Wrong Side of History

Wrong Side of History

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Wrong Side of History
Wrong Side of History
Post-liberalism and my discontents

Post-liberalism and my discontents

What does 'leaning Left on economics' really mean?

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Ed West
Oct 04, 2023
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Wrong Side of History
Wrong Side of History
Post-liberalism and my discontents
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‘We – conservatives of left and right, all those who believe in the old way – need to win this battle, to restore the conservative normative as the proper basis for our culture and society, with a restored “covenantal” understanding at the heart of families, neighbourhoods and the nation.’

So Danny Kruger writes in his recently published Covenant, where he also states that ‘To strengthen family life and restore the oikos we need good housing in the right places, jobs that sustain the home, and a decent system of care for children and dependent adults.’

Kruger was recently described in the New Statesman as being ‘at the heart of an influential strain of Tory thinking: post-liberalism’, and indeed one of the problems with defining this wing of the party is with the term ‘post-liberal’. This has been in the ether since Phillip Blond’s Red Tory was cited as an influence on David Cameron (although in reality Red Toryism is almost the exact opposite of Osbornomics). But beyond meaning culturally Right and economically Left, I’m not entirely sure what it means, especially as it seems to have a slightly different definition on either side of the Atlantic.

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