The things some people will believe

In The Guardian:

What seems new this time is the degree to which the two are fused. The problem for today’s declinists is not so much Britain’s stagnant economy and eviscerated state…

Eviscerated state?

And:

The first chart is what government spends - largely and roughly and good enough. The second - largely, good enough etc - is that spending plus the varied redistributions of income performed. As both are - still - higher than at the very peak of the Brown Terror we’d suggest that evisceration is not quite the right word.

We’d suggest, rather strongly, that discussions of what we do now really do need to start from at least some vague contact with reality. Given that our problems do not stem from any evisceration of the British state it’s even possible to conclude that perhaps the solution to those problems is to gut, gralloch, the British state. Mere filleting might not be enough.

Tim Worstall