Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens answers questions posed by ConservativeHome readers a fortnight ago. For those who enjoy Peter's forthright views he has his own blog... here.
Chris Palmer: "Do you believe the media needs to be regulated in any way? Currently politicians are frequently and consistently run into the ground by journalists, sometimes on the basis of lies and deception (I cite the Mirror and Piers Morgan as an example.) Politicians have a very strict code by which they can act and talk - yet journalists have no such similar code to conform to. Is not about time that journalists were themselves regulated or called to account for the mistruths they sometimes peddle, so if for example they knowingly print lies, then the paper must be forced to take out full page ads apologising and setting the record straight?"
No. I oppose any regulation of the press, because of the danger that it will be used for purposes of censorship. I think Britain should have its equivalent of the US First Amendment, which specifically prohibits any such regulation, and agree with the amendment's author, Thomas Jefferson, that - forced to choose between a government without newspapers or newspapers without government - he would pick the latter. Our competitive, privately-owned newspaper market is unique in the world, and is most rigorously regulated by the decisions of readers to buy or not to buy. Newspapers do not begin to have the same power as governments. I am unaware of any 'strict code' which governs politicians. What is it called? Who enforces it? Even their advertisements are exempt from the requirement to be decent, honest and truthful. For the last half-century our political elite has actively misled the population on foreign and domestic policy and in many cases blatantly lied to it, without consequence. Such people need to govern themselves better, not seek to regulate the press which is one of the few forces that can restrain them. No, the media are not perfect or faultless, but their faults are the inevitable consequence of their robust freedom and in my long experience of the trade of journalism, I can say that it contains a very large number of people who try, often under very difficult conditions, to discover and report the truth in a disinterested fashion. Enoch Powell, wrong about much, was right in one thing - when he said that politicians complaining about the press were like sailors complaining about the sea.
John Hustings: "I'd like to know whether he argues with his brother over the Iraq war."
A wasted question. It is on public record that I have done so.
Derek: "Which of our current front bench politicians do you admire and why? Are ther
e any current world leaders that you admire and why?"
It is always a mistake to admire individuals. They invariably let you down in one way or another and the disappointment can engender despair. I was going to say that I admire actions, but then I was unable to think of any recent actions by politicians which I admired. Maybe there will be one soon.
Richard: "Peter has put many of the changes in society he decries down to political decisions and the influence of a liberal elite. To what extent does he believe that the changes have occurred due to other factors (greater affluence, greater mobility, technological progress etc)?"
A great extent. Also changes in landscape and cityscape, the decline of empire, two colossal wars, the influence of American culture especially since the Second World War, the unhinged over-use of the motor car, the changes in the nature of employment, the availability of cheap colour TV, the contraceptive pill etc. I even think (though I am not, as I have been absurdly caricatured as being, against it) that central heating changed the way in which people lived. I am so interested in all these influences that I wrote a lengthy book about them, called 'The Abolition of Britain' which is still available in its excellent US edition via amazon.com, at a bargain price owing to the weakness of the US dollar. A lot of people who think they have read this book have not actually done so, I find. Especially the ones who don't like it. May I, in any case, recommend it. I wrote it during 1998 and early 1999 and I think it still stands up pretty well as a description of what went wrong. You must, however, recognise that many of these changes take place as part of the process of cultural revolution, encouraged by it and in turn stimulating it. Yet some are just baffling. I have always been baffled that conservative patriots should think mass car ownership a good thing, or support the destruction of the railways.
Jon Gale: "Peter, I have just looked at your blog. The most recent 8 articles are summarised below:
1. David Cameron is an out-of-touch toff who doesn't understand the middle class.
2. The contraceptive pill is a "frightening medication" with unnatural effects and causes selfishness.
3.Anti-americanism is "racial bigotry".
4. Children need discipline.
5. Party memberships collapsed during the Thatcher-Blair era as parties ignored their traditional support - What are you saying? Thatcher was not conservative enough?
6. Don't vote for the Tories so that they collapse and a new party can appear, like Veritas/Kilroy.
7. Mary Ann Lenaghan died because she smoked cannabis.
8. Intelligent Design is more sensible than evolution.
With the exception of 4. do you really think these kind of views are going to get anyone elected?"
Fortunately, readers of this exchange are free to consult the original rather than rely on your beautifully modulated but rather partial summary. I would be delighted if they were to do so. While some of your descriptions are trivially inaccurate, your number 7 is just plain stupid (please consult the blog if you doubt this) and your number 6 is seriously misleading. It is precisely because I think that Veritas, UKIP and other such outfits are premature that I pursue my policy of trying to encourage the disintegration of the Tory Party. It is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for the creation of a genuinely conservative political formation. That is why this is currently my over-riding objective, with the able if unintentional assistance of both David Cameron and Francis Maude. Until this wretched organisation collapses and splits, as it eventually must, it will not be possible to create a new party and any attempt to do so will be futile.
And that, of course, is one of the many reasons why it would be unwise to confuse my weblog, a series of comments on contemporary events which have seized my interest, with an election manifesto. I fear it will be some time before I am in a position to contribute to such a thing. Mind you, if I ever do write an election manifesto, it surely cannot be worse than the last few Tory efforts. I long for the opportunity.
A few ripostes: Yes, David Cameron plainly has no idea of the problems facing the middle class. His remarks on education, especially his dismissal of a return to selection on merit, are specially strong evidence of his sheltered life.
The contraceptive pill is an astonishingly important and undiscussed feature of modern life, with immense and profound effects on society. It is also a very potent drug, and if there were a male pill that affected men's reproductive organs as radically as the pill affects women's reproductive systems, I doubt very much if Mr Gale would take it even once, let alone all the time.
As someone who has lived in the USA, who benefited from the great hospitality shown to me by my American neighbours, and who likes Americans for their good manners, their generosity and their hospitality, which I have experienced so widely that I view them as characteristic, I do find something very much akin to racial bigotry in the casual anti-Americanism which affects too many British people nowadays. I think it disgraces us. I have heard recent accounts of Americans in London being cruelly abused for their nationality. This seems alarmingly close to racial bigotry to me, and I deplore it. Don't you?
I am saying that party memberships collapsed because this is a fact. There are many reasons for this. If you wish to discuss Margaret Thatcher's legacy and achievements, we need a lot more space than we have here. But I am most certainly critical of her dismissive and unconservative attitude towards institutions and professions (ably assisted by Kenneth Clarke), her presidential behaviour and her reliance on the market as a substitute for morality. I also think she deserves strong criticism for a number of failures and wrong actions during her premiership. These include the Single European Act, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984, the Children Act of 1989 and the introduction of the GCSE, all of which have contributed to the rapid decline of our society. I could go on, but this is a Q&A, not a book.
There is no doubt that here use of cannabis played a part in Mary-Ann Leneghan's death, and it plays a part in many other sad and squalid episodes of this kind. I am disgusted by well-off, middle-class people who make excuses for this nasty poison (and others) without grasping that its ready availability has been disastrous for the poor and weak. I might add that its unpredictable effects on the brain mean it is also sometimes a grave danger even to the rich and sheltered, and its possession and use plainly ought to be discouraged by severe penalties, rigorously enforced. David Cameron's support for relaxing the cannabis law while he was on the Home Affairs committee was and remains an inexcusable act of irresponsibility.
It is absurd to suggest that I believe the theory of Intelligent Design should have parity with the theory of Evolution. It does not seek such parity. ID does not attempt to provide an explanation of the origin of species, let alone insist on 'Young Earth' concepts of creation, as its more unscrupulous opponents try to suggest. Indeed, it is careful not to set forth any theory of how the existing natural order came into being. It is a sceptical current. It mainly argues that some of the processes attributed by science to natural selection are highly unlikely have taken place in this way (These are scientific objections, especially from the microbiologist Michael Behe, whose concept of irreducible complexity is troubling for supporters of the evolutionary theory). This debate is largely misrepresented and misunderstood in this country, but then so is the theory of evolution, which most British people apparently think is a proven fact, or imagine to be in some way compatible with religious belief when in fact, as Richard Dawkins rightly insists, it is prescriptively atheist. Our education system is pretty bad.
1AM: "Do you accept that one reason conservative values are struggling to gain electoral success is that they are often presented in a negative and unpleasant light by conservative commentators? Would not a positive portrayal of what the UK could be, rather than a constant attack on what it is be a better way to rally people to the conservative cause?"
No. In fact I do not know what you are talking about. Which 'conservative values' are being presented in a 'negative and unpleasant light' by which conservative commentators? I have not observed this. On the contrary, I thought that it was the Conservative PARTY that was going round slandering conservative ideas, dismissing them as 'nasty, 'fruitcake' and 'racist' and attacking 'angry columnists' for daring to cling to them. We conservative commentators - well, some of us anyway - like to present conservative ideas in a good light. Believe me, the attack on the current state of the country is firmly based on a strong and clear idea of what it could be - independent, free, ruled by law and justice reinforced by conscience and manners, proud of its history, anxious to let men alone where possible but also to protect the poor and weak from crime and disorder. I know from my large correspondence how widely this idea is treasured. I know from close observation how scornfully it is viewed by the Tory Party's governing elite. I could go on, but this is a Q&A, not a speech. Conservative values can hardly be expected to gain electoral success when no party espouses them, defends them or seeks to gain acceptance of them.
kingbongo: "Who would he like to see run for the Republican nomination in the US election?"
I have no idea. I don't feel I have much in common with the Republican Party, another fake conservative body, and have little interest in who leads it. One of the saddest illusions of modern official Conservatism is that the dead end of Reagan Republicanism, let alone 'Compassionate Conservatism' has anything to offer the serious conservative. The Republican Party has failed to make any serious effort to combat the cultural revolution, and much of the USA is probably more politically correct even than Britain.
Observer: "What chance do you think there is of a popular, well-organised counter movement to modern liberalism? And do you think the best way of building up such a conservative movement is through electoral politics, or through a reverse Gramscian march through the institutions (i.e. by conservatives seeking to join and then reshape the character of the opinion-forming professions, as liberals have already done)?"
I think a reverse Gramscian march may well be essential even if a conservative movement were to recapture the Westminster government. Labour's early efforts at cultural revolution (inspired by Jenkins and Crosland) were limited or frustrated by the generally conservative nature of schools, broadcasting the civil service etc. That is why so much of the Wilson government's efforts were devoted towards aiding the Gramscian long march - comprehensive schooling, divorce reform, police force mergers, a revolution in teacher training etc. None of these was reversed by succeeding Tory governments (surprise!) Actually some of the major cultural changes were actively begun by the Tories before the Wilson years. What DID the Tories think they were doing when they appointed Hugh Carleton Greene to head the BBC? The fundamental cultural reforms of the 1950s and 1960s matured well, so that by the time Labour came back to government in 1997 they were able to work in concert with a large group of allies entrenched in most areas of education, culture, the civil service and the broadcast media, and create the politically correct state we now have. A conservative (not Conservative) government would likewise have to act to help its friends reconquer the cultural commanding heights, or at least to weaken the influence of the cultural and moral left in them.
The task could reasonably be expected to take several decades, which is why I tend to think that the sooner we start the better, since the later we leave it, the longer it will take. As to what chance there is of achieving this, I take the Arthur Hugh Clough view as expressed in 'Say not the struggle naught availeth': 'If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars....'. I have to think there is SOME chance, though I suspect much depends on persuading parts of the Left to recognise that their programme has not had the consequences they intended. This is one of the reasons why it was so foolish for the Tories to abandon selective secondary state schooling, just as a growing number of intelligent left-wingers are beginning to argue for it. The Tory 'modernisers' are so frightened of, and so incapable of understanding the Left , or of distinguishing its good points from its bad points, that they have failed to observe that it is increasingly divided and doubtful.
comstock: "Having comprehensively slagged off all three main parties in his MOS column, could he tell us just who he did vote for at the last election."
No big secret here. I followed the advice I had given everyone else, and did not vote. If only a few more people had done the same, the Tory Party might have lost some seats and collapsed, and we would have been spared the present misery of watching its prolonged death agony and knowing that we have wasted another four or five years. In future, however, I plan to do as I now advise voters, and write in a clear, legible hand "None of the Above" on the ballot paper. I hope that, if enough people do this, returning officers will have to record it and ballots will eventually have to include a printed slot in which this view can be recorded.
MagicAldo: "Peter, your "realistic" foreign policy stance has maintained an admirably consistent focus on the national interest sadly lacking in many of the arguments of the new internationalists. But I've never heard you actually confront the issue of Islamic terrorism head on. Is it a threat to the British national interest? How should the UK respond, if not by way of destabilising regimes that support it? Is there not a pattern of events and ideology across the world that represents a lethal threat to the West? Are there no lessons to learn from 9/11 and the appeasement of the Clinton era?"
Peter’s answer to this question was subject to a special post on YourPlatform yesterday.