If you are a political conservative participating in a panel discussion entitled “After the crunch: How best to beat poverty?”, and it is sponsored by an organization called The Centre for Social Justice, chances are your views will not be warmly received. Such was the case for Theodore Dalrymple in Manchester on Monday (see here and here).
Actually (and this probably makes it much worse), the organization was founded by the former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, and the discussion was one of about two dozen organized by the group to coincide with the annual Conservative Party Conference. Apparently, there is some dispute regarding how much of the audience was actually conservative, but if it is true that Conservatives can no longer abide the idea of personal responsibility that Dalrymple promotes, then there is not much hope left for the party or their country.
Much of the so-called Right that has recently taken power in Europe have succeeded by simply promising to run the socialist welfare-state more efficiently than the socialists. While this might be good for “conservatives”, it can’t be good for conservatism. I don’t follow British politics closely, and others can correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that the Conservatives are so giddy with the prospect of regaining power that they are increasingly willing to compromise any principle to close the deal.
The Skeptical Doctor
Dedicated to the work of Theodore Dalrymple
“Much of the so-called Right that has recently taken power in Europe have succeeded by simply promising to run the socialist welfare-state more efficiently than the socialists.”
This is absolutely true, spot on. I know that from experience since I live in Europe.
There are no traditional conservative parties in Europe, only consevative individuals like TD. The only ones who claim to be traditional conservative are the neo-nationalist parties, but they aren´t really conservative, they us much welfare statist as the socialists.
Yes, and it’s funny how the neo-nationalist parties are always referred to in the European media as being on the Right, even though they openly advocate socialism. To whatever extent the BNP is gaining support, it is coming not from Conservatives but from Labour voters unhappy with New Labour’s immmigration and other policies. I think Daniel Hannan recently said that when the media claims these neo-nationalist parties are on the Right, it’s not an attack on the neo-nationalists; it’s an attack on conservatives. They are trying to link conservatives with unsavory views they don’t actually have.
I should note that many old Labourites / new BNP’ers are not racist at all but simply have been given no other alternative by the establishment in Great Britain, which deems any defense of traditional British culture racist. They’ve destroyed the possibility of there being any respectable party that defends British culture, leaving people concerned with such issues with only the BNP. The establishment has played right into the hands of the BNP.
Their is no real benign patriotism/nationalism in europe as there is in the US. Patriotism/nationalism was made taboo by the intellectuals after WW2 and utterly obliterated by the elites´ “European “Peace”-project” aka EU (“peace” in the orwellian sense).
My point is that the nationalism (BNP and so on) that is on rise now comes out of the revulsion against the EU and frustration about the Immigration and “Islamization”. So there is no true sound benign european conservative nationalism.
So I think the suppression of benign nationalism (conservative) by the establishment is forcing forward a malign nationalism (populist, socialist) that is dangerous for everyone.
Just as an aside, try googling “Kate Green” for more information on the faintly ridiculous woman who took such umbrage at the Doctor’s comments. Initially I felt a measure of hostility to her and her ill-informed rantings, but the results of the search (most particularly the image results)are beginning to produce a rather different effect.
At least the comments show signs of sanity.
There’s absolutely no chance of the BNP being elected in any significant numbers in the UK – happily – so to that extent I disagree Steve that ‘(t)he establishment has played right into the hands of the BNP’.
The existence of the BNP serves at least two purposes.
Firstly, as Dan Hannan says, it allows Labour to conflate the BNP and the Conservatives (and others such as UKIP) in the minds of some voters.
Secondly, it serves as a rallying call to many otherwise apathetic voters; much as Orwell had the Two Minutes’ Hate in 1984, the existence of the BNP rallies disaffected Labour voters and others who would suffer under the BNP (ie people of non-white descent) to vote; given the conflation described above, Labour is more likely to pick up those latter votes than other parties might be.
Yes, I probably overstated my case.
How can you be sure which Kate Green we’re looking at? The the Wonderbra model, the cropped-haired Guardianista, or the artist who spouts such gems as, “I am concerned with developing an expressive urgency to reflect my inner landscape”? The former I’ve got some time for. The other two, less so.
One of the small but tasty pleasures of being a Dalrymplian is moments such as these when, despite the blunt force and conviction of the opposing and prevailing majority, that they are almost violently (passive-aggressively maybe?) and completely wrong.
It almost makes up for the decline of Britain and what not.
The Left’s greatest PR coup was to convince us that the Nazis were a far-Right organisation, even though their economic and social policies had more in common with the Communists than any laissez-faire Right-wing parties. They only differed in the objects of their hatred (although they shared many too).
Since then, any views that are opposed to socialist thinking are portrayed as moving in the direction of Hitler, making the Left look like a civilised alternative.
I also wonder how it is that the undoubted horror of Hitler seems to have come in the modern mind to trump the horrors of Communism; Hitler killed millions and was an evil man, but he was a mere amateur compared to Stalin, and that’s without mentioning Mao, Pol Pot (‘To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss’) and others.
It presumably has something to do with them murdering only their own people (i.e. ‘nothing to do with us, guv’) and that we didn’t ever go to war with them, so they were never presented as our enemies as such, merely people to be mildly disapproved of. Pretty facile reasoning when you think about it, but unfortunately understandable. Out of sight, out of mind and all that. There are no doubt many similar atrocities that go un- or under-reported, sadly.
Set your own life time more simple take the credit loans and everything you want.
I am the most beautiful and glamorous!
I am the most beautiful and glamorous!