Sean Gabb‘s account of the debate he took part in yesterday evening, already referred to here (and assuming that yesterday is the proper word for the day that only ended a little over an hour ago), is already up and readable on his own website. The full text of what he said is there, together with his account of some other things he said during the Q&A. Recommended.
The titbit in the report of the evening that interested me most was somewhat off the central agenda. It seems that after the debate, which all went very smoothly and politely by the way, Sean was challenged in a rather interesting way by a young woman in the audience:
She began with flattery. She was a reader, she said, of Free Life Commentary on my web page and found it very interesting. The surest way to an intellectual’s heart is though his ego. This young lady will doubtless go far in life. She then asked why I was spending so much of my time on the mixed bag of losers and cretins who are the modern Conservative Party? Why not turn my attentions to the Liberal Democrats? These at least were already social liberals, and they might with a fraction of the effort I had wasted on the Tories come to some agreement on economic liberalism. Good question, and I had no ready answer. Perhaps I should think of one.
Yes do, Sean. I for one would love to hear it.
In this connection, our American readers in particular would surely appreciate some explanation of the parlous state that Britain’s Conservatives now find themselves in, especially when you consider how well the Republicans are now doing over there. Why is the political right that in such a mess here, while it is the left that is in trouble in the USA? I hope to offer a few answers to this question in a future Samizdata posting, but I have learned from bitter experience over the decades that what I say that I hope to do, and what I do do, are two things that often diverge with embarrassing completeness. So expect that when you read it and no sooner.
I cannot even hope to offer much on the subject of the Lib Dems, the young lady’s proposed alternative focus of Sean Gabb’s attention. Recently someone told me that there are clever young people in their ranks who are not completely indifferent to the claims of economic liberalism. Until then I despised the Liberal Democrats utterly, and had as little to do with them, and even with thinking about them, as I could contrive. But maybe they might make something approximating to libertarians some time reasonably soon. They’re already very sound about cannabis. And they are descended from the nineteenth century Liberal Party of William Gladstone. In the 1950s there were still old-fashioned Liberals like Jo Grimmond to be found among them, before they succumbed to the statism Mark 2 posture that they have adopted for the last forty years or so. Comments anybody?
The answer is simple… there is very little that is liberal about the Liberal Democrats. They are in many ways more to the left than Labour and are addicted to socialist violence backed kleptocratic methods in almost all areas of policy. The only issues we have any common cause with them is on privacy and some free speech issues.
The Liberal Democrats sound very much like what Americans think of when we talk about “liberals” and “Democrats.” Are they as nutty as our Democrats?
Ken,
Judging from some of the stuff I run across on various US Democrat websites NO-ONE is as nutty.
Brian, you can have a comment from me: bollocks!
Every Illiberal Democrat I have ever heard/read has done nothing except whine about the urgent need for more tax increases and lashings more public spending. And I don’t believe they’re all that liberal on social matters either; the few quarter-hearted comments they have made about the ‘nanny-state’ are probably a squalid attempt to get ‘down with the kids’.
In any event, why lend my support to a party that would allow me to smoke cannabis but plunder me so rapaciously that I couldn’t actually afford to buy any?
The Liberal Democrats: a bunch of creepy, ugly, manipulative, dishonest, scavenging, wannabe-socialists.
The Tories, from my eagle’s nest here across the pond, seem to be in a tight spot for one basic reason: They have accepted the premises of the Welfare State. Once that barrier fell, all of their arguments dissolved like an ice cube in a blast furnace.
The ideological reason Sean Gabb should be deterred from joining them is their position on virtually any major matter. Look at their foreign policy: stop supporting the US, oppose war on Iraq, surrender the pound to Brussels. And so on through every issue. Contrary to popular myth, there is far more to politics than “social policy” and “economic policy”.
The Liberal Democrats is best described as a two-player coalition of social democrats to the left of Labour and old Liberals of the civil liberties/Charter 88 sort.
Even if the Lib Dems had any consistent principles, the party itself is a bunch of open-toed sandal wearing freaks and idiots. Their activists are well organised fanatics, willing to stir up racism against black candidates, euroscepticism against candidates who agree with them on the euro, and lie blatantly.
And just look at their front bench: they are the dregs of the Commons. Phil Woolas, the camp and dull-witted Education Spokesman and Evan Harris, the greasy, lizard-like Health Spokesman, have never expressed a position not held by the teaching and health service unions. They are slave to the selfish wishes of the public service unions in a way that even Labour has chosen not to be once in government. Famously, at last years party conference, Harris went on and on about the plight of doctors and nurses in the NHS, and made only one – derogatory – reference to patients. The Foreign affairs spokesman was forced to denounce such positions publicly, not that the press were interested.
It’s not surprising that the Liberals are idiots, though. If I genuinely thought they were the party for me and I wanted to be an MP, it would still be completely irrational for me not to join the Tories or Labour and get a shot at government. Those without the sense to do either remain Liberal Democrats.
I’m not sure what the party particulars are on your side of the pond, but as a liberal Democrat turned economic conservative/social liberal Democrat (Sound familiar? Odd semantics aside, an economic conservative/social liberal’s what we call a libertarian out here) from the great, kick ass state of Texas, maybe I’m in a better position to usefully comment than some of the previous basher/posters on how one gets from liberal to libertarian, and I think that young woman had a good point.
Most liberals aren’t stupid, but their ignorance and earnestness (and multiple peircings) can be shocking to folks unfamiliar with the genre. Most of the younger activists are just kids who want to make the world better, and who stand to benefit (in the short term) from wealth redistribution. Who can compete with such a tantalising combination of altruism and raw self-interest?
The thing is, since most liberals do actually want to make things better, convincing them that wealth redistribution schemes generally make things worse in the long run actually can work. People (around these parts, anyhow) have a shockingly limited understanding of economics, so it’s both incumbent, and not that hard, for libertarians to make their case, and lots of the ecology crowd are used to making arguments by extrapolating trends. I’ve got a lot of lefty friends who’ve concluded that government induced market distortions and bloated bureaucracies don’t serve the electorate well or at all. It works here, and I can’t imagine that the UK lefties could be any worse educated. Democrats already buy the whole social laissez-fair line, and Marxist/collectivist dogma rarely survives an intelligent conversation (or regular surfing to http://www.reason.com). If y’all really want to make a difference, you could do a lot worse than to point some young, politically active freaks in the right direction. They’ll grow up soon enough.
Some puzzles: how come that the Conservative party produced a Margaret Tathcher only 25, 30 years ago? Couldn’t that happen again ?
Weren’t the Republicans in the US in dissarray only 6 years ago when their leader was Bob Dole ? Who would have guessed then their resurgence under GWB ?
Jacob… a few percentage points does not a resurgence make.
The conservative party never produced Maggie T, she had plenty enough personal charisma to warp whatever party (temporarily) to fit.
The current state of british parties:
Conservatives: evenly (and fractiously) divided between hangem-and-floggem foreigner-hating yoof-hating nazis, and halfhearted “market reformers” who are trying to pretend they’re socialists so as to con the public. This includes a large salting of still-as-yet-not-sacked hangers-on from the last conservative government, who retain the exact same arrogant smirk they always had.
Lib. dems: They used to be more or less where labor is now. Finding their customary slot occupied, they’ve shifted over to somewhere left-of-lenin. Only, they’re not “the party of the working classes” they’re the party of the guardian-reading middle classes. Hence they’re into environmentalism and middle class bread-and-circuses (soak the rich to pay for freebie university grants, etc)
Labor: are blind pragmatists now, trying to do whatever’s politically expedient in the moment. In practise this means they’re socialist since their continual “reforms” of “public services” always result in the need for tax increases. They’re becoming openly so, since chancellor brown has run out of sneaky ways to hide taxes. Labor are in power, but solely because everyone else is so dire.
Summarized: used-car-salesnazis, trotskyites, and spin-doctors
Don’t even go there. One of the more depressing prospects of my existence is the idea that Matthew Taylor, Simon Hughes, and even Charlie Kennedy will be around forever. Fifteen years ago, IDS, Letwin and co were mere nobodies. Likewise Blair and Brown. And in fifteen years they, quite probably, will have disappeared off to the Lords or into some EU quango. But, the Liberals just go on and on… occasionally changing jobs, sometimes even leaders, but still knocking around, still promising that in the next election they will either finally break the mould, or hold the balance of power.
Leave it well alone, buddy.
I almost got into a fight with Evan Harris once…
Do tell!
Another American reader here. I think Jeffersonian nailed it when discussing the crisis on the right over there. They have basically bought into the welfare state. That’s not to say our Republicans are totally against the welfare state, but they do at least have significant ideas on how to alter the welfare state and make it less centralized. Nationalized healthcare just got defeated by an 80-20 margin in one of our most liberal states. So, an advanced welfare state on par with Europe is far from the mainstream here. And while I appreciate David Carr’s point about our Democrats, they really aren’t THAT bad. Democrats.com and similar sites are really run by a bunch of fringe lefties for example.
Again, this is from an American whose knowledge of Europe has more to do with what I’ve read than what I’ve experienced first hand.
But, it seems to me, your parliamentary systems have the unfortunate double wammy of being controlled by left wing parties at a time when the EU is increasing it’s lock continental power. So, you have elected lefties ceding power to non-elected lefties. So, when the pendilum swings again to the right, you guys are gonna be in a world of hurt, because the power of your parliaments will have been wiped out and ceded to the entrenched lefties in Brussels. But, since being a Eurosceptic apparently gets one called a racists nazi, the Right is unable to argue against the one thing ensuring the long term integrity of the welfare state: The EU.
The one great thing about America is the multiple levels of checks and balances. We’ve had essentially 70 years of a very slow creep towards a welfare state and we are still much farther away than you guys. And that’s due to the constitutional limits on the power of majority parties. And, it is by no means convential wisdom over here that more government is always the answer. It seems that more government is always the answer over there. Maybe that’s simplistic, but I think your right wing parties simply haven’t differentiated themselves that much from the left wing parties.
Do the Liberal Democrats believe in “free speech” – I doubt it.
I suspect they tend to support all the race talk (etc) laws. But then so do most Conservatives.
People in general seem to believe that you are against banning something you must be in favour of it.
You’re just jealous.