One very small reason for subscribing to you - much, much less important than to support one of the few voices which the media permits to be raised in opposition to the madness of the elites - is that I enjoy watching a certain former Times columnist splutter in fury that you're allowed to speak at all. I have loathed his Blairite gibbering for as long as I can remember. Raised by Communist parents, he seems to retain the comrades' inability to countenance that others have different opinions which deserve to be aired, and the ratio-pounding he's taken this week as he resurrects the tired Whataboutery regarding illegal immigrants and crime has been one of the few pleasures in this terrible time. "Some criminals aren't asylum seekers" is the line that he and the other grifter-hacks have settled upon, and I think it would have worked ten years ago. It doesn't work any more: you don't need Bayes' theorem to discern why such a line is as pointless as it's anti-statistical. This progress in the discourse is in part down to your bravery, Matt. Thank you.
Thanks Matt, and thanks to all your subscribers who post here. You all stopped me feeling I was alone in my opinions and going nuts in my dotage. Psychological support, yes, good way of putting it. Peace to all this Sunday.
May I, with all due respect, humbly suggest that your site and your readership has been growing and will continue to do so is because you, Matt, are providing numbers from your own polls and other sources with which to support and underline your arguments! It is, after all, hard to argue with '2 + 2 = 4', unless one is a 'Climate extremist' or a Whitehall civil servant ... or a politician ...
Is this the Vivian of the Vivian Rant? Would you care to rename your own Substack so it is easier to locate. There are loads of Vivian this and that's on Substack, and your contributions are valuable.
Yes indeed, the reason I pay over 600NOK for Prof Goodwin Substack is because he provides factual quantitative news. För this fee I can have all the London " respectable" papers. But they, with the partial exception of the Torygraph, fail to do this.
It is true, as Vivian Evans suggests in her comment of about 2 hrs ago, that it is hard to argue with 2+2=4. The problem is not one of argument. Matt's points, reasoned from data, are unassailable. The problem is that the views or conclusions are ignored just as they have been for over a decade. Considerable factual research underlay the arguments in books (that had accompanying articles in newspapers and magazines and were not obscure academic publications) from 2012 and 2013 in particular - for example, Gavin Cooke's 'Britains Great Immigration Disaster,' Paul Collier's 'Exodus', Ed West's 'The Diversity Illusion', and in 2017 Douglas Murray's 'The Strange Death of Europe' - none of which had any effect whatsoever anymore than did 1 to 2 million marching against Blair's war in Iraq. The Westminster political class, the 'new elite', the 'luxury belief' class, the charity-industrial complex, the running dogs in the media, the academics spewing out destructive critical theories and indoctrinating the young, the entire rotten, decadent lot of them, are impervious to argument. Even now, despite debunking by a few ministers, the NHS and Civil Service continue to kowtow to Stonewall, banks continue debanking, the Met continue to hold the hands of thousands of Hamas supporters every Saturday, and the cult of net zero continues.
It is true, as Matt argues, that we need a new political party but the establishment, the blob, will continue to squeeze out insurgent parties. In the 2015 election UKIP got nearly 4million votes. It was its performance in EU elections before that date that provoked the Brexit referendum but even that achieved nothing. We are still subject to EU law - the Windsor framework and its latest amendment ensures we must align our regulations even in the mainland and scrutinise any new laws for compatibility with the EU. And post Brexit immigration was not just unabated but greatly increased, rents, houses energy and food continue to increase in price and the UK, London in particular, grows as a playground for the foreign rich. London has the highest number of hotel rooms at over £1000 a night than other capital.
The current frontrunner for a 'new' party - on an ineffective 10 to 15% (like UKIP was in 2015) - is Reform UK. It is not going to be the largest party in the next Parliament and its effect is probably to increase Labour's majority and reduce the size of the Conservative so called opposition. Even if Reform UK get near the levers of power, or influence those that are in power, the labyrinthine bureaucracy that is the modern state will thwart it as Raab, Patel, and Braverman found out. Once Labour are in power ....
But the UK is sandwiched between the US and the EU. Events in America and on the continent may be the source of change by osmosis into the UK. For now, those are two glimmers of hope.
Thank you Matt for making the arguments that our media-political class deliberately ignore/suppress and more importantly, as others have noted, for backing this up with hard data. In your article, you make what I personally think is one of the most important elements of democracy that the Elite are busy trying to remove, that is that we do not all agree. Sounds a small thing, but the recognition that we all bring our own perspectives and that all should be heard is key to making Democracy work. We then argue and debate and find a way forward that a majority support, and because all have had their say, the minority can accept they have been heard. This diversity of opinion is a core element of Democracy.
Matt, as you say we may not agree on everything but are united against the way the elite are leading this country. I want to talk about one area of disagreement.
To start with an analogy, you probably remember the Batley by-election. None of the main party candidates were prepared to mention the elephant in the room, the Batley teacher driven into hiding by extremists. They feared being smeared as Islamophobic. The left establishment love to silence legitimate criticism in this way - and it works.
I think that a lot of people are nervous of criticising Israeli policy in Gaza for the same reason, fear of being smeared as anti-semitic. This doesn't bother the hard left or the Islamists, of course, but it is making me nervous as I type this now. How can we be rightly appalled by the Hamas attack but hide behind euphemisms like self defence or supporting Israel when the IDF kill twenty times as many Palestinians including numerous children?
In your recent GB News debate with Aaron Bastani, he made some good points. If and when the rest of Gaza is reduced to rubble, there will be another large flow of migrants to Europe. They will be bitter and angry and coming here, where the political elite will welcome them to 4* hotels. If our useless MPs drag us into another Middle East war on America's coat tails, there will be even more destruction and mass movements of people.
While there are big problems across western Europe with Islamic extremism, there are Muslims in this country who resent fundamentalism and hate preachers. Many share our concerns about the culture war the left is waging, about trans activists in schools and drag queen story hour for example. So yes of course oppose anti-semitism and Islamic extremism, but please be careful about giving the impression of taking sides in the long and bitter Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Great comment @badger. Sadly, this type of nuance is absent in our mainstream media, and impossible to have in social conversations for fear of tripping up and getting piled upon.
You are right Badger and it is inexcusable to paint all Muslims with the same brush. In my experience, the mildest Muslims are extremely nice people but they have to operate within a certain framework and they have to ensure that their children operate in the same way.
If I chose to emigrate to Spain I would see it as a requirement that I passed my self imposed CLLR test - Culture - I would need to align with the Spanish culture - Language - I would need to almost exclusively speak the Spanish language - Law - I would need to obey the Spanish law - Religion - if I wanted a religion I would have to be to support the Spanish religion namely Catholic.
Now ask the same question of a Muslim coming here from UAE or Pakistan. Meeting those four requirements is impossible. Indeed some Muslims will be unable or chose to be unwilling to accept any of them.
If the Muslim population were below 1% of the U.K. and stable then the non-integration might be largely ignored. But if it is 8% and growing to maybe 12% and then maybe 18% in each generation because the indigenous population reproduction rate is 1.5:2 and the Muslim reproduction rate is 3:2, the challenge is different.
Thanks Ian for this thoughtful reply. I am not Catholic but if I moved to Spain I would learn Spanish and respect the fact that this is a Catholic country, but I would not feel the need to convert to Catholicism.
The UK is increasingly secular - I don't go to church, but our heritage is Christian. People can come here who are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist without the need to convert but while we should respect minority faiths, they should not dominate. For example at my daughter's school I hate the way that Christmas has been replaced with "festive".
I would say to British Muslims, if you want religious freedom and respect for family values, good for you. If you want to live under Sharia Law there are plenty of other countries to choose from but Britain will never be one of them.
Thank you for your message and I apologise for the delay in replying. If all communities acted reasonably I would agree with you entirely. What we are seeing in the UK now, as illustrated most recently yesterday evening, is one
Hi Badger - thank you for your reply. I take a slightly harder line - we have in my opinion had a softer line and it has become even softer. And I accept that this is also more complex because of historic factors - Empire, Commonwealth - and I am no expert. But we are now in an environment where the internet and climate change are improving awareness, both good news and bad news, and as we take a humanitarian approach to those in distraught conditions, I believe there should be some sort of quid pro quo for incumbents by expecting a degree of alignment with incumbent circumstances. Namely Culture, Language, Law and Religion. I accept that the controversial one is religion and its overflow, in some circumstances, to law. That, in the religions I cite, this stems from the belief in the same God but grows into generally irreconcilable differences on the detail illustrates how fundamental these differences are and how potentially they grow into very damaging activities. Hence my attitude that the initial offering must be somewhat demanding.
Thanks Matt. You are one of the few sane voices talking politics in public and I relish your appearances which are always delivered with a sensible and neutral tone from the credible position of research and academia. I think this community deserves to continue to grow much bigger...
Thank you for everything you are doing, Matt. Your writing and media appearance are making a big impact, and I know from my friends, colleagues, and family that many more people know of you and what you are writing and saying.
Whatever you say or write the legacy newspaper rags pick it up and write columns on the subject. Even the newspapers sympathetic to these useless parties are behind the curve. I'm increasingly of the opinion it's not just MSM that's dying, so are the newspaper rags.
One very small reason for subscribing to you - much, much less important than to support one of the few voices which the media permits to be raised in opposition to the madness of the elites - is that I enjoy watching a certain former Times columnist splutter in fury that you're allowed to speak at all. I have loathed his Blairite gibbering for as long as I can remember. Raised by Communist parents, he seems to retain the comrades' inability to countenance that others have different opinions which deserve to be aired, and the ratio-pounding he's taken this week as he resurrects the tired Whataboutery regarding illegal immigrants and crime has been one of the few pleasures in this terrible time. "Some criminals aren't asylum seekers" is the line that he and the other grifter-hacks have settled upon, and I think it would have worked ten years ago. It doesn't work any more: you don't need Bayes' theorem to discern why such a line is as pointless as it's anti-statistical. This progress in the discourse is in part down to your bravery, Matt. Thank you.
Your writings are imperative, Matt, and much appreciated. Thank goodness they are gathering a group of like minded folk.
Thanks Matt, and thanks to all your subscribers who post here. You all stopped me feeling I was alone in my opinions and going nuts in my dotage. Psychological support, yes, good way of putting it. Peace to all this Sunday.
May I, with all due respect, humbly suggest that your site and your readership has been growing and will continue to do so is because you, Matt, are providing numbers from your own polls and other sources with which to support and underline your arguments! It is, after all, hard to argue with '2 + 2 = 4', unless one is a 'Climate extremist' or a Whitehall civil servant ... or a politician ...
Thanks!
Is this the Vivian of the Vivian Rant? Would you care to rename your own Substack so it is easier to locate. There are loads of Vivian this and that's on Substack, and your contributions are valuable.
Yes indeed, the reason I pay over 600NOK for Prof Goodwin Substack is because he provides factual quantitative news. För this fee I can have all the London " respectable" papers. But they, with the partial exception of the Torygraph, fail to do this.
Yes, 'tis me ...
Thanks - and I'll do something about renaming my site then - I'd not thought about all those other Vivians writing on substack.
It is true, as Vivian Evans suggests in her comment of about 2 hrs ago, that it is hard to argue with 2+2=4. The problem is not one of argument. Matt's points, reasoned from data, are unassailable. The problem is that the views or conclusions are ignored just as they have been for over a decade. Considerable factual research underlay the arguments in books (that had accompanying articles in newspapers and magazines and were not obscure academic publications) from 2012 and 2013 in particular - for example, Gavin Cooke's 'Britains Great Immigration Disaster,' Paul Collier's 'Exodus', Ed West's 'The Diversity Illusion', and in 2017 Douglas Murray's 'The Strange Death of Europe' - none of which had any effect whatsoever anymore than did 1 to 2 million marching against Blair's war in Iraq. The Westminster political class, the 'new elite', the 'luxury belief' class, the charity-industrial complex, the running dogs in the media, the academics spewing out destructive critical theories and indoctrinating the young, the entire rotten, decadent lot of them, are impervious to argument. Even now, despite debunking by a few ministers, the NHS and Civil Service continue to kowtow to Stonewall, banks continue debanking, the Met continue to hold the hands of thousands of Hamas supporters every Saturday, and the cult of net zero continues.
It is true, as Matt argues, that we need a new political party but the establishment, the blob, will continue to squeeze out insurgent parties. In the 2015 election UKIP got nearly 4million votes. It was its performance in EU elections before that date that provoked the Brexit referendum but even that achieved nothing. We are still subject to EU law - the Windsor framework and its latest amendment ensures we must align our regulations even in the mainland and scrutinise any new laws for compatibility with the EU. And post Brexit immigration was not just unabated but greatly increased, rents, houses energy and food continue to increase in price and the UK, London in particular, grows as a playground for the foreign rich. London has the highest number of hotel rooms at over £1000 a night than other capital.
The current frontrunner for a 'new' party - on an ineffective 10 to 15% (like UKIP was in 2015) - is Reform UK. It is not going to be the largest party in the next Parliament and its effect is probably to increase Labour's majority and reduce the size of the Conservative so called opposition. Even if Reform UK get near the levers of power, or influence those that are in power, the labyrinthine bureaucracy that is the modern state will thwart it as Raab, Patel, and Braverman found out. Once Labour are in power ....
But the UK is sandwiched between the US and the EU. Events in America and on the continent may be the source of change by osmosis into the UK. For now, those are two glimmers of hope.
Thank you Matt for making the arguments that our media-political class deliberately ignore/suppress and more importantly, as others have noted, for backing this up with hard data. In your article, you make what I personally think is one of the most important elements of democracy that the Elite are busy trying to remove, that is that we do not all agree. Sounds a small thing, but the recognition that we all bring our own perspectives and that all should be heard is key to making Democracy work. We then argue and debate and find a way forward that a majority support, and because all have had their say, the minority can accept they have been heard. This diversity of opinion is a core element of Democracy.
“If we ever started a campaign.” Lots of trying to figure out what we can practically do. So all ears on this one!
Matt, as you say we may not agree on everything but are united against the way the elite are leading this country. I want to talk about one area of disagreement.
To start with an analogy, you probably remember the Batley by-election. None of the main party candidates were prepared to mention the elephant in the room, the Batley teacher driven into hiding by extremists. They feared being smeared as Islamophobic. The left establishment love to silence legitimate criticism in this way - and it works.
I think that a lot of people are nervous of criticising Israeli policy in Gaza for the same reason, fear of being smeared as anti-semitic. This doesn't bother the hard left or the Islamists, of course, but it is making me nervous as I type this now. How can we be rightly appalled by the Hamas attack but hide behind euphemisms like self defence or supporting Israel when the IDF kill twenty times as many Palestinians including numerous children?
In your recent GB News debate with Aaron Bastani, he made some good points. If and when the rest of Gaza is reduced to rubble, there will be another large flow of migrants to Europe. They will be bitter and angry and coming here, where the political elite will welcome them to 4* hotels. If our useless MPs drag us into another Middle East war on America's coat tails, there will be even more destruction and mass movements of people.
While there are big problems across western Europe with Islamic extremism, there are Muslims in this country who resent fundamentalism and hate preachers. Many share our concerns about the culture war the left is waging, about trans activists in schools and drag queen story hour for example. So yes of course oppose anti-semitism and Islamic extremism, but please be careful about giving the impression of taking sides in the long and bitter Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Great comment @badger. Sadly, this type of nuance is absent in our mainstream media, and impossible to have in social conversations for fear of tripping up and getting piled upon.
You are right Badger and it is inexcusable to paint all Muslims with the same brush. In my experience, the mildest Muslims are extremely nice people but they have to operate within a certain framework and they have to ensure that their children operate in the same way.
If I chose to emigrate to Spain I would see it as a requirement that I passed my self imposed CLLR test - Culture - I would need to align with the Spanish culture - Language - I would need to almost exclusively speak the Spanish language - Law - I would need to obey the Spanish law - Religion - if I wanted a religion I would have to be to support the Spanish religion namely Catholic.
Now ask the same question of a Muslim coming here from UAE or Pakistan. Meeting those four requirements is impossible. Indeed some Muslims will be unable or chose to be unwilling to accept any of them.
If the Muslim population were below 1% of the U.K. and stable then the non-integration might be largely ignored. But if it is 8% and growing to maybe 12% and then maybe 18% in each generation because the indigenous population reproduction rate is 1.5:2 and the Muslim reproduction rate is 3:2, the challenge is different.
Thanks Ian for this thoughtful reply. I am not Catholic but if I moved to Spain I would learn Spanish and respect the fact that this is a Catholic country, but I would not feel the need to convert to Catholicism.
The UK is increasingly secular - I don't go to church, but our heritage is Christian. People can come here who are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist without the need to convert but while we should respect minority faiths, they should not dominate. For example at my daughter's school I hate the way that Christmas has been replaced with "festive".
I would say to British Muslims, if you want religious freedom and respect for family values, good for you. If you want to live under Sharia Law there are plenty of other countries to choose from but Britain will never be one of them.
Hi Badger
Thank you for your message and I apologise for the delay in replying. If all communities acted reasonably I would agree with you entirely. What we are seeing in the UK now, as illustrated most recently yesterday evening, is one
Hi Badger - thank you for your reply. I take a slightly harder line - we have in my opinion had a softer line and it has become even softer. And I accept that this is also more complex because of historic factors - Empire, Commonwealth - and I am no expert. But we are now in an environment where the internet and climate change are improving awareness, both good news and bad news, and as we take a humanitarian approach to those in distraught conditions, I believe there should be some sort of quid pro quo for incumbents by expecting a degree of alignment with incumbent circumstances. Namely Culture, Language, Law and Religion. I accept that the controversial one is religion and its overflow, in some circumstances, to law. That, in the religions I cite, this stems from the belief in the same God but grows into generally irreconcilable differences on the detail illustrates how fundamental these differences are and how potentially they grow into very damaging activities. Hence my attitude that the initial offering must be somewhat demanding.
Thanks Matt. You are one of the few sane voices talking politics in public and I relish your appearances which are always delivered with a sensible and neutral tone from the credible position of research and academia. I think this community deserves to continue to grow much bigger...
Great stuff. Keep it up Matt!
Thank you for everything you are doing, Matt. Your writing and media appearance are making a big impact, and I know from my friends, colleagues, and family that many more people know of you and what you are writing and saying.
Whatever you say or write the legacy newspaper rags pick it up and write columns on the subject. Even the newspapers sympathetic to these useless parties are behind the curve. I'm increasingly of the opinion it's not just MSM that's dying, so are the newspaper rags.
Long live independent media.