Remaking One Nation. Nick Timothy
by leading a faction. For others, it is a useful template with which they can approach the decisions they have to make. Some believe in their ideology more than others, and some have read more widely and thought more deeply than others.
But many politicians – and almost all civil servants and technocratic experts called upon to shape policy – deny any kind of ideology. They say they believe in ‘what works’. This is a nice line, but it is untrue. They are shaped and conditioned by the assumptions of liberal philosophy, and increasingly extreme forms of ultra-liberalism that span left and right. Some politicians understand these influences on their beliefs and attitudes, but for many the effects are less considered and more subconscious. We are governed by a political class that manages at once to be ideological yet uninterested in ideas.
This book is an attempt to trace the philosophical assumptions – and the evolution of ideas – that influence politics and policies today. It analyses the economic and cultural crises we are living through in Britain and across the West. And it makes a plea to conservatives in particular to look past liberalism: to respect not only personal freedom but also solidarity, to reform capitalism and rebuild community, and to reject selfish individualism while embracing our obligations towards others. We must take care not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Individual rights and equality before the law are the foundations of our civilization. The essential liberalism that underpins market economies and free societies must be defended. But as liberalism grows more ideological and more dysfunctional, we need to look beyond the artificial limitations and choices it imposes upon us.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
President Theodore Roosevelt, 23 April 1910
Notes
1 1. Daily Mail, 15 July 2016. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3691248/MARCH-MERITOCRATS-loads-new-Cabinet-state-educated-Ministers-brutal-day-level-sacking-modern-history.html
2 2. Reuters, 11 October 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-nuclear/u-s-tightens-controls-on-china-imports-of-nuclear-components-idUSKCN1ML2V9
3 3. Daily Mail, 5 October 2016 and Guardian, 5 October 2016. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3828041/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Theresa-s-bold-vision-enemy-within.html and https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/05/the-guardian-view-on-theresa-mays-conference-speech-actions-not-words-will-decide
4 4. Twitter, 5 October 2016. https://twitter.com/Peggynoonannyc/status/783828734277189632
5 5. T. May, The good that government can do, 5 October 2016. http://press.conservatives.com/post/151378268295/prime-minister-the-good-that-government-can-do
6 6. Ibid.
7 7. T. May, We can make Britain a country that works for everyone, 11 July 2016. https://press.conservatives.com/post/147947450370/we-can-make-britain-a-country-that-works-for
8 8. T. May, Leadership campaign launch speech, 30 June 2016. https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2016/06/theresa-mays-launch-statement-full-text.html
9 9. T. May, Britain After Brexit: A Vision of a Global Britain, 2 October 2016. https://press.conservatives.com/post/151239411635/prime-minister-britain-after-brexit-a-vision-of
10 10. T. May, The Government’s negotiating objectives for exiting the EU, 17 January 2017. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech
11 11. T. May, Speech to the Congress of Tomorrow, 26 January 2017. https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prime-ministers-speech-to-the-republican-party-conference-2017
12 12. Private conversation.
13 13. BBC News Online, 4 January 2017. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38503504
14 14. BBC News Online, 24 February 2017. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39064149
15 15. The Independent, 15 April 2017. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-s-conservatives-are-21-points-ahead-of-labour-in-a-new-poll-a7685271.html
16 16. The Daily Telegraph, 6 March 2017. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/06/case-early-general-election-theresa-may-should-free-put-brexit/
17 17. Conservative Party,Forward Together: Our Plan for a Stronger Britain and a Prosperous Future, 18 May 2017. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/conservative-party-manifestos/Forward+Together+-+Our+Plan+for+a+Stronger+Britain+and+a+Mor+Prosperous....pdf
18 18. The Times, 19 May 2017. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mainstream-may-reaches-out-to-labour-heartlands-j69mrjz6s
19 19. The Daily Telegraph, 19 May 2017. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/18/theresa-may-redefines-conservatism-tories-move-thatcher/
20 20. See, for example, the Guardian, 19 May 2017 and The Daily Telegraph, 19 May 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/18/the-guardian-view-on-theresa-may-manifesto-a-new-toryism and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/18/david-cameron-patronised-old-people-bribes-theresa-may-honest/
21 21.