Inside the mind of a psychopath: how psychopaths think

The most commonly-accepted method of identifying psychopathy is Hare's Psychopathy "checklist", which uses a twenty-point marker to evaluate to what extent someone is a psychopath. The maximum score is forty, but someone with a score of more than thirty is considered a psychopath, while anyone with a score of more than twenty may be considered a "semi-psychopath": potentially dangerous to be around socially, but not necessarily a risk to your personal safety.
As a general rule, psychopathy is thought to exist between one and five percent of the male population, and around one percent of the female population. Psychopathy is generally understood to be a combination of behaviours ("markers", as listed below), usually seen as a combination of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Anti-Social Behaviour Disorder (ASPD). As an aside, adoptees are also disproportionately-likely to "suffer from" psychopathy, as I wrote about a few months back.
As a reminder, the main behavioural "markers" are:

• Glibness/superficial charm
• Grandiose sense of self-worth
• Pathological lying
• Cunning/manipulative
• Lack of remorse or guilt

• Emotionally shallow
• Callous/lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

• Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
• Parasitic lifestyle
• Lack of realistic, long-term goals
• Impulsiveness
• Irresponsibility
• Poor behavioral controls

But what does the world look like to a psychopath?

In some ways it's easier to consider psychopaths almost a different species, rather than as human beings in the conventional sense. Psychopaths are far more like "human predators" than human beings.

As a "human predator", they see the world as a jungle of predators and prey; where victims are there to be used for the psychopath's own purposes, and rival "predators" are quickly assessed as either a challenge to be defeated (as a boost to their own deeply-narcissitic ego), or one to be avoided. The assessment of risk, however, depends on the intelligence of the individual psychopath.

First of all, they have no sense of morality in the human sense; for them, there is no "right and wrong", only what is convenient for them. Brain scans comparing psychopaths and normal people have explained medically why this is: the front part of their brain (which deals with morality) is less active than a normal person, so the moral concept is simply not there. They can justify any of their actions, regardless of the consequences, and never feel "guilty" about anything, because for them, it is always someone else's fault. In their own eyes, they are faultless: if anything goes wrong in their lives, there is always someone else to blame. 

Likewise, psychopaths do not recognise the concept of "lying" or "truth" - they simply say whatever is convenient at the time, in order to resolve a situation to their greatest benefit. Similarly, when their lies get caught out in front of them, they can further invent the most ingenious fabrications to cover up the inconsistency, sending their sane listeners into impossible logical contortions trying to keep up. Some politicians can be like that, as I've said before.   

(A longer discussion of what attracts psychopaths to politics can be found here.)

Psychopaths therefore are capable of appallingly irresponsible or cold-blooded behaviour - theoretically, even murder - and be able to convince themselves that it was the victim's (or someone's else's, or "society's") fault. Furthermore, they will likely justify the action by claiming that the victim "deserved it"; alternatively, in the case of fraud or some other dishonest act, they would even believe that the victim would benefit psychologically from a "harsh lesson", in order to make the victim a stronger person. 
The only reason for behaving in a socially-acceptable way would be for the sake of convenience: avoiding crime not because it is morally wrong, but because it is potentially risky or inconvenient. But that judgement depends on how smart and cunning the psychopath is; a psychopath can as easily find a justification for the most appalling crimes (like the "Moors Murderer" Ian Brady, or as a political leader, such as Joseph Stalin); then again, he might appear to behave normally in the short-term for the sake of a longer-term goal, for example. Then again, they may be able to find a way to appear socially-normal, in order to mask over their darker habits, such as infamous celebrity "philanthropist" Jimmy Savile.

Psychopaths view the world therefore in a deeply cynical, distrustful and self-interested way. As cynics of human nature, altruism is mistrusted; a psychopath may even mock such behaviour as foolish, and something to be taken advantage of. Humanity is a resource to be milked; individual humans to be used and discarded of when no longer useful. How people fit into a psychopath's world depends on how long the psychopath wishes to use them; if a person is needed for a longer-term goal, they may be indulged in order for the psychopath to reach his longer-term goal. This is how psychopaths view other humans. 

(For all these reasons, this is why psychopaths make up a disproportionately-large segment of criminals  - Robert Hare even thinks psychopaths may well be responsible for up to half of all crime; and it thus can be argued are also responsible for much of what is wrong with human society, and even including such issues as poverty and world inequality, when you consider how a disproportionate segment of managers and key decision-makers are psychopaths. While very few psychopaths are serial killers, many serial killers and violent criminals are psychopaths)

As all actions are guided by an amoral sense of purpose, and nothing is ever seen as their fault, many psychopaths are usually incapable of learning from their mistakes and crimes. Some of them may be repeat offenders or serial con artists, for example, having served years in prison, yet still unable to break the cycle of behaviour, seeing themselves as victims of an unforgiving society rather than the cause of their own misfortune, and therefore justified in trying to take whatever they want from it. 

Alternatively, others may be irresponsible businessmen, deep in debt after repeated business failures, and will seek to drag in others into their orbit in order to milk them for what they can get, feeling entitled to the charity from others.

So when not acting as out-and-out predators, psychopaths are like vampires or parasites, using their permanent sense of entitlement to suck others dry; either financially, psychologically, or both.

It follows from this that psychopaths are driven more than anything by control and power. They will use their cunning and charm to manipulate those around them for whatever ends meet their purpose. A psychopath is therefore naturally-talented as a career-climber; creating conflict between two (more talented) rivals, while at the same time currying favour with the boss in order to gain a promotion. Machiavellian behaviour is second nature to a psychopath, having the multiple effect of benefiting their situation, and providing a sadistic boost to their ego as they enjoy seeing the results of their schemes.

So a psychopath's life is the predatory pursuit of amoral self-advancement, at the expense of everyone else. 

The psychopath's emotional desert

Apart from being amoral, psychopaths are also emotionally arid. Their general emotional state is blank, because they are usually incapable of feeling "real" deep, human emotions. More likely, they will find "normal" human emotions puzzling or annoying - emotional baggage that is an inconvenience. It is for this reason that they are usually incapable of empathy; they cannot emotionally relate to another person if they do not physically understand the other person's emotion. They may well see the full range of other people's emotions as trivial and a distraction; more they may even view them with something approaching disgust, and intellectually beneath them. This is another form of a psychopath's vanity.

For psychopaths, "emotions" are usually used as part of their wider defence mechanism - they often successfully learn to mimic and act in order to blend in, but these short-term uses of emotion are simply another part of the the psychopath's weaponry. They learn how to be overtly charming and flirtatious where necessary in order to get what they want, and may be capable of hiding their real emotional emptiness very successfully. Because none of their emotions are genuine, they can find it easy to switch to whichever "mask" fits the bill. It's for this reason why a psychopath may well convincingly appear as a totally different person, depending on who they're interacting with. 

Although psychopaths are usually emotionally shallow, they can also be susceptible to short-term flashes of emotion, that will flare up suddenly, and can fade away just as quickly. Psychopaths are generally short-tempered and quick to anger, if caught unawares by something. The cause of these potentially-dangerous bursts of violent emotion can seem trivial to a neutral onlooker, but to the psychopath it may be deadly serious. This is also due to their maladjusted conception of emotions, so can behave in an emotionally inappropriate way because they have no sense of social guilt or perspective.
Psychopaths have a skewed sense of perspective, different from the rest of society; as a result, their reactions tend to be wildly disproportionate in response to unfavourable outcomes. If something doesn't go their way, they can become dangerously temperamental. Similarly, a psychopath may violently lose his temper in a flash simply because someone looked at him the wrong way; similarly, if someone has got the wrong side of a psychopath, they can make the person's life a living hell, simply for the sake of "getting even".

The only emotions a psychopath truly "understands" are primal and animalistic: pleasure and pain. "Love" is a concept not only alien to many psychopaths; it might even seem ridiculous or pathetic: sex is simply either a pleasure to be enjoyed amorally, or a tool for further advancement. As a psychopath only truly understands the primal concepts of pleasure and pain, it also follows in their emotionally maladjusted psychology, that psychopaths tend to be sadists. As they feel no guilt or proper emotions, and see humanity as a tool for their own purposes, people themselves become dehumanised in the eyes of a psychopath. 

Two types of psychopathic sadism

Two "types" of psychopathic sadism can be distinguished from the wider aspect of psychopathy: the "amoral sadist", and the "malicious sadist".

Joseph Stalin, as I mentioned before, is a prime example of an amoral sadist. This is the "classic psychopath" amoral use of sadism for the purposes of pure convenience eg. a psychopath dictators' unflinching use of mass murder to achieve a particular result (i.e. the preservation of power), without any show of empathy for the victims; likewise, a psychopathic CEO who fires thousands of staff at a stroke, or recklessly causes an environmental disaster (such as in Bhopal, India thirty years ago) could also be classified as signs of "amoral sadism". This psychopath does not feel any measurable "pleasure" from such actions; he simply does it to achieve a result that benefits him. Stalin was what may be called a "classic psychopath" as he simply did whatever needed to be done to achieve his aims. In that sense, he was more like a "mafia boss" that happened to rule the largest country in the world, who eliminated his rivals and enemies,  encouraging a climate of fear, and opportunistically used foreign policy as an instrument to extend his power.  Like the mafia boss, for Stalin it was "nothing personal, just business".

By contrast, Adolf Hitler could more realistically be called a "malicious sadist". This is a psychopath who had more a malignantly narcissistic syndrome channeled into a need for "revenge" against perceived enemies or to "right" or a long-perceived "wrong" at the expense of "the enemy"; Hitler's sadism was based on perceived historical injury, and directed primarily at the Jews. With the "malignant sadist", it is the overwhelming narcissism that is the main motivation for sadism. Sexual sadists may also fall more accurately into this category.
To be strictly fair, Stalin's belief in Communism was arguably also used as a weapon for some aspects of malignant sadism (he had a strong antipathy of the Poles), but Stalin was more obviously a cold-hearted, amoral and calculating individual who used his position more for amoral self-preservation than Hitler's strong desire for narcissistic "revenge" and delusional flights of fantasy, like his architectural obsession with "Germania".

Jimmy Savile is a more contemporary example of a malicious (and clearly very narcissistic) sadist; his form of sadism was more about psychological torture and control over his many "victims", who he would intimidate into silence.   

For a maliciously sadistic psychopath to "win" in a situation, it follows that someone else must be seen to "lose"; otherwise the situation is of only marginal benefit to the psychopath. This is the crux of this latter type of psychopath's sadism; to gain pleasure from another's pain, especially when inflicted (directly or indirectly) by the psychopath himself.
Married with their sense of entitlement, and that their victims either "deserve" their fate, or will somehow benefit from it in the long-term, psychopaths see human interaction as simply a power-play.

In reality, most psychopaths may have some combination of the two, with one "type" more dominant than the other: a psychopath can be sadistic for the sake of amoral convenience, or pleasure, or both.

Partners of psychopaths will be treated as objects to be dominated and controlled, either psychologically, physically or sexually. They will cheat on partners and blame it on their partner, or worse, leave a collection of single mothers with an absent father in their wake. Psychopaths are usually sexual sadists and view sex as amorally as anything else ; as a result, they also tend to be fascinated by the darker and more extreme side of sexuality, delving in amoral perversion and extremes. This might include paedophilia, physical sadism for sexual pleasure, and so on. You can read more on "sexual psychopathy" here.

Looking for the next thrill

Further than that, psychopaths are always on the look-out for the next challenge or opportunity, and their "career choices" usually reflect this. Psychopaths are thrill-seekers, often without thought to the effect on others or even themselves. They usually seek to live in places with a fast pace of life: large and diverse cities, for example, in order to fulfill their many and fast-changing whims. A small number of psychopaths may be more schizoid (i.e. anti-social and openly misanthropic); they may alternatively seek to find a "niche" (eg. a small town) where they can feel superior to the local population, so they can become the master of their domain, nurturing their ego as a "big fish in a small pond". 

But as they get bored easily, many of them find it difficult to settle down in one area for long, before they feel the need to "challenge" themselves, or pursue unrealistic goals. Hence psychopaths (if not "socially-adjusted") are often adulterers or serial divorcees, or will quit a job at a moment's notice with no regard to the inconvenience to the company. Or if they have attained a position of high status, they will make reckless decisions that affect the lives of many, with no regard to the consequences. As they are bored easily, they can always justify making snap decisions by coming up with a convenient excuse. Or if (as is often the case) their snap decision goes wrong, they will always find someone else to blame. 

A psychopath never feels the need to be responsible for his actions; yet at the same time, he praises himself when he is the recipient of good fortune.

The life of the psychopath is an amoral pursuit of pleasure and power, and a shameless flight from responsibility.

It seems no coincidence that psychopaths can therefore become very successful capitalists. 

The world's globalised economy seems almost designed to most benefit psychopaths. Furthermore, strands of psychopathic thinking and sadism can be found in the world's most common ideologies. 
Not only that, but there is good reason to think that psychopaths have evolved through a combination of natural selection and adapting to social conditions, playing an important role in human evolution itself.

For all their flaws, psychopaths appear to be a natural product of evolution. They are nature's hunters. As the author of the book "The Wisdom Of Psychopaths" points out, there can be "good psychopaths" as well as the more infamous "bad psychopaths". 

What decides which one is which is most likely a combination of environment and intelligence.

  

The woolwich attack, conspiracy theories, and UKIP

The month of May has been terrible for the Conservatives, David Cameron in particular.

It started off with the local elections, which saw UKIP break through into local politics in significant numbers for the first time. Their success was helped by Conservative grandees' contradictory message about how to deal with the UKIP threat; Ken Clarke calling them "clowns", while others gave an unconvincing display of indifference. So UKIP now have a firm grip on local politics in the East and South-east of England.

The result of this was the attempt by Tory rebels to force a vote through parliament criticising the Queen's Speech (i.e. the government) for not including a bill on an EU referendum. This took place while Cameron was in America, and his usual act of being "relaxed" about the outcome simply showed how unfit his personality is for being a Prime Minister. A national leader, let alone a party leader, should never be "relaxed" about matters of national sovereignty.

The split of his party from that vote was then reinforced shortly afterwards by the vote on the gay marriage bill, where he had to ask for Labour's support (rather than abstaining) in order to ensure safe passage through parliament (though the House Of Lords may well kill the bill regardless), as nearly half of his MPs voted against. Cameron's own ministers no longer feel the need to support government votes in parliament anymore; simply voting how they feel on a vote-by-vote basis. That such a situation would've been unthinkable under Blair (or Thatcher) tells you how far Cameron's status has fallen as a "Leader In Name Only".

Then there was the "swivel-eyed loons" comment, which was the biggest helping hand possible that could have been given to UKIP. After this, some Tory councillors quit the party, and some even defected to UKIP altogether. And at least one Labour councillor has also defected to UKIP - an ominous sign for the Labour party.

While this "clusterfuck" in the Tory party was going on, Nigel Farage was taking full advantage of his new status to advance UKIP's cause amongst the working class (by visiting the North of England, where UKIP expects to make inroads in the Labour vote). At the same time Farage was indulging the financial industry, in order to boost UKIP's appeal to The City (and to obtain more wealthy donors and influence). This strategy fits in with what I said in my previous article about how UKIP expects to get support.

Then there was the Woolwich attack, and its aftermath, which deserve careful examination, especially considering the wider context in Britain, and the circumstances of the crime, the perpetrators, the victim himself, and the reaction by those in power. 

There has been a conspiracy theory doing the rounds on the internet that the crime was a hoax; this theory seems just silly, but there is something about the Woolwich attack which makes it feel like life imitating art: like the storyline to the plot of a conspiratorial political thriller made real.

1. The choice of the victim. Lee Rigby was a working-class guy from a working-class area in the North of England (his family are from Middleton, Manchester). Furthermore, he has been said to have had a "saint-like" personality, who, it is implied, wouldn't hurt a fly. Therefore the choice of victim seems symbolic in more ways than one; especially if someone wanted to, for example, stir up anger in the working class against Muslims.
2. The unusual behaviour of the attackers. They didn't flee after the attack; one of them hung around the area, and was filmed giving a "speech" of sorts to a passer-by where he talked about revenge against Muslim killings, but equally, talked about how Cameron's government were indirectly responsible for the crime: "your government is doing this to you!". While such words may be ascribed to those of a madman, and it is true that the attacker may have simply wanted to boast and explain his actions unashamedly, were his words also a form of deliberate provocation to British people?
3. The reaction of David Cameron. He made some typical, well-worn comments designed to not stir up panic and induce solidarity, but then also shortly afterwards went on holiday for a week with his family. Is he really so thoughtless, is he receiving poor advice, or is something else going on?
4. The attackers had been known to the security services for years, it was revealed soon afterwards - one of them even once considered for recruitment as an "insider".
5. Shortly afterwards, the Home Secretary Theresa May uses this event to promote the unlimited extension of security surveillance across all forms of communications (which had been previously blocked by the LibDems - a good rod to beat them with!); meanwhile, the former head of the secret service, Stella Rimington, states blandly that people should "spy on their neighbours" if they don't want a Stasi-like police state (though the effect of such practises would be far more poisonous). 
6. There has been a proliferation of attacks against Muslims, including mosques. This is hardly surprising, given the situation. This did not happen so severely after 7/7; however, economic hardship makes people much less forgiving, the brutality of the attack was shocking, and the symbolism of the target is huge. Not only that, but a war memorial has been vandalised in central London, but in such a way that it could have been carried out by agent provocateurs.  

So after the "clusterfuck" in the Tory party this month, we now have a "terror event" that feels less an act of terror, but more an act of provocation. As we see from the combination of facts laid out above, it reads much like the plot from a conspiracy thriller. Or to be more historically-accurate, it follows a similar pattern of events - a combination of economic hardship and lack of human sympathy, leading to blaming a scapegoat, provocation, and reaction - that led to the Nazis gaining power in Germany, as I explained in my last article.

Who in the UK would politically gain the most from such an event as this one in Woolwich, and others like it in the future?
The EDL are making as much trouble as possible from the event; there was also an attack on a warden by Muslim extremist inmates in a Yorkshire prison. Extremists from both sides are seeking to advance their cause after Woolwich.
This opportunistic chaos is parallel to the chaos in Germany in the early '30s (in particular, 1932), where Nazis and Communists tried to cause as much chaos as possible during its economic crisis. In Germany at the time (and around Europe in general, as well as America), Communism was seen as the main threat, while Fascist authoritarianism was seen in many parts as the antidote. 1932 was an election year in Germany, where the Nazis benefitted from people's fear of Communism; by early 1933, Hitler had been made chancellor.

England in 2013 is two years away from a national election, but May 2013 can already be seen as a tipping-point for politics.
Ukip are already tipped to be the largest party in the European elections next year; this coincides with more local elections, that will further boost their local support base. From that point, David Cameron's days may well be numbered as the Tories try to limit the damage Ukip does to them before the general election in 2015. But by then it may well be far too late. It may already be now; the tipping-point has now passed, and Ukip can expect to only gain more and more momentum.
If the extremist chaos on both sides continues amidst a poisonous and frustrated atmosphere across the country, the only party to benefit from that can be Ukip. As the three main parties all bought into the "social-democratic consensus" that became the norm in Blairite Britain, the only national party apart from that is Ukip. The logic here is that Farage may reasonably (if disingenuously) claim to be leader of the only party that can "tame" the extremism of the EDL (while still holding their indirect political loyalty), while at the same time have a clear-cut (and trustworthy) policy on dealing with Islamic extremism. So if the extremist violence on both sides escalates, Farage and Ukip may be the ones who might be most trusted to "calm things down".

And by that point, British politics will almost certainly be a whole new ball game.

As I wrote last year, the film "V For Vendetta" feels less a fantasy, and more of a prophecy. 

The UKIP agenda: British fascism with a human face.

I wrote an article last year objectively comparing the economic policies of fascism and those of the Conservative party. My conclusion: that if you followed the '30s definition of fascism, today's Conservatives would be considered economic fascists.

With the sudden rise of UKIP, it is a good time to look objectively at their economic positioning, as well as their policies and social agenda. I looked at an excellent article by Peter Hoskin assessing the main policies of UKIP, and this brought me back to the economic definition of fascism. To borrow the previous analogy, if the Conservatives are only "Fascism-lite", then UKIP represent something much closer to the real deal, albeit without much of the old-style prejudice, washed of it's Second World War-era nastiness.

UKIP's agenda is, to paraphrase, "Fascism with a human face"; a sanitized form of Fascism (or "Fascism with British characteristics", to paraphrase another famous expression).

Fascism as an economic idea is when the government is utilised as a cash-cow for big business, at the expense of public finances. The rights of the workforce are made subject to the primary aim of wealth-creation for the rich elite, who own all the main businesses and have a controlling stake over the government. The line between government and the rich elite becomes almost indistinguishable. This is "Socialism For The Rich", and a tyranny of poverty for everyone else, where the poor pay taxes to pay for the mistakes and errors of their rich masters (more about this here and here). As I said in a previous article about fascism, where the profit becomes private, and debt becomes public: bailing out the banks, and sending the bill the taxpayer while the banks kept the later profits while remaining virtually unchecked is a prime example of economic fascism.

Corruption, nepotism, inefficiency and incompetence are all allies of fascism, because under a fascist government, accountability becomes difficult to manage. When those in power have all the cards, and have developed the tax system for their benefit (while using the "trickle-down theory" so popular with economic Libertarians), the poor become stuck in a vicious circle of grinding poverty matched with powerlessness. In an economically-fascist state, where money (and having the right connections) is king, the poor are "the slaves".

But back to UKIP. Fascism has historically been an ideology more popular with the working class, and has always been most popular during times of economic crisis and political disillusionment. The atmosphere in the UK, particularly England, explains a lot about why UKIP is so popular. The historical parallels with the political and economic situation of the 1930s in Germany (or Italy in the early '20s) are now clear, albeit with some 21st century British idiosyncrasies. Fascism only becomes popular under a very unusual set of circumstances, but those circumstances are clearly evident in the UK today.
UKIP claim to be a Libertarian party more than anything else, but few of their policies are truly Libertarian. While having a low-tax economy (as UKIP want) may be Libertarian, UKIP want to have their cake and eat it: a low-tax, high-spend economy. This is a common characteristic of Fascist economics: a child-like wish to throw economic sanity out of the window. While economic conservatives applaud low taxes and low spending, and socialists applaud high taxes and high spending, Fascists applaud low taxes and high spending.

And this economic model, whenever implemented, has resulted in complete economic failure in a very short space of time, resulting in the government having to be more and more authoritarian towards its hard-pressed (and increasingly taxed) masses, to cover over the gross inefficiency and corruption at the top.

Peter Hoskin's article points out, especially in the second half, how UKIP's economic policies don't add up - as I have said, the economic insanity of them is more reminiscent of Fascist economics.

Blaming foreigners for unemployment may well have some aspect of truth to it, but not the major part, as UKIP implies.
Blaming Muslims for the destruction of British culture may have some (very) small element of truth to it, but not the major part.
Building more prisons; increasing spending on police and defence; reducing employees' rights to "help" companies; getting out of the foreign and intrusive institutions like the EU; reducing government help for the poor and vulnerable (because "we can't afford it" and "they don't deserve it") - these sentiments are all close to a Fascist's heart.
The world of the Fascist is one of predators and prey; it's the Darwinian jungle, "the survival of the fittest"; "strivers and scroungers", "them" and "us".

The great trick about Fascism is how it appears as an anti-establishment, primarily working-class movement, while in reality it works in favour of a rich elite against the interests of the poor, working classes.

UKIP is carrying out the same trick on the country. Nigel Farage is a former broker; a City Of London man. He is in favour of the financial interests of London, whose economic policies will most benefit the mega-rich financial sector. Making the UK a much more difficult place for foreigners to come to (let alone work in) may be of some short-term benefit to lower-skilled British workers (who won't have to compete with so many foreigners for the jobs), but when those workers have fewer rights than before after, it would make them simply economic slaves - in a job, but poorer than before, and with nowhere to go. The City Of London is only a tiny part of the country, yet Farage would have us think that it alone can sustain and expand our economy, as though all factories and other industries up and down the country were incidental.

There is also the social agenda of UKIP; call it the "PC backlash" against the socially-heterogeneous orthodoxy of Blairite Britain. It is another historical truism of Fascism that when a nation's hearts become hardened by poverty and instability, and broken by the failings of their political masters, they come more socially reactionary and conservative. The "them" and "us" mentality seeps into social judgments: foreigners become more distrusted; non-Christians become seen as a "fifth column" designed to destroy the identity of the country; alternative lifestyles seen as examples of moral degradation.
The backlash against the government's gay marriage legislation is emblematic of this point; the growth of anti-Muslim feeling and actual violence is another; as are things like the protests against HS2 and wind farms, that UKIP are keen to take advantage of. While these last two are not truly social issues, the reaction against them is. It is emblematic of a reaction against the threat of modernity on the physical landscape of Britain. In a crude sense, this is a British "blood and soil" issue, as a Fascist would see it: where the physical land itself become a part of the social and moral fabric of the person.

Almost everything about Fascism is based on the irrational and contradictory: economic insanity that is supported by working-class people who become poorer from it; the heart ruling over the head over social and moral issues, but a heartlessness when it comes to social awareness.

Is this where Britain, especially England, is headed?

Then again, maybe Britain needs to teach itself a lesson; you only know how awful Fascism is when you've lived through it yourself.
After that, people might finally remember what Britain needs to be a civilised country.

The UKIP surge and the Conservative meltdown

The phrase "crisis in the Conservative Party" has been used a lot in recent times, but now we can truly say there is one: an existential crisis, even.

I wrote before about how the current meltdown of Conservative discipline can be squarely laid at David Cameron's feet. When the leadership of any party seems to be in a different plane of thought and existence separate from much of its supporters, the result is a split.

As a result, there are now three identifiable "factions" on the right of British politics at the moment (two in Westminster, technically in the same party).

There are the "official" Conservatives, who support the PM, David Cameron (the "Cameroons") and his metropolitan-minded, post-Blairite project.
Then there are the "traditional" Conservatives, who include those MPs who oppose the "Cameroons", and are typically Eurosceptic and against gay marriage, for example, are ideologically much closer to UKIP than the "Cameroons", but not yet ready to abandon their party altogether (at least not yet; and may be reconciled if they can replace Cameron).
Then there is UKIP, who are now growing in support daily, as more of the "traditional" Conservatives jump ship altogether; either on point of pride or ideological principle, or in despair of ever seeing a leader of the Conservatives that can win an election. Although not in Westminster, they are the faction that is holding the "official" Conservatives to ransom with the threat of siphoning-off a significant number of the "traditional" Conservatives to their own cause. They are also the most influential faction of the three, and only look like getting bigger.


We've been here before. That happened with Labour after losing the 1979 election; as Nigel Farage himself knows (and has said),the SDP were the result of the factionalism in the Labour party; UKIP are a result of the factionalism in the Conservative party. Yet this is a simplification: for UKIP more closely match the ideology and attitudes of Thatcherism, rather than a splinter group of extreme Conservatism.
What marks UKIP out is as much the broadness of its support base across sections of society as much as its ideology; this was what made Thatcherism , whether you like it or not, a success as a brand and a political ideology. Farage is the political heir of Thatcher - this much seems clear, and it is poetic that Farage's brand of neo-Thatcherism is on the verge of breaking open the political consensus (and tearing the old Conservative Party to pieces) as Thatcher herself passes away.
But UKIP are not a centre-right version of the SDP; if anything, UKIP's power-base looks broader and more potentially more stable over time than the marginal (albeit influential) effect of the SDP. While the SDP forced Labour to steal their clothes to become electable, these days it looks like UKIP are the ones who have stole the Conservatives' clothes in order to refashion a more down-to-earth Conservatism. As one Conservative defector said the other day:
"I didn't leave the Conservative Party; the Conservative Party left me".

If Cameron and his advisors are not already panicking, then they should be. By any margin, what is happening in the Conservative Party is a hollowing-out of its own supporters. At the current rate of defections, the "official" Conservative Party will have barely any supporters at all outside of the suburbs of some towns and cities. As the shires turn to UKIP in ever greater numbers, and the inner cities in some parts of the North and Midlands also defect from Labour to UKIP (as we have already seen in some parts of Yorkshire), the old Conservatives may well represent little more than demographic "doughnuts": rings of suburbs populated by mildly-right-wing, metropolitan "compassionate Conservatives" that fit in with Cameron's demographic targeting.

We are living through a political watershed moment in British politics. 2012/2013 will be seen in a few years time by political historians as the time when UKIP broke through, and punched a hole through the heart of the old Conservative Party. David Cameron has single-handedly destroyed his party; Nigel Farage was simply in the right place at the right time to take full advantage.

The rise of UKIP, especially its sudden rise in the last six months, was predicted by almost no-one. The same could be said of the "Arab Spring" (though I won't make any comparisons!). A specific set of circumstances has led to the current, sad (even farcical) state of the Conservative party, and the political establishment in general. As all of the three main British parties have been somehow tarred by the financial crisis, people looked for another way to express their frustration. UKIP, like many other parties in Europe (and intriguingly like Beppe Grillo's "Five Star Movement" in Italy), has been the recipient of the political chaos and paralysis visited on the political establishment around Europe from the financial crisis.

I mention the "Five Star Movement" (as I have before) because UKIP's rise, like Beppe Grillo's "party", is a grassroots-based one, without media or financial support. UKIP's rise has mostly been through word-of-mouth. In a way, the British electorate have used the political system against the establishment, ignoring the massed organisation of the "big three", and have voted UKIP often without knowing who their candidates are, or what many of the policies are. The last point is more disturbing, though also an indication of the sheer frustration that many people feel with the perceived orthodoxy of the "big three", that they see in UKIP the answer to their problems, whatever they may be.

As right-wing commentators are often keen to mention, Cameron has turned the Conservatives into a "socially democratic" outfit. The legacy of Blair was Cameron being elected as leader of the Conservatives in order to out-do Blair at his own game. By 2010, therefore, there was little to distinguish between the "big three" on many issues: all were pro-EU, socially-progressive parties, for the most part. They only majorly differed on how to deal with economy.

It took time for the electorate to grow tired of the Con-Lib Coalition. By the autumn of 2012, two-and-a-half years into the parliament, significant numbers of the electorate became singularly uninspired and frustrated with the quality of political discourse from all the main parties, as well as the poor quality and complacency of the politicians in Westminster. Nigel Farage's charisma and down-to-earth approach began to strike a serious chord, as well as the consistent simplicity of his message.

Like Thatcher forty years ago, when she became Conservative Party leader, she was seen as an outsider compared to her peers, but spoke with clarity, charisma and conviction. We all know the result. Farage seems to have been cut from the same cloth. Although the political system is stacked against him and his party, the UKIP insurgency is already causing a political earthquake, shaking the foundations of the old Conservative party to the core.

David Cameron: The UK's most useless Prime Minister

It's hard to imagine to what further depths David Cameron's premiership can descend to. I wrote earlier in the year about how Cameron's government have been a disaster unparalleled in modern British history. Gordon Brown's premiership was seen as incompetent half the time, and psychologically unstable for much of the rest of it. Brown may have had bouts of mental instability, but at least he had a plan to rule the country and the economy. Cameron, on the other hand, seems to not have any ideas at all how to rule his own party, let alone the country.

Cameron's delusional personality and deficient intelligence is what is causing the most damage to the title of Prime Minister of the country, as well as the future of the country itself. While he gives the appearance of consummate self-confidence when giving speeches, and being unruffled in a crisis, the reality behind that facade is that he has no idea what he's doing.

He doesn't have the first clue about how to be a leader. This is now glaringly obvious, even to his dwindling circle of supporters. His style of leadership is to be stubbornly-resistant on issues that are irrelevant to the future of the UK (such as gay marriage), while being "intensely relaxed" about matters of utmost gravity (such as Britain's membership of the EU, or even keeping the basic discipline over his own ministers).
In other words, he has no rational sense of perspective. This adds further weight to the perception that he and his advisors are "out of touch": or, to put it another way, living on a different mental plane that the rest of the country.

With Cameron, there is no sense of leadership of the party or government, more a sense of vacuum from the centre. The recent fiasco over the EU referendum is a key example. He has been indecisive, altering his position so much that his own ministers cannot keep up with the "official" line. He allows other ministers to make policy without his involvement; worse, he allows other ministers to promote their own vision and careers at his expense, by allowing them to give speeches on issues outside their brief.
This has been encouraged by the previous point; Cameron's own flip-flopping has encouraged ministers to say what they want on any issue, because Number Ten is incapable of giving an answer that is consistent for any length of time, especially on Europe.

More typically, he leads from the rear; a follower rather than a leader, constantly battling to keep up with events orchestrated by his supposed underlings.
As a leader of men, Cameron lacks the mental strength normally considered essential to keep control. Indiscipline goes unpunished. Conservative MPs rebel when they feel like it, because Cameron is too scared of them. There is no other rational explanation. Giving the impression of being "relaxed" about indiscipline gives others the impression that Cameron believes in the "David Brent" style of management: that if you are chilled-out about work and chummy enough with your colleagues, the company will run itself.

Even when he has tried to make a ham-fisted attempt at leading from the front, for example with his much anticipated Europe speech in January, he had made a problem worse rather than better. Because he has flip-flopped so much, no-one believes anything he says anymore on Europe. This explains why his attempt at "shooting the Ukip fox" instead resulted in letting the fox loose inside the chicken coop. His earlier attempt at European politicking late in 2011(as explained here) fatally damaged his reputation in Europe, showing poor statesmanship, for only a brief bit of short-term popularity at home. Again, in the end, the only winner from these pitiful attempts at leadership have been his enemies.

He has repeatedly shown appalling judgement. Ministerial incompetence is rewarded (as we saw with Jeremy Hunt); ministers are only sacked after weeks of indecision (as we saw with the Mitchell affair). As though imagining being a Prime Minister to being a feudal baron, he values loyalty above competence: George Osborne remains in place, in spite of being almost universally loathed. He promotes personal friends as his advisors (even Boris' brother), and will go to almost irrational lengths to protect them from harm (as we are now seeing with the "Swivelgate" fiasco).

Cameron as a person is not hard-wired for making tough decisions, let alone lead a country in the middle of an economic crisis. Cameron gives the impression of being self-confident when making speeches, but when it comes to the crunch, he doesn't have a clue how to do things. Cameron is the "good-time Prime Minister", doing his job best when he is able to cheer people up, making them feel good about themselves and the country. The "relaxed" attitude Cameron exudes comes from his carefree and upper-class background; the cheerful toff in Number Ten. Like the former US President, "Dubya", he gets on well with almost everyone, but has never had to make a difficult decision in his life.

Worse, he doesn't listen. Rather than listen to his critics, his first instinct is to attack them; making snide and infantile comments to MPS from the dispatch box during PMQs; worst of all, Cameron attacks his own natural supporters (former Conservatives, now Ukip supporters) as "fruit cakes and loonies". This is not just appalling leadership, it is political insanity. 

And to cap it all off, he doesn't care. I don't mean he's heartless; I mean he gives the continual impression of not taking his job seriously. If the Prime Minister is "relaxed" about the potential exit of Britain from the EU, to give just one example, it tells you that the man doesn't have a worry in his head, because for him, being or not being in the EU makes no difference to him personally. He devolves so much responsibility to his ministers probably because he has no ideas himself. He would rather someone else do something, rather than him do nothing.
This is government by trial-and-error, as the incredibly high number of U-turns on policies glaringly tells you. Which means the Prime Minister does precious little hard thinking before letting his ministers put into action whatever idea they have that week: the blind being led by the clueless. Cameron has no particular ideas about the country; he simply wanted to be PM because he thought he'd be rather good at it, to paraphrase the man himself.

This explains how the UK's government became an ongoing farce, with the direction of the country being hijacked by a political party that isn't even in parliament, let alone government. Ukip, the party of "fruit-cakes and loonies", is the tail wagging the Conservative dog, because Cameron is incapable of leadership.

The most serious consequence of Cameron's utter lack of leadership is the appalling damage being done the Conservative party, and the political system as a whole. Cameron became Conservative leader as a "post-Blairite" Conservative: a hoodie-hugging, gay-friendly metropolitan Conservative who thought, like Blair, he could modernise his party and appeal to the centre without damaging its traditional voters.
Ukip is the result of that complacency. Because Cameron is a natural moderate and coalitionist manager, it didn't take him long to accept a formal Coalition with the LibDems. Cameron no doubt thought this would isolate the traditionalist wing of his party further to the political edges. Instead, three years on from that, we see the "Cameroon" brand of Conservatism being squeezed into an ever-narrower band - with Ukip taking up the political reins of the former "Thatcherites" on the right, and the remaining Europhile Tories despairing of Cameron's protracted fence-sitting, while Labour and the LibDems fight amongst the crowded orthodoxy of the middle ground.

Nigel Farage is in many ways more of a disciple of Thatcher than Cameron ever could be. David Cameron's political identity was moulded by Tony Blair's long reign as New Labour; Farage left the party after Maastricht, mirroring Thatcher's Eurosceptic zeal and fondness of economic Libertarianism. Farage is therefore taking advantage of the identity crisis in Cameron's Conservative Party, using his own brand of neo-Thatcherism as a way to suck up disaffected traditional Tories from the shires, as well as the upper-working class ("aspiring classes") from the towns and cities. This is what Thatcher was most effective at as a political leader; Farage is using a similar strategy, and it shows all the signs of working.

It is David Cameron who has destroyed the traditional Conservative Party, leaving Nigel farage to pick up the pieces and carve out a new political reality in England - a four-party system. Because Cameron never really knew what he believed in, had no strong beliefs on any serious issue (except marginal ones, like gay marriage), when it came to the crunch, he had no intellectual basis to his arguments. By the time we get to a 2015 general election, it is difficult to assess what state the Conservative Party will be in - possibly just a hollowed-out shell of MPs who no longer have any real voters left, because the Cameroons will have left the party is such a schizophrenic state, no-one will know what the party represents any more.

When the party's own leader has no real idea what he believes in, and lets his party be hijacked from week to week by whichever MP has an axe to grind, such a party's days in power are truly numbered. It is only desperation at the alternative that keeps other Conservatives from voting for another leader.

And even that "desperation at the alternative" may soon start to look less dangerous than the reality - a three-way-split of the British political right, as described here.