Tea at Trianon: Why Britain is Broken & How to Fix 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, March 10, 2025

Why Britain is Broken & How to Fix it

David Starkey on the much-needed Restoration.

From Amuse on X:

The specter of an Orwellian Britain is no longer a thought experiment confined to the pages of dystopian fiction. It is, instead, manifesting in real time under the guise of expanded hate speech legislation, exemplified most alarmingly by the UK government’s latest initiative to define and criminalize “Islamophobia.” Vice President JD Vance’s recent warning about the United Kingdom’s descent into anti-democratic overreach now appears less like political rhetoric and more like a sober assessment of a government rapidly consolidating its control over speech, thought, and civic discourse.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s push for a formal definition of Islamophobia may seem, at first glance, a well-intentioned effort to combat discrimination. However, upon closer inspection, this effort bears all the hallmarks of a modern-day blasphemy law—one that, in the name of tolerance, effectively revives Britain’s abolished blasphemy statutes under a new secular pretext. Britain’s original blasphemy laws, which criminalized offenses against Christianity, were repealed in 2008 after being deemed incompatible with modern notions of free expression. At the time, their abolition was hailed as a triumph for free speech, removing outdated restrictions on religious criticism. Yet, this new initiative threatens to undo that progress, reintroducing punitive measures against those who challenge or critique religious ideologies—only this time, under the banner of protecting a specific faith from offense. This is not about preventing incitement to violence or ensuring fair treatment under the law; those mechanisms already exist. Rather, it is about defining Islamophobia in a manner that will inevitably criminalize criticism of Islamic beliefs and practices. The UK is on the precipice of a fundamental shift—one in which the state determines which viewpoints are permitted and which are deemed criminal.
The UK’s aggressive expansion of hate speech laws has been steadily encroaching on free expression for years. Individuals have been arrested and even convicted for offenses as trivial as tweeting provocative remarks about soldiers, wearing politically incorrect t-shirts, or making ill-advised jokes in public. The cases of a man jailed for calling his ex-girlfriend’s Irish boyfriend a “leprechaun” or another for singing ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ in the presence of a bystander who deemed it offensive illustrate the absurd extremes to which the British government has gone in policing speech. More troublingly, citizens have been arrested for expressing opinions on immigration and the Pakistani grooming gang scandals. Tommy Robinson, a well-known activist, was jailed for contempt of court while reporting on a high-profile grooming gang case, an arrest many saw as politically motivated censorship. Others, including journalist Darren Grimes, have faced police investigation for interviewing guests who expressed controversial views on these topics. A British army veteran was even arrested at his home for sharing a meme criticizing Islam on social media. These cases demonstrate a clear trend: the state is increasingly using hate speech laws as a tool to suppress politically inconvenient discussions. But the proposed Islamophobia definition threatens to take this even further, raising the specter of an ideological enforcement mechanism that outstrips previous crackdowns. (Read more.)