My Substack’s tagline may read ‘Like politics, but more fun’, and I cover political stuff most of the time, but the thing is I don’t really like politics and I don’t like most politicians.
During the recent big political happenings in Britain – Keir Starmer resigning and Andy Burnham winning the Makerfield by-election on the way to becoming the new prime minister, in case you missed it – I limited my intake of news. This was in part because of choppy personal circumstances but also because I get little pleasure from reading about the squalid shenanigans.
There are reasons why sometimes I switch politics off and go and do something more interesting instead. It goes back to the 1980s. Two formative events during that decade set my mind in a certain direction.
One was a visit to Cambridgeshire in probably 1986, to see a family friend. I didn’t live in poverty in Newcastle, but seeing the wealth in this part of southern England was a revelation to me and made a big impression (this was a time when the broadcast media, who slid Leftwards over the decade, constantly banged on about ‘the north-south divide’ as a stick to beat the government).
I visited a rural part of that county where houses were detached and large and well-appointed. Hotels and pubs and venues seemed of higher quality. The people I met seemed driven and positive. I guess it was my psychological makeup that dictated how I interpreted this. If I’d been born with the bitter, envious socialist gene, my thinking would probably have gone: this is wrong, there are people in Newcastle missing out, I must dedicate my time to tearing down this system and rob these southerners of their wealth. These people should not enjoy this lifestyle while those in the north do not.
But I didn’t go that way. Instead I thought: wouldn’t it be great if one day the north-east could be as wealthy and attractive and forward-thinking as this. A utopian idea in itself, possibly, but one that spoke to wanting to improve the lot of those who had less, as opposed to punishing people who had more. I regard my viewpoint as non-ideological – socialism is political; desiring the natural order of things is not.
The other formative experience was a family trip to the USA in 1985, to visit a relative who had emigrated there in the late 1960s and had built up a stunningly successful business. This had helped buy him and his family a stunning, sprawling property in sweltering, dreamlike Arizona with a swimming pool and a garage with three great cars (and a dozen pinball machines).
Seeing this palpable reward for intelligence and endeavour impressed me; I noted an economic framework of low taxes and limited state intervention that allowed enterprising, brave risk-takers to enrich their lives. Reading the newspapers, largely local Arizona ones, was fab too – because of the absence of politics!
Because while British newspapers, then and now, seem to obsess over the machinations of the State, there seemed to be hardly any of that. (I realise that if I’d read The New York Times I’d have likely got a different impression.) It was so refreshing. I wished that in Britain I could open papers to read about the opening of a new theme park or some sublime scientific discovery rather than the latest on what some MP had said about another MP or the government’s latest promise to do something about protecting people from some ill.
I saw a bright future. The high point was in the months following Mrs Thatcher’s third General Election victory in 1987. So much seemed possible. A people set free from State control. Limited government. Folk swimming or sinking based on their own efforts (with a safety net in place for those who, for genuine reasons, couldn’t swim). People having fun. Theme parks again – symbols of a wealthy, evolved population with lots of leisure time, that had been created by a vibrant free market.
But things started to falter for Mrs T in 1988 and got worse until she was defenestrated in 1990. John Major came in and despite his unsuitably for the job he largely presided over sound economic policy and cultural conservatism.
As for the 21st century… If you’d asked me in 1988 what my nightmare vision for Britain in 2026 would be, I would have said pretty much exactly what we have now (not that I could have predicted much of the insanity we’ve had in the last decade or two).
I can’t be bothered to moan again about the deranged and depressing nature of the country. But briefly: seemingly unlimited, unstoppable immigration into Britain from some of the worst countries on Earth; an energy policy that means we don’t use what’s under or around our island and instead import it from abroad; confused 11-year-olds taken at their word if they say they are the ‘wrong sex’ and subsequently being medically experimented on by the NHS; the nation left in economic, social and ethical ruins because of the reaction to a virus whose average victim was 83.
Everything has become political and/or racialised. A coronavirus; a fire in a London block of flats; England footballers missing penalties. Murder, rape, employment, adverts, comedy, the weather…
We now have a highly authoritarian country, with the internet quite literally policed for people saying things they ‘shouldn’t’, while militant HR teams exercise frightening powers thanks to the powers given them in the 2010 Equality Act. In fact, most of the above has happened due to government legislation. The almighty, all-seeing, all-influential State is a menace.
Politics, while necessary, has mutated and expanded and made life so much worse than it otherwise would have been. It’s a self-feeding monster, and I can’t see things getting better. Which government would ever be brave enough to slash welfare, for instance, even though it is putting the country into a slow-motion collapse.
Admittedly, a theme park is now being built in Bedford, but it’s just one. I want more theme parks, hundreds of ’em, not Big Government making everything it touches worse.
Russell David is the author of the Mad World Substack.
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