We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
«  
  »

Heffer on Seldon

· UK affairs

Nice and fair piece on the late Arthur Seldon, for years the editorial powerhouse at the Institute of Economic Affairs. The writer, Simon Heffer, is not always to my taste, given some of his Blimpishness, but he hits the mark here. One thing that stands out for me about Arthur is that he was not remotely interested in pandering to the short-term vagaries of opinion or attracting the plaudits of the rich and famous. He was also a representative of a style of liberalism going back to Gladstone, one which Britain is sorely in need of.

January 11th, 2006 |

9 comments to Heffer on Seldon

  • GCooper
    January 11, 2006 at 9:10 pm

    I’m really pleased Johnathan Pearce singled that article out for a special mention. I read it myself, this afternoon, and in the absence of a main post from a Samizdatista, was trying to work out a way of mentioning it in a comment. It deserves reading.

  • HJHJ
    January 11, 2006 at 11:14 pm

    I agree. An excellent article by Simon Heffer. I particularly enjoyed the comments on Arthur Seldon and the Liberal party – views I share.

    It is a pity, as Johnathon says, that Simon Heffer’s tendencies to exhibit Daily Mail-style prejudices obscure the fact that in articles like this, he can be excellent. He makes it so easy for the Toynbees of this world to characterise all right-wing views as authoritarian and reactionary.

  • esbonio
    January 12, 2006 at 10:32 am

    I do not agree with everything Heffer writes but the same applies to other journalists but they do not appear to inspire the same level of sometimes prissy criticism. I wonder why?

  • GCooper
    January 12, 2006 at 1:10 pm

    esbonio writes:

    “I do not agree with everything Heffer writes but the same applies to other journalists but they do not appear to inspire the same level of sometimes prissy criticism. I wonder why?”

    I suspect it’s because being a social conservative is about as deeply uncool as it’s possible to be in the UK – particularly to the generation currently in its 30s and 40s.

    Oddly, this produces the same sort of reaction in soi disant ‘free-thinking’ Right wingers as it does among Islington types: both tend to hold people like Heffer in contempt and, in particular, his former home, the Daily Mail.

    It’s a thoroughly lousy newspaper, but the Mail isn’t hated becase of it’s trashy news values but because of its unfashionable take on social issues and anyone who writes for it (Melanie Phillips, for example) gets the same treatment.

    The irony here, of course, is that Bliar and Gould know better. They take note of the Mail’s circulation figures and reader profile and understand the importance of those people.

    One can only imagine Heffer gets similar treatment from some of his new stablemates at the Telegraph – particularly the bimbo-brigade of Cameroons. I wonder how out of place he feels?

  • esbonio
    January 12, 2006 at 2:53 pm

    GCooper

    Thank you for articulating your insight.

    Of course seeking to be “cool” which the Tories appear to have caught from New Labour is of itself totally uncool as any adolescent schoolboy would tell you.

  • GCooper
    January 12, 2006 at 2:59 pm

    esbonio writes:

    “Of course seeking to be “cool” which the Tories appear to have caught from New Labour is of itself totally uncool as any adolescent schoolboy would tell you. ”

    Indeed! And, extending that thought, isn’t chasing after the yoof vote a mathematical error of gross proportions, given the much-discussed demographic shift taking place in the UK?

  • esbonio
    January 12, 2006 at 3:20 pm

    With octogenarian parents / in laws I could not agree more. Nor am I sure that the younger generation (other than perhaps the political obsessives) are taken in / impressed by any obvious overtures. Certainly in my day at Uni in the 80s students were generally very suspicious of national political parties but even more so student politicians. What I do find impressive about the younger generation I meet today is their interest in and respect for my parents generation.

  • Johnathan
    January 12, 2006 at 7:03 pm

    One of Heffer’s contributions to public life was coining the Essex Man idea. He’s a good Chelmsford Grammar boy, a fine school.

  • Paul Marks
    January 13, 2006 at 3:12 pm

    It was a good article on Heffer about Seldon (although too positive about the condition of the fight against statism is Britian).

    I liked the casual contempt shown for Mr Cameron (with his “capitalism and communism are both just extrem isms” – does Mr Cameron prefer the “third way” of Fascism? or is he totally “nonideological” i.e. just doing whatever he is bribed to do).

    As for Gladstone – he made mistakes (who does not?) but he was great man right up to 1874.

    His last couple of decades in politics were pain and failure. The final humilation being living to see “we are all socialists now” Sir William Harcourt introduce graduated income tax and inheritance tax.

    Harcourt produced a load of phony tears when he finally managed to push Gladstone into retirement.

    Gladstone left the cabinet with a “few cold words”, and remarked (in writing) about Harcourt’s phony “blubbing”.

    The Liberal party died when Gladstone was first forced to rat on his old view of limited government – and then forced out totally.

    The Democrat party died a couple of years later (1896) when President Cleveland (a genuine limited government man) was turned out at the convention.
    I suppose the Davis (the Democrat candidate for President in 1924) counts as an antistatist and I have soft spot for Alfred Smith (1928). But really the old antistatist Democrats died with G.C.

«  
  »