Today the magic formula has many parts: openness to people and capital, the time zone, proximity to subsea data cables, and posh schools. But, above all, it relies on stable politics and regulation, close ties to America and seamless ones to Europe.
—The Economist, in ‘Can the City survive Brexit?’
Tory MPs complain that their inboxes are deluged with demands for both extremes: a “People’s Vote” on one hand, or a no-deal Brexit on the other. (Emails about more mundane topics, like delayed trains, still outnumber both.)
—The Economist, in ‘A rebellion in the Conservative ranks fizzles out’
Ultimately, the British people voted for a departure but not for a destination, which is why what really matters is allowing them to vote again on the final deal, giving them the chance to say no to an irresponsible hard Brexit that risks our economy and our jobs.
—Tim Farron, then leader of the Liberal Democrats, in 2016
In recent years, many of Britain’s coastal communities have slipped behind the rest of the country in measures of income, education, and health, giving rise to an over-all feeling of depression and ill health which is recognized informally by doctors as S.L.S., or Shit Life Syndrome.
—From the New Yorker
“There are two kinds of European nations,” Kristian Jensen, the Danish Finance Minister, said last year, referring to Britain’s situation. “There are small nations and there are countries that have not yet realized they are small nations.”
I never really got Facebook, so I was a Twitter guy, but since mid-2016 engaging with Twitter has simply made me anxious, upset, jangly, and distracted.
—Brad Feld in Relentlessly Turning Input Knobs To 0
I couldn’t have put my feelings about FB & TW more concisely.
Locals worry about who will care for the elderly and wait on tables in restaurants if migrants continue to leave. Moia Wood, a primary-school teacher who specialises in working with minority groups, says many people in Harrogate don’t realise how much migrants do for them.
The Economist: A northern English town offers a glimpse of life when migrants leave
They are beginning to find out—and soon the rest of Britain will, too.
Teachers report that some British children began teasing eastern Europeans about Brexit in the playground.
The Economist: A northern English town offers a glimpse of life when migrants leave
I quite liked this post by Rafael Behr. I quite strongly recommend reading it for the beauty of the words, even if you don’t agree with their intent.
On liberalism’s fighting power:
Fascism, its deadliest enemy, wasn’t debated into submission or outrun in an economic race: it was beaten by military force in a fight to the death, started by the fascists.
On winning the cold war:
Western intellectuals and eastern dissidents pleaded for democracy on principle for years before brute economics settled the matter.
On the state of the world today:
The Freedom party[^1] was then beyond the pale. The pale has moved.
And how quickly we got here:
It took a generation to get from the idealism of tearing down the wall to the backlash and pulling up the Brexit drawbridge.
Face facts. The west that won the cold war no longer exists | Rafael Behr
Many Britons have grown up believing their homeland saved and civilised the world, while atrocities, genocide and human rights abuses often go unmentioned. Successive governments have failed to narrow this knowledge gap, whether by setting up truth commissions, establishing a museum of colonialism or teaching schoolchildren about colonialism as part of the standard curriculum.
Why do archive files on Britain’s colonial past keep going missing? | Siobhan Fenton
Use my marker 