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Lucas's avatar

Well, I found this rather stirring.

I work in pharma consultancy. To come out as a conservative would be career ending. Yet none of my colleagues could define conservatism in a way I would recognise.

How can we get these messages out there? How is it people are leaving school and even university without any sense of conservatism.

I did a degree in politics at a good British university, and in three years was never introduced to scruton, Hayek or Burke. It’s astounding

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Ed West's avatar

Not even Burke? That really is something.

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Lucas's avatar

Basically got the whole range from liberal to socialist to post modern. Hobbes, Milton, mill, Rousseau, Marx, Foucault (a lot!), Crenshaw, butler, etc.

I was just reading your book, and something about gcse text books or something saying conservatism is “characterised by fear of the other and xenophobia” or something resonated with me. That’s how it was presented.

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A. N. Owen's avatar

Very well written. A great many of your principles would find an eager home in the US too, where pragmatic conservatives feel stampeded over by both angry progressives and vulgar Trump extremists.

A stumbling block facing conservatism is that the concept of conservatism and the people it attracts are shy of confrontation and avoid seeking change rather than preserving the status quo, leading to the common quip from activists on the left that conservatism has no ambitions or goals or plans (which isn't the point, something they fail to understand) but also from right wing activists who complain conservatives are too willing to preserve peace and status quo rather than seek meaningful reform through major revolutions in policy.

The near total capture (if not complete capture) of education, media and cultural institutions by progressive forces is also deeply problematic for conservatives because it means the dialogue is now controlled by the progressives, who allow no other viewpoints. They also control the meaning of words themselves. Until this changes or is pushed back, there is no real future for conservatism because there will no longer be a venue for conservative thought or voice. And any pushback will be brutally combatted, as the battle over twitter shows us!

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The Last Nabataean's avatar

"pragmatic conservatives feel stampeded over" because they stand for nothing, fight for nothing and believe in nothing. Surely 'pushing back' would be vulgar?

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Aivlys's avatar

Excellent points.

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Aaron Kevali's avatar

This was exhilarating to read, and strangely upsetting also; I cannot for the life of me understand why the Tories don't simply copy and paste this into an election manifesto. It's so reasonable, basic, and surely, SURELY, something that a majority (even if not a vast majority) would readily vote for.

But it won't happen. Die Tory party, please, for the love of God, and let something better take your place.

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TC's avatar

Very interesting but doesn't address the elephant in the room -- any attempt to develop an alternative to the Tory party seems hobbled before it starts. UKIP, Reform, Brexit Party etc -- these parties have a habit of sounding like the Daily Express on acid.

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Gabriel's avatar

Just realized I’m a small c conservative. Great article, sir!

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Gwindor's avatar

The maddening thing about the 2019 Conservatives is that a programme like this would, I think, have been genuinely popular. It would still have been very difficult - fighting against enormous headwinds and vested interests - but with a determined and competent effort, all ministers pulling in the same direction, it would have been possible to use the sentiments behind the Brexit vote as a justification for this kind of basically national conservatism. But instead we got headless chickenism and wet social liberalism, which did nothing to encourage progressives to stop hating the government but did alienate and demoralise their natural supporters.

The chance has gone now. The Starmer government will, whatever they say before the election, will be full-fat progressive, and unlike this lot will actually change laws to make their reforms hard to unpick. Votes for 16yr-olds will accelerate the process of proper conservatism unelectable for at least a generation. I don't get the sense that many Conservative MPs really understand the scale of the wipe-out that's coming for them, or have any sense that, by actively supporting the forces that work against them over the last 12 years, they've done this to themselves.

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Brendan K's avatar

West for President 2024

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Will Solfiac's avatar

Good to see Ed West proposing some positions instead of just doomering :-)

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Rfhirsch's avatar

Very helpful article.

However I think this needs to be changed:

"Part of the problem come down to a lack of competence. Whether you agree with their politics or not, the Tories have just not proved ineffective, aside from Michael Gove and a couple of others. "

to:

"Part of the problem come down to a lack of competence. Whether you agree with their politics or not, the Tories have just not proved effective, aside from Michael Gove and a couple of others. "

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Jimmy Snooks's avatar

Great post, Ed. A manifesto, no less. Well done.

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Ed West's avatar

thank you

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jt's avatar

That's what I was gonna "say." We needed a manifesto like this. Can't say "Thank You" enough, Sir.

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Aivlys's avatar

Outstanding. Pumping my fist in the air!!

Ed for Philosopher King!!

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Ed West's avatar

thank you v much

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Aivlys's avatar

Ed, don't know if you saw it, but there's a nice blurb about you and your mum in The Catholic Herald this month. You're a top Catholic leader!!

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Ed West's avatar

yes I saw - thanks!

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Richard North's avatar

Yes, like you, I agree that Peter Hitchins gets it right more often than any other pundit (Mark Steyn being a possible rival for that crown). The policy proposals here sound moderate and reasonable but expensive - who is going to pay to make Basingstoke look like Bath e.g.? Ed West also ignores the prevalence of stupid policies which will make us all a lot poorer, specifically "Net Zero".

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Ed West's avatar

I don't think city centre development would be as costly as we imagine, because it could be done by the private sector if we made design codes good again. All the lovely parts of London were done privately. And property is very profitable.

Basingstoke, for example, has loads of very low density bits in the centre, someone could make a lot of money making it look like Bath.

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Richard North's avatar

I know Basingstoke (was there yesterday) and if I had to make it look like Bath I would start by ripping it all down, with the possible exception of the small cluster of old buildings near the centre.

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Neil C's avatar

There needs to be a total realignment of political parties, with a Corbynite left wing party, a Blairite/Cameroonian Centrist party, and a Peter Hitchens party on the right, who would probably share foreign policy ideas with the Corbynites.

Like in 2019, I'm probably going to spoil my ballot at the next election.

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Akiyama's avatar

"There are no jobs British people won’t do, only jobs they won’t do for a decent wage."

I think you mean "only jobs they won't do unless they're offered a decent wage".

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Ed West's avatar

YES! well spotted, thanks

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Stephen D. Adams's avatar

I’m an American, have always considered myself a small-l liberal, haven’t voted for a Republican in 42 years until the recent election, when I voted for a non-Trumpian seemingly sensible woman Republican (who lost). The problems you describe apply pretty much equally to the U.S., with small differences. Your manifesto motivated me to becoming a paid subscriber. I pretty much agree with most of it. But, I have a college education, am a white gay man, an atheist, and an artist. The deep, deep problem with small-c conservatism is its reliance on religion, on God. How do you practically re-institute religion, with the social cohesive benefits it brings, in an increasingly secularized society, without coercion? The second deep problem with (especially American) conservatism is its history: until very recently, conservatism has brutally, coercively attempted to literally erase people like me. And that doesn’t even touch on the conservative history on racism. Given that, how are you, and other small-c conservatives going to persuade suspicious small-l liberals like me, to join you—I who am temperamentally very conservative and like most conservatives, have a generally low opinion of humans as a flawed and violent species?

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Ed West's avatar

I don't think you can re-institute religion. or certainly politicians can't. I think if individuals and communities wanted to get the benefit of churchgoing they could make the conscious decision, and I do think practice can lead to belief in some people (I think some people can fake it, but not many). But that's not the role of a political movement, it's just to acknowledge Christianity as its inspiration but also to defend religious liberties where they clash with discrimination laws.

on the gay issue, I don't mention it because I think the issue is pretty settled; there are some clashes that a re inevitable, and some areas where LGBT rights has overcompensated, something quite a few gay men and women agree with. The civic nature of pride is one of them

https://edwest.substack.com/p/pride-is-a-religious-festival-like

The trans issue is another one, but I think that's turning back now.

I appreciate that liberals and progressives feel that sexual identity is a far more, dare I say, it sacred idea. For me as a conservative the issue is individual dignity, which I agree with Tom Holland has Christian roots.

https://unherd.com/2021/04/homosexualitys-christian-roots/

Incidentally, in England it wasn't necessarily the Tories doing the persecuting; in the 19th century anti-gay campaigns often came from the ancestors of the modern left, morality campaigners (same people also did a lot to combat drunkenness and child prostitution), although the first advocates for gay rights tended to be Liberals (including my ancestor John Addington Symonds)

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Nicholas Walton's avatar

What's the transmission mechanism to get these fine ideas into reality?

Proportional representation?

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