he is still accused by other characters of being a “socialist” for his distrust of bureaucratic hierarchies
Said accusers apparently being entirely ignorant as to the nature of socialism.
Ash Sangamneheri
15 days ago
Something is wrong with the current crop of ‘leaders’ in politics, government and business, it’s like the mediocre have taken over… that to me is the root cause of our decline.
The increasing complexity of Western 21st century life has become almost too much for any politician to be able to navigate without falling into rabbit holes in an attempt to project messages simple enough to be electorally viable.
At Crecy , Edward III said of his son ” Let him earn his spurs “.Sir John Harvey Jones said the finest management training scheme the World has even seen was the RN under Nelson. The Boldest is the safest and I see no signals were Nelson’s sayings . Wellington said the battle of waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. All three leaders say future leaders must prove their initiative, daring and competence before they attain power in order they may earn the respect of those who follow. Respect has to be earned.
The day when our leaders led men into battle as teenagers is long gone.
At Crecy , Edward III said of his son ” Let him earn his spurs”.Sir John Harvey Jones said the finest management training scheme the World has even seen was the RN under Nelson. The Boldest is the safest and I see no signalsmwere nelson’s sayings . Wellington said the battle of waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. All three leaders say future leaders must prove their inititaive daring and competence before they attain power in order they may earn the respect of those who follow. Respect has to be earned.
The day when our leaders led men into battle as teenagers is long gone.
Today we are ruled by those who have the daring of an undercooked pudding.
Agreed. The fact that their every utturence is so predictable guarantees that no real change will occur. Meanwhile, the people are calling for change, any change, and becoming alternately angry and despondent. Here in the US we’re on the verge of re-electing a man with comic book hair and more than one loose screw; mostly because people can’t stand the same old nonsense anymore.
When it gets to be too much for me I allow myself to sit and wonder what our world would be like if Bernie Sanders had won back in ’16.
Rory Stewart is no Tory. He’s yet another pretentious, statist toff-in-denial, obsessed with aggrandising his own back story, who simply couldn’t hide his undemocratic lefty impulses and consequently blew up his own career. Tells you a lot about the writer they way he’s referenced so admiringly in this piece.
Yep. In part because of confused loyalties at the top. The spectacle of the deposed Scottish FM resolutely defending in his resignation speech, in a touchingly heartfelt way, his opposition to all forms of bullying extending to his sympathy for bullying gender extremists, is a vivid illustration of this phenomenon. He was bullied racially at school, which must have been excruciating, so kudos for fighting back in a highly constructive and optimistic way, but its endpoint turns out not to be a tyranny over the oppressed, but a tyranny by the oppressed.
Oddly inoffensive comment to receive a ‘downvote’, but, hey.
Prashant Kotak
15 days ago
” ..borne out in the dismal results emerging this morning…”
Bit of a preempt, no? It’s a quarter past midnight and counting only began an hour ago, much less any results emerging. Notwithstanding that on this occasion you are on fairly safe ground, rewriting a past that is still in the future is not a good look. And quite apart from anything else you are unlikely to get away with it, ever. The internet remembers everything.
I’ll be interested to see if our friend will revisit this comment to congratulate the writer of this incredibly dull piece on correctly predicting the utterly predictable Tory annihilation. I doubt it.
Let’s see if they can us one last laugh before they disappear for a generation!
One has to assume that Jerry is too stupid to note the contradiction within his post.
J Bryant
15 days ago
A fine essay, imo.
Parade’s End is one of my favorite dramatizations, although apparently the critical reception was cool, with some critics viewing it as too slow and mannered. Apart from being a work of historical story telling, it was a wonderful love story, imo, and very funny in places. Rebecca Hall as Sylvia was brilliant (and this was my first introduction to her work).
Heaven help the UK if the Conservatives are about to be consigned to the outer darkness for a decade. If a new party doesn’t emerge soon, there will be a decade of Labour rule and, if you’re very unlucky, Starmer will turn out to be the UK’s Biden.
The dramatisation was ok but it is the books that are masterpieces. I read them first fifty years ago and again more recently – even better with a bit more experience of life.
Michael Cazaly
15 days ago
Ah yes…”specialists” in charge! That’s worked out well so far…
j watson
15 days ago
The Right has so many contradictions it was all bound to unravel at some point. The important thing is that period of reflection, if it’s coming, is used wisely. Nations need a sensible, practical Right sphere to their politics as well as a Centre and a Left all capable of compromising and rallying together around key shared values when needed.
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
“Much polling from the last two years bears out the idea that British voters broadly lean Left on economics and Right on culture”
I voted for the SDP in the early 80s and was recently surprised to find that they still appear to exist. I would like to vote for them. If the quote above is correct, I think many British people would like their policies.
Absolute nonsense. Anyone leaning left, or liberal, on anything at all needs serious help.
Santiago Excilio
14 days ago
I’m afraid there is not much I agree with in this particular piece (other than Parades End being a good dramatisation).
I think the conservatives could very well be wiped out. I was once a member, but no more, and would be delighted to see the party, as currently constituted, gone. I know many, many others who feel the same. Once the support of the core is lost all that remains is the sporadic supporter, the toe dippers and opportunists; not a dependable constituency, especially in straightened times such as now.
Nor do I think Rory Stewart much of a conservative or an idealist, certainly as evidenced by his podcast with the unfailingly odious Campbell. I have him ear marked as a big state lib-dem, seasoned with an unhealthy dose of entitled condescension.
The observation that “much polling from the last two years bears out the idea that British voters broadly lean Left on economics and Right on culture” is well known, especially to anyone who listens to Matt Goodwin.
However, just because this is so doesn’t mean that delivering it is in the best interests of the country. One needs to dig deeper to ask “Why?” – why do people lean left on economics? I would argue that it is because the actual basis of our political system is flawed. Aristotle believed that democracy was a bad form of political governance because it was underpinned by a focus on self interest rather than on the common good and that the ideal form of government by the many for the common good is a polity.
A system based one man one vote one will ultimately end up in the Uni-party state in which the UK finds itself today. The only way to deliver a polity is by creating a clear linkage between voting and contribution, otherwise there is no incentive for people not to keep voting for bread, circuses and idleness. And they will, as evidenced by the enthusiasm with which lockdown handouts were received and the huge reluctance to return to actual work since the ‘pandemic emergency’ was over.
A fundamental reform of the basics of political governance is what is necessary for the UK, and I do not see that sort of thinking being done anywhere in the current political/think-tank spheres.
Andrew Boughton
13 days ago
‘The electorate leans left on economics and conservative on culture’. Culture is not something politicians can defend, because they’re so worried it might look like ‘kultur’. And yet it’s existential.
UnHerd Reader
11 days ago
Leadership can certainly be encouraged and nutured but I doubt it can be taught .
In any case in the current encouragedment of self indulgence the essential ingredient of accepting responsibility is rarely exercised
At least not in Public Affairs .
Kat L
11 days ago
There may not be enough time to turn things around before the demographic apocalypse arrives.
he is still accused by other characters of being a “socialist” for his distrust of bureaucratic hierarchies
Said accusers apparently being entirely ignorant as to the nature of socialism.
Something is wrong with the current crop of ‘leaders’ in politics, government and business, it’s like the mediocre have taken over… that to me is the root cause of our decline.
It’s more of a symptom than a root cause.
The increasing complexity of Western 21st century life has become almost too much for any politician to be able to navigate without falling into rabbit holes in an attempt to project messages simple enough to be electorally viable.
We’ve also almost become ungovernable. Dog whistle blows, amplified at a billion watts, and everyone ducks for cover.
At Crecy , Edward III said of his son ” Let him earn his spurs “.Sir John Harvey Jones said the finest management training scheme the World has even seen was the RN under Nelson. The Boldest is the safest and I see no signals were Nelson’s sayings . Wellington said the battle of waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. All three leaders say future leaders must prove their initiative, daring and competence before they attain power in order they may earn the respect of those who follow. Respect has to be earned.
The day when our leaders led men into battle as teenagers is long gone.
At Crecy , Edward III said of his son ” Let him earn his spurs”.Sir John Harvey Jones said the finest management training scheme the World has even seen was the RN under Nelson. The Boldest is the safest and I see no signalsmwere nelson’s sayings . Wellington said the battle of waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. All three leaders say future leaders must prove their inititaive daring and competence before they attain power in order they may earn the respect of those who follow. Respect has to be earned.
The day when our leaders led men into battle as teenagers is long gone.
Today we are ruled by those who have the daring of an undercooked pudding.
Agreed. The fact that their every utturence is so predictable guarantees that no real change will occur. Meanwhile, the people are calling for change, any change, and becoming alternately angry and despondent. Here in the US we’re on the verge of re-electing a man with comic book hair and more than one loose screw; mostly because people can’t stand the same old nonsense anymore.
When it gets to be too much for me I allow myself to sit and wonder what our world would be like if Bernie Sanders had won back in ’16.
He’s a commie so it would be worse.
Rory Stewart is no Tory. He’s yet another pretentious, statist toff-in-denial, obsessed with aggrandising his own back story, who simply couldn’t hide his undemocratic lefty impulses and consequently blew up his own career. Tells you a lot about the writer they way he’s referenced so admiringly in this piece.
Agreed. Well said.
Zero Seats
The Tories promised to listen to the people but didn’t. That’s the story in a nutshell.
Yep. In part because of confused loyalties at the top. The spectacle of the deposed Scottish FM resolutely defending in his resignation speech, in a touchingly heartfelt way, his opposition to all forms of bullying extending to his sympathy for bullying gender extremists, is a vivid illustration of this phenomenon. He was bullied racially at school, which must have been excruciating, so kudos for fighting back in a highly constructive and optimistic way, but its endpoint turns out not to be a tyranny over the oppressed, but a tyranny by the oppressed.
Oddly inoffensive comment to receive a ‘downvote’, but, hey.
” ..borne out in the dismal results emerging this morning…”
Bit of a preempt, no? It’s a quarter past midnight and counting only began an hour ago, much less any results emerging. Notwithstanding that on this occasion you are on fairly safe ground, rewriting a past that is still in the future is not a good look. And quite apart from anything else you are unlikely to get away with it, ever. The internet remembers everything.
I thought rather the same.
Conceivably, it could be the sort of line that comes to haunt the chap who writes it, but it’s a pretty safe bet he’ll get away with it
Only the scale of the disaster is in the balance
I’ll be interested to see if our friend will revisit this comment to congratulate the writer of this incredibly dull piece on correctly predicting the utterly predictable Tory annihilation. I doubt it.
Let’s see if they can us one last laugh before they disappear for a generation!
Plonk Socialist describing something as “incredibly dull” is quite the hoot when you consider his comments over time.
One has to assume that Jerry is too stupid to note the contradiction within his post.
A fine essay, imo.
Parade’s End is one of my favorite dramatizations, although apparently the critical reception was cool, with some critics viewing it as too slow and mannered. Apart from being a work of historical story telling, it was a wonderful love story, imo, and very funny in places. Rebecca Hall as Sylvia was brilliant (and this was my first introduction to her work).
Heaven help the UK if the Conservatives are about to be consigned to the outer darkness for a decade. If a new party doesn’t emerge soon, there will be a decade of Labour rule and, if you’re very unlucky, Starmer will turn out to be the UK’s Biden.
The dramatisation was ok but it is the books that are masterpieces. I read them first fifty years ago and again more recently – even better with a bit more experience of life.
Ah yes…”specialists” in charge! That’s worked out well so far…
The Right has so many contradictions it was all bound to unravel at some point. The important thing is that period of reflection, if it’s coming, is used wisely. Nations need a sensible, practical Right sphere to their politics as well as a Centre and a Left all capable of compromising and rallying together around key shared values when needed.
“Much polling from the last two years bears out the idea that British voters broadly lean Left on economics and Right on culture”
I voted for the SDP in the early 80s and was recently surprised to find that they still appear to exist. I would like to vote for them. If the quote above is correct, I think many British people would like their policies.
Absolute nonsense. Anyone leaning left, or liberal, on anything at all needs serious help.
I’m afraid there is not much I agree with in this particular piece (other than Parades End being a good dramatisation).
I think the conservatives could very well be wiped out. I was once a member, but no more, and would be delighted to see the party, as currently constituted, gone. I know many, many others who feel the same. Once the support of the core is lost all that remains is the sporadic supporter, the toe dippers and opportunists; not a dependable constituency, especially in straightened times such as now.
Nor do I think Rory Stewart much of a conservative or an idealist, certainly as evidenced by his podcast with the unfailingly odious Campbell. I have him ear marked as a big state lib-dem, seasoned with an unhealthy dose of entitled condescension.
The observation that “much polling from the last two years bears out the idea that British voters broadly lean Left on economics and Right on culture” is well known, especially to anyone who listens to Matt Goodwin.
However, just because this is so doesn’t mean that delivering it is in the best interests of the country. One needs to dig deeper to ask “Why?” – why do people lean left on economics? I would argue that it is because the actual basis of our political system is flawed. Aristotle believed that democracy was a bad form of political governance because it was underpinned by a focus on self interest rather than on the common good and that the ideal form of government by the many for the common good is a polity.
A system based one man one vote one will ultimately end up in the Uni-party state in which the UK finds itself today. The only way to deliver a polity is by creating a clear linkage between voting and contribution, otherwise there is no incentive for people not to keep voting for bread, circuses and idleness. And they will, as evidenced by the enthusiasm with which lockdown handouts were received and the huge reluctance to return to actual work since the ‘pandemic emergency’ was over.
A fundamental reform of the basics of political governance is what is necessary for the UK, and I do not see that sort of thinking being done anywhere in the current political/think-tank spheres.
‘The electorate leans left on economics and conservative on culture’. Culture is not something politicians can defend, because they’re so worried it might look like ‘kultur’. And yet it’s existential.
Leadership can certainly be encouraged and nutured but I doubt it can be taught .
In any case in the current encouragedment of self indulgence the essential ingredient of accepting responsibility is rarely exercised
At least not in Public Affairs .
There may not be enough time to turn things around before the demographic apocalypse arrives.