Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England

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Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England
Nick Cohen

Do you remember what life was like before the crash?• When level-headed couples were still taking mortgages five times their joint income.• When the middle class was divided between the haves and the have yachts.• When Her Majesty's Government boasted that their 'light-touch regulation' of finance had abolished boom and bust, and laughed hysterically at anyone who disagreed.By Christmas 2008, eight banks had been part-nationalised, Woolworths had disappeared, unemployment had reached nearly two million and the country's debt had hit record levels. We are now a bankrupt nation.After the Great Crash of 2008, Americans could at least blame an incompetent right-wing government. But when the money ran out, Britain was ruled by left wingers who had grown up despising the 'funny-money' men. And yet, like the most gullible investors on Wall Street, New Labour prostrated themselves before the snake oil charmers of financial capital.Since they came to power in 1997, Nick Cohen has been taking the pulse of what has turned out to be the longest period of left-wing government in British history. Over a decade later, he reports from the sickbed of liberal England as battered and broken voters contemplate a remarkable shift. With splendid outrage and great compassion, Waiting for the Etonians, is an account of a country that, for the first time since the end of the Empire, is considering embracing the old ruling class it has despised for decades.

NICK COHEN

Waiting for the Etonians

Reports from the sickbed

of Liberal England

To A-M for sustaining and supporting me

CONTENTS

Introduction—Looking Back at the Ruins

PART 1—The Classless Society

Holding on to Nurse

Class Hatred: A Defence

The Cool Rich and the Dumb Poor

The Moneyed Young Beasts

In Search of the Normal

PART 2—Who is England? What is She?

Celebrity Chefs and Invisible Immigrants

Black on Brown/Brown on Black (#uf0753a97-905a-5ba1-9540-39b2018142fc)

Ryanair Migrants

Neo-Fascists at the Village Hall

Shooting the Foxes

Law without Order

Svengali at the Church School

Blowing Britishness Away

PART 3—Oh, Comrades!

Pacifists and the Bomb

Communists and Fascists

Pseudo-Leftists and Real Rightists

Eco-tourists and Islamo-terrorists

Multiculturalists and Monomaniacs

Liberals and Murderers (Part One)

Liberals and Murderers (Part Two)

Social Democrats and Theocrats

PART 4—Tyranny and the Intellectuals

Martin Amis Meets Liberal London

Neoconitis Sweeps Broadcast News

It’s the Jews, Once Again

Vänster Om, Höger Om!

Nicolas Sarkozy Woos Bernard-Henri Lévy

PART 5—The Silence of the Hams

The Rout of the Avant-Garde

Now It’s the Art Galleries

The Broadcasters Bite Their Tongues

A Cartoon Crisis

State Britain

Labour’s Contemptible Election Trade-off

Inequality before the Law

PART 6—Bread without Freedom

Lesser Breeds without the Law

The White Woman’s Burden

Let Them Eat Organic

The Menace of the Quaint

PART 7—Cuckoo Land

Pathologising Everyday Life

The Genetic Revolution (Postponed)

The Clairvoyants

Criminal Crackers

Beware of the Flowers

PART 8—Before the Banks Bust

The World on Your Doorstep

Casino Capitalism

Natural-Born Billers

The Roc’s Egg of Great Ladies’ Assemblies

Primal Screams and Broken Dreams

‘Sub-prime’ (adjective): Insanely Risky

The Skull beneath the Skin

PART 9—Waiting for the Etonians

The Making of the Next Prime Minister?

‘We’re from the Tory Party and We’ve Come to Help’

Breaking the Camel’s Back

All Passion Spent

Attack of the Mulletts

Tory Isolationism

The Retreat to Little England

The Great Leap Backwards

Postscript—The Reasonableness of Ranters

Index (#ulink_f738daf5-7556-5da4-9ed0-a2c90ffb99ee)

Also by Nick Cohen (#ue5a9d11a-34f3-5f94-9c44-a1cd1faf867d)

About the Author

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