As we witness the dying gasps of a Conservative government bereft of purpose or direction, the belief is gaining currency among many on the right of the party that what is needed is a dose of Thatcherism – a combination of tax cutting and the unleashing of our entrepreneurial spirit. Liz Truss was right. This, they argue, is real conservatism.
Yes, we need lower taxes, along with better managed public services and an overhauled welfare system. And yes, enterprise plays a vital part in any market economy. But Britain is more than just a business, and most of us are not risk-taking, go-getting entrepreneurs. Nor are we especially driven to excel in our chosen calling by working all hours of day and night. Our sources of satisfaction lie elsewhere: in an honest job well done, family and friends, leisure pursuits, home and garden, public service, and in the small pleasures and unexpected encounters of everyday life. We want to know, ‘What is in it for us?’
It is questionable even on business grounds whether everything should be left to market forces. Countries from Germany to Switzerland, from Japan to Singapore, have industrial strategies precisely to ensure that markets work in their national interest – that workers are skilled, infant industries are protected, and long-term investment is promoted. Our strategy, by contrast, is to leave it all to global markets, with the result that investment decisions are the by-product of a financial casino managed by hedge fund managers and private equity firms in search of a quick return.
For those who voted Brexit, ‘Global Britain’ was not at all what they had in mind. Theirs was not a vote for the mass import of ‘the brightest and the best’ from around the world to ‘grow the economy’, nor for the sale of our national infrastructure to foreign investors under the catchline ‘Britain is open for business’. Theirs was a vote to take back control. They wanted to feel at home in settled communities, to safeguard traditional patterns of life, and to share experiences and memories rooted in a common culture – all things that conservatives used to care about; they wanted their children to be able to earn a decent wage and afford a home to live in; and they wanted, above all, to stem the tide of mass immigration which they saw as threatening all of this. However, with immigration last year reaching record levels, as a deliberate act of policy, these hopes have been grotesquely betrayed.
Nor was Brexit a vote for that inevitable accompaniment to globalism, the ideology of diversity, inclusion and multiculture, the poison of identity politics or ‘woke’. People were fed up with the host culture, their culture, being branded irredeemably racist. They also wanted back something they held especially dear, and which their forbears fought for: the right to express their thoughts freely without being criminalised for causing offence. Here, again, their hopes have been betrayed.
This is the context of the proposed sale of the Telegraph and the Spectator to an international investment fund financed by the United Arab Emirates. The threat posed to our free press, and to our wider democratic life, is obvious. But the irony is that the Telegraph and the Spectator are victims of the very global markets and neo-liberal dogmas that they have long espoused. Whether it be the sale of national newspapers to Russian billionaires, our defence industries to American private equity firms, semiconductor producers to the Chinese, or property and commercial assets to the Gulf states, everything is up for grabs. Even the plane which guards the entrance to Heathrow Airport, once a Concorde proudly emblazoned in British Airways livery, is now an Emirates airbus.
Of course, the sale should be resisted. But it is symptomatic of a deeper malaise, and we should not be the least surprised if our Conservative government welcomes it. If global Britain is ‘open for business’, why not, indeed, the Telegraph and the Spectator?
We wish all our subscribers the joys of the festive season and hope that the New Year might bring some hope for us all.
