'Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative'; what wouldn’t I give to be able to come up with soundbites as sharp as that?
Sadly, these are not my words, but rather a verbatim quote from John Stuart Mill. Such incisive invective would probably have made the Victorian philosopher a great blogger.
The tag of ‘the stupid party’ has accordingly stuck to the Tories for the last 150 years or so. Surprisingly, for the most part supporters have seemed to revel in what was clearly intended as a put-down.
By contrast, the left – for better or worse – has always attempted to ground what it does in political philosophy. Even British Labourism - unrelentingly theoretically backwards by continental standards and positively frightened of Marxism - has produced Anthony Crosland, Stuart Holland and Will Hutton.
Conservatives, by contrast, have rarely bothered with all that pointy-head book reading nonsense. There is an argument that, historically, the Conservative Party has been primarily a vehicle through which a layer of the ruling class ran the country on the basis a pragmatic platform that could be made up as they went along.
That strategy was not without success; after all, the Stupid Party governed Britain in the twentieth century for more years than the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ruled Russia.
Somewhere in the 1970s, that changed. Although the 1970 Heath administration half-heartedly flirted with ideas, it was only from 1979 that fashionable rightist –isms were elevated to the level of policy, in the form of a clearly identifiable Thatcher project.
Yet the task of devising such a project was straightforward, because the needs of the ruling class in this period were clear; it was imperative to deploy the free economy and the strong state against the organised working class. It only remained to come up with a name for the process.
As I remarked a few posts back, David Cameron – pictured - will find it harder to define himself once he secures office in 2010. Perhaps he will have little need for originality; New Labourism kept the main elements of the Thatcher settlement in place, if perhaps with a little sugar coating. Now the baton passes back to the blue team.
Yet as an article in the Financial Times points out today, the Conservatives certainly are seeking some kind of intellectual content to what they will do once they are back in charge:
The Tory leader believes his immediate predecessors failed to impose a coherent philosophy on the party, instead filling manifestos with mismatched pledges chosen for their perceived electoral appeal.
In a telling comparison, Mr Cameron last week asserted: “We are beginning to win the battle of ideas in the way the Conservative party won it at the end of the 1970s.”
The article goes on to list ‘the thinkers who are reshaping the party’, who are said to include Oliver Letwin, Michael Gove, Steve Hilton, Nick Boles and George Osborne. Much attention is paid to the role of the think tank Policy Exchange, which is financially backed by Microsoft, BAE, Tesco and ‘wealthy individuals’.
Yet the underlying difficulty remains. Policy Exchange’s ideas seem to be a pick ‘n’ mix grab bag borrowed from the centre-right in other countries. Rehashing the latest hare-brained educational funding reform from Sweden with a dash of additional privatisation thrown in does not a platform make.
There seems little that can be described as an overarching theme; the quest for a defining Big Idea is proving as elusive as it did when New Labour briefly toyed with the concept after Blair got the top job.
It still remains to be seen whether the wonks can deliver the goods. The way the electorate feels right now, the simple expedient of not being the Labour Party is probably enough to see Cameron get the keys to Number Ten.
Meanwhile, he can muddle along, knocking an unpopular government policy here and camping it up for the benefit of the Daily Mail readership there. But for now, intellectually coherent conservatism can still be regarded as an oxymoron.
Posted at 14:17, 21 May 2008
Comments (12)
Who needs clever folk when Labour hates the poor.
It all makes me feel like going down the empty pub for a few pints and a smoke.
Will Hutton misses the point more often than I miss the piss pot.
It is funny that the accusations that tend to be made by Labour against Conservatives and conservatives is that they are either toffs, stupid or both. Of course that doesn't mean that there isn't a underlying base of principle that is the basis of conservatism - although I suspect that if you took 2 Conservative MPs and asked them independently what their base of principles was they would come up with many and varied different ideas.
There are all sorts of sensible and respectably intelligent reasons for believing that pragmatic politics is better than politics based too closely on a particular ideology and it is that pragmatism that you rightly point to as the reason behind the success of Conservatives in the UK.
Some would argue that the succes of New Labour depended on its abandonment of the ideology of the Labour party of the past and its adoption of pragmatism ... combined with the apparent increase in ideological ferver in the Conservatives particularly over Europe and what some would call Thatcherism.
'Pragmatism' is an ideology, Evan. It never ceases to amaze me that conservatives really do think that their political and economic thinking has nothing to do with ideology. As if the conservative mindset can simply and unproblematically grasp the world as it is without the need for theory or careful methodology or philosophical relection on the problem of how one understands what reality is in the first place.
Conservatives really don't get the basics of philosophy do they?
''Although the 1970 Heath administration half-heartedly flirted with ideas, it was only from 1979 that fashionable rightist –isms were elevated to the level of policy, in the form of a clearly identifiable Thatcher project.''
But those ideas had been around along time within the Tory Party, (Institute of Economic Affairs)est 1955. Enoch Powell was advocating them in the 1960's, granted they were viewed as extreme.
The reason the Tories elevated them to policy was the crises the ruling class faced, a low rate of profit and a militant working class.
But lets not worry about a intellectually coherent conservative policy. Its us on the Left who should be putting forward an intellectual coherent alternative to the right wing consensus.
''British Labourism - unrelentingly theoretically backwards by continental standards and positively frightened of Marxism ''
Yes you are dead right there. When i joined the Labour Party as a young man a old member said to me the '' Labour Party owes more to Methodism than Marxism son.''
Oh, yes. This reminds me about Letwin's wittering about socio-centric rather than econo-centric politics in a speech last May which was later ridiculed by Blair. Letwin writes, "Cameron Conservatism is also an attempt to shift the theory of the State from a provision-based paradigm to a framework-based paradigm." [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1760043.ece]
Problem is, that at a time of economic crisis it ain't easy going into an election with a programme of privatisation. When you think about it, Thatcher didn't say "A Conservative government will sell public industries at knock down prices to people who funded our election campaign."
If you ask Labour MP's what is New Labour they look at each other and say a party a group and then suddenly they will say, ah yes socialist, this is a new word which is hitting the street New Labour is a socialist party, my MP Nia Griffiths came out not to long ago to tell us why she joined Labour, notice she said Labour and not New Labour, she said i wanted to help people I'm a socialist, not surprising really the hammering Labour having in the area.
But does saying your a socialist make you a socialist of course not, saying Tories are stupid is again silly. New Labours plans to rule a 1000 years, or just to break a few records to leave and say we did well did we not.
This week two of the greatest leaders of society have had a picture placed in the Welsh Assembly, Labour says these are great politicians one is Nye Bevan who Labour through out for being to Labour or to socialist and Thatcher, the most hated Politician in Wales. Funny old world.
"'Pragmatism' is an ideology, Evan."
... however imperfectly expressed, what I was getting at was the idea that conservatives tend to have different philisophical outlooks with a common core that is centred on 'what works' and that 'the big tent' created with New Labour tended to mirror that outlook rather than rely on ideas of socialism as contained in the Labour party of the past.
" It never ceases to amaze me that conservatives really do think that their political and economic thinking has nothing to do with ideology."
It never ceases to amaze me how often straw men are put up to justify an accusation of simplemindedness or stupidity.
So what next for the 'pragmatic' conservative (Conservative and New Labour) strategy of privatising state utilities - transport, gas and electricity, Post Office - when it is shown not to have worked? And how does one measure 'worked'? Lower prices for the consumer? Quality of service?
Conservatives really don't get the basics of philosophy do they?
Yeah, but why worry about that when you win elections? If Brown remains, Labour will lose. Even if they get rid of him, they will still probably lose. My concern is how the left re-groups. I have to say what I've been reading in the blogosphere fills me with utter despair. Horse manure about how we should do 'class war' - and now all this complacent crap about the 'Stupid Party'. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit - the sort of bullshit that's going to keep Labour out of power for a generation.
Conservatives, by contrast, have rarely bothered with all that pointy-head book reading nonsense.
Burke, Disraeli, Churchill. Michael Oakeshott, Quentin Hogg, and Roger Scruton. Karl Popper and Michael Polanyi. The anti-communists - Koestler, Conquest, Solzhenitsyn. The market liberals: Friedman, Hayek.
I'll bet almost any of these were more widely read among Tories, and more influential on Tory policy, than Crossland, Holland or Hutton ever were in the Labour Party.
Disraeli, Churchill and Hogg are hardly political philosophers or ideologists. Churchill is one of the stereotypical political opportunists.
Re. Shuggy:
Personally, I think New Labour is stuffed. As you say, Brown is so unpopular he is never going to win the next election, but there is no-one else in the party with the national profile or broad support within the party to succeed him. If he does get deposed then either the succession crisis that follows or the crushing election defeat to come will split the party and sink it for good. For the clique of careerist politicians that have laid waste to the Labour Party over the past 15 years the chickens are now coming home to roost. Sadly the rest of us on the left will suffer.