THE LAST DITCH An Englishman returned after twenty years abroad blogs about liberty in Britain

What is the Deep State?

At simplest, the Deep State is just a new name for what we used to call The Establishment – people in and around positions of power who exert influence by virtue of who they are and their social circle – i.e. whom they know. In Britain it tended to include the aristocracy because they were the wealthy elite of the time and had a tradition of involvement in politics and administration under the banner of noblesse oblige. Wikipedia tells us;

In 1955, the journalist Henry Fairlie popularised the contemporary usage of the term The Establishment to denote the network of socially prominent and politically important people:

By the 'Establishment' I do not mean only the centres of official power — though they are certainly part of it — but rather the whole matrix of official and social relations within which power is exercised. The exercise of power in Britain (more specifically, in England) cannot be understood unless it is recognised that it is exercised socially.

Those on the Left might argue that no new name is needed. The Establishment now – for reasons worthy of separate study – is completely left-wing. We just have different personnel because, in their favourite phrase, "society has moved on. Get over it." 

Perhaps the main difference is, however, that Leftists see everything as political and are more likely to exercise the soft power of influence in ways the old Establishment would have considered (if it had ever even occurred to them) as improper.

To understand just how differently the Deep State works, listen to at least some of this three-hour-long episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, in which he interviews American entrepreneur Mark Andreessen. In a restrained, mild-mannered way Andreessen gives examples of what he calls "the raw application of power" – without legislation, regulation or due process. It is genuinely scary. 

If you listen at 1hr 34mins to his explanation of de-banking as it's been used in America, for example, he says;

It's a privatised sanctions regime that lets bureaucrats do to American citizens what we do to Iran

This has been happening to crypto entrepreneurs, fintech entrepreneurs and in legal fields of economic activity (e.g. medical marijuana, prostitution and guns). Thirty of his own investors have been debanked. The Biden administration has extended it to political opponents in general. Andreessen says it's one of the reasons he began supporting Trump;

We can't live in a world where somebody starts a business that is completely legal and then gets sanctioned

Nothing is written down. There is no appeal. The bank just responds to a request from an organisation that can make trouble for a highly-regulated entity. The government just says "it's a private bank and can do what it likes". It's just the raw application of power. If it happens to you, you must live on cash and try to find a new field of business where the "Eye of Sauron" no longer notices you. How can you tell if the eye looked away? Keep applying for bank accounts until someone demonstrates your status has changed by allowing you to open one. 

At 2 hours 30 minutes, he explains the old concept of "barriers to market entry" and how it now works in practice. Big business often supports more regulation. Why? Because it can afford thousands of lawyers and compliance officers to work in the newly complex framework and potential new competitors can't. So over-regulation creates a barrier against market entry – it prevents new competitors from starting up. The banking regulations introduced after the crisis in 2008, for example, have ensured that not one new bank has entered the US market. 

On the topic of AI, he makes the interesting observation that we might have to think more like medieval people to understand our world in future. There will be new AI entities at work among us which might be thought of metaphorically as angels, demons or spirits. As such they would be easier for medievals to deal with than for us products of the Age of Reason. He goes on from that to say that ancient ways of thinking might also help us deal with "woke", which he regards as having every characteristic of a religion – except redemption.

The woke have understood – as ancient rulers did – the power of ostracising. Socrates chose to die rather than just go into exile because he was a creature of his culture and wouldn't survive outside Athens. The woke don't need to kill a modern dissenter – just cut him off from the society in which he thrives. A very few people (eccentrics like Jordan Petersen, for example) can bear that (though even he seems to have had a breakdown) but most who can are so weird that – to a casual observer – their protests make the cancellation seem justified. We are social creatures who fear being ostracised so much that we submit to the threat of cancellation as readily as we would to a threat of death.

Being ordered about by a black nurse with an impenetrable accent the other day, I understood not a single word. I held my tongue and followed the crowd in reacting to her for fear (perfectly justified as this employment tribunal decision shows) of being cast out of the righteous. I am ashamed of my weakness. Communicators have a duty to make an effort to be understood. I should have politely encouraged her to make an effort. I am ornery enough to do so on occasion, but was in an A&E department in fear of my life. Worse – if I am honest – I feared the condemnation of my daughter who was with me.

This isn't just true for the educated elite. Take the Chester City football fan condemned in public for a racist gesture at a rival player. He committed suicide before the police could even find him. He knew there would be no forgiveness and still less any hope of redemption. 

At 33 mins 45 secs, Andreessen makes the point in taking about cancellation on social media that:

All new information is heretical by definition. Anytime anyone has a new idea it's a threat to the existing power structure. All new ideas start as heresies and if you don't have an environment that can tolerate heresies you're not going to have new ideas. You're going to end up with complete stagnation and if you have stagnation you're going to go straight into decline. 

I am retired so can give three hours of my life to this stuff. I can't help but think that if Joe Rogan would hire an editor he could magnify the impact he has on the world. If you have time, give it a listen. If not, at least try to listen to the discussion about de-banking. It is terrifying. 


A further health update

Last Monday went better than I could reasonably have hoped. I went into hospital at 06.30 am to be prepped for theatre. The procedure was interesting and I remained conscious throughout under mild sedation. A probe was inserted into my right wrist and fed through into my heart. My consultant reported, while looking inside it, that my heart was fine with no more furring than might be expected in someone my age.

This was surprisingly good news for everyone except my health insurer, which might well be wondering about the money it spent both on the scan that suggested the procedure was necessary and on the very well-staffed (consultant, anaesthetist and half a dozen nurses) procedure itself.

I am not out of the woods as this leaves my symptoms to be otherwise explained. Given that I am already being treated for a clot – a DVT in my left leg – it's most likely that other clots are affecting my lungs. If I have experienced these symptoms all this time for that reason, without lethal effect, then I am a lucky man indeed. My consultant commissioned a CT scan on my lungs while I waited to be discharged and promised that my original cardiologist will get back to me with a plan. 

I am already on Apixaban (thinners) and that's likely to be the continuing treatment, I suppose. In terms of my mobility and general health I am no better than I was before these events, so it's a bit odd to be happier. The unexpected clean bill of health on my elderly heart has – together with my doctors' assurances that I will be fixed – cheered me up however. I have been making plans for trips to make when I am fit enough to wander about with my camera gear again.

I skipped the last home match at Craven Cottage for fear of repetition of the incident last October 19th. I have now been on thinners for ten days so I plan to go to the match against Wolves tomorrow to see if they've made any difference yet. Rather than use taxis as I did on October 19th, I'm going to take the usual couple of buses and see how I cope.

Fingers crossed.


Health Update

Some, I hope premature, final thoughts - THE LAST DITCH.

Having raised some concerns in the linked post, I thought I should update you, gentle readers, on my health. It took longer to see a consultant than I thought but that was my fault. I entirely forgot that my health insurance gives me online access to a GP. I went to my regular GP instead, which cost me ten days.
 
Once armed with a referral letter it took four days to get approval from my insurers and a further three days to get in front of a consultant. During that period, I had one further episode. I drove my sister to Rochester Cathedral last Saturday to sing choral evensong with her choir. They decided, after a wonderful performance (sacred music can be – and this was – truly beautiful) to head to a nearby pub. The resulting walk brought on a repeat of what happened on the 19th October. A doctor in the choir – Head of Medicine at a Birmingham hospital – saw what happened and said something was seriously wrong.
 
Two days later my cardiologist organised an ECG, echocardiogram, blood tests and a CT scan. The scan showed plaques (chalky buildups) narrowing the arteries in my heart. This seemed to account for my symptoms. I was referred to another consultant to discuss an invasive angiogram to confirm the state of my heart and – if necessary – to insert a stent. I was prescribed beta-blockers, statins and aspirin in the meantime. This all seemed clear enough. We knew the problem and had a solution.
 
Fate had other plans however. During a video consult on Wednesday my cardiologist reported that my blood tests had suggested clots and I reported my left leg had swelled up below the knee. He told me to adjourn immediately to A&E as it sounded like I had a clot in my leg, which could easily migrate somewhere lethal. I had planned drinks and dinner with Miss P. the Younger that evening and – when I called to cry off – she offered to come meet me at the hospital. That made for a much less stressful experience.
 
It proved impossible to organise the scan, so I was sent home with a dose of thinners and asked to return yesterday. I did, but my leg is so swollen that they couldn't get a definitive result. The doctor who eventually saw me said she was going to assume there was a clot and treat me accordingly. She prescribed blood thinners and said the anti-coagulation team would follow up in a few weeks. There'd then be another scan and a decision would be made on where we go from there. 
 
I asked for copies of their test/scan results and emailed them to my two private cardiologists. The first one has called me already to take me off the aspirin he'd prescribed as that would conflict with the thinners. I expressed disappointment when he said we might have to delay the angiogram to allow the treatment for my clot to play out. I said I'd follow advice, obviously, but wanted to get on with treatment as quickly as possible. Until the clot emerged, the plan had been to fix my heart – one way or another - within two working days. That felt like a good return on my investment in health insurance to me, given that I would have had to wait in a Soviet-style queue for each of the battery of tests I had on Monday and would probably not have had a diagnosis – let alone treatment – for weeks.
 
He said he'd speak to his colleague who was to do the angiogram and have him call me to discuss next steps. He duly did at 6pm yesterday and was happy to proceed with the angiogram.  We're aiming to do it on Monday morning though there's some doubt as the hospital he's at that day is outside my insurance coverage. We're trying to work around that.
 
Having read me the scary lawyer-warnings and secured my consent, we left it that I should block out Monday for treatment and expect to be home with my heart fixed by mid-afternoon.
 
 

Donald Trump just won the greatest jury verdict in history

Donald Trump just won the greatest jury verdict in history.

Laws and legal processes should be independent of politics. If the cases against President-elect Trump are now dropped, as it's being suggested they will be, that is an admission that they were politically-motivated. To bring a case against a political foe you wouldn't have brought against someone else is a malicious abuse of process and quite possibly criminal in itself. President Trump famously holds grudges so admitting to that may not be the safest idea.
 
The prosecutors concerned claim they did not abuse legal process for political gain. Fine. So they should continue with the cases – in the teeth of the clear hostility and disbelief of American voters – and live with any personal consequences. President Trump can afford all the lawyers he needs. He can use some of his wealth to protect little guys who might be victims of malicious prosecutions in future. Let's see this filthy game through to the end.
 
I haven't looked into all of the cases personally; just the New York one about property finance. It's a field in which I have some experience. The alleged victims there have no complaints. Sure, President Trump claimed his assets were more valuable than lenders thought they were. But the deals were done on the basis of lenders' own valuations. The loans were duly repaid. No-one involved was seeking legal relief. This very much looks like Democrat law officers creating imaginary victims for political purposes. But hey, that's their party's modus operandi, right? 
 
I will be very surprised if he doesn't win on appeal. Whatever the outcome, I think it's reasonable that there should be an investigation of the process. If it's found that legal processes were misused for political purposes, which seems likely to me, then there should be legal and professional consequences for the law officers concerned.
 
As the alleged victim is the next President from from the party which will control the legislature, I think it's a fair bet that justice will be sought, but I hope Mr Trump draws the line at that. His party started the whole "lawfare" trend with repeated attempts to impeach a Democrat President and it's just not what laws are for.
 
Have your political arguments before the court of public opinion and leave the professional judges out of it. Abuse of legal process creates terrible problems for less wealthy individuals. For them it hardly matters what the outcome is, because the process is punishment enough. Worst of all, such abuse undermines respect for Law itself. 
 
The Rule of Law should mean that laws apply equally to everyone and are applied fairly. America is a rule of law-based Republic and needs to get its act together on this. If that means a few lawyers get disbarred – or even put behind bars – then so be it. "Be you never so high, the law is above you."

They still don’t get it - spiked

They still don’t get it - spiked.

The linked article is right. They (the woke left) still don't get it. I hope they never do. One of my leftist friends prefaced a phone call this morning with a whole minute of "how could that happen?" about the US election result. I let her talk uninterrupted out of pure interest in what she would say. Essentially, she wanted a new electorate because those fools keep getting it wrong.
 
I've had similar conversations with a friend in Poland upset about the right-wing PiS former government there. He raved about the idiots who voted for them and I patiently explained that calling them names wouldn't solve the problem. He needed their votes if PiS was ever to lose so should focus on developing policies and arguments that would appeal to them, rather than abusing them.
 
Here in the UK, Gordon Brown was caught on a live microphone calling a nice old lady – a classic Labour voter of the old pre-woke school – a "bigot". Other members of the Labour Party are also inclined to sneer at the people whose votes they need. Our Foreign Secretary will now have to represent the British people to Americans whose President he's abused and defamed in language that would be childish and OTT even in student politics. 
 
To a rationalist, it's an odd approach to democracy to dig in when losing a vote and to double down on policies the voters rejected. Yet the Left's response these days is quasi-religious in its intensity. Rather than review their rejected policies or engage with voters they need to win over, they'll sulk in their tents. Within days, I promise they'll be saying they weren't left-wing enough.
 
I only played at politics in my youth. I turned down an invitation to go on the Conservative Party's candidates list.  I don't claim to have relevant expertise or experience in that field. I was trained in advocacy and persuasion though and had decades of experience of commercial negotiations. I can say with confidence that no-one was ever abused, reviled or mocked into changing their point of view. 
 
The Left is poor at persuasion partly because their beliefs are quasi-religious. They are right, regardless, and anyone who doesn't agree is a heretic. They're also rather neglectful of political evangelism because they've established a deeper level of control. They own the "Deep State" (the modern term for what used to be called "the Establishment") so elections don't matter as much as they should. During 14 years of allegedly "Conservative" government in Britain, we moved steadily to the Left. The state's payroll grew. Its influence in everyday life burgeoned. Taxes rose. The response to a national emergency - the COVID pandemic - was totalitarian. Worst of all, the largely state-funded education system indoctrinated our youth in leftist thought.
 
The Tories achieved nothing that reflected their stated principles. Partly because their principles were weak. Partly because they were embarrassingly mediocre and incompetent.  But mainly because the Deep State "blob" was immovable.
 
The Left's complacency will be their downfall however. The American people have just shown that they see through their games. They've elected a President who they knew full well has been convicted of multiple felonies. They're called "low information voters" by their tormentors, but they had that information for sure. They elected him despite him being called a fascist (and despite being called fascists themselves for supporting him). They elected him despite being told by every show business influencer who could be brought to bear that their democracy itself was one vote away from being lost.
 
It wasn't any failure in propaganda that lost Kamala Harris the election. It was the voters' impatience with being denigrated, sneered at and abused by a political elite high on its own sense of entitlement. Trump isn't a moral role model for them. They don't want him (or anyone like him) around their daughters. They know his flaws, but this isn't one of them. He doesn't look down on them and he has the humility to ask them for their vote as a single united people.
 
The best thing about this election is that it seems the minorities farmed by the Democrats - blacks, latinos, women, gays – have refused to stay on the Left's plantation. They've divided according to their ideas, not their identities – as any rational humans should. The biggest loser is not Harris but Obama – who insulted every black man in America by accusing him of harbouring a sexist reluctance to vote for a woman. They didn't vote for someone from the same "identity group" or (God help us) "Community" as themselves. Yes Harris is a woman, but that's not enough. Is she competent? Is she moral? Would she have reached the heights she has if she were not a woman? They asked themselves those questions, came to differing conclusions and then voted accordingly. 
 
Identity politics is the most dangerous and divisive phenomenon in modern politics. The Democratic Party in America and the Labour Party in Britain are utterly caught up in it. They existed before identitarianism and they can exist after it. To survive the terrible errors they've made they're going to have to abandon their prejudices and stop assuming that people belong to them if they fall into certain – politically meaningless – categories. It's racist. It's sexist. It's demeaning. And America has rejected it. This was not a victory for the orange-skinned community. It was a triumph of reason over leftist bigotry.