Peter Hitchens’ prognostications over the years have been depressingly accurate. He was among the first to implore conservatives to abandon the Conservative Party, rightly observing that it began as an outfit for getting the sons of gentlemen into political office and was utterly bereft of any principles.
Do the entitled elites-little more than parasites in my opinion- truly believe in 'creative destruction'- aka technocratic immiseration- or is it just that they are too committed,arrogant and out of touch that they cannot and will not, envisage a sorely needed change of direction?
Now we see our newlynstalled PM Sunak doing the usual duck and dive,as he reneges on one former pledge after another: COP27, plus effusive sound bites, mass migration completely out of control, with illegal entrants rioting and demanding better treatment, a reluctance to rule out disastrous lockdowns in the future, a continuance of the costly -no dissent allowed- support for a prolongation of the conflict in Ukraine.
My only hope is that the US mid term results will effect a rethink in no 10, but who knows?
The final nail in Conservatism’s coffin was Whig radicals like Scruton and Hitchens being allowed to infiltrate it. It’s a poor joke that anyone purporting to be in any way right-wing or traditionalist cites either of the latter two snakes-in-the-grass as ‘conservative’ when they don’t (or didn’t in Scruton’s case—‘Press “S”’ as they say on 4Chan) want to conserve even our 400 year old kingdom. (Their relationship with historical fact is also tenuous to say the least).
The failure of conservatism was remarked upon over a century ago by such as Robert Dabney:
‘[C]onservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is to-day one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will to-morrow be forced upon its timidity, and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. … [C]onservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. … It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle.’
(Dabney, Robert L. ‘Discussions’, vol. 4, 1897. 496.)
Do the entitled elites-little more than parasites in my opinion- truly believe in 'creative destruction'- aka technocratic immiseration- or is it just that they are too committed,arrogant and out of touch that they cannot and will not, envisage a sorely needed change of direction?
Now we see our newlynstalled PM Sunak doing the usual duck and dive,as he reneges on one former pledge after another: COP27, plus effusive sound bites, mass migration completely out of control, with illegal entrants rioting and demanding better treatment, a reluctance to rule out disastrous lockdowns in the future, a continuance of the costly -no dissent allowed- support for a prolongation of the conflict in Ukraine.
My only hope is that the US mid term results will effect a rethink in no 10, but who knows?
The final nail in Conservatism’s coffin was Whig radicals like Scruton and Hitchens being allowed to infiltrate it. It’s a poor joke that anyone purporting to be in any way right-wing or traditionalist cites either of the latter two snakes-in-the-grass as ‘conservative’ when they don’t (or didn’t in Scruton’s case—‘Press “S”’ as they say on 4Chan) want to conserve even our 400 year old kingdom. (Their relationship with historical fact is also tenuous to say the least).
The failure of conservatism was remarked upon over a century ago by such as Robert Dabney:
‘[C]onservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is to-day one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will to-morrow be forced upon its timidity, and will be succeeded by some third revolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. … [C]onservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. … It is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle.’
(Dabney, Robert L. ‘Discussions’, vol. 4, 1897. 496.)
See also Chesterton in 1924: https://chestertonstl.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/the-blunders-of-our-parties/