Right-wing Guide to Nearly Everything.

“Seven Up!”, “63 Up” and D-Day +75

They did rather well didn’t they? The Granada TV company, often a trail-blazer, wittily turned its 1964 World in Action special Seven UP! into a seven-yearly snapshot of a cohort of kids who were seven year-olds in the phoney revolution of the Beetles, lifestyle Sunday colour supplements, and Swingin’ London. Read more...

Published

08 June 2019

Be the Brightest and Best: vote Tory

Many people in the creative, inventive and caring industries - the Brightest and the Best - have never socialised with people who openly espouse the Conservative cause, or have only met them to have a row. This why they should expand their horizons..... Read more...

Published

27 April 2015

Darwin vs Spencer: Chicken, egg or German Romantics?

BBC R4 had a great In Our Time episode last week. It discussed Social Darwinism and taught me (I fear for the first time) to wonder which came first: the sociology, as in social, or the biology, as in Darwinism? Put it another way: who was the precursor of whom? Who got to evolution - and got to its messages - first? Was it our obvious hero Charles Darwin, or the famous old villain, Herbert Spencer? Naturally, I was rooting for Spencer.... Read more...

Published

25 February 2014

Why Mrs Thatcher was hated

Mrs Thatcher was not funny or warm, at least not in public. She wasn't even populist. Unlike The Gipper, it is unlikely that she will ever become a National Treasure. She represented - was like - a very small segment of British society: the lower middle class. Her virtues were those of a stage nanny or governess, as in Mrs Doubtfire, or Mary Poppins, or Anna from The King and I. She was firm, friendly, upbeat, undaunted. She treated us all like children. But above all, she decided that what we all needed was plain speaking.... Read more...

Published

10 April 2013

Right-wing heroes

During an outing on the Daily Politics Andrew (BBC TV, 20 September 2012) Neil asked me about right-wing heroes. I think we agreed that they were thin on the ground. I mentioned Keith Richards on account of his "the buck stops here" attitude to drug abuse. (And forgetting his claim to anti-Establishment dissidence, cited in Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind.) I collected myself sufficiently to add Margaret Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph. Below, are some more. Read more...

Published

17 October 2012

A wonderful time to be on “The Right”

Capitalism in crisis. Economy in recession. Israel in the dock. A populist Democrat in the White House. What a wonderful time to love being on "The Right". And it is surprisingly confident, too. Read more...

Published

27 January 2009

What’s wrong with liberals?

I don't like the soft-left, liberal, green agenda. Most of that's pretty easy to explain and justify. But the "liberal" thing is tricky. Read more...

Published

21 November 2008

Reasons to be Right

There are obvious reasons not to be on the right of the cultural and political debate. You won't be liked, for start, and people will think you are selfish or even fascist. Here are some reasons in favour. Read more...

Published

19 November 2008
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