Nigel Farage was, somewhat predictably, booed when he was named News Presenter of the Year at the 2023 TRIC Awards in London. The manipulability of online polls in the age of loyally mischievous Twitter followings notwithstanding, the two GB News victories (its breakfast show scooped one too) arguably represent another milestone in the plucky challenger’s march to credibility and, its viewers will hope for its commercial success.
When GB News launched in July 2021, I was living in the US and working on my second or third startup, depending on whether you only count the successful ones. I watched the go-live and for me the highlight of those initial hours of sometimes painful broadcasting (notable by the curiously low lighting) was veteran newsman Andrew Neil, whose presence lent the nascent broadcaster some grown-up editorial clout.
Personally, I like Neil, and in common with many others was optimistic when in 2020 he was lured from the stagnant BBC to become GB News’ founding chairman. As such, I was sad when, a few months later, he appeared to have flounced off – particularly as it gave the station’s detractors something to gloat about (many of whom seemed to have made up their minds before a single second of TV was broadcast, not least The Guardian’s perennial sideline sniper Owen Jones).
Yet my main regret about Neil’s departure was its manner: specifically, that he didn’t do it with dignity and discretion. Founders split all the time and there are always sensible reasons why. During the early stage of any venture there’s a vast amount of work to do, and it’s in this mad scramble that working relationships are tested. Not all will survive.
Sometimes it’s nothing to do with the individuals, but more the chemistry of a group under pressure. Yet the thing to avoid, in almost any situation, is to make a fuss upon leaving. However great the temptation may be to ‘set the record straight’, it almost always comes across as whiney.
I’ve yet to meet anyone who, years later, will say: “absolutely the right thing was to share a bunch of private stuff in public and stick the knife into my former colleagues”. Candidly, I imagine that Neil now regrets how he handled the split.
Imagine the counterfactual: Neil still left, but instead of throwing his toys out of the pram he settled on a cheerier statement along the lines of: “What a ride! Successfully launching a news station has felt like my biggest achievement to-date. Now we’ve gone live, I’m hankering for a break and will be scaling back my commitments starting immediately. I’d like to thank the team for the immense amount of valiant work to-date, particularly in the hard months leading up to launch, and I’m confident that the Board and management team will successfully steer the station to greatness going forward! I wish everyone the best of luck and will be with you, in spirit, every step of the way. I look forward to reporting on the channel’s success!”
Had he done so, perhaps he’d now be fondly (and rightly) remembered as a co-founder of a bold enterprise – rather than simply a disgruntled former employee who left on bad terms and did a media round to share his grievances, including an opportunistic appearance on his former employer’s programme, Question Time.
Water passes quickly under any bridge, and I’m surprised that Neil, with all his experience, either didn’t know this or ignored his better judgement. The momentary satisfaction one gains from a bout of bridge-burning is almost always outweighed – many times over – by the future ability to gather with former colleagues, on good terms, and share in the celebration of success while laughing about the often funny (and, in hindsight, trivial) disagreements that occurred along the way.
I suspect the wise warhorse Neil’s advice to anyone else might be similar to my own: always keep the bridge intact, however tempting the alternative may be in the short run. I’ve no idea whether he has sent any of the GB News executives a congratulatory message over the last couple of years, but for his sake I hope he has.
To quote PG Wodehouse, “It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine” – and endearingly curmudgeonly Neil appears to be no exception.
A rapprochement with his former startup would surely earn him renewed respect in the eyes of his many admirers. Perhaps he could appear as a guest on News Presenter of the Year Farage’s show? A display of convivial bonhomie on, say, Talking Pints would surely put to rest any accusations that a certain esteemed Scot is harboring a grievance.
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The Conservatives Used to be the Party of Government and Ideas – Now They No Longer Are | Henry George
We are being treated to a clapping seal show presented as the Conservative leadership contest. The only candidate likely to alter Britain’s course into the iceberg of national decline and total senescence was Kemi Badenoch, so of course the MPs ejected her from the contest before the final three. For a moment it looked like it would come down to a face-off between Penny “Tory Blair” Mordaunt and Rishi “Green Card” Sunak, but instead we get Sunak vs Liz “Thatcher LARP” Truss. And of course, we are now witnessing the virus of zombie Thatcherism having colonised the brains of our prospective new prime minister. Each desperately tries to out-Thatcher the other, displaying the degeneration of the Conservative mindscape into a derivative pile of philosophical junk. It used to be that the Tories actually had ideas about how to govern and how to use the state to do this. Not anymore.
The Situation
Let’s survey the devastation of British national life. Inflation is at 9%, the highest for forty years. Energy prices are already a disaster, and are set to become truly catastrophic in the autumn and next winter. Productivity, bumping along for decades like a sea slug on the ocean floor, is falling into the Mariana Trench. Our levels of private debt are rocketing into the stratosphere. Our public debt is in orbit after the Covid-19 spend binge. Poverty rates are climbing and set to go even higher. The consequences in learning loss from Covid school closures for hundreds of thousands of children is an absolute disaster. A million immigrants settled here last year. Five million people have simply dropped out of the workforce and now subsist on benefits. Thousands of children have been abused, trafficked, raped, and even killed by grooming gangs. We lag behind other European nations for going back into the office. Quality of service from companies in the private sector and public services in the state sector has thudded face-first into the earth as a result. Our sainted health service is performing the worst it ever has, and is a black-hole of funding. The organs of the state have ceased to function: passport and driving licences are apparently a luxury rather than a necessity, while the main goal seems to be implementing ever more diversity and gender quotas. Our state capacity is therefore that of a poor south European country without the compensation of a pleasant climate.
The Solution?
And what is the answer presented to all of this? Why, tax cuts of course! This isn’t the sum total of either finalists’ policy proposals, but these are the prescriptions to our economic and social dis-ease that are being touted most vociferously by Liz Truss, the likely winner. And why would they not be? It’s always an attractive piece of political casuistry to tell people you’ll take less of their money one way while they’ll go on losing it in so many other ways. Given the British tax burden is the highest it’s been since the Second World War, this route to party popularity must seem like too good a golden road to electoral survival to miss. Never mind that the economic rationale for cutting taxes isn’t … completely watertight. It’s a sign of our political disconnect from economic reality that Sunak’s arguments against cutting all the taxes all the time has gone down like a lead-lined lifejacket with his prospective party voters. No, we must all hail our saviour Truss for her faith in the Laffer curve, an economic truism worked out on the back of a napkin and further distorted by politics towards the simplistic formula tax cuts always = higher tax revenue. Never mind that the ideology she adheres to represents the dissolution of social ties and the proletarianization of the middle class. Truss is a revolutionary in the mould of her hero Cromwell, a man who committed regicide. Yay, conservatism!
This tax-cut obsession underpins a religious vision where the small state is the worldly heaven towards which we must sacrifice and strain our sinews, an eternal truth applicable to all times and circumstances. The goal is to further liberate the individual from all bonds and constraints, enabling them to achieve this worldview’s highest good of maximum autonomy, never mind the social and cultural dissolution and chaos that it unleashes. Of course, since Thatcher’s time Conservatism as a party phenomenon has been seen as economically liberal, with nods towards some sort of cultural conservatism. This always amounts to little more than a rhetorical sleight-of-hand to distract from the economic preferences of the party elite, who themselves find the social conservatism of their members and those voters in the Red Wall embarrassing and morally retrograde. The Conservative vision of political-economy, culture and society is as impoverished as those it rules without governing are fast becoming.
Out of Ideas
What makes this all the worse is that when J.S. Mill epitomised the smug, self-congratulatory liberal style by calling the Conservatives “the stupidest party,” this was not actually true. But now the leadership candidates’ vague gestures at imitation Thatcherism looks set to prove Mill right. And yet it wasn’t always like this, and does not have to be like this. E.H.H. Green, in his magisterial historical survey, Ideologies of Conservatism, demonstrates that while the Conservative party may indeed not be as philosophical in a formal sense as the left, to say that Conservatives have always been an intellectually barren party is simply wrong.
As Green writes, “Study of Conservative intra-party debate throughout the party’s history, and especially over the course of the ‘Conservative century’, reveals that the controversy over Conservative ideas in the last quarter of the twentieth century was not unique in terms of either its nature or intensity.” The Conservatives at the century’s beginning debated tariff reform, social reform, land reform, industrial and agricultural productivity, Ireland and Empire.
Intra-party debate continued up through the 20th century, carried out in books, public and private party pamphlets and papers, speeches, articles and newspaper columns, as well as two book clubs, along with the Ashridge college of political philosophy. As Green rightly argues, “it may be that the Conservatives produce fewer ‘great texts’ (although they produce and refer to more than is frequently assumed), but if one sets aside the formal, ‘canonical’ notion of the forms of expression of political thought and examines speeches, policymaking discussions, exchanges of views and opinions in correspondence, and the construction of and response to legislation, the Conservatives’ engagement with ideas is clear, rich, varied, and extensive. Politics is about argument, and arguments are about ideas.”
This intellectual ferment was driven both by an innate interest in ideas shown by significant minority, and in reaction to changing events which demanded empirical observation and adaptation. This stemmed from a sense that to govern a great nation was a weighty and serious matter, fraught with danger and risk, one’s greatness not to be taken for granted or put at risk for ideological whim or purity. Leaders of the party actually thought things through in some depth. Even Prime Ministers engaged with the questions of the day with a depth that is incomprehensible in our time. Harold Macmillan wrote books on political-economy that reduce many such contemporary efforts to toilet paper status.
Thatcherism came from the more liberal side of the Conservative tent, but as Green wrote, it grew out of a scene rich in debate and discussion and had intellectual firepower behind it, whether one agrees with the substance or not. The network of thinktanks discussed in Richard Cockett’s book Thinking the Unthinkable communicated ideas from liberal thinkers like Hayek and developed policies from them. One can see these organisations as following in the wake of earlier arguments and institutions, seeing them as an example of what could be achieved and what to achieve it for. Now the Conservatives either serve up stale neoliberal centrism or cosplay Thatcherism.
Another Way
As Aris Roussinos recently argued, the cramped vision that the Conservative party now offers is far from the full picture, and does not have to be. A series of Conservative ministers and Prime Ministers gave a more expansive view of what constitutes the Conservative vision of the state, political-economy and their relation to society (which does exist and in which we live). As Roussinos writes, figures like Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, R.A. “Rab” Butler and others argued affirmatively for the use of the state to set the course for economic action, and against unbridled, brutal laissez-faire capitalism. A strong state was not, in their view, inimical to the Conservative tradition, and was in fact integral to insuring the social, political and economic conditions that enabled the good life for families and communities.
This attempt to chart a “middle way” between the Scylla and Charybdis of totalising socialism and atomising laissez-faire capitalism is one that sits well within the Conservative tradition, among whose political ancestors we can include the true One Nation philosophy that grew out of Benjamin Disraeli. His main effort was to reconcile and unite the “Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws . . . . THE RICH AND THE POOR.”
As I’ve written before, Disraeli rightly saw that what at the time was called “Manchester Liberalism,” of economic upheaval under the guise of prosperity and social turmoil presented as progress was inimical to social stability and the good life. Disraeli saw and put into words as no-one else could that “The great body of the people of this country are Conservative. I use the word in its purest and loftiest sense. I mean that the people of England, and especially the working classes of England, are proud of belonging to a great country, and wish to maintain its greatness.”
Rachel Wolf, in arguing that what is being offered now by the leadership candidates is the polar opposite of what won the party its 80-seat majority, echoes Disraeli when he declared that “The Tory party is only in its proper position when it represents popular principles. Then it is truly irresistible”. Disraeli saw rightly saw liberalism as a liquefier of social solidarity, “composed purely of wealth and toil, based on a spirit of rapacious covetousness.” As he wrote in his wonderfully scathing way, “Liberal opinions are the opinions of those who would be free from a certain dependence and duty which are deemed necessary for the general or popular welfare. Liberal opinions are very convenient opinions for the rich and powerful.” For Disraeli, the point of governing, and why Conservatism must actually govern through the state, was to “secure the social welfare of the PEOPLE.”
The Edwardian Bridge
Between Disraeli’s vision and that of Macmillan and his generation is a Conservatism of the early 20th century that arguably links the two. Green traces the development of a British Conservatism inflected by the Idealist school of philosophy espoused by T.H. Green at Balliol. The Historical school of economists grew from this scene. The group “first came to prominence in Britain in the 1880s, and from that point on developed a sustained critique of Classical economics and what it saw as its vulgarized derivatives, Manchesterism [laissez-faire liberalism] and Socialism.” The Historical school was against free trade and for protection where needed, saw nations, unions, trusts and groups in general as more important for political-economy than the isolated, supposedly rational individual of Smith and Ricardo, and supported state intervention to create the conditions for economic prosperity through industrial productivity and thereby ease social discontent and prevent unrest.
Conservative figures like Alfred Milner, Leopold Amery, J.W. Hills, and Arthur Steel-Maitland also came from this milieu, influencing more in the party. All were in favour of using the state for social and economic reform for the common good. Through the minor figure Arthur Boutwood, E.H.H. Green argues that these Conservatives saw the individual as an ethical being whose aim was the realisation of his potential, with self-realisation the sum of life. [HG2] The role of the individual and nation were inseparable: individual self-realisation was only possible through society, as citizens of the nation into which we are born, and which provides our social, cultural, political and economic context. The potential of the individual citizen and the nation were seen as realised by each other. Citizenship was “freedom for duty,” and therefore commitment to the common good.
As Green writes, “Boutwood argued that true freedom could only come through co-operative acts that were born out of a recognition and realization of mutual needs and goals.” According to Green, Boutwood saw the relationship between the individual and the nation as one where the individual and nation had a duty to each other, and if the nation “’be not effectually and equitably serviceable, it should be made so’.” The state was to enable this, and “to achieve its ‘moral conception’ by … ‘work that sustains and fosters [the nation’s] life, that builds up its people into serviceable manhood’”, to create the conditions for individual, communal and national opportunity. In other words, to govern, and to reform where needed for the reciprocal common good.
Boutwood was, again, a minor figure, but one whose writing encapsulated a view of society and political economy that galvanised many more significant men of the time, including eminent aristocratic party members and the Historical economists. The need for politicians and economists to lay the ground for individual and national prosperity and stability was best expressed by H.S. Fox when he wrote “’The State may become social reformer without becoming Socialist, but if the State does not become social reformer it will inevitably become Socialist’.” We face similar circumstances today, and it was because of this that the Historical school and more Conservatives than one would think were in favour of social reforms including pensions and workers rights and protections. As Green writes, ‘By 1914 [the Unionist Social Reform Committee] had proposed an extension of old-age pension rights, argued for minimum wages in certain trades, sponsored several schemes for working-class housing, and was close to presenting a blueprint for a national health service.”
The central aim of this kind of Conservatism, “was to provide the basis for a socially and politically integrative strategy that could overcome tensions and divisions within Britain.” To achieve this required cultivating national unity, “which in turn required acknowledging that the nation was … an organic entity. It was here that a positive role for the State was essential, in that the State was to ensure that no particular section of society was to be systematically undervalued or over-privileged. In practical terms this meant … social reform in the domestic sphere to alleviate the privations of the poorer classes, but carried through without recourse to class-divisive rhetoric or actions.”
Conclusion
There is a Conservative view of the state that runs through the true One Nation tradition descended from Disraeli, which underlay the worldview and policies of Edwardian Conservatism, Macmillan’s post-war Conservatism, and was buried by Thatcherism. We obviously can’t, nor should we, replicate exactly these kinds of Conservatism for today. But we must reignite the intellectual fire that galvanised Conservatism up to Thatcher’s time, and look again at the approach of the figures above towards the use of the state in service to our political, social, economic, and national life. The country is facing a range of problems that could very well prove disastrous or even catastrophic. These will not be solved or ameliorated by pursuing small-state dogma, but by the Conservatives learning to govern again. Whether that can be done remains to be seen.
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The Identity Crisis of Young Conservatives
While boomers indulge themselves in the same 2016 talking points on GB News for the 68th time this week, it seems like young conservatives are tired of it. The right wing of Generation Z have been raised on “Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Liberal Student” compilations. Meanwhile, while the conservative young people have moved on, the “triggered leftist” has moved on from university and into our civil service or primary schools, increasing their influence in society. And as much as we’d like to move on from cringe culture war issues, it seems like they’re not going anywhere. If we don’t confront them effectively then the left will continue to infect our institutions.
The left call the right “racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted!” Each adjective enough to make the average wet Tory squeal apologetically and disregard the history of the party that has been told through a left wing narrative. Instead of giving the conservative argument for why an actual Conservative politician has done something, they say “yes, I know that was bad but what about this…” and then proceed to state a left wing policy pushed by a so called “right winger”.
And what do the right call the left to match their accusations of bigotry?
“Snowflakes”
It doesn’t quite have the same effect, does it?
The problem with the right is that they’re missing their own vocabulary. We don’t have the same words that appeal to the general public’s emotion as the left do. They say that we hate the poor and minorities. They say we want poor kids to starve. They say that we’re selfish. Of course, we know that’s not true. We want to see our country and community thrive.
However, unlike the left, we haven’t had mainstream institutions providing us with arguments to make. The right of Gen Z can’t have their social media pages flooded with aesthetic infographics simplifying radical Marxist rhetoric into simple slogans like the left do because there aren’t many conservative equivalents. Go onto #BorisJohnson and you’ll just see posts on how corrupt the Tories are and how Boris is a blubbering fool. Browse #KeirStarmer and you’ll see posts on Labour victories and how they’re crushing the Tories.
The Conservative Party doesn’t help with the government wasting their majority by not pushing any actual conservative policies and instead needlessly pander towards the left while they butcher the name of actual conservatives like Thatcher and Churchill to justify it. Even within the general party, a concerning number of Young Conservatives are pro-BLM and believe that a biological man in a dress is a woman. These people either have no backbone or are careerists who won’t join the Liberal Democrats because they’re irrelevant. Either way, kick them out.
Then you have the Young Conservatives who like a few Thatcher quotes and believe in general conservative principles like “free enterprise” and “equal opportunity” (which, let’s be honest, are more liberal principles). However, you can’t blame them too harshly considering that it’s much harder to discover right wing philosophy and history in comparison to that of the left. Ask an A Level Politics teacher for book recommendations and they’ll probably recommend Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto or Owen Jones’ Chavs. Similarly, go into Waterstones and the politics section catering ranges from septum piercing Sociology students to Keynesian #FBPE Britpoppers. Maybe you’ll find Douglas Murray’s Madness of the crowd between all the prison abolitionist and Europhile literature if you’re lucky.
However, since this generation of Young Conservatives have to go out their way to find the charm of Peter Hitchens or Roger Scruton, is it any wonder they resort to cheap arguments that the reason the left is so bad is that they’re too “progressive”?
The problem with Black Lives Matter isn’t that the activists are too sensitive. It’s that they’re promoting divisive, radical racial politics and harming people and property as a means of doing so. We shouldn’t have to say “but if the right did that then we would never hear the end of it”, we need to control the narrative. After months of destroying cities, causing damage and ruining lives, it’s ridiculous that January 6th is the focus of political extremism in the US.
After the death of George Floyd, the mainstream narrative needed a problem and a solution. They decided the problem was racism and police brutality and that the solution was police abolition and divisive critical race theory. They used it as an opportunity to sneak in other themes such as Marxism and collectivism while silencing anyone who disagreed with their dogma as “racist”. The average person who didn’t care too much about politics will just carelessly accept this narrative in order to fit in when their friends and co-workers discuss it at work.
The right could’ve offered their own solutions to the problems. A law and order argument could be called for more community policing and police accountability. Instead the right had to go on the defence, leading to the phrase “All Lives Matter” which was just received by the public of being covering up racism. We need to be proactive instead of reactive.
Similarly with transgender ideology, the right shouldn’t be focused on pronoun badges. If I was the average apolitical person and I saw that the biggest issue the right is concerned about is pronoun badges, then I’d call them “snowflakes”. They should be focused on the fact that there are perverted men trying to get their way into women’s spaces (oftentimes spaces where they are most vulnerable like domestic violence shelters) and silence any woman who speaks out about it. They should be focused on the fact that there are actors in our institutions who are trying to have conversations with children about sexuality and confuse them into later seeking out unnecessary surgery which mutilates their bodies.
If the right wants to succeed then they need to equip themselves with the right words and slogans. This is why Ron DeSantis is successful in Florida: by switching the narrative he has turned the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” into the “Anti Groomer Bill”. British Conservatives need to learn from this. It’s understandable to be fed up with the over usage of the current culture war vocabulary. However, you need to find an alternative to replace it because these issues aren’t going away.
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Against assisted dying
It is unsurprising the government is rushing through ‘assisted dying’. Having decimated what little political capital it possessed after a hollow election victory, Labour is clearly desperate to shore up as many achievements as quickly as possible; successes which can be fashioned into something resembling a coherent and tangible legacy at a later date, showing little-to-no regard for the common good.
What is surprising is how limp-wristed and tepid the opposition to this policy has been, especially from Britain’s commentariat. In no uncertain terms, the assisted dying bill is one of the most radical proposals for social liberalisation in decades, yet our opinion-having class has alarmingly little to say, at least when compared to other matters. Those eager to broadcast their intelligence on other issues – which they’re similarly unqualified to write about (that’s not a bad thing, by the way; far from it!) – are inexplicably scared to take a crack at this offputtingly complex but highly important matter which affects us all.
What little discussion has occurred in the commentariat (never mind Parliament) has revolved around the foreseeable practical issues of such a policy, typically pointing to the results of Canada’s assisted dying policy (MAID; Medical Assistance in Dying), the initial proponents of which say is being abused. As such, opponents of assisted dying in Britain essentially oppose it on the basis of negative and unintended consequences, specifically the gradual loosening of safeguards overtime, killing people who should’ve received non-lethal forms of care.
None of this is wrong per se, although it’s hard to treat this angle as anything other than unsatisfying. It does not bode well for a civilisation that its only barricade against its destruction is the ineptitude of the barbarians.
More than a total lack of faith in anything improving at all, it suggests that we are caught between our reluctance to end life yet struggle to justify such an instinct; we retain the form of a society which professes something like the sanctity of life, but lack any of the substantial belief, frightened to unlearn that which can’t so easily be relearnt once lost to history as another primitive superstition.
It’s difficult to be truly hard-line on something like assisted dying because it elicits so much sympathy. No right-minded person wants people to suffer, never mind be made to feel that they are forcing people to suffer. After all, humans are motivated by aversion to pain more than most things. However, advocates of assisted dying use this fact to strongarm more hesitant individuals into agreeing with assisted dying in principle, disagreeing solely on the technicalities of implementation.
More often than not, support for assisted dying is couched in the idea that if you’re in ‘unbearable’ pain, you might as well be given the choice to end your life, especially if you’re going to die in six months anyway. Putting aside the remarkable precision of such a prediction, it never occurs to advocates that if you’re going to die in six months anyway, you might as well tough it out, if not for the sake of yourself or your loved ones, then for the sake of ensuring that society-at-large doesn’t suffer the wrath of short-sighted policy.
Of course, this is assuming unbearable pain is the main reason for assisted dying, contrary to plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.
According to data from places where it’s already legal, the main reasons for assisted dying are the inability to fulfil day-to-day tasks and engage in ‘meaningful activities’. Even abstract notions like autonomy and dignity are cited as more important than pain. Even fear about being a burden on one’s family is reportedly just as common.
A real shame, that’s for sure. There are few greater exertions of autonomy than refusing to die for someone else’s benefit, and there is nothing more ‘undignified’ than having so little sense of self-worth that you sacrifice yourself for others in your most intimate and personal moment. If we can’t reserve ourselves for our own death, it’s no surprise that things like sex and marriage continue to lose any sense of exclusivity.
Concepts like ‘anarcho-tyranny‘ and ‘two-tier policing’ are typically used in discussions surrounding criminal justice, but the underlying logic surely applies to a system which releases unrepentant, serially violent criminals as it provides the sick and vulnerable – many of whom needlessly swell with guilt over their condition – with the option to end their own life. This sense of guilt will only become stronger when someone in a position of medical authority – in a culture which reveres expertise, even when it fails us – tells them they can make it go away. That which is legally a ‘right to die’ will feel like the duty to die, and by extension, those expected to sign-off on the procedure will feel as though they have a duty to kill.
Far from acting as a safeguard, medical professionals will act as affirmers to something which they’ve been told is not theirs to dictate in the first place. When the option is available, like the patient, the fact something can be done will weigh down upon them, and whilst they may be motivated by a desire to alleviate or prevent suffering, those once hesitant are now incentivised to act with urgency.
Indeed, the same can be said of the patient’s family, the consultation of which is notably absent from the bill’s supposedly stringent requirements, although they’ll certainly weigh on the patient’s conscience. If patients don’t feel burdensome to their loved ones, they’ll absolutely feel burdensome to the NHS, an institution our country continues to revere with mindless zealotry.
Courtesy of the selfish (but outwardly generous) nature of our present culture, the patient’s expectation of good care risks being outweighed by the ’empathy’ we demand them to have for others in a different position. Assisted dying is not yet legal and yet many already feel (perhaps not without reason) that the elderly are spitefully overstaying their welcome on this mortal coil.
Advocates of assisted dying (similar to advocates of abortion) like to believe that leaving something up to choice absolves the decisions made of any and all comparable virtue. Far from removing an ideological imposition on society, this notion that we have no choice but to leave everything up to choice, that all options must be on the table, is one of the most duplicitous and tyrannical value systems afflicting contemporary society; so much that life itself is ceasing to be the default, becoming just another option for which one is cruelly judged behind a veil of strained, artificial tolerance.
Extending the comparison, liberalising assisted dying doesn’t just implicate those who’ll be inevitably and unjustifiably killed in the name of healthcare, it devalues death outside of the circumstances in which assisted dying would be viewed as an option. When abortionists downplay (or functionally deny) the value of the child, they’re implicating any baby which (for whatever reason) doesn’t make it. A procedure once permitted for the sake of saving the mother’s life, balanced against the life of the child, is now a simple matter of preference, exalted as a form of empowerment.
Followed to its conclusion, an involuntary miscarriage, rightfully treated as a tragic incident deserving sympathy, can only be regarded, in all sincerity, as ‘tragic’ as receiving a bad hand in a game of Blackjack. Of course, insincerity is the essence of civility, and therefore integral to any tactful interaction, but this is not the same as having a genuine moral compass. The tragedy lies in the fact we know something deeply valuable has been lost. We say “I’m sorry for your loss” not “better luck next time” for a reason. As such, unless you intend to engage in mental gymnastics to suggest “terminating” highly viable babies past the legal limit is worlds apart to killing newborns, the recent movements for decriminalisation should be concerning, even if wholly in-step with our opponents’ revealed attitude towards the unborn.
In a similar vein, if assisted dying should be liberalised to alleviate suffering on the basis that our life is ours to use as we see fit, then suicide becomes just another expression of individual choice which needs to be destigmatised. After all, why should we need to suffer? Why would such a precondition exist if life didn’t have an inherent value, and if life has an inherent value, how could we justify a policy like assisted dying in the first place? Because the suffering outweighs that inherent value? How would you know when suffering outweighs this value? After all, suffering is extremely subjective. You can make this assessment for your own quality of life, but not for another person’s. Confronted with the potential suicide of another person, there’s not a lot you could do. You needn’t assist the act or condone it, but you’d be a hypocrite for showing or feeling anything more than defeated indifference. After all, who are you to judge? Again, it’s not your life. In order to override them, you’d need to believe life has a value beyond quantification, which it certainly does.
If one’s suffering is one’s business, then it becomes one’s business to deal with it, using their preferred option of the many made available. Although plausibly convenient, it makes life less rich, for what good are the virtues of mercy, assurance, and even heroism itself? More than rendered obsolete by consent-based ethics, they are contorted into acts of undue, arbitrary interference.
Life is worth suffering, not merely because of what can be done between our birth and death but due to its facticity; it is given, not chosen. Nobody derives meaning from the things they consciously choose; at least, not for long. There will always be the sense that relying on such things feels constructed, inviting us to seek something more essential. We don’t choose our nationality, our sexuality, our name, our family, and so forth, and so the importance of these things is heightened in an era with an abundance of choice.
The present political landscape serves as testament to this fact, not solely in the form of progressive-left identity politics. Regardless of how his economic prospects ebbed and flowed, the Englishman could rely on having won the lottery of life. He was born into a community with just cause and proficient capability to take his welfare seriously, as well as provide him with a sense of rootedness in an otherwise changing world. He had a cultural heritage which suggested he was part of something greater than himself; any belief in his abilities was well-founded and any shortcoming would surely be redeemed by the successes of his kin. Confronted with large scale demographic change from immigration, he feels himself in revolt against a class which has not yet taken everything from him, but is in the process of trying to destroy his few but cherished saving graces.
Even things which aren’t pleasurable, such as personal tragedies, supply us with a greater and much needed confrontation with the involuntary nature of our existence than even the most high-brow, profound, and enriching pastimes.
It is often said that the value of life lies in its depth, not its length; in other terms, life is about having a good time, not a long time, and whilst there’s certainly truth in this idea, it detracts from the distressing fact that we have time at all; a fact we tend to avoid truly thinking about until we’re out of it. Indeed, I suspect many have thought about how they’d spend their last day on Earth before resuming their lives as if their mortality was part of the hypothetical. The fact death takes us without our prior consent frightens us; it goes against what we regard as the basis for permissibility, so we’re inclined to ignore it.
The simple fact of the matter is that assisted dying is never abused; it merely comes to better embody the spirit in which it was introduced. The process misconstrued as the ‘slippery slope’ is nothing more than a superficially innocent argument being carried to its garish but logical conclusion. The ever-ambiguous safeguards aren’t meant to shield against improper uses of the system, merely to shield against uses which haven’t achieved mainstream acceptance, and could be used as a justification to prevent (or outright reverse) its full implementation. Things called insane right-wing conspiracy theories today will be referred to as inevitable and necessary progress tomorrow.
So, let’s cut to the chase. Instead of obsessing over regulations which will be altered or subverted, let’s be very frank about our fundamental and irreconcilable differences, and eagerly embrace the intellectually demanding and morally sensitive nature of this matter.
Those in support can make their case for life’s essential hollowness, and that our time on Earth is nothing more than taking the path of least resistance to the grave, filling our time with surrogate activities until it becomes too much, at which point we hop-off the existential ride. As for those opposed, we must more staunchly make the case for death as it comes for us, as it does. Just as we can gain value from being born here rather than there, from being this rather than that, the same must be said of our death. We do not view life as an empty vacuum to be filled with things that matter. The fact we do what we do, in the knowledge that our time is finite, makes what we do meaningful. Life gives meaning to our activities, not the other way around.
The advocates of assisted dying are right about one thing. We don’t get to choose what we do with our life, but it is because of this fact that our death remains our own. Therefore, the only way to ensure our death remains truly ours, something indivisibly belonging to us as individuals, free of aggregated social pressures and bouts of false consciousness, immune to last-minute bargaining and uncontaminated by ambiguity over cause-and-effect – altogether free from the risk of coercion – is to prevent it from being turned into a choice in the first place.
