The estimable David McGrogan has done much for bringing an understanding of law to the pages of the Daily Sceptic. In an era in which everyone talks about science, it is very important that there will be some of us who keep talking about law — and literature — and politics.
McGrogan’s latest essay argued — it was a complicated piece and worth summarising — that Lord Diplock, a renowned old horse-rider of a lawyer, told the House of Lords in 1985 that he could see no reason why the lawyers shouldn’t be able to subject prerogative powers to judicial review. (McGrogan is very funny on the trickiness of the bland phrase, “I see no reason”.) This was part of the thing Jonathan Sumption has written about in his recent non-historical books: the tendency of lawyers to turn political convention into legal regulation: that is, more simply, the tendency of law lords to go after power. But the broader point is about the civil service. McGrogan argues that Government should be able to do what it wants with the civil service, free of any constraint: where constraint might come from judicial review, or from trade unionisation. Anyhow, one way or another, it is necessary to have a bonfire of the bureaucrats.
This is a useful suggestion. Some of us have tended to exaggerate the political causes, or, at a deeper level, the cultural and theoretical causes, of what has gone on since 2020, ignoring bureaucratic and legal causes. And it is quite possible that at some dim and clotted level the reality is that the Circumlocution Office (as depicted in Dickens’s Little Dorrit) has been in control all along, and that it is not, as it was in the 19th century, a hindrance to justice, progress and care, but is, in the 21st century, a hindrance to common sense and good order. For those of you who have not read Little Dorrit, the point of the Circumlocution Office — see chapter X, ‘Containing the whole science of Government’ — is how not to do it: how not to do Brexit, how not to do Covid, how not to do Immigration, how not to do Education, how not to do Civilisation.
In order to add to McGrogan’s vision of what is wrong, let me say something about two things, coup d’état and the universal class.
Firstly, the universal class. In his Philosophy of Right Hegel used this phrase, in German of course — der allgemeine Stand — to refer to the civil service. In every society, he suggested, we have classes or estates and we have individuals, all of whom are pursuing their own interests. But there is one class that is not serving its own interest, because it is serving the public interest. This is the universal class. For Hegel, this meant bureaucrats.
There are two things to say about this. The first is that Marx, in the course of inverting Hegel, decided that the universal class was not the bureaucracy but the proletariat. Clever. And, indeed, this is still a favoured alternative. (Consider Graeber, Occupy, Momentum, UKIP etc.) Even McGrogan has to fall back on it, saying that if we think that the Government has been unfair to the civil servants then we can always appeal to the electorate for justice. Perhaps the only other serious candidate for a universal class is the academic-fantastical one of the intellectuals and experts: the people who know how to do it. You know, the COVID-19, Net Zero, Diversity brigade.
The second thing to say is that any member of the universal class, whatever it is, is likely to be extremely conceited. “You are serving your interest, but I am serving the public interest.” Lofty expression; grave voice; large pension. And the problem with our entire education system at the moment, from school upwards, is that it seems to encourage people to opine and emote and genuflect in ways which involve ostentatious and positively Pecksniffian displays of concern for the greater good, the common weal, the public interest: though expressed not in Shakespearian or High Victorian manner but in the friendly and caring style of the CBeebies.
Of our three great candidates for a universal class it has to be said that the proletariat is out of favour. It is derided by academics and journalists — and sometimes both (Cas Mudde and Jan-Werner Müller keep popping up in the Guardian) — as ‘populist’. A dread word, ‘populist’: it brings to the mind of the average onion-emoting and lemon-opining educated liberal citizen a horrific Bosch vision of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Geert Wilders, Victor Orban and massed AFD types, indeed, everyone on the ‘far Right’ or ‘hard Right’, all making a merry hell of the world. So this leaves the other two candidates for a universal class: the intellectuals on the one hand, and the bureaucrats on the other. Those of us who get easily bored focus on the bright intellectuals; but McGrogan says that we should overcome our scruples, turn on the night vision goggles and focus on the dim bureaucrats instead: since it is their inertia and sense that they are right and their absolute inability to justify how they are right that forms the ‘immovable obstacle’ that is fatberging the sewer of the modern state. They make the intellectuals look like leaves in a windy autumn, easily dissipated.
Secondly, I wanted to talk about coup d’état. Everyone thinks they know what a coup d’état is. Surely it is an insurrection, an attempt to snatch power away from those who hold it? Surely it is the October Revolution of 1917? Surely it is January 6th? Well, it can be these. But it is actually something much more interesting than mere insurrection. For, as originally defined by the remarkable French writer of the early 17th century, Gabriel Naudé, it is not something which is done to a state, but something done by a state. A coup d’état, he wrote, is a coup inflicted by the state on the people. He said it was like the act of a god, a thunderbolt, a raining down of disaster, an Old Testament plague, a sudden blow.
I submit that COVID-19 was a coup d’état.
So was accession to the EEC.
Modern politics could be considered death by a thousand coups.
Since I am littering this essay with capitalised concepts, let me reflect on two more. Thirdly, let us mention conspiracy theories again. If we suppose that Plato is right, and the state is founded on a ‘noble lie’; if we suppose Machiavelli is right, and politicians need to employ all the arts of force and fraud — lion and fox — in order to maintain their own state; and if we suppose that Naudé is right, and the state acts most decisively and mysteriously when it acts like a capricious god: then conspiracy theories are not the works of madmen but what Anthony Fauci would call “just common sense”. The modern academic and journalistic habit of deriding conspiracy theories is just one more way of concealing the arcana imperii by which our order is alchemised, cabalised and witch-doctored by our overlords.
Fourthly, it is perhaps worth saying something about Michael Gove’s recent redefinition of extremism. ‘Extremes’ are feared by those who think they are in the middle. The ones who think most pompously that they are in the middle — serving the public interest and not their own miscellaneous interests — are the members of the universal class. Any definition of extremism is an attempt to shore up a sandbank in a rising tide. Gove, whose speeches sound as if they come from someone whose onions and lemons have been helped down with great quantities of roast pork, madeira wine and linen napkin, tells us that Britain is stronger through diversity. That is a lie, obviously. The universal class is petrified, not only by the off-message ruminations of the many immigrants who have come in, but also by the off-message ruminations of the ‘populists’ who think that Britain’s natural and easy diversity of the last century or more is being displaced by an ironclad Orwellian discourse of diversity which is, in fact, anything but diverse.
The ‘deep state’, the ‘blob’, the ‘universal class’, whatever you want to call it, is trying to define something arbitrarily in the hope that it can hold the leaking sides of the ship of state together. But definitions are for schools, not for politicians. Gove’s redefinition is yet another gesture towards defending ‘British values’ which no one has ever believed in. Churchill didn’t believe in them; nor did Gladstone; nor Pitt; nor Walpole; nor Clarendon; nor Cromwell; nor Burghley; nor Warwick the Kingmaker; nor Montfort; nor Becket; nor Bede. British values are bogus. ‘Extremism’ is just an admission that the British state let the cats out of the bag in the last few generations, and is trying to find a few stray cats to rebag and drown in order to suggest that all is well in the world. It is yet one more coup d’état, even if only a relatively titchy one, by the universal class.
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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Excellent, and completely agree with the author, especially the last two paragraphs. ”….. Britain is stronger through diversity. That is a lie, obviously.” Michael Gove is a clown, and a desperate one at that. No time for a lengthy post but this guy nails it in 2mins, as far as I’m concerned, and what we’re seeing across most of the West is just another example of ‘Lockstep’, just with different contexts;
”Mixed race, proud Brit @dannyroscoe7
wears a “White Lives Matter” t-shirt & is asked about immigration.
He discusses The Great Replacement, the anti-white agenda, we are getting flooded, it’s to destabilise society, we’re told to sit down & shut up.”
https://twitter.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1769318371839865022
I know you are in Holland so same as uk I suppose , since day one 23/3/20 I’ve remained positive but I must admit my head is going down lately , there seems to be no way out from our descent into the abyss
Japan doesn’t seem to need “diversity”. I don’t see huge swathes of migrants turning up in Japan expecting a four star hotel having ditched their documents. — “Diversity” is an illusion created by One World Government people using mass immigration to destroy National Identities so we all just feel like citizens of the world, and we think of ourselves as a Region rather than a Nation.
Quite so varmint – I’m in S Korea and going to Japan shortly. Its a refreshing escape from the race nonsense and wokery back home. Korea and Japan are quite homogeneous societies with a few guest workers from Phillipines and Indonesia and of course westerners. But no-one is entitled to immigrate here either. Culture and tradition is too important. Yes theres LGB folk here like everywhere but no-one makes an issue about it. Plenty of financial pressures on the younger working generation and high taxes but no all-out assault on the family and social norms as in UK. However the low birth rate – told it was 0.6 per couple and the falling housing market will probably be addressed. Division will have to be through some arbitrary politics not race or sex/gender as was the case in the Cultural Revolution in China. Tucker Carlson did a good interview in #77 with Xi van Vliet who lived through it.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8teeqe
Our politicians seem to believe that the answer to everything is more politicians and more legislation.
Blair’s Britain has tested that idea to destruction; blown it out of the water.
It is now time to test the opposite idea; fewer politicians and deregulation.
That should have been very easy for a government with a majority of, say, eighty seats: simply restore the regulatory environment and constitutional arrangements that existed in 1990.
Instead Bunter spent £500bn chasing made up fairies at the bottom of the No. 10 garden. I expect more of the same from Rodney and his team
I will be voting Reform as a simple protest.
It isn’t much, but it is something.
Please don’t think the failure to do what you and I would hve wanted was a mistake or oversight by Boris and Sunak (and before them Cameron-Clegg, Cameron and May); they acted as they did because that is what the Con Government wanted to do.
It’s those ‘Conservative Party’ members inhabiting the dark recesses ‘influencing’ events, the ‘Tory Party’ puppets, and the country, which is why the party needs to whither.
Replacing the puppets, as we can see, hasn’t improved matters.
It is not only those “inhabiting the dark recesses of the party”. For me, every remaining single member of that wretched party is conspiring against my freedoms, culture and liberty. They are not Conservatives they are useful idiots at best.
Remember this – you can spoil your ballot and cast a vote both at the same time.
How? Join the spoiled ballot party and have a bit of fun whilst exacting revenge on the jackasses:
1) write what you want on the ballot paper.
Why? Because at the count – where all the votes are counted – all the candidates and their entire entourages must be allowed to see all “spoiled” ballot papers except yours will be adulterated with the messages you want to send to the candidates – and it is anonymous too!!!
2) make sure that you indicate a clear preference for one of the candidates amidst all your scribbles.
How? Here is an example as explained by former Conservative and the Change UK MP Heidi Allen – on “Have I Got News for You” she explained on one ‘spoiled’ ballot the voter had drawn in the tick box a limp penis instead of an X. In the box to vote for her the voter had drawn an erect penis.
So it was agreed by the candidates that the vote was indicating a preference for Heidi Allen.
So you can vote for Reform UK and send the candidates a message or three.
Also, if we all did this the count would take many days instead of 24 hours.
Of course I cannot recommend anyone does anything like that as it is civil disobedience and that will never do. Even if it might be fun I cannot recommend it.
There is no universal class.
Believing that any group of people, be it bureaucrats or anyone else for that matter, can continually act selflessly in the interest of others is just as demented as thinking a man becomes a woman just by claiming it.
Some people can act selflessly sometimes in some very specific circumstances. That’s it. The rest of the time, I.e. as a general rule, people act in their own interest and can have their interests aligned with those of others with the right sent of incentives.
But that’s modern society, evermore constructed on fantasies.
I watched the new Dune film recently and looking into the author Frank Herbert I notice he said this which I rather like:
“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”
The especially or more easily corruptible, I would say. I reckon everyone is corruptible to some degree, with exceptions being incredibly rare.
Believing that any group of people, be it bureaucrats or anyone else for that matter, can continually act selflessly in the interest of others is just as demented as thinking a man becomes a woman just by claiming it.
That’s obviously not possible because the outcome would be these people quickly starving to death. But that’s not what Hegel had in mind. He thought of the Prussian Beamtentum, ie, the class of civil servants for life which existed in Prussia. These were people who had sworn an oath of loyalty and service to the crown and in turn, the king had taken on responsibilty for their suitably dignified upkeep. Hence, by trying to make a successful career in the service of the king at ample pay and generous retirement opportunities, they were also working in their own interest despite their job was to work for the public good or rather, the good of the state which was considered to be a superorganism ultimatively made up of all members of the public.
That’s the mistake isn’t it? Thinking that interests can be aligned by decree or oath. Doesn’t work.
That’s what you believe. But this belief is based on a very limited worldview, namely, restricted to the post-1945 republican, pseudo-democractic corruptocracy. My personal experiences are obviously as well but I’m not inclined to assume that the USA from LBJ onwards is really a model of all the world ever was and all that it can ever become. There’s too much information to the contrary from past centuries, even from the USA.
Yes I strongly believe that people won’t commit to lifetime of selfless service just because they promise to do so, or becausr someone expects them to.
What are you replying to? Certainly not my text, as I specifically wrote
the outcome would be these people quickly starving to death
But that’s a strawman. People aren’t expected to serve selflessly but merely, in modern lingo, to do their jobs properly in exchange for getting paid to do so. And in this case, do their jobs properly according to a very high professional standard. All of this free market terminology is really inappropriate but it’s sort-of a translation here.
BTW, an oath is a solemn promise while calling God as witness. This alone will have given it considerable weight in pre-atheist times. And atheism or rather agnostic amorality due to being convinced that it will work out ok, is another pretty recently developed disease of our times.
When the future grows less certain, it’s common sense to still retain some ‘selfless service’, to maintain your sanity, but to restrict it to those where the future relationship looks brighter.
But that becomes a lesser ‘selfless service’, and that is the problem.
To ask the question again: What precisely constitutes proper Brexit, as opposed to real-world Brexit?
As the Brexit impropriety keeps being asserted, I’d really like to know what it actually is. I suspect mentioning this a crowd control tactic by the Brexit architects, however, I’d gladly learn something different.
Disclaimer: As person who has had the privilege of paying (top-rate) UK income tax for the past 13 years, I very much don’t want to be declared an illegal immigrant again. Unless I get all that money back immediately, that is.
If you are declared an illegal immigrant (and I would speculate that “again” is hyperbole) then I will eat my hat and personally attempt to stop the goons from deporting you.
To answer your question, I personally am not sure but I am fairly ignorant on this subject. I agree Northern Ireland seems a bit insoluble as we’ve committed to two things that are incompatible. As for the rest, I think we can do whatever we want to do in terms of ditching laws brought in as part of our EU membership, but the Govt has I believe not chosen to do that – they might plead lack of time, or a “pandemic”. But I think you are broadly right – we’re out.
I’m using illegal immigrant for foreigner without legal immigration status in Britain.
All EU citizens hitherto legally resident in the UK lost their legal immigration status because of Brexit and had to apply to the home office to be granted a new legal immigration status. This was not to be withheld unduly. But not unduly withheld still means possibly withheld, making for some uncomfortable months of waiting. An experience I don’t care to repeat.
I regret the fact that you were uncomfortable – I do not believe you had any reason to be. In the circumstances, I think what was done was reasonable and given that leaving the EU was the kind of thing a nation sometimes has to do, I am not sure how it (the settled status business) could have been handled better – certainly everyone I know (friends, colleagues and close family) went through it smoothly.
In most of my experiences so far, anything-goverment is always an edged thing and carelessly touching it might result in getting hurt. And you’ll never know if you made all the right dance moves at the right time to pacify the ill-tempered deity until it has come to a decision. While I’m not opposed to states as concept, not even to strong states, I’m very suspicious of the modern variety of them and strongly prefer to avoid any contact with it.
Yes those are all fair points
You say that everyone talks about the science. I would like to see a book on the anti-science that was pushed during the pandemic. i.e. essentially lists of the prior art on masks, modelling, vaccines, etc. before the bureaucrats and politicians ripped it all up in their pursuit of power. That power being against the ancient rights of the English, for example.
A positive strategy would be to understand what Science is: it is a mode of enquiry. It’s primary objective is ‘finding out through investigation’, leading to general observations, so others can do the same. It’s not an authority, with unquestionable definitions, where any questioning of the narrative is met with derision.
I’m reading The Scientific Method, by G Holman, and he states that an early step in the process is to get an understanding of the thinking, including currently accepted ‘laws’, that is leading to the conflict. Isn’t that common sense?
I wondered why ‘public health’ officials were so unprepared, yet wealthy, private individuals had ready made fixes, that did not address the underlying problems. The answer is very troubling.
It’s a kakistocracy, an 18th century word meaning; the worst possible government, run by the worst possible people.
Coup d’etat or not what occurred in March 2020 was the formal surrender by Bozo of the UK government to the Davos Deviants.
That is all there is to it.
It wasn’t a coup d’etat.
It was an outbreak of the deadliest illness known to man.
Not Covid, Mass Psychosis.
The ambulance is back.
And still correct.
I know I am.
“Bonfire of the bureaucrats” has a nice ring to it!
Sort of toasty.
Note the Kings cross station large board, displaying sayings from Islam for Ramadam.
Do they display quotes from the Bible during Lent or Christmas? No, from the Jewish religion? No
I would now say we are a country which is having the Islamic religion now being promoted as the main religion of the Country, next it will be shariah law, When questioned as to what Christian messages have been promoted the only one that could be recalled was “have a flippin good pancake day” We are being played.