Quote:

The more I read of behavioural psychology, the more I think that ideologies are as much a product of people’s nature as of observed experience.

You said it.

Arnold · **Posted:** Thu Aug 16, 2012 10:33 am

Quote:

The case against Europe: Doomsayers wail that a euro break-up would trigger Armageddon. That’s what they said about us leaving the ERM – but it sparked an economic boom!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z23hScknX3

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Sat Aug 18, 2012 10:49 pm

Hannan to be celebrating "White Wednesday", ho, ho. Never mind his party being mucked up for 15 years by it.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danie ... qus_thread

You'll note the utterly different attitude to the 1930s, where he said "austerity works" and didn't reckon leaving the gold standard merited a mention. Here, the devaluation was all important- couldn't be because the fixed exchange rate system had "European" in the name could it?

Passing mention only of the inflationary disaster that preceded joining the ERM. Ever heard the Tories apologise for that? Surely that would have needed some deflationary policy anyway. And of course the rate at which Thatcher joined was her choice- not forced on her by pesky Europeans.

And he has forgotten about the 1979-81 recession.

new puritan · **Posted:** Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:24 pm

Not sure why he sees Black Wednesday as something to celebrate - the destructive infighting that followed it effectively poleaxed the Tory party as a political force and its periodic paroxysms over Europe went on to play a major role in keeping it out of government for 13 years. In fairness that is worth celebrating, but not, I'd have thought, for a Tory.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Sat Aug 18, 2012 11:55 pm

It's also worth remembering that Black Wednesday occurred at the very start of a five year term of Tory government in 1992 that the Tories were truly not expecting to have to execute.

A full five years of continuing lost credibility on the management of the economy, but also a multitude of other shite including rail privatisation and numerous other incompetencies. A government treading water.

Tory disunity did contribute to the Labour landslide of 1997, but not as much as Major's government being perceived as not just economically incompetent but also just generally shite - for a full five years of government.

Captain VXR · **Posted:** Sun Aug 19, 2012 1:30 am

Seems like Camoron's well on the way to being the new Major.

Best outcome - Labour landslide with liberal social policies e.g. allowing religions to opt into gay marriage, ending the war on drugs; and the Greens taking every Lib Dem seat.

smod · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2012 1:31 pm

Huh?

The British case for Mitt Romney

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danie ... tt-romney/

new puritan · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2012 1:40 pm

Quote:

We have had four years of a president who scarcely troubles to hide his disdain for Britain. What a pleasure it would be to have one committed, as John Adams put it when presenting his credentials to George III, to ‘restoring an entire esteem, confidence and affection, or in better Words, the old good Nature and the old good Humour between People who, though separated by an ocean and under different Governments have the same Language, a similar Religion and kindred Blood’.

Who seriously gives a fuck? Is this how needy we are as a nation? The less interest Washington takes in British politics the better, frankly. Classy dog-whistle stuff about Romney's 'Anglo-Saxon heritage' as well.

The Red Arrow · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2012 1:42 pm

Worraprick.

smod · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2012 1:45 pm

He might want to keep his tax records a secret, but he once visited dying children in hospital. It doesn't say much that Hannan is swayed so easily by some nice stories about Mr Romney.

Daley Mayle · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2012 1:50 pm

Obama inherited Iraq and Afghanistan, the former the bastard child of Bush and Blair. Obama didn't want any association with the previous administration so Blair, and by extension Britain, was ejected from the top table so to speak. I don't think America could care less about Britain unless it serves their interest.

The Red Arrow · **Posted:** Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:14 pm

It was ever thus, D.M.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:49 pm

Quote:

In real life, Sir Humphrey will almost always get the better of Jim Hacker. Where Hacker has a single special adviser, Sir Humphrey can call on hundreds of full-time professionals. Where Hacker is passing through – and already half-thinking of his next job – Sir Humphrey is there to stay. Where Hacker is distracted by Commons votes, constituency casework and after-dinner speeches, Sir Humphrey is in the department full time.

No need for any evidence. Just quote a sitcom.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... f-comments

Malcolm Armsteen · **Posted:** Tue Sep 04, 2012 8:17 pm

Sir Humphrey is gone, but there are still many senior civil servants who realise that they will still have to keep things upright and services running when each successive government fails and is voted out. I don't see how that makes them bad people.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:16 pm

He's just making excuses when his mates muck up.

Aren't there rather a lot of SPADs about these days? Does he mention them?

As he's never run a whelk stall, is it too much to ask for some quotes from people who've been ministers? I think Mrs Thatcher thought her senior civil servants were good.

Daniel Hannan

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