How It All Went Wrong

Great post by Norman Tebbit explaining how even he once drank the EU Kool Aid. It really hits on what underlines much of modern politics, and not just in an EU context either:

To a large extent we had more in common with each other across the bonds of nationality than with our fellow nationals at home. I became a member of a tribe which cut across my national tribal links.

The flip side works as well. The idea that goofy projects like the EU are the product of elite super geniuses naturally leads to the corollary that those who oppose them are clearly dirty peasants and morons.

The whole point about our governing class is that it often seems as though they regard themselves as citizens of the Republic of Elite, while their fellow countrymen outside the tranzi elite are a bunch of wacky foreigners.

On the plus side, at least back in the day, his colleagues really were an elite, at least in the sense that they did a difficult and demanding job.

Now? Not so much:

The problem I see now is that our new political class has little experience of life outside Westminster except in their homes in France and Spain, and no feeling for the mass of British people, so they are easy meat for the internatonalist dream which is reinforced by the doctrines of political correctness and the self interest of the international bureaucratic elite.

Their supposed qualifications to rule are based on a tautology. Our governing elite is elite because they're members of the governing elite. That's their only qualification. If Cameron wasn't a politician, what would he be? What skills does he bring to the table that have any application outside the context of an utterly dysfunctional political culture?

Ditto, any of them.

To the point: Cameron doesn't just support Big Government, Big Government supports him. He is a product of the system and every bit as dependent on Big Government for his career as any loser bureaucrat in the Office of the Hat Czar.