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. 

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.

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

Donald Trump just won the greatest jury verdict in history.

They still don’t get it - spiked.

No lasting institutions can be built without trust. When I worked in Russia, I saw that a low trust society could be very creative when it came to entrepreneurship, but that it was impossible to build banks, insurance companies, pension funds etc. That was an opportunity for my City of London and other Western clients because they could truly offer services no locals could.

Russian friends found it hard to grasp that I worked cheerfully without giving much thought to my pension provision, for example, having delegated that to strangers in institutions to whom I regularly remitted my savings.

Trust across borders doesn’t work for government though. Historically you could argue that the British Empire provided cross-border governmental services that allowed some low-trust societies to be better governed than ever before or since, but however true that might be it’s terminally unfashionable. Certainly, it’s not a service likely to be offered or accepted again! 

The only meaningful promise Keir Starmer’s government has made is that it will rebuild trust in government.  One of the most worrying things I’ve noticed since returning home from the post-communist world is the extent to which UK voters have lost faith in government and its institutions. Not that I think they’re wrong. Their analysis is entirely justified by the facts, but my experience — particularly in Russia — has taught me just how dangerous it is when trust dies. 

So the PM was quite right to set himself this goal, but he’s actually made things worse. You don’t win hearts and minds by demonstrating contempt. You will never win trust from people you do not trust yourself. 

It seems our government, police and media (acting in concert in a way that itself undermines trust) lied systematically to the British people in the wake of the Southport outrage. The BBC “fact checked” a rumour that the attack was inspired by Islam, for example, and declared it to be untrue. It still may be, of course. Maybe the attacker was just Islamo-curious, but that definitive declaration was a lie.  

Perhaps our state lied to try to keep the peace. A mob had attacked a mosque on the not entirely rash assumption that a terroristic attack against small children indulging in haram activities was probably inspired by Islam, as most terrorism now is. By covering up the suspect’s Al-Qaeda terror manual, perhaps the government hoped to calm things down. 

There are two problems with that. Their lies were always going to be detected and it would then become harder for them ever to calm an angry mob again. In the unlikely event of a Buddhist terror attack, their declarations on the subject will never now be believed.

The second and more important problem is that they’ve worsened the trust issue the PM correctly identified. Perhaps the only thing he’s been right about since he took office! We now trust government less than we did a year ago. Less than a government we hated so much we devoted an entire election to destroying it — even at the cost of giving a minority of economically-illiterate, authoritarian voters an enormous majority.

They are all scoundrels and liars. They are all on the make. They can’t be trusted. But once trust has died to such an extent it’s a long hard job to rebuild it. These amoral rascals — with their Machiavellian calculations about releasing the news just before a hugely controversial Budget in the hope of swamping it — are clearly not the people to do it. So we’re on a dangerous slippery slope towards the kind of low trust society where nothing good can be achieved. That’s very worrying indeed. 

The key question is this. How are we going to get decent human beings to run for parliament or work in the civil service ever again? Because if we can’t, we’re done for. 

At Craven Cottage for the Villa game, the very modest activity of walking from our taxi to the stadium left me flushed, breathless and near to collapse – to the alarm of my companions. I made it home safely and have booked an appointment with my GP this week. I shall ask for a referral to a cardiologist, as my symptoms suggest congested arteries. I hope some tests will clarify the problem so action can be taken to avert worse.

My reaction, when I thought I might be dying, was interesting. I felt serene and unafraid. The self-pity that has poisoned me of late vanished as a quick survey of my life led to the conclusion that – overall – it's been pretty great. I had a happy upbringing in a loving and supportive family. I was of a generation that could roam freely in childhood and learn to be free and self-reliant. I was blessed with useful gifts, enjoyed my schooldays and was the first in my family to go to university where I studied an interesting subject. I also developed useful dark skills, while getting some nasty stuff out of my system, as I dabbled in student politics. 

I have loved and been loved. I have two wonderful daughters of whom I am enormously proud. I had an entertaining professional career, which took me to interesting places and presented me with challenges well-suited to my skills. I had a fair degree of success, both in terms of being useful and of my own material gain. I made excellent friends. After the sad premature death of Mrs P the First, I retired early, engaged in new interests and made even more friends. I realised my childhood dream of owning a Ferrari and drove over 100,000 miles in her all over Europe and America. I had ten happy years with Mrs P the Second and, though it didn't end as I'd have hoped, we remain friends after the only fully-amicable divorce of which I've ever heard.

I never wanted fame and lack the obsessive personality to be super-rich. My grandad told me as a boy that "we're only here for a look around" and mine has been a good look. What more is there for mortal man to hope for?

If I am wrong about the non-existence of God, I reflected, my conscience is clear enough to face Him with optimism, given that forgiveness is said to be His defining characteristic. No life is free of error or regret, but I have little to be ashamed of, much to be proud of and I had a lot of fun. If it was the end of my story, I thought to myself as I sat, drained, in Fulham's Riverside Stand, it has been a good one.

I hope to hold onto this new-found serenity. It seems a little stupid now that it required such a moment to bring me to it. Fingers crossed, I can carry it forward for a few more interesting years. If not, please don't cry for me, gentle readers. Thank you for your attention and for the exchanges we've had in the comments. If this is goodbye, then please remember my old grandad's words and have a good look around!

Labour appoints 200 ‘cronies’ to Civil Service.

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 would be a profound moral error - spiked.

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.