“Now Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering – fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry and his face was downcast”.

As we know, Cain was so consumed with anger and jealousy that he attacked his brother in the fields and killed him. He was put under a curse to be a “restless wanderer” on the Earth.

On the surface this is a story of sibling rivalry, something tormenting Prince Harry. As reports at the weekend suggest, the rift between the young prince and his elder brother seems to be widening as publication day for the pointedly titled “Spare” draws nearer. It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for Harry. It can’t be easy being the spare, the younger brother whose role in the royal “firm” started in a position of subordination and has become steadily more subordinate as more direct heirs arrive to dilute his lineage.

There are plenty of younger siblings who have suffered in this way although none of us can imagine the particular hardship of being the “spare” to a throne.

Cain and Abel, though, is about much more than sibling rivalry. It contains deeper truths about human nature and the “deadly” sin of jealousy. It sounds something of a warning, therefore, for the spare prince.

Life, and in particular free market society, produces a constant churn of perceived “winners” and “losers”. Society and the media measure people by criteria of material wealth, fame and power. Hollow as these perceived “virtues” may be, they skew our perceptions, driving behaviour and sentiment.

It is natural for the winners and losers to be attracted to systems of belief which support their self-interest. Thus the winners from capitalism tend to support capitalism and the losers tend to seek out ideologies that would challenge or replace it. Those who resist this temptation are the honourable exception — capitalists who see the flaws in free markets, show real compassion and are willing to give their money away; or those vulnerable and poor who bear no resentment or anger.

Unfortunately the exceptions are far too rare.

Ideas of resentment and jealousy echo through time, and played a prominent part in the 19th century, when philosophers sought to create new theories of morality without God. Nietzsche borrowed a French word, ressentiment, to anchor the origins of his moral philosophy. By his estimation, Western moral thinking had its roots in the master-slave relationship.

The weak and marginalised members of society (such as persecuted Christians) resented those who oppressed them (the masters) and inverted the prevailing morality, turning humility, equality and compassion into the highest virtues.

“While the noble man lives in trust and openness with himself … the man of ressentiment is neither upright nor naive nor honest and straightforward with himself. His soul squints; his spirit loves hiding places, secret paths and back doors, everything covert entices him as his world, his security, his refreshment.”

The dominant creed of the resentful for most of the 20th century was Socialism. As George Orwell pointed out, socialists don’t generally love the poor, they hate the rich.

When Marxist materialism became discredited with the realisation of the economic failures of the Soviet Union and the rising death counts of Communists and Socialist regimes around the world, the bearers of “ressentiment” turned to other domains into which to inject their venom. Key targets were the spheres of culture, family life, sex and race.

And so was born critical theory, the bastard child of Post-Modernism and Frankfurt School post-Marxism. To this conception we owe the hierarchy of victimhood, the one to which we must now all defer; it also spawned the language of the social justice warriors — words such as “my truth”, “lived experience”, “white privilege” (or any other kind of privilege for that matter) “ intersectionality” and so on.

The virus of critical theory was smuggled into the American culture via academia (two members of the Frankfurt School — Marcuse and Adorno — actually emigrated from Germany to US universities before the war).

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From academia, critical theory (popularly understood as wokery) has infected the media, publishing, Newsrooms, Hollywood, football commentators, public administration, HR departments, and even Big Tech. Perhaps the last place you would expect it to appear is the British Royal family. Surely they are not the losers in life’s lottery?

But that is to misunderstand the nature of resentment. Even within the Royal Family there are those who consider themselves losers. Cain was only upset about his status relative to Abel. It did not matter that he was Adam’s first born son.

Harry has no doubt been deeply frustrated by his status within the family and the nature of his “spare”ness. There is resentment and there is jealousy. Of course the Woke creed appeals. And no wonder Harry adopts its language. Which leaves us, ironically, with a hereditary Prince lecturing us about “privilege”.

There are of course other dimensions to Harry’s story. There is the shadow of his mother and the influence of his wife. But to the extent that he is a victim, he is the victim not only of his family circumstances but also of poisonous philosophers. Perhaps his example can be a cautionary tale to the rest of us.

Paul Marshall is chairman of Marshall Wace. He writes in a personal capacity.

Sometimes, the derision is deserved; in the English-speaking world, the new “liberal” mania for political and ideological purity is causing ancient liberties to be sacrificed in the name of new “rights”. And the pursuit of liberal individualism is thought to be in conflict with ideas of community. These apparent failings of the liberal idea are leading some to gather together under the banner of “post-liberal”.

But the problem is not that liberalism has passed its sell-by date; rather, it has lost its moorings.

These can be traced back to the emergence of British Liberalism with the Glorious Revolution and the 1689 Bill of Rights — which enshrined many of the liberties that Parliament and the people had fought for during the previous century.

The Liberalism of 1689 was grounded, in particular, in the Christian (and more specifically) Protestant faith, born of the fight to produce an English translation of the Bible and to defend freedom of conscience.  There was much intolerance and more than a few beheadings along the way — William Tyndale died for the cause of publishing his translation — but the settlement of 1689 required and established a new understanding of tolerance and freedom.

In all the great struggles of the 17th century, the calls for freedom were inseparable from the deep Christian faith of the protagonists, whether we are talking about the Parliamentarians, the Levellers or Oliver Cromwell himself. John Milton, driven and defined by his faith, wrote what is probably the foundational text in defence of free speech Areopagitica at the peak of the Civil War. It contained an impassioned argument against the introduction of the new Licensing Order (1643), which required government approval for any published work. All these calls were anchored in a shared understanding of meaning, knowledge and virtue. Meaning came from God, knowledge from the Bible and virtue from following the teachings of the Old and New Testaments.

The importance of liberalism’s moorings were not lost on the American Founding Fathers, who shared the same inheritance. In First Principles, Thomas Ricks describes how dedicated they were to assessing the problem of “virtue” — of determining that their new Republic would be anchored in a shared understanding of morality so that civil society and freedom would be able to flourish. Adams and Jefferson looked as much to Ancient Rome for these virtues as they did to the Christian faith, but in practice American society was grounded overwhelmingly in the shared values of Christianity.

De Tocqueville understood this better than most. In Democracy in America, he plants the character of “Anglo-American civilisation” firmly in two elements: “the spirit of religion and the spirit of liberty”. For him, religion and liberty were kindred spirits. In America, they were indeed kindred, arriving together with the pilgrims. But in England, religion was the parent of liberty rather than sibling. And in both cases, the flourishing of liberty would depend on the stability and strength of her Christian moorings.

In 19th-century Britain, Classical Liberalism carried all before it in the pursuit of great causes — widening the democratic franchise, opening the economy to free trade, educational reform, laying the foundations of the welfare state, eradicating the global slave trade. But just as it seemed to be all-conquering, its roots were being poisoned.

That poison stemmed from the Enlightenment itself. A new, anthropocentric way of thinking arrived in the 18th century, bringing with it an alternative understanding of human nature, a new theory of human knowledge and a new calculus of virtue. While Enlightenment Liberalism was aligned with the Christian worldview on certain principles of freedom, the two traditions diverge in key ways – and it is this divergence that is now proving toxic to liberalism as we know it.

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Traditional British liberalism rests on the Judaeo-Christian understanding that we are all, in moral terms, fallen creatures. The writings and speeches of the great heroes of liberty in the 16th and 17th centuries came with a deep sense of humility, of mankind’s brokenness and of the Fall.

Somewhere amid the arrogance of the Enlightenment, we lost this sense of fallenness. Ayn Rand embodies the new way of thinking with her theories of rational egoism and “the virtue of selfishness”. Encouraged, no doubt, by evidence of technological progress, she assumed moral progress would move in lockstep with technology. She has many modern disciples, wittingly or unwittingly, especially in California, with its strapline of “move fast and break things”. Her Libertarianism is very different from traditional British Liberalism, despite the tendency of many to confuse the two, because of her different assumptions about human fallibility (or lack of, in her case), and about virtue.

Allied to the Enlightenment sense of human perfectibility and rationality is the belief in Progress. The origins of this go all the way back to Thomas Macaulay and the Whig interpretation of history. But Macaulay saw progress essentially in political terms – in the extension of the franchise and other associated political freedoms such as freedom of conscience and freedom of the press. Sadly, the creed of Progress has now been pushed into every walk of life, ignoring the lessons of history and defying any biblical understanding of human nature. For Progressives, humankind’s moral progress is on a perpetual upward curve in parallel with technological progress. The history of the 20th century does not give much support to this conceit — it would be fairer to say that technology simply amplifies the expression of our moral fallibility.

Enlightenment liberals also built their own theories of morality, independent of a god, starting with Benthamite Utilitarianism, and extending all the way to John Rawls. Morality became a mathematical calculus, shorn of compassion or community, let alone repentance and forgiveness. According to Jeremy Bentham, “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do as well as to determine what we shall do.” No reference to morality here, just pain and pleasure. One of Bentham’s disciples, William Jevons, even went as far as to develop a “felicific calculus” whereby all pain and pleasure could be quantified.

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Enlightenment thinkers also developed their own theories of knowledge. One built on the empiricism of Hume and Adam Smith, the other built on the Rationalism of Descartes and Rousseau. The former, with its inherent modesty, is compatible with the Christian understanding of human fallibility, the latter is not.

Hayek describes the two schools of epistemology in The Constitution of Liberty. He warned that the latter, which he called the French tradition of liberty, with its “flattering assumptions about the unlimited powers of human reason” could lead to “totalitarian democracy”. His warnings were all too well-founded and it is the Rationalist version of epistemology which has taken particular hold with today’s cult of science.

Belief in the power of science has never been stronger. It has climaxed amid Covid, with politicians increasingly wrapping themselves in “the science” to justify ever more stringent intrusions on our freedom. Scientism, in the wrong hands, can become dangerous. And the worst hands are those of politicians and civil servants too easily tempted to use the authority of “experts” to infringe on our liberties.

This type of politician, Matt Hancock being the best example, fails to understand the limitations of science, fails to understand the nature of risk and uncertainty and fails to understand the difference between observable historical evidence and predictions of an uncertain and hypothetical future.

These different understandings of the theory of knowledge, of meaning and of virtue have led  to a corruption of liberalism at its source.

What we are seeing today being enacted in the name of liberalism is not liberal at all. Instead, let’s call it by the name which its proponents are prepared to use — progressivism. This is the creed which unites Tony Blair, Nick Clegg, most of the US Democratic Party, most of the British Labour Party and the New York Times. These are not traditional Liberals in any understanding of the term. They are Progressives. They believe humankind is on a permanent upward path of progress. They believe in the rule of experts and in the authority of “the science”.

So where do genuine classical liberals go, faced with the corruption of the creed? Ironically, the attacks on our most ancient freedoms such as freedom of speech, conscience and assembly, make it more important than ever to assert the foundational understanding of liberty. “Classical liberals” need to unite and stand up for their tradition. It has never been so relevant.

Meanwhile, to those who do embrace the term “post-liberal”, and believe it applies to our new era, I would just say this: be careful what you wish for.

But the biggest irony is the attempt by a bunch of American owners to create a closed shop in European football. In the interest of money-making and in the name of laissez-faire capitalism, they want to drive competition out of European sport.

For those who never quite understood the motivations of the Glazers, John Henry or Stan Kroenke, the key is the parallel (or lack of parallel) between the Premier League and the way American sports operate. The American owners of Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal have always dreamed of replicating American conditions on European soil — and thus replicating the riches of NFL and Major League Baseball owners. The Glazers have done very well out of their NFL franchise, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and John Henry out of the Boston Red Sox.

But American rules are very different from European ones. Professional sports leagues in North America operate with a fixed number of teams, known as franchises. The franchisees have territorial rights, usually covering a large metropolitan area exclusively. New teams may enter the competition only by a vote of current members. The leagues operate in a closed system and do not have to contend with the inconvenience of promotion or relegation. Very occasionally a league may decide to grow by admitting a new team, the last new team to join the NFL being the Houston Texans in 2002.

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There is another fundamental difference between American sports and European football, and that is the way the transfer markets work. New players out of college in America are recruited through an annual draft. This is scrupulously fair, even egalitarian. The NFL draft is seven rounds long, with each team getting a pick in each round, in reverse order of the finish of that season. The worst team picks first, the second worst next and the champion picks last. But there is also a salary cap, which  places a limit on the amount of money a team can spend on salaries.

Although the original intention of this may have been to level the playing field, the effect has been to enrich the owners in a closed system where the surplus can only go to the owners or the players. The problem in Europe is that there is no cap on footballers’ salaries so that the players get to keep much more of the surplus. It also leads to a free-for-all in the transfer market, with new teams constantly vying to enter the top leagues and new owners trying to pour in money, which they can spend freely on transfers in order to buy success.

With precious few rules around ownership and suitability, the Premier League is a constant lure to questionable money, whether it be Middle Eastern sheiks or Russian kleptocrats, who know that with a big enough budget they can buy the top players and secure the prestige which comes with success. Cue Manchester City and Chelski, the parvenus of the Premier League.

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The lack of entry barriers is not specific to Europe — there are plenty of new owners in the US, too. The difference is that in Europe, without any restrictions, owners with enough money can be almost assured of getting their hands on a trophy — and this is what brings us to the closed shop “Super League” proposed by the Group of Six. It is a protectionist money grab intended to ossify a momentary status quo in the interests of the current owners, preventing even richer club-owners from muscling in.

And of course it is much worse than that. Football clubs are not just capitalist enterprises. Indeed they should not be seen as capitalist enterprises at all.  The leading clubs have illustrious histories — some, like Liverpool and Manchester United, with more than a share of tragedy, redemption and heroism. Clubs have souls. They play in a certain way. Manchester United always have brilliant wingers, and the No 7 is a hallowed shirt. Great Liverpool teams are built on a bedrock of dominant central defenders.

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Football clubs have their origins in working men’s clubs or factory teams, bringing together their local communities in shared support of their local side. In areas which have seen the downsides of globalisation, they are one of the last great symbols and anchors of local community, even if some have become global brands. They represent the sense of place. They enrich and unite their towns and cities. They give local pride.

This is no doubt why the German clubs have refused to take part. With its 50+1 model, the Bundesliga has created a much more balanced model for football club ownership, trying to achieve a balance between staying competitive financially while preserving the association with and respect for the local supporters.

It is no surprise that Boris Johnson came out so quickly against the Super League proposal. He may not be a football fan, but he understands intuitively that this is about much more than the game. It is about the ties that bind. It is also about the globalisation debate that defined Brexit. Unfortunately it may not be sufficient for the Prime Minister just to tweet on this.

I bear the scars of trying to challenge the Glazer takeover of Manchester United, through the Green and Gold campaign and the Red Knights. There is no way of regaining control of the club unless the owners want to sell, and the Glazers acquired control through a legitimate takeover process (albeit by saddling the club with huge debts). Private markets cannot rescue English clubs and it is fairly clear that the Premier League have no intention of challenging the current ownership model.

The only hope is that the latest proposal triggers a long-overdue review of football ownership rules in the UK, one that reconnects football clubs with their supporters, protects local communities and deters the predators from the other side of the Atlantic.

Compelling though the imagery is, we all know that the A-Levels shambles can’t be blamed on rogue formulae alone. The problems go so much deeper than that. I saw some of those deficiencies first hand when I served as Lead Non-Executive Director at the Department for Education between 2013 and 2016. Indeed, I participated in the appointment of the now-departed Permanent Secretary (of which, more below).

It’s clear that if the Government wants to usher in a brighter post-Brexit, post-Covid future it has to fix its own machinery — and this is the very challenge to which the independent Commission for Smart Government is devoted. Launched last month, it will spend the next year exploring how the UK can be better governed. As the recent grades debacle illustrated, there are many questions to which we need urgent answers.

First, where should accountability lie within Whitehall? The system is clear that financial accountability to Parliament lies with the Accounting Officer, usually the Permanent Secretary. Other types of accountability, however, are less transparent. Historically, at least, there has been a tendency for ministers to fall on their sword. This is in keeping with the “myth of ministerial accountability”, which is applied even when the fault is an operational one. The principle must surely remain that those we elect are ultimately accountable — but is it not possible to make a distinction between accountability for operational delivery (the responsibility of the civil service) and accountability for political strategy (the responsibility of ministers)?

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Second, why do we so rarely appoint qualified external candidates as Permanent Secretaries? Back in 2016 I preferred two outside candidates for the DfE job. Ironically, one of those rejected was the very person who warned the Department of the risks arising from re-calibrating the exam results, and the other was head of the UK’s largest private exams assessment organisation. Their experience and skills might have proved invaluable.

Third, why do we call them “Permanent” Secretaries? The job title originated to underline their neutrality and distinguish them from Secretaries of State who come and go with each administration — usually too often. Permanent Secretaries are now appointed for five-year terms, yet the term “permanent” implies their position is secure with little accountability for failure, a title unseen in any other walk of life.

In recent months, some mandarins have begun to look less permanent than others, a small dawning of accountability, perhaps. Some commentators have greeted these unusual departures with shock, as though the removal of those who fail — something we expect in any other sector — was a problem. In fact, if anything needs to be made permanent it is proper accountability.

Fourth, what skills should we expect ministers to have? Of course, it is primarily their political talents that propel them to high office and equip them for the job. But what should they actually know about their subject? Should their position not require at least some domain expertise — a rare occurrence? Indeed, would not some management experience help? We appoint most ministers from the increasingly shallow gene pool of the House of Commons, when we could appoint more from the House of Lords (seeking out proven external talent and ennobling the new recruits). Yet this route has not always been successful. So how could we make the recruitment of talented ministers work better?

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Fifth, Ofqual is, in Whitehall-speak, an “arm’s-length body” (ALB), of which there are anything between 100 and 900, depending on how you define them. According to the most recent National Audit Office report, the ALB sector “remains confused and incoherent. There is no single list of ALBs across government nor a common understanding of when ALBs should be used”. Furthermore, there’s an estimated £110 billion of spending in ALBs which is exempt from spending controls — an eye-watering sum.

The NAO also says that there is “no collective understanding of what type of oversight is appropriate for different types of ALBs”. This was certainly my experience as a Non-Executive Director at DfE. Ministers were frustrated by the independence of ALBs like Ofqual and Ofsted and unclear about the extent to which they could intervene and interact. Ironically, ALBs were created to ensure that those with operational responsibility would be discrete, expert and accountable. In practice they result in no one knowing where accountability lies at all. When are ALBs justified and how should accountability mechanisms work?

Sixth, and finally, how can we improve the way Whitehall handles data? While the infamous algorithm has become a running joke, the fact is that we need to be able to make use of more data, and do so with confidence and common sense. Anybody versed in data knows that the outputs are only as good as the inputs, and that any algorithmic outputs need to be subjected to the scrutiny of common sense.

To paraphrase Gary Kasparov after he had been defeated by Deep Blue, “a machine beats a man but a man plus a machine beats a machine”. Yet how many in Whitehall, including politicians, have the numeracy to be able to interrogate assumptions, outputs and inputs? How do we address the numeracy deficit in our leaders? Increased use of data and technology in public services will require new and improved ways to upskill ministers and officials.

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The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Steve Barclay, has thankfully provided new impetus to improve IT capabilities within Whitehall, but we start from a very weak position. There are multiple legacy systems which don’t speak to each other and only 5% of government IT is in the cloud — an extraordinarily low number compared to the private sector or many other governments.

We are in a new era dominated by the knowledge economy, yet many of the practices and structures in Whitehall still hark back to the 19th century. Changes to the recruitment and training of civil servants and ministers alike must ensure that they are competent and equipped to deal with the major challenges that our country now faces.

Smart government has nothing to do with political ideology. Around the world executives of both Left and Right succeed or fail — but to succeed requires an executive that can deliver, offering accountability, incentives, competence and creativity. There is a growing appetite in this country for change — and the new Cabinet Secretary has a big job in leading a long-overdue Whitehall shake-up.

Sir Paul Marshall is a Member of the Commission for Smart Government governsmarter.org

For Christians, it is a celebration of the moment God broke through into recorded time, became incarnate, fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament, atoned for our sins on the Cross, and, in the ultimate miracle, conquered sin and death through the resurrection.

Many who aren’t Christian still believe it to be “the greatest story ever told”. They might not be prepared to acknowledge the divinity of Christ, but the story of redemption and atonement nonetheless inspires awe.

This sense stems from the story’s deep connection to our moral identity and our sense of sin and guilt. Humans instinctively yearn for repentance and forgiveness – wanting absolution and a fresh start when we make mistakes.

Secular apologists for the power of the story point to Jung and what he had to say about the hold myths have over us: the endurance of a story is testament to its strength and ‘truth’. Arguably, the Christian understanding of the nature of human responsibility and redemption has never been surpassed in moral philosophy.

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Nelson Mandela understood this. When he sought to bring reconciliation to the peoples of South Africa after the apartheid era, he realised that it needed something special. His Truth and Reconciliation Committees brought the victims of racism and oppression face to face with their persecutors in such a way that the oppressors (some of them) repented and the victims (many of them) were able to forgive. Some of the moments of confession and forgiveness during these hearings were among the most moving you will ever hear.

In this way, Mandela managed to draw a line under apartheid, and sowed the seeds for a reconciled society. It was an extraordinary act of political imagination.

In secular Britain, we have almost abandoned the traditions – even the language – of repentance, forgiveness and redemption. Yet we are most certainly in need of reconciliation: reconciliation with our history as a nation, and reconciliation with each other over our different interpretations of that history.

A recurring theme in our national conversation over the past few years (quite heavily embedded in the Brexit debate) has been the shame in some quarters over certain episodes in our history.

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In some instances, this is justified. We cannot be anything other than ashamed of our role in the early expansion of the slave trade. The depredations and cruelty of the East India Company in the 17th and 18th centuries have still not been fully laid bare. Our role in waging war on China in order to force them to open their market to the opium trade (which makes the opioid epidemic look like a picnic) is a national disgrace.

We recently commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the Amritsar Massacre, when Brigadier Reginald  Dwyer opened fire on up to 1,100 demonstrators with the specific aim of “striking terror” into the Punjab. The Iraq War is one of the most damaging cases of displacement activity in history.

Yet we were also the country which, thanks to William Wilberforce, was the first to bring an end to the slave trade. The British Empire exported democracy and the rule of law to peoples across the globe, and our withdrawal from Empire was one of the speediest, most dignified and peaceful of all imperial retreats. (The enduring loyalty and friendship of the British Commonwealth is testament to our legacy). Countries from all over the world honour and respect us for the role we played in defending freedom against the Nazis.

Our imperial history, though, is contested ground. According to a recent YouGov poll, 59% think the Empire is something to be proud of, 19% something to be ashamed of. That is a significant minority who only feel shame for our country’s past.

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The shame narrative was embodied in the recent assault on the memory of Winston Churchill, in which he was described as a “white supremacist and mass murderer”. It is also a motivator for those people around Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, such as Seamus Milne. It is an undercurrent of Jon Snow’s “I have never seen so many white men in one place” Channel 4 News.

Is it not time to bring both sides of the debate together?  We can all repent of the episodes which are a source of shame but celebrate the achievements of which we can be proud.

Our national history should not be a source of such polarisation. A little truth telling from both sides would bring us to a more settled understanding which embraces both those things which we can celebrate along with the “crimes, follies and misfortunes” which stain the history of all countries and communities.

To progress, an individual must let go of those things holding them back. They must let these die, so that something new can be born. So too a nation.

We already have a National Remembrance day. But this is a day of mourning for those we lost. Perhaps we could introduce a new Day of Reconciliation. It could be called British History Day.

We could celebrate Magna Carta, Wilberforce, the liberation of Europe. But we can also commemorate the episodes of which we are ashamed – the slave trade, the East India Company, the Opium Wars. We could bring together all parts of the community to acknowledge the ‘sins’ of the past and make peace. Might it bring healing?

In December 1918, when he was Minister of Munitions, Churchill despatched a naval squadron to the Baltic States under Rear-Admiral Alexander Sinclair. Under the code name Operation “Red Trek”, Sinclair sailed into the Estonian and Latvian ports, landing troops and supplies and promising to attack the Bolsheviks “as far as my guns can reach”.

There was no other politician at the time who had such a clear-sighted understanding of the evils of Socialism.

Throughout 1919, Churchill fought an almost lone battle inside the war-weary Cabinet to sustain support for the resistance to Bolshevism. He almost broke with Lloyd George, then prime minister, over the issue. But in the end, he prevailed sufficiently to ensure that the Baltic States held out against the Red Army and maintained their independence for those 20 inter-war years.

As he was able to say with personal satisfaction in various speeches in 1919:

“The Estonians, to some extent supplied with British arms, have made a very stout fight and have really shown the weakness of the Bolshevists…”[1.  March 21, 1919. House of Commons]

“When our pacifists or Bolshevist featherheads in this country raise their shrill voices in hysterical glee at every Bolshevist victory let them remember that but for the [White Russians] the whole weight of Bolshevist aggression would be thrust upon these small states…”[2.  July 17, 1919. Russian Club dinner]

“They are intact today. They have maintained their existence precariously. Quivering and shaking, but still standing, they have held back not only the Bolshevik armies but the more devastating Bolshevik propaganda.”[3.  July 29, 1919. House of Commons]

Churchill’s stoutness of heart in 1919, did not arise from a tendency to warmongering, which his enemies liked to ascribe to him. It was far more the expression of a deeply held distrust of Socialism, which first found expression in 1908, in his great Dundee speech.

There was no other politician at the time who had such a clear-sighted understanding of the evils of Socialism, or who returned to the theme so often. When Churchill first laid out his argument, in 1908, it was as a leading member of the great reforming Liberal government. He saw Socialism as a dire threat to the progressive cause as it willed similar progressive ends as Liberalism, while destroying the capacity to create the wealth to pay for them.

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His Dundee speech is worth quoting at some length because there has probably been no greater exposition of the differences between Liberalism and Socialism:

“Socialism seeks to pull down wealth; Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests; Liberalism would preserve private interests in the only way in which they can be safely and justly preserved, namely, by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the pre-eminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks, and shall seek more in the future, to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capital; Liberalism attacks monopoly.”[4.  May 4, 1908. Kinnaird Hall, Dundee]

The early part of the speech focused on the flawed approach of Socialism to wealth creation. He then went on to describe with great prescience – anticipating many of the horrors of the 20th century – how Socialism’s ideals failed so badly when put into practice.

“…..the exalted ideal of the Socialists – a universal brotherhood, owning all things in common – is not always supported by the evidence of their practice. They put before us a creed of universal self-sacrifice. They preach it in the language of spite and envy, of hatred, and all uncharitableness.”[5.  May 4, 1908. Kinnaird Hall, Dundee]

In this, he anticipated the argument of Orwell, in The Road to Wigan Pier, that Socialists generally do not care about the poor, they just hate the rich. Marx of course provided them with the creed to implement this animus of envy and hatred. For the Socialism of Karl Marx sought not to share evenly and fairly the proceeds of production, but to replace the Bourgeoise with the Proletariat as masters of the system. It was a doctrine of materialism and power.

As Churchill recognised in 1922:

“The policy of the Socialist is that the Government should own all the means of production, distribution and exchange; that there should be no such thing as private enterprise or private property, no private shop or house or cottage; no bank or ship; no private savings, no private business, no buying or selling; no enterprise, no wages, no profits; everything to be owned by the State; everybody is to be directed by the State; everybody is to be rationed by the State; everyone will be told what they are to do, what their employment is to be, where they are to live, when they are to travel… Think for a moment of the power which would be in the hands of the men who obtained the control of this terrific governing machine of Socialism. During their term of office they would sit high above the masses, ruling their lives, and appointing their toil as if they were gods in heaven….. they will never give up their power once they have got it.”[6.  April 8, 1922. Caird Hall, Dundee]

It is clear from this speech that Churchill already saw in plain sight what the Webbs and Laski and Bernard Shaw were still denying outright 15 years later:

“What has happened on the only occasion when this terrible experiment has been carried out with ruthless logic to its final conclusion upon the body and carcass of a great nation? Russia, the great granary of Europe, is rapidly reduced to a desert. Famine and pestilence are ravaging her people and carrying them off literally by tens of millions.”[7.  April 8, 1922. Caird Hall, Dundee]

Since 1917, of course, the creed of Socialism has been deployed in many countries. It has left deep scars. Up to a hundred million people have been sacrificed upon its altar. Yet even so, our weekend press was full of useful idiots being given a generous hearing for their Marxist nostalgia. Our young people are schooled only in the horrors of Fascism and not those of Socialism. And so many of them fall under the spell of Corbyn’s: “For the many not the few.”

Churchill would have been appalled by this state of affairs and perhaps especially by the slogan. His riposte rings true over the hundred years since he delivered it:

“As we sit here, 120 millions of Russians are prostrate under Socialist and Communist tyranny… There you see the rule of the few made absolute over the wishes of the many.”[8.  April 8, 1922. Caird Hall, Dundee]

Further listening

Why don't we remember the victims of communism?

By Douglas Murray