I got this far, para 2, into Polly Toynbee\’s latest piece and gave up.
But just a week since rioting kicked off, the political significance has yet to dawn. So far, the small-staters are losing. A small state means – and Cameron has not budged – a smaller police force and shrunken social programmes, with more potential for anarchy. The politics of this are dangerous for a Tory government. In any public clash with high-ranking police of Sir Hugh Orde\’s stature, Tory ministers would be wise to beat a retreat.
Peter Simple had it all those years ago.
Mrs. Dutt-Pauker.
Yes, based upon the Toynbees in part. Polly herself perhaps having a tad of Dr. Heinz Kiosk in her. When looking from man to pig and pig to man it\’s a little difficult to see which of reality and Simplevision influences which.
Is Bert Brecht Mao Rudy Che Odinga (or Mao Banana) a prediction of Seumas Milne or the example upon which Seumas has modelled himself?
Depends on how you look at the evidence. One positive pro-anarchist thing that comes out of the data is that we now know that in a situation where, for a considerable period, the State loses its power over society, the majority of people do not steal, commit violence, etc and that in fact, fairly rapidly, “little platoons” oraginise to take up the slack.
Indeed, talking to a friend who lives in Peckham, his own street organised defence centred on the two shops, one at each end.
So, you can look at it either way really.
Polly’s drivel is based upon 2 mistaken beliefs;
1. That Cameron and the coalition government are small staters. No dear. The cuts in frontline services are due to spending too much money in the past and bureaucrats aiming reductions at the most emotive parts of their budgets. The state itself is not shrinking.
2. That a vacuum created by the state retreating will always be filled with anarchy. Ian B’s example and many more besides prove otherwise. The danger for lasting anarchy can only come from the state preventing others from taking on responsibility.
The by line of “Denouncing criminality and banging up looters is easy. Social repair is slow, costly and difficult – a fact Cameron must confront”: Will that have been written by Polly?
As the roving bands of brush wielding members of the public demonstrated, social repair can be fast, cheap and easy, and doesn’t need much involvement from the Government.
Polly says: “The small-staters blame the collapse of moral values, school indiscipline and feral beasts without fathers or consciences, as if removing government allows morality to flourish.”
The morals instilled upon many by the state-as-parent *are* malign, *are* counter productive, *are* corrosive to public order. The looters in Westminster have themselves got a gross sense of entitlement and have encouraged it in others.
I said a week (?) ago that the fallout from this fracas would not land in a spot that would make Polly happy. I stand by that prediction. Given that anything that makes the disgusting Toynbee sad makes me glad, I guess I’m in for a spell of the Big Cheesy Grins. Worthless bloody chintz-sofa Bolshevik oxygen thief that she is.
“So far the small staters are losing?” What is she smoking?? The whole thing has highlighted to everybody that the State cannot in the end protect them, and that their security comes from voluntarily banding together in communities.
I think they will come to be seen as a watershed. The riots have made it clear to everybody what the real results of the Big State of the last 50 years have been – and people don’t like what they see.
When you have Diane Abbott(!) blaming the riots on lack of assertiveness from the police, it is clear that the politics of Ms Toynbee and her friends are in serious trouble.
More anarchy? Excellent! Anarchy does not equal chaos.
From what I see, concepts of Right and Left are meaningless.
Libertarians have more in common with the pure “anarchist” model than is realised; fascists are closer to communists than they like; corporatists are closer to social welfarists than they like to admit.
How quaint and old fashioned the Guardian seems, compared to the up-to-the-minute commentary of the soaraway Medieval Times & Reactionary Herald!
Who do you thing is the Guardian version of Dierdrie, Polly Dutt-Paulker’s dopey daughter?
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I worry less about Mrs Dutt-Parker – or indeed about the good Bishop of Bevingdon – that I do abou the veritable plague of Jeremy Cardhouses that have been visited upon us.