“Would be revolutionaries have often been shocked (as Lenin was when he
spent a year in London) by the English capacity to “switch off” politically.
This capacity is less marked in the Irish, the Welsh or Scots.”
A.N Wilson, “London – a short history”, (1900-1939 chapter, pp 95)
How true this is. Sometimes I
feel like I am in a society full of mutes, as no-one is interested, no-one will
talk, about the issues of the day. Yet politics is so important; like the
Second Law of Thermodynamics, something else that eludes the understanding of
most (English) people, it permeates every single aspect of our daily lives. And
yet people are uninterested in it.
I wrote this in 2005; the referendum debate changed things slightly for a while, only slightly, and only for a while. We're back to being political mutes.
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