Tea at Trianon: Will Starmer End British Political Life as We Know It?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, August 5, 2024

Will Starmer End British Political Life as We Know It?

From The American Conservative:

It is easy to feel schadenfreude in the wake of the Conservative defeat in the British general elections. That it is easy, to be clear, does not mean that it is wrong. The Conservatives deserved to lose—and a lot of the Conservative MPs deserved to lose their seats. As I wrote in these pages, they accomplished little while doing a lot of harm.
That Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has not actually improved Labour’s vote share since 2019—when the party suffered a historic defeat under Jeremy Corbyn—demonstrates that its success had more to do with Conservative weakness than with its strength. There has been no rush of enthusiasm for Keir Starmer. There has just been the vague, and eminently understandable, sense that anyone is preferable to the idiots in power. (Read more.)

From Sky News:

Every violent protest has its own reasons but sunny weather doesn't help. In any season police will tell you that "PC Rain" is the most effective officer keeping trouble off the streets. On warm days and nights in summer more people are out and about rubbing up against each other. Tempers of the hot and bothered fray more easily. Tensions are high this sultry weekend after rallying calls were identified online calling for protests - with mosques or hotels housing asylum seekers the preferred rallying points for many protesters. Rioters clashed with police on Saturday in several towns and cities across the UK.
When asked if he feared a "summer of riots" this week the prime minister dodged the question by concentrating on recent specific events. After the protests which have flared in Southport, London, Leeds and elsewhere following the killing of three little girls, Sir Keir warned he has to deal with "a group of individuals who are absolutely hell-bent on violence". That was why he had decided "to pull together senior police officers" to ensure that "this is met with the most robust response, not just in the coming days but all the time". An effective response to rioting requires appropriate powers for the police and swift justice for offenders.
In the longer term, though, there are two more complex tasks - to try to counter external forces, such as the internet, which may have facilitated trouble-making and, most difficult of all, to decide how to respond to the grievances of those causing the mayhem. (Read more.)