Day: 11 May 2020

Keeping the handbrake on is a polite way of describing Boris's raft of announcements yesterday about how and when the lockdown is going to be eased. On Twitter, I described it as placing the country on "double secret probation", so elaborate are the rules about when we're allowed out of our domestic prisons. Others have been more forthright. One reader described the Prime Minister's speech as a "nothingburger squared", while Kathy Gyngell at Conservative Woman has a new name for our glorious leader: Bottler Boris. The weird thing is, lots of people think he went too far. That was particularly true of left-wing politicians. Jeremy Corbyn, for instance, tweeted: "There should be no return to work until it is safe to do so. If work cannot be done safely, it should not proceed. People must come before private profit." The idea, obviously, is to get it on record that they think Boris is making a dreadful mistake so if the death toll starts to rise they can pin that on him. Sturgeon is playing the same game. Happily, that didn't stop people getting on the tube to return to work this morning. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has responded by saying wearing masks on public transport should be compulsory. One thing that stood out in Boris's speech was how often he ...

by Guy de la Bédoyère All states progress towards totalitarianism. This does not mean that they will get there, or even get very far along the way, though some do. But the direction of travel is always towards totalitarianism. The only possible way of preventing this is constant vigilance. The totalitarian state is defined by an intolerance of diversity, whether in thought or behaviour. The use of propaganda is an essential ingredient in establishing not only all forms of intolerance of diversity but encouraging widespread support for them. The propaganda is integral to the state’s ideology, itself built around usually the depiction of a utopian future, however implausible. The end justifies the means. Intolerance is enshrined in the ideology, enforced through the annihilation of political opposition, control of the media, and control of the economy. The unifying of society against a common enemy is often another vital ingredient. By definition the totalitarian state never achieves its goals other than in lies and dissimulation. Therefore dissent to some degree is inevitable. As failure mounts, so does dissent. As the promised land retreats, so the state moves to the next stage which is to enforce compliance, provoked by claiming that the dissenters are responsible for compromising the state’s success. Intolerance of diversity has now progressed to oppression. One of the most remarkable ...