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The The quarterly magazine of conservative thought Trashing the Euro In Carey Street Women on Top Christopher Arkell Robert Crowcroft Stephen Baskerville Fresh Doubts on The General Global Warmists Darwin Meddling Council Ruth Dudley Brian Ridley Theodore Dalrymple Edwards Summer 2010 £4.99 Contents 3 Editorial Articles 4 Democracy and Debtonomics 17 Natural Selection Robert Crowcroft Myles Harris 6 The Flight of the PIGS 19 Talking Chinese Christopher Arkell Donald Briggs 8 The General Meddling Council 21 Harvesting the Dragon’s Teeth Theodore Dalrymple Margaret Brown 10 More Doubts about Darwin 23 Women on Top Brian Ridley Stephen Baskerville 13 Haiti’s Thirst for Education 26 French Conservativism: Accès Interdit David O’Regan Jerome di Constanzo 15 Dr Seldon’s Brave New World Alistair Miller Columns Arts & Books 25 The BBC Watch 36 Ruth Dudley Edwards 29 Conservative Classic — 39 on Global Warming Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son 37 Anthony Daniels 31 Roy Kerridge on Intellectuals 32 Eternal Life 39 Christie Davies Peter Mullen on Dr Johnson 33 Reputations — 28 40 John Jolliffe Nesta Webster on Gladstone on Gladstone 42 Kenneth Minogue on British History 35 Letters 43 Alexander Boot on Burke 44 Penelope Tremayne on the Levant 46 Mervyn Matthews on the Guilty 47 Patricia Morgan Subscribe to the Salisbury Review on Minorityism There are several ways to pay: 48 David Edelsten on Parsonages 1. Paypal from our website: 49 Harry Cummings www.salisburyreview.com (Select Subscriptions on Khomeini 50 Film: Jane Kelly at the top and then click on Subscribe Now). on A Prophet 2. Credit card using either of these telephone 52 Art: Andrew Lambirth numbers: 020 7226 7791 or 01908 281601 on the Crucifixion 3. Standing Order 53 Music: Nicholas Dixon 4. Cheque to 33 Canonbury Park South, on English composers London N1 2JW 56 In Short Managing Editor: Merrie Cave Consulting Editors: Roger Scruton Lord Charles Cecil, Myles Harris, Mark Baillie, Christie Davies, Literary Editor: Ian Crowther 33 Canonbury Park South, London N1 2JW Tel: 020 7226 7791 Fax: 020 7354 0383 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.salisburyreview.com here was one word conspicuous by its absence to gargantuan proportions by the demands of its ever- during the election campaign, and it wasn’t the expanding clientele, has abdicated its authority under Teconomy, stupid. Granted, politicians did play the value-free philosophy upon which it prides itself. down the scale of the spreading cuts which would be This literally bankrupt mode of governance is needed to tackle the country’s budget deficit; but that’s especially feeble in the face of the economic hardship democracy for you: voters are as averse to being told that is inseparable from recession. Suddenly it loses its the unvarnished truth as their ‘wannabe’ rulers are to only claim to legitimacy. For if there is one thing certain telling it. about our new curate’s egg of a government, it is that It was nonetheless dinned into our heads, by politicians it will have to impose its will on all sorts of people and and commentators alike, that the challenge facing a new groups — public sector workers, welfare claimants, government was reducible to an economic question, local authorities, trade union bosses — who are likely namely, where and when the cuts should come, and how to strike or take to the streets in violent protest rather big they should be. Such discussion may finally have than accept the sacrifices being asked of them. had a narcoleptic effect, lulling people into believing A government being run on conservative principles (if that everything hinged on prescribing the right economic it is not too chimerical in current electoral circumstances medicine, in just the right doses. to imagine such an entity) would be more disposed However, as Dr Johnson almost said, the thought of a to make the harsh political choices that are often hung parliament ‘concentrates the mind wonderfully’. necessary, and never more so than at a time of economic On May 7th, we woke up to the truth that solving the retrenchment. Moreover, not wanting any part of our nation’s debt problem is as much about politics as present culture of moral neutrality, Conservatives in economics. And this would be so even if one party had government have a principled basis on which to make secured an overall parliamentary majority. But it took public policy decisions. True conservatives do not the baleful prospect of a hung parliament to bring home shrink, as one fears liberals or Liberal Democrats do, to people the indispensability of ‘strong and stable’ from using the authority of the State to encourage some government, which a Conservative-Liberal Democrat forms of behaviour and discourage others. coalition may or may not supply. A Conservative-led government would indeed seek to The word conspicuous by its absence during the repair our ‘broken society’. It would shore up Burke’s campaign was ‘authority’: the political and moral ‘little platoons’ in which people pursue public as well authority a government (of whatever complexion) needs as private interests. It would alter our welfare system to govern. The idea has taken root in our society that in a way that strengthens rather than weakens families. government — and authority — is barely necessary; In short, Conservatives should not be afraid to use the and even that the claim of a government to govern is State to rehabilitate traditional social values from the probably an infringement of human rights. Instead, we ravages of our ‘anything goes’ society. have been taught to see the State as legitimate only in Nor is this altogether the quixotic undertaking it might so far as it serves our material betterment: it is the great, at first appear, since in a period of austerity we can impartial provider, distributing entitlements regardless expect the civic virtues of duty, social responsibility, of whether we are really entitled to them or of the self-restraint and public-spiritness to be at a premium. demoralising effects which such indiscriminate largesse As David Cameron’s Government sets about reining in produces. Without any guiding moral or intellectual the profligacy of the Blair and Brown years, it will need principles, this grinning Leviathan of a state, swollen to nurture these virtues. In future, it’s the polity, stupid. The Salisbury Review — Summer 2010 3 Web: www.salisburyreview.com Democracy, Debtonomics and High Politics Robert Crowcroft (return to Contents Page) ith an election as inspiring as George W there, must dispense goods and services to those Bush’s hanging chads, we can recall that below. If that means hitting the ‘copy’ button on the Wthe last two years have given us some Xerox machine and printing off a bucket load of fifty penetrating insights into the true character of public life pound notes to be tossed to the populace, so be it. Lord in modern Britain. The problem they have revealed is Salisbury predicted that this would happen, and he has not one about economics, but about democracy itself. been proved correct. What do you do when those fifty Despite the volume of evidence, few commentators pounds have all been spent? You invent a rationale to have even begun to diagnose the problem. The print some more. The Tory historian Maurice Cowling, problems facing us, whether the national debt, the founder of the ‘high politics’ school that looked to size of the public sector, or the television debates that remorseless ambition as the driving force of political reduced politics to an episode of Britain’s Got Talent, behaviour, may have died in 2005 but his ideas have are too often observed in isolation. never been more relevant as our governors have joined The political parties have been roundly condemned with the people in a Faustian pact to debase the nation. for not being truthful with the public about the All the politicians were doing is responding to the scale of the necessary spending reductions. That democratic imperative. is unquestionably true. Phoney wars are being What has been created over the last thirty years carried out by the main parties, and relatively slight would best be termed debtonomics, but it is at least as differences polarised for effect, over peripheral issues. much a political matter as an economic one. Before the The financial figures argued over on television are 1980s, capitalism and free markets had never really peanuts compared to the real numbers. But — and operated for any length of time in a world dominated here is the frightening thing — who can really blame by mass democracy. The free market economics of the the politicians for not telling us? These people are nineteenth century did not coincide with democracy embarked upon a career. Telling hard truths is often a in the true sense; because the franchise was restricted, sure way to failure, and particularly now. Like all men, governments were not weighed down by the need to politicians have the thirst for power that Augustine appease and bribe public opinion as they are today. labelled the libido dominandi; and, unlike most of us, In the twentieth century, when mass democracy they have a real chance of fulfilling their ambitions. became a reality, free markets were shaken by two An aversion to hearing the truth goes to the heart of World Wars and then ‘managed’ and ‘planned’ by the modern condition and it is high time we started Keynesianism. After 1945, politicians in Britain sought being honest about exactly what got us into this mess. to buy the support of the electorate through a host of The politicians took decisions that wrecked the British welfare benefits, by attempting to control industry, economy and saddled us with debt that may yet see us employment, and prices, and by debasing the currency go to the International Monetary Fund.

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