United Kingdom Is 'Land of Extremes,' Economist, Asserts

choi

Bagehot | Land of Extremes; It's time to rethink everything we thought we knew about British national character. Economist, Aug 11, 2018.
https://www.economist.com/britai ... in-land-of-extremes

Note:
(a) "MORE than most people the British pride themselves on being sensible. Others might go in for such silly things as revolutions and theories. Britons prefer pragmatism to ideology, moderation to extremism, continuity to change. * * * George VI [1895 – 1952; reign 1936-1952; father of Elizabeth II] once pronounced that 'abroad is bloody [a fuller sentence: 'Don't go abroad. * * * abroad's bloody].' "

go in for (phrasal verb): "enjoy"
https://www.macmillandictionary. ... /american/go-in-for
The notion that the British are above all sensible makes the current state of politics even more confusing. The country has opted for a leap in the dark in the form of Brexit. The Labour Party has elected a dyed-in-the-wool extremist as leader. This week a former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, compared women who wear burkas to “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”.
(b) With recent events, "How could a sensible country get itself into such a frenzy?  One answer is that the British have never been as sensible as they like to think. Their belief is similar to the American one of being rugged individualists or the French doctrine that all are intellectuals: it conceals a more complicated and interesting reality. Probe the component parts of 'sensibleness' (continuity, moderation and pragmatism) and they quickly start to crumble.  Britain does a better job than others of keeping up the idea of national continuity. The queen's guards continue to parade in bearskins regardless of the sweltering heat"

bearskin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearskin
("The standard bearskin of the British Foot Guards is 18 inches tall, weighs 1.5 pounds and is made from the fur of the Canadian black bear. However, an officer's bearskin is made from the fur of the Canadian brown bear as the female brown bear has thicker, fuller fur and is dyed black. An entire skin is used for each hat")

(c) "A new book by David Edgerton, 'The Rise and Fall of the British Nation [subtitle: A twentieth-century history; publisher: Allen Lane; June 28, 2018],' argues that 20th-century British history is really about rupture and revolution. Britain has seen three distinctive political regimes interrupted by periods of turmoil. In 1900 it displayed a combination of laissez-faire politics and manufacturing prowess. Central government spent about 10% of GDP and most of the work of today's Whitehall was done by local government or voluntary institutions. Britain was the world's leading exporter of manufactured goods and the leading producer of battleships and weapons (both Arsenal and West Ham started life as the works football clubs of giant arms-makers). It was also easily the biggest exporter of energy. No fewer than a million people worked in the coalmines."
(i) Until the end of World War II, the world industry means textile and defense. There was no household appliances then.
(ii) "It [UK] was also easily the biggest exporter of energy. No fewer than a million people worked in the coalmines."

This will be annotated in the following posting.
(iii)
(A) Arsenal FC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_F.C.
(1886- ; Named after Royal Arsenal)
(b) West Ham United FC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Ham_United_F.C.
(was founded in 1895 as Thames Ironworks F.C., the works team of the largest and last surviving shipbuilder on the Thames, Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company)

* West Ham
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Ham
(an area of East London; section 2 Ham(me): Pre-partition origins & toponymy)

(d) "Clement Attlee's 1945 Labour government preserved the manufacturing prowess but swept away the commitment to small government and free trade. The welfare state was part of a wider strategy of state planning. The coal, rail, steel, gas and electricity industries were all nationalised [(in phases between 1947 and 1951 inclusive), as well as the 1947 partition into India and Pakistan and the 1948 creation of the National Health Service (NHS)]. Hundreds of thousands of council houses were built."
(i) Clement Attlee (1883 – 1967; prime minister 1945 - 1951)
(ii)
(A) Council houses have been built by city council. The first council to build (public) housing is Liverpool, in 1869. (Indeed city councils (not mayors) in UK provides all sorts of services.)
(B) "Councils have historically had no split between executive and legislature. Functions are vested in the council itself."  en.wikipedia.org for "local government in England."
(C) Since 2000, acts of Parliament have required local authorities to adopt two types of executive arrangements: "leader and cabinet" and "elected mayor and cabinet." So the title (and role) of mayor came into picture only recently.

choi

(e) "Margaret Thatcher's 1980s government uprooted things yet again, restoring the laissez-faire tradition (up to a point) but turning its back on the country's manufacturing might. Britain privatised large swathes of its economy, declared 'manufacturing' old hat and gambled its future on services, particularly financial ones. * * * Such radical shifts were made possible because the British are more ideological and less pragmatic than they like to think. Winston Churchill insisted in going back on the gold standard in 1925 despite its putting the real economy on the rack."
(i) Old Hat. The Phrase Finder, undated.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/old-hat.html
(ii) Winston Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1924–1929; equivalent to Secretary of Treasury in US) under prime minister Stanley Baldwin (of the same period; of Conservative Party).
(iii) gold standard
(A) "From 1750 to 1870, wars within Europe as well as an ongoing trade deficit with China (which sold to Europe but had little use for European goods) drained silver from the economies of Western Europe and the United States."  en.wikipedia.org for "gold standard"

* The Silver Trade, Parts 1 and 2. In Ken Pomeranz and Bin Wong, China and Europe: 1500-2000 and Beyond: What Is 'Modern'? Asia for Educators (AFE), Columbia University, 2004
afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/s5/s5_4.html
("One of the kings of Spain, whose image was on the peso during his reign, looked to the Chinese like Buddha, so they referred to this as the 'Fat Buddha' [fail to find Chinese term -- be it 胖 or 肥] coin or the 'Buddha Head' coin")

Ken Pomeranz is a professor of University of Chicago.

Bing Wong (or Roy Bin Wong) 王國斌 (1949- ; BA University of Michigan, MA and PhD from Harvard; professor at UCLA)  en.wikipedia.org

Charles IV of Spain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_IV_of_Spain
(1748 – 1819; reign 1788-1808 (abdication in favor of his son; but that same year Napoleon replaced both with elder brother Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain) )

* 臺灣雅石文史工作室, 西班牙銀幣又稱「佛頭銀」. 痞客邦, Nov 4, 2008.
http://folkmit.pixnet.net/blog/p ... D%E9%8A%80%E3%80%8D

Charles III of Spain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_III_of_Spain
(1716 – 1788; reign 1759-1788; father and predecessor of Charles IV of Spain)

* Commodities, Currencies, and Balancing of the Trade Deficit. In A Chronicle of China Trade; The records of Augustine Heard & Co, 1840-1877.
https://www.library.hbs.edu/hc/heard/commodities-currencies.html
("The conflict broke out between the United Kingdom and China in part over the transport and sale of opium by the British from India to China—a trade the Chinese Imperial government forbade. The English, who had vacated Canton, relied on American firms to oversee their transactions. [Augustine] Heard & Co served in this capacity for one of the largest British firms, Jardine, Matheson & Co, and John Heard reported that the relationship brought in huge profits in annual commissions. * * * Many Western traders were not aware that the outflow of silver from China was to cause a serious financial crisis for the Chinese")

Augustine Heard (1785 - 1868 (born and died in Ipswich, Massachusetts); American; father John Heard)  en.wikipedia.org.
(B) Small Change; Britain and the gold standard. In Gavin Thompson, Oliver Hawkins, Aliyah Dar and Mark Taylor, Olympic Britain; Social and economic change since the 1908 and 1948 Olympic Games. London: House of Commons Publications, 2012, at page 101.
https://www.parliament.uk/busine ... onomy/small-change/
("The UK was not the only country whose monetary system was based on gold. From 1880-1914, almost all of the world's leading economies had followed suit")
(C) gold standard
https://www.britannica.com/topic/gold-standard
(iii) on the rack:
"Under great stress, as in I was on the rack while I waited for the test results. This expression, alluding to a medieval instrument of torture to which the victim was fastened and stretched, has been used figuratively since the late 1500s."  The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co
"mainly BRITISH  If someone is on the rack, they are in a very difficult situation, often one in which they are suffering anxiety or distress"  Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary. 3rd ed. HarperCollins, 2012.
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/on+the+rack

choi

(f) "The notion that Britain is an essentially moderate country is just as hard to defend. It is riven with internal divisions and internecine battles: more Hate Island than Love Island. It is home to one of the best systems for elite academic education in the world and one of the worst for vocational education. It boasts one of the most capitalist markets in the City of London and one of the most socialist in the National Health Service. If London has a claim to be a capital of globalisation, Blackpool has one to be a capital of marginalisation, where 26% of women smoke during pregnancy, compared with less than 2% in [City of] Westminster, and male life expectancy is nine years shorter than in Kensington. What are the implications of this today? Two stand out. The first is to forget about many of the 'rules' of politics that have long been constructed on the assumption of British sensibleness. The commentators who argue that Labour is on a hiding to nothing in advocating making more things in Britain may be just as wrong as when they argued that the party would never elect as its leader such a radical figure as Jeremy Corbyn."
(i) Blackpool
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool#Toponymy
(section 1.1 Toponymy)
(ii)
(A) be on a hiding to nothing (phrase): "British be unlikely to succeed, or be unlikely to gain much advantage if one does"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.co ... a_hiding_to_nothing
(B) On a Hiding to Nothing. The Phrase Finder, undated
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/on-a-hiding-to-nothing.html
("The other is that of a weak contestant who is expected to be beaten, that is, get 'a hiding' ")

* hiding (n):
"informal
1: a physical beating
1.1 : severe defeat"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hiding

The www.merriam-webster.com (American) has this definition, too, saying its etymology is from hide (n): "the skin of an animal whether raw or prepared for use"
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