AS I WAS SAYING
Alas, the Tory Toby Belches have disappeared
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE
Dining last week in the company of the clean-cut, youngish headmaster of a highly regarded prep school, who had until recent- ly been a beak at Eton, the subject of role models cropped up, and the two names he mentioned as being his pupils' favourites — apart from the usual footballers — were the late lamented Alan Clark and Jeffrey Archer: the former a bit of a cad and the latter someone whom earlier generations would have dismissed as decidedly 'hairy- heeled'. (If you ask Jeffrey, in his spectacu- lar London penthouse, the way to the lava- tory, the reply comes pat: 'First left after the Picasso.') Surprising choices as role models, some might think. The second sur- prise, however, was that the headmaster himself thoroughly approved of their choic- es; he thought it did his pupils — and pre- sumably himself — great credit.
Why, I inquired, not altogether innocent- ly? Sensing my mildly censorious drift, he did a good job of justifying his pupils' pref- erences. 'In a world without giants,' he said, 'it is the colourful — as against the grey — pygmies who stand tall. Clark and Archer at least come across as red-blooded human beings, with interests outside politics, who always speak their minds without fear or favour.' In a word, Cavaliers, I suggested, and there was a happy meeting of minds.
Which made me recall a definition of con- servatism, coined many years ago, I think by Quintin Hogg as he then was. Natural con- servatives, he said (I can't remember the exact words, only the meaning), were people who liked to enjoy themselves, to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow etc. 'Devil may care' chancers who didn't give a damn; scarcely a description of himself, as it hap- pens, or indeed, in reality, of most conserva- tives, but very much a description of what he and most conservatives — including this columnist — would like to be. Not so natural liberals or lefties (Aneurin Bevan, of course, was a great exception) who, however much they may indulge privately, are rather ashamed of being seen to do so, believing very firmly that they have been put on this earth to improve it, rather than to enjoy its many fruits.
Sunny smile versus furrowed brow; gay abandon versus conscientious dutifulness; Mr Pleasure versus Miss Do-gooder; in short, Cavalier versus Roundhead, has — except for abnormal periods such as the Cold War — always been the normal great divide: not so much one of ideology or class as of temperament or style. Up to a point, yes, but there is also a deeper element involved, very much favouring the Cavalier. For although the Cavalier has the sunny smile and the gay abandon, and the instinct for fun and pleasure, he is at the same time — which makes him a romantic hero — the pessimist who believes in original sin, in unregenerate man and in the impossibility of progress; while the Roundhead, who has the furrowed brow, the conscientious dutifulness and the antipathy to fun and pleasure, is also at the same time, maddeningly enough — considering the number of his grievances — the optimist who believes in the regenera- tion of man, the perfectibility of human nature and the possibility of progress.
Which type, let me ask — and it is a cru- cial question — is most likely to have the widest general appeal; to accord most with the experiences of the ordinary man in the street? Surely there can be only one answer: the Cavalier, who, because he does not have a mission to change human nature or to facilitate progress or to create Utopia, is much less likely to muck anyone around and much more likely to let everyone go to Hell in their own way than are the Puritans, who most certainly do dream of creating a land fit for saints to live in, from which you and I, unless we pull up our socks, will quite certainly be excluded.
So why don't the Tories return to their free-and-easy, Cavalier roots and endorse the permissive society — unmarried moth- ers etc. — as Minette Marrin last week urged them to do in the Daily Telegraph? Quite simply because there never has been any Tory doctrine called cavalierism to be readopted as a creed; only cavaliers, of whom there are not enough today to fill a taxi — in short a case of no thoroughbred horses for that particular course. '
Permissive speeches can just about be reconciled with the liberal thoughts of John Stuart Mill but never conceivably with the Tory ones of Burke, Coleridge, Disraeli or even Michael Oakeshott. But the personality and aura surrounding these Tory gurus most certainly can be. In Oakeshott's case it was Bohemian wildness (he was once convicted of indecent expo- sure); in Coleridge's, drug and drink addic- tion and improvidence; in Burke's, finan- cial sleaze; in Disraeli's, debts and exoti- cism — not to mention Churchill's overindulgence in champagne and cigars. The same applies even to Tory journalists, who, after spending the afternoon writing leading articles in favour of all the Victori- an virtues, go on to spend the night in Hogarthian frolics, while their Guardian counterparts, who have spent the after- noon writing in favour of free love, go home to a mug of Horlicks in bed with their wives.
Why is this so? The reason, of course, is historical. Tory philosophers and statesmen are rooted in, and have always drawn their sustenance from, an aristocratic society of pleasure and privilege. So indeed have most radical philosophers and statesmen. But while the former loved the status quo which they sought to preserve, the latter wanted either to reform or to destroy it. Hence, his- torically, the different tones of voice — con- tentment on the one and resentment on the other.
Roisterers, gamblers, lechers, bohemians, drunkards, sportsmen of all classes — the Falstaffs, and the Toby Belches etc. — have always tended to be natural Tories, knowing by instinct where their best interests lie and from which quarter they have most to fear. Only in that sense, admittedly a vastly important one, can one say that Tory roots are libertarian. But to draw on these roots the Tory party needs to have lots of high-fly- ers who embody — by winning the Derby, say — this kind of Cavalier hedonism with- out having to theorise about it from the platform; and this is the difficulty today: such embodiments, except for the invalu- able Kenneth Clarke, scarcely any longer exist, and if they do, only as an endangered species which would not wish to put itself in danger by going into public life.
The Conservative party has always depended more on men than on measures; on its capacity to charm by example rather than convince by precept. In the persons of Alan Clark and Jeffrey Archer, as I say, it can still produce one or two Cavalier role -models pleasing to adolescents and even to some right-wing columnists; but not enough to make a winning — in either sense — gov- erning party. In 1999, unlike in the 1790s when Burke's fine words first rang out, the age of chivalry really has gone and that of sophisters, economists and calculators really has succeeded. If anybody doubts this, let him think, for example, of David Willetts MP. Better cads than creeps.
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