I get so bored by those who come on here to ask me why, if I hate the UK so much, why don't I leave?
The demand does, of course, come straight from the Fascist handbook.
The best riposte I have seen is this:
A patriot can criticise his country, stay with it, and go through the democratic process.
A nationalist needs enemies.
That comes from an interview with David Cornwell aka John le Carre, in 2018.
RIP.
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No doubt an auto-correct, but his name was Cornwell not Cornwall. Sad to see him go.
That’s what my version says – after several goes to over-write autocorrect
I shall remember that response.
Great author who also has things to say beyond his books.
Also, his books have also transferred well to the screen – I love Richard Burton in The Spy who came in from the cold.
A patriot can seek to improve their country with positive criticism, whereas a Colonel Blimp Nationalist usually ends up destroying it with ignorant xenophobia.
There’s criticism and criticism. The first one is negative criticism just ripping things apart, and the other one is positive criticism, where problems are outlined, but then carefully thought through and potential solutions offered.
After everything I’ve read of yours Richard I put you firmly in the positive criticism camp. The more people we have doing that the better. As I used to say to my team members who came to me with problems, “Pitch, don’t just bitch’. ie provide a potential solution to the problem rather than just highlight the problem.
I am only interested in solutions
As you say, a problem without a solution is just a whinge
I think that is a bit unfair, some people can see problems quite clearly but are not in a position to solve them or even articulate good solutions.
I am not sure I am being unfair
A problem without a solution is a fact as far as I can see
It’s only a problem when an alternative can be imagined
I disagree. Most of the time, and in most fields, an accurate understanding of the problem is a necessary precondition for indentifying – or inventing – the solution. You don’t need a vaccine in the frig. before you can usefully diagnose a novel virus.
But if you don’t know you need a cure – or even that one is possible – you accept the outcome
So your argument does not work
Hmm, I’m with Bob and Bill on this one.
It’s possible to identify and recognise problems without known solutions. Otherwise, logically, we’d never progress our knowledge.
I wonder if you’re conflating “no known solution” with “blind acceptance”, or maybe just “too far outside current knowledge to find an effective solution”? The second of which doesn’t preclude the identification of a problem, merely the solving of it.
I can believe that some may mask blind acceptance with “but there’s no solution/problem”, but that doesn’t mean the two are the same.
As I think, it might also be that you’re using the word “problem” differently to myself and those above? Thoughts?
I am putting them in different boxes
A problem has a solution
An irritation without a solution is something to be lived with
Or walked away from
But it’s not a problem in the sense that I use the word
If you don’t know you need a cure then by definition you haven’t identified the problem. And you surely can’t argue that a problem ceases to exist just because you can’t, or don’t yet know how to, rectify it ?
This is taking us nowhere
I persist in my view: a solution focus is what matters
Yep, fair enough Richard.
There’s a similar paradigm used in ultra-running circles – that is, control the controllable variables, and try not to worry about the uncontrollable variables
Of course, this comes with a huge caveat that one should plan, as well as possible, to convert uncontrollables into controllables, but the point is that it has the same ring to it of your solution focussed thinking.
Another one, which makes me chuckle, taken from some of my alpinist friends, is to make (bad) decisions quickly – but I don’t think that’s a good one for problem solving in the real world. It does help with decision paralysis though…
🙂
I enjoyed that
Every year our household watches Tinker, Tailor and Smiley’s People (BBC) – such a pleasure.
I always remember the character of Roy Bland saying this to Smiley:
“An artist is a bloke who can hold two fundamentally opposing views and still function.”
Artist/patriot – both the same to me and something to aspire to.
I did (leave) in 2006 (‘getting my retaliation in first’). Maybe, if I was younger, I would have stayed and fought, but there is only so much energy anyone can generate.
I do not know where to insert this comment. Forgive me interpolating it here.
In Nicola Sturgeon’s daily coronavirus press briefing today she was asked whether she was going to make up for the Treasury refusing to waive the tax on the £500 bonus Scottish NHS staff will receive from the Scottish Government for their efforts through the pandemic. The questioner proposed that the Scottish Government subsidise the tax itself.
The FM pointed out that it could not easily or satisfactorily be done (BBC Radio Scotland, Monday 14th January, 2020: about 40mins in; apparently the FM also made a similar statement on Friday). The reasons were as follows: the Scottish Government does not have access to all the tax information on everybody involved; most of it is held by HMRC. In addition, if the Scottish Government went ahead with the tax subsidisation, it would cost an additional £100m. Here the problem is that the way the tax framework works, apparently is that the tax would in any case be taken by the Treasury, and would not be received back by the Scottish government until it is reconciled; which would be around 2023-24. The Scottish Budget and NHS would therefore have to carry a £100m extra burden for three years. Also, as soon as the bonus is taxed there is a knock-on impact on benefits; and the Scottish Government has no power over benefits.
This is not any tax system, this is a British tax system. This is a Westminster mess. The Scottish Government should not be functioning under such an absurd framework. The constraints undermine the optics of devolution. I draw the conclusion they are calculatedly deliberate. It demonstrates that the devolution settlement has been botched; quite deliberately. It shows that it does not take long, once the tax framework is actually stress tested, scratching below the glib, tranquil surface, to ‘find it out’. It is a remarkable reminder also how hard the media and politicians have worked over years to ensure that nobody scratches below the surface of GERS.
For those who demand solutions and not just criticism, I would wish to help: but after many years experience of ‘devolution’ in Scotland, I fear it must finally be filed under ‘bad faith’; the solution for every country dealing with Britain, always ends the same way no matter how distant (US), or how close and how long (Scotland); independence.
Spot on
If they pay the tax on behalf of the staff, doesn’t that become a benefit that is subject to tax??
Yes
This is classic foot dragging aimed at nothing more than telling plucky people who is boss.
Pathetic when one considers how quickly they cut taxes for the rich and corporations.
If we are allowed to be critical here… The patriot is responsible and worries about his country’s economy because he loves his country and the nationalist need an enemy to justify destroying his country’s economy without realising it because he is driven by emotions rather than rationality. A negative emotion is a bad intention and bad intention leads to self destruction and creating further enemies.