Centering The Right.

It's All In Our Heads: Prefixing right and left with the word “centre” was once a gesture of moderation, intended to reassure voters that the people being put up for election by these “mainstream” parties weren’t crazies. Today, however, the use of the word in relation to parties like America’s Republican Party, Britain’s Conservatives and Australia’s Liberals is, simply, inappropriate. These are no longer centrist parties, they’re unabashed promoters of the policies of the far-right.

IF PETER DUTTON is the answer, then the question should never have been put! The predicament of the Australian Liberal Party, left with no choice but to go from bad to worse, encapsulates the dilemma confronting all of the world’s centre-right parties.

Prefixing right and left with the word “centre” was once a gesture of moderation, intended to reassure voters that the people being put up for election by these “mainstream” parties weren’t crazies. Today, however, the use of the word in relation to parties like America’s Republican Party, Britain’s Conservatives and Australia’s Liberals is, simply, inappropriate. These are no longer centrist parties, they’re unabashed promoters of the policies of the far-right.

As such they have nothing positive to offer an electorate slowly becoming aware of just how much the planet will have to face – and overcome – in the years ahead. If they do not already, these voters will soon comprise a clear majority of their respective populations. In order to rip-up this emerging majority’s preferred policy track, it will be necessary for the parties of the far-right to rip-up democracy as well.

America’s Republican Party is leading the way in this regard: passing voter suppression legislation and shamelessly gerrymandering congressional districts in its favour. Britain’s Conservatives are more dependent on the fundamentally undemocratic first-past-the-post electoral system than ever. Boris Johnson’s 80-seat majority in the House of Commons was won with just 43.6 percent of the popular vote!

The fate of Australia’s Liberals was sealed by many factors, but their country’s complicated (and rort-resistant) preferential voting system must be counted among the most important!

Now, it may be that a comprehensive rorting of the democratic system is the far-right’s preferred option. Being the sworn enemy of moderation and compromise, extremism may simply be unwilling to countenance either. Assuming, however, that the far-right’s objective is not the “illiberal democracy” currently on display in Hungary, Brazil, and the Russian Federation, what must these errant movements do to earn the reapplication of the trusted centre-right label?

The answer provided by the Australian general election is unequivocal. No party of the centre-right can any longer afford to do anything other than affirm its unqualified belief in the science of Climate Change.

The social and economic consequences that follow logically from that crucial affirmation explains why far-rightists are so unwilling to make it. To meet the challenges of Climate Change it will be necessary to rebuild the machinery of collectivism. The state will have to become much, much larger, and the taxes of the super-wealthy will have to be set much, much higher. Since a small state and low taxes have constituted the sine qua non of centre-right parties since (at least) the late-1970s, what does that leave for them to champion?

The answer, surely, lies in what liberal democracy has always demanded, and will continue to demand, of the party system. At least one major party that is devoted to the protection of the rights of the small against the depredations of the large.

Individual liberty, with all its trappings – most particularly the freedoms of speech, communication, and association – would seem like the logical place to start. Building from there, a centre-right party should champion entrepreneurial enterprise and the creation of small businesses. It should also argue for what the Europeans call “subsidiarity” – the idea that decision-making bodies should remain as close as possible to those most directly affected by their decisions.

The new rule-of-thumb for the parties of the centre-right should be: big is oppressive, small is beautiful.

The political-economy of fighting Climate Change will ensure that this contention between bigness and smallness remains a constant theme of political debates for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, left-wing parties will also find themselves struggling to retain their centrist credentials. The temptation to simply crush any opposition to their radical measures will be very strong. Already, right across the planet, citizens of democracies have experienced how forcefully the state feels entitled to respond to a system-threatening emergency. The global Covid-19 Pandemic has revealed just how difficult defending the rights of the few can become when governments are confronted with the urgent demands of the many.

In the new political configuration that is fast approaching, individuals and communities will have need of centre-right champions. If only to remind us that a planet without freedom isn’t worth saving.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 3 June 2022.

Conservatives and Revolutionaries: Together At Last!

Peaceful Protest? The inescapable problem for the defenders of the occupation of Parliament Grounds is how to explain the extraordinary violence of the twenty-third day of the protest. They manage it, however, by employing the oldest explanation in politics: the minority responsible for the fires and the violence were in no way representative of the overwhelming majority of the protesters.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED to the conservatives and the revolutionaries of this country? How is it possible that these two groups, separated by ideology, are nevertheless equally persuaded that the occupiers of Parliament Grounds were ordinary, decent New Zealanders engaged in a political protest indistinguishable from a host of similar demonstrations scattered across New Zealand’s recent history?

The most obvious answer is that on both sides of the political spectrum there is a powerful ideological and emotional need to represent the protest as neither threatening nor unusual. Both conservatives and revolutionaries have a common interest in constructing a narrative in which the “innocence” of the protesters, and the “guilt” of the Government, is indisputable.

What could that common interest possibly be?

One possible answer is that the protest offered spectacular proof that “the people” still possessed the power of independent action. As the NZ Herald’s John Roughan put it: “I was proud that a demonstrable minority of New Zealanders have not been persuaded that lockdowns and vaccine mandates are a proportionate response to this virus.” 

That not everyone was willing to follow the science, or put the interests of ordinary New Zealanders ahead of the demands of business lobbyists and pundits convinced they knew more than the experts, was clearly a comfort to Roughan. That the protesters were happy to parade their ontological certainty on Parliament Grounds was even more comforting. The protest might be ignored by the Prime Minister (and all the other party leaders) but it could not be denied.

Roughan’s column is remarkable in many ways – not least by how far its author is willing to diverge from principles usually held dear to the hearts of most conservatives. On how many other occasions, one wonders, has he congratulated the Police for ignoring the expectations of “politicians, media, and the public who think law is something to be strictly enforced at all times”? Mass defiance of the Rule of Law is not the sort of behaviour usually tolerated by conservatives!

Nor is it usual for conservatives to downplay the serious harassment (up to and including physical assault) of innocent citizens going about their lawful business. Roughan refers to the many recorded incidents of Wellingtonians being accosted in the street, by protesters visibly incensed by their attempts to protect themselves from infection, as nothing more than “scoffing at people in masks”. Such minimisation of the actual harm experienced is, sadly, essential if one’s purpose is to maintain the fiction that this was a “peaceful protest”.

It is instructive to compare the description of these same incidents offered by two Marxist revolutionaries, Daphne Whitmore and Don Franks. In an opinion-piece posted on their Redline blog, they say: “There were unpleasant scenes reported of scruffy looking individuals walking on the streets of the city shouting at them for wearing a mask.” 

This description is a definite improvement on Roughan’s “scoffing”. But, although the writers concede that for some the experience was “deeply traumatising”, they also explain how “[m]any more just wandered on, ignoring the rants as you do with anyone who seems a bit unhinged.”

Crucially, they then add: “Those interactions, well away from the parliament lawns were then conflated with the occupation as a whole.” Once again, the purpose is to inoculate the occupation from charges that it was anything other than a “peaceful protest”.

The inescapable problem for both Roughan and Whitmore/Franks is how to explain the extraordinary violence of the twenty-third day of the occupation. They manage it, however, by employing the oldest explanation in politics: the minority responsible for the fires and the violence were in no way representative of the overwhelming majority of the protesters.

Roughan further refines his argument by congratulating the Police Commissioner, Andrew Coster, for the way he dealt with this alien violent element – presenting his final decision to clear Parliament Grounds as a “relief” for all the peaceful protesters, who dutifully packed-up and went home.

Whitmore/Franks are more straightforward. “After 23 days camped outside parliament the End the Mandates protest was stormed by 500 riot police. A few hundred hardcore protesters fought back all day, and around a hundred were arrested.”

It was the Cops wot done it.

At the heart of Roughan’s argument one senses a deep resentment that the views of persons like himself, powerful White conservative males, did not prove decisive in determining the Labour Government’s handling of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Such men are not used to being ignored. The inconvenient fact that the young, female Prime Minister who declined to accept their advice went on to be re-elected in a landslide victory only rubbed salt in their wounds.

It isn’t the fact that Roughan and his ilk represent a minority that galls them (the ruling-class and its explainers will always be a minority) it is that they have been required to share the fate of the minorities which, when power was in conservative hands, they were happy to ignore. The person they blame for this insupportable state of affairs is Jacinda Ardern:

“Once the grounds were cleared, the Prime Minister addressed the nation. She was not conciliatory. She said the violence had vindicated her refusal to engage with the protest for three weeks. She said the occupation would not define us.”

Roughan’s final paragraph is telling:

“As Prime Minister in a pandemic, she ultimately decides just about everything we can do. She can decide to shut shops, close schools, cancel events, keep us confined to home. She even decides what is best for our health. But she doesn’t get to decide what defines us. Not all of us.”

Seldom has a conservative writer provided his readers with such a clear view of his politics – nor one so chilling.

The clue to Whitmore’s and Franks’ uncompromising position on this issue is contained in this paragraph:

“Ostensibly pro working class groups painted the occupation as entirely negative and ‘reactionary’, with zero recognition of the social and economic deprivation which had driven many protesters to participate. Significant sections of End the Mandate protesters included trades people and health professionals who had lost their jobs. That is what drove them to arrive at parliament with their families, demanding audience with the government.”

What neither writer attempts to explain, however, is why so many other working-class New Zealanders – Māori and Pasifika working-class New Zealanders in particular – who are also the victims of “social and economic deprivation”, fought Covid by organising collective action and mutual support. These were the “essential workers” who stayed at their posts throughout the lockdowns because, if they hadn’t, thousands of their fellow citizens would have died.

The protesters on Parliament Grounds did not “lose their jobs” – they gave them up because they refused to accept the social obligation of vaccination, and then, selfishly, refused to accept the consequences of that refusal.

Had the “Freedom Village” been erected in the name of social justice, by workers determined to build a better world. Had the protesters not blocked city streets, assaulted passers-by, and prevented schools, universities, businesses and courts from functioning. Had they not swung nooses and issued death threats. Then their brutal suppression by 500 police officers would, indeed, have been shameful.

But, the hard, cold truth of the matter is that this protest was a manifestation of narcissistic, sociopathic, passive-aggressive and violent behaviour unequalled in New Zealand political history. It was a gathering of the deluded and the deranged. The only freedom sought was the freedom to ignore the obligations attached to being fully human. And that is pretty much the definition of “reactionary”.

No matter how hard Daphne Whitmore and Don Franks might wish it otherwise, a revolution by proxy just isn’t possible.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 8 March 2022.

Outdated Views? Andrea Vance On Sean Plunket.

Re-Platforming: In the eyes of senior Stuff journalist, Andrea Vance, Sean Plunket’s “dalliances with controversy make it easy to paint him as a two-dimensional character: a right-wing, shock-jock with outdated views on privilege and race.” Dear me! The scorn dripping from those words could fill a large spittoon! Regardless, Plunket’s new media product “The Platform” will soon be going head-to-head with his woke detractors.

IT’S ONE OF THOSE throwaway lines which, precisely because so little conscious thought was given to it, tells us so much. The author, Andrea Vance, is an experienced political journalist working for Stuff. The subject of Vance’s throwaway line, Sean Plunket, is an equally experienced journalist. It was in her recent story about Plunket’s soon-to-be-launched online media product “The Platform”, that Vance wrote: “Plunket’s dalliances with controversy make it easy to paint him as a two-dimensional character: a right-wing, shock-jock with outdated views on privilege and race.”

It’s hard to get past those first four words. The picture Vance is painting is of a dilettante: someone who flits from one inconsequential pursuit to another, taking nothing seriously. And, of course, the use of the word “dalliances” only compounds this impression. To “dally” with somebody it to treat them casually, offhandedly – almost as a plaything. Accordingly, a “dalliance” should be seen as the very opposite of a genuine commitment. It smacks of self-indulgence. A cure, perhaps, for boredom?

To dally with controversy, therefore, is to betray a thoroughly feckless character. Controversies are all about passion and commitment. Controversies are taken seriously. Indeed, a controversy is usefully defined as a dispute taken seriously by all sides. And yet, according to Vance, Plunket has only been playing with controversy: trifling with it, as a seducer trifles with the affections of an innocent maid.

In Vance’s eyes, this indifference to matters of genuine and serious concern distinguishes Plunket as a “two-dimensional character”. It reduces him to a cardboard cut-out, a promotional poster, a thing of printer’s ink and pixels – insubstantial. Or, which clearly amounts to the same thing as far as Vance is concerned: “a right-wing, shock-jock with outdated views on privilege and race.” Dear me! The scorn dripping from those words could fill a large spittoon!

As if the holding of right-wing views somehow renders a person less than three-dimensional. As if conservative thinkers from Aristotle to Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke to Carl Schmidt haven’t contributed enormously to Western political thought. As if Keith Holyoake, Jim Bolger and Bill English aren’t respected by New Zealanders of all political persuasions for their rough-hewn dignity and love of country. To hold right-wing views isn’t a sickness, It doesn’t make you a bad person. It merely denotes a preference for the familiar; a wariness of the new; and a deep-seated fear of sudden and unmandated change.

As for “shock-jocks”: well, that is the sort of broadcasting talent commercial radio producers are constantly searching for. People of energy and enthusiasm, with a way of communicating both qualities to the radio station’s listeners. And if they also have a talent for decoding the zeitgeist on air: for tapping into the audience’s anger and frustration; and giving voice to their hopes and their fears? Well, then they are worth their weight in gold – and usually get it. The more people a “shock-jock” glues to the station’s frequency, the more the advertisers are prepared to pay. That’s the business.

Perhaps Vance should have a word with the people who pay her salary: perhaps they could explain where all that money comes from.

The most important words, however, Vance saves for last. What really confirms Plunket’s lack of three dimensions are his “outdated views on privilege and race”. It is with these six words that Vance betrays both herself and her newspaper.

Who says Plunket’s views on privilege and race are “outdated”? According to whose measure? After all, his views on privilege and race correspond closely with those of Dr Martin Luther King. Is Vance asserting that Dr King’s view that people should not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character, is outdated? Is she suggesting that a poor white man has more in the way of privilege than Oprah Winfrey? Or that the privileges which flow from superior economic power and social status count for less than those attached to race, gender and sexuality?

The answer is Yes. Those who declare such views to be “outdated” are, indeed, making all of the claims listed above. This locates them among a relatively narrow section of the population: highly educated; paid well above the average; more than adequately housed; and enjoying all the “privileges” accruing to those who manage the bodies and shape the minds of their fellow citizens.

Andrea Vance is a member of this truly privileged group, and so, at one time, was Sean Plunket. So, why the sneering condescension? Why the scorn? The answer is to be found in the new priorities of the truly privileged; the people who actually run this society. They have determined that their interests are better served by fostering division and bitterness. Rather than see people promote a view of human-beings that unites them in a common quest for justice and equality, they would rather Blacks assailed Whites, women assailed men, gays assailed straights, trans assailed TERFS – and vice versa. In short, the “One Percent” have decided that their interests are better protected by corporations, universities and the mainstream news media all promoting the ideology of identity politics.

By setting his face against this new “Woke” establishment, Sean Plunket the conservative poses as large a threat to the status quo as Martyn Bradbury the radical. On the one hand stand those who question the necessity and morality of changes now deemed essential by persons no one elected. On the other, those who insist that such divisive policies will produce results diametrically opposed to their promoters’ intentions. Right and Left, joined in an “outdated” search for the common ground that makes rational politics possible. The place where both sides are willing to acknowledge and agree that, in the words of John F. Kennedy:

[I]n the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 21 September 2021.

The Winds Of Change.

Yesterday's Gone: Cold shivers are running up and down the spines of conservatives everywhere. Donald Trump may have gone, but all the signs point to there being something much more momentous in the wind-shift than a simple return to the status quo ante. A change is gonna come.

ONE COULD ALMOST feel sorry for them. Until, that is, their propositions are subjected to robust interrogation. All around the world, conservatives are feeling the fresh winds blowing out of Washington – and they are shivering. They fear that ideas hitherto denied the full imprimatur of state power have been issued arms and are on the march. In short, today’s conservatives are feeling what old-fashioned Labourites and social democrats felt in 1981 when Ronald Reagan was sworn-in as the fortieth President of the United States.

President Joe Biden is 78 years old. He has trod the floor of the Capitol Building for nigh on 40 years, trimming his sails to the prevailing winds as all successful politicians learn to do. All those years of experience are speaking to him now: warning him that the mighty gale currently filling the sails of the American ship of state cannot be tacked against, only run before. This will not be a “trimming” presidency: the Biden years will be a time of surging forward.

As one recent comment on The Daily Kos put it: “This isn’t Biden 2008. Something in the last 12 years has broadened his horizon and pushed him to centre-left territory. He put RFK’s bust in his office along with Caesar Chavez. If that’s where he’s looking for inspiration, I’m happy.”

Which explains the cold shivers running up and down the spines of conservatives everywhere. Donald Trump may have gone, but all the signs point to there being something much more momentous in the wind-shift than a simple return to the status quo ante.

Biden’s victory was built on the votes of America’s youth, America’s women, and, most triumphantly, on the votes of America’s people of colour. “Sleepy Joe” knows that his campaign was dead in the water until the veteran black congressman from South Carolina, James Clyburn, rallied his people behind the former Vice-President and pushed him all the way to the White House. As a long-time mover-and-shaker in the US Senate, Biden also knows that without the astonishing efforts of black activist Stacey Abrams in Georgia, neither he nor his party could have uplifted the legislative tools of change.

Someone else who knows this is the forty-third President of the United States, George W. Bush. Encountering James Clyburn in the Capitol Building on Inauguration Day, ‘Dubbya’ told the veteran congressman that he was America’s “saviour”. Without his intervention, said Bush, the only politician who could have beaten Trump would not have won the nomination.

Most certainly it was no accident that the person who ended up stealing the show on Inauguration Day was young, female and black. Rightly celebrated for the power of “The Hill We Climb”, her poem in honour of the new President, Amanda Gorman was also a flesh and blood celebration of the new America that is rising. Clearly, it is not going to be an America dominated by the values of conservative white males. Equally clearly, that message has been received loud and clear by conservative white males everywhere.

Fourteen thousand kilometres to the south, the Weekend Herald’s columnist, John Roughan, offered words of advice on the best way to reach out to Trump’s defeated army of followers. He addressed his remarks not only to the US Democratic Party, but also the American news media:

“If American Democrats and the country’s respected newspapers and television networks really would like to bridge their country’s cultural divides, rather than simply saying they do, they need to come halfway over the bridge. They need to overcome their aversion to certain views and respect the fact that a lot of people, about half the population, think that way.”

Wrapped up in those two sentences is pretty much the whole of the world view that conservatives believe to be threatened and which they are moving heaven and earth to protect. Under no circumstances should “respected” media outlets give extensive access (and, by implication, validation) to the voices of those on the receiving end of these “certain views” held by “about half the population”. Rather, it is the duty of the mainstream news media to “overcome their aversion” to such views.

Another way of saying this might be to invite responsible journalists to come halfway across the bridge (Selma Alabama’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, perhaps?) to meet the racism, sexism, climate change denial and white supremacist thinking that has allegedly enthralled half their fellow citizens – along with every other ideological defence of inequality the political right sees fit to advance.

Failure to display such tolerance will have consequences. “If the world is not to suffer more populist disasters,” warns the author of hundreds of NZ Herald leader articles, “possibly even an encore for Donald Trump, news media have to find an open mind again.”

Or, it might have to narrow its mind somewhat.

“Many journalists have had a tertiary education in liberal arts and it shows”, writes Roughan. “Some of their news angles reflect the values and explanations of a social science seminar where nobody’s misfortune can be attributable to poor personal decisions, society is always to blame, if an ethnic minority is underperforming it is evidence of ‘systemic’ racism.”

Is Roughan accusing the graduates of New Zealand’s universities and journalism schools of disseminating “fake news”? Or, is he merely giving credence to Kellyanne Conway’s classic Trumpian assertion that it is perfectly acceptable, when debating politics, to advance “alternative facts”?

Then again, if we are not to trust the evidence of social scientists: or, if we are being asked not to rely upon evidence at all; then in who and in what should we repose our trust? In the scepticism of those whose world views cannot survive the introduction of contradictory evidence? In the ‘reckons’ of people who believe democracy consists of one’s own ignorance being regarded in every respect as the equal of others’ knowledge? Or, are we simply being invited to accept that, politically-speaking, everything goes more smoothly when educated citizens agree to meet ignorance and prejudice half way?

John Roughan argues that Joe Biden struck a series of “clanging notes” when he used his inaugural address to call out “political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism . . . anger, hatred, extremism . . . racism, nativism, fear . . . facts that are manipulated, even manufactured”. What the Weekend Herald columnist did not explain, however, is how the new President could possibly have kept faith with the eighty million Americans whose votes put him in the White House if he had refused to strike the Liberty Bell so forcefully.

The consequences of heeding Roughan’s advice are there in American history for all to see. In the decades following the Civil War, politicians and newspaper editors from North and South insisted with ever-increasing fervour that it was time for the people of the United States to put the rancour of those bloody years behind them. Increasingly, it was asserted that far from being about the abolition of slavery and “a new birth of freedom” for the American republic, the war had only been about its noble antagonists’ differing definitions of freedom. Before long, the veterans of Blue and Gray were warmly embracing each other like long lost brothers.

Thus was racism reprieved in the United States. As white men’s willingness to meet each other half way condemned African-Americans to a life that offered them no way at all to the full and equal enjoyment of their constitutional rights.

Amanda Gorman’s poem spells out the moral obligation this historical failure places upon her fellow citizens:

because being American is more than a pride we inherit,
it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.

New Zealanders should learn from America’s experience. Truth owes nothing to falsehood. Knowledge owes nothing to ignorance. Tolerance owes nothing to prejudice. Equality owes nothing to racism. Justice owes nothing to injustice. And anyone who suggests otherwise is most definitely offering you fake news.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 25 January 2021.

When Conservatives Are The Only True Radicals.

Restoration, Not Revolution: Throughout history, the popular call for change has been motivated overwhelmingly by a fervent desire to restore the status-quo ante: to make things the way they were before they went wrong. Only very seldom are masses of human-beings moved to demand a shift towards an entirely new and unfamiliar order of things. 

 

DR BRYCE EDWARDS, of Victoria University, has proclaimed New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, a “conservative”. Writing in The Guardian, Edwards declares: “Ardern’s instincts have been to protect and conserve. She has trodden cautiously throughout the pandemic, providing reassurance and the promise of normality to those in fear of the worst.”

The key concepts in Edwards’ first sentence are, of course, “protect” and “conserve”. He bolsters these, in the next, with “caution”, “reassurance” and “normality”. Though he does not say so explicitly, Edwards clearly regards these concepts as irreconcilable with any genuinely radical purpose.

Radicalism and left-wing politics are generally held to be inseparable: to describe someone as a left-winger presupposes their possession of a radical disposition – and programme. It is not, however, permissible to argue that the reverse is true: one can be a radical and yet have not the slightest respect for left-wing ideas. Indeed, these days there are arguably many more radicals on the Right, than on the Left.

That being the case, Edwards’ generally negative framing of Ardern’s “conservatism” is more than a little problematic. To be a radical, or, to use Edwards’ own words, “a pioneering progressive or socialist” is not always to be, more-or-less by definition, on the side of the angels. (Or, for that matter, the Proletariat!)

In honour of the season, let us take as our example the “radical” measures adopted by the puritan supporters of the “Commonwealth” – the republican political arrangement held in place by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army (think: the Taliban in breastplates!) between 1649 and 1660.

By the puritans’ radical reading of Christianity, festivals such as Christmas were altogether too close to pagan revelry for the comfort of God-fearing men and women. Even before the execution of King Charles I in 1649, the radical protestants who dominated the House of Commons had thought it best to encourage his subjects to treat the mid-winter period “with the more solemn humiliation because it may call to remembrance our sins, and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this feast, pretending the memory of Christ, into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights’.”

Legislation confirming this puritanical rejection of the sinfully joyous yuletide season soon followed. The feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun were simply removed from the Christian calendar. From 1644 until the Restoration in 1660, celebrating Christmas was illegal. As C.S. Lewis, that devout Christian, keen royalist, Oxford scholar and children’s author puts it in The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe: “Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!”

Leaving Narnia behind, and returning to this considerably less enchanting world, we might further consider the actions of other radical puritans – like those belonging to the now thankfully defunct Islamic State. Or, the radical “Tea Party” Republicans, who saw moderation as treason and prepared the way for the radically disruptive Donald J. Trump. Thirty years on, a great many New Zealanders still resent deeply the radical reforms of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson. Even more Kiwis, in 2020, are profoundly grateful that their Prime Minister did not adopt the radically unsuccessful Swedish approach to fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

Perhaps the strangest observation in Edwards’ Guardian article argues that Ardern’s “self-declared ‘politics of kindness’ isn’t particularly revolutionary, nor very tangible”. In a world where the very idea of kindness has been out of fashion for so long, the Prime Minister’s use of the word generated a public response that was as physical in its consequences as it was revolutionary in its intent. It was kindness that bound together “The Team of Five Million”, and it was their unforced solidarity and unity of purpose that made New Zealand the envy of the world. Tell all those young New Zealanders dancing at this summer’s music festivals; tell all the grandparents who hugged their grandchildren on Christmas Day; that the “politics of kindness” has produced no tangible effect!

Edwards also notes that: “The political left is […] increasingly bristling at the conservatism of Ardern.” To many New Zealanders, however, that will not be interpreted as a bad thing – quite the reverse, in fact. When they think of the political left, the images called to mind are not of Cabinet ministers carrying furniture into the first state house. No, their thoughts are all about the excoriating tweets, outlandish claims and bitter recriminations of “Cancel Culture”; and the equally distressing diatribes against “colonisation”, “hate speech” and “white privilege”. If the Prime Minister has made it her mission to “protect” people like themselves – ordinary Kiwis – from such excesses, and to “conserve” a measure of decency in their country’s political discourse, then they won’t be “bristling” – they’ll be cheering.

Just like the hundreds-of-thousands of Englishmen and women who lined country roads and filled city streets from Dover to London to welcome home Charles Stuart – King Charles II – in the very merry month of May 1660.

The dour regime of the Commonwealth; of Cromwell’s “Protectorate”; may have been radical (certainly they were the only successful republicans in 1,500 years of English history) but they were also dictatorial and joyless. For centuries after the rule of the New Model Army’s “Major-Generals”, Englishmen resisted the idea of a large standing army as a threat to their “ancient liberties”. The restoration of the monarchy (and Christmas!) was indisputably the wish and will of the overwhelming majority of the English people. If they had been given a vote on it in 1660, Charles would have won by a landslide.

If its “conservative” to give the people what they want, then Jacinda Ardern is a conservative. If protecting them from Covid-19 and political extremism is “conservative” then she stands guilty-as-charged. If offering people caution, reassurance, and a semblance of normality as the rest of the world plunges deeper into chaos, makes our Prime Minister a “conservative”, then that’s a badge-of-honour she can wear with pride.

Dr Edwards favours radical change, but he does not appear to be aware of what motivates people to seek change. Throughout history, the popular call for change has been motivated overwhelmingly by a fervent desire to restore the status-quo ante: to make things the way they were before they went wrong. Only very seldom are masses of human-beings moved to demand a shift towards an entirely new and unfamiliar order of things. Certainly, history is studded with minorities who were absolutely certain about the proper ordering of paradise. Most people, however, hanker after the good times they remember – and not for H.G. Wells’ “Things To Come”. Radicals would do well to remember that the winning slogan in the 2016 Brexit Referendum was “Take Back Control”. It was the back wot won it!

Which leaves me wondering whether, in these peculiar times, the only true radicals are conservatives. If the only way to ensure that the voters’ lives remain the same, is for everything to be changed, then I strongly suspect that Jacinda Ardern is the ideal politician for the job.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday, 28 December 2020.

Does The National Party Know Anything About Genuine Conservatism?

Radio Hogwaller: Unfortunately for the National Party, Simon Bridges is no John Key. His Radio Hauraki hosts, Matt Heath and Jeremy Wells, led him by the nose into a slime-filled pit and encouraged him to wallow in it. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Bridges doesn’t know what he can’t do.

IF THE NATIONAL PARTY was a genuine conservative party, Simon Bridges would no longer be its leader. In a genuine conservative party, the outcry against his performance on Radio Hauraki last Friday (22/6/18) would have extracted his resignation within 24 hours. A great many voices would have joined the outcry against Bridges’ boorish denigration of the prime minister and her family, and for a great many reasons. Let’s examine just a few of them.

Genuine conservatism upholds the traditional values of society. The extending of courtesy to all human-beings, regardless of their station in life, is one of the oldest expectations of civilised society. Indeed, the ability to remain courteous at all times is held to be one of the surest signs of true nobility. It is the acknowledgement which those fortunate enough to wield power make to those who lack it entirely.

Bridges discourtesy towards Jacinda Ardern, Clarke Gayford and their baby not only demonstrated his ignorance of the way someone in his position is expected to behave, but was also proof that he is sorely lacking in the qualities associated with a true political leader. He showed himself to be a man without grace, generosity or sensitivity.

More importantly, he showed himself to be a man without judgement. To handle the shock-jocks of commercial radio requires the ability to think clearly and remain in complete control under pressure. Matt Heath and Jeremy Wells are, after all, entertainers who specialise in embarrassing their guests. John Key had a flair for this shock-jock vulgarity and generally handled such encounters with aplomb. Unfortunately for the National Party, Bridges is no Key. His Hauraki hosts led him by the nose into a slime-filled pit and encouraged him to wallow in it. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry: “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Bridges doesn’t know what he can’t do.

Bridges conduct also revealed a disturbing lack of moral strength. When one of his hosts demanded to know whether he hated Jacinda’s baby, there was only one correct answer: “No, of course I don’t! What a question!” What we heard, instead, was the weak-kneed equivocation: “Hate is a pretty strong word.” As if a less emphatic – but no less negative – characterisation of his feelings towards the child might be acceptable.

It was that same moral fragility which led Bridges’ into the other traps laid for him by his hosts. Trigger expressions, such as “gender-fluid”, elicited responses that showed him to be a person trapped in the rigid moral binaries of his Baptist upbringing. The kindest description of Bridges’ attitudes towards the LGBTI community is that they demonstrate a profound lack of both empathy and understanding. There are many less generous interpretations that could be offered for his willingness to find humour in the crudest of stereotypes.

Bridges was quick to reach for the excuse of humour when the full awfulness of his Hauraki performance became known. His comments were, he said, “light-hearted”. It is an interesting turn of phrase. Anyone who can make discriminatory comments about his fellow citizens with a light heart may not be the best qualified person to lead his country. Making trans-phobic comments with a light heart does not make them any less objectionable. A genuine conservative might even recall the old saying: ‘Many a true word spoken in jest.’

The most decisive voice raised against Bridges’ behaviour, however, would be the one that decried his lack of gravitas. Only political bomb-throwers like Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy made use of crude demagogic terms like “pinkos” – and that was nearly seventy years ago!

And what is a genuine conservative to make of a person who holds at least two university degrees, and has studied at Oxford, publicly accusing the prime minister of picking up “funny ideas” at university? Such a knee-jerk reversion to the anti-intellectualism of the National Party’s least attractive supporters indicates a deeply conflicted individual who is, at the very least, unwilling to acknowledge his own indebtedness to the power of higher education to expand the possibilities of a young man raised in modest circumstances.

If Simon Bridges was blessed with gravitas – behaviour indicating a serious and dignified personality – the idea of depicting higher education as something dubious or subversive, would be utterly abhorrent. Equally repugnant to him would be the idea of espousing one set of ideas and attitudes to one group of voters and a second, diametrically opposed, set to another. Such dishonesty; such cynicism would be anathema to a genuine conservative.

The ideas and attitudes to which genuine conservative politicians proclaim their allegiance do not change with the audience they are addressing. The serious business of governing one’s fellow human-beings requires honesty, consistency and a full measure of that solemn passion which should distinguish the political life.

If Simon Bridges was such a politician he would never have agreed to appear on Radio Hauraki. If he still aspires to become one, he will never do so again.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Monday, 25 June 2018.

Bridges And Adams Trapped In The Ghetto Of The Comfortable Third.

Utterly Predictable: Anyone seized with the notion that the Nats new leadership team might actually make a serious effort to face up to the enormous challenges confronting New Zealand and the world should now un-seize themselves. The new Opposition Finance Spokesperson, Amy Adams, has made it very clear that National will be governing, as it has always done, for the only New Zealanders who have ever counted for anything in its political universe – farmers and businessmen.

OH, WHAT A SURPRISE – it’s Amy Adams! On the day after Steven Joyce announced his retirement from politics, Simon Bridges appoints the runner-up in National’s latest leadership contest as his Shadow Finance Minister. So far, so utterly predictable.

Equally predictable, but a lot more depressing, were Adams’ announced priorities. In her first press release as Opposition Finance Spokesperson, she singled out “Labour’s overseas investment changes, employment law changes, and proposed new taxes as things that would ankle-tap the country’s medium-term economic performance.”

Anyone seized with the notion that the Nats new leadership team might actually make a serious effort to face up to the enormous challenges confronting New Zealand and the world should now un-seize themselves. Adams has made it very clear that National will be governing, as it has always done, for the only New Zealanders who have ever counted for anything in its political universe – farmers and businessmen.

Just listen to Adams assessment of National’s economic stewardship:

“New Zealand currently has one of the strongest economies in the western world. That’s not an accident. That’s a result of the hard work of New Zealanders backed by the strong economic plan of the previous National-led Government”.

Strong economic plan? And what might that have been? To open the floodgates to tens-of-thousands of immigrants? To facilitate the transformation of New Zealand’s agricultural sector into one huge dairy farm? To quietly inject the trade union movement with yet another cocktail of immobilising drugs? To dole out millions of dollars in corporate welfare to the National Government’s most generous friends?

If Adams’ only measure of success is the growth in GDP under National; or, perhaps, the appreciation in the value of urban real estate; or, the increasing share of New Zealand’s economic surplus currently being distributed to shareholders, at the expense of wage- and salary-earners; well then, yes, her party’s “strong economic plan” may be rated an unqualified success.

That Adams clearly cannot appreciate that all of these positive outcomes need to be set alongside a much longer list of negative economic and social consequences: homelessness, rising inequality, declining health and educational outcomes, environmental degradation; merely reinforces her own and her party’s location among the comfortable third of New Zealand society.

National’s capacity to present itself to the New Zealand electorate as something more than a crude political vehicle for the advancement of narrow sectional interests can only diminish while its leaders feel free to spout such facile and uninspiring rhetoric.

Adams’ words betray her party’s continuing failure to accurately interpret the result of the 2017 general election. Under a proportional electoral system, the support of just one third of the population is simply not enough to guarantee victory.

That National’s support manifested itself in a Party Vote of 44.5 percent only indicates the continuing depressed levels of electoral participation. If the progressive political parties can secure even a modest lift in the participation rate of their supporters (and if anybody can do that it’s Jacinda Ardern) then National’s share of the Party Vote will be driven down even further. Without a coalition partner commanding approximately 10 percent of the Party Vote, Adams’ hopes of re-booting National’s “strong economic plan” will be unfulfilled.

Conservatism, as Winston Peters demonstrated so adeptly at the head of NZ First throughout 2017, is a political philosophy capable of transcending sectional boundaries. Conservatives appeal to their fellow citizens from the much more solid foundation of shared values: individual freedom and responsibility; cherished cultural and religious traditions; the principles of equity and fairness. Values as likely to be found among the poorest members of society as the wealthiest.

Certainly, conservatives are hostile to the claims of the mob, but they are no less hostile to the grasping selfishness of the elites. The power of the state is important to conservatives not only because it guarantees law and order, but also because it alone is strong enough to resist – and, if necessary, overawe – the special-pleading of the heedless rich.

While Bridges and Adams espouse a social and economic programme which reeks of sectional self-interest, the National Party’s ability to break out of the ghetto of the comfortable third will continue to be compromised. If, between them, they are unable to convince the New Zealand electorate that a principled conservative party called “National” still exists, then they may soon find it necessary to re-invent one.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Wednesday, 8 March 2018.