I think Britain was at its happiest in the first few
years of Tony Blair. Thatcher had kept winning, because the alternative was
Michael Foot and then Neil Kinnock, but most people did not much like her, let
alone love her. We were willing to
tolerate the tough unpleasant medicine of the 1980s, because many of us could
see that it was necessary, but we rather preferred the 1970s with one nation
Tories like Heath managing our decline along with Wilson and Callaghan. British
people are naturally social democrats or what amounts to the same thing Tory
wets.
The problem with really changing our country for the
better is that you have to do things that are unpopular. You have to close down
the pits and the steel works. You have to close down inefficient nationalised
industries. Later when standards of living have improved the electorate might
look back and thank you, but initially it will side with the flying pickets.
So too now. If you can shrink the size of the state,
lower taxes and lower public spending you will in time have an economy that
performs more efficiently. If you realise that the EU is about protectionism,
then you will realise that leaving gives you the opportunity of greater free
trade with everyone else. Wages will likewise increase by limiting the supply
of cheap labour from abroad, but this will only work if British workers have to
take the jobs freed up and if you can control the incoming flood from
elsewhere.
Conservative values of free trade, free markets and freedom
from government interference in our ordinary lives work. They make us more
responsible, more moral and above all richer.
Socialism doesn’t work, but nevertheless remains
stubbornly popular. Social democracy works better than socialism, but is oddly unpopular
right now in Britain under our social democrat Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Much of politics is about name calling. Tories in
Scotland are unpopular just because they are Tories, not because of anything
that they believe or do. Boris Johnson’s government has in the past two years
spent more than Corbyn intended to do. It has paid people a large proportion of
their salary to sit at home and do nothing. It has increased the deficit more
than any government in peace time and it has increased the size of the state too.
It has interfered more in our ordinary lives than any government since the war.
If this is not social democracy, then what is?
Nicola Sturgeon, Mark Drakeford and Keir Starmer want to
spend even more, borrow even more and lockdown even more. Boris Johnson is
already the most authoritarian Prime Minister in peace time. At no point in our
history have we been obliged to stay indoors for so long, nor to wear masks
while out of them. At no point except during wartime have there been such
restrictions on leaving Britain or arriving, that is unless you arrive in a
rubber dinghy. But this level of authoritarianism was not enough for Sturgeon
and friends.
But it is crucial to remember that lockdown and all of
the authoritarianism that went with it was wildly popular at the beginning.
Most people wanted to stay at home, being paid not to go to work. The popularity
of authoritarian social democracy in the past two years is higher than it has ever
been.
Were these measures necessary? It is difficult to answer.
We lived through previous pandemics accepting that we might get sick and some
of us would die. The virus went through the population unrestricted and
eventually got milder. How many would have died if we had done the same this
time versus how many actually died? We don’t know, because if everyone in the
world had done nothing it is possible that the virus would have become milder
more quickly. People who died this time because of lack GP or hospital care, depression
or joblessness might have survived. Did lockdown make Covid more virulent for
longer, just as evacuating flu victims from the trenches in 1918 made Spanish
flu more deadly. It is always hard to know what would have happened if we had
chosen not to intervene. But I wonder if lockdown broke the first rule of medicine
first do no harm. We must leave it to future historians to determine.
But Boris Johnson had absolutely no choice whatsoever
in introducing the authoritarian measures that he did. The scientists demanded
it. If he had done nothing the media would have asked him such idiotic
questions as “Do you feel responsible for Mrs Jones aged 88 who died because
you didn’t lockdown the country?” A subsequent public inquiry would have blamed
him for doing nothing and so too would the people who blame him now because
they could not visit their dying relatives.
The task for Conservatives is to look at where we are
now, authoritarian social democracy, and try to find a way back to Conservatism.
We are not of course going to get there by following the route set out by
Douglas Ross who is himself a social democrat indistinguishable from Nicola
Sturgeon apart from not wishing Scottish independence.
The first thing to do is to get rid of all of the authoritarian
laws as soon as it is possible to do so. When Covid is killing no more than influenza,
then there is no reason to wear masks. I have always thought that masks were
like the iron railings taken away during World War Two. Even if they were
subsequently chucked into the sea by the Navy, giving them up made people feel like
they were doing their bit and that we were all in it together. There is no
evidence at all that masks have had more than a marginal effect on deaths from
Covid. Social democrats will glare at you because they think you are not doing
your bit and because we all enjoy tutting at a rule breaker, but we will not
get rid of social democratic authoritarianism until we make mask wearing a
matter of choice rather than a matter of law.
We next need to begin spending less, taxing less and
trading more. We need to embrace the working from home revolution and the
decline of retail. There are huge cost savings to be made from not using offices
and not driving cars or sitting on trains and busses in order to get to work.
Companies that grasp this will profit at the expense of those that don’t.
Who is best to lead Britain back to free market, free trade
Conservatism? I fear there is nobody. Both Sunak and Truss are complicit in the
last two years of social democracy and authoritarianism. Most Conservatives
realise that social democracy is the religion of the British people and so
triangulate towards it. After all no one dares tell us that the NHS is in fact
not the best in the world, but a rather mediocre socialist vision of healthcare
that has performed rather poorly in the past two year. Instead, we require fantasy.
If you tell the truth about anything the media describes
it as a gaffe.
So, I am pessimistic about the necessary steps being
taken. This is what matters rather than the hysteria of the past week. We
demand equality even from our leaders as if Napoleon should have died on the
retreat from Moscow rather than escape because he was Napoleon and because we
didn’t go to Sunday school and didn’t read the Parable of the Workers in the
Vineyard. Not everyone gets the same pay for the same effort.
It may well be sensible for the Conservative Party to
ditch Boris if it decides he is a liability. Elections are popularity contests
after all. It may also be sensible to ditch a social democrat authoritarian for
a genuine Conservative, but where are we going to find one of those in a Britain
in love with social democracy which is never happier than when it is told to
stay indoors? Many are called but few indeed are chosen.
Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (the disgruntled workers), by Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (1750s) |