Indeed. But my point stands. Praising Enoch Powell is a politically silly thing to do and Hannan must have known that his statement of admiration would be dragged up and used out of context to attack him – so why did he say it?

two places immed come to mind: the track and the trading floor.

One place certainly not: the public sector.

Re: the trading floor, there are two broad arguments as to why free markets are not meritocracies:

1) The price system does not reward ability. If you want people’s earnings to reflect their ability, therefore, you can’t have a free market.

This simple point is both obvious and universally ignored. Consider:

Bonuses for executives and traders have increased over the past 30 years – are you really claiming that traders and executives now are actually “better” than traders and executives from 30 years ago?

(Traders and execs now have access to better tools, but surely this is an argument for paying the providers of said tools rather than the people who use them?)

The point about the free market is that it signals demand. It does not reward past performance, but indicates what people *should* do in the future.

As the free market does not reward past performance (90 year old retired executives can’t go back to their former employers and demand more money from them now because they weren’t paid as much 30 years ago as their replacements are now) the free market cannot be a meritocracy.

The best thing about the free market is the way it matches supply to demand. It is this very thing that means it is not meritocratic. The best nurse in the country probably earns no more than the average plumber.

2) You really need to read “Fooled by Randomness” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It is very rare to find a trader who is successful because of “merit” rather than simple luck. Taleb makes this argument better than I can so I strongly suggest you read the book.

And as for the public sector – do you have any evidence that the public sector is more or less meritocratic than the private sector? If so please direct me to the relevant material.

Would you accept there is such a thing as an English People, that their country is England and that the wish to retain its character is legitimate?/blockquote>

What is not legitimate is to have a preconcieved notion of who the English are or that our character is fixed.

On any timescale England is a political concept created in the minds of the inhabitants of the land who participate in cultural life. The only constant is for every individual to be free to choose for themself if they so desire – which means that our collective identity is determined by the mass of our individual actions, not according to the prescriptive opinion of a minority of any number of individual voices.

Sounds to me like the complaint of someone who has got what he wants, but doesn’t like the fact that others may have it too!

No it is the State that has sought loosen old loyalties by allowing immigration to quintuple despite the consistent objections of the English

Hmm. Government deliberately trying to ‘loosen old loyalties?’ Are you sure?

I just wish the Liberal Party would be a little clearer about their contempt for the Nation as a thing worth defending when they want votes .

I wish they’d make their contempt for nationalism more clear.

Would you accept there is such a thing as an English People , that their country is England and that the wish to retain its character is legitimate?

I accept that there are people who think like that, but I’m nationalist and have absolutely no desire to see or interest in any sort of state mandated culture or racial demographic.

I suppose you will join idiot Mandelson in recommending that unemployed ship workers whose jobs are outsourced to cheap Poles go and find work in Europe

If you mean I’m not a nationalist, or a socialist, or a fascist then yet.

I suppose you will join idiot Mandelson in recommending that unemployed ship workers whose jobs are outsourced to cheap Poles go and find work in Europe
Well it worked pretty damn well for him.

Big Government approaches are anti-immigration by necessity. Small government = less taxation = less need to keep people out.

@Charlotte Gore – The problem with complete freedom of movement, is that the residents of a country pay taxes for services. If anyone comes and can have the services rendered to them and then clear off without paying taxes, then that surely is not correct??

You dismiss race, gender, class, and physical ability as sources from whence people can gain status or power.

No I didn’t. I was talking about how certain individuals interact with other people, you’re talking about how we live in a collectivist world so of course people get status or power from membership of privileged collectives.

All I’m responsible for is my own dealings with other people.

Please can you give a detailed and thoroughly worked out description of…

Nope. I’m not arguing we currently live in a perfect meritocracy – the status quo is nothing of the sort.