CHRISTIAN TORIES: I BLAME TRADITION
I SUSPECT that Mr Tony Blair's recent remarks on his Christian beliefs have been misrepresented by the media. I doubt that Mr Blair really meant, as the headlines implied, that good Christians could only vote Labour. He seemed to suggest, how- ever, that Christianity had certainly swayed him against the Right.
Mr Blair gave voice to a dilemma. Recently I read, and enthusiastically reviewed, Paul Johnson's new book, Quest for God. I thanked him for leaving out pol- itics. Some of his admirers, including me, might have faltered. His book and certain other happenings have made me try to analyse why so many good Christians are Conservatives, while I said when I joined the Labour Party 60 years ago, and still say: I am a socialist because I am a Chris- tian.
Ann Widdecombe, the minister respon- sible for prisons, is coming very much into my life. We are already on friendly terms, though I have not yet met her. She and John Gummer, Secretary for the Environ- ment, were both instructed by my friend Father Seed and, like his other converts, are known as 'Seedlings'. Charles Moore, the 40-year-old editor of the Daily Tele- graph, is another recent convert. In what `Perhaps now she'll start wearing her national costume.' follows I am not concerned with their change of denomination (Paul, of course, was born a Catholic), but with the serious Christianity that clearly lies behind such vital decisions. No one could suppose that these successful public people were acting in the interests of their careers, or without painful consideration.
I myself was a Conservative Christian during my young days. At Eton I was pow- erfully influenced by the charismatic head- master Dr Allington, the greatest preacher I have known. It was automatically assumed that we were all Conservatives. One boy only, the future Lord Listowel then Lord Ennismore — heroically announced that he wished to be known as plain Mr Hare. A rumour spread (I believe it was correct) that the headmaster's wife was a Labour sympathiser, but this was denounced as a libel. At Oxford, I was still a Conservative Christian, as I was when I worked in the Conservative Research Department, 1930-32. By 1936 I had joined the Labour Party saying that I did so from reading the gospels and under the influ- ence of my wife.
Leaving aside the latter influence (funda- mental beyond all question), I will assert to my dying day that it is the gospels which have led me to become and remain a mem- ber of the Labour Party. I leave aside the question as to whether that party can still be called socialist. But I go to a prayer group in the House of Lords presided over by a Conservative peer, a true man of God, and the peers who attend this regularly are either Conservative or independent. One of them conducts two more religious groups during the week in the House of Lords; another is PPS to the Prime Minis- ter in the House of Lords, an unprecedent- ed appointment. Also in the House among other Conservative Christians we have Baroness Cox, who had more influence in getting the word 'Christian' inserted into the last major Education Bill than anyone else.
Of course, on our Labour benches we have Lord Soper, still preaching in Hyde Park at the age of 93, and there are active Christians scattered all around the House. But I am concerned now with the question of how Conservative friends — with whom I am at one in Christian belief — differ so widely from me in politics. In the case of Paul Johnson and one or two others, the difference is not confined to party politics. Paul is openly in favour of capital punish- ment which even Mr Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, whom I have ventured to call 'the Prince of Darkness', has aban- doned.
The first comment must be, I suppose, that the Conservative Christians I am talk- ing about do not differ from me in their approach to private morality. I would trust them with my wife or my watch as readily as, though not more readily than, a good socialist. But none of them, I think, would feel that that was a sufficient answer. None of them, I think, would claim that the gospel teaching throws no light on public policy. So how does the great difference in the latter area arise? There is, of course, an answer readily provided by a Marxist psychiatrist: they come of a class whose interest is best suited to a Conservative form of capitalism — Thatcherite or other. But I am talking of high-minded, sophisti- cated people who are perfectly capable of setting aside their selfish interests. There is also the economic answer which satisfied me for some years. It was summed up in a memorable leading article in the Times, in the words: 'Unfortunately wealth is like heat. It is only when it is unequally distributed that it performs what the physicists call work.' In other words, Conservative capitalism is essential for successful wealth creation, and the benefits make their way down to the poor.
Yet even that, I believe, is not the true reason for the difference I am discussing. Nor can that difference be traced mainly to a different estimate of the capacities of the respective politicians. In the last resort, I think Conservative Christians are traditionalists and tradition dominates their whole approach to politics. I must be careful here. My wife is in my own eyes the most effective champion of the British monarchy today and, as I said earlier, she has had a profound influence on my left- wing dedication. She was a radical before she became an historian and I feel that she has been able to place tradition in context. I obviously do not feel that the same is true of my Conservative Christian friends.
But again, I must be careful. I am still an admirer of Eton, though a lapsed old Etonian who sent his sons to Ampleforth, which has a much shorter but an equally vivid tradition. Oxford University, where I lived and taught for so many happy years, is still for me 'the ideal of perfection', as Matthew Arnold called it. Starting from scratch, one might create institutions where the traditions were different. But no one can deny that, as with other great institu- tions, all those who have benefited from the traditions of Eton and Oxford will always be grateful.
But in the end I come back to the ques- tion asked me by King George VI in 1945: `Why did you join them?' — meaning the Labour Party. The true answer would have been: 'Because I believe that all men and women are equal in the sight of God.' That seemed inappropriate and indeed imperti- nent in the circumstances. So I replied, with part of the truth: 'Because I am on the side of the underdog.' He replied, aptly enough as the founder of the Duke of York's camps for working boys: 'So am I.' Thus support for the underdog does not supply the whole answer. Perhaps I find it best summed up in the instruction: 'But thou, when thou makest a feast, thou must call the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind and thou shalt be blessed.' I realise that my Conservative Christian friends are as familiar with that sentence as I am, and still reach a different political conclusion. But for me it is a call for social justice that cannot be resisted.
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