Month: February 2025

Not Rich men North of Richmond (on Thames)

So that was ARC: intellectual and social champions gathered, speaking up for values that any past generation, and most people today, would think so obvious as to need no advocacy. The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship orbits around Jordan Peterson, its name reflecting the essence of his Twelve Rules for Life. The empty seat at the head of the table though should belong to the late Roger Scruton.

Those gathered are the sort of people that in any sensible oligarchy would be in charge of the levers of state and church. We have instead a senseless oligarchy. The main movers behind the conference were not would-be luminaries but should-be luminaries.

With such a variety of speakers and side-events, it would be hard to describe the conference. Some speeches are proving popular on YouTube – Douglas Murray being rude and ungracious as usual, eventually getting to his hard truths; Konstantin Kisin of course providing self-reflection in humour; and Archbishop Angaelos – such an inspired archbishop, full of joy at the love of God, is a blessing to the Coptic Church, and to us all.

A change of tone you can see in the YouTube coverage is where a country-folk music singer from Virginia, Oliver Anthony, spoke – not a polished address of a schooled rhetorician, but a man from the woods of Virginia, and it stuck home all the more for that. He began (as is his wont) with a Biblical quote, from Ecclesiastes 10.  If there is anything which summarises the frustration of the worthy being demoted to crawling unheard while the unworthy laud it over them it is “Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.”  I might add, if we think that the King’s current ministers can’t be all that bad “Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.”

He then sang the song which made him famous.  Our politicians and civil servants are not all rich, compared with some, and not necessarily lazily secure. Perhaps on this side of the sea we should not blame our woes on ‘rich men north of Richmond’ but ‘Unworthy men north-east of Richmond (on Thames)’.

‘Living in the real world is a lot harder than you know’. Westminster politicians might know something of the real world – some have even had proper jobs at some point. They hear about their constituents’ hardships as they hold regular constituency surgeries in electoral districts small enough for all sorts to roll in with tales of woe. The problem arises when they try to do something about it, and cause more problems than they solve.

There Mr Anthony give his main insight:  when disaster struck near him, it was ordinary people who found solutions while bureaucracy fumbled, delayed and got in the way.  It rankles with a conservative that soul that to hear of someone hot-wiring a bulldozer to use it to clear a road the authorities thought it was impossible to do, but it was practical problem-solving.

The solution to many of society’s ills one feels, is for ordinary people to get on with what we do best for our families and our neighbours.

See also

Books

The curse of ’14 years’

Faced with the most calamitous government since the 1970s, Conservatives can rail and wail, but are faced with the accusation ’14 years’.

Woke nonsense infesting the civil service? We had 14 years. All-time high immigration? We had 14 years. ‘Hate-speech’ laws silencing heterodox opinion? All left in place for 14 years. Stifling regulation? 14 years. Vague laws at the mercy of lawyers? Worsened over 14 years. High taxes, spending and deficit?  14 years.

The outrages of the overbearing state are not the result of anything Calamity Starmer has done. The police burst into someone’s house over a social media post and we are indignant.  This week we see a nurse disciplined for complaining about a man in her changing room and howl, as we should.  The laws used against the nurse or the Twitterer were Blair / Brown laws left untouched by Cameron, May, Johnson or Sunak. The driven social justice warriors implanted in the nomenklatura were appointed under Conservative governments.

Even the stifling taxes are largely Conservative:  Rachel the Reiver raised the rates a little and caused meltdown, but that shows they were already too high to be sustainable.

Voters are not daft:  they can see all this, and so the Conservatives are polling even below Labour. If Reform tops the polls, it is because they are the only party not (yet) guilty of such failures.

It s possible to turn things around in government: over the Pond, a wild man has changed much with a flurry or orders and a team which will take no nonsense from established opinion. Here it would need Parliament fr the most part but it can be done. It would need to be well planned in advance and unrolled without mercy or compromise.

At the moment though, the chances of getting into government are not looking good.  The voters will need to be convinced not just by what Conservatives believe, but that they will deliver. The previous 14 years do not give confidence.