It is commonly said that the problem for the Tories is that they don’t know what they stand for. There is a certain element of truth in this: the Parliamentary party is an almost absurdly broad spectrum comprising at one extreme people who wouldn’t have looked out of place in one of Tony Blair’s cabinets, and on the other, traditional religious conservatives – with an awful lot of Thatcherites, One Nationers, old-fashioned ‘shire Tories’, ‘wets’ and libertarians in the middle. But the bigger problem, it seems to me, is that the Tories don’t really know what they stand against. This is a particular problem for the Tory party in particular, which since the early 20th century has had the main raison d’etre of keeping Labour out of power. In order to do this, it should go without saying, you have to know what Labour stand for, and provide a clearly discernible alternative. That is the Tory party’s main duty, but it is badly shirking it.
Some readers of this substack will raise their eyebrows at the idea that the Tory party’s existence is mainly justified on the basis of keeping Labour out, so let me explain. And let me make no bones about it: while I have plenty of time for Labour voters (I come after all from dyed-in-the-wool Labour-voting stock) and even some Labour politicians, I despise the Labour Party and more or less everything it stands for. I don’t think there is an institution in contemporary Britain which exerts a more baleful influence. And this is because it is imbued with – indeed, it is the very political manifestation of – what Dostoyevsky might have called the morality of the Grand Inquisitor: a morality that positions itself always against freedom and agency in the name of comfort and ignorance.
Read the whole thing. I heartily commend this article to you and suggest subscribing to David McGrogan’s substack.
Edmund Burke defined a political party as a group of people with common principles – NOT just common interests.
And when Mr Burke understood that he did not have common principles with Mr Fox (and it was not just a split on the French Revolution – the tension started before that) they eventually parted ways.
The “One Nation Group” (an ironic name for Members of Parliament who do not believe in national independence – indeed a person has to sign up to international governance to join this group) have principles that are not just different to “Thatcherite” types, they are not compatible with our principles, not-at-all.
They great conflict will be after the next election – one side or the other will leave the party, if the party is still about.
What should we stand for? National independence and a smaller and less interventionist government.
What should we stand against? International governance (the World Health Organisation and all the rest of the agencies and treaties) and bigger and more interventionist government.
Edmund Burke defined a political party as a group of people with common principles – NOT just common interests.
How did he define a group of people with common interests, but not common principles, who band together for fear of something worse ?
The fact is that “the right” in British politics is greatly assisted by the division of the left into Labour, LibDem, Green and SNP factions. And splitting the “the right” – ie everyone nervous about the left – into two parts invites electoral slaughter. Not just this time, which is coming anyway, but indefinitely.
The trouble with the Conservatives, apart from having no principles, which I am willing to forgive in the circumstances, is that they have no discipline. Once upon a time those knights of the Shires and retired Majors would have provided the “bottom” necessary to form a solid phalanx that would fall in line and act as a cohesive group. Now they are all political consutants on the make, reminiscent of that Hitchhikers Guide planet to which all the useless people were sent.
Boris had the right idea when he removed the whip from the rebels before the 2019 election. Why he then did a U turn and reinstated most of them I cannot imagine. But then that’s Boris – the embodiment of indiscipline.
Thanks for posting this Perry. I have subscribed to the Substack.
The whole article is gold. Here’s another big nugget:
Politicians are paid out of public funds to represent the interests of voters, not themselves. That’s why the system is called representative democracy. I realize this is a whacky off the wall idea, but perhaps they could try doing the job they are actually paid to do?
Since they run the gamut from A to C, I fear that they are. We keep picking them, all the same with the same outlook.
Roué le Jour said:
You may imagine a heavy sigh, on my part… This is such a conceptual error that I find it hard to wrap my head around.
One, the problem here is that the professional politician, by virtue of what he is, cannot “represent” the interests of his constituents… He’s not a representative, and never can be. Why?
Because the professional politician is by nature a parasite and con artist. That’s what they are.
You have a politician? You allow them to “professionalize” into permanent careers as such? You done f*cked up, boy…
The “representatives” in representative government were never meant to be people making careers of such an activity. They were conceived as men who would undertake the burdens and responsibilities of the job after having had successful careers doing something else, outside government.
The idea of a life-long permanent politician like Joe Biden? The Founders and most of the other “representational government” theorists that set our systems up would have been appalled. And, rightly so… Men and women like Biden and Nancy Pelosi are the precise people who have no business being in charge of anything. I can about guarantee you that there’s some homeowners association missing a Karen out there, that Nancy Pelosi was meant to be, and that there’s also a village missing its idiot regarding Biden. The fact that those two got elected and maintained in office for so long? Our fault, but it’s also the system’s for not having been constructed so as to prevent their rise.
Term limits? Laughable. What should be the case? Limits on government service of any sort, at any level; if your life has more than 5-10% of it? Of any sort, whether elected office or working for the state: You’re done; you’ve maxed out your clock, and buh-bye. About the only thing I might exempt from that would be military service as cadre for the force.
Government and power over others ought not be a profession; it should be a short-term duty, limited in scope such that nobody can possibly wind up with 160 million dollars in wealth through insider trading or offering services for bribes. Pelosi and Biden are our own fault; they never should have had the opportunity to do what they did, and in a rational society? They would not.
Lee Moore – if a group of people have no principles nothing else matters, they will inevitably eventually lose to people who do have principles – even if those principles are evil.
As Ayn Rand said of the Russian Civil War, which she lived through, “The Reds believed in plundering and rule by terror – but the Whites believed in NOTHING, so the Reds won”.
As for “professional politicians” – Edmund Burke was one.
However, the growth of the power of officials, both Civil Service and NON Civil Service (“independent agency”) officials, means that elected politicians (professional or not) have less-and-less power.
What is left of democracy is in peril. Policy is, increasingly, made by people who were not elected and who the people can not remove. Often on an international level.
The international agenda is one of tyranny – and the United States, not just the United Kingdom, is very much signed up to this. It is hard to see how we can break free of these treaties, agreements, and “understandings”, enforced by officials at all levels – including, sometimes, the security services.
Kirk,
The “/sarc” was implied.
A Russian writer said the deputy from Treblinsk has more in common with the deputy from Moscow than he does with the people of Treblinsk. I agree entirely.
Representative democracy doesn’t work. Unless you can recall them the instant they vote against you, they’re just snouts in the trough.
There is though, a curious double think as work. On the one hand “people deserve what they voted for, good and hard.” On the other hand it is clearly demonstrated that people do not, in fact, get what they voted for.
Paul,
I agree with what you are saying but I ponder the origin of the “international agenda.” Were the the west to fall to barbarism tomorrow would it still exist? I think not. Western nations are not being pressured externally, we are doing it to ourselves.
Roué le Jour said:
Well, much like “true communism”, I’m going to have to point out that it has never really been tried…
I like my idea of limiting people to a percentage of the average lifespan for any form of government activity. You get five years, say: You can be a building inspector for the county, or you can be the senator for your state. Hit five years, you’re done.
People will no doubt object that such a short span of service will result in amateurs running government, but that’s the damn point. Particularly when you observe what the “career professionals” have gotten up to…
The problem is that the representatives we’ve implemented aren’t really all that representative, and they’ve got zero accountability. Most of them can look forward to careers wandering around Washington DC as lobbyists, and will never have to go home to face their neighbors. If they were going to? Most would behave differently.
Roue le Jour.
Sadly Western nations are (not are not) being pressured externally – both by rival powers, such as the People’s Republic of China, and by the tide of migrants (and migrant populations now in their third generation in Western countries – who are filled with hatred for Western civilisation) who seek to overrun both Europe and the United States.
But YES it is the Western elite themselves who are the real problem.
This is not like the fall of the Roman world – that elite still, basically, believed in their civilisation.
This is a “treason of the leadership” as well as a “treason of the intellectuals”.
Kirk.
As Senator Conkling (Republican, New York, late 19th century) was fond of pointing out – you can have Representative Democracy (or just representative government – if the franchise is restricted) or you can have a professional, independent, bureaucracy – but you can NOT have both of these things at the same time.
Hence your point about this not really being a full representative democracy – as those of us who have been elected to office know to our great pain.
Prime Minister Peel was really in charge of the British government – Prime Minister Sunak has some influence over the government, but he is not really “in charge of it”.
President Grant was in charge of the American government – the good and the bad was down to him and to those he appointed and could remove.
Forget “President Biden” (an absurd puppet figure)- even President Trump was not really “in charge”, he was, to some extent, a prisoner of a vast bureaucracy – made up of people he could not get rid of.
It has been a long process – it is NOT “set up a bureaucracy and the elected politicians are powerless the next day” – it takes many years to make the elected less and less in charge.
Paul Marks said:
Imma gonna guess you’ve never encountered all the accounts of Roman upper class types “thumbing” their sons to preclude military service or the laments of the Roman military about how hard it was to recruit at all, at all levels.
Rome was, in the end, betrayed by its elites as much as we are. Good grief, most of Vegetius is spent bitching about it…
As for Direct Democracy – Appenzell Innerrhoden the last Sunday in April.
Old reactionaries like me love places like Appenzell Innerhoden – or Perry’s Malmesbury come to that, with its Freemen since 937 AD.
Admittedly the Conservative Party has historically been better at winning elections than actually conserving things of value, however, the complete terribleness of the BoJo-Truss-Sunak governments at being ‘conservative’ is quite outstanding. The current gaslighting about the record mass immigration, that it was apparently an ‘accident’ would be funny if it wasn’t wrecking the country.
The sad thing is that the EU referendum and the 2017/9 elections showed there was a potential populist base for the Conservatives. Admittedly some of this will have been driven by negative partisanship (fear about Corbyn). But gifted with a large majority, BoJo-Truss-Sunak have done very little to reward their supporters. Rather they have largely f****d them over.
Sadly I’m not convinced that Reform, at least under the low energy leadership of Richard Tice (see Rochdale by-election performance), seem capable of carrying out a hostile takeover of the British right.
Kirk – that was more than the elite, indeed the elite had not been allowed to serve for centuries (Emperors feared that Senators could turn on them – if those Senators were military commanders).
It was, as you know, ordinary potential conscripts who cut their thumbs off.
The Emperor Valentinian had the punishment of burning people alive for trying to avoid military service.
Gratian did not burn them – he put them in the front line so they would die first (as a sort of human shield from enemy arrows and so on).
Meanwhile the men (and now, due the Swiss Courts, the women) wave their swords on the last Sunday of April every year in Appenzell – as they have done for about a thousand years.
And they have their automatic rifles at home – in order to keep up to date.
“The people must not have assault weapons” is (as George Orwell knew – the rifle in every cottage) the cry of someone who wants to be the master of slaves.
I wrote my post before Sunak’s speech tonight. Now I’m convinced he’s trying to win zero seats for the Conservatives at the next election.
An old fashioned Stalinist wins a by-election
…..and Sunak’s response is to say we must battle the ‘far-right’?
Admittedly George Galloway is more socially conservative than Sunak, which is to George’s credit.
Martin – it would be interesting to know who actually wrote that speech.
But yes – a person who reads out a speech is also morally responsible, they could always refuse to read it or to refuse to read certain parts of it.