Libertarians and conservatives - some thoughts

Daniel Hannan has written and short but fascinating piece on his Telegraph blog, asking 'can a libertarian be a Conservative?'

It is well worth a read. I am slightly annoyed, as my very next piece was going to be on just this subject, except take away the capital 'C' and replace it with a lower case 'c' in conservative - I will shortly be talking about the bonds and divisions between real, proper, 'ideological' conservatives and libertarians.

It is a very important subject. Hannan is right when he says that in Britain today, we live in a country and climate very far away from what conservatives and libertarians want. Our final destinations may be different, but are they really that far apart and are our journeys that dissimilar?

If opposition to the social democratic consensus and hierarchy that stands astride this nation like a colossus is to be broken or at least effectively challenged, my view is that libertarians and conservatives must combine and fight together. Find common ground, whilst accepting and acknowledging our respective differences and motivations.

Why not? This is not about forming an SDP alliance of sorts, it is about the grave and urgent need to smash the cosy consensus amidst our political, media and cultural elites that have decided to rule outsiders and enemies as lunatics and dangerous bastards.

David Cameron's Tories are no good. They are a waste of time and a complete continuation of the centre-left. Why would any conservative, with or without the capital 'C', want that? If that's what you want, do a Shaun Woodward and defect to Labour. That should be the party of the left, not the Tories. Sadly there is no adversarial set up in politics. No choice, no opposition.

As 'Newsweek' might describe it, 'we are all socialists now'.


The blue hand you see is not blue from its natural colour, but blue from cold. The Tories have been out in the cold for years, and are frozen from their time out of office. But as soon as that hand warms up, the frost bite will clear up and the hand will turn as red as its counterpart. The Tories leave and return to office, but politically, conservatives never see real power.

This is not necessarily a problem for libertarians, because we are not conservatives in the true sense, but we should be using our orange or yellow hands to shake the real, true hands of blue conservatives, otherwise we will be weak and ineffective. There just aren't enough of us these days to go it alone against such a formidable foe.

I am currently reading Peter Hitchens's enormously interesting, factual, influential and timely book 'The Broken Compass'. This book touches on so many crucial issues regarding conservatism and consensus politics, and how the media and the Tory Party have fitted in with the post war social democratic project.

When I have finished it, I will write a full, feature length review. I will also make clear my own personal thoughts about conservatives and libertarians and how and why this is the future alliance that might just matter.