Sometimes the outsider sees more and sees deeper

I make no apologies for the length of this post which is a 'copy and paste' job although I am humbled by the knowledge that I lack the necessary intellectual ability ever to be able to write it myself.  As I mentioned earlier, sometimes us 'ams' just have to take a step back and bow to the 'pros'.  And the piece is long because the subject is immense.  It originates from a combined editorial at the American National Review Online (NRO), an unashamedly Right-wing publication which nevertheless, had the courage to rebuff the ridiculous faux-Right-wing Donald Trump as a candidate for the Presidency.  This is their summary of the Brexit debate:

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Later this week the British people will vote on whether to remain a self-governing democracy or to ratify their absorption into an undemocratic European polity. It may sound extreme to state the choice so bleakly, but that has been the immanent reality since 1950, when Clement Attlee, Labour’s greatest prime minister (and Churchill’s wartime deputy), rejected British membership in the proposed European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). In a House of Commons debate, he said: “We on this side are not prepared to accept the principle that the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority which is utterly undemocratic and responsible to nobody.”

Attlee was more perceptive than he knew. The ECSC was designed to morph in stages from a limited industrial cartel into the present unified European “entity” of 28 member-states, which is supposedly neither a state (though it increasingly exhibits the attributes of statehood — flag, anthem, the power to sign treaties, etc.) nor a diplomatic body promoting cooperation and arbitration between independent states, but something new under the sun. Moreover, the lack of democratic accountability in its political arrangements underlined by Attlee was entirely by design. Its founders were suspicious of national sovereignty and popular passions, on which they blamed the recent war. They quite consciously set out to avoid submitting their grand design to democratic debate and the verdict of the voters. Instead it would proceed “functionally,” treaty by treaty, regulation by regulation, committee vote by committee vote, largely shielded from oversight, until one day the peoples of Europe would discover they were living under a new “European” government. That bright new day has now dawned. Not coincidentally, their new government is one they can’t vote out. The European Commission, which has a virtual monopoly on proposing European legislation, never submits itself to elections. It is an appointed body of unknown bureaucrats and failed national politicians. Nor can British, French, or German parliaments reject or amend the Commission’s laws and regulations or the European court’s decisions. Nor can their voters repeal them. European law is superior to what are still quaintly called “national laws.” And if a national referendum (one of the few escape hatches in this panopticon) rejects a European decision, the voters are asked to vote again until they get it right. In short the EU’s defenses against democratic accountability are pretty watertight.

Increasingly, the Commission’s laws are defended with frankly anti-democratic arguments rather than covert maneuvers in the wilderness of committees that is Brussels. There is no right, said European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker recently, to vote against Europe. Similar statements by EU leaders could be multiplied to infinity (in innumerable languages). So the EU’s democratic deficit, long admitted, has not been cured but deepened. No leading EU figure now promises to eliminate it. As John Fonte argues, the EU is probably best described as a post-democratic entity. Almost the only body that can override EU law is the European Union itself. Almost all the rules governing the operation of the single currency, above all the “No Bailouts” rule, were swept aside by the European Central Bank in the interest of safeguarding the euro against the currency crises it had invited. EU institutions backed by the French and German governments removed two democratically elected prime ministers under the thinnest veil of constitutionality. They replaced them with technocrats (one of whom, the Italian, received a derisory share of the vote in the subsequent election). Chancellor Merkel’s unilateral decision to invite the world to Europe broke the Dublin Accords on refugee reception. In a bow to German economic power, however, the EU endorsed Merkel’s move and embraced a scheme to compel all Schengen member-states (including countries that had kept the Accords) to receive quotas of refugees under pain of fines amounting to several percent of their GDP. So the EU is a lawless organization as well as an undemocratic one.

Why might the British people — who among their historical achievements are pioneers of constitutional parliamentary liberal democracy — wish to exchange their successful self-governing democracy for this constitutional abortion? What arguments is the Remain campaign able to mount in favor of doing so? Remain advocates deny the plain fact that EU membership means a loss of sovereignty. On this central question Remain has only lies and obfuscation to offer. It denies the plain fact that EU membership means a loss of sovereignty. When that proves unpersuasive, it argues that “sovereignty” is an outdated theoretical concept unusable in the modern world; instead the British should choose effective “power” over it. Scholars will recognize this argument as the typical socialist confusion, exposed by Hayek among others, between freedom and power, applied to relations between states.

It’s odd to hear this classic socialist trope from supposedly conservative politicians such as David Cameron. But things are worse than that. In exchange for its democratic sovereignty, the EU offers Britain not power but a one-twenty-eighth share of collective decision-making with countries whose interests are badly aligned with those of the Brits. That is why Britain is continually outvoted in Brussels even when its major national interests are at stake. Far from being an outdated theoretical concept, sovereignty has been shown in the campaign to have very serious real-world consequences. Loss of sovereignty inside the EU means, among other things, that Britain is not free to control immigration. Official figures released in the campaign confirmed this, showing that immigration has been far higher than the government had realized and that as a result its target for reducing immigration levels had fallen short by hundreds of thousands. Given the disparity between standards of living in Britain and Eastern Europe, this inflow would be potentially endless if the country were to remain in the EU. Remain’s response to this massive embarrassment has been, first, to obfuscate, suggesting that small and temporary changes in welfare policy would deter future migrants. When that argument was laughed out of co­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­urt, Remain suggested that those opponents who raised the issue were racists or, as Chancellor George Osborne put it, “Nazis.”

One of the less noticed aspects of the referendum campaign has been the extent to which Cameron has had to rely more and more on fundamentally left-wing arguments to make the case for the EU — and, indeed, to rely more and more on Labour and trade-union organizations, too. He removed from the government’s program some items of legislation that were especially offensive to labor unions in return for the unions’ spending more on campaigns to arouse their apathetic members (many of whom are in fact Euro-skeptic). That oddity has gradually revealed two hitherto unseen truths about the campaign: First, the EU is essentially a left-wing corporatist cause that is hard to support on conservative grounds; second, the traditional Tory arguments of patriotism and free enterprise not only can’t be appealed to, but would arouse emotions on the right that would weaken Remain’s entire case, including its only positive argument for staying in. That argument is that Britain would face ruin outside the EU and prosperity inside, as all “experts” know. Those experts turn out to be (some) corporate businessmen, the leaders of international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, and heads of governments such as President Obama. Delegations of all three have been turning up in London and issuing grave warnings about Brexit at regular intervals. Small businesses and native entrepreneurs such as inventor James Dyson apparently don’t count as experts, but they have been speaking out in favor of Brexit, as have a significant number of leaders of both British and multinational corporations. What is emerging as a fault line is that this battle is between Davos Man and the rest of us. 

Both halves of the Davos argument are false, however. To start with, experts differ. And when they do, the rest of us are liberated to choose which experts seem to be most persuasive and most in accord with our own general outlook. Thus, the present governor of the Bank of England is a passionate opponent of Brexit; his predecessor is a moderate Brexiteer. All the organizations cited in opposition to Brexit have supporters of it in the research departments where most of the thinking is done. Their bosses usually stopped thinking years ago and are influenced by what is the respectable view about Brexit in the groupthink of the Davos World. Besides, they all supported the euro — which in a rational world would impose a vow of silence on them forever. And finally, in the scales of expertise on the EU and the U.K., former Australian prime minister John Howard and former Czech president Vaclav Klaus, both of whom favor Brexit, would outweigh all the mouthpieces of Davos orthodoxy.

The second half of the argument — Brexit would be ruinous — is transparently silly. Economically speaking, leaving the EU would mean that Britain was outside both a customs union with an average tariff of 3 percent and a system of massive and intrusive regulation. The first would be a trivial disadvantage, the second a strong positive benefit. Britain is the fifth-largest economy in the world. If Britain cannot survive outside the EU, what on earth are 150 or more other countries doing? In fact, comparable countries — Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Australia — are doing much better than those in the EU. Countries in the euro zone are doing worst of all. And Britain’s trade is already being diverted from Europe to the Americas and Asia because that is where the growing markets are. In other words, even if leaving the EU were to produce transitional market disturbances, the long-term fundamentals for Brexit would be fine. If Britain cannot survive outside the EU, what on earth are 150 or more other countries doing?

Admittedly, it is true that both the British and the world economies are suffering from a serious attack of nerves about growing debt and, in the case of the U.K., a balance-of-payments deficit equal to 7 percent of GDP. When markets are nervous otherwise, modest problems can send currencies spiraling upward or downward temporarily. In such circumstances, governments should stress the transitional character of any change, pointing out that currencies and other indicators quickly adjust to the economic fundamentals. While the pound was inside the fixed exchange-rate mechanism, for instance, it led to market disruption and massive interest-rate hikes; when it left, the more entrepreneurial post-Thatcher British economy immediately began a long boom. Instead of soothing the markets, however, almost all governments and international economic bodies now exaggerate the financial risks of Brexit. That is deeply irresponsible, of course, but it also invites the observation that the current debt levels and higher risks of the world economy are the result of policies pursued by the very authorities that now use them as bugaboos to frighten the voters. It would be easy to continue rebuking the alarmist scare stories from Remain — and distinguished economists, including two former British finance ministers, have been doing so with zest. What is more important is to realize that they are designed not to persuade but to instill a sense of defeatism in the British people. Their consistent message is that the Brits are rubbish, can’t hack it, need the protection of Europe, and that anyone who differs from this masochistic view is in the grip of an imperialist nostalgia.

That is nonsense. The Brits are an unusually influential middle-ranking power in military, diplomatic, and intelligence terms. Culturally speaking, they are a global superpower. And — to repeat — Britain is the fifth-largest economy in the world, a leading member of all the main international bodies and likely to remain so, and a country which is a byword for effective democratic constitutional governance. It is — or ought to be — shocking that a British government should seek to instill a false sense of failure and dependency in its citizens in order to win a campaign they can’t win on the intellectual merits of the case. Which forces us to answer a question we sketched earlier: Why do the Remain advocates want to exchange their successful self-governing democracy for the constitutional abortion that is the EU? None of their arguments examined above hold water. That being so, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that they are inspired by passions that they either don’t fully understand or refuse to admit to themselves. Let us suggest three such unacknowledged passions as they emerged in the debate: The EU is a mechanism that enables the political and other elites in Britain to escape from the constraints of democracy. First, snobbery. That has been rampant from the Remain side ever since Mathew Parris of the London Times (usually the most amiable of writers) denounced the voters of Clacton (UKIP’s sole constituency) for being common, vulgar, and left behind in a seedy Britain that should itself be left behind by a progressive Britain in Europe. Other commentators have been denouncing the referendum itself as granting the power of decision on the country’s future to the ill-informed hoi polloi (the voters). Yet the questions asked by these low-browed types in the television debates have usually been sharper, better informed, and more interesting than the lazy formulaic replies of the politicians. They took the real issues of debate seriously. Too many ostensibly smarter people treated the same issues as an opportunity for status signalling: We’re not from Clacton. 

Second, a neo-imperialist nostalgia. Though this is a standard charge against the Leave campaigners, it is in fact far more characteristic of the politicians, diplomats, civil servants, and bureaucrats in both public and private sectors who see Europe as a larger playing field on which to compete. When asked why he thought the Foreign Office was such a passionate advocate of British EU membership in the first referendum campaign, the late Enoch Powell explained its rationale as follows: “We were big once; we want to be big again.” Readers of John le Carré novels may recall this attitude, married to anti-Americanism, as something that shapes his traitors. It goes without saying that even if EU membership did make the Foreign Office “big again,” it would not change the stature or status or psychological comfort of the people of Clacton. 

Third, and above all, a half-conscious rejection of democracy. For the EU is a mechanism that enables the political and other elites in Britain to escape from the constraints of democracy. It removes power from institutions subject to the voters in elections, such as the House of Commons, and vests it increasingly in courts and bureaucracies in Brussels that are effectively free of democratic control and even of democratic oversight. As a result, the EU is seductively appealing to those who want to exercise power and who believe they would do so more responsibly and successfully if they did not have to account for their decisions to . . .  well, ordinary people like their relatives. All three passions are temptations to the power-hungry, and they have shaped a Remain campaign reflecting the interests and values of post-national, post-democratic elites. Once we step outside the moral universe of these elites, however, there is no case whatever for Britain to surrender its self-governing democracy to Brussels. With the due deference of outsiders, we urge the British people, our friends in peace, our allies in war, to be true to themselves and to their democratic traditions on Thursday. That should be more than enough.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436853/brexit-vote-restore-british-democracy-vote-leave

 

Comments

[Backofanenvelope]

Given that months of this and that, Leave and Remain are running neck and neck- let's toss a coin?

[rapscallion]

I would posit that your second paragraph should be rewritten to show that the choice is between ratiftying our membership of an undemocratic European polity or regaining our independence as an individual sovereign state.

[David Duff]

BOE, only if it's double-headed with heads being Brexit!

'Raps', I think that is the main thrust of the entire article. Welcome to D&N, by the way.

[Whyaxye]

Excellent article, DD - many thanks. You are right about the outsider's view. It is frankly terrifying, and if we were to read a similar analysis of another country we would pity them for their past and wait with bated breath for good sense to prevail. It focuses the mind, doesn't it?

[Andrew Duffin]

Magnificent stuff.

I have rarely seen the arguments so cogently summarised.

Out Now!

[Whitewall]

As an outsider myself, this fine article and the clarity it brings to the Leave campaign's case, well it simply makes my blood boil to imagine Great Britain- of all nations- submitting itself willingly to such an undemocratic abomination as the Bastards of Brussels.

[Cuffleyburgers]

Duffers - thanks for the intellectual grand larceny; that is an article I wouldn't otherwise have seen, and together with a couple of items by Allister Heath in the rag that used to glory in the soubriquet of the torygraph, puts the case as well as anything I have seen.

[Pat]

Unless the polls are spectacularly wrong then it won't be over on 24th. A narrow remain will leave those seeking out wanting another go- most likely by supporting UKIP. That should ensure another Conservative government as most of the transfer will come from Labour- at least until it becomes obvious that Labour have no chance of winning a general election, which won't be until after the next general election..
A narrow remain and Cameron/Osborne, doubtless taking advice from Brussels, will graciously offer us a chance to vote again, possibly after engineering a slump to back up their rhetoric this time round.
If (which seems unlikely) its a strong Exit vote then maybe Cameron will take us out, but I doubt it- they'll fudge and delay and offer us a chance to change our minds.
Of course events in the EU will influence the above- if Europe sorts it's economy out, if the migrant crisis is solved that'll swing the vote to in- I'm not expecting either, rather I expect the EU economies to worsen, the migrant crisis to worsen, and probably some other bad news as well.
We'll either be out in ten years, or everyone else will be which amounts to the same thing.

[Loz]

British democracy is like the Wright brother's plane.

An admirable first achievement from the past - that should be confined to the history books today and replaced with an up-to-date model. Would you rather fly across the Atlantic in a Dreamliner or the Wright brother's string and canvass contraption?

Without its empire flattering to deceive, Britain's democracy failed. Britain was a failed state by the end of the 3 decades 1945-1975. It failed because there is no constitutional break to the scope of action of the state. If the voters elected a government that proposed putting a minority into a gas chamber there'd be nothing in Britain's constitution to stop it. The Gaffer would say "Well it's ok because the British people voted for it". Unfettered democracy is just re-elected dictatorship if there's no limit to the power to rob and brutalize a people. Why can't I withdraw my cash from the NHS that routinely starves and dehydrates elderly and vulnerable patients to death, and through negligence harms and kills my friends? Why can't my fellow citizens withdraw their cash from the state school system that fails their children so badly and choose an education from the globalized education market for themselves? Why can't we opt out of the social services that gave 1400 children systematic rape and sex abuse as their start in life?

All of these vile actions took place in your wonderful British democracy. They aren't things that should be vote-able for, the constitution should simply say "The executive cannot do this", period.

This all stems from the delusional faith in democracy at the expense of the concept of Liberty, which has been the goal of the Left and Right in Britain for the entire 20th century and beyond. The only use of democracy is to change the leadership without violence - admirable though that is, there is no other value. If you had voted in the exact opposite direction in every election since the day you were born it would make no difference to your life or anybody else's life. The delusional proposition that your vote counts should be dispelled. It counts FOR NOTHING. It's a trick to get you to participate in the politician's game, when all you need to know is that they'll change hands without violence. You could replace democracy with a jury system and achieve the same thing. The fact is , unelected though Juncker-the-Drunker is, his successor won't get the job through violence. Job done, no better or worse than democracy.

Even on the technicalities of democracy, British democracy is one big design fault. The executive leader is selected by a party - as they do in Communist China - and then elected by 1/650th of the population - his constituents! He then chooses the cabinet - no democracy there - each of whom got the chance by being elected by 1/650th of the population. This whole executive body then votes in the legislative body for its own proposed laws! And finally, half of the legislative body is not even elected.

A fucking string bag held together on a wing and a prayer - like the Wright brother's invention.

And finally, nothing has changed in the political elite or the voters to improve Britain's chances since 1975. Except that the only agent for positive change - Mrs T - that one might claim, very arguably, came from the said elite and voters, has been demonized and airbrushed from history by today's British elites and voters alike!

Give me a Dreamliner any time. And since one is not on offer, at least give me an open border so I can get the fuck outta dodge and choose one for myself.

SoD

[Bob]

Though there are countless differing particulars, this outsider sees the Brexit as another controversy arising from globalization. It's similar to the political turmoil surrounding immigration, trade pacts and expanding corporate power in the Americas. At least one Brit sees the same:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/21/brexit-comparison-brussels-dc-beltway-political-interests-classes

[Whitewall]

The Left and Right divide is eternal within democracies and Britain is no exception. What Left and Right actually come down to is not so much "sides" as it is the divide between Order and Chaos. Which allows a free people to thrive and prosper while setting a stable foundation for future generations? If democracy is discarded, what next? Absolute Monarchy? Dictatorship? Anarchy?

If government agencies have given in to abusing the public and then hiding behind the fig leaf of democracy, it is only because a bad ideology has overtaken the managers of these agencies and the governing parties that appoint these managers. That bad ideology is well known today and it infects the entire western world.

[backofanenvelope]

Loz, whoever you are, no one is stopping you "getting the fuck out of dodge", are they? Off you go, don't forget to send us a postcard!

[Pat]

Those who point out that elected politicians can misbehave are of course correct. So can unelected ones. Elected ones we get to chose in the first place, and mostly get to remove when they are found out. Unelected ones not so much- and they can pretty well suit themselves.

[David Duff]

BOE, you seem to have missed earlier explanations so let me explain that Loz = Lawrence = SoD = Son of Duff. Yes indeed, he's mine, all mine and don't worry, when I die I'm leaving him my overdraft!

Bob, there is indeed an element of anti-globalisation involved on the Brexit side of our dispute but it would be a mistake to confuse that with international trade. What we Brexiteers dislike - and fear - is the increasingly cosy relationship between Big Business and Big Government facilitated by Big Bureaucracy. The Guardian writer is right to point to the similarities between Washington and Brussels. There has developed an inchoate fury amongst many ordinary Americans that they have become trapped in a giant machine that operates for its own good. You might dismiss them as rubes but they are, to quote a favourite expression 'over there', your 'fellow Americans'!

[mike fowle]

Excellent article. Very perceptive and well informed.

[Backofanenvelope]

I think that when you were skulking in Shropshire, I explained to your readers that Loz was in fact you, acting as an agent provocateur!

[David Duff]

I'm a good amateur actor, BOE, but not that good!

[JK]

@ Loz [aka SoD]

"Why can't my fellow citizens withdraw their cash from the state school system that fails their children so badly and choose an education from the globalized education market for themselves? Why can't we opt out of the social services that gave 1400 children systematic rape and sex abuse as their start in life?"

"My fellow citizens"?

Would Loz that it were your, "fellow citizens" of 1975 Britain rather than your "fellow citizens" of the 21st Century choosing the globalized (though, some might prefer a word substitution ... "civilized" perhaps?) education. But even more ridiculous (and, pitiful?) were it your social services of 1975 foisting "systematic rape and sexual abuse" on your young rather than, again, your "fellow citizens" of the 21st Century.

Over to Anna for my closing;

"Across the land, fingers are flying over moderation panels on a thousand websites – deleting any mention of Rotherham and Pakistanis in the same comment. There is more cant and hypocrisy around today than I have seen for many a year."

http://annaraccoon.com/2014/08/27/rotherham-bothers-em/

[Hither & Thither JK goes and 'All' thinks he's simply meandering. But no, JK was born with the, some might well say "useless gift" for Archiving.

But would it be truly 'All' who think JK merely meandering? JK would suggest asking David.]

[Bob]

David, if people skeptical of governments' ownership by monied interests are rubes I'll have to admit to being one myself. However, we might agree that seeing Donald Trump or Nigel Farage as antidotes is at least a bit ill considered.

[David Duff]

Alas, JK, SoD went to university which his poor old Dad did not (Hurrah!) so he thinks he knows best about everything!

Bob, the problem many 'rubes' have is that they often do heavy labour for long hours and therefore lack the time and energy to consider carefully from the comfort of their libraries the finer points of political discourse as enjoyed by, er, intellectuals! However, they do tend to experience at first hand the realities of life!

[Whitewall]

I'm about as "ordinary American" as they come and I can safely report that Trump is no antidote for anything. He is a symptom of a great deal. Farage might be too, I'm not sure.

[Michael Adams]

I am increasingly convinced that Trump was not only chosen for us and foisted upon us by the Leftist media, but also that he is purposely trying to throw the election. Even with her lapdog media, Hellary would not win an election over an honest candidate.

Furthermore,it is incomprehensible that Horny Husband should retain a greater than fifty per cent favorability rating. We can live with the horn dog aspect, (It does have a natural limit, after all) but he is the power behind the Clinton Crime Family. Hellery was just the bag man. (Bag lady is already taken, meaning something else.)

[Bob]

David, I'm from a working class background and if I didn't know better would find your remarks about laborers elitist. Trump's crowd includes some of the better-off who reflexively take advantage of the gullible as well as some that are inflexibly ideological or emotionally stunted. Republicans prepared the way for Trumpism by using the politics of demonization and fear to win at any cost for almost four decades.

[David Duff]

Don't worry, Bob, I am an equal opportunities insulter. Many a time and oft', the working class get it wrong, like when they swallow whole all that socialist nonsense. It's a characteristic they share with the intellectual elites although, as the current Brexit campaign shows, where-as the 'workers' can sometimes go badly wrong but are capable of changing their minds, the elites rarely do!

Also, from the howls of anguish emanating from the GOP, I really don't think you can claim that they "prepared the way for Trumpism".

Incidentally, I will be totally unsurprised either during or shortly after Hillbilly's presidency for extreme troubles to erupt in the USA.

[Malcolm Pollack]

SoD,

This all stems from the delusional faith in democracy at the expense of the concept of Liberty, which has been the goal of the Left and Right in Britain for the entire 20th century and beyond. The only use of democracy is to change the leadership without violence - admirable though that is, there is no other value. If you had voted in the exact opposite direction in every election since the day you were born it would make no difference to your life or anybody else's life. The delusional proposition that your vote counts should be dispelled. It counts FOR NOTHING.

Yes! A fine indictment of democracy, which those of us in what has been called "neoreaction" will heartily agree. And I will agree also that the inexorable endpoint of democracy is the ruin of liberty.

That is not a brief, however, for the proud and ancient British people, and the scepter'd isle upon which they have made their way for all these centuries, to be ruled by self-serving universalist uplifters and paper-pushers in Brussels. If the British system is to be made anew, let it be so -- and I have no problem whatsoever with a fortification of the monarchy at the expense of the present arrangement. But the first step is to restore British sovereignty. To surrender that sovereignty -- to infantilize and disempower the British people in this way, as if they are no longer capable of managing their own affairs -- would have been unthinkable to the virile British nation that once commanded the seas and bestrode the world.

If Britain must die, then at least let it do so with some dignity. This is far worse.

David, why "unashamedly Right-wing"? Why on Earth would that be a thing to be ashamed of?

[David Duff]

Malcolm, in the case of the NRO, absolutely nothing. However, there are some self-styled Right-wingers where the phrase might be appropriate!

[Loz]

BOE, I might be free to leave right now, but the same barbed wire and electric fences that they want to stop the immigrants coming in are equally effective at stopping me "getting the fuck outta dodge".

JK, I think I catch your drift?! In the 1970's everything in Blighty was a cluster-fuck, including, but not limited to the following: -

Gas, electricity, water distribution
Telecoms
Steel manufacturing
Coal mining
Car manufacturing
Transport
Finance
Health
Education
Social services

All run by the state. Saloon bar conversations (equals blog comments today) were all along the lines of "We should be doing this, we should have cars like that, we should pay nurses that, we should have coal mines like the other". Everyone believed they knew how to run everything and that the pols were their "control" instantiated into action.

Bollocks.

Now after Mrs T's project and the institutionalization of it in the EU's single market and anti- anti-competition rules and regs, the list of basket cases has reduced somewhat: -

Finance
Health
Education
Social services

And guess what? They're all the remit of HMG - directly owned and operated, in part or whole. The others aren't allowed to be owned and operated by HMG due to EU rules and regs, and hence are off the list and in prolonged recovery.

And now, the Brexiteers are trying to tell us that it would be a good idea to unshackle Blighty from Mrs T's legacy and let BoJo, Jezza, Farage, Britain First, et al loose with the executive.

The EU's single market and anti- anti-competition rules and regs are the constitution that Blighty lacks on its own. The vital constraint on the saloon bar Richard Branson's and pols going bonkers with my future.

Out of my cold dead hands.

SoD

[JK]

Bob?

Your, "Trump's crowd includes some of the better-off who reflexively take advantage of the gullible as well as some that are inflexibly ideological or emotionally stunted. Republicans prepared the way for Trumpism ..."

might be 'side-by-sided' with The Rolling Stone['s] take. (For you Brits, the NOT NRO!)

"Democrats who might be tempted to gloat all over this should check themselves. If the Hillary Clintons and Harry Reids and Gene Sperlings of the world don't look at what just happened to the Republicans as a terrible object lesson in the perils of priotizing billionaire funders over voters, then they too will soon enough be tossed in the trash like a tick." [June 2, 2016]

[Bob]

David, would that be anything like our working class that fell for the idea getting government out of the way of free markets would make them all rich?

JK, I agree completely. If Hillary is elected and tries Bill's triangulation of the 1990's the Democratic Party will likely burn to the ground.

[David Duff]

Well, Bob, it worked in the 19th century when the working class were made exceedingly rich compared to those of the 18th century!

[Loz]

That'll be the private sector working class who woke up and realized their public sector comrades were taking the piss.

Underground train drivers on £50k and 2 months holiday? 1975 or 2016?

SoD

[David Duff]

And your point is ... what exactly?