I’m not but I’m living here, in Birmingham, for about 1.5 years now. (I’m from Hungary.) Yes I think this country is doomed and I’m pretty sad about it. You know the very reason I moved over, aside that I had deeply enough of the typical post-commie Crony Capitalism in Hungary, is that I’m sort of an Anglophile. I took great delight in the writings of Burke, Oakeshott etc. basically the spirit of moderation, consideration, and a sense of humour which was so typical of the English character. I wanted to see and experience it.
My experiences were mixed, to say the least. The business class, the professionals are amazing, it’s really lovely to work here as an Enterprise Resource Planning consultant. I’m amazed by the patience of my clients - when they want something done, they perfectly accept if it will be only done next week. They are really great people, as long as it comes to work. Well when it comes to other things my feelings are more mixed. Compared to what I’m used to, this country works very well and the reason it works is that people are practical, they concentrate on the solutions, not the problems, they want to get things done. But this practicality makes even educated, intelligent people a bit superficial, like “Does it work? OK. Then stop thinking about it.” They are not in the least interested in the theoretical, philosophical aspects of the work we do, even though on the practical level they are simply great in it. In fact it’s more or less accepted for a 35 years old intelligent, educated business professional to be interested in nothing else but boozing, watching football and playing on the XBox which is a bit of a shock to me. Probably I won’t make many close friends here because after 10 minutes of talking I have to switch the topic to some intelligent topic or I’ll die of boredom on the spot. But despite these faults I really like the businessmen and the professionals, they work hard, smartly, efficiently and honestly, they are really great people.
But the average people… I’m simply shocked. The average man of the street is horribly rude, alcoholic, rowdy, wears a tracksuit with trainers, litters the streets freely and so on. And uses a very small vocabulary. (Perhaps it’s just a Black Country habit but using “a’right” for greeting people, for expressing surprise, for expressing agreement, and for multiple other purposes makes me think those who use this term in every other sentence, which pretty much describes much of the people here, don’t really have much of a vocabulary. One things there isn’t much point in attending school for twelve years if all they can say is a’right, mate. I wonder what they’ve learned there.)
Anyway. I think this is still a great country, it takes a long time to ruin such a magnificient history, it’s just the real spirit of Britain is sleeping in some corner. It will wake up, of that I’m sure.
On economics and politics: there isn’t much to say about it as it’s too obvious. Hayek, Robbins and the others on LSE went light years below the radar of the current intellectual elite. And sadly, Enoch Powell too - that’s another kind of problem but I think a steadily growing one. The Salisbury Review and the Social Affairs Unit is OK from a cultural-political point of view but sadly they don’t give a hoot about economics. The Libertarian-Conservatives like Thomas Sowell and Charles Murray who are force to be reckoned with amongst the American Conservative intellecuals are sadly missing here. On the plus side, Ferdinand Mount and his book, Mind the Gap is going towards a good direction and his growing popularity in young Tory circles makes me a bit hopeful.
But right now what I’m most worried about is the fall of the £ - EUR exchange rate: Will the £ crash? - my savings are going down the toilet.