Is Britain on the Brink of Collapse? | Peter Hitchens talks to Aaron Bastani 

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself." - Cicero

That is the thing with countries: They create abuseable power and so they lure sadistic egotripping opportunistic sociopaths (slightly tautological there), And therefore countries are going to come to an end, and becreplaced bythe only benefit they ever offered the people living in them:globally unique postal addresses

Sadly we are not WELL CONNECTED

I live in the United States. I bought my first house at 22, after I graduated from college. Over the last 20 years I bought another house, and had sufficient equity to obtain a construction loan and build my dream house. None of this is possible for my children. Not without enormous down payments and the interest rates being at 2-3%. We are in the same boat in the United States.

But you dont make anything !

all because thatcher decided "inefficient factories must go with no replacement"

A hugely intelligent man,his contraindications ,re Palestine,really!

This is amazing!! Not that long ago at all, yet so changed, for the worse ofc, As a certain politician once said " You've Never Had It So Good"

@@user-lp5wb2rb3v Globalism meant the UK and the West de-industrialize and the rest of the world industrializing. The political class are supposed to notice this sort of trend and plan an economic and social system that works with the new realities.

"So let's take heart. Let's not get discouraged. Let's keep fighting. When you give up; when you get discouraged and say 'What's the use?', you're doing the work of your enemies. Even in our losses there are the seeds of victory. Those abusing power are going to lose. And we're going to win. Because they try to resist history. They try to keep history from happening. And we, in fact, are making history. We, brothers and sisters, are the future of history." - Michael Parenti, on the fight for social justice in America

Simon I feel the same as you. My soul hurts living here. It's gone to hell.

My thoughts exactly. Unfortunately, its too late to reverse the decline. We are destined to become a kind of 2nd world, low trust country full of immigrants with absolutely no loyalty to the Britain. The UK is fast becoming just somewhere in the world to land on in in order to scratch a living and then move on when the time is right. Its our own fault. Boomers being told what to think and do by the mass media and voting lib/lab/con since the 50s.

You where not a world power 30 years ago. WW2 ended that.

Same here

30 years ago. You mean since at least 1945 or 56.

I live up north, and have done all of my life, same as my parents and grandparents. It has its charm in many places, but yeah in many ways it's pretty bleak, and much has been neglected and ruined.

@@SagaciousFrank There are exceptions. Hebden Bridge is a quaint English town with stunning scenery and architecture. Canals and rivers, lots of moorland. It has become somewhat gentrified over recent years. Despite these benefits and local beauty the town has a stigma of having a high suicide rate and there are undertones of alcohol and drug abuse. It's sad to see England, for the most part, has fallen into such a sad state of misery and despair. 🎶In this proud land we grew up strong🎶 💛💜💛

@@carlitochakra7169 , the north is quite vast, so I didn't expect you to mention a place so close to home not that far from where I live! Yes, Hebden Bridge is quite nice. Not far from there is Howarth (its association with the Brontë Sisters) which can be reached via the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, which runs heritage steam trains.

@@carlitochakra7169 , Skipton is always worth a visit, Clitheroe as well.

@@SagaciousFrank Haworth is a pretty part of the world. I've visited it a few times and almost purchased a house there 20 years ago. The deal fell through. I had an appreciation for the Bronte sisters and Bramwell as I studied English Literature and those books were a major part of the curriculum. There was a great musical instruments shop there near the station. Is that music shop still there ? There are some wonderful beauty spots still surviving in England but the cities and towns for most part have gone to the dogs. England is broken. British culture has died a death. Community spirit is a thing of the past. I lived in Bulgaria for 5 years and although it is a developing country and the infrastructure is from the communist era, the standard of living in Bulgaria is much better than England. But alas, England is my home so we make the best of our situation. Stiff upper lip and all that. 💛💜💛

Labour have the additional mission of gatekeeping the left, insuring that no ideas outside the so-called 'neoliberal consensus' are allowed to be given credence. Packed away in a little box termed 'far left' !

Καλά τα λές

wish you were running Novara not the faux lefts @stefanosbrilakis

Tax credits, pension credit, higher child benefit, 2 million lifted out of poverty, Homeless reduced by 50%, The min wage, rising living standards. Those that benefited from those measures from 1997-2010 may disagree with you in regards to Labour making the establishment richer.

Yeah Labour = Tories is a Daily Mail fabrication. Keep saying it if You like making Yourself look foolish.

How long, Ivan?

Quite and Brexit has further impacted opportunities for our youth and are small to medium sized business. I don't see how an advisory vote with less than 50% turnout is decided by a few percent margin.

I've noticed the UK become poorer and I've been disgusted to see all our money spent on Ukraine but not on putting our country right

@@bak2back Agree to that. Also this government has come up with 30 million for MP protection but cannot afford breakfast for kids on the poverty line. Puts me to shame. We need to do more atleast for the future of our country.

I went to a comprehensive, got loads of O-levels and a couple of language A levels, and now live in Europe. Cheers mate.

Corbyn and the people that followed him wanted exactly that, but the elite shat themselves and put the wheels in motion to make sure that we were never going to have that.

Why is the Monarchy so wealthy then ? 😳🤔

"Massive spending and nationalised industries" - AKA - "socialism". AND WE DON'T EVER WANT SOCIALISM!

Mass third world immigration ?

@@oliveoil7642 Multi generational plunder.

England never gave up on feudalism

Shame about the weather 😂

@@treyquattroTrue in a way

@@treyquattro You think England is bad, come to the US.

​@@andrewocock8480true but if you have a good Macintosh from Aquascutum or Burberry's you are set up😂

They never do seem to know why they are fighting, Why the F do they join the forces? If no one joined then they would not be able to squander lives and money. It’s not as if anything improves after the war. You just have debt to pay and thousands of crippled ex servicemen.

He was correct the fascists never went away they rule us now while pretending to be something else ie Tory Labour and Liberal that’s why we never get any change and I would suggest Mr Hitchen and Mr Bastani whether they know it or not are collaborating with this system

For money, the opportunity to travel and experience other places and other personal reasons. That’s why he went to fight for 6 years overseas. Protecting Democracy and Freedom were of secondary importance.

Was he a football hooligan?

Certainly that was the feeling of a fellow I met aboard a ferry going from Belfast to Scotland in the early 1970s. Was on a bus tours sponsored by the US forces in Germany. Felt he would never work again. I was a bit startled by the pessimism, and protestded that surely such a great people could not be down. He brightened up and took me over to his lady folks and shared his cheer with them. AS English people are always a bit shy with strangers I was kind of proud of myself for getting such a response. Still one could not help but notice how rundown Britain was at least in comparison with Germany. The loser in this great war was already beginning to sparkle in comparison. Certainly the trains showed the difference.

Very true, it's sad the state of family values and the emphasis on learning and betterment. Watch kids being interviewed in the 1960's! Most had more sense than 90% of adults today. Sad. Keep up the good work!

@@anthonytubeI totally agree, Today's generation has all of mankinds knowledge, achievements and history at their fingertips, instead of the odd newspaper, library and encyclopedia that previous generations had, but in spite of that, they seem universally ignorant of the real world around them.

@@HattonbankSuch wonderful words!

@@Hattonbank I couldn’t have summed up better myself! Everything is just a click away so why bother learn! If the great minds of the past came to visit they’d quickly ask to go back! Best wishes Anthony

Quite so, as for numeracy?

Yank here. I went on a road trip across the USA in 2022. We are worse off. this nation is in terrible decay. beyond repair. oops. empires in decline. that said, we will persist, until our military industrial complex devours itself in greed and ever more powerful weapons. If we do not extinct ourselves in the mean time.

@@uk7769 I think the real problem is that the UK and US puts far too much focus on GDP growth over quality of life for its citizens. Looking at many of the indexes that matter, the UK and US are falling behind other modern countries, whereas other European countries dominant the top 10 quality of life indexes, with only I think Australia and Canada making the cut in the top 10. Ultimately from a citizen's point of view from any country, what really matters is quality of life, and that is where I think the UK and US are failing its people for quite some time now. At the end of the day, what good is it our governments keep banging on about how good the GDP numbers are doing and how low unemployment is, these numbers mean nothing to the average person that feels things are progressively getting worse. European countries are not perfect, but at least there's far more balance on quality of life, and a lot of the anger in Europe is actually on other things like immigration, higher energy prices and things like that, which are outside influences, but still need to be solved at some point, but compared to the UK and US, the problems are much deeper in the structure of the system, and without major reforms, I don't see much changing.

You must’ve only travelled to the tourist areas, as there are some very bleak run down places in all of those countries. Particularly in parts of Spain and Italy, the standard of living is similar to that of people in Eastern Europe.

All of those countries have roughly the same issues as Britain, if not worse. Plenty of discontent there too. Sounds like you’ve only been there as a tourist.

Demographics is Destiny. Meanwhile...in Japan.

Time and tide wait for no man - or nation. The entire UK social and economic structure has massively changed since the 1950s in ways nobody could have foreseen. There's nothing to be 'recovered'.

Agreed - apart from the bit about the economy recovering. I love my home country, and I do hope it recovers, but - at the age of 40 - I doubt I will see it

A society collapses before an economy collapses? Got any sources for that claim?

1914 finished us We live in the wake of that catastrophe

You have just made more sense than peter hitchens.

Completely agree. So sad there is so much hate among the comments against these two intelligent people

it's a shame hitchens is pro israel & pro ukraine!! he is supporting the wrong countries!!!

The sentiment is admirable , we certainly do need to find middle ground when plenty of our political voices trade on polarisation, however its a shame Hitchens is not open to rational discussion on some of the things ge feels very strongly about .

I agree ..I don’t always agree with Peter Hitchens but he puts forward thought out arguments…there is no point debating in an echo chamber .

'pardon.............pardon'? 'cheers........cheers........cheers'!@@davidcousins3508

Excellent analysis. The collapse of respectable council housing with inside bathrooms and large gardens - back and front - facilitated the coarsening and increased desperation of a huge swathe of society. The property ladder is often a highway to hell for millions.

But is it just the fault of the political class? What about the extremely toxic and atrocious media class that convinced poor Britons that the EU was the reason they were poor and unable to get ahead?

There used to be a documentary series called “man alive” produced by the BBC. It was quality investigative journalism covering pertinent social issues. We have absolutely nothing like this anymore.

Same bunch. They went to schools with the political classes and all speak the same langauge of exclusion and ignorance of what "a prosperous country" actually entails​@@vmoses1979

Interesting. Until your comment, I had defended Lady Thatcher's council house selling off, believing as she did that it offered the working classes dignity through ownership. I guess not?

Wrong, sometimes war is aggressive and sometimes it is defensive.

Not what the warmongers recognise. They want to think they are doing something useful and talk about bravery and honour and medals. They need to be stopped.

More to the point crimes are a war of sorts,good v bad.Come to think of it the human body is in a constant battle to survive that always ends in defeat.

Says someone who’s never being punched in the face

what do you do if your invaded ???

No, worse than it has been for many years.

The United kingdom is a disgustingly unfree society and this has been spearheaded by an unholy alliance of middle class leftists and fortune 500 companies.

Disagree. I think the British rich are spiritually impoverished, and they know it, too. It's shameful stepping over beggars on your way to the opera, especially when some of those beggars are ex servicemen.

Spirituality doesn't pay your bills or feed your family, so a more equitable wealth sharing system might allow working people the luxury of inner peace?@@samseal8611

You can say that about sny place and time

Decade of Tory rule perhaps. Behind in what way ?

​@@stephensimpson8531 That implies its irrational when its not.

⁠@@standardprocedure7017infrastructure, public services, transport, layout, more financial equality etc you can get a train anywhere very cheaply, you can cycle on a specific bike road network throughout the entire country, zero problems ever seeing a doctor/ dentist, easy to buy cheap / fresh produce, it’s just such an easy place to live, you pay higher taxes (including wealth taxes), but they are well spent and is worth it. They have proportional representation which I expect facilitates better longer term planning vs week to week political headline management we have here.

@@stephensimpson8531 lol Islamophobia, is your head in the sand ?

Lived in Switzerland for many years. Uk is very behind in living standards seem to have no idea how to be efficient or interested in the public at large.

And why did the Europeans want Britain in the EU then? Because they wanted the most neoliberal state in Western Europe to help break the social Europe model

The past fifteen years have seen England nosedive. The NHS has been eviscerated and Brexit has accelerated the downward process. All NHS workers I have spoken to do not hold back on how badly things have become or that they are going to work in the private sector. Now that we have lost FOM due to Brexit, means escape is a much more difficult task.

@@KramerMC5 People voted to Leave precisely because the situation was getting worse and worse. If those in love with the EU had listened and done something about all the problems that were apparent to everyone with eyes, we might still be in their precious anti democratic neoliberal club "escape"? So the answer to problems is to just run away? Free movement of labour was the last straw and affected too many people's jobs and wages - but you won't listen!

Europe is toast now. The CIA control Euro -Zombie politicians. NATO is a crime syndicate no different than the John Gotti or the Gambinos. Only the Costa Nostra used to pay Union rates. Neo liberalism gives Zero hour contracts.

Tax is higher in many Western European countries. They also have mandatory health insurance in many. People would soon start moaning about that.

It is a historically significant marker. In “Inequality and the 1%”, Danny Dorling discusses the seismic shift that occurred as a consequence of the wars. We went from a nation crippled by inequality that wasted its human potential, to one that was moderately egalitarian due to the aggressive redistribution during and immediately after WW2. Then comes the Keynesian era which, arguably, ran out of steam in the late 70s. After that it’s been a slippery slide into the weird, dysfunctional globalist kleptocracy we’ve descended into….point being, when understanding our national history, WW2 is sort of pivotal. We were a very different nation before it. After it, it’s been a continuous narrative. Depressing, but continuous

Things were very different after the war.

Agree 100 %...

Check out how many postcodes in the UK were bombed in WW2. Most of them. It was something of a big deal

Most postcodes were bombed in WW2. It was quite a big deal

Services are often sophisticated, AI for instance.

@@patslatt1 lol

Education details can't differentiate you when it has no scarcity value.

"We've lost him, Jack."

Doubleplusgood😅

Opposing groups will down play to support their cause, until it turns on them. Then they'll start promoting this book.

Great comment.

Yes! In some countries, higher education is free. You can do courses whenever you like. Degrees are modular, and if you collect a set of courses, you can earn a degree - but you don’t have to, you can just do the courses you want or need to stay employable. That’s the case in Sweden anyway….Im a Brit, but I’ve just moved to Sweden with my Swedish partner. She’s already doing one course to help her make the next step in her career. Seriously, the opportunities made available to Swedes, for free, would make a Brit green with envy. Sweden is not without its problems - but this is one of the things they got perfectly right. Good quality, meaningful Education benefits the student, but it benefits society generally. It’s a win win. So why not make it free and available continuously?

@@stephensimpson8531 ... because the UK likes to keep the class structure intact with the elites at the top. That's why there is such a growing gap between the rich and poor.

In my experience it is true that early education is the key, grammar school education creates inquisitive, intellectually confident adults that no amount of standard state education can make up for.

@@RadiantStar8997yup - it is almost as though our “elites” prefer to sit at the top of a sh*t-hole country (to quote The Donald 😅) than to be a constructive part of a decent, functional society. Such lovely people!

Just wondering why any of them expected anything else? Even at the height of its world domination in the victoriana era the country was notorious for its slums and abject poverty even back then visiting Europeans were shocked by what they saw. In ww1 they struggled to put an army in the field of over 1 million not because they did not have the men but the men they had were barely over 5ft and riddled with health problems due to the poverty and malnutrition. Britain being an island means its easy to defend but it also means its a geographical backwater just like Ireland and Iceland but Ireland and Iceland mitigate this by having small populations.

And where are you from?

@@leonpaul9443 "but Ireland and Iceland mitigate this by having small populations" Which is why the Left have supported massively increasing Britain's population via mass immigration

While half the population of the world lives in gutters only 15% can in Britain obviously didn't know how grey & cold it can get in around civilised lives..?

@@OnlineEnglish-wl5rp England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

The colour and variation on my shelf makes up for any lack of colour and variation in my mind, I feel.

Well, read the damn things. 😅

I've read at least 95% of the books I currently own and have ever owned. I haven't owned many, but the ones I do are great.

​@@djinnxx7050your so interesting. Please do tell us more.

​@@djinnxx7050how many do you own😂

Good for you. Many of us are stuck here.

What has it become? Because this is often just racism talking?!

​​​@@goych The UK is too expen$ive, needlessly expen$ive. The British pound feels worthless. Inflation is the silent killer. Then there's the horrible infrastructure. Bad roads, terrible airports, expen$ive, inefficient train system. Finally, there's the NHS which is being deliberately bankrupted. The UK isn't a decent place for average folks.

@@goych , if you say so. I bet you can't wait for this extremism bill to be passed so that you think you have a window into other people's souls upon which to judge them.

@goych , it's more of a criticism to the government when people criticise Britain . You have to admit, there's not much to brag about in Britain ( or nothing at all 😂).

But could that be created in Britain, given its social structure? I have my doubts.

Agreed, its a better system in Germany. However, children are separated and send to the relevant school already at 11 years old. Kind of shit if you get sent you Hauptschule because of bad grades in primary school resulting in you needing to do 2-3 more years of school just to get your Abi, even then you might not get in to a University rather than a Hochschule...

yes, I think people attacking how low they score in maths and science dont understand that half do minimal in those subjects and are only trained in what they need for vocational training. Im sure if they split the grades from those that go into higher education the grades would be higher.

@@r_cd16 It WAS the case in Britain before the destruction of the grammar schools.

Vocational training in the UK has been looked down upon for yours exacerbated by successive governments...no wonder so many choose to move abroad ​@@r_cd16

Sounds very human to me.

@@ThyCorylus I dunno, I don't think 'letting personal bias getting in the way of being intellectually honest and consequently committing to bad faith arguments' should be the normative disposition.

I thought so as well. I find it hard not to be slightly bamboozled by Hitchens' drawn-out answers to relatively simple questions, but about halfway through the bit about education I felt a growing sense of disappointment that the great Peter Hitchens' take on education didn't amount to much more than another old fart moaning about O-Levels...

​@@restrictionmars4288yes bloody ridiculous!

I agree with him I think grammar schools should be reintroduced. They won't be though ad the establishment do not want upwardly mobile, educated working class people.

They dealt with a lot of topics in a very short time. So they had to summarise things a bit much. I thought they did excellently to get through, as much as they did. You can not pick at the education part, but generally in broad terms, Peter is right. The Old Way was better. A good counter, to his taking a wrong turn analogy. Would be, it’s better to look for a turn off further ahead. Than do a U turn and go back to the start. The world is a completely different ball game now, than the 1950s. If we could take modern technology back to then. What affect would it have, on that system and Society at large? They’d probably knock every school down, sack every teacher and everyone would just learn from home and at private institutions and community organisations. The Central Schools would be deemed unnecessary and consigned to history. This has to be on the cards, since the Technology Revolution.

@@MartinDixon-iq9cp Absolutely. Coming from a working class background I'm one of the last (late 80s) to have had access to our local grammar before it became in effect a private fee paying school. All children would benefit from a high class education. Not just academic, but sporting and cultural (ie exposure to the high arts). But no government is willing to put the money in required. Is it because it would allow the proles better access to better jobs and positions of authority ? What both main parties have done is to try and fool everyone by lowering standards and pass rates to make it appear the education system is performing as it should.

The UK pension system is broken. The reason is that the job of providing pensions was passed to employers, with the state paying minimal sum, called the 'state pension', which is only around 25-30% of average salaries. The problem is that employers in the private sector have nearly all moved to a defined contribution method where the investment risk has been passed to employees. This problem has been compounded by employers not making big enough contributions.

hahaha -- how long do you think the Dutch can keep their welfare system going ?

@@dreamdiction well that is strange, you laugh, but give no argument for your laugh, so let's hear a decent argument

@@dreamdiction For as long as they want to. It's our corporate welfare system which has hollowed out the public finances

@@dreamdictionyour comment seems to contain an element of “well it’s shit here so I’m hoping it gets shit over there too”

He specifically said it is not possible to go back, especially the education system.

I agree with most of that. But I don't like anything about Peter.

You're being overly simplistic. I'm not a navarro media consumer but I have followed hitchens for 12 years. Nobody believes we can go back in time, but when prior institutions and values were important to the stability and operation of society and we increasingly move away from them, its just as irrational to argue we should continue as its too late then to give a reassesment of our reasons for doing so and change course. Marching ahead bliny for 'progress' is what got us in this mess in the first place.

@@OneTrueScotsmannot many people like Peter but he spits a lot of unpalatable truths: maybe the two things are connected in some way

​@@OneTrueScotsman I am sure he is greatly upset

He's an expert rambler

Christopher Hitchens used to do that as well.

Yes, he's pretty rude, as is Bastani. Both butt in, so often. I think they needed a moderator.

@@dandare1001 I think it’s just Hitchens’ misleading speech patterns. The pause is never a full stop. Until he says it is. And even then. It might not be. I wonder if his writing is similar.

@@AtheistEveHe always seems to be demanding respect, rather than earning it. I do agree with him quite often, but I find him really irritating for his rudeness and also his inflexibility and stubbornness regarding opposing opinions. I don't know how one would transpose his speaking style to a written page. Lot's of blank pages, perhaps?

The plan was to add Technical schools to the Secondary Modern and Grammar. I heard, at the time, that Comprehensive Schools were the result of the clash between the teaching unions, while the children of Tory Party MPs did not go to state run schools, so the MPs looked on, if that.

Well down you! I wish I had done the same. I came close after travelling to several places and determined not to let our young daughter grow up here. I grew up in N.Ireland and every time I go home I'm reminded how bad things are in England. May I ask where you moved to? Best wishes Anthony

I retired to Bulgaria and totally happy and I have had to have had extensive contact with health service too. I am not running down NHS as worked in it as a mental health professional. But governments just go around in circles.

which country did you move to ?

@@nickstone3113 but how do you get on in Bulgaria unless you speak the language....unless your wife is a local

@@paulmorris9605 hi. Well I am Anglo Greek so the culture ,main Orthodox Christian Faith is mine too . But above all I learnt the language and read and write and I only mix with Bulgarians . I don't think I would have survived covid if I had been in UK. . What you must not do is constantly compare to where you from. . As the writer of The Go between, E M Forster. said ,' The past is another country and they do things differently there "!

Haha same here. I went to a crappy comprehensive up in the West Midlands in the early 90s and ended up studying at Nottingham and Kings. What I noticed was a lot public school types with a great deal of overconfidence and a great lack of self awareness.

Oh...it goes beyond that....Oxford Prime Ministers in recent years have been a disaster. Two layers of bumbling ineptitude. Class based secondary education, and then a follow up of the same in third level. The consequences have been truly frightening.

@@xenophon1999I went to public school in the 80’s on an assisted places scheme. My old man was a mechanic, mum was a cleaner. Some pupils were morbidly arrogant. The academic pupils, whose own parents were academic/ professional, I was in awe of.

They usually have zero common sense.

Trust me they still are!!!

There's no such thing as society You have no connection to other humans The only relationships are between commodities and products and money.

They throw crumbs to the dogs.

Capitalism fails wherever it's tried

Capitalism is a failure

RU-vid is deleting 100% of the comments on this post

Kind of pointless in a society where many people no longer own one.

much of Europe pays something similar... here in Germany its the GEZ

A lot of countries didn't have terrestrial television in the same way we did. It doesn't make it wrong. At the time it made sense, now it doesn't. The same can be said for phone boxes. They are absolutely bizarre to many countries.

I wouldn't mind the license, beats adverts and produces lots of decent shows, and channels, and radio stations etc. But I don't appreciate its pro-establishment bias. Ie, the royal family, the upper class elitist system, London central, pro-UK/England, vs pro-independence in Scotland. The propaganda against Scotland, and our independence, and against our most popular party (the SNP) most Scots just don't bother with it at all. Which is why fewer Scots own a TV license than the rest of the UK.

@@clambert608and it’s much harder to get out of paying the GEZ as well. As soon as you Anmeldung, the letters start and if you leave the country there’s some hoops to jump through to stop them sending more letters. Same for GKV insurance actually, they want evidence that you are leaving the country otherwise the amount they say you owe continues to grow.

If it's been in a constant state of decline for "over a century" why do people look backs so fondly at the 50s and 60s? The fact of the matter is little men like you can't offer effective resistance to the Tories. In fact the only reason you pretend to care at all is that you think you're paying too much rent

well everything has collapsed apart from the state itself which is now multipliers larger than it was even at the height of empire

@@snakeplissken5480 The state whose functions have been privatised or outsourced and thus is used to funnel vast sums to private pockets. So not that different to the 19th century when it existed to ensure those private pockets weren't disturbed in making ordinary British people work the longest hours for the lowest share of the national income to consume the least amount of calories in their history

I can tell you that Britain is anything but great today. Living here now, struggling to pay the mortgage and bills. My wife unwilling to walk to the bus stop in the dark for fear of attack. Kids running around with machetes and zombie knifes, drug addiction, homelessness, poverty and 60%+ towns just falling apart at the seams. Extortionate cost of living, high taxes, costly child care, most expensive public transport in the world, small pensions, filth, dirt, people with no pride, laziness, I could write all day. Yes we have a home but mortgaged to the eyeballs and we have the NHS that's on it's knees and still after 8 months waiting for a simple scan. Britain sadly will never be the same.

​@@anthonytubeno way public transport is more expensive than the US

@@zuzanazuscinova5209Where in the UK do you live?! USA much cheaper and as it’s a huge country you can go much further for less!

@@anthonytubeAgree with this. Londoner here and I left in 2015.

Australian here, we have working families living in cars and tents as the cost of living is so high.

You never had any children?

@@mikeborrelli193 I had one son.

@@TheLastSongbird124 Damn, sorry for your loss ..

Well yeah, jobless stoners tend to be do much better in Spain.

​@@unduloid🤔😁🤣

​... maybe, but so does everyone else... I'd rather be a jobless stoner in Spain than fully employed in the rat race in the UK

Why the surprise ?

Why is that a surprise?

Тоже могу сказать и о России))

Well of course he's going to side with his own people. He's very proud of that small part of his heritage.

Also on Russia I was expecting more. The idea that Russia expected to win militarily with the force they sent in is not credible. You can't win an invasion with a smaller force than the defending force (well except Germany when invading France :) ), it was a drastic, and violent step to force negotiation.

He always has been pro-Israel, in contrast to his dead brother.

Very true Buck. Christopher had it right@@Bucketheadhead

The Tories are the Money Don’t confuse them with actual Conservatives

Its real name is NERO-liberalism. 😎☠👺... 🤔(Green Fire UK)🌈🦉

​@@seanmoran2743what exactly is an actual Conservative?

The neoliberal settlement from Reagan and Thatcher began the economic decline of the West.

Not one government (both parties) since WW2 has ever criticized immigration which has ruined this country.

@@misophonia9084 Everyone says that. But you'd be a very rare exception to resist the tide.

Very simplistic and tired cliché. My postman father and cleaner mother never HAD an empire. My parents couldn't have cared less when the Union flag was hauled down in Ghana or Kenya or anywhere else.

@@paulwarren3106 obviously it was meant as a generalisation and has to be taken as such.

If they didn’t fight in WW2, then you wouldn’t even exist.

The Irish like it or not helped carve out that Empire.

You gonna come back here and help us out then?

Alas, I wouldn’t be much use as had a stroke which resulted in disability! @@CallousCarter

Love it or leave it as the Americans say. Don't think you love it all that much. And nothing wrong with that.

@@CallousCarterI've done everything for my country and it wasn't rewarded. I emigrated to central Europe in 2015 where my labour and industry has been appreciated.

It is horrible

Yeah, I agree with Hitchens on a lot of things but the idea that you should tell a large part of your population off at age 11 that they're stupid and send them somewhere they'll be told not to bother with learning is foolish.

It doesn't. It does stop the brightest kids in society from wasting away in awful schools which probably benefits society overall. Although you'd hope we could just fix our schools so that noone's life is wasted away or opportunities squandered in subpar schools

Arguably standards cannot be raised. What can be improved is improving the relevance of what is taught in secondary education to the needs of the economy. The problems with this aim is the pace of change, finding sufficient teachers with the appropriate mixture of intellectual and practical abilities to cope with the considerable challenge of delivering the subject content in a manner which engages the pupils effectively in the learning process. One cannot get away from the reality of the distribution of academic ability. I recall being informed over fifty years years ago that the average attainment at age 16 was CSE grade 4. It would be more effective if pupils were given an education which was more reflective of their abilities and interests. I believe that this was what was intended with the post-war provision of grammar schools and secondary modern schools. There were far more apprenticeships available back then, and many youngsters have made good careers in various trades. Nowadays too high a proportion of youngsters go on to higher education to study for degrees which have limited value in tbe market place. In fact, these days, getting a degree is almost seen as a necessary rite of passage, whereas sixty years ago only a relatively small proportion of pupils entered higher education.

@@colindant3410 agree, maybe with ai it will reduce the education burden on teachers so that students can teach themselves and use ai to mark their work. The incredible things I’ve already used ai to teach me and quiz me on is absolutely amazing. But yes we need to find a way to teach kids IT, Science, Engineering & Maths without having to pay engineers ridiculously high salaries to go to schools & teach what they know & ofc encourage apprenticeships & hands on learning

Going to a "lesser" school doesn't mean you can't go on to be a productive and intelligent member of society.

Oct 7 was 'antisemitic barbarism'. what else is there to say? go and google 'beautiful Gaza' and look at how gorgeous Gaza was prior to Oct 7.

@@stephenglasse2743explain your point.

@@addammadd 'point'? the facts are , oct 7 WAS antisemitic barbarism. Not only was it antisemitic barbarism but it was self-defeating suicidal 'anti-palestinian' barbarism because not only did they murder and kidnap Israeli civilians but *they took them back to a dense urban Gaza* thereby inviting IDF invasion and bombardment of Gaza! How many pre-Oct 7 mosques, hospitals, schools, roads, cars, scooters, cafes, shops have been destroyed not to forget *lives?*

i dont care for the way he characterized most of any of it, but he described what israel was doing in gaza in harsher terms than simply "ineffectual", and made a point of doing so. if you think he was insincere, ok, wouldnt blame you, but why lie and pretend like he said something that he didnt? odd and concerning behavior

Address both quotes together or non at all. If Oct 7th was fueled primarily by a raging anti-Semitism (not a resistance to lengthy oppression) then for consistent application of reason, the Israeli reaction to Oct 7th must carry a similarly weighty condemnation. 'Ineffectual' is not that - it's practically an excuse, not a condemnation. I'm able to respect a well formed opinion that swings either way, but it is not possible to respect an opinion that applies different standards to each side. If Oct 7th was an anti-Semitic attempt to rid the world of Jews, then it must be that Israel's reaction is an attempt to rid the world of Palestinians. There is only one side here that has the capability of ending a people. Every possible statistical comparison between Palestine and Israel demonstrates this with absolute clarity, @@stephenglasse2743​

Where did you teach? What happened after 2008?

@@threethrushes I won't name the university as I don't think that's right, anyway my impression is that it was happening across the whole sector. I just left in 2008 and did something else.

Has always been thus, whilst knowledge may be power, accreditation gets you a Government sponsored job and money for life….

Yeah The EU. Where Urusula Van Der Leyen. Wants to be the EU war leader. Os great.

Its probably too late to give the Jews Bavaria

innocent hmm dont think so

If they'd given them Florida would the US be quite so supportive?

You also have the indigenous people the wrong way around just because its called Palestine does not mean the indigenous people are the Palestinians , that's like saying Australia belongs to the Australians, New Zealand belongs the New Zealanders as they must be the indigenous people to those lands - Palestine was the name the region was given by the Romans after they conquered it prior to that it was Israel (and lot bigger that the current boarders)

@@wellyman2008 But it's not too late to give Palestinians equal rights. In fact its long overdue. One state solution, give everyone equal rights Jews, Muslims and Christians.

That could never happen in contemporary U.K., partly because the U.K. has no maritime industry, partly because meritocracy is dead. Anyone with ambition gets an education, some experience, and applies it abroad.

: )))) "Have you visited Israel? No? That's the trouble" : DDD that's why a 2-state-solution was never found, as all other people never visited israel : D

The Gaza situation is very complex and has been going on for a long time so nobody is authoritative. I lived and worked in the Middle East where the hate was palpable and I saw and heard some unspeakable things. The events of 7/10 did not surprise me . But I do not consider authoritative. But I have to say many of the people on marches for Palestine simply do not have a clue what they are talking about. ☹

It makes him more brainwashed

​@@christinefiedor3518No, it is not complex, it is a vanilla case of Lebensraum fascist genocide.

@@Fredmayve To a bloody-minded leftist ideologue, sure

❤

Agreed. I'm lucky and have an Australian passport. I'll use it in the next few years and go back.

He also knows about Russia on TV and propaganda

@@S.Aliona That's not quite fair. Yes, his understanding of Russian arms production, and the state of the Russian military (both at the beginning of the current conflict, as well as now) is woefully poor. He also makes the basic rookie mistake of assuming that success in war can be measured in square kilometres, which isn't true until a war is concluded. He should read von Clausewitz if he wants to understand Russian military strategy. Nevertheless he is still better informed about affairs in Russia and Ukraine than the average westerner, and made a few valid points.

@@andreafalconiero9089 His statements are full of lies and stereotypes

@@S.Aliona Yes, that's also true!

He’s a pious prat

Leave then.

Horrible comment this comment

@@frankshailes3205Excellent advice. I encourage any competent people to leave to enjoy a higher quality of life abroad.

He would likely come to a more logical conclusion than the current people running the show.

Somewhat ironic when you consider that Noam Chomsky is a Government mouthpiece….

@@mcihs2 where is the evidence of which you speak?

When will you accept that parents have freedom to make economic choices? Some parents choose to buy iPhones, holidays in Ibiza, new cars, jewellery, cigarettes, booze, and so on. Some parents choose tutors, books, visits to museums, online lectures, and so on. Guess which children will probably fare better?

Why get involved? Both groups are the enemies of Europe.

Is there something wrong with you? You can't say Ireland? Ireland - an historically poor country that was subsidised by the richer EU nations [including the UK] until it caught up. A country so traditionally poor that it always taught its schoolchildren to leave the country, usually for the UK. I could go on and on and on and utterly destroy everything you've said. Can't be bothered. No-one cares what the Irish think.

Ken Loach and Paul Laverty are great at putting the shithole on the screen I, Daniel Blake

This is an astute commentary. I'm a Londoner, and I left the U.K. in 2015. There are pockets of excellence, beauty, and artistry - but the political discourse is immature.

If I’m listening to something which challenges me, I also am happier if it’s happening in my comfort zone

@@celiacresswell6909 Erm......well done? Congratulations? I'm proud of you? I'm sorry. I'm having trouble establishing what is the correct response to that? Maybe you'd like to tell us more random facts about yourself? I for one would be completely spellbound. Oooh, can an you tell us what your favourite colour is?? I can't wait.

You've verballed him.

That's not, as far as I can tell, his position, which is that prosperity tends to drive peace, which is true in general but I think of limited applicability in Israel/Palestine.

​@@eldrago19Ask yourself why this isn't applicable to this particular situation and you arrive back at the "just accept apartheid" point made above. So his proposed way forward is, at best, moronic.

What would you know about Apartheid? We're you there at the time? I sure was 😀

Can you give some examples?

I'd love some examples too! (Out of curiosity, not scepticism)

Can't say I've been to Cambodia but I did meet a Cambodian the other week and when I asked what it was like the jist of her answer was a lot poorer than the UK.

@@eldrago19 Colombia =/= Cambodia.

@sukotu23 @riveranalyse Before I say this - of course I’m aware there are areas which are worse than the UK, but right now I live in an average neighbourhood on £850 a month and tbh live like a king. Electricity, water, gas and public maintenance are grouped into one monthly bill, you pay according to your areas ‘estrato’ which is a number based on property prices of the area etc (there is an argument there for how it creates a hierarchy of society), but the lower number you are, the cheaper your bills are / the richer ones subsidise it more - I’m in estrato 3 and my combined utility bills, gas, leccy, water, maintenance average £30-£35 a month on a two bed apartment. (My modern 2 bed apartment with two bathrooms and access to a gym and pool is £476 a month) Medical care - it’s a little complicated and there is some public & private, but it’s affordable, I can say that much. Medication interests me more - I can get 99% of medicines without prescription (except antibiotics) and 99% of the time they’re cheaper than the UK prescription fee. If I need eczema cream? I get it within 10 mins for about £1.50 instead of nonsense week long 8am calls to get a doctor appointment in the Uk, prescription, blah blah blah. We have an app here called rappi, it’s a bit like deliveroo but you can get everything from jeans from h&m, to groceries, to medicines delivered within about 15 min, for no more than £1-£4, everyone uses it and tbh it amazes me every day, they can even go and withdraw money for you in a secure way. People care like crazy about plant and tree care in the streets, even right now there’s an orange tree growing oranges outside my window on the street - nobody picks them unless ripe and they’ll usually ask the house nearest if it’s ok. Littering is minimal in most places. Yea, theres cartels here, then even ‘own the neighbourhood’ I live in, called the oficina de envigado, but guess what? (Rightly or wrongly) Because of that, mine is one of the safest neighbourhoods in the country and that’s the case in many areas. The cartels actually tend to leave you alone as they’re more interested in their international businesses, and don’t want petty criminals taking up their time / destabilising their neighbourhoods. People are beautifully kind, even if they have very little. Community spirit is insanely tight, a lost dog will be found within 2hrs. Cleanest metro system I’ve ever seen, behind Japan. My unlimited everything phone plan is £5 a month and that’s the expensive one. We have little shops here called tiendas - open until about 1am, they’re basically off licenses and they have chairs tables and tvs (on sidewalks and in the middle of the street) and people sit, talk, eat crisps, have drinks and watch football and stuff - how long would a huge flat screen TV last on the street back home? Especially with alcohol involved. You can pay in 90% of shops here by scanning a QR code they have displayed on the counter, which processes the pigment and is linked to your bank account. 100% secure. Despite being the home of you know what - many people wouldn’t touch it, and there’s a huge stigma attached to it. Although I’ve seen it done in clubs as openly as sipping a beer. Crime tends to leave you alone, if you aren’t silly. (Sadly many Americans are absolutely driving crime up in some areas by coming here for women and the you know what) There’s always music playing somewhere and if certain music comes on, you’ll see people break out into salsa randomly, it’s beautiful. Public Wi-Fi literally everywhere Sorry about how unstructured all this was, it’s just hard to really word how different it is here, and get across just how much it’s shocked me how behind we are back home. If there’s any other questions, go ahead and ask haha