The only real conservatives in Britain
It's lucky none of you live in Britain because today you would have opened your newspaper - (I'm assuming you'd take the Sunday Telegraph because it's the only Conservative broadsheet) - and had an apoplexy over the interview within: an interview with "Conservative" Prime Minister David Cameron which suggests he doesn't believe in the Laffer Curve but does believe it's government's job to redistribute wealth:
However, he signals that the 50p top rate of income tax, on earnings above £150,000, will remain for the time being, despite calls from leading Tories to scrap it on the grounds that it penalises enterprise.
Mr Cameron says ministers “have to go on demonstrating” that they are making those with the broadest shoulders accept the greatest burden in reducing the deficit.
“When you’re taking the country through difficult times and difficult decisions you’ve got to take the country with you. That means permanently trying to make the argument that what you’re doing is fair and seen to be fair."
Gosh it's hard being a conservative in Britain right now. At least it is in the US sense of believing in small government, tradition, self-reliance, free markets and liberty. (In Britain conservatism has a tradition of being much more lame, centrist and un-doctrinaire). That's why those few of us proper, actual, thinking conservatives/libertarians stick together. And why, to answer this question from Tabula Rasa -
I greatly admire Roberts, Paul Johnson, Melanie Phillips, Roger Scruton, Theodore Dalrymple/Anthony Daniels, Michael Burleigh, David Pryce-Jones, and others.So here're the questions: do you all know each other? If not, why not? Have you formed a conservative cabal?
- yes we do all know each other and hang out together. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, and all that.
I bump into the great Michael Burleigh, occasionally, at my local South London food market on Saturdays. David Pryce-Jones once kindly awarded me - together with the radiant, intelligent freedom fighter and hostess Jessica Douglas-Home (whose husband Lord Leach successfully led the campaign to keep Britain out of the Euro) - the Charles Douglas-Home memorial prize and has also entertained me to dinner (with Roger Kimball) at his incredible London home whose interiors have to be seen to be believed since they have been changed since about 1890. Roger Scruton is a total hero of mine, even though he's wrong about drugs. Theodore Dalrymple lives in France but I see him at parties, along with Mel Phillips and Paul Johnson (whose uber-social wife Marigold gives the most superb parties full of the right wing great and good).
Missing from your list is the mighty Douglas Murray and the charming Stewart Wheeler (who with his lovely wife Tessa has the most gorgeous castle - Chilham - in Kent, where we're going for a weekend next month).I'd also draw to your attention the immensely sound Telegraph blogs team, such as Damian Thompson, Ed West, Toby Young and Lord Tebbit. My editor at the Spectator Fraser Nelson is also immensely sound - though not, bizarrely, about the EU on which he is agnostic. There also some very solid conservatives whom I haven't yet met but I'm sure I will soon such as Tessa Keswick and Lord Sainsbury. But that's really about it. Britain is a small place. Even smaller if you're of the only right and true political persuasion.
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Jun '11
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
I dunno, James. Sounds like the solid foundation of a movement to me. Don't let the intellectual Lilliputians get you down. Your colleagues in the States stand ready to help any way we can.
Mar '11
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
Is there a British equivalent to National Review? It sounds like you already have an editorial board in exile.
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
Oh. Just noticed I've made a terrible mistake. Lord Sainsbury should read Lord Saatchi.
Aug '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
I don't live in Britain but I do take the Telegraph on Saturday and Sunday. Might I add Christopher Booker, Charles, Moore and Toby Harnden to the list? That said I think the Telegraph is a bit dodgy on Israel. Meanwhile Ireland's "paper of record" the Irish Times at one time carried syndicated columns from Steyn, then Krauthammer, (from whom I poached my pseudonym ) but the chattering classes couldn't handle either of them, so now they have Krugman and Dowd! More generally, there's reasonable support for economic conservatism, but social conservatives and supporters of the Republicans and/or Israel are spat upon ( metaphorically). In fact, with a very few exceptions, coverage of US politics is premised on the principle that Repubs are frothing at the mouth lunatics ( although there's much admiration for Ron Paul despite simultaneous loathing of the Tea Party).
Jun '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
I'm so glad you know each other. I had this picture of each of you toiling on alone, not knowing the few real allies you have. I'll sleep well tonight.
Are there a few others beyond Murray? For example, Dan Hannon and the other member of the European Parliament who regularly provide a scathing critique of the Eurocrats (and, who, are undoubtedly looked on as pariahs).
Edited on Jan 8 at 8:30amJul '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
So revive the Whig Party so you can at least take part in coalition governments. It might be smaller but at least the leadership will understand and exemplify the concept of provident governance.
Edited on Jan 8 at 11:54amNov '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
British politics seem different from ours in the US especially in their concentration in the Parliament (or, perhaps more accurately, the Cabinet) where talk seems to reign supreme and the ability to talk the principal qualification for office.
We have the States, where a great deal of our political life is played out, and the consciously created separation of powers among the legislative body (the Congress), the executive, and the judiciary. There actually is a fourth branch, not contemplated by the founders: the bureaucracy-- which is and has been since Roosevelt II, growing apace.
The concentration of interest and power in the British Cabinet and the House seems to me to make for wide swings in opinion and in action. Probably, invisible to an outsider, the civil service provides something of a "flywheel" in , but I cannot judge that.
In sum, there probably is a much greater incidence of policies' being formed at weekend house parties there than there is of the same thing's occurring at Georgetown dinners here. So, I hope that you and your friends will contrive to meet and talk often and tp publish "against the grain" of the currently politically correct line in England.
Edited on Jan 8 at 9:45amDec '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
I'm lucky I don't live in Britain, because it's cold there and I live in Florida. Apart from that, we are not much better off, here. For example, the candidates in this morning's GOP debate seemed confortable with "means testing" for our social safety net programs. Social Security, MediCare, etc., are "supposed" to be insurance programs, but those that make the most claims typically pay the least into them. Now, with means testing being aquiesced to, these programs are simply wealth transfers.
Lets see, 35% top rate, plus 16% "premium" to programs that will only benefit the poor? Hmmm, that sum seems remarkably similar to the total that Cameron is defending.
USA! USA!
Nov '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
Perhaps a small sign that things can't be all that lost in Britain: when I was in London last year I stopped into Blackwells on Charing Cross. I was dumbfounded and pleased to discover that the philosophy section has an entire section rather prominently marked "Roger Scruton."
Be that as it may: My dearest friend, an American tech entrepreneur, lives in London; a reiterated theme in many of our conversations is that it's nearly impossible for him to be public about his libertarian political beliefs. He'd become a social pariah should he cross the line, and t'would possible even hurt his business.
I say nearly impossible. Anything that savors slightly of social-political conservatism? Well...
Inspired by Delingpole's outstanding podcast last November with Richard North and Christopher Booker on the Eurozone, I asked my friend via Skype what he thought of UKIP and Nigel Farage. Abrupt interruption, "Yeah, Rob, I can NOT touch that with a ten foot pole."
Aug '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
Not believing in the Laffer Curve should be up there with not believing in evolution.
Aug '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
It really drives me up the wall when I hear politicians like President Obama talk about a nebulous concept of "fairness" with regard to taxes. (It is even more infuriating to hear such talk from a nominal conservative.) In 2009, the infamous top "1%" earned 17% of all income and paid 37% of all federal income taxes. Here's what I would like to hear from politicians: If this is what they consider unfair, what do they consider fair? Don't just toss around words; give us hard figures. Make a principled argument as to why it would be more fair for the top 1% of earners to pay 40% of all taxes, or 60%, or 90%. C'mon, guys, have the guts to be specific!
Mar '11
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
When I am in England (as I am at the moment) I am, like in the US, surrounded by leftists -- such is my lot. Sadly, I don't move in such illustrious social circles as Mr Delingpole.
But, even viewed through the prism of the BBC, I am always struck by how much better is the Government in the UK at the moment, compared with Chairman Obama's. Sure, Mr Cameron is not a true Conservative -- when I saw him use the word "fairness" I didn't bother reading the rest of the interview -- but he is infinitely preferable to his predecessors, Blair and Brown.
Kind of the syphilitic camel, as it were. We will be lucky to have someone as good in the US -- well, I guess it is Mr Romney.
Edited on Jan 8 at 3:14pmNov '11
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
Are the farmers socialists in the UK? The answer may determine my ongoing theory that government representation (at least in the US) should be divided on rural/urban lines instead of population.
Oct '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
A question for Mr. Delingpole, or any other Brit on Ricochet:
The two British politicians with whom I most often find myself nodding in agreement are Daniel Hannan and Nigel Farage. Do the "real conservatives" you cite above consider those two men "real conservatives" as well?
I often find that cultural differences cause American and British conservatives to have skewed views of the other's political figures. For instance -- Hannan says he would support Ron Paul, and you yourself were whole-heartedly on the Cain train -- both of which seem a little outlandish to even "real conservatives" in the U.S. Am I doing the same thing with Farage and Hannan? Do people on that side of the Atlantic see warts on them that I'm missing?
Oct '10
Re: The only real conservatives in Britain
James, Cameron is making a purely pragmatic, political argument. Deficit reduction has to be seen by the public as fair, otherwise the public will not tolerate it. Even American conservative policy wonks are affected by this, as evidenced by plans to means-test entitlements and the traditional Republican habit of making the tax code more progressive in return for lowering marginal rates.