Graeme Archer's Diary: Why do Conservatives love George Orwell so much?

A cat may look at a king, but it’s a brave amateur writer who decides to discuss George Orwell, Nick Cohen and P.D.James in one article. Oh well. Here goes.

Why do Conservatives love George Orwell so much? My first (and probably last) attempt to sway a parliamentary selection panel involved me reading passages aloud from Nineteen Eighty-Four, to draw attention to the illiberal creep of the culture under Tony Blair. I am probably only one of hundreds of spotty Tory youths who have felt passionately that Orwell had put his finger on the seductive dangers of totalitarian regimes, and that by reminding the population of his warnings from the 40s we could persuade them to vote for us in the 90s. But Orwell, of course, wasn’t a Conservative.

It isn’t only foolish and correctly unselected Tory candidates who reach for Orwell when they want to make a point: do you remember John Major (sigh!) murmuring of “old maids cycling to communion through the morning mist”? He was derided for it at the time, but I knew what he meant. It was an idea of England. Romanticism isn’t meant to be realistic. But this romantic vision was Orwell’s, and he wasn’t a Conservative.

Leave aside the fact that the man was a genius who understood the power of fiction to convey political ideas. I wonder if Orwell is such a hero to Conservatives because he was a democratic socialist. Would we venerate him so much if he were completely ‘one of us’? Our big idea – the theme that runs through our modern history – is that freedom is more important than equality. We don’t usually state that so baldly, because it’s a frightening concept. But whether we choose to highlight it or not, it’s the answer to “I am a Conservative because…” for those of us who are liberal Conservatives. (It is not the answer that would be given by social Conservatives.). The fact that a man of sterling non-Tory credentials also thought it important to warn of the dangers of suppressing freedom is the perfect external validation of our Big Tory Idea. 

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I don’t know how much leeway our esteemed Editor will allow me, in terms of my partisanship for Andrew Boff in the race for the Tory nomination to be London Mayoral candidate … but let’s see if this will slip through the scrutiny net. Andrew talks often of the frightening aspect of freedom, and the duty of urban Tories to empower those people the municipal socialists leave behind, so that they can embrace choice as easily as their middle-class fellow citizens. I wonder if there’s a germ in this to explain the popularity of Boris Johnson with the media. Of course I love Boris – everyone loves Boris. But I wonder if he’s so popular because the idea of Boris is so unthreatening to non-Conservatives – he doesn’t challenge preconceptions of what a Tory should be. Down-to-earth Andrew, by contrast, busy empowering citizens of Hackney and helping regenerate rundown areas, might be a harder target for socialists, because he’s so different to their lazy preconceptions of what a Tory should be.

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George Orwell came to mind because of a curious spat between Nick Cohen, a truly great writer of the left, and Johann Hari, who writes in the Independent. Nick Cohen has written a book, What’s Left? How liberals lost their way. I do recommend this book to everyone (especially if you enjoyed Michael Gove’s Celsius 7/7). Cohen’s book seeks to explore how we came to the situation where liberals lend their support to Islamic organisations which have the stated objective of undermining everything liberals are supposed to believe in. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hari – and others on the liberal left – do not enjoy having Cohen’s searchlight swung on them in this way. In his review of Cohen’s book, Hari claims that Cohen originally supported the war in Iraq because he believes that this is what Orwell would have him do. I may be wrong, but I think I detect in Hari’s references to Orwell a certain amount of lip-curling. I’ve read the review three times now, and I can’t shake the impression that Hari believes that because Orwell fought fascism (with his bare hands) then we have to be extra vigilant not to fight fascist states now, because, err … to be honest, despite repeat readings, I don’t have a clue what Hari’s on about. No doubt my fault. But his protestations feel of a part with the background Blairite anti-freedom noise of our culture now.

Everytime I hear some Labour MP bleating on about my ‘duty’ to carry an ID card, or tremble as some Knacker of the yard casually demands internment to keep me ‘safe’, or remember Brian “Ridiculous” Paddick lecturing me in doublethink (the day after 7/7, he sternly informed London not to regard these Islamic terrorists as Islamic terrorists), I am reminded of those useful idiots in the 30s who used to return from the Soviet Union to proclaim the experiment in equality to be progressing marvellously: poor Sydney and Beatrice Webb leap to mind. With hindsight their naivety was astonishing. The Webbs – people of a decency so profound that I can still feel it vibrating at me more than a century after the 1902 (Tory) education act they helped to draft – actually visited the Soviet Union, and even after the purges and the show trials wrote a book called The Truth About Soviet Russia, where they praised Stalin’s economic model. Pace Johann Hari’s review, I prefer to listen to people like Nick Cohen, because I think he’s brave enough to write what he sees as the truth.

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If you want a more hard-hearted take on Anglicanism, rather than the bicycling, mist-laden old maids, ignore Orwell, and reach instead for the Tory peer Baroness James. Here she is in A Taste For Death, a 1986 novel, describing a Tory minister:

"I would have described him as a conventional Anglican. I suspect that he used the offices of his religion as a reminder of the fundamental decencies, an affirmation of identity, a brief breathing space when he could think without fear of interruption."

The character thus described, by the way, is murdered shortly after he undergoes a religious experience in the vestry of a church, suggesting that P.D.James rates the institution itself more highly than the transcendental dimension it is supposed to venerate. I’m going to try and write more about this next week – a fascination with murder stories, of course, being another link with George Orwell. (The murder happens right at the start of the novel, by the way, so I’ve given nothing of the plot away!)

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Love. Much more powerful than any narrative humans invent to describe it, don’t you think?

Comments

[Andrew Lilico]

Graeme - What did you think of Simon Scharma's use in the last episode of "A History Of Britain" of Orwell and Churchill as the motifs of the twentieth century, unlikely allies who nonetheless represented a bringing-together of two key strands in British history - freedom and social justice - along with an understanding of history itself as the ultimate reservoir of liberty?

[Graeme The Insomniac]

This sentence in the second last paragraph should be in italics, to show that it's a quotation from the novel:

"I would have described him as a conventional Anglican. I suspect that he used the offices of his religion as a reminder of the fundamental decencies, an affirmation of identity, a brief breathing space when he could think without fear of interruption."

[Nick]

It seems that blindly sucking up to oppressive regimes in other countries is a habit among certain commentators on the left, Orwell and Cohen being exceptions here. Although not an exclusive habit of the left (it's something the West did during the Cold War as well), it does seem to be something they are historically more inclined to do.

Truth can be a difficult concept sometimes, especially when it's the truth about a regime or an individual apparently on a similar politcal wavelength as oneself.

The concept of individual freedom, which Orwell championed (especially after viewing the oppressive nature of Stalin's NKVD against people who were supposedly on 'their' side at first hand during the Spanish Civil War) is a central tennet of conservatism, but it's not exclusive TO conservatism. It's something that people across the political spectrum can buy into should they wish.

It would be interesting to know what your average Blair(Tony, not Eric)-Brown supporter makes of Orwell these days.

[Simon Newman]

When it comes to the forces of liberty today, few in number as they may be, they seem as likely to call themselves Marxists or social conservatives as liberals.

Spiked! Liberties, the heir of Living Marxism magazine ( http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/ ) sits alongside The American Conservative (http://www.amconmag.com/ ), a paleocon magazine, in the camp of the saints, to such an extent that Spiked's editor Brendan O'Neill wrote a piece for Amcon recently that seemed not at at all out of place - see http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_07_16/feature.html

Notably this article concerned the Bosnian war, when liberal-left do-gooders, hawkish neocons and Islamists came together in righteous fervour and laid the seeds for the tragic world in which we now dwell.

[Paul Oakley]

A love of Orwell's work is in part a ringing endorsement of the old-style English Literature syllabus. Most of us over a certain age were hooked after having been initially forced to read "Animal Farm" and "1984".

And it's not just rightwingers of course. The bookshelves of my old lefty schoolmate Pete are groaning with rubbish by Gramsci and Chomsky but we have the Orwell section in common.

Part of the appeal is of course that he commented on all of the issues which have shaped the world we see today, from the pressures leading to the welfare state; to the end of Empire; to the fears of the aspirant middle classes.

Shall we clog up this thread with favourite quotes? This from his Observer review of "The Road to Serfdom":

"In the negative part of Professor Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often - at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough - that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of."

[Ash Faulkner]

What's Left? is a fantastic book, Cohen brilliantly shows how nihilistic the left has come post-Berlin Wall.

[John Reeks]

I think British conservatism has always been about a certain idea of Britain which stands quite apart from day to day politics. To a certain extent, I think all of us in this party are nostalgic romantics, and Orwell satisfies this craving we have, certainly in 1984 where his idea of Britain (well, England I suppose) is turned completely on its head. There's nothing wrong with that I tend to think, which is why I tend to disagree with others in the party who think we should be all about 'getting things done'. David Cameron satisfies my desire to see that type of romanticism at the very top, a commitment to freedom (already proved) and social responsibility. We need to be the history party. We need a narrative, just like Simon Schama creates in his History of Britain. Orwell is part of that narrative, he is quintessentially British (well, once again, English I suppose). Re: Sidney and Beatrice Webb their naivety was indeed astounding - Andre Gide was another Communist who visited the USSR and was treated in luxury, but despaired at the apparent failure of Communism, subsequently turning his back on the French PCF. He is well worth a read actually for all lovers of freedom combined with a commitment to social justice. The Webbs bought it hook line and sinker.

[Peter]

There's the recognition of the evils of totalitarianism and big government of course. But I also think part of the reason conservatives love Orwell is that he did so little to advance socialism or left-wing ideas. Can anyone name a profound thing he wrote, still remembered today, that actually supports the left's worldview? I read 'Down and Out in Paris and London' recently, and loved it, reading it slowly to savour the experience. But at times I cringed in embarrassed for Orwell, as when he wrote casually and in passing of how the Bolsheviks represented the lesser of two evils in 1917, or of the inefficiencies of the market economy compared to state planning. He didn't even make arguments in favour of these views, perhaps because he was so prey to the conventional wisdom of the day he didn't think anyone would dispute it. Now, of course, there's almost no one alive so wrong-headed on these issues.

In very crude summary, then: where Orwell was left-wing, he has been proved wrong, and where he was right-wing, he has been proved right. What's not for a conservative to like there!

[Tony Makara]

George Orwell's 'Animal Farm' could have been written about Labour. During all their years of opposition Labour portrayed themselves as the party of the oppressed and saviours of the poor. Yet from the moment Labour came into power they have enjoyed having the whip hand over the poor, most particularly in their relations towards the unemployed. Those unfortunate enough to be long-term unemployed are forced, human-trafficking syle, into 'Work Experience' for 30 hours a week with only an extra 15 pounds pay on top of their legal entitlement to benefits. In real terms the unemployed are therefore forced to work a 30 hour week for 50pence an hour, rates lower than child labour in the third world. Lower than the rates paid to a paper boy. The Labour party, the one-time friend of the poor, champion of the oppressed has become the type of political chameleon that George Orwell warned us of.

[Dontmakemelaugh]

"Graeme - What did you think of Simon Scharma's use in the last episode of "A History Of Britain" of Orwell and Churchill as the motifs of the twentieth century,"

I would n't pretend to be Graeme, but in answer to your question: Scharma's version of history was entertaining until it reached the Empire and India; it then became obvious why Scharma had been employed at the BBC. I remember watching him appearing before an invited audience expounding his views on history. As I recall he was uncomplimentary to the Conservative Party; he made great play on how Churchill was defeated in 1945 by the electorate wanting a new order. He thereafter made no mention of Churchill regaining power and being voted back in in 1950. By now I had had enough of Scharma's version of history and turned the BBC programme off. I can't remember now exactly the words, but I believe that Scharma dwelt lovingly on the fact that Orwell, an army officer, hated the Empire and was a socialist. Say no more. Scharma appeared to be a typical academic - a Leftie

[Bob B]

The North-Side divide has recently been in the news again - see, for example, the Financial Times, a previous employer of Ed Balls, now a cabinet minister:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f9d83500-438b-11dc-a065-0000779fd2ac.html

Try George Orwell on his perception of the north-south divide, written in 1936:
http://www.george-orwell.org/North_And_South/0.html

Sadly, so much of that still holds true, 70 years on.

Remember Blair's clarion call in 1997: Education, Education, Education?

Ten years later, we have:

"Only 50 per cent of 19 to 21-year-olds achieve 'Level 2+ qualifications' or higher - five GCSEs or their vocational equivalent (NVQ 2) [in Britain]. In Germany the figure is more than 60 per cent, in France more than 70 per cent."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/07/22/ccliam122.xml

- One in ten 16- to 18-year-olds is not in education, employment or training [NEETs], the same as a decade ago.

- The proportion of 16- to 18-year-olds who are not in education, employment or training is highest in the North East of England and in Scotland.

- More 16-year-old girls than boys continue in full-time education: 78% compared to 69% in 2004.

- The proportion of White 16-year-olds who do not continue in full time education is higher than that for any ethnic minority, but many are undertaking some form of training.
http://www.poverty.org.uk/18/index.shtml
http://readingroom.lsc.gov.uk/lsc/National/45_-_2006_NEET.pdf

Only half of those on apprenticeships in England finish them, the chief inspector of adult education has found.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6169843.stm

"The government is concerned about a growing gender gap in higher education, after 22,500 more young women than men won places at university last year."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6314055.stm

The way of the future for the NEETs?

"A secondary school which has opened an on-site call centre where pupils can practise selling mobile phone contracts and answering customer complaints has been criticised for lowering children's expectations. . . "
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2132753,00.html

As for George Orwell, in "North and South" he wrote:

"The time was when I used to lament over quite imaginary pictures of lads of fourteen dragged protesting from their lessons and set to work at dismal jobs. It seemed to me dreadful that the doom of a 'job' should descend upon anyone at fourteen. Of course I know now that there is not one working-class boy in a thousand who does not pine for the day when he will leave school. He wants to be doing real work, not wasting his time on ridiculous rubbish like history and geography. To the working class, the notion of staying at school till you are nearly grown-up seems merely contemptible and unmanly."

Familiar?

[Hmmmm]

The answer to the question is simple. George Orwell was an Old Etonian socialist whose real surname was Blair. That why the Cameroons love him.