Ralph Schoellhammer, writing in Spiked, observes that the British have historically shown a distaste for theatrical political movements, as evidenced by their scepticism towards some of the dramatic antics of modern environmental activists. He holds little hope for such scepticism in Germany. Here’s an excerpt:
I have long been convinced that one of the reasons why fascism never had a chance in Britain was due to the predispositions of her people. If nothing else, the theatrics employed by Hitler and Mussolini just seemed too weird and downright ridiculous to the British.
P.G. Wodehouse captured this perfectly in an exchange between a British wannabe fascist, Roderick Spode, and Bertie Wooster: “The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone.”
I don’t intend to liken fascists to environmentalists, but Brits have at least expressed a similar, visceral distaste for the theatrics of eco-activist groups in recent years. Marching in black ‘footer bags’, pretending to be the voice of the people, is just as ridiculous as holding up traffic in an orange ‘Just Stop Oil’ t-shirt.
The environmental movement becomes more absurd by the day. The Guardian’s George Monbiot, for instance, has just called for the reintroduction of deadly wolves and lynxes to Great Britain, in order to manage a surging deer population. One can only hope that this call to action will have about as much success as his campaign against meat, milk and eggs, which Monbiot is convinced are an ‘indulgence’ humanity can no longer afford.
Sadly, the same is not true in Germany, where the elites are all too keen to humour even the most extreme climate fanatics. German discount supermarket Penny recently decided to increase the prices of its meat and dairy products, to include the environmental costs incurred in their production, as part of a week-long experiment. The price of frankfurter sausages rose from €3.19 to €6.01. The price of mozzarella rose by 74%, to €1.55. And the price of fruit yoghurt rose by 31%, from €1.19 to €1.56.
While the usual suspects in the establishment are clearly excited by this idea that in the future even shopping at a discount shop might become the preserve of the rich, average Germans are less pleased. Germany’s public broadcaster, WDR, asked Penny customers what they thought about the price-hike experiment. Due to a lack of enthusiasm from shoppers, WDR decided to have one of its employees cosplay as a happy shopper. That taxpayer-funded broadcasters now have to resort to outright fraud in order to drum up support for idiotic climate action tells you everything you need to know.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Germany has indeed fallen to environmental madness. But the stand out policy area with greatest impact x 100 isn’t covered by this article and that is energy. Germany have hobbled their energy supplies, and it is having a huge impact on their economy. In an age of universal deceit they are of course misidentifying the reasons for their loss of manufacturing competitiveness and correctly identifying it is seen as a revolutionary act. The problem is of course multi-factorial. But that just allows the fanatics to over-index on every factor that isn’t energy. And by fanatics, I include mainstream German media.
The fact is the cost of energy affects the cost of everything. Transport, office heating, machining, injection moulding, the cost of heating the oven for the sausage roll you ate for lunch, the delivery couriers delivering all manner of supplies supplies. EVERYTHING.
And then we read how badly Germany is performing, and every other factor, other than energy is invoked as an excuse for the poor performance.
And The West is losing status and power in every way. It feels like our decline, inevitable, but manageable, has been transformed into a sky dive with the parachute replaced by a downward pointing rocket with an extinction rebelllion logo painted on the side.
I meet up with 5 friends every Christmas – all Guardian-reading left of centre types since leaving university in the early 80’s. All inherited large sums and retired in their 50’s.
All bought into all the Covid hysteria – lockdowns. masks, jabs etc and seemed oblivious to the absurdities. They all believe man is causing the world to overheat and causing wild fires, sea level rises and all the man made CO2 bollox.
Most have electric cars (as 2nd cars) to save the planet and they treat me as a conspirancy theorist due to my scepticism of the covid and climate change narratives. The thing is – they all have several holidays abroad a year (many long haul) and their “main” cars are either 4 litre SUVs or high end sports cars.
They like to label me “a climate change denier”, yet their hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance of buying into all the climate boiling nonsence yet having a carbon footprint 10 times the size of mine is astonishing.
I feel for you! I have a similar group of mainly Guardian reading friends, among them teachers, HR managers, engineers with various electric vehicles and one, an engineer with a heat pump recently installed. And when we meet there is always an undercurrent of discomfort as we disagree on leaving the EU, Trump, the covid hysteria, net zero etc. We even disagreed on the politics of Bruce bloody Springsteen last time we met.
Yep – that all sounds quite familiar. Their references are The Guardian, FT, BBC, Met Office etc etc. They raise Climate Change, Covid, Trump etc in conversation – despite knowing I will stand my ground and argue my viewpoint.
It’s a little embarrassing really as they don’t seem to engage the facts but just regurgitate the insults they have unwittingly absorbed. It’s like engaging with Pavlov’s dogs.
I’m a “agree to disagree” type – so they’re still mates in my eyes – just seriously misguided!
For me, debate is everything. So, I don’t care if my friends have bonkers ideas, as long as they’re ready to defend them. They’ll be my friends forever.
It’s people who have bonkers ideas but then refuse to debate or defend them and just pretend to be virtuous by “choosing not to engage with a science denier”. They get the machete from me. Cut them right out of my life. No exceptions, family, acquaintances, the lot. Life is too short.
As above 🥴
Springsteen was interesting for about 5 years in the late 70’s.
Why bother with them?
These people have made it but know they are frauds and so want to stop the game so that they can hold.on to their undeserved position of privilege.
That us true to some extent of much of the over credentialled middle and upper middle classes who deep down know their real productive value is far below their actual income.
It’s time for some new friends 😉
Just put in any word you want in place of Trump and I think you have the left of centre thought process…? Exhibit A…
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WlmBTV9Br00
Next time you see them, tell them a climate change denier is someone who denies that the climate has ever changed in the past, and denies it can change unless Mankind burns fossil fuels.
Then you can call them climate stasis believers.
German globalists don’t do ‘subtle’ do they?
https://twitter.com/CartlandDavid/status/1693658124433883601
Germany has fallen to a lot of dogma in the recent past, the worst of which appears to be Mutti’s ‘Wir schaffen das ’
Stasi Angela was always working for the enemies of the west ….
Man’s got a good point. Backed up by science and everything;
”Seems like a fair question to ask:
If reducing emissions is really the goal, justifying huge daily fines on older non-compliant cars, then why are we introducing a speed limit that increases emissions and logjams?”
https://twitter.com/freddiesayers/status/1693367827665736128
Because reasons…
“I don’t intend to liken fascists to environmentalists..”
No, and it never starts with concentration camps, either.
Thank God Brits are immune to nationalist theatralics. Nobody knows how the 20th century would have turned out to be if this hadn’t been the case!
Very good point. Believing that one arbitrarily defined group of people is somehow more immune to hysteria than another arbitrarily defined group of people comes out of the same weak-minded cookbook as that which says certain plants are “invasive” and should be ripped out of the ground and then either trampled upon or deported back to their home country.
Downvoter, come on…. Pay up your £5 and stop being so stingy. We have things to debate here, we search for truth.
I think it’s really a little more subtle. Hitler was probably routinely ridiculed by British propaganda (including post-war propaganda, eg, the entirely fictional story about the last days of Berlin) and that’s why Britons tend to regard him as ridiculous, ie, it’s the exact opposite of what the author claims and not unsurprisingly. The great Corona swindle has provided a recent live exercise in getting people to believe in outright ridiculous stuff, eg, the health benefits of putting on a mask when standing up from a table in a pub in order to go to the toilet — I’ve seen people doing that voluntarily long after the mask mandate was abolished, hence, they must really have believed it makes sense.
Agree entirely with the comments about Guardian reading friends. There are some topics I avoid entirely – my fault, but I’m not so effective at arguing my corner as some of the folks who post here.
However, Monbiot has a point about the deer…but his solution is ludicrous on our small island.
Well if they are going to reintroduce meat eating quadrupeds, ie turn the UK back into the Wild West then they had better have another think about gun laws. And no, a shotgun license for keeping down rabbits won’t do.
Ok, the downvoter is welcome to stroll around the wilderness unarmed with the wolves. Good luck with that, I expect Darwinian selection will take its inevitable toll. Yum!
Eat the deer…..
Planning doesn’t look like falling to the climate crisis since you can’t put uPVC windows in a grade II listed house. Obviously what we really should do is demolish all the old buildings and build energy efficient replacements. Perhaps starting with the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. That and a ban on private flights before working our way down the socio-economic scale to the starving of the poor.
The short “Three men…” novels of Jerome K. Jerome, written at the beginning of the 20th century, provide an entertaining insight into the English character – something quite distinct from that of the mainland. I recognized it in my uncle when he visited Oz. It is a precious flame that must be re-kindled.
The English character aka Jerome K.Jerome is now, sadly, as rare a rocking horse Ka-ka.
Merkel was never working for the benefit of the west.
” I have long been convinced that one of the reasons why fascism never had a chance in Britain was due to the predispositions of her people. “
That certainly used to be the case. But their cowardly capitulation to the Covid Tyranny demonstrated that the Bulldog Race has been severely weakened and these days is no more resilient or resistant to Fascism than its continental cousins.
Agreed.
And “Antifa” and “Hope not Hate” are both more fascist than the BUF used to be.
Germany invented eco-madness. It’s why they were late to the Industrial Revolution and may be first back into the fields.
Reported on Slaynews that the German Goverment has funneled some 3.8 billion euros ($4.15 billion) to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The funds have been directed toward various projects and programs related to globalist initiatives including population control programs and the UN Agenda 2030.
Bizarrely the information was obtained through investigating politicians from the Left wing Die Link party. Why are they funding Darth Vader Gates? They should be shutting him down and arresting him and his gang.