That 'Conservative'
Sir: Your anonymous reviewer of our symposium (Right Turn) who claims to enunciate Tory philo- sophy—'our view' is, etc.—with- out caring to let us know who he is, has damned our study without troubling to give the reader any idea of what it contained, one essay excepted.
Now the fact is that whatever else may be said for and against the symposium it was anything but homogeneous in style or approach, barring certain broad principles. My essay was on local government, which spends a good deal of our money and affects us in many ways. I did not talk about `national greatness', nor about the virtues of the free market, nor, I hope, was I markedly unsubtle. I assembled fact, adduced certain inferences as I saw them—always open to correction—and suggested certain alternatives.
I should be the first to agree with your reviewer's call for scep- ticism towards politicians; most of my fellow-contributors would share this. But it is precisely the politicians and others who resent criticism that hurry to confuse scepticism with cynicism. The difference surely is that the cynic rules out hope and sees the worst
of motives in everyone; we sceptics believe that progress is worth try- ing for in spite of everything and that many of our worst ills can be explained without reference to bad intentions; above all, we retain cautious faith in the power of reason. I would share your re- viewer's distaste for rhetoric, but beg him and readers to see beyond a few rhetorical flourishes to the solid analytical thought they de- signed to finish off.
Alfred Sherman Reform Club, Pall Mall, swl
Sir: Had I been one of the authors of the symposium Right Turn, re- viewed (attacked? praised? heaven knows what) in last week's issue, I don't know whether I would have been incensed or merely puzzled. 'A Conservative' advances, slily, evasively, obliquely, bouquet in hand: 'its brain is emphatically in the right place'—or is it a bludgeon : 'lacking political touch', 'defects of tone and unsubtleties so glaring . . . ' ? He advocates 'cynicism' not only about socialism but also about the free market. What on earth is left? Is not a much greater degree of cynicism appropriate when confronted by a man (or woman or child?) who scoffs impartially at both disease and remedy, fire brigade and fire, who licks Mr Powell's boots while sneering at the best part of what Mr Powell believes in, and who has not even the guts to put his name to it, unlike
Colin Welch The Daily Telegraph, tc4
Ps: Since 'a Conservative' clearly believes in plots and conspiracies, 1 ought perhaps to add that 1 have not been 'put up' to this letter. I am indeed a friend of many of those who contributed to Right Turn, and I may also be a friend of 'a Conservative'. Who knows?
Sir: Perhaps the oddest thing about 'a Conservative' was why he should -- be so coy about his own identity yet so anxious to drag in the illus- trious name of a working colleague who is wholly innocent of blame (or praise) for my private enterprise activities.
So long as your reviewer remains anonymous it is difficult to judge whether he (or she?) is fully justi- fied in representing himself as more mature, subtle, cynical, skil- ful. shrewd than the authors of Right Turn. Certainly he sounds most impressive.
It is therefore all the more grati- fying to have his verdict 'that most Conservatives' now believe in the view we put forward. Can the Con- stitutional Book Club already have been that successful? If so, instant conversion must have replaced in- stant government.
Before Right Turn was published,
I do not recall 'most Conservatives' urging the 4s income tax, whole- sale denationalisation, dismantling the welfare state, the ditching of Redcliffe-Maud (as well as Rudi Dutschke) and reprimanding Bishop Huddleston. But I must admit that at Blackpool Mr Heath did seem to be cramming more sail on the Tory mainmast!
Ralph Harris Hadley Wood, Barnet, Herts
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