I have been known to say that I’m the Telegraph’s token liberal. I’m like its inoculation, a sort of liberal antibody that keeps its immune system robust.
It’s not true of course. While the Daily Telegraph is a conservative newspaper (and that small “c” is deliberate), it’s also a broad church. There are social as well as economic liberals aboard. And political liberalism is, in any event, a moveable feast; while “liberal” is usually a badge for those on the Left, the collapse of economic liberalism and free markets over the past year is a seizure at the heart of the Right. And there’s nothing like a crisis to bring out a political fundamentalism. So we’re witnessing a right-wing libertarian renaissance, especially in the blogosphere where the Right enjoys a virtual hegemony, enraged or encouraged (much to his potential embarrassment) by the prospect of a David Cameron victory at the polls next year.
These are what I call the new “Righties”. Just as “Lefties” were always a caricature – social workers in sandals with wispy beards raising grants for lesbian workshops – so are Righties a grotesque exaggeration of neo-conservatism. They are, quite literally, enemies of the state, in that they believe that the Government should barely play any role in their lives.
‘Righties are defined by a kind of raging intolerance’
Righties will call any mention of social justice or welfare “political correctness”; they blame Lefties for wanting to ban stuff, but are very keen themselves on proscribing state institutions such as the BBC and the NHS. And Righties, of course, honestly believe against all statistical evidence that Europe is poised to be overrun by Muslims establishing a new caliphate. Righties sometimes aspire to a nostalgic, bun-throwing, sub-Brideshead poshness, taking hunting lessons and holding weekend house-parties, where they affect nicknames such as “Binkie” and “Toots”, with some rather less cute nicknames for people of a different ethnicity. I gather Oxford’s Conservative Association hasn’t been immune from these nobs – though maybe that should be spelt with a “k”.
These Rightie clowns should be little more than a potential embarrassment to the liberal Cameroons. But I have noticed a more worrying development. Righties are defined by a kind of raging intolerance. Righties are always right. And that is far from confined to the political right-wing. Take Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon. Now, Evan and I have had something of an online ding-dong on the subject of assisted suicide. But rest assured this is not about to turn into a “Don’t vote for Harris” piece.
All I want to point out is that much of Dr Harris’s political career seems motivated by a sort of missionary zeal for driving religion out of the political sphere. Whether he’s publishing his bill to abolish the Act of Succession, promoting late-term abortions or championing euthanasia, there appears to be an undertow of disestablishment of the Church of England and denial of a voice for people of faith in public affairs.
Now, there are many good reasons for disestablishing the Church. But denying religious people a public voice is not one of them. Pluralism is endemic of liberalism and it doesn’t seem very liberal of Dr Harris to discriminate against people on the basis of their religiosity. Nor, as it happens, does it appear very democratic, having failed to get assisted suicide legalised in parliament, to set about achieving the same aim through a ginger group of Law Lords and their “clarifying” directive to the director of public prosecutions.
But no matter. What I really want to know is where this rabid intolerance comes from. I’m a priest in the Church of England and one of the attractions of Anglicanism historically has been its broad-based tolerance of others (though there is a disturbing strain of a protestant fundamentalism which we too must resist). I sense that no such reciprocal tolerance is extended to us and those of others faiths by the more militant secularists and atheists, who are Dr Harris’s friends. I hope a fresh liberal tolerance will emerge in next year’s election. But it won’t if the Righties prevail. And you won’t find them only in the parties of the Right.
