Remember 7.10

When I returned to Britain after twenty years abroad, I found myself widowed and living alone in a London very different from the place I was working when I went abroad in 1992. I would ride the 94 bus to town, only hearing the English language on the recorded announcements. Buses and tube trains, which I remembered as being quiet enough to work on, were a clamour of every language but my own. Where, I wondered, were the English?

I had been home for a year before I realised that a good number of people on the bus were as monastically silent as me. Looking around at them I realised we were here. We’re just still quiet. Too nice to say “shush” to the first noisy incomer to ignore our cultural practices, we were now doomed to be inaudible in our own capital. When I had an Indian girlfriend (later, briefly, my wife) I mentioned it to her. The next day she reported that she’d discussed it with all the other foreign students on her masters course and that they’d had an “aha” moment. So that’s where the natives are, they’d said!

I remembered this at the rally in Hyde Park today. On the 94 bus there, I’d googled it and found no sign it was happening. The Met had asked the organisers not to publish the location so that the pro-Hamas “protesters” they so assiduously protect didn’t threaten our (or more likely their officers’) safety. I wondered - denied all modern means of publicity - if anyone would be there. 

I needn’t have worried. There was a large, multi-generational, polite and well behaved crowd to listen to the Israeli ambassador and other speakers remember the pogrom of a year ago tomorrow.

The UK I grew up in is still here, though you’d never guess it from the clamour of the MSM, our terrorist—sympathising government or social media. We’d talked to each other, exchanged private messages and kept the whole thing — amazingly — off the internet. We’d been sure enough we could do it that families had showed up with their grannies and their infants without fear of the swastika-waving “we love Hezbollah” fascistic barbarians who had owned London’s streets yesterday. 

I am not able to stand very long these days and after a short time I needed the loo. I hate being old. Having found relief, I sat in light rain on the nearest free bench to the event and watched Londoners of middle-Eastern appearance and Muslim garb walk by, horrified, at the sight of a sea of Israeli flags in Hyde Park. They’d clearly had no idea it was going to happen.

Part of me hates that secrecy was needed. Londoners should be able to show their support for civilisation as loudly and proudly as our barbarian cohorts show theirs for its enemies.  I just loved the fact that we’d been able to organise in the face of such obstacles — and that so many of us showed up to stand in the rain, remember the victims of a pogrom and — so differently from the pogroms of old — show support for an army of Jews equipped to fight back and defeat their enemies.

I am not Jewish as many of the attendees were but I felt  happy to be among my people. My people in the sense of civilised Londoners, free of hatred and political extremism, doing the right thing for no better reason than that it was the right thing. 

Remember 7.10. Stand with Israel. Because it’s right and because — if she falls — she won’t fall alone. 

PS. It seems I did stay to the end. I listened to the speeches at a distance from my rainy bench and the event is now ending with the national anthem. You won’t hear God Save the King at a pro-Palestine rally, that’s for sure. Israel still exists and so — for now — does Britain. 

Legalising assisted suicide: Theory and Practice

Legalising assisted suicide would be a profound moral error - spiked.

One of the fundamental ideas of libertarianism is self-ownership. If you have legal capacity to decide (i.e. you are adult and sane) then you can do what you like with yourself and your body. If you want to mutilate or kill yourself, that's your choice and no-one else's. So assisted suicide should present me, as a libertarian, with no moral problem. Yet it does. In theory, it's fine but in practice there are serious issues.

 

There have been moments when the only reason I didn't commit suicide was because of the effect on the people I love. The first time was during a long-ago marital crisis. The dark web didn't then exist then but it was easy to find out how. The government helpfully provided the information by restricting the sale of certain over-the-counter pharmaceuticals to safe amounts. All I had to do was tour pharmacies and buy ten times those amounts. I returned home and poured myself water to wash down the pills. As I held the glass, I imagined my toddler daughters hearing I was dead. I couldn't do that to them so decided to live - for many months in profound misery. 

 

Many tales like mine end differently in the United States. One of the reasons gun control advocates always talk about gun deaths rather than homicides is that so many gun deaths are suicides. A suicidal American with a gun has the means to act. Suicide rates are higher among doctors and dentists for the same reason. They always have the means at hand.

 

That said, I'd rather have freedom than safety. In a free society, I'd favour assisted suicide so that frailer people could pay for help to act on their free choices. Private doctors would be governed in their conduct by their professional bodies and – more importantly – by their liability insurers. They'd have to ensure their patient was legally competent and suggest alternatives so they didn't get sued. Friends or family asked to help someone die would have similar legal concerns – at least about the would-be suicide's mental health. There would be many unfortunate outcomes because life isn't perfect, but those are protections enough. It's better we make some wrong decisions than that all decisions are taken away from us.

 

I can't support it in Britain however because of the NHS. When it was created, our ancestors thought they were nationalising the provision of medical services. In truth, as Labour's current rhetoric about saving it money by focussing on prevention shows, we nationalised our bodies. If we make the wrong health choices, the cost falls on the state so – inevitably – the state wants to make the choices.

 

This is nonsense of course. The state doesn't have the means to meet any costs other than by robbing us or borrowing against our credit. Our wrong choices (drugs, smoking, obesity, etc) tend to mean we're not around for the really big hit on the NHS - old age. Many old people access medical services constantly. That's when most get the benefit of the money they paid in to the system during their productive lives. But if the government can off the elderly, they will have more tax money available for things they really care about, In Labour's case, they also know the elderly generally don't vote for them. Killing them improves their re-election prospects, just as giving the vote to sixteen year olds will. 

 

It is frankly sinister that Labour is suddenly raising this issue now in the context of (a) the black hole rhetoric used to justify cancelling the winter fuel allowances, and (b) its review of the NHS. I have no doubt that their rationale is to get rid of as many of its most costly patients as possible. If they don't die of hypothermia at home, they can be guilted into not being a burden on the hallowed NHS.

 

The linked article cites examples of horror stories emerging from the Netherlands, where old people now desperately resist going into hospital because they know they'll be encouraged to die, and Canada. Canada is a perfect example because it's the only other country that still has a Soviet health system like ours. Canada's MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) programme is now the country's fifth leading cause of death. When Christine Gauthier, a Paralympian and veteran asked the authorities if she could have a stairlift installed in her home, she received a letter asking if she had considered euthanasia.

 

From the point of view of apparatchiks managing a state health service, every patient will present a choice. Provide treatment that may costs hundreds of thousands of pounds or offer a cheap death. If you're an old lady like my mum; unable to take care of yourself, sad and lonely in widowhood, guilty about the strain you're putting on your care-giving daughter, etc., how likely are you to say yes? For that matter, if you're a single, unemployed, young man suffering from depression why wouldn't you? It's happening, big-time, in the Netherlands.

There, physically healthy young people are being euthanised to ‘cure’ conditions like depression and anxiety.

It's the old people I mainly worry about though. They'll be pressured to check out early not just to save the NHS money (and its staff trouble) but to accelerate the inheritance of an indebted generation waiting for them to die. Most families are loving and caring, no doubt, but there are plenty of Dickensian rascals waiting at bedsides – metaphorical and otherwise.

The Left are skilful and relentless about normalising whatever they've decided is necessary for the advancement of their cause. They are masters of both euphemism and agitprop. They demonise their opponents and sanctify their supporters. Once they have their foot in this door, they will keep pushing it open and many will die. Thanks to the NHS, one in five deaths in Britain are already avoidable. Now Labour wants us to stop even trying to avoid death. It won't end well.

The Future

Miss Paine the Elder and her life partner have chosen the name of my granddaughter - due to join us on December 9th - but will not share it with anyone until she is actually born. So for now she is codenamed "Boudicca" – Miss Paine the Younger's jocular suggestion when told they wanted a "traditional English name, not too commonly used." I have been thinking of her as Boudicca now for so long (and, trust me, I think about her a lot) that I may keep calling her that.

Regular readers will recall my unalloyed joy at the news of her impending arrival. She's not even born yet and she's making me a better man. For the first time in years, I'm thinking about the future. It will be her world now and I want it to be great. I also want to live long enough for her to remember me and am constantly planning ways to be as memorable and beloved a grandfather as my dad was to my girls.

That's the good news. The bad news is that our civilisation is still in jeopardy. Our enemies mass at the gates. Our leadership is execrable. It's so stupid it can't understand the importance of the freedoms that made the West. It lacks morals. Its public policy ideas would shame a sixth-form debating society - even one formed (as my admissions tutor – looking at the crap comprehensive I was "educated" in – rightly guessed) just to look good on an application to a law faculty. 

I had resigned myself to the fact that a great civilisation was coming to an end (as all must) and that it was my destiny to live in its final years. Statistically Boudicca is likely to live more than a century however, so my concerns now reach beyond that feared end. I'd always assumed my American-educated daughters could flee there if Britain and Europe fall into a new Dark Ages. Now I have to pay attention to trends in American politics that make it seem doubtful as a refuge.

Arguably the most optimistic thing I ever did – a decade and a half ago in Moscow – was to start this blog. I uttered the optimist's favourite cliché: that it was better to light a candle than curse the darkness and set out quietly to try to change minds. I remembered how one pamphlet – Tom Paine's "Common Sense" – had shaped a new world and took his as a pen-name in the hope of pamphleteering digitally to similar effect.

How many minds have I actually reached? A few thousand at best. A few hundred regulars. Remember how the internet was going to allow us all to escape the wicked grasp of press barons and those whose spittle they lick? Well it kind of happened – consider the reach of Guido Fawkes or Ian Dale these days, let alone Elon Musk on X – but it wasn't to be for most of us. My candle is still a candle and the ideas it was supposed to illuminate – Enlightenment notions that were uncontroversial for centuries – are more in the dark than ever.

I would love it if you, gentle readers, could help me back from the negative mindset to which, in such circumstances,  I have descended. I don't hope to recover the arrogance or optimism of my youth. I quite accept that the wisdom of age largely consists of realising how little you really know and how stupid you used to sound. There's nothing wrong with a bit of humility or perspective, for sure. I just need to recover some hope that, for the sake of my Boudicca and yours, good ideas can prevail.

The only hopeful straws I see in the current winds are Elon Musk, a friend's son's explanation to his dad of all the "bullshit you have to pretend to believe at school to get marks" and the fact that – last July – the utter collapse of the Conservative vote in Britain didn't increase the numbers voting Labour. In fact, in the only part of this realm with a Labour administration (my native Wales) their vote went down. Only in Scotland did Labour gain – from the laughably incompetent (and left-wing) SNP. 

Also, while critical thinking has been hounded out of the Establishment and the dreaming spires of academe by the clerisy of a new religion rivalling Scientology for weirdness and stupidity, it lives on among the laity. The ordinary people of the West lack leadership however. The more thoughtful among us live in fear that they may acquire some of a nefarious kind. The more the Leftist Establishment cries wolf about the "far right" the more likely a real wolf is to spy an opportunity. All non-leftists have now been called Nazis so often that it's lost the shock it should command. I hate to end on a negative note, but that seems almost as dangerous as the religious and ideological threats calling such demons forth.

So, gentles, if you have seen other straws in the wind that might give me hope, please let me know in the comments.