Why National Conservatism is important for all of us.
National Conservatism: the start of a new political movement? In Spring 2023 a conference was held in England about a political phenomenon – an apparent resurgence of nationally-focussed political parties. A movement called ‘National Conservatism’ is an offshoot of the Edmund Burke Foundation which is based in the USA. An English political scientist called Matthew…
FRONT PAGE SPORT
The title of this short piece is a phrase used by a lecturer in politics many years ago. He was a bit of a cynic. He was active in the local Labour Party and eventually became Leader of the local authority Council. On the other hand he had no illusions about the game he was…
Free speech beats censorship every time
Priests, kings and queens, politicians and common bullies have been banning things since time began. It seems that humanity just can’t help it. Most of us occasionally insist angrily that “It should be banned!”. Very often our demands relate to the minutiae of daily life which we can all easily recognise. Simple but dangerous for…
For your tomorrow we gave our today
This epitaph, composed by J M Edmonds, appears on war memorials at Kohima and elsewhere. The battle of Imphal-Kohima in 1944 succeeded in preventing a Japanese invasion of what is now Bangladesh. In Britain, the 11th November is called Armistice Day and marks the moment when fighting ceased in 1918. The lines ‘At the going…
A beginner’s guide to fascism
Here’s a beginner’s guide to fascism (my title!) from Spiked. It summarises Mussolini’s rise to power in early twentieth century Italy. The war of 1914 to 1918 was as disastrous for Italy as it was for most other European countries, leading to economic and political chaos. In Russia the Bolsheviks had already swept away the…
Conservatism helps societies evolve successfully
I’m prompted to write this note by a recent article in The Daily Sceptic. The article is about the origins and changing meaning of ’conservatism’ in British politics, which show that it embodies no fixed ideology. There seems to me to be a good deal of truth in this observation. For me, a conservative frame…
The third men (and women)
The 2022 conference of the UK Social Democratic Party has generated a little publicity. Rod Liddle, a well-known journalist and party member, summed up its credo as a combination of social conservatism and a preference for the nationalisation of public transport and the utilities. Recent conservative governments have given up on the former, and the…
Iconoclasm (2)
Iconoclasm is an enduring feature of political life. Christian and Islamic zealots were not the first – the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs often chipped away at their predecessors portraits – and nor are they the last. In the twentieth century Russian communists under Stalin altered photographs to pretend that former colleagues (those with dissenting ideas) had…
Iconoclasm
I chose the image on the home page because it represents two important aspects of culture and the conflict which can arise around them. Religious practice and the part which pictures and sculpture can play within it, and the symbolic significance of art works themselves. A few years back, the publication of a cartoon image…