Hefferism

Have you watched Telegraph TV's new politics programme, Right On? It's well worth twelve minutes of your time. It's perfect for the internet: lots of short, fast-moving segments, well presented and also, of course, right-of-centre.

The strongest segment of what is intended to be a weekly show is the Heffer Confronted feature.  Iain Dale, who is a natural TV talent, gets the opportunity to challenge Mr Heffer about his most recent column.  In this first edition Simon Heffer makes it clear that most MPs do not impress him.  He tells us that...

• There are very few MPs with a public service ethic...
• Most go into politics because they couldn't get a job elsewhere...
• That they couldn't get a job playing a piano in a brothel...
• That the Tory Party wouldn't have him as a candidate because it's now full of SDP and neo-socialist views...
• That he wouldn't want to be bossed around by a bunch of "thickos"...

Ann Widdecombe describes Heffer's performance as pig-ignorant.  And, although within Heffer's bluster there are some good underlying points about the emergence of a detached political class, he is a reminder of what the Conservative Party must never return to.  He's angry.  He's uncomfortable with modern Britain.  He is ungenerous to his opponents - putting the worst possible spin on their views.  He has no time for the need for a more balanced Conservative Party that takes social and international justice issues seriously.

David Cameron's modernisation of the Conservative Party has occasionally made ConservativeHome uncomfortable, but if it was ever a choice between Hefferism and Cameronism we'd be 100% with Dave.

Comments

[Alex Swanson]

"He's angry. He's uncomfortable with modern Britain."

So are a lot of people! We're angry with the way taxation goes ever upwards with no returned benefit. We're angry with the trashing of our education system. We're angry with ever increasing crime - did you know the murder rate today is twice was it was in the 1950's?

And above all, we're angry with being treated like children by arrogant and incompetent politicians and journalists who could never in a million years hold down the jobs we do as routine.

[Jennifer Wells]

Well said Tim and Sam. The Right is so unattractive a lot of the time. Heffer does our causes no good at all.

[Alex Swanson]

Heffer does our causes no good at all.

The fact that Heffer is flying the flag for ordinary people - not the chattering classes - is probably keeping many people still voting Conservative on the faint hope (which I personally have all but given up) that some day the Conservative Party leadership might actually take some real notice of what is happening back on Earth.

Let's get it crystal clear:

(1) Left-wing policies are wrong, morally and practically. They don't work, and even if they did, the sacrifices they ask in terms of personal freedoms would not be worth the gains.
(2) The Conservative Party is going to get nowhere by adopting them. Of the people who actually want to vote for socialism, none are going to vote for an ersatz version when the real thing is also on offer. And if by chance and Labour incompetence they do get in, these policies will result in failure anyway, as John Major discovered.

[Common Sense]

I despair that any serious right winger could ever look to Simon Heffer as a standard-bearer. Don't you get it about Heffer? He's a congenitally unpleasant, nasty man whose politics are a rationalisation of his misanthropy. He's narrow, sneering, snobbish and filled with bile.

Yes, he's right on some issues. So's Nick Griffin. But both are pieces of puss.

Give me someone like Roger Struton any day. Just as right wing but motivated by love, not hate.

[Common Sense]

That should be Roger Scruton, of course.

[Tony Makara]

The fact that Heffer thinks Jacqui Smith is glamorous shows his judgment is not the best!

His views often seem 25 years out of date too!

[Drusilla]

The Right is so unattractive a lot of the time.

Because that's what's really important, isn't it? Looking 'attractive', I mean, as opposed to e.g. speaking the truth or doing the right thing?

[B]

Top post, couldn't have said it better myself.

[Andrew Woodman]

Without wanting to make this an outright Heffer bash, he is stuck in a 1960s timewarp. It's a shame his disingenuous and cynical way of putting things put people off the very fair point you mention about the detached political class that is emerging. If he reasoned the argument without the nastiness then he might get people other than maniac extreme right wingers listening to him.

[DK]

To all of the people commenting in favour of Heffer, do you want to be spanked at the general for the fourth time in a row? Heffer's brand of politics has been tried by the Tories under Hague and Howard and the electorate don't like it. If your happy for the Tories to be an eternal opposition then stick with your views. If you want the Tories to one day get back into power so that we can get our liberties back and run an efficient budget-conscious government and God forbid have a social conscience then get on board the Cameron express.

[CCHQ Spy]

There are plenty of right-of-centre journalists that I'm proud to have as 'my representatives'. Jeff Randall. Fraser Nelson (in particular). Matthew Parris. Janet Daley. Iain Martin. But Simon Heffer is awful. Really awful.

[Jennifer Wells]

Drusilla,

If you were familiar with my posts on this blog you would know I often critique the Cameroons. I'm in politics because I want the right thing to be done but getting the right thing done isn't helped by having unattractive ambassadors like Simon Heffer. That's all I meant.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Unfortunately Drusilla, it does.Which is why someone like Blair could win elections and good men like Hague and Howard couldn't.
The 'Right' does have some excellent advocates for it's cause, I would suggest the Editor is a good example but Simon Heffer isn't one of them. He's sour and pompous and I always feel like disagreeing with him even when he's right. I suspect many others feel the same.

[Alex Swanson]

If he reasoned the argument without the nastiness then he might get people other than maniac extreme right wingers listening to him.

(1) The Left - including the Conservative Left - is always happy to be nasty, how many times have you heard "racist" or "xenophobe" used in argument? Why is it OK for the Left but not the Right?
(2) I and others have spent YEARS trying "reasoned argument". It DOESN'T WORK. I don't like being nasty but it appears to be the only way to get listened to.

stuck in a 1960s timewarp

Lots of people, like myself, would love to have 1960s standards back, in areas like crime, education, civil liberties, taxation. Yes, some things are better (eg society is not so casually racist or homophobic as it was then) but many things are much worse.

[Dan Beckham]

Not everyone can be likeable. Many didn't like Mrs Thatcher but she was respected.

i find it difficult to like or respect Simon Heffer when I watch a video like this one.

[Richard ROBINSON]

Last year I attended an event at which Simon Heffer was speaking in Windsor. Two things struck me which seem to be confirmed by subsequent reading of his newspaper columns. The first was his willingness to misrepresent opinions that he disagrees with - he has a habit of setting up straw men, then knocking them down. The second was how personal his dislike is of "Dave". This seemed to be based as much as anything on class and seems to say more about Simon Heffer than it does about DC.

Well done Windsor Conservatives for putting on such an interesting event. I have never since read Heffer in the same light.

[SpudHead]

Heffer has written some very scholarly and academic works on conservatism. Read his piece in 'The Political Thought of the Conservative Party since 1945' and his superb work on Enoch Powell. He's a traditionalist who believes MPs are Burkean representatives to safeguard the integrity of the nation and national institutions. Hence his attack on MPs in today's modern context.

[davidk]

"He's angry. He's uncomfortable with modern Britain. He is ungenerous to his opponents - putting the worst possible spin on their views. He has no time for the need for a more balanced Conservative Party that takes social and international justice issues seriously."

exactly why when Brown came in he supported him - he saw a kindred spirit

and exactly why he hates to see the conservative party progressing under Cameron

[christina speight]

When the party leadership consistently ducks important issues we need someone outspoken like Heffer to bring us back to earth with a bump.

Cameron may have - what was the word? _ disinfected [?] the party but he's left it sterile with absolutely no fire in its belly at all and no reason why I or anybody else should bother.

He sees through the cant and hypocrisy that is most of the political posturing today and if he is a bit OTT at times he has passion and that's what's lacking in Cameron's Tories.

[Adam in London]

Heffer is that saddest of creatures - a man who claims to love Britainbut clearly can't stand Britons.

[Bill]

At least Heffer covers the issues which really concern people, unlike the move along now attitude of the chocolate orange inspector's acolytes. The Tories sat in shock on their backsides for a decade whilst Labour ran amok with a cultural, legal and constitutional revolution. And I see no chance that today's privileged (comme d'habitude) Tories have the courage the Thatcherites had in reversing this country's downward decline.

[Drusilla]

Personally, I'm glad that Heffer exists. No, his persona doesn't particularly appeal to me, either, but at the same time, neither do plenty of other Conservative commentators. The point is that, at least in theory, chacun son gout, and perhaps indeed there's an audience out there for Heffer just as there is for Dale, Parris, Daley, etc.

For those of you who are interested in such things, one of the ways in which the Conservative Party can win elections (as the Thatcher example suggests) is by acting as a coalition of often alarmingly disparate interests and affinities, united only in their fed-upness with the current regime. (The damage this does to the party, and to its general sense of purpose, need not become clear for some time.)

Let a thousand Heffers, err, flowers bloom.

[His Eminence]

Good God. Well said Ed. Credit where its due.

[David Belchamber]

I thoroughly agree with CCHQ Spy | January 18, 2008 at 10:21:

"There are plenty of right-of-centre journalists that I'm proud to have as 'my representatives'. Jeff Randall. Fraser Nelson (in particular). Matthew Parris. Janet Daley. Iain Martin. But Simon Heffer is awful. Really awful".

However, it is important that conservatives are balanced and fair - even with Simon Heffer and Gordon Brown!

I do agree with him that most politicians seem to be professional politicians without any real hinterland (Nulab perhaps more than tories) and few appear to display a public service ethic. The rest of Heffer's comments I would ignore.

As with others who have posted, I can share his anger at what Nulab has done to ( rather than "for") Britain.

What worries me is whether the tories really have what it will take to put things right. They are taking their time to get their act together and could have been caught out badly, had Brown not dithered over an election.

There is an outside chance that Nulab might suddenly implode and an election could then follow in a few months. Are we nearly ready yet?

[bill]

Notwithstanding the Editor's prerogative, I suggested the other day that this site might IMO consider a bit more coverage of issues which really matter to the electorate.

[Jake]

Never met 'im . Hardly read 'im.

but

you do accept Heff's point about the emergence of a detached ,smug ,arrogant ,political class spanning all parties with more in common with each other than with their supporters . To me this is a central criticism of modern politics in which nearly all of the population are effectively excluded from poltics , certainly in England . That you play this down is seriously worrying .

"Uncomfortable with modern Britain "
If you aren't also then what the h-ll are playing at politics for ?

or are you hinting that the Conservatives should just settle for being a part of that detached political class ?

[Malcolm Dunn]

What issues are those Bill?

[Bill]

I agree with Jake.

The masses all suffer from the indifference and arrogance of the political classes who have consistently undermined our freedom and sovereignty.

[Sally Roberts]

I don't agree with Ann Widdecombe on everything but on this she is spot on!! Heffer is a total liability and would put many people off voting Conservative if they thought that everyone in the Party was like him.

[David]

"There are very few MPs with a public service ethic.."

Heffer doesn't think anyone has a public service ethic. He berates MPs, civil servants, doctors and teachers.

He's just an angry man out of touch with life. Best left behind.

[griff]

Can't you see it? Like the Hitchens brothers, Heffer has to earn a living. What better way to earn a crust than to write the way he does. Newspapers in the past have called his column 'irreverent' or 'irrepressible' just to sell newspapers. I just don't read him because I know he's only in it for the money and a true hypocrite.

[Umbrella man]

I agree with everything in your editorial Tim but do you agree that it is unwise for Cameron to attack Heffer as he has done on occasions? It lowers the Conservative leader to SH's level and probably just encourages him!

[Bill]

Whether or not they have a public sector ethic, simply being an MP, civil servant, doctor or teacher should not render oneself immune from criticism.

The fact is the public sector as a whole is not only too large but also in large areas inefficient. The latter point should not surprise when resources are allocated by rationing and diktat rather than by the price mechanism. And that's before you add on the scourge of political correctness.

[Jon Gale]

"stuck in 1960's timewarp"

If Heffer had been in the 60's he would've spent all his time attacking the post-war consensus govts of Churchill/Eden/Macmillan/Home as communist pinko traitors and careerists.

Ironically, that would be a more realistic charge (but still wrong) than accusing the present-day party of being socialist.

[Tony Makara]

"the only incapacity many of the present recipients have is that of getting out of bed in the mornings."

Simon Heffer on welfare reform (Daily Telegraph) 5/1/08

Julius Streicher would have been proud of such a nasty vindictive statement.

What can I do when I'm trying to talk people into voting Conservative and they turn around and point to people like Heffer as proof that the Conservative party hasn't changed. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle with comments like the one above.

[Mark Fulford]

I always feel like disagreeing with him even when he's right

Malcolm, you’re not alone! I suspect we're hardwired to see angry people as dangerous and unwelcome.

[changetowin]

Rarely say this - indeed rarely comment at all these days - but well said Tim!

Heffer is the past.

[Sally Roberts]

griff - I wish you were right...but sadly I think the man actually believes what he says!

[deborah]

I would simply point out that the vast majority of posts are playing the person not the ball.
In the South, where most of the politicians and commentators live, everyone is very careful to tiptoe around subjects. In the North they have a phrase for people who are blunt, like Heffer. They say "he calls a spade a bl--dy shovel".
The point being, he may be abrasive and talk extremes, but that doesn't mean to say there isn't truth in what he says. Many politicians and commentators do seem to exist in comfortable ivory towers, detached from real life. Many MPs have little idea of public service - they are happy to take the position and the perks, but refuse to recognise the responsibility that comes with it.
Come out to middle England and you will find a lot of people who are angry like Heffer. Patience is running out.
I'm not saying that the Party should adopt Heffer's tone - but they should refrain from rubbishing everything he says. Sometimes, he has a point.

[Northernhousewife]

Heffer amy make a good point [occassionally] but most people will not take the time to shift them out of the bile. Who wants to put their hand in a bucket of swill to see if there is a five pound note in it.
Heffer is a commentator in the style of 'Shut up and look at me you horrible stupid lot'.
If you want to talk to the public like that, go ahead, it's a democracy. But you will have to do it from the opposition benches [and even that will be on a short lease].

His shallow disloyal support of Brown should be something we never allow him to forget. You can bet he would never let Dave off the hook if he made made such a howler.
Let us not forget that this party and the right of British politics came very to being blown up in November last year with some of the gunowder being provided by the likes of him. He thinks we should earn his respect. Right now, he needs to earn ours.

[David Cooper]

To be fair to Simon Heffer, it is worth distinguishing between his Wednesday and Saturday columns in the Telegraph. The former is usually a sensible piece of analysis (such as this Wednesday’s on the Peter Hain affair) whereas the latter is in a bite sized chunks format deliberately designed to play on the readership’s assumed sense of despair and outrage about the past week’s events.

The Saturday column over the last 12 months appears to have shifted from attacking “Dave” at every possible opportunity, as had once invariably been the case. The lead story nowadays is usually a vehicle for blunt criticism of Brown and the government, often in a tone that may be more suited to the tabloids but rarely failing to hit the target. Sometimes there may be a veiled – or full blooded - rant about the lack of effective opposition, but on other occasions he can be seen inviting the opposition to attack and show what they are made of.

Ultimately, he is a journalist and writer rather than a politician. The words “vote Conservative” may stick in his throat but the underlying message “look at the state this country is in” will never be completely unhelpful if it dissuades people from voting Labour.

[Moral minority]

Heffer is trying to be a 21st Century H L Mencken. Mencken was a curmudgeon too, had a similarly very low opinion of politicians and also used inflamatory language. Mencken is now revered in journalistic circles.

The prissy, hand-wringing wimps on this site, including the author of the main article, should stop the childish whining about Heffer grow up.

[Northernhousewife]

In the north we do have 'phrases for people like Heffer'. I expect they are pretty similair to those you'd use in the south.

Even people who call a 'spade a spade' don't get elected up here if they call a stupid voter, 'a stupid voter'. Heffer preaches, nay barks, at the converted who know it is everyone else he is insulting, not them. Not a good way to widen your support.

[Robert Winterton]

Well Northernhousewife - the electorate shall reap what the sowed!

[Robert Winterton]

whoops - what they sowed

[Cameroonie Conservative]

Without wanting to spark World War Three, can I ask if his views are any different to those of Roger Helmer? Probably not, IMHO.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Moral Minority, I've never heard of him and having spent many years working in the national press have never heard any journalist mention him. Is he really revered by anybody?

[TimB]

As a supporter of the Cameron project it's been fantastic to have Heffer as the standard bearer for the opponents. Every time he pops up to put his halfpenny in by attacking Cameron support for the party must increase and the anti-modernisers be discredited.

But what really makes me laugh is that for all his so-called traditional, values-based conservatism his Telegraph column is attractive only to the thick, unsophisticated, Telegraph readers who, if they were working class, would be buying The Sun, Heat and watching Big Brother.

It is sensationalist, distorting, careless and superficial journalism. He must think he is still at the Express.

I am sure that an intelligent man like Enoch Powell, for instance, would have been appalled at the sort of drivel now infecting what was once a newspaper for respectable people.

[Bill]

Like TimB I also went off the Telegraph but for opposite reasons.

I do not agree with everything Heffer says. Nor do I always agree with how he says things. However he is often enough right in what he says and unafraid to say so. I sometimes think the squeamish squeals from some of those who endlessly attack him are for mere effect.

[Alex Swanson]

his Telegraph column is attractive only to the thick, unsophisticated, Telegraph readers who, if they were working class, would be buying The Sun, Heat and watching Big Brother.

It is sensationalist, distorting, careless and superficial journalism.

An excellent illustration of my earlier point - apparently right-wing people must be polite and courteous at all times about their opponents but left-wing people can be as vicious as they like.

And to repeat my other earlier point - adopting left-wing policies just because you think they're more popular will, in the long run, do neither yourselves or the country any good.

Argue on the merits of your views or not at all.

[Oberon Houston]

Heffer is certainly capable of interesting analysis, especially when he moves away from British party politics. For example his views on the strengthening of the UN is something that resonates with me.

The very mention of the Conservative Party however clearly causes neural sparks to fly. He seems to think that the party is the natural home for his viewpoint and cannot accept that this isn't the case. Emotion takes over and the result is depressing and distasteful.

Every nation of debaters has its outer edge of 'mainstream' contributers - that always the way it's been and will be. Simon has deliberately occupied the right rim. And there he will stay. I agree with the comment above regarding Roger Scruton - its possible to discuss these subjects without being offensive, to resort to that is to undermine the very point being made.

[Soothseer]

The ruling political elite class is alive, and well represented in the NuConswervative party. I suppose Simon Heffer sees this for what it truly is, the final days of democracy. The EU triumphs in Brussels, with approval of the con/lib/lab axis, our state education is destroyed, and the NHS third world standard, our army abused and the navy neutered. Meanwhile the Cameroonies schmoose with the liberals and the socialists, happy as part of the political elite class. After ten years of paralysis in opposition, the Conswervatives are as spineless as ever. They can just raise energy enough to bad mouth a working class prophet.
It aint good enough to whine that only socialists can win elections in the U.K. Guts, determination and leadership can move mountains.

[Northernhousewife]

Robert Winterton
I think you mean, 'what thee sowed'.

In North Yorkshire, we sow blue. Locally we get blue. Nationally, we get red.

[Alex Swanson]

its possible to discuss these subjects without being offensive, to resort to that is to undermine the very point being made.

Obviously what I'm posting is not being understood. It must be the accent.

(1) The Left routinely uses abuse in place of argument. Attacking someone right wing for doing the same is just hypocrisy.

(2) I and others have tried for years to make good arguments politely. It doesn't work.

I'll repeat that last bit just to be clear.

IT DOESN'T WORK

When arguments are met with respect even when put politely, I might consider moving back to politeness. In the meantime I personally see no problem with using the methods regarded by my opponents as perfectly acceptable when used by themselves.

[Lindsay Jenkins]

Simon Heffer is spot on about MPs today - professional politicians with little or no experience.

And Ann Widdecombe makes an excellent point - select candidates on merit. But would she make it onto the candiates' list today? With her views - unlikely.

[Richard Carey]

I and others have tried for years to make good arguments politely. It doesn't work. I'll repeat that last bit just to be clear. IT DOESN'T WORK

Neither does shouting. Either you're making the wrong arguments, or you're just not very good at it.

The Left routinely uses abuse in place of argument. Attacking someone right wing for doing the same is just hypocrisy.

Let me get this straight - I can return fire on someone from Labour or the LibDems for having a go at my party, but not return fire on a Right-wing cretin like Heffer for doing the same from the other direction? By the way, in the Bromley by-election, I seem to remember him coming out and endorsing a minority-party opponent (UKRAP) - I've never heard him rescind this, thankfully, and so will continue to treat him like any other opponent.

Quite apart from that, on a personal level, I can't stand the guy. Previous contributors to this thread are quite correct - whatever rare good points he has tried to make are lost in the swill of bile.

"Umbrella Man" above asked whether it was unwise for the leadership to attack Heffer. Probably in future it might be, but it has served a purpose of reassuring people who thought we were like him and his ilk in the past. It put some distance between the Party and the "unatractive Right", to borrow a phrase from earlier.

I heard of something that had been written fairly recently that referred to "the stupid right" vs "the intelligent right" - perhaps someone could help me out with the source, as it eludes me at present. Let's take the subject raised above of welfare.

The "intelligent right" (in which I would for example include our esteemed Editor!) recognises that people generally do better with opportunity and aspiration in their lives. Leading them towards the chance to work and better the lot of themselves and their family rather than being stranded on benefits is "good for me, and good for my neighbour".

The "stupid right" (Simon Heffer) say "the only incapacity many of the present recipients have is that of getting out of bed in the mornings" [and the poor should go hang themselves]...

The likes of Heffer are very definitely the past, and rightly so.

[IRJMilne]

"Heffer's brand of politics has been tried by the Tories under Hague and Howard and the electorate don't like it."

Not quite true. More people voted for the party under Howard than for Labour under Blair in 2005. Moreover, I don't know if I would say that either Howard of Hague were quite the same as Simon Heffer in either politics or persona, so it's an inaccurate statement on both counts.

[Philip]

I agree with the Ed that we need a Conservative Party that takes social and international justice issues seriously,

But …(referring to Simon Heffer) He's uncomfortable with modern Britain ?? This sounds like the mantra of the metropolitan elite. Many (outside the metropolitan elite) are indeed uncomfortable with much in “modern Britain”. Perhaps CH is losing its cutting edge and becoming part of the “detached political class" !

[Matt Wright]

I think there was an unfair perception of Conservatives centred on the generalisation (usefully accentuated by Labour) that the party had drifted into a lazy pure economic view of the world. By the late 90s some Conservatives were unfairly seen too often as knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. A small number of Tories came to coldly personify this and we were right to highlight that this is not the mainstream of Conservative thinking and to move away from it and broaden our agenda. Heffer seems to want to go backwards and I think on balance it would lose us more votes than it would win. That is not to say there is no scope for us to develop our case further in a more practical and distinctive way in some areas. I think we have to find a balance between not giving Labour too many ideas and clearly forming a strong sense of what we stand for. Focus is key.

[HF]

When Heffer started supporting UKIP and spending more time attacking the Conservatives than the Govt was the time when he had clearly lost the plot.

[Joe James Broughton]

Heffer is like scratching at some wound - because he raises things that are partly right - but gets them out of context.

There is no doubt that disliking the country is political suicide.

A sad man.

There are better right wing journalists and commentators, as has been explained - Jeff Randall, Janet Daley, Bruce Anderson.

[Joe James Broughton]

...and of course, the excellent Ruth Leigh from the Centre for Policy Studies.

[jonnyboy]

Heffer generally makes good sound right side arguments - that his style or arguing them is neither here nor there since he is not standing for any elected office nor, so far as I know, has any intention of doing so. You may not like his style but his politics generally have a resonance with the wider public; ie those who need to be re-engaged in the democratic process.

In Blackpool we made Brown bottled out by announcing one truly right wing conservative policy that resonated with the electorate.

If we could make it clear that we stand for personal responsibility, bringing law and order back to our streets and had an effective policy to make education work (Grammar Schools? - yes please)in that a minimum of 95% left school literate and numerate etc then we would be enjoying a 20% or greater lead in the polls. That we have failed to inspire the electorate is a product of aligning policy rather close to new lab.

Heffer is also right that many members of parliament are not "fit for purpose" - presently it is the new lab sheep that fill the back benches who are the biggest problem.

Does it really matter? Most of our law making is now made in Brussels by the unelected commisars. That may well be the point Heffer is truly making.

[Joe James Broughton]

The trouble with that is he wouldn't resonate with the electorate as a whole because he makes it pretty clear he doesn't like them. (jonnyboy's point).

But I agree we need to sharpen up the core policies (or aims - without giving our ideas away) - some have been from Sept 2007 but more needed.

[Joe James Broughton]

Also (with the exception of some well intended people who don't realise who they joined plus some in the Lords) - the Lib Dems are a vile bunch of smearers.

Any objective analysis would show that to be the case.

Yet, I find Simon Heffer in the Daily Telegraph likes to talk them up - obviously as a way of wishing harm on the Tories. Well - he can go and join the Yellow Peril.

[Opinicus]

He's narrow, sneering, snobbish and filled with bile. - "Common Sense"

he is stuck in a 1960s timewarp. - Andrew Woodman

Heffer is that saddest of creatures - Adam in London

He's just an angry man out of touch with life. Best left behind - David

Who wants to put their hand in a bucket of swill to see if there is a five pound note in it. - "Northern Housewife"

I can't stand the guy. Previous contributors to this thread are quite correct - whatever rare good points he has tried to make are lost in the swill of bile.
- Richard Carey

and best of all
But what really makes me laugh is that for all his so-called traditional, values-based conservatism his Telegraph column is attractive only to the thick, unsophisticated, Telegraph readers who, if they were working class, would be buying The Sun, Heat and watching Big Brother. - TimB

As fine a selection of generous Christian critiquers as you could hope to find. None of whom would make an ad hominem attack, if the life of their white haired grandmothers depended on it. Unmotivated by class prejudices (especially TimB, who would be an intellectual snob too, if he had one), their contributions to this column are as free from bile and hatred as the Sermon on the Mount.

Fat bunch of hypocrites

[Jonathan]

Which leaves us with the work and not the artist.

Heffer's criticism of the Cameron Conservative party is threefold

1) Its officers are thin-skinned metropolitan snobs who are unable and unwilling to engage at an intellectual level with the concerns of ordinary voters, further than two boroughs either side of Notting Hill. People who are so convinced of their own moral and intellectual rectitude that they are unable to tolerate let alone analyse criticism. People who have more in common with their opposite numbers in the other two parties and in Europe than with their own members or ordinary voters.

All the posts above show this criticism to be essentially true.

2)Its emphasis on style over policy substance is fundamentally the wrong strategy for the post-Blair era.

Those of us with memories capable of a three month stretch will recall that in the last week of September this Party was on its knees. We were about to be hammered out of sight in a November election. It took one right wing policy announcement of the kind Heffer had been calling for for 2 yrs - yes just one - to turn the situation around. Since then there have been a few more. Even CCHQ has accepted that Heffer was right on that one!

3) Britain is in big trouble - far bigger than the media and the political class will admit. Socially, econmically, constitutionally. The Conservative Party has a moral duty to face up to this and to enunciate it to the voters as lady T did, not to go with the flow as Macmillan and Heath did.

The zeitgeist is changing Heffers way on this one too.

Yes Heffer is a fat man. Yes Heffer has a pointed nose and a sneering drawl. Yes he correctly estimates the net worth of a lot of the small men at the top of our Party who have spent 10 yrs in opposition and in the case of Clarke and some of the really old deadwood a further five years in government aiming us for 10 yrs in opposition. Worse he does not care who knows his opinion of them.

But this is politics not aesthetics

Nobody liked Lady T until she won the Falklands War and dropped the top rate of tax to 40%.

Hefferism is not the past, it is the future.
Nobody's ever going to like him though. Which doesn't matter, except possibly to him.

[Malcolm Dunn]

You've got to admit Jonathan that if Heffer has so little support on a board like this his impact on the general public is extremely unlikely to be favourable. I don't think Heffer is the future or the past he's just increasingly irrelevant.
Mind you, he's quite sane in comparison to the ridiculous Peter Hitchens who'se good for a laugh but not much else.For those with access to the Mail On Sunday you can see him making a fool of himself (again) today .

[Umbongo]

"You've got to admit Jonathan that if Heffer has so little support on a board like this his impact on the general public is extremely unlikely to be favourable."

It's no surprise that "on a board like this" Heffer's views would be unwelcome. Since most of the regular (Cameroon) contributors to this board are "conservative" in name only and support policies which the government would be quite happy to implement (or already have). As "Jonathan" writes, it only needed one "Conservative" policy pulled like a bad tooth from Osborne's mouth (and condemned by the Cameroons on this board) to result in opinion poll catastrophe to and panic by Labour.

The country is so heartily sick of the government that even the Conservatives are preferred. This is purely a negative win because the country is going to get more of the same from the Cameroons - only better dressed and with a nicer accent. As I write David Davies is on the point of giving the government a free run for a 42 day detention period: not very "conservative" but, I'm sure, even this will be supported by the Cameroons on this board since it will "prove" how enlightened and progressive today's Conservative Party is.

[Simon Denis]

Surely the point is that Simon Heffer makes a good friend and an infuriating enemy. Being a journalist, that is his current job; he is a gadfly. This is no insult. Some of the greatest minds have taken up precisely this stance. In consequence, one's reactions to the man tend to see-saw up and down. As a supporter of independence and academic selection among schools, I value his constant broadsides against the comprehensives. If nothing else, they cheer me up and leave me feeling that at least somebody understands; better, that at least somebody cares. On the other hand, being half French, I am occasionally moved to rage by his outbursts of gallophobia. And yet he is strangely tender towards French civilisation; it's the French state he seems to dislike. So he's a gadfly - but not a flibbertigibbet. He means what he writes, which makes him a real original. We should remain gratefully aware that in provoking these violent reactions he is at least stimulating the mind. True, he looks on modern Britain with distaste and sometimes disdain. But don't we all, from time to time? Is there not something profoundly sad about the loss of delicacy and intensity and mystery which once characterised this country? We have given up pretty old schools for vast anti-academic dumps; craft for tat; art for Emin and Hurst; identity for multicultural anomie. I could go on, but you will all know what I mean. Reminding people of all these losses will not win an election, that's for sure, but it will - to quote Louis MacNeice - "accentuate a thirst", a thirst for the finer things which badly needs quenching. It is to his credit that he is not a politician, in a way - even a good one - and by the way, he's surely right that the current crop is hardly a vintage. Politicians are thick skinned, adaptable, glad handing, ruthless survivors. To find out about even the greatest is to know exactly what the church has always meant in stigmatising the "worldly". No, Heffer is a great, melancholy, disappointed romantic who sees life from a greater height than does the politician or the bureaucrat. He is aspiring to the condition of an artist and we should doff our hats to him for that.

[Moral minority]

What an anti-climax! That was an amateurish production that was unworthy of a red brick university's media studies department!!

Iain Dale did not confront Heffer. He whined like a wimpish and pathetic schoolboy. If you want a true gay Tory, send for a true heavyweight intellectual like Prof David Starkey. Dale should blogger off and give us a rest from his lightwight scribbling and inflated ego.

[Northernhousewife]

Why 'red brick' university. Snobbery?

[Moral minority]

Not snobbery. It's just that media studies is more prevalent in red brick universities. Northernhousewife is typically chippy.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Iain Dale is quite prepared to stand by his opinion Moral Minority and does not feel the need to criticise others behind the cowardly cloak of a pseudonym.

[john broughton]

Malcolm

Does the fact that Iain Dale is prepared to stand by his opinion validate it?

Heffer represents a large part of "conservative" (as opposed to party) opinion.