Joining in with 'Rule, Britannia!' at the Last Night of the Proms in pre-Covid times. (Photo by Matt Kent/WireImage)
![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/richardgodwin-100x100.png)
Imagine a political party that stood for election on a platform of Pissing Everyone Off. The Five-Year-Plan is to increase national irritation by 15%, paranoid ranting by 23% and make family-get-togethers 30% more fraught by 2029. MAKE BRITAIN ANGRY AGAIN, read the baseball caps. The choice of baseball caps — an annoyingly non-British form of headwear — is deliberate. It is part of an ambitious drive to increase stupid arguments about things that don’t really matter by 45% year-on-year.
Oh and this will be a tech-savvy Government too. Due to social distancing/general-issue 21st century atomisation (it’s rare these days that we actually get to meet the people we’re encouraged to view as our enemies), we can expect interventions in our waking thoughts too. You know your interior monologue? The narrator in your head who aims to bring coherence to the largely random events in your life? Yeah, that guy is going to go mental. He’s going to be arguing with invisible strangers ALL THE TIME. You’re going to hate it.
If briefings by certain Conservative MPs are to be believed, cultural warfare as outlined above could form the bedrock of the party’s appeal to the nation in 2024. It shouldn’t be too hard to imagine, either, since we have been living in a pale version of this nightmare since at least 2016, its escalation foreshadowed by a succession of not-quite stories that have pissed people off these past few weeks.
You know the sort of thing. The arguments about Rule, Britannia! at the Proms this summer (reheated just in time for the appointment of a new BBC director general, Tim Davie). The whole breaking the law interlude. The banning of “anti-capitalist” teaching in schools. Priti Patel’s “blue-sky” plan to send asylum seekers to the mid-Atlantic, or else repel them back to France by firing waves at their boats or using nets to clog their propellers. The appointment of the former Australian PM Tony Abbott as trade negotiator. The mooting of former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre in a sort of national censor role at Ofcom and former Telegraph editor Charles Moore as chair of the BBC despite his well publicised enthusiasm for defunding the BBC. As The Times reports, Downing Street wants to “‘whack’ the BBC, bash the impartial civil service, biff the judiciary and wage a ‘war on woke’”.
That Moore later dropped out of the BBC race is sort of the point. These have the feel of manufactured provocations, primarily designed to distract and divide. If one group of people go: “Argh, seriously what now?” and another group of people go: “In your face, you lot!” — well, great. It’s Government by newspaper columnist, for newspaper columnists.
And now, with the ludicrous — sorry, let’s be civil — the former actor Laurence Fox launching his own political party, many Conservatives clearly fear being outflanked on such important issues as the depiction of Indian Sikh soldiers in the First World War movie, 1917.
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SubscribeWhat a passive aggressive article! A woke making jabs at the traditional values as if they were some outrage the writer too above to even condescend to argue against. Sitting out the culture wars? By reading what you actually are saying I would say you are a full combatant on the side of Woke.
Yes, a wholly disingenuous article.
Please could you spell out some of the traditional values you think are under attack in the piece? I mean values – not habits.
Why should he waste his time doing what you tell him?
To actually validate his fake performative “I’m angry about something” behaviour perhaps?
A natural born bed wetter, sadly. Poor chap.
Yes, utter b*****ks as we used to say.
I hope it’s Andrew Doyle or someone similar writing a joke piece. If this guy is for real it’s worrying.
Extraordinary stuff. So conservatives are not supposed to take up cudgels in the culture wars since it will make people angry and irritated and this would amount to accepting ‘as collateral damage our mental health”? Well, sorry pal, you’re going to put up with free speech and contrary opinion for a while longer. A lot longer I hope.
Wow. Just wow. I had to read that twice because it is the most biased thing I’ve ever read that is trying to read as being ever so reasonable.
I really hope your not expecting anyone to consider you one of the “conscientious objectors, peace campaigners, impartial observers”.
You show your fixed viewpoint in many ways but I think my favourite is “Eventually, objective reality will be found to have a Left-wing bias ” and war will be declared on that, too”
Look closely flowed when you declare that any new news channels will be Fox News clones, When neither of them exist and I would argue this is very unlikely for the one being headed up by Andrew Neil.
A differing opinion is not necessarily a wrong opinion”¦ Which I guess is what you were trying to say whilst also saying that anything that differs to your commentary is wrong and stupid.
Your one-sided list of examples, as if the culture wars as you describe them are created by Conservative MPs is not staying out of the culture wars, it’s inflaming them.
Don’t insult our intelligence. This is gaslighting of the most extreme and obvious order. Short translation: ‘we’ll organise marches, mobs, pile-ons, sackings, and dislodge everyone who disagrees with us from public life – and if they have the nerve to object, we’ll accuse THEM of fomenting culture war’!!!! You couldn’t make it up.
The point might go further if the author managed to provide even the faintest veneer of neutrality. It being abundantly clear which side of the culture war he is on, it seems he is calling for a ceasefire while clumsily concealing a weapon behind his back.
“Demographically, the party looks doomed.”
Funny, I have been reading that for the last 40 years.
It turns out that young socialists grow up – except the minority that become journalists.
Having listened yesterday, albeit ‘fracturedly’ for reasons of work, to the Media Show on Radio 4 with the consistently excellent Amol Rajan, I was rather looking forward to reading this having read its rather lofty but laudable headline claim.
Whilst interviewing Piers Morgan as to how ‘liberals’ were increasingly becoming everything but, it was ‘revealed’ ie I have not sought to confirm, that 80% of Twitter content, which has become a mainstay of a good deal of today’s MSM output, is actually generated by only 20% of its users which further translates into only 2% of the population. A megaphone effect indeed.
Being made aware of this what to me is a pretty shocking statistic, as I say as yet unconfirmed, imagine my hopes and expectations when seeing the words, ‘Why I’m sitting out the culture wars’ (fascinatingly changed since this morning) sitting atop this article, only to read a succession of examples that utterly belies this disingenuous claim.
Frankly bizarre.
Interesting point about those percentages. That 2% are the small voice while the MSM provide the megaphone. The old adage of “power without responsibility” is even more true now. How often do we see headlines beginning with the words: “Fury at….” or “Outrage following…” simply because a few social media users and their followers have expressed a contentious opinion or two.
Yes, Tim Pool has been highlighting those same statistics (as they relate to the US) for some time.
I don’t find it surprising that 2% of the population generates the lion’s share of Twitter content. Just look at the dedicated base of commentators you will find on any popular online forum. Consider UnHerd for example, with its group of regulars who can be relied upon to offer their thoughts on topics ranging from feminism to the efficacy of masks at preventing COVID-19. Folks like Monsieur Bailey. That’s not intended as a jab at Fraser or any other members of the UnHerd community. I only mean to point out that oftentimes there is a dedicated cadre of outspoken individuals who, for good or ill, influence the conversation with their prolific contributions.
It’s more the disproportionate affect that big sites like Twitter and Facebook have in shaping and often warping the mainstream news agenda nowadays.
The path of least resistance is all too often the preferred choice of newsgatherers and though it has forever been thus these popular social media sites might well help to fill up the schedules with minimum journalistic effort and ‘get people talking’ but they are, by design, prone to generate far more heat than light.
I take your point. It’s no surprise that social media is dominated by a small group of agitators. But it’s alarming that social media trends dictate journalistic trends. The state of journalism is so deeply yellow that the media should be evaluated for end stage renal failure.
For a while I gave it a fair reading and almost convinced myself it was a dyed in the wool old conservative with no idea how deep Critical Social Justice Theory has already permeated our institutions. But realised I was correct to begin with in that its an attempt at gaslighting from a Woketivist with no talent for subtlety. But that’s the thing about the far left, they tend to assume they’re clever than they are, or rather that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is an idiot. This movement comes from the left, you know it, we know it.
However, one sentiment I can grab onto from this piece is that the non Woke (Including The Conservative party) need to get better at broadcasting the positive vision of what they stand for.
What makes you think the author is any kind of representative of ‘the far left’ ? He’s basically arguing in favour of the traditional British values of moderation, from a broadly pragmatic, non-ideological stance. If he’s ‘far-left’ the term is meaningless. Your use of words like ‘Woketivist’ etc, do sort of show you’re heavily invested already in the culture wars. What troubles you is that not everyone, and not every argument can be squeezed into the blinkered and narrow ideological framework. When you try to force them to do so, you sound absurd. It’s an odd little angry cul-de-sac which somehow gives you meaning, but to most of us is meaningless.
And that’s the point of the article. Enjoy your minority interest. Just leave the quiet majority alone.
Sorry but you are the minority, it’s just that you have disproportionate access to the noise-making devices.
What on earth are you talking about? I don’t engage in culture wars. I appreciate you’re part of the heavily invested minority that is. Moderation, kindness, seeing beyond the cliches. All good, traditional British virtues, I’m sure you’ll agree.
And what’s a ‘noise making device’? A megaphone? A vuvuzela? I haven’t got either 😉
Take care x
It is unarguably the Left who have disproportionate access to the noise making devices. However, it is interesting how when the public are asked to vote they seem to be rejecting the post modern meta narrative. I’m in the centre-left area myself, and I’m deeply concerned about the loss of sanity and almost complete rejection of intelligent thought.
Good to see Titania McGrath has created a new character.
“Among the things that make me actually proud to be British are how little we feel the need for jingoistic flag-waving; how civil the average group of British strangers is to one another; how disinclined to radicalism most British people are; how respectful of difference we are, by and large. I am perpetually struck, too, at the contrast between the furious, simplistic, tightly formatted debates that take place on social media, radio and TV ” and the nuanced, subtle positions that most people hold even on issues as supposedly contentious as the Gender Recognition Act or even Brexit.” I agree with this, but it is precisely this nuance and tolerance that is under attack: at universities with cancel culture and eroding of real liberal arts education, in government departments with (I think) mandatory training in how racist people are, through police implementation of Hate Crime legislation, through people losing their jobs because they twitter something considered heretical, through other cultural institutions such as the British Museum, British Library, and now the War Museum, wanting to join the mea culpas following an act of police brutality that happened in Minneapolis and has nothing to do with Britain. There is an irrational, herd-like momentum to this, which is gone beyond a minor skirmish between columnists. It is undermining our culture. I am thrilled that we have some one in Laurence Fox who is prepared to take a lead, and appears to be unafraid of the bullies.
What about the lefts culture wars?
Disingenuous article.
And where it comes to the BBC…..
Scrap your TV licence
Free your mind
Spread the word
I threw out the TV 20 years ago and I’ve been spreading the word ever since.
You might think “Disingenuous article” (because you don’t like it) but it is an OPINION PIECE.
“Disingenuous” is an entirely accurate description.
A couple of months ago, during a weekend in a b&b in Cornwall, I watched television for just about the first time since I got rid of my licence 12 years ago, in the wake of the Russell fvcking Brand prank calls debacle.
It was shocking.
Imagine a political party that stood for election on a platform of Pissing Everyone Off.
Why only imagine when you can live it? For months, I’ve been told that the rioting, looting, and occasional murder of our events were an element of “mostly peaceful” protests, perhaps 93% peaceful. If memory serves, 99% of airplanes on 9/11 landed safely, but that never comes up in discussion about that day.
how respectful of difference we are
so, it’s okay to post things on FB or twitter without running afoul of the thought police? One can say “only women have periods” without fear of job loss or attack from the wokerati?
The aggressor always bemoans the tragedy of war when he meets resistance…
Succinct!
My feeling is that the Brexit context of the UK culture war is lost on you.
Leaving the EU is reshaping British identity and the sense of national belonging, reinforcing regional identities, revisiting traditional values such as consideration of others vis a vis self interested actions, reviewing British history to create a deeper sense of inclusivity, making a distinction between the history of settled peoples and the history of the land, navigating the dichotomy between civic nationalism (inhabitants of the territory) and ethno nationalism (indigenous of the territory), all with deference to Conservative values of respecting tradition and Liberal values centred on the freedom and equal dignity of the individual.
The goal being to create national sustainability, national resilience and national sufficiency with respect to the political, economic, cultural, social and ecological integrity of the UK.
Your cynical take seems to want to call a halt to this much needed cultural process, presumably to sustain the EU based status quo of institutionalised neoliberalism.
LOL
Brexit is everything but the “stuff” you wrote. Blackpool didn’t vote Leave because it is going to reshape British identity or the sense of national belonging. People are going to abandon Med summer vactions for Blackpool (in the name of national belonging)?!
Freelance journalist eh?.
As in whiney little kid who can’t get a job.
His CV looks pretty sound to be fair. Published far more regularly and widely than the average Unherd contributor.
That is largely because the views of the average Unherd contributor would not be tolerated by the mainstream press.
You need to step out of your ghetto, my friend. Giles Fraser published in the Guardian, Douglas Murray published regularly all over the shop. People like Mary Harrington, whose writing I love, is not really writing for the money. Unherd is great because of the breadth of opinion it publishes. When we’re all being told we have to take sides in a culture war, it’s great to read someone who is refusing to get involved. He speaks for the majority.
But he’s exactly NOT refusing to get involved. This article is utterly disingenuous.
“You need to step out of your ghetto, my friend.”
Don’t patronise the grown-ups, boy.
The CV of a bourgeois liberal.
So these clowns “publish” each other – Big deal.
So Unherd is run by ‘bourgeois liberals’ is it? Right. Most of his work seems to be business and commercial related, drinks industry publications feature heavily. Certainly knows his gin and cocktails. You should have a read, pour yourself a drink, try and chill out a bit.
Yup.
That’s right, bourgeois liberals.
I’m very chilled.
You sound a bit uptight.
Is Godwin peddling a reheated version of that old divide-and-rule conspiracy theory? Our crafty ruling elite urging us all to engage in a pointless (if immersive) cultural squabble in order to divert attention from their self-serving machinations.
I hope so. That’s certainly what is going on.
Entirely disingenuous from the off: The “argument” about Rule, Britannia wasn’t started by the Tories in an effort to promote the culture wars; it was started by those who decided to drop the tradition on spurious grounds. Likewise all the other nonsense. “Fanning the flames” seems to mean objecting to any of the increasingly ludicrous idiocy the left attempts to foist on the rest of the population.
But, yes, the Tories will benefit if they finally show they’re a party willing to stand up against this stuff, to which the establishment is almost entirely committed but most of the population find unhinged. And too right.
Transparent driveling.
Is this the same Richard Godwin who used to write a pisspoor column for the Standard?
Ad hominem?
Is there a newspaper column anywhere that isn’t ‘piss poor’?
Yes The Left especially like to hide Shortcomings and hypocrisy,nepotism of Their Candidates. The Scandal Surrounding ‘Hunter Biden'(NY Daily News))has been censored by Those ”Libertarians” on Twitter and Facebook.And BBC America why?.. As An Independent i delight that Cons-Lib-Lab-Snp-Greens are Given a Kicking by voters,eventually.I write this before Wind Power drops & Green Power fails………………
Hello Unherd
This week Matt Hancock condemned experts who dared question lockdown. Now, after two of them embarrassingly exposed his basic errors,
Prof ANGUS DALGLEISH asks… How IS this petulant, shockingly ignorant minister still in a job?
dailymail news/article-8840965/PROF-ANGUS-DALGLEISH-Matt-Hancock-survived-axe.html
Who do you think made public life “… more angry and stupid”? Where are the conservative equivalents of AntiFa, BLM or Extinction Rebellion or the Twitter mobs screaming about some notional offensive statement. Who is pulling down statues?
It is the Left that does all of this and are those of us who feel that common sense left the arena some time ago just supposed to shut up while the whole society gets dragged further and further into ridiculousness along the lines of Brooklyn College Professor of Math Education Laurie Rubel arguing on Twitter that the mathematical equation 2+2=4 “reeks of white supremacist patriarchy.” ?
If anyone should just shut up and stop escalating race & sex differences into reasons to hate, it is the Left.
The culture wars seems to give a small, but very, very vocal minority a sense of meaning and a simplistic ideological framework through which to view the world. But to most of us, it’s entirely meaningless and very tiresome. If someone is ranting incoherently in your face, the smartest thing to do is leave the room and lock the door behind you.
The ‘culture war ‘ is deliberate and being promoted by the radical left academy – the whole suite of post modern, cultural marxist edifice of idiocy and nonsense is so stupid and divisive I honestly find it hard to take anyone who puts the doctrines and tropes seriously as an intelligent person. From Queer Theory (I am gay and can attest that none of it speaks to me), to the odious racist concept of ‘white priviledge’, the denial of the very existence of biological sex at a time when DNA is proving that nature trumps nurture on all counts, to the nonsense concepts such as ‘being born in the wrong body’ – its a lexicon of Monty Pythonesque absurdity. If I hear any of these words being used in a dialogue I am part of I know I am talking to an indoctrinated fool who has put this ideology at the heart of their very being rather than focussing on our shared humanity, evidence and science never mind reality. Its a divisive anti-science, anti-enlightenment toxic creed that needs to be defeated – totally. You should hear what I have to say about Critical Race Theory!
Why isn’t this woke git writing for the Guardian?
Because they already have a surfeit of woke and unreadable gits.
I can’t believe the Unherd subs actually read this article through before accepting it for publication.
A bit of a non-article really. Summary: let’s all just be nice and forget about it. It looks like mediocre work by established journalists takes precedence over anything by unknown writers. This piece seems a bit limp and status quo in its overall tone.
Entirely disingenuous from the off: The “argument” about Rule, Britannia wasn’t started by the Tories in an effort to promote the culture wars; it was started by those who decided to drop the tradition on spurious grounds. Likewise all the other nonsense. “Fanning the flames” seems to mean objecting to any of the increasingly ludicrous bollocks the extreme left attempts to foist on the rest of the population.
But, yes, the Tories will benefit if they finally show they’re a party willing to stand up against this crap which to which the establishment is almost entirely committed but most of the population find unhinged. And too right.
Hello unherd
Is the ‘cure’ worse than Covid? Driven to despair by lockdown, two of Professor Angus Dalgleish’s colleagues took their own lives”¦ and compelled him to join a growing rebellion against Cromwellian restrictions
Cancer specialist says he has been lost two colleagues to suicide in two weeks
One ‘killed himself as result of profound despair at loneliness created by Covid’
Prof Angus Dalgleish says focus on Covid-19 is ‘distorting healthcare priorities’
Daily Mail news/article-8824833/Lockdown-despair-drove-two-Professors-lives.html
Culture War is baked in a democratic system, democracy is civil war with ballots (Carl Schmitt) .
Conservatives have to conserve something, but what?
A nation’s demographic profile?
its culture?
Singing Rule Britannia will not “conserve” the British Culture (as defined by conservatives).
What point are you trying to make?
Freedom from an unthinking herd of people who are willing to give up liberty to secure comfort.
The herd votes…democracy and all that
I think the point about conservatives is that they need a reason not to conserve something, and would prefer to have a proper and if necessary prolonged and contentious debate to make sure no babies are being chucked out with the bathwater. It is a more reasonable assumption to make of something that if it exists, it has a reason or a purpose. (It may no longer, and it may be time for it to go the way of the horse and cart, but innocent until proven guilty as it were). Otherwise, presumably the start point would be that things that exist are prima facie worthless or meaningless.
Seems to me there are all these “Cultural Groups” aiming to build up their own “Empires” & herds of “Sheep”…..to gain various advantages. In my view they could be viewed as racist or elitist in nature as it is basically “us & them” BS! …Then of course this is used by some to “divide” & “distract”….from what is really important. Was it Emperor Nero who said “Give them Games & they won’t notice what the Govt is doing”….The whole notion of Govt Policy of “Multi-culturalism” I find is abhorrent….I feel we ought only be Human & Citizens in the Govts eyes…And frankly I hope one day we will evolve out of all these “Political” constructs that see us as anything other…….Another thing is, this is all important stuff,… Govts & others have used this “Racist” BS to prosecute evil Wars forever…it needs to change!
Thanks, Richard, enjoyed that. Good point about culture wars being great for Twitter and Facebook et al.
It is about distraction – and it is probably inevitable that those who essentially want to maintain the status quo will want to distract attention away from a deeper analysis of what is really going on and the structures underpinning it. Classic conspiracy theory (as another comment has pointed out) – but I guess any kind of social-cultural-political-economic analysis is the very definition of a conspiracy theory.
A (slightly) covert version of what might be more overtly argued in – and perhaps accepted by the readers of – the Grauniad. Does the writer expect the rest of us to buy into the notion that culture warriors exist only on the side he so obviously disapproves of? Rather like castigating the Poles for objecting to being invaded by Nazi Germany in 1939!
Everyone who spent more than 10 seconds skimming this article is certainly a loser.
Laurence Fox is such a hate figure to many anti racists. And yet they claim to be anti racist because they don’t do hate! Incredibly the irony is lost on many of them
The left part of culture war is almost entirely missing here. But the pathologization of “whiteness”, the denial of biological reality, the demonisation of dead white males, the “decolonisation” of the literature of the country continue apace. And dominate the institutions. I’d fight back stronger by kicking them out.
It’s fascinating to read the comments under this article, which I suspect relates how a lot of us feel about the performative culture wars. The entitled megaphone folk of left and right have have so much more in common with each other than the rest of us. I don’t mind if consenting adults want to have a dust-up in private, just don’t expect the rest of us to join in. Enjoy your life. Get yourself a proper hobby.
This article has the virtue only of being controversial. However the author claims that he alone can make extreme points; a commisar is the making. Unherd shouldn’t give a platform to such intolerant drivel.
Actually standing up for liberalism against Neo Marxist Postmodernist activism (aka woke in its various manifestations) before it is too late to avert a culture war, which makes the combined efforts of Hitler, Stalin and Mao pale into insignificance, or we end up in a real life Orwellian nightmare is the biggest issue for Western civilisation as we know it. Pointing out that all the mainstream political parties are making a piss poor job of doing so is fair comment and is what is likely to lead to the far right back lash which ignites the powder keg.
Great to read an article stating the bleeding obvious.
The ‘culture war’ is a minor scuffle between a couple of loony, humourless, mutually dependent minorities, who most of us think are a bit tiresome and absurd.
Most people have complex, contradictory and inconsistent views and just try to be decent. If people want to indulge in their weird, hysterical online ghetto wars they should be allowed to.
Just don’t expect the rest of us to get involved. And don’t expect not to be laughed at.
In one excellent article you have managed to destroy the raison d’être of Unherd. Without the phoney Culture War what is the point of it? I have not scanned the comments yet, but I suspect apoplexy will be the default response. Well done for sticking your head above the parapet and I hope you have your hard hat on!