Government is too big, too many rules making it impossible to do anything, too many employees paid large salaries to do nothing productive. There was no real 'austerity' by the Coalition/Conservatives- spending and debt are at record levels. They failed by being too timid, making small changes when they should have closed down whole departments and relaxed regulations and planning rules, as Milei is doing in Argentina.
Honestly, Aris Roussinos' reflection on the legacy of British imperial governance predictably critiques one imperial power while conveniently overlooking the vast empires of the Arab world, the Middle Eastern and Eastern slave-owning practices, and the region's own brutal regimes. At least the West progressed, with advancements in human rights and democracy. By the time Britain was handed the mandate to govern pending the establishment of nation states, the Arabs had already been given four fifths of historical Palestine east of the river (Jordan). To provide perspective, the region then was still largely underdeveloped with much of the land suffering from neglect, including areas plagued by malaria and sparse populations of Arabs and Jews — fewer than 700,000 in a space that is now home to 20 million today (including Jordan).
Was it the British who waged a 'war of extermination and momentous massacre' (Azzam Pasha) against the Jews? No. Whatever her strategic missteps, can Britain be blamed for Pan Arabist ambition that denied the rights of others? As Dr Constantine Zureiq, who coined the term al-Nakba in his 1948 book ‘The Meaning of Disaster’, acknowledged: "We must admit responsibility for the disaster that is our lot." He meant losing the war and their share of the remaining land.
But the war was not primarily about securing a larger share of the land. Instead, their resistance was clearly rooted in opposition to the establishment of a Jewish state, reflecting long-standing tensions and discriminatory attitudes toward Jews, whom they had historically oppressed. And this had little to do with Britain.
Government is too big, too many rules making it impossible to do anything, too many employees paid large salaries to do nothing productive. There was no real 'austerity' by the Coalition/Conservatives- spending and debt are at record levels. They failed by being too timid, making small changes when they should have closed down whole departments and relaxed regulations and planning rules, as Milei is doing in Argentina.
Big government conservatism is an Oxymoron.
Honestly, Aris Roussinos' reflection on the legacy of British imperial governance predictably critiques one imperial power while conveniently overlooking the vast empires of the Arab world, the Middle Eastern and Eastern slave-owning practices, and the region's own brutal regimes. At least the West progressed, with advancements in human rights and democracy. By the time Britain was handed the mandate to govern pending the establishment of nation states, the Arabs had already been given four fifths of historical Palestine east of the river (Jordan). To provide perspective, the region then was still largely underdeveloped with much of the land suffering from neglect, including areas plagued by malaria and sparse populations of Arabs and Jews — fewer than 700,000 in a space that is now home to 20 million today (including Jordan).
Was it the British who waged a 'war of extermination and momentous massacre' (Azzam Pasha) against the Jews? No. Whatever her strategic missteps, can Britain be blamed for Pan Arabist ambition that denied the rights of others? As Dr Constantine Zureiq, who coined the term al-Nakba in his 1948 book ‘The Meaning of Disaster’, acknowledged: "We must admit responsibility for the disaster that is our lot." He meant losing the war and their share of the remaining land.
But the war was not primarily about securing a larger share of the land. Instead, their resistance was clearly rooted in opposition to the establishment of a Jewish state, reflecting long-standing tensions and discriminatory attitudes toward Jews, whom they had historically oppressed. And this had little to do with Britain.