I have long enjoyed Applebaum’s writing. I suppose my alienation from a left I was once part of and which I came to see as intellectually bankrupt permitted me to, just as I have long enjoyed and agreed with your own writing. Happy New Year, Nick. I am delighted to be one of your supporters, as well as delighted with this piece
I too was surprised to see the comparison between Sikorski and Johnson and drew attention to the relevance of Applebaum’s book in a comment. Not sure whether I read the book or your interview first, but I enjoyed both.
Given the distance between Warsaw and the Polish border, you’re not giving away too much in noting that their house is “in the countryside between Warsaw and the German border”.
Nick, thank you for both pointing out the Left’s hypocrisy AND for pointing me towards Anne Applebaum’s Substack. Unlike Tony Buck, I am a huge admirer. But I would not describe her as a “conservative”, more as a sceptic or a realist. We are in a world that is ready, even eager, to label - themselves and others and heaven help anyone who dares to part from the party line. In Stalin’s Soviet Union or today’s North Korea that could get you killed; in today’s West it merely gets you cancelled. AA has the courage to call out the emperor with no clothes.
One final point: the whole LTGBI-plus “thing” has been distorted, even corrupted by transgenderism. Gays and lesbians have nothing in common with the trans crowd; they do not suffer from gender dysphoria, and they put at risk their hard-won rights and societal acceptance by allowing themselves to be seen alongside an aggressive hateful campaign by biological males who call themselves women to cancel and isolate anyone who dares to call this out.
The article is a mixture of wide-eyed adulation for Applebaum and her friends - and painstaking character assassination of their opponents.
This lack of self-examination by liberal politicos has a corollary - when things go wrong (eg in 2016) the liberal response is stunned disbelief, followed by wild denunciation of the Guilty People - and a total inability to see that liberals have brought disaster on themselves.
Which is a fact; just as Hillary Clinton so completely misunderstood modern politics as to lose to a rank outsider, so Remain - bound to win and in front of an open goal - were led by their own vices (notably a sneering contempt for the hoi polloi) to put the ball wide.
Indeed, June 2016 was a Moment of Truth for liberal Britain, when
the hand wrote "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting."
One reason Brexit still weighs so heavily on them. The other being their religious faith in the EU as the source of all goodness and hope.
A central tenet of the article is that populism has driven out People of Talent and replaced them with cranks or charlatans.
In Britain, I can think of only two admirable people driven out of the Tories by Johnson, namely Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve, neitherof them young.
Is Starmer's centrist camp abuzz with talent ?
And abroad we have Biden, Macron and Scholz (and lesser figures) - all of them undoubted foes of populism, but all of them floundering mediocrities. While in Canada, their blood-brother Justin Trudeau, reminds us that liberals too can aim at Tyranny. Indeed, the pressure for tyranny today is coming mainly from progressives - ecology and net zero enthusiasts, for example.
Oh, and btw, the elites ARE importing vast numbers of migrants, many of them Muslims; and in even larger numbers under Johnson and Sunak than under Blair or Cameron.
The problem with Applebaum and those who think like her, is that they are out-and-out liberal optimists who honestly but mistakenly imagined that their fierce support of Capitalism (and hatred of Communism) made them conservatives, as opposed to what they are - free market fanatics and globalist revolutionaries.
Hence a genuine old-fashioned Tory traditionalist - a true consevative - like the brilliant and original Roger Scruton, feeling driven to support Brexit and Orban.
For when you are drowning in a sea of fanatical liberals worshipping Change, any apparent life raft has to do.
I have long enjoyed Applebaum’s writing. I suppose my alienation from a left I was once part of and which I came to see as intellectually bankrupt permitted me to, just as I have long enjoyed and agreed with your own writing. Happy New Year, Nick. I am delighted to be one of your supporters, as well as delighted with this piece
Thank you so much Drew
I too was surprised to see the comparison between Sikorski and Johnson and drew attention to the relevance of Applebaum’s book in a comment. Not sure whether I read the book or your interview first, but I enjoyed both.
Given the distance between Warsaw and the Polish border, you’re not giving away too much in noting that their house is “in the countryside between Warsaw and the German border”.
That should be:
Given the distance between Warsaw and the Polish border ...
Good piece as always Nick.Happy new year to you and confusion to our enemies!
And to you too, Tim!
Nick, thank you for both pointing out the Left’s hypocrisy AND for pointing me towards Anne Applebaum’s Substack. Unlike Tony Buck, I am a huge admirer. But I would not describe her as a “conservative”, more as a sceptic or a realist. We are in a world that is ready, even eager, to label - themselves and others and heaven help anyone who dares to part from the party line. In Stalin’s Soviet Union or today’s North Korea that could get you killed; in today’s West it merely gets you cancelled. AA has the courage to call out the emperor with no clothes.
One final point: the whole LTGBI-plus “thing” has been distorted, even corrupted by transgenderism. Gays and lesbians have nothing in common with the trans crowd; they do not suffer from gender dysphoria, and they put at risk their hard-won rights and societal acceptance by allowing themselves to be seen alongside an aggressive hateful campaign by biological males who call themselves women to cancel and isolate anyone who dares to call this out.
The article is a mixture of wide-eyed adulation for Applebaum and her friends - and painstaking character assassination of their opponents.
This lack of self-examination by liberal politicos has a corollary - when things go wrong (eg in 2016) the liberal response is stunned disbelief, followed by wild denunciation of the Guilty People - and a total inability to see that liberals have brought disaster on themselves.
Which is a fact; just as Hillary Clinton so completely misunderstood modern politics as to lose to a rank outsider, so Remain - bound to win and in front of an open goal - were led by their own vices (notably a sneering contempt for the hoi polloi) to put the ball wide.
Indeed, June 2016 was a Moment of Truth for liberal Britain, when
the hand wrote "Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting."
One reason Brexit still weighs so heavily on them. The other being their religious faith in the EU as the source of all goodness and hope.
Excellent.
A central tenet of the article is that populism has driven out People of Talent and replaced them with cranks or charlatans.
In Britain, I can think of only two admirable people driven out of the Tories by Johnson, namely Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve, neitherof them young.
Is Starmer's centrist camp abuzz with talent ?
And abroad we have Biden, Macron and Scholz (and lesser figures) - all of them undoubted foes of populism, but all of them floundering mediocrities. While in Canada, their blood-brother Justin Trudeau, reminds us that liberals too can aim at Tyranny. Indeed, the pressure for tyranny today is coming mainly from progressives - ecology and net zero enthusiasts, for example.
Oh, and btw, the elites ARE importing vast numbers of migrants, many of them Muslims; and in even larger numbers under Johnson and Sunak than under Blair or Cameron.
The problem with Applebaum and those who think like her, is that they are out-and-out liberal optimists who honestly but mistakenly imagined that their fierce support of Capitalism (and hatred of Communism) made them conservatives, as opposed to what they are - free market fanatics and globalist revolutionaries.
Hence a genuine old-fashioned Tory traditionalist - a true consevative - like the brilliant and original Roger Scruton, feeling driven to support Brexit and Orban.
For when you are drowning in a sea of fanatical liberals worshipping Change, any apparent life raft has to do.
Denouncing the leaders of the Brexit campaign doesn't explain Brexit.
The Euro federalists like Jacques Delors and the foolish single currency, gave Brexit its opportunity.
Wonderful once again and btw Nazi Germany also seen the ‘overlooked’ getting bigger houses, bigger jobbs etc