Heh! If Mr. Montgomerie’s real aim was to expose Paul Johnson to public ridicule, then he did a fine job…

Seriously though, was anyone else reading through the comments just waiting with baited breath for someone to bring up the old “Oh, and Hitler was a vegetarian, too” nonsense?

And just why are so many folk on “the right” so bloody obsessed with Hitler, anyway?

Are they actually worried that their policies are going to make them appear to be Nazis?
Or do they honestly think they can squeeze out a few more votes by shouting “Adolf would have voted Labour”?

answers on a postcard to ConservativeHome, please…

So, Paul Johnson is a raving lunatic and conservatives don’t seem to know what, if anything, they stand for. What’s new?

But I there is a link here with the list of conservative arguments from which Mr Montgomerie intends to produce his great modern statement.

Tim is trying to define something. It sounds to me like he is seeking a modern restating of the Anglo-American project of the Reagan-Thatcher era – what we should begin to call the ‘Old New Right’, with a particular emphasis on the Christian strand within this.

I think this is exactly right, and hits the nail on the head.

I’ve always felt the Tim Mongtomerie project isn’t really old school conservatism, but more a model that he wants to develop around Republicanism developed over the last 30 years.

I think the Nadine Dorries saga was a prime example. On the issue of pro-choice, they aren’t expecting the status quo, but actively trying to marshall their forces for a long-term push that will aim to withdraw choice for women slowly by slowly.

The Counter-Establishment Republicans, coined by Sidney Blumenthal, were all about a long term strategy to take over the Republican party and throw out the Republicans and replace them with Conservatives.

I get the feeling Montgomerie wants to do the same – throw out Tories and replace them with the kind of Conservatives he likes… the Republican model.

the wonder is whether this will result in a massive civil war, or a take-over as smooth as Reagan and Bush managed.

On an inverted note, Freddie describes the contrasting approach of neo-liberals before moving onto the l-hawks: http://lhote.blogspot.com/2009/01/neoliberalism-liberal-hawks-and-my.html

I enjoyed this post a lot and it was good to see something dismantling the rightists on an ideological level. The Bloggertarian-Tory alliance was always a wobbly one and only through sheer volume could it be sustained. The moment you start to consider things it all comes crumbling down in no time.

And fyi, I’m 1/6. But that 1 was #6 which…Well…I don’t think any ideology claims its adherents fails to do. Its not a meaningful statement at all really, certainly a cack distinguisher. Like saying “Adherents to this ideology think that they’re right.”

Agreed.

I’d put my name to Sunny’s comments too – re. Mongtomerie’s Rovian strategy, which is also the goal of that ignoble idiot, Donal Blaney.

These people should be allowed to run riot on the Conservative Party. They’d make the Tories unelectable for a generation.

Good luck to them, I say.

I know that some people who write for this site have religious feelings. However, the vast majority of folk in the UK don”t. They would have difficulty in subscribing to even the first of Tim Montgomeries’ tests. Not that they are atheists exactly, it’s more that they’re ‘not bovvered’.

I think a comparative analysis of church attendance in the USA and the UK would suggest that what fits one – as a political base – doesn’t fit t’other.

It would be interesting if the full gamut of these tests was applied as a sort of ‘Oath of Allegience’ before you could either stand as a candidate, or, heaven forfend, vote Tory.

The Tories have always been a broad church. This sort of exclusionism would see them in the wilderness for ever.

Which would be no bad thing.

Democratic Socialism is an argument in itself ( like cooked ice as Soljenitsin pointed out ) .Also it is entirely valid if not central for Conservatives to point to the practical incompetence of the left . How many Fabians would it take to fix a light bulb? I dread to think but all of them could write an interesting essay about light bulb fixology . Sadly as I rather enjoy esoteric musing myself I am too busy with real things to play but I may get back to this later.
I rather fell out with Iain Dale for referring to Tim Montgomery as a po faced Nazi . When I met him I asked him why he was so boring , so I am ambivalent about his ideas . I think his version of a Conservative view of god is outright wrong if that’s what he really said . Conservatism can be described doctrinally but it is a torturous business in prose . It is better approached poetically or instinctually , instinctually it holds god at arms length . I heard a Rabbiii once describing what he said you young Jews who had problems with faith , he said
“ Come anyway do you think he minds ?”

That struck me as Conservative for this country( and there is long tradition of Conservatives distrusting what was once called “enthusiasm “ ) Conservatism is the oldest ‘ism’ of the three. It struck me recently that it retains some of the character of a symbolic poetic and verbal culture. Liberalism ,as opposed to modern Liberals ,are more enlightenment period people prosey you might say whereas socialists are supposedly scientific .

This is an excellent post. One thing worth mentioning is that the Conservative party today is a coalition among Whigs, Tories, classical liberals, libertarians, traditionalists and so on. Both Disraeli and Gladstone, were they alive today, would be Conservatives. It is somewhat meaningless therefore to try and find a common ideology linking Sir Robert Peel to John Major.

I have never quite understood whether the likes of Montgomerie are ignorant of the history of their own Party, or simply want to wish it away.

The Conservative party has never been conservative in the sense which they understand it, although it has always had such folk within it (except when they leave in disgust to form UKIP or whatever). Thanks to Gladstone’s idée fixe with Ireland (which, by the by, he was convinced was an instruction from God) the Conservatives acquired the Whigs in the 1880s and Whiggery has arguably been their hegemonic philosophy ever since. Cameron is a Whig to the soles of his feet.

A curious omission from the list – and one which supports those comments above which see Montgomerie as wishing to re-invent his party as a franchise of the G.O.P (or the more insane parts thereof) – is the monarchy. Aren’t the Tories supposed to be the monarchist party?

I think the monotheistic reference is just cultural ignorance (Monty doesn’t really believe that Hindus can’t be conservatives, many of them are better conservatives than he’ll ever be) but I am inclined to think he’s onto something when he offers firm belief as a precondition of Conservatism. You can’t believe in what you’ve experienced, which rules out mystics of all religious backgrounds, none of whom, so far as I recall, have ever espoused philosophical conservatism.

“Government should be as small as possible but as large as necessary”

Without a specific qualifying context (which I don’t think Tim provides), that puts conservatism in almost exactly the same category as social democracy. Sure, the icing is different (are you pro-nation, pro-family, pro-religion, pro-secularism etc.), but the key feature that the government should be as big as (whatever we decide) is necessary, is what makes it dangerous as an ideology. The funny thing is so-called ‘paleo-conservatives’ like Ron Paul would not have a hope of being defined as a conservative on Tim’s account as his limit is not “as necessary” but “only as much as the US constitution permits”.

TM did say …
For the record I posted this because it was sent to me and I thought it interesting.

You’ll see from my comment yesterday at 4.15pm that I agreed with Sally that many good conservatives aren’t religious.

Paul Johnson really is off his bloody rocker and has been for many years now. That reads like the deluded wish-list of someone wanting to see a Reagan-Dubya-Cheney type party in place of the Tories’ current touchy-feely stuff. It’s barking, historically disconnected with the Tories (Cameron’s gubbins at least vaguely relates to Tory paternalism, patronising as it is) and completely culturally inappropriate to the UK.
Beware the rabid Atlanticists (and Brown is one, in my eyes…): you can maybe take pointers from the US, but mimicry or wholesale appropriation of mindset, tactics and policies is stupid.

There was a top post on the Libertarian Alliance site a few years ago, which may be a bit outdated, but which I found interesting. It deals with the rift in the Conservative Party between “Whigs” & “Tories”. I saw it not long after it was written, when I was a teenager, & it impressed itself on me.

http://www.seangabb.co.uk/freelife/flhtm/fl041.htm#Comment_by_Steve_Davies

I was going to blog about the presence of Whigs in the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, & UKIP, & all sorts of other business, but then decided that are just too many people who can be called “Whigs” & they often have little in common, so it couldn’t be hammered into coherence.

It should also be observed that UKIP are even more riven. They have a Daily Mail wing, whom I gather makes up most members & certainly the overwhelming majority of voters, but also libertarians like Tim Worstall, Trixy, et al. Of course, many libertarian members defected in disgust at the Daily Mail tendency & formed LPUK, so UKIP may turn into a fully-fledged “Tory” party, though I gather Farage is vaguely libertarian & so are a lot of his mates at the top of the party.

I also infer that many LPUK members were never part of UKIP & wouldn’t have joined. They may vote for them in elections but only with reluctance.

.

There is little need to be detained by the offensive and childish silliness about Hitler being of the left which seems to have inspired this effort at political thought. Anybody, from any political tradition can easily see that, as a radical nationalist and racist, Hitler had to be virulently opposed to conservatism, liberalism and socialism alike, not just in the practical sense of who was imprisoned and murdered but also in rejecting their respective core principles of tradition, liberty, human rights and the inherent equality of all human beings. Only those who wish to follow Hayek all the way to the patently absurd (and clearly disproved) idea that the only possible political choice is between pure libertarianism or the road to totalitarian ruin could doubt that

Hitler can’t be classified as either ‘left’ or ‘right’, although this really should cast doubt on the usefulness of ‘left’ and ‘right’ as political classes. Hitler was an authoritarian fascist, something which neither side would recognise as being close to their own views.

Of course, Hitler’s actions depended on the powers granted to the state of Germany which, in turn, depended upon the powers innocently accumulated by his predecessors (who were, in fact, somewhat socialist). Hayek’s argument is that innocent people can build up the power of the state, reducing checks and balances within the system of government and they can do so believing that they’re doing the right thing because it’s in a ‘good cause’ (e.g. socialism). From this he argues not that socialists are evil, but that the centralisation of power which [sometimes] accompanies socialism is too dangerous to allow, because at some point a fascist might take that authority away from them, and all of their good intentions would be for naught. This is a fairly uncontroversial argument in favour of civil liberties and restrictions on the arbitrary power of the state and I’m puzzled as to why you disagree with it.

Of course, the flip side is true – conservatives who argue that Hitler must have been a lefty because he led a state which centralised power to such an extent are quite wrong. In fact, Hitler privatised many public industries, passing them on to his supporters – does that make him an economic liberal? Of course not, since a) this was quite obviously a corrupt process and not the institution of an open market and b) the fact that he was able to decide who controls these industries is itself a sign of centralisation. The point, I think, is that the important divide with regard to Hitler is not between left and right but between authoritarianism and liberalism, with Hitler firmly in the authoritarian corner.

Twenty and even ten years ago, most Conservatives would have regarded the idea of civil partnerships and gay marriage as a radical loony left disruption of established social and moral order.

Yes I think its important to point out that in practice Conservatives and homosexuals for the most part got along fine ( far more so than in the butch trade unions world of Labour at the time ) and were often the same people as they are today. The question of gay marriage is still rather an odd one anyway not for reasons of social conservatism so much as the protection of inheritance .
I `m far from convinced it makes sense now but anything to keep the gays happy . My point is that although this was a symbolic issue it was actually not an important one to Conservatives .The attack on marriage and the English colture is far more so .Incidentally , as I am not allowed to accuse anyone who writes against Israel’s policy of anti Semitism can we similarly not have accusations of racism for anyone who disapproves of the torrential immigration labour have visited upon us. As if .

So I simply can’t find this adherence to ‘absolute morality’ in the way conservatives have changed their mind on almost every major social and moral question of public law of the last 100 years – whether that is Britain’s imperial destiny or decolonisation; the abolition of property restrictions on the franchise; votes for women or the legalisation of homosexuality – and what a good thing that is too.

Yes I agree absolutes are a socialist thing and religious enthusiasm is far more in evidence in the utopian dreaming of Fabians than Conservatives . I also think you are right if you are saying that Conservatives were unusually slow in recognising the inevitability of social change in parts . Having said that , the 60s baby boomer positions on abortion , sexually hedonism , feminism and much more are now coming under attack because they have clearly lead top social ills and in the case of abortion Labour are far behind the country which is swing back against these outdated Liberal certainties .
A good example is justice being returned to the heart of the legal system .The moral case for punishment is one that to my astonishment it appears we have to make to Liberals who have no idea , literally no idea , of the moral basis for state sentencing. They think of incarceration as a mere social convenience . What further horrors might flow form this ethical illiteracy I dread to think

‘Among the worst offenders on this score must be Winston Churchill. It was his government of 1951-55 which essentially accepted and locked in the post-war welfare consensus;’</i.

That’s one way of putting it , another is that he was elected to throw back the rampant march of socialism which he did . This whole section is really silly to be honest . The same has to be said of your comments on Margaret Thatcher . Its all relative .Had there been no Conservative Party we would have had the Soviet Union here . Had there been no socialists we would have looked more like America I expect.
That’s the over arching point and if you are going to claim that the Labour Party did not want to take over most of the operations of society well that’s not what they said is it , not throughout the 20th century and I am not convinced they have changed .

I imagine the Fabian Societies chief aim now is to rewrite history so as to pretend British Socialism was not part of the giant failed experiment that was 20th century Marxism do not see itself as the Soviet Unions friend and actually spent the 20th century having polite chat about designing the NHS. The over arching project is to sanitise socialism so as to reintroduce it , this in my view has been the project of Labour for ten years and in the crucible of economic fear there is a terrible danger that socialism will rise again. It is well on the way

Is this a litmus test for Conservatism?

And I find the Hitler thing really hilarious too.

It’s almost like a project with libertarians and Conservatives to keep saying Hitler was hard-left wing, so that there can be no nasty people associated with ‘the right’.

He’s not exactly up there in the Conservative pantheon but Neville Chamberlain also fails number three quite spectacularly with his work laying the foundations of the Welfare State as Chancellor and Prime Minister in the 1930s.

It’s almost like a project with libertarians and Conservatives to keep saying Hitler was hard-left wing, so that there can be no nasty people associated with ‘the right’.

Oh yes and clearly Nick Cohen in “What’s Left” and Michael Collins in “The Likes of us ” are part of this shadowy conspiracy .Both of them quote the interesting fact that British Nazis ,( The BNP ) are second choice of 30% of Labour voters (no Conservatives vote BNP). Come to think of it during Brown s hysterical British jobs for the British sucking up the daily Mail phase this was all too obvious as it was during the anti Pole by election at Crewe .

Don`t mind me though I `m just a Troll (spelt TRUTH ).

Both of them quote the interesting fact that British Nazis ,( The BNP ) are second choice of 30% of Labour voters (no Conservatives vote BNP).

That is to do with identification, Nick Cohen’s increasingly incoherent ramblings aside. New Labour has let down working class people. The BNP target those areas by citing local concerns and speaking as local working class lads. They raise false scares that directly relate to the concerns of WWC (social housing, bad public transport etc) and hence get the vote. The failure of the BNP is they don’t get MORe votes, given how bad New Labour is. One thing these people won’t do of course is vote Tory – a party they completely fail to identify with.

Hitler’s political position is irrelevant, as is the nature of the BNP. Historically people identifying the former on the left are morons due to his relationship with Communism, but I’m not going to go into that.

Instead I’m going to ask: why on earth we end up talking about the Nazis so much?

The Tories should not try to define Conservative as an ideology; that would put them in the same basket as those that claim allegiance to religion or socialism. Ideologies narrow your independence of thought and restrict solutions to problems. I guess, its all do with a sense of belonging. In my experience, lefties tend to lack significant qualities in their lives, be it a loving family, a career, a hobby, a sex-life. Hence, they want to be part of something – adopting an ideology offers that belonging, a sense of worth.

It a bit rich for the Left to complain about Hitler obsessions. They have been using fascist slander to stifle debate for 40yrs!

Whatever your thoughts are on Hitler being of the Left or Right, its undeniable that his party was a branch of the tree of socialism. It grew out of centralised State control of society and its origins were the socialist doctrine that too many naïve and some evil people still cling to, today.

It does worry me that some Tories, albeit insignificant bloggers with too much time on their hands, try to define Conservatism as an ideology. Part of the attraction of voting Tory is the lack of ideology and the pragmatic nature of their policies. A party, weighed-down with the burden of a defined ideology, cannot offer timely and competent solutions to the country’s problems.

As someone from the non-religious, aspirational working-class, I vote Tory because they are the closest fit to my to my own principles of small Govt, freedom, independence, personal responsibility, fairness, loyalty, grafting, valuing traditions, history and identity, the ability to decide/create one’s own destiny and equality of opportunity (not equality of outcome).

“Well, I am sure most readers here have fallen down on these indispensable qualities without which you can not be a conservative. (So if you have, please do remember not to vote for that nice Mr Cameron at the next election!)”

This quote summarises what seems to be a core theme on this blog; some centre-left voters doubt their own opinions and the contributors want to convince such people (and themselves) that voting Tory would contradict their own principles. Thus, they spend most of their time searching Tory blogs for opinions that they can portray as silly or at least they disagree with.

chavscum:

The Tories should not try to define Conservative as an ideology; that would put them in the same basket as those that claim allegiance to religion or socialism. Ideologies narrow your independence of thought and restrict solutions to problems.

…which neatly sums up the Tory party’s problem ever since 1979: Thatcher turned the ideology of ‘common sense’ conservatism into a much more ideologically rigid party (‘One of Us’), with all the attendant litmus tests (e.g. Europe, gays, immigration, abortion), while Labour gave up on even the vestiges of any social democratic tradition. The problem isn’t having an ideology, it’s what kind, what you do with it, and a readiness to rethink it.

I guess, its all do with a sense of belonging. In my experience, lefties tend to lack significant qualities in their lives, be it a loving family, a career, a hobby, a sex-life. Hence, they want to be part of something – adopting an ideology offers that belonging, a sense of worth.

Now you’re just being flippant – you’ll be claiming that that Tories have bigger penises next.*

* [Insert inevitable dickhead/prick joke here]

It a bit rich for the Left to complain about Hitler obsessions. They have been using fascist slander to stifle debate for 40yrs!

Maybe some members of it have, I reserve the term for actual National Socialists.

Whatever your thoughts are on Hitler being of the Left or Right, its undeniable that his party was a branch of the tree of socialism. It grew out of centralised State control of society and its origins were the socialist doctrine that too many naïve and some evil people still cling to, today.

It’s also undeniable that he his party was a branch of the tree of nationalism.

And what is your definition of “Pragmatism”, by the way? So far as I can tell that word is entirely meaningless as unless you have a foundation in something there isn’t really a direction to be effective in. For example: even the most ruthless of realpolitikers (in fact, especially them) have some view of the national interest as being their primary concern. That is an ideology, whether they like to admit as much or not. In fact, I do believe it’s a strain of nationalism…

Additionally, I have to note that my answer regarding why we are talking about the National Socialists, yet again, has gone without reply…

Hitler’s political position is irrelevant…

Finally…

Well said.

Hitler was a shitbag. Stalin was a shitbag. Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, General Pinochet, Franco, etc. etc. All shitbags.

Condemning any political ideology – beyond those fundamentally racist or tyrannical – because of one or two sexually frustrated psychos, doesn’t make much sense – or make for particularly interesting reading, IMHO.

Thatcher turned the ideology of ‘common sense’ conservatism into a much more ideologically rigid party (’One of Us’), with all the attendant litmus tests (e.g. Europe, gays, immigration, abortion)

This is absurd. Thatcher did not exit Europe but took us further in. Homosexuality was not outlawed. Immigration contined apace. Abortion was not outlawed.

On every social question of importance, the Conservative Party since Churchill have been demonstrably socially liberal. You can like or dislike this but it is true.

i This is absurd. Thatcher did not exit Europe but took us further in. Homosexuality was not outlawed. Immigration contined apace. Abortion was not outlawed.

All true, however, all are misrepresentations of my point…the ideology of ‘Euroscepticism’ has its roots in Thatcher’s positions on Europe (i.e. the way in which the PM who signed the Single European Act was obviously a different PM to the one who inspired the Bruges Group); Thatcher gave the Powellite wing of her party its head with her remarks about being ‘swamped by people of a different culture; Section 28 was introduced on her watch (it was under Major that the age of gay consent was lowered); you’ll have a hard time convincing me that the Tory position on abortion has become more pro-choice over the last 30 years (or it might just be the likes of Widdecombe and Dorries hogging all the airtime). My main point still stands: the Cult of Thatcher still shapes much if the Tories’ thinking, especially the ‘tick box’ approach to being a ‘real’ Conservative.

@ redpesto (28). the Cult of Thatcher still shapes much if the Tories’ thinking, especially the ‘tick box’ approach to being a ‘real’ Conservative

True. Trouble is (well in my eyes, at least) is that that is also true of New Labour, especially the Blairites, Purnell, Burnham etc and old schemers and spivvy chancers like Milburn. It seems sometimes that they’ve had a competition to see who could get away with saying the most Thatcherite thing, all that thinking the unthinkable bollocks, and only by echoing Maggie were you proving you were New Labour.

As for Conservatism being an ideology, let alone a coherent one. probably not been that way since the reform of the Corn laws, truth be told. It’s a flag of convenience more than anything else under which all sorts of ragtags and bobtails shelter.

Ha ha is that it Sunny , a couple of leaflets and they go all peculiar ? Yes I `m sure thats it . Nick Cohen , who is admittedly on what I would call “The Orwell Road” is likely to annoy you even more. This is his …..

In 1997 a study for the Institute for Public Policy Research showed that32% of Hindu’s , Muslims and Sikhs and 29% of Jews would be repelled if a member of their family married an Afro-Caribbean , whereas only 13% of white Britons said they would have a problem.

(From How the Liberals Lost their Way ) . Explain that away !

(Cicero is right on everything except Europe which ahs been afast developing position)

True. Trouble is (well in my eyes, at least) is that that is also true of New Labour, especially the Blairites, Purnell, Burnham etc and old schemers and spivvy chancers like Milburn. It seems sometimes that they’ve had a competition to see who could get away with saying the most Thatcherite thing, all that thinking the unthinkable bollocks, and only by echoing Maggie were you proving you were New Labour.

Agreed.

As for Conservatism being an ideology, let alone a coherent one. probably not been that way since the reform of the Corn laws, truth be told. It’s a flag of convenience more than anything else under which all sorts of ragtags and bobtails shelter.

True, I suspect less and less so over the last 30 years – or it may be that the cracks are showing more clearly.

In 1997 a study for the Institute for Public Policy Research showed that32% of Hindu’s , Muslims and Sikhs and 29% of Jews would be repelled if a member of their family married an Afro-Caribbean , whereas only 13% of white Britons said they would have a problem.

You’re so tedious newmania, but I’ll humour you anyway. I don’t agree with the sentiment, but its obvious that minorities feel that marrying out will result in their culture and way of life dying out. That is why they don’t like children marrying out. Funny, that you keep talking about your own culture being under attack but don’t realise it when other people have the same sentiments.

Interesting. Do you mean their culture in the sense of the Hindu culture or Muslim culture? Considering there is at least a billion of each, I don’t think that’s valid. Do you mean their culture as the Hindu or Muslim culture in the UK? Well, both populations are at least 1m, plus, they have moved to a land with a different culture, so that’s not valid either. That leaves us the culture of the individual family. So do you defend the rights of individuals to discrimminate against others on the basis that religion or colour of skin indicates a different culture and is therefore a threat?

Thanks. This has been a good discussion. There have been several interesting contributions from lots of people. I also recommend David Marquand’s recent book for its interpretation of the conservative tradition as divided between a Whiggish instinct (Baldwin, Macmillan, ? he thinks Cameron) and a Tory nationalism (of Salisbury, Powell, Thatcher, etc). I have just reviewed it for the fabian review and will post on that in the next couple of days over on our Next Left blog, and link it here somewhere.

redpesto has made several good points about the rupture of Thatcherism, which are somewhat consistent with that idea of an ideologising of conservatism.

Cicero – thanks for yr generous comment. Let me quibble a bit with one thing. When you say that “Both Disraeli and Gladstone, were they alive today, would be Conservatives” I think that could underestimate the changes in Gladstone’s views over time and his increasing radicalism by the 1890s – on democracy and making a somewhat more class based appeal, as well as on Ireland and ‘Home Rule all round’ and all of that. (Though I can see your point in terms of Gladstone’s classical liberalism, and most classical liberals and Whigs this may well be the case, And it is always difficult to fairly interpret or make claims for the contemporary views of dead heroes).

Newmania

Thanks for your contributions. Yes, Tim says he doesn’t think you need to be religious to be a conservative. (But I think it is reasonable to think he found some merit in the Johnson argument, judging from his post and his broader list on conservatism). However, the Paul Johnson statement is nonsense from beginning to end. Ditching point 1 just makes point 2 meaningless. However, it would be fair to ConservativeHome to note that several posters (and probably the majority) have taken the argument to pieces, and from a conservative perspective.

- democratic socialism isn’t a contradiction in terms. If you really think so, try reading some of Orwell’s essays, or anything by Tawney, or Bernard Crick (particularly the footnote to fellow socialists in In Defence of Politics, or his essays on liberty and the left) for good descriptions of an inherently democratic socialism. Look into the speeches and political actions of – to pick a few off the top of the head – some of Clement Attlee or Nye Bevan, Nehru, Willy Brandt, Olaf Pame, Hugh Gaitskell, Robin Cook, John Smith, Nelson Mandela for what many have found, in very different ways, inspirational examples of not just personal integrity in politics but of democratic socialism in practice. Which of these would you say was not a genuine democrat? Of course, you can disagree with everything they stand for but it is a major democratic political tradition which I think should merit some respect from political opponents.

I hope the knockabout tone of this post didn’t hide the fact that I think conservatism merits respect while I am opposed to it politically. Like Mike Killingworth, I am just struck by how far the modern right seems to be cutting itself off from its own history and tradition.

-Funny, that you keep talking about your own culture being under attack but don’t realise it when other people have the same sentiments.

True-ish , but as you well know there are also some attitudes to blacks that are outright racism by any definition .Still perhaps ,with your new subtle understanding of ethnicity you will be less quick to smear people as racists because you disagree with their views on the future character of the country . I look forward to a reformed and penitent Mr. Hundal when next levels of immigration and state sponsored multiculturalism crops up.

Newmania,
It’s not a smear if it’s true. The fact remains that many conservatives and Conservatives are bigots. I’m actually surprised that bigotry wasn’t included in the list of Conservative traits.

Anyway, can anyone suggest a comprable list for liberals and socialists. The differences should be illuminating.

If you repeat smears often enough, are you hoping to convince the naive that they are true?

Bigots come in all shapes and sizes, as Sunny has clearly demonstrated. Or has he? Care to respond Sunny?

So the white Britains and the Afro-Caribbeans weren’t classified by religious belief?

redpesto – I am not sure that would make much difference. Of the more traditional asian Muslim families I know, whether a potential marriage partner, for example, was Muslim or non-Muslim wouldn’t make enough of a difference. If they were black they would tend to be persona non grata regardless.

Of course, the great thing about being a libertarian is that one can respect people’s right to integrate, associate, diverge or isolate as much as they want and on whatever grounds they want, whether ‘racist’ or not. As it so happens, being the cosmopolitan xenophiliac type that I am, I tend to end up living in the more culturally mixed burroughs of London. But I can respect the rights and desires of others who might desire a more homogenous and communitarian way of living (there is increasing evidence that people are often happier in more homogenous socieites, after all). So I will respect the rights of minorities (and anyone else) to be as racist as they like, short of committing violence or violating the rights of others. I think entering the multicultural melting pot should be completely voluntary, even though I am very happy sizzling in it myself.

“So, theocracy it is then”

Sunder

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I’m going to assume this was a flippant remark.

I enjoyed your article, even though it was understandably written with partisan blinders firmly secured.

“The Whiggish secret of conservative political success has been knowing when to concede an argument and to retreat so that you can begin defending the new status quo, not the ancien regime.”

There is some truth to this, but does this not also apply to progressives/socialists too? They no longer advocate support for eugenics (although the stance on abortion makes me wonder), they no longer advocate “liberal fascism”, Marxism, Communism and Keynesianism have to differing degrees been discredited and public ownership is (the current panic excepted) a thing of the past.

Conservatism acts as a brake against the excesses and overreach of progressivism. The two forces are mutually dependent. Without the progressives, conservatism would have ground to a stultifying inertia. Without conservatism, progressives would have continued on an unchecked path towards totalitarianism in a haphazard flurry of politically correct, idealogically sound activity.

“conservatives don’t seem to know what, if anything, they stand for.”

We do, we just choose not to conform to fashion in the way progressives do. We don’t need the obligatory CND pin, Che Guevara poster or latest Apple product to demonstrate our idealogical integrity. We are a broad church who, whilst recognising that a general definition of all our values may be beyond us, on an individual level, we all know what we stand for.

You’re most compelling arguement, one which unfortunately I have to tentatively agree with, is that there have been no modern examples of true conservatism in office. Government has been stubbornly resistant to reduction in size, and perhaps, as William Buckley stated, a conservative’s role is to stand athwart history yelling Stop! Or at the very least, “slow the hell down!”

On one of Tim Montgomery’s posts, I offered my view on how I felt conservatism should be defined. I aimed for a general definition that would appeal to the classical liberal wing as much as it would to the traditionalist, socially conservative wing. I hope you’ll allow me the self-indulgence of sharing it here for the purposes of debate. No doubt, you’ll find little to agree with, but hopefully you’ll be unable to dismiss it as a non-coherent set of principles.

1. Rights come with responsibilities.

2. Localism is usually better than centralism.

3. Conservatism is better when focusing on the means rather than the ends.

4. Intellectuals are not always right (particularly social scientists!).

5. Right/wrong, good/evil are legitimate dichotomies.

6. Conservatism is a value driven creed, those values are derived from any of faith, family, freedom, flag, community or tradition. Reason alone cannot determine values.

7. Conservatism places a high value on consensus.

8. Virtue ahould be our highest goal. Government however cannot lead us to virtue.

9. Democracy should be as much about the minority as it is about the majority. Majoritarianism is a form of tyranny.

10. A conservative’s home is his castle. A conservative’s country is worth fighting (and dying) for.

11. Conservatives agree with Ronald Reagan when he states that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.

Thoughts?

ConservativeCabbie,

I think you argue your case well. I agree with quite a bit of it, and I think there is something in the ‘mutual dependence’ argument of democratic competition, and on the case for some people (but not everybody) saying ‘slow down’. (I think part of my underlying point is that – if the Right wants to cut itself so sharply off from its own conservative tradition, then the sense of what they have lost might be as or more apparent to conservatism’s opponents than to its friends).

In particular, there are attractions to a conservative disposition, but my bias is to say that is perhaps especially true if it is combined with left-wing principles (take Orwell as a particularly good case in point, also Attlee, Nehru, Mandela particularly on Anthony Sampson’s account of him).

Orwell’s Why I Write is perhaps the best example, the whole thing, but especially this passage.
http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw

“What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art’. I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant. I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood. So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us”.

And many fair-minded conservatives agree that probably the best description of English identity and patriotism was written by a democratic socialist, in Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn

I was ‘finding much to agree’ with the first of your two posts. The second one appeared while I was posting mine)

However, that said, your list strikes me as a pretty fair list of conservative beliefs and attitudes, and somewhat more coherent than where Tim Montgomerie had got to. I think (6) perhaps does most to capture what is distinctively conservative, against other beliefs.

CC – yeah, that list sounds like a far more coherent and representative list.

Though Thatcher fails on:

2, perhaps 4, unquestionably 7, probably 8 and easily 9.

James,

I think that reflects that Thatcher was conservative in values (and in some of her ends) but highly anti-conservative in her politics (and her means) and hence her consequences, making her perhaps the most radical and disruptive PM of any in the 20th century, certainly since 1951.

It seems to me that Thatcher and Keith Joseph’s argument was essentially that Conservativism had been betrayed by Conservative heresy for the most part since 1945, and especially by Heath after 1972. This ‘restoration’ of a Conservative true faith was in large part a break with and a rejection of those dominant whiggish, wet tendencies which dominated conservatism.

And then Thatcher and Thatcherites became rather more ideological still after 1987, and even more so once out of power after 1990 (the domestic third term agenda; and also compare the Bruges speech to her previous record on Europe, and the Eurosceptics attacks on Major over Maastricht, compared to their acquiescence to Thatcher on the Single Market, the ERM, etc)

I’d agree. There’s also an argument to be had over whether she was a genuine neo-liberal or a neo-conservative who thought she needed to be a free market fundie and used that as a tool to restore greatness or whatever jingoist clap-trap reactionaries like to trot out to justify their foulness.

But I just found it interesting.

James/Sunder

Whilst being British, I find I have more in common with aspects ofAmerican conservatism than the British Toryist view.

Following Roosevelt’s New Deal era, conservatism was able to intellectually reconstitute itself, away from the necessity (possibility) of electoral success. The bogeyman double whammy of communism and unrestrained progressive liberalism, gave the debate a vitality and a positive search for answers that resulted in the Goldwater/Reagan brand of conservatism that was able to step into the breach when liberalism started flailing about like the proverbial headless chicken in the late 60′s and 70′s.

Unfortunately, this brand of positive conservatism has broken apart and conservatives are now more more identifiable by what they are against than what they stand for. My hope, is that after listening to eight years of “yes we can” ad nauseum, conservatism will find the will to reconstitute itself again if only to rid ourselves of bland Obama banalities.*

My concern for British conservatism is even greater. The Conservative Party has morphed into liberalism lite and there doesn’t seem to be any intellectual movement towards rediscovering conservative values. The irony is, conservative values of nationhood, responsible government, an aversion to internationalist bodies and stricter values related to immigration and law are not resonating with the people who often share those values, the working classes. The argument has been lost, not, I believe, because progressivism has won the argument, but because conservatives have argued poorly.

“In particular, there are attractions to a conservative disposition, but my bias is to say that is perhaps especially true if it is combined with left-wing principles ”

This is a really interesting point, something not always realised by some of those on the right. Conservatism as a social value is not necessarily independent of left wing thinking. The Democratic Party are the perfect (albeit extreme) case in point, you won’t find a more conservative group than the pre mid-60′s Southern Democrats; Economically leftist, socially conservative. What I find interesting, is that despite the death of those values that really divided left from right (public ownership on the left, absolute opposition to welfarism on the right), the divisions seem to be greater now.

A genuinely interested question. Is progressive the best term to collectively describe the left? I would have thought socialist is less relevant today, whilst liberal doesn’t accurately describe the more collectivist left.

* I was going to delete part of this paragraph as too partisan but James’ “whatever jingoist clap-trap reactionaries like to trot out to justify their foulness.” makes mine look moderate.

* I was going to delete part of this paragraph as too partisan but James’ “whatever jingoist clap-trap reactionaries like to trot out to justify their foulness.” makes mine look moderate.

Yes, I suppose that that flourish was a consequence of slipping into the mindset as best I could and then finding once inside that it disagreed with me in a most vigorous fashion. An interesting tendency, that sort of rejection. I suppose you could posit that it was indicative of some form of insecurity, but I would say incompatibility.

Regardless, it was a tad extreme.

A genuinely interested question. Is progressive the best term to collectively describe the left? I would have thought socialist is less relevant today, whilst liberal doesn’t accurately describe the more collectivist left.

“Progressive” is a term I’m wary of, for a number of reasons. Firstly it signals a retreat from the word “Liberal” or “Socialist”. In America it is more the former (David Cameron calls himself a liberal here, albeit a “Small state” one) while in Britain it is the latter (thank you Thatcher). That doesn’t seem very bold, it just seems reactive and fearful.

Secondly the history of the Progressive Movement is largely an American one (Locke and Mill are examples of fine English liberals, Orwell and Bevan fine English socialists, but none who call themselves “Progressives” spring to my mind) and one which in places has a truly dubious record. Prohibition and eugenics are only the examples which I know of, but I consider them to be quite enough.

The history of both liberalism and socialism are considerably more distinguished. A vast amount of positive developments throughout history, from the NHS to gay rights to female suffrage, came from one strand or another in hard one struggle. “Progressive” is a fresh term, but also one devoid of past in Britain and so formidable a record in America.

[41] CC, why do you think #8 on your list is a conservative value? Plenty of left-wingers – although generally not political activists – have subscribed to it. It really amounts to saying that politics is necessary but insufficient – you’d need to be fairly extremist to deny that.

I think there is a case for saying that the besetting sin of the Right is pride, the Left self-hatred (inverted pride). It is difficult to give an alternative account of your #10, for example. It amounts to saying that it’s OK to identify with people on the basis of their externals, rather than making the effort to seek out our common humanity.

I think its always useful to split social and economic liberalism and conservatism.
I will agree with many Tories on ID cards but disagree with them on re-nationalising the railways for example.
Both Labour and the Tories have thier authoritarians and libertarians on moral issues, the Lib dems seem to be more split between the left liberals and the pro free market brigade and even in the small Green Party we have members who could be described as radical liberals, social democrats and socialists.

And many fair-minded conservatives agree that probably the best description of English identity and patriotism was written by a democratic socialist, in Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn

Orwell was a socialist in name only by the time he died. He was actually a Conservative .Furthermore his reputation was systematically undermined by the academic left establishment through the 60s 70s and 80s when it was still apparent in the Eng Lit Dept where I studied . I wrote at that time a defence of Orwell and Kipling as two important Literary figures whose opposition to ‘Literature’ had challenged the Left elite whose domination of cultural commanding heights ahd yet to be challenged .Having failed to destroy him the left now claim his most complete book was a subtle satire which used ‘Socialism’ , the term , ‘playfully’ . By this reading the point of 1984 has been consistently missed by almost all readers
I can hardly overstate the cynical illiteracy of such a sophist pleading .
His views on the possibility of Democratic Socialism are clear in 1984 where Eng Soc are damned in perpetuity . A clear pane
Before you mention it aware that he claimed to be a socialists at various stages but this is an anachronistic pleading en route elsewhere . I thought Christopher Hitchens was rather good on this subject and it is a oft trodden road that Nick Cohen ,inter alia , , appears to be to be on. Your overall contention that Conservatism is cut off from it past is based on the risibly feeble evidence of a list of suggestion published as a provocation by a web site . Tim Montgomerie Tim happily admitted that he did not himself agree with its blood curdling tablets and he is about as ,close as it gets to the Neo Con you would like to discover . In fact it is not .

I believe what you are trying to do is to sanitise the term socialist and creep unnoticed back into the dining room to sit with respectable positions . Make you case then , thus far it is not made .This is why in a recent New Statesman Interview Gordon Brown refused to describe himself as a Socialist even though that is quite clearly what he is . Socialism is not as you and Harold Wilson like to pretend a domestic off shoot of Methodism or whatever . It is directly derived from Marxism ,supported the Soviet Union, and it is only yesterday Clause 4 was dropped which lead to half the Labour Party leaving .
Fabianism actually exists to defraud the working class by directing its votes through a class hierarchy towards progressive policies which it generally is either indifferent to or actually loathes . It has influenced the Labour Party in the direction of a larger state and higher taxes at all times so as to approach a position where votes not withstanding no democracy outside socialism is possible as everyone is controlled by the state. There have been socialists who were democrats of course but that mix is of conflicting not complimentary ideas .

[52] There were self-defined socialists before Marx, who put a lot of energy into attacking them.

41 . Traditionally the Tories have combined 2 and 10 in as much that they have always supported the right to own and aspire to own property and the powers of the state stop at the boundary to the home.

Party politics are shaped by people whose outlook on life is shaped by experience .
All parties are cutting themselves from large parts of commiunity as most MPs come from a middle middle to upper middle class grammar /public school suburban background and are university educated , usually in the humanities with little or no experience outside of the office.

The days when many Tory MPs were landowners or factory owners and therefore worked and fought alongside working class people are long gone . As some wit said the “Tory party is gone from being a party of estate owners to estate agents – well private equity /hedge fund /investment bankers . Consequently , the Tory tradition of loyalty to one ‘s nation, factory, estate and the people who live, fight and die for these ideas has lessened. The Liberal /Whig type of Tory with a sense of noblesse oblige has been replaced by the financier or bankster ( MacMillan). If one has owned an estate for hundreds of years one will build up a rapport with those who live and work on it or nearby. The successful owner recognised mutual obligation. Over the last few hundred years may Tory landowners have fought and died alongside those he has known from childhood. Look at all the records of the county regiments . Financiers do not have that loyalty to others. There are no records of admin clerks risking their lives carrying their hedgefund manager of an employer to safety or visa versa. Consequently, there is less opportunity for mutual obligation to develop between people of different incomes ! The traditional Tory landowner has often learnt to respect people from all walks of life, especially as the result of two world Wars. Often the fit young poacher became the unit sniper or scout during war.

Point 4 Also when it comes to new ideas if one has owned property for over a hundred years, then one is likely to have large amounts of experience when assessing new ideas on how to run it. The naive aceptance of new ideas because they are new is rare by the Tory.

When estates have been sold and bought by the new rich often a major problem is access. The previous owner often recognised various access , course fishing and certain foraging rights. Often the estate supplied water to the tied properties. The new owners often believe as they have bought the property they are entitled to do whatever they want . Consequently, they start denying any rights to others which are not written into a contract but also ignoring any mutual obligations on their behalf. Madonna changing the course of a footpath close to her home comes to mind.

This tradition of noblesse oblige was demonstrated by MacMillan, Pym, Carrington and Whitelaw; all who had experienced the horrors of war. Are there any Tory MPs who have been shaped by similar experiences of upbringing and war in the party?

The local land owners often tour the pubs and talk to people just to keep informed of local issues and concerns. What is amusing is listening to conversation between the local landowner and the tough , bare knuckle boxer rugby player farm worker speaking with irritation of the towny incomers who the try to change the countryside.

At their best , Conservatives recognise the need to serve others and for mutual obligation to bind people together ; not for financial gain or because it is written in a contract but becuase it is the right thing to do in a particular circumstance. In order to rub along together ; Tories at their best recognise that a certain flexibility, pragmatism , live and let live attitude and perhaps one could say hypocrisy, is required .

Newmania,

So much to disagree with. But the disagreement which is most interesting is the argument about Orwell.

—
As it happens, I wrote about this specific point just before Christmas in my piece reflecting on Bernard Crick.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/ourkingdom-theme/on-reading-bernard-crick

“It is Orwell’s own voice which leads readers to search out as much as possible of his writing, and his life, after an initial encounter. And that leads many to Crick as the most illuminating modern interpreter of Orwell as a political writer, insisting that both words should carry equal weight.

Crick’s judgement that Orwell’s genius is as an essayist, and not as a novelist, and that ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ is perhaps his greatest work, may now have become commonplace. (Anybody who struggles through A Clergyman’s Daughter may not need much convincing). But if that is the orthodoxy, that is in part because Crick pursued an argument to ‘demote Orwell from prophet to essayist, or perhaps to promote him from minor novelist to great essayist’. This had both literary and political implications, given a strange alliance between Orwell’s literary executor and widow Sonia Orwell and the Cold Warriors of the US Right meant this had. With differing motives – Sonia to rescue Orwell for ‘proper’ literature; the US right to enlist Orwell as anti-left propagandist – they converged on a shared interest to imply or promote the idea that, following disillusion in Spain in 1936, the final two novels Animal Farm and 1984 were intended to repudiate or downplay Orwell’s socialism, rather than being rooted in it. Crick provides ample counter-evidence from his exceptionally close reading of the novels’ politics, but it is the essays, which most comprehensively rout the hypothesis, not least Orwell’s clear refutation of it in 1946, in ‘Why I Write’ (while writing Nineteen Eighty-Four) that ‘Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism’.

—
Of course, nobody could possibly doubt – which I am sure you must concede – that the specific great wartime essay on English identity and patriotism, The Lion and the Unicorn, is the work of a democratic Socialist (which is not to deny John Major’s right to champion and quote it without agreeing with Orwell’s argument and proposals in that essay for a democratic Socialist but very English ‘revolution’ or many other conservatives as well as socialists who think it among his greatest work).

Orwell died in January 1950 after a long illness. The strong evidence is that he died a democratic Socialist too, so that is where we disagree. You say, ‘at various times’ but it was precisely in the summer of 1946 (Why I Write), while writing Nineteen Eighty-Four and after publishing Aninal Farm that he made the claim that his democratic Socialism remained of existential importance to everything he wrote. Why disbelieve this? He was hardly one not to fess up to difficult truths, tensions, changes of mind or disagreements with his ‘own’ side.

Yes, there have been many attacks on Orwell from within the left, especially from Marxists, Communists and others. I find Christopher Hitchens is very good and entertaining on Orwell, but that does not make Hitchens, Cohen, Orwell’s biographies analogous in all respects. I am pretty sure that Hitchens explodes in his excellent ‘Orwell’s Victory’ these claims from the right which were of course a major theme of the (real) year 1984, when Podhoretz made a famous and stupid bid that Orwell would today be a neo-con, which Hitchens unpicks and unravels. (Let us recall too that Animal Farm was as (or more) unpopular with many on the conservative right as with pro-communists on the left given the wartime alliance with Stalin, as the extraordinary rejection letter from TS Eliot for Faber & Faber captures).

Mike Killingworth

I didn’t say no8 was exclusively a conservative value, just that it is a conservative value. I do disagree somewhat though that the left see virtue as their highest goal. Of course, many on the left are virtuous, I’m not seeking to ridicule them, but surely being of the left means that the collective is always the highest authority and that for example, the social contract would supercede any individual desire to seek personal virtue.

On #10, I acknowledge that that is the point that most distinctly divides left and right. I’m not sure I agree that it is necessarily about pride (particularly the nationhood part) although respect for one’s own country often manifests itself as pride on a superficial level. I think it is more about belonging, about the institutions (nationhood, religion, community) providing a safe harbour from the difficulties of life and anchoring us to the realities of life.

Seeking out our common humanities is a laudable goal no doubt, I suspect though, that as conservatives realise that life is imperfectible, and that we are motivated by self-interest, therefore, common humanity is an unattainable goal.

I hope you don’t mind me tweaking your respective sins slightly. For the right, the sin is of the primacy of self-interest, for the left, the unnecessary self-debilitating guilt.

(54) Charlie

An excellent insightful comment. I was particularly drawn to your final conclusion. I think this is the reason I’m particularly drawn to Appalachian to The Rockies Conservatism. It is grounded in the common man, recognises that we are stronger when working together as church, community or country but doesn’t seek to subvert the primacy of the individual.

I beleve in a new grassroots resurgence of the right in this country. Politics, on both left and right, is about a new political elitism, the career politician, and “we, the people” are losing the ability to become active players in our own best interests.

Ever read Such, Such Were The Joys, Newmania? That was written close to the end of Orwell’s life, & even you’re “unique” way of interpreting a text couldn’t make it the work of a conservative.

I think his closest contemporary is someone like Johann Hari. He denounces Islamism & illiberal attitudes, & the flabbiness of certain self-styled liberals & the pro-totalitarian “left”, but is indisputably left-wing. Likewise, Orwell hated Stalinism because he was left-wing & clung to the values of the old English left, which were liberal values.

*your

Flipping heck, asquith. You can’t seriously be comparing Hari with Orwell?

Well, maybe not in quality (who is comparable?), but in kind.

I do have a high regard for J. Hari though. He isn’t swayed by relativism & similar nonsense but defends liberal values around the world.

Of course, nobody could possibly doubt – which I am sure you must concede – that the specific great wartime essay on English identity and patriotism, The Lion and the Unicorn, is the work of a democratic Socialist

I am afraid you confidence is misplaced and the word I quibble with is ‘democratic’. Firstly can I splutter a little . Orwell `s essays are not in any way to be compared with his novels or rather his novel 1984 . Such a misapprehension is possible only for A Political historian whose interest in English Literature is evidential rather than artistic .His journalism is fun and discursive by virtue if introducing Conservative insights into the world of the mid 20th century “Intellectual” soi disant . He remarked in L and U that there were only left wing intellectuals beautifully contradicting himself with reference to TS Elliot (a familiarity with whom was a prerequisite for entry ). It is the literary achievement of 1984 and to a lesser extent Animal Farm that is the source of his fascination and had he only been an essayist he would have been forgotten .( I will happily discuss this further if you are interested in the books as Literature at all)

The Lion and The Unicorn
The Lion and the Unicorn is truly extraordinary but more performance than art. It is a glittering fragmented mess veering wildly between ferocious personal resentment wisdom foolishness paranoia and arrogance . Its best passages are the almost lyrical investigations of Englishness which contain some thrilling steps along the way to Conservatism …
“Till recently it was thought proper to pretend that all human beings are very much alike, but in fact anyone able to use his eyes knows that the average of human behaviour differs enormously from country to country. Things that could happen in one country could not happen in another…..”

“And above all, it is your civilization, it is you. However much you hate it or laugh at it, you will never be happy away from it for any length of time.”

He does not resolve the glaring dissonance between the implications of “cultural man” and “Economic man” although he tries . That ,I take it ,is your interest together with the mirage of Socialism that is not against the English.
He notes the disappearance of stratified class system , the acquisition of wealth by the poor without recognising the part of capitalism in that. He despairs of the intellectual as knowing nothing of courage and work . He has no comprehension of the creative potential of Capitalism which he treats as a “resource “ flowing unbidden from the earth , neither does he see the futility of the planned Russian economy . On the contrary he regards planning as the only possible route to efficiency. His attitude to Empire does indeed shows signs of Neo Con Realpolitik ( India can no more be independent than a cat or a dog ,,…)
At this time he sees the need for planning in mass war in war a truth which any Conservative would happily accept. For him this holds out a utopian prospect you might say ‘A heaven forged in Hells despite’. “
…….“The fact that we are at war has turned Socialism from a text-book word into a realizable policy. “…. “ In effect he describes socialism that would work in a perpetual state of war and there is more than one sinister excursion
. The quality of the book is impossible without the errors of its day , it is exactly the “ terrifying present “ of it is which makes it so compelling for all its flaws .You have the sense of a man in the crucible convinced the forces of good and evil were at last showing themselves . Meanwhile in Oxford CS Lewis and Tolkein were describing the same feeling in very different ways . It is like fierce love affair when tomorrow may bring the bomb.This is by way of preparing you to accept that a rapid transformation took place over the next few years . Consider the following…..

“If we can survive this war, the defeat in Flanders will turn out to have been one of the great turning-points in English history. In that spectacular disaster the working class, the middle class and even a section of the business community could see the utter rottenness of private capitalism. Before that the case against capitalism had never been proved. Russia, the only definitely Socialist country, was backward and far away. ….”

You will note at this stage Russia is definitely within his definition of socialism. Important this when you trace the disillusion and bitterness he latterly expressed against the very English Socialism he tries to invent here .It is a salutatory reminder to us all to see what socialism actually means even to a man whose thinking and emotions are taking him from it . The main point for our purposes is this
“Nationalization of land, mines, railways, banks and major industries.

..and the consequence …
“ From the moment that all productive goods have been declared the property of the State, the common people will feel, as they cannot feel now, that the State is themselves.” and as he remarks elsewhere , ‘’everyone works for the state’ .

That is what socialism is a belief that man is fundamentally changeable by his economic environment alone , but what of democracy , what of all the Englishness he tries to include in his idea? This is the utopia that awaits us

“It will shoot traitors, but it will give them a solemn trial beforehand and occasionally it will acquit them. It will crush any open revolt promptly and cruelly, but it will interfere very little with the spoken and written word. Political parties with different names will still exist, revolutionary sects will still be publishing their newspapers and making as little impression as ever. It will disestablish the Church, but will not persecute religion. It will retain a vague reverence for the Christian moral code, and from time to time will refer to England as ‘a Christian Country “

There will not in fact be any real democracy at all except token “Different names “. Yes , he is certainly a socialist at this time , but Democratic , in form only. . It would have been impossible to admit for him at the end what he had seen . He saw it in Russia and he saw it in the power the state took in the war .1984 reeks of the growing evil state control brings and specifically to wartime Britain.
Conclusion
Orwell saw socialism as emerging from war not persuasion and democracy as a comforting token to be retained like the monarchy. His obviously love of England and his deep understanding of it are precursors to true Conservatism . His admiration of Russia shows he was yet to acquire the bitter energy behind his final denunciations of socialism which , as he had already begun to see , cannot co -exist with true democracy . The oft quoted statement in ‘Why I write ‘ must be understood chielfy as an attitude to literature ( for which he was not forgiven) placing its effect above all. It is asking tok much of him to say .” I have had good instincts and spoke honestly but I now see I was wrong and am a Conservative ” Not so unusual , look at Frank Field .

One aspect of being a conservative is a belief in that tradition can sometimes be useful. Consequently a conservative may be happy to exist within The Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour Party. A person brought up in the country may trace their relatives back centuries. Their relatives over the generations may be buried in a churchyard and served in a county regiment for hundreds of years. Their love of the countryside ; their knowledge of nature , their pursuits of country sports and their dependence on the countryside for their income may make them keen to conserve their environment . Politically their allegiance could be to any or no political party. For many urban or metropolitan members of the white collar middle class, especially those who are left of centre in political outlook, who never undertake physical work out of doors, they seem to have a hatred of the traditions of Britains countryside. In fact they are often more distant in their outlook from a member of the rural working class than a member of the landed gentry. On a practical note in the village where I grew up , there was an old gentleman who was consulted from October onwards , about for his prediction for the forth coming winter. His prediction was based upon his observation on the animals and plants. One might say he was a conservative because he conserved the the traditional lore of the countryside.

Therefore , I would say anyone who , understand ,respects and enjoys the traditions of this country is a conservative.