Conservatism: Morning in America, Mourning in Britain

Johann Hari has written an article in today's Independent (free to read on his personal website) in which he contends that the British right has come to hate Britain.  Here is some of his 'evidence':

• Richard Littlejohn's recent declaration that emigrants from our shores are seeking “sanctuary from the madness of modern, multicultural, morality-free Britain.”
• "The Tories are proposing to relegate six million Brits to second-class citizenship – a massive gift to the Scottish nationalists, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein and all the people who want to see the United Kingdom crumble into its constituent parts."

In fact that is the sum of Mr Hari's evidence.  The rest of the article consists of general accusations that the right are anti-immigrant, anti-French and uninterested in gay rights.  Britain, he thinks, is a left-wing country...

"Even at the apex of right-wing domination – Thatcherism – 56 percent of people went into the polling booths at every election and voted for liberal-left parties committed to higher taxes and higher public spending."

...and the right is increasingly uncomfortable with it.

I fear that there is something in Mr Hari's analysis, however.  American conservatism is characterised by 'can do' positivity.  Today's US Republicans have inherited the personality of Ronald Reagan's morning in America.  British conservatives and right-of-centre commentators are far less hopeful.  Our inheritance is Margaret Thatcher's handbagging of trade union barons, Brussels bureaucrats and militant council leaders.  America has David Brooks, Peggy Noonan and William Safire.  We have Simon Heffer, Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips.  Britain and America are different but there is probably more room for British conservatives to celebrate the things we love about Britain.  That is certainly one of the strengths of David Cameron's leadership.  He appears to feel at home in Britain and to enjoy its culture, its tolerance and is committed to protect its environment.  All conservatives could occasionally reflect on my favourite of Aesop's fables:

"The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: "I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin."  So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveller wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair.  Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.  Kindness effects more than severity.”

Comments

[TomTom]

Hari is a polemicist - he gets paid according to how much dust he stirs up. He is just another boring Guardian journalist with time on his hands........when it merges with the Independent they can sell Auto Trader so Hari will have to work for his money

[Andy Peterkin]

Britain is broken in ways and on levels that the US under Jimmy Carter simply wasn't.

We may need to work on the attractiveness of our message - I fully accept that nobody wishes to be told they are a loser - but we should not lose sight of the fact that socialism post-1945 has seriously damaged the fabric of this country, and it needs fixing urgently.

[John Hustings]

I fear that for all David Cameron's pretense of positivity, he is actually pushing a very negative agenda. His campaign is circumspect to say the least, and he fears any attack from the left, and so says nothing that might be portrayed as "right-wing".

Allowing yourself to get pushed into a corner like this is very much a loser mentality. It is the disease of British conservativism.

In America, conservatives are much more united; they spend their time attacking liberals and liberalism, not attacking fellow conservatives. On this site, I see more people attacking so-called "extremists" like Hitchens and Heffer than those trying to win the culture war. And it is the defeat in the culture war that means that British Conservativism is such a sinking ship.

Saying that, we certainly do need to see some positivity from the right, and I too feel demoralised sometimes reading the right-wing commentators. But I don't find David Cameron optimistic at all.

[Nick Longworth]

The British Right hates what Britain has become since 1997, or in some cases 1945. The British Left hates everything about Britain before 1997, or in some cases today.
Surely what needs to be grasped is that a country is made up of many people, traditions, irritations, institutions and none of us is likely to love all of them.
Nevertheless, I believe the tradition of the British Right to which I belong is that this country remains the home of justice, tolerance and free speech and therefore is the best place on earth to live. The other side of the coin, is that none of it can be taken for granted and so we have to work tirelessly to maintain what we hold dear, as the Burkean tradition would have it.
[And, of course, the finest part of Britain remains God's Own Borough of Wandsworth.]

[Richard]

I've noticed that a great number of Hari's articles are nothing but constant moans by someone who gives the impression of having a chip on his shoulder.

As for his claim that the British are generally left-wing, this may be true when it comes to taxation but when it comes to law and order (notably capital punishment)or immigration, the opinion polls tend to show a right-wing position. Uncomfortable though it may make some people (and I'm only mentioning it because Hari brings up gay rights) a majority were opposed to a reduction in the age of consent and the repeal of Section 28.

In short, the British may be a litle to the left economically but socially there is a notable right-wing trend.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

""The Tories are proposing to relegate six million Brits to second-class citizenship – a massive gift to the Scottish nationalists, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein and all the people who want to see the United Kingdom crumble into its constituent parts.""

I'm a little bit confused by this particular excerpt. Is Hari referring to the English votes on English matters proposal? If so, surely even a simpleton must understand that proposal is designed to restore equality between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, rather than leaving 51 million Brits 'relegated' to 'second-class citizenship'?

[Richard]

I also get the impression Hari is targeting those who comment on the decline of the family and rising crime rates. Well, why shouldn't we complain about these things?

http://www.civitas.org.uk/data/RecordedCrimePer100k1950-2004.htm

[Andy Stidwill]

Whenever I travel to America, I feel much more happy about being a Conservative than here in Britain, so I suppose Hari's on to something with this article.

[Denis Cooper]

"Margaret Thatcher's handbagging of trade union barons, Brussels bureaucrats and militant council leaders." Three different categories, I think. The first two were (are) intent on subverting democracy; the third gained power legitimately through a local democratic system which Thatcher herself then subverted because she found the outcome disagreeable. The first and third largely shared an ideological motivation, but if the second are driven by an ideology rather than by personal career interest it's a different ideology.

[Serf]

If so, surely even a simpleton must understand that proposal is designed to restore equality between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom

A simpleton would, a lefty however is trained to complicate things until noone can understand them.

[Esbonio]

I am with John Hustings on this. Mr Longworth may praise Britain as the home of "justice, tolerance and free speech" but all three have been in dreadful retreat under New Labour and I do not think the Tories have the guts to reverse the situation. If David Cameron (and his Notting Hill set) think life in Britain is great, good luck to them. I have always loved my country and sill think this country has much to be proud of. But much has also gone wrong and I must admit that if my personal circumstances permitted I, along it appears with a very large proportion of the population, would seriously consider leaving the UK.

[David Banks]

I have never read an article by Hari i have agreed with. He seems to have the gift of getting the wrong end of the argument , as shown by his anti Israelism and latte-leftism.

[Oberon Houston]

Britain is not a left-wing country, and the move of Labour to the right emphasises that. If the country was left wing, New Labour and spin would never have been required.
What people are finding now is that the spin is all there is, and if we get our act together and start thinking about the Country most of us would like to live in, instead of the Tebbits of our party, we can regain power.

Britain is naturally conservative, not left-wing. But there is not (untill recently?) been a decent right-wing party for them (in their eyes) to vote for.

[Richard R]

The last time I "had a go" at Mr. Hari was over an article he wrote for gay magazine "Attitude" where he (erroneously) claimed the Right had opposed every single piece of legislation for homosexual equality.

His article appears full of contradictions. He attacks MT's "handbagging of the unions", but fails to appreciate that it was union greed that turned Britain into the "sick man of Europe" in the late 1970s. Similarly, militant Council Leaders spent £££s on gesture politics in the late 1980s (provoking both Conservative AND Labour MPs into voting for (what I agree was pernicious)Section 28 in 1988), while frontline services crumbled!

The Right does not hate Britian. It loves Britian, and wants her to be strong, enterprising, democratic and free. It hates the idea of a SOCIALIST Britain, the one in which Hari and his associates would have us all live.

[william]

We cannot leave Britain as it does not exist.

Our government has been exported. The media manipulates. Our forces are committed to fulfil a war agenda of another country. Educational standards have collapsed. There is little trust between individuals.

Cameron wants to bring things back to local level, where our country and our culture might reappear from the bureaucratic mist. We are living in a dark age, where no one knows who we are, what are our values or where we should be going.

Britain was once a first class place to live. Let's hope it becomes so again. That's the promise of localism - a rediscovery of our identity, an end of control by remote unknown impersonal bureaucracy. It's not right wing or left wing. It's human wing. It's the promise of David Cameron.

He's unpopular with Rupert Murdoch. He's disliked by Channel 4. He refuses to be drawn into the web of the EU. He's not acting like a power broker should.

That's because he doesn't aspire to being one. He wants to share responsibility and rebuild trust, rediscover the humanity we share, not take control over everything.

I hope he succeeds. If he doesn't, the next stop could be a decline into sectarianism. We still have a lot to lose. A few of us will still be here inspite of it all.

[Wat Tyler]

I've just read Hari's article- what a wind-up.

It is very easy for us of a rightish disposition to come across as hating modern Britain, rather than simply hating socialism.

EG Hari lays into the "fierce proponents of market forces, these people who attack SureStart and Family Credit as “waste”. He makes it sound like we're locked in the selfish Dickensian past.

In reality of course we ALL know those programmes are a waste, and on a massive scale- even the Beloved Leader sort of admits it (eg see http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2006/05/sure-start-another-expensive-flop.html ). Apart from anything else, they actually seem to be damaging those they were supposed to help.

So why is it when we point that out, we sound so anti everything? Possibly for the same reason that in the middle of affluent Lib Dem Lewes yesterday I saw a comfortable middle-aged guy walking along proudly sporting a "I still hate Thatcher" t-shirt.

We've been demonised by our opponents.

But with New Labour in ruins, the country up to its eyeballs in debt, interest rates and unemployment both heading up, surely we now have that once in a generation chance to return the favour.

[Marc]

Not so sure that the sun beating down heavily on your back is kindness, seems more like severity to me!

[Esbonio]

Wat

You are right to note that it was Mrs Thatcher’s generation of Tories (aided by some youngsters), the same generation that went through WW2, that had the courage to take on the unions and reverse the UK’s decline into the sick man of Europe. So yes perhaps we do owe it to them to take on our own challenge and reverse the cultural revolution that has been imposed on us without our asking. I do fear though (though it did not seem like it at the time) that sorting the unions was a far easier task.

[Prodicus]

Conservatism in the USA was never demoralised (almost) out of existence as in the UK. It fought back when attacked. Why? Because private enterprise and individualism are central to the American mind, even on the left. Here, thanks to welfare-dependency and short memories, we have reached the point where the very words 'private enterprise' and 'individualism' have become terms of abuse in our left-dominated culture/establishment, including the press - and most of all TV. Conservative = right-wing = wingnut = to-be-mocked by all right-thinking (sic) citizens. It makes me laugh to hear 'Blair's government is right wing'. The fact is, even 'modern conservativism' is *left*-wing by comparison with its predecessor. Thatcher moved the goal-posts all right but, by wearing her clothes, Blair has moved them back again. This *is* a left-wing country, if you judge it by its public life. Perhaps not so in private homes, where there is despair over values lost. Perhaps Dave can build on this, if he has it in him. That remains to be seen.

Not so in America, where Joe and Jane Ordinary are not afraid to call themselves conservatives. In this country, people boast of voting labour (even if they actually don't). Conservative voters (not activists) blush to admit their preference. Until the media, most of all TV interviewers, begin to treat conservative voters with respect (and that's a tall order, given their current religion of Thatcher-was-evil) I sometimes think Dave's task is positively sisyphean.

[Esbonio]

The right does not hate Britain but it rightfully hates the damage the left has done to this country.

[malcolm]

Not sure I agree with Hari atall.More inclined to believe Wat Tyler,it's a wind up.Of course there are gloomy people on the right Heffer, Hitchens sometimes Melanie Phillips who not only seem to dislike modern Britain but much of the world too.But on the other side you have Boris,Mathew Parris,Danny Finkelstien etc who are quite prepared to laugh at modern life as well as rage at it and who generally take an optimistic view of the world. This is a much more attractive characteristic and may be why optimists like Reagan and John Howard have been so electorally successful.

[esbonio]

Malcom

Of course optimism is an attractive mindset and I am sure the people you cite have much to be optimistic about. But I can assure you it's not the same story for everyone today despite the apparently favourable economic conditions. I won't itemise what is wrong with our more often than not fools paradise for fear of triggering cognitive dissonance on your part.

[Londoner]

Hari is a Cambridge version of Sieghart and indeed Heffer.

They get Oxbridge degrees and immediately start writing about the world as if tehy know something beyond their own narrow circle.

Of course we all have opinions but what has 20 something Hari done to make him such an expert and indeed why on earth does anyone have any interest in him.

Rather like Newsnight, which has about 1.5 million devotees (everyone of which spends most of tehir time on blogs)

I doubt if more than 2-4% of teh country have ever read a word of Hari/Sieghart and Heffer - yet they go on and on.

The late Bernard Levin (who had a fully rounded albeit sharp view of things)had this wonderful description of certain types as "poodlefakers" Hari fits that so well.

Sieghart could audition for being the politically correct and Blairite version of the MGM Lion.

[Yet Another Anon]

What has the argument over homosexuality got to do with whether someone is anti-British or not? There's not neccessarily any suggestion that any larger proportion of the population swings one way or the other than anywhere else although how policy and social attitudes towards this and other things is another matter, in addition what about anti-immigrant Socialist, Liberal and Communist groups and I don't just mean the BNP and National Front and no I am not going to waste my time arguing where they might have sat in the French National Assembly in 1789, there is of course Pim Fortuyn - George W. Bush actually has recognised the importance of migrant workers to the US and many Republican and Democrat Senators have too, does this mean that they are "Left Wing", Hilary Clinton seemed to be the one leading the baying against Dubai Ports being allowed to manage US Ports apparently simply because they were Arabs - in fact does this mean that Radical Gay Rights and Radical Feminists such as Hilary Clinton (who incidentally was very antagonistic towards the taliban at a time when they were considering throwing Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and might well have done so) who have Internationalist positions are therefore "Right Wing" because they are suspicous of Radical Islamist immigrants - it shows that if anything the terms Left, Right and Centre are more ridiculous now than they have ever been before; people have different philosophical ambitions and different ways of achieving these and people with apparently identical political positions can equally share policy decisions while hoping to achieve something radically different.

So rather than trying to be "more in the centre" (whatever that means), or "to the left" (whatever that means) or "on the right" whatever that means and attempting to define all political and philosophical groups on some kind of abstract spectrum that somehow attempts to relativise everything surely it is better for people and groups to define a philosophy and come to policy based on that philosophy or those philosophies and if people disagree then either say that they are wrong and why they are wrong, or even in some circumstances accept that they are right or even state that they are neither wrong nor right but that it is merely an alternative position that does not accord with their position, and if Journalists go off talking about philosophies on their own term and resort to trying the old Left-Right-Centre sets of labels then tell them to stick their labels where the sun doesn't shine.

[Andrew Morrison]

If Britain has indeed became a country where it's acceptable to get bladdered every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night while running amok in city centres or where it's acceptable to s**g around irresonsibly procreating quasi-orphans, then yes I hate it.

And if Britain should ever become a country where the likes of Johann Hari finds mainstream favour outwith the ranks of the liberal elite and facist Left, then I bloody well reserve the right to despise it.

[Matt Davis]

Of anyone hates Britain then surely it is the left who have been trying for decades now to destroy Britain as a self determining nation state by means of the EU and its unashamedly social democrat, bordering on socialist, agenda.

[Og]

The Right hate the crappy things about Britain and love the good things. So do Johann Hari, Prince Hari, and Prince Naseem Hari.

All depends what you think are the crappy things and what you consider are the good things.

Prezza, for instance, hates the countryside, its inhabitants, and their sport. I love all these things, within reason.

Gordon hate self-sufficiency. I like it.

Blair hates liberty, as traditionally enjoyed by individuals, villages, towns, districts and even by Britain, pre-EU. I like liberty.

When old Joanna Harry grows up, he will be less muddled about these things. Right now, he is a trendy youth, with less experience of life than my labrador, apprentice gamekeeper, or the young van driver who delivers my claret.

[Burkean]

I suspect the question of whether one is innately conservative or admiring of the way Britain has changed can be answered by one's reaction to this story.

[Jon Gale]

A large portion of the Left hates Britain because Thatcherism worked and Britain no longer has a socialist party (the original Clause 4 moment) and is becoming more like America.

A large proportion of the Right, without a real socialist enemy but a fairly centrist one, gets nervous about the lack of clear blue water and starts to think everything vaguely centrist is socialist.

And to get some perspective: in America, conservatives spent the 90's under Clinton bemoaning that America was the new Soddom & Gommrrah and heading for moral collapse, they now home school their kids because they think schools are run by degenerate liberals, and go on and on about how the liberal media and hollywood liberals control everything. In addition the Democratic Party now is very left-wing compared to its historical position (or compared to Clinton a few short years ago).

The grass is always greener, and things were always better in the past, etc. etc.

[Jon Gale]

Burkean,

If you believe it. Sounds like Daily Mail made up rubbsh to me.

Talking of the Daily Mail - I'm afraid I read one the other day and it contained such gems as 'Anglo-Saxons are related to Germans shock-horror', Jennifer Aniston is "largely famous for being dumped by Brad Pitt" (Not Friends then?) and 'Dramatic rise in liver disease (among 40-50 year olds) proves the young of today are binge drinking thugs'. Oh and sunshine harms you in dozens of horror inducing ways 2-page spread.

No-one actually pays money for it do they?

[James Hellyer]

Links to the stories please, Jon.

[Jon Gale]

James,

Anglo Saxon one:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=396406&in_page_id=1770

Sunshine effects: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=396451&in_page_id=1774

All on the 19th July if you want to look for the others, but now i'm going to watch 'House', sorry.!

[James Hellyer]

Well - shock horror - it appears that Jon's gloss on the stories was entirely disingeneous.

The 'Anglo-Saxons are related to Germans shock-horror'story was in fact covering recent finding about how Anglo Saxons out bred Britons despite numerical inferiority (i.e. Jon's take on the story was a falsehood designed to discredit a newspaper he ideologically disagreed with).

As if anyone could take the views of a man seriously who complains that in summer a newspaper warns about the risks of sunbathing. I mean, how irresponsible was that?

[Matt Wright]

I agree with Oberon. We are a naturally Conservative country not leftist and thats why Balir had to tack to the right, or pretend to. However since Blair came to power many in our party have edged too close to being just reactionary. We need to get much more positive again. Remember that Thatcher offered aspiration and change. Cameron is trying to be more positive as well but looking for ways to do this that fit our age,

Matt

[Drew]

Not sure if this point has been picked up earlier (only had chance to scan the above) but, 56% voting for left wing/liberal parties in the 80s does not equate to a majoirty of the public as left wing.

We all know many people who vote Lib Dem are centre right and many working class Labour voters are verging on extreme right wing in their views on gay rights, immigration and law and order.

Britian is a right wing country but because of the snobbery (past?) of the Conservative Party and the class based sysytem of voting we are unable to mobilise the right wing working class vote in the same way the Republicans can in the US.

The question I would pose is, is our new message going to be any more successful at mobilising those people? Discuss!

[Jon Gale]

James,

Please, "We're all Germans! (and we have been for 1,600 years)" is the headline, followed by

"It is a rivalry that has prevailed throughout two World Wars and countless football clashes. But it seems the English and Germans have more in common than one might have thought.

New research has found that the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain from the continent 1,600 years ago was so successful that native characteristics were virtually wiped out.

And as a result experts say this has left England with a population made up largely of Germanic genes and with a language that owes much to our Anglo-Saxon invaders. [wow! thanks for that revalation]

The new study explains that the majority of original British genes were wiped out in favour of German ones through a system of apartheid set up by the invaders. This allowed the Anglo-Saxons to out-breed the Brits and our country became 'Germanised.'"

Germanic genes, germanic language, wiped out/enslaved the Romano-british. Which is exactly what we all learned in school with the addition of the phrase "apartheid".

The sunshine ("What the Sun could do to you this week")one I pointed out because the Daily Mail runs stories about how Britain is oh-so-nanny-state and PC-gone-mad and then runs stories telling us of the dangers of sunshine, and the day before was telling us about the dangers of rubbing in sun-screen!

It tells you everything in Britain is a hell-hole full of binge drinking youth-of-today (but their survey actually reveals binge drinking was also going on 1968-1987 if you look at the ages) and the sunshine will kill you only if the sex-changing chemicals in the water or the influence of the Spice Girls dont.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/dmsearch/overture.html?in_page_id=711&in_overture_ua=711&in_start_number=0&in_query=binge+drinking+alcohol&in_channel=1469&in_pub=4&daylower=18&monthlower=07&yearlower=2006&dayupper=20&monthupper=07&yearupper=2006&in_order_by=relevance&in_start=18%2F07%2F2006&in_end=20%2F07%2F2006

[NewSisyphus]

Greeting from an American conservative (who just happens to also be British, thanks to Mum).

Cousins, I am afraid that Andy Peterkin (2nd comment above) is exactly right when he writes that "socialism post-1945 has seriously damaged the fabric of this country". I have to tell you honestly that when I arrived in the UK in 1987 at the age of 22, fresh out of college (university, you'd say) to "see how the other half lived" I was shocked to my core at some of the very powerful differences in basic outlook between our two related people.

I could bore you with all the anecdotes, but instead I'll spare you and hit you with just one, one that seemed very telling to me then and now.

I arrived and went to a friend's house in Croydon and settled in. I spent the next two weeks looking for a job. Any job. Anything at all. At that point I had been working since I was 15-years old.

In despair, I went to the official "job centre" (I think it was called) for help. I was not offered help finding a job, but was offered a bewildering array of welfare benefits. Housing benefit. Income support benefit. Transit subsidies.

When I said I didn't want to do that, I wanted help finding a job, the worker looked at me like I was stark, raving mad.

On my own, I found a gig at a pub. And I spent the next 6 months getting to know you folks better. And I found to my surprise that my gut instincts were always just about the opposite of your people's.

Almost without exception, discussions about politics or public policy were seen as questions of "funding." The government should do this, the government should do that, they need to increase the budget for this, the budget is too tight to do that.

And suffocating it all was an overconfident belief that experts and the government were looking out for them, most of all the geniuses in Europe.

It was clear to me then that there was an ideological poison in the air, a sense of entitlement that is strangling initiative, punishing civil society, insisting on mediocrity.

At the same time, the social conditions I saw around me were appalling, and I'm from Los Angeles! I had never seen so many hordes of ill-behaved young men, threatening and scowling as decent folk walked by.

However, just beneath this gloss (or grime, I suppose) I also saw those qualities that had made me a anglophile from an early age: intelligence, common sense, a sense of humor, a stubborn streak.

I believe (I hope) it is still there. It won't be stirred by appeals to patriotism or some charismatic new leader. What is needed is a not a conservative party, but a new conservative *movement*.

The Internet has transformed conservative politics in the US, as has radio. Why haven't Britons done the same?

We have alternative media, alternative art, our own publishing houses, why haven't the British conservatives done the same?

Accept that you are in the minority, that you won't be represented in Westminster in any real way, that the BBC will always hate you until the blessed day comes when you abolish it.

Focus on the universities, the arts, the think-tanks. Learn from our past here in the States. We were in the wilderness for a god-awful long time, but be confident that Leftist rule will inevitibly result in failure..and you need to be there to pick up the pieces when that day arrives.

I don't envy your task. It is enormous. But nothing less than the survival of the Britain we all know and love is at stake.

I wish you all the very best. Please do let me know if you are ever coming to Oregon.

[dizzy]

I'm glad there are a lot fo comments in here. I can only handle Hari once a week in Friday's Standard. I'm not preapared to ruin my week earlier than normal by reading him and getting angry.

[James Hellyer]

Jon, as I already pointed out, your gloss on the German article is highly misleading.
Offering further misleading glosses only reinforces the point!

Germanic genes, germanic language, wiped out/enslaved the Romano-british. Which is exactly what we all learned in school with the addition of the phrase "apartheid".

Actually it's covering newly published research. Presumably you ignored that part.

The sunshine ("What the Sun could do to you this week")one I pointed out because the Daily Mail runs stories about how Britain is oh-so-nanny-state and PC-gone-mad and then runs stories telling us of the dangers of sunshine

How is decrying the state interfering in all aspects of people'slives and a warning about the dangers of excessive exposure to the sun contradictory? Or do people who oppose nanny state have to want Britain's populace to rush to their deaths?

and the day before was telling us about the dangers of rubbing in sun-screen!

And that's a lie.

They published a story saying covering a European Commission report that said that many sunscreens give false assurances that they protect the skin from cancer and premature ageing, when all they protect from is sunburn.

Perhaps you should read and try to understand articles, Jon, rather than twist them to fit your agenda.

[J-Green]

M Thatcher said it best when she said "it wasn't Britain I was criticising, it was socialism"

[TomTom]

Anglo-Saxons are related to Germans shock-horror',

That ranks alongside Britain is an island as a statement of the bl**dy obvious. Where do you think Saxons come from ? where do you think there is a place called Saxony or Sachsen ?

Try Sachsen, Niedersachsen to the west and southwest of Berlin and connected to Schleswig

Read up on the Angles and the Saxons...........don't they teach history in schools nowadays ?.

[AC Fisher]

Well, that article's high up on the list of most idiotic articles ever printed in the Independent, and that takes a lot.

Intelligent left-wing commentators make points I don't agree with. Hari doesn't makes points, but makes sweeping generalisations without even trying to counter the strong arguments of the other side in the debate.

Hari makes Polly Toynbee look like an excellent pro-Tory columnist.

[Francis]

He does have a point though, I mean does Melanie Phillips like anything? Its just depressing to read articles written by right wing journalists that attack everything.As someone who does not remember the "good old" days I do not feel that I have missed out, as I feel perfectly happy living in todays Britain. For those of you who say conservatives should stop fighting one another, I agree. All factions should stop, agree Cameron is doing a good job and get behind him. Thats why the left are attacking us as they are, we're on to a winner.

[Yet Another Anon]

Germanic genes, germanic language, wiped out/enslaved the Romano-british. Which is exactly what we all learned in school with the addition of the phrase "apartheid".
They certainly weren't wiped out, and in fact continued in Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall and parts of Ireland and later the "apartheid" was abolished and they mixed - of course there aren't any Anglo-Saxons anymore, nor really are there any Celts, Beaker People, Vikings, Goths, Franks or Dravidians etc... even though there are people who are descended from them but there has been a lot of mixing in the past few thousand years but the original groups have blended in with others.

[Yet Another Anon]

Not only that but Saxony as the northernmost province of Germany is more like Denmark culturally and in other ways, get down to Bavaria and really it's very much Central European.

[Oliver McCarthy]

The Big Difference between the Right in America and in this country is that in this country we have been out of power (since 1990) for much longer than the Right ever was in America (1993-2000). We now have the most leftwing government this country has ever seen, and even with rising interest rates and low approval ratings there is still at best a fifty-fifty chance of seeing a rightwing government after the next general election (whenever that is going to be).

In fact there were plenty of loopy righwing America-haters when Clinton was in power. Who else remembers Waco, or the Oklahoma bombing, or vigilante attacks on aboriton clinics? The problem with the Right in this country now, conversely, is that we don't hate Britain enough. People like that bald creature that led the Tories from 1997 to 2001 actually have very little objection to most of the things that Mr Blair has done to this country, from putting huntsmen in prison to legalising sodomy for children. Hague doesn't care and neither does most of the Tory Front Bench. It is only once they start caring about what's happened to their country that they stand any sure chance of winning at the polls.

And of course the argument isn't whether or not Britain is a leftwing country. Is "freedom" really a leftwing concept. I don't think so. Any rightwing British party is going to be pro-British, but that doesn't mean abandoning either the upper and middle classes or traditional culture and morality.

[ToMTom]

Hague doesn't care and neither does most of the Tory Front Bench.

Very true....their main concern was preserving Nigel Lawson's 1988 legacy of 40% top-rate tax............that is what saved Labour

[Graham D'Amiral]

You get the clear impression when you read a number of articles by certain right wing commentators that all they are doing is listing a whole bunch of things that are in their view wrong about Britain, it leads to the depressing conclision that life is pretty awful and the hope of things improving is pretty much zero.

Now that might be ok for a newspaper columist to rant about the state of the country, but the Conservative party is not simply a platform for a socially Conservative critique of britain over the last 40 years. We aspire to be the government and that has to mean the right have to have a positive vision for how centre right policies can improve the quality of life for everyone.

That is why David Cameron was so right to take on Simon Heffer acussing him and people like him of believing if only the conservative party would "shout a little louder and hate modern britain a bit more everything would turn out ok". Conservatism has to have something to say to Britain as she is today, not hark back to some imagined golden age that in reality never existed. No doubt if people like Heffer had been around in the 1950s that would have been saying how much better things were in the 1930s.

[Annabel Herriott]

New Sisyphus - you are truly a breath of fresh air! We need your take on life. But tell me - are you the new form of boulder rolling, or have you left your corpse on the surface unburied, so Hades would send you back to seek revenge. ie living on ones wits? I'm sure there is a modern day analogy in there somewhere.

[Richard]

"Conservatism has to have something to say to Britain as she is today, not hark back to some imagined golden age that in reality never existed. No doubt if people like Heffer had been around in the 1950s that would have been saying how much better things were in the 1930s."

I don't think they view the 1950s as a Golden Age. They merely point to lower crime rates and less family breakdown as evidence of a more cohesive society. It might make some people uncomfortable but I don't think it should be ignored.

[Michael]

Britain today is a disgusting sewer. As it's ruled by the socialists that's no surprised.

I can't imagine why any Tory would want to put in a good word for this ghastly mess.

[Michael]

Blair's Britain is a filthy tip, dominated by perverts and guttersnipes (rock stars and the like)

The sooner a REAL Tory leader (not Cameron) purges this ghastly sty the better.

Personally I'm inclined to emigrate to somewhere decent and I know a lot of my Tory colleagues are always talking about doing the same.