The death of Queen Elizabeth II signals the tolling bell of the United Kingdom, from empire to island. Amongst the nation is both a yearning sadness for a monarch representative of the remaining vestiges of duty, stewardship and historical connection, while at the same time a deep ambivalence as the cultural and economic destruction of Britain happened under her rule. As a figurehead, much of this cannot laid at her feet but at the same time there was never any indication of revulsion at the “evolution” of Britain. They needn’t dissolve Parliament or become actively political to criticise the direction of the country. But it never happened, with each speech proclaiming the remaining greatness of Britain and the strength of its national character. What this evoked was a similar feeling to American exceptionalism: a proclamation of being the greatest nation on earth while a vast underclass is starved, drugged and ignored and wealth seeps out into tax havens and coastal gated communities. Such greatness is a mask for national decline and widespread anomie.

Ideological Cycles

Viewing British political history through the prism of ideological waves shows distinct variations in the ideological positioning of British governments. The post-war settlement entrenched Keynesian demand management. With the stagflation crisis and the IMF bailout, Thatcherism brought in quantitative monetary policy, privatisation and market openness. Following the political failures of the Conservative Party under Thatcher and Major, New Labour presented a social democratic version of the Thatcherite consensus, neoliberalism with a human face. With this came the introduction of public-private partnerships in the NHS, education and transport infrastructure and the introduction of corporate management techniques into the public sector, flexibilising both the state and social democracy.

This is a comment I wrote on a planning application within my local area which outlines my opposition to this development and why in general city councils like Coventry still have much room for potential developments in decentralised planning and the creation of new economies of scale, yet show their status quo bias when allowing planning applications like the one pushed through:

Apart from the effective removal of CT Furniture, another community charitable institution, from the area (it may move elsewhere), the increasing move toward developing and encouraging student accommodation above and beyond either productive economic capacity or affordable housing for the local population (of which this planning application is a part of) shows the short-termism of council planning, focusing on the here and now of student consumer spending over other long-term considerations. Continue reading →

Those of the Vote Leave side in the referendum regularly tout the importance of British democracy relative to the supposed unaccountability of the EU elites. They say that you can fire a government here, unlike in Brussels. However, this kind of rubbish is patently false when looking at the actual structures present in British government. The most important and powerful structures are the civil service and the range of quangos which decide on the regulatory mechanisms that are applied in the EU. Those effected by such mechanisms have no real say, as members of these committees and groups are appointed by governments. Continue reading →

I’ve made it clear that I don’t see the EU referendum as particularly important. The major economic questions surrounding the modern world, from banking fragility and capital creation, to huge levels of private and sovereign debt and politico-economic centralisation are not remotely addressed within this debate, except maybe on the peripheries. If we leave, economic and political power will simply be moved from unaccountable elites in Brussels to those in Westminster and its parasitical institutions. Democracy is not important in this debate as some have emphasised, as realistically the kind of representative democracy we have has led to many of the ridiculous problems the UK faces today, from failing social systems to a debt-led economy. Representative democracy relies on mass ignorance and the ability to debate non-issues among non-representative parties. Continue reading →

Modern localism has been about the devolution of minimal political and economic power to large regional governance structures, like the Northern Powerhouse or the Greater London Authority. This localism is paltry and creates more bureaucracy and regulation. It simply serves a political narrative of supposed localism while in fact maintaining the state’s vast power systems. This isn’t helped by a confused political scheme, with a mess of district, county and town councils that makes it difficult to devolve powers without political power overlapping and becoming arbitrary. It needs to be cleaned up, with clear delineations between political entities, meaning laws and authority don’t overlap and create pointless confusion. Continue reading →

With a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union on the way, I think this could be the best time for libertarians and conservatives of all parties and organisations to start making the case for the development of truly libertarian, small-state ideas alongside a commitment to vote ourselves out of the EU. By leaving this undemocratic, protectionist super structure, we have the potential to move towards free markets, free trade, localism and economic decentralisation in all areas of political and economic life. Continue reading →