Why I reject fixed-idea and no-idea politics.

One has to be careful not to overuse the word ‘naive’, as it tends to make people assume you’re a cynic. In fact, there is a vast territory between the two called, variously, realist, empiricist, and sometimes ‘awake’.

This in turn draws the criticism (nearly always from the Left, I find) that one is a conservative – a blind stick-in-the-mud, accepting the word of the ‘biased’ media, liking only what is, and demanding no aspiration to make things better. Such bigotry reflects the belief of the soi-disant Progressives that they and they alone want to make things better, and everyone else must be a mill-owner in favour of infant chimney-sweeps.

So tonight, I’d like to make the very simple argument for being a radical realist.

A radical realist is somebody who looks at the data series from past to present and says, “Hang on a minute – this isn’t working”; or a person extrapolating current behaviour forwards to observe, “We need to change course – otherwise there will be a disaster”.

If you look across the spectrum of 650 MPs in the British House of Commons, it is near impossible to escape the conclusion that the huge majority are smug, pompous and polemically programmed robots whose sole desire is to cling tightly onto the security blanket of their unverified beliefs….and all the fat perks, red carpets, and non-exec directorships that go with it. This differs hardly at all between one side of the House and another.

At one time, many decades ago, it used to differ markedly; but not since the time of real legislators like Rab Butler, Jo Grimond and Clem Attlee has any real difference been notable. These were people ambitious for Britain, not for themselves; one differed from them on many dimensions of policy, but respect for them was ever-present. Harold Wilson brought the era of principled politics to an end; Tony Blair did his best to ensure that unprincipled, mendacious pragmatism would endure in perpetuity. In between the two, Baroness Thatcher earned a degree of respect – but her ambition was for UK plc, not the Britain I love.

A contemporary radical realist reaches the following conclusions – selected at random and not all-inclusive:

* Financially dominated free-market capitalism can never achieve a broad enough level of gainful employment for British citizens….and in the wider sphere, neither can the Globalism of fantasists like Theodore Levitt.

* State ownership of the NHS, Civil Service self-interest, and multiculturalism have been an unmitigated economic, fiscal and social disaster, respectively, for Britain.

* Private sector ownership of water supply, the railways, energy and all forms of banking has left this country in a position more precarious than the one it faced in 1940.

* The provision of capital for business is skewed massively towards global banking and the City, despite the fact that mutual and private capital alternatives have been, where employed, a conspicuous success. Yet community investment and mutualisation are not even on the radar for areas such as the NHS, the Civil Service, and certain forms of banking.

* Our manufacturing base is far too small, and our pathetic farming sector leaves us wide open to geopolitical blackmail.

* Central Government has collected our tax payments, and squandered them on a range of equally deluded projects: Connecting for Health, bailing out dead banks, nuclear weapons renewal, gold sales, Iraq, Afghanistan, alternative energy sources, and giving free money to those changing their car for a new one just as inefficient as the old one.

* Feminism, laddism, poorly targeted welfare, and the neglect of healthy sexual mores have eroded family life and diluted the sense of personal responsibility – resulting ultimately in a deadly social mixture of dependency, and ill-perceived entitlement.

* Educational standards (and the promotion of independent thought)  have been destroyed in favour of misguided social engineering and cynical target-setting. Higher education standards in particular have been sacrificed on the bloody altar of quota-based ‘equality’. This has replaced merit as the criterion of choice – a form of madness in social education and mobility at which future generations will surely gawp in disbelief.

* The political class that presided over this morass of incompetence has shown itself – at every opportunity – to be incapable of self-regulation, reform, creativity, adventure, and honesty. Until such time as the existing Party Establishment has been dismantled – and replaced by one reflecting social need rather than privileged interest – an accelerating decline into mediocrity will continue unchecked.

* A free-speech based media set is the best means via which to achieve socially beneficial change. Free speech in the media is under threat from two quarters: unelected ownership tied too closely to socio-political interest groups; and an increasingly panic-stricken State frightened by unregulated comment. Ironically, both these opposing forces will combine to destroy free speech entirely…..unless both of them have their power drastically reduced.

Well, that didn’t sound very conservative, did it? Perhaps also, however, it sounded too theoretical and didactic. So I’d like to close by placing these thoughts into a comtemporary context by using two random examples.

Tomorrow, it seems very likely that Recep Erdogun, the Turkish political leader, will be re-elected for a third term by an overwhelming majority. He has made brazen use of the ‘enemies of Islam’ as a scare tactic during the election. He will use his massive mandate to change the Turkish constitution in favour of more Islamism, and far less freedom of thought.

None of those conclusions are based on wild supposition or religious prejudice: they are based on reading opinion polls, and observing Erdogun’s past behaviour.

Today in Berlin, Angela Merkel made an impassioned speech in favour of ‘helping’ EU debtor States to recover. Last week, she came out in favour of closing down all nuclear power in Germany. The first of these appeals was directly aimed at avoiding insolvency in her own banking system. The second was a populist (and utterly impractical) idea with the sole objective of ensuring her re-election.

This is what being a radical realist is about. It means eschewing a fluffy, unsubstantiated form of blind Disneyland faith, in favour of facing the music: and doing so not in the interests of the privileged elite, but rather for those who will be left behind unless someone is prepared to speak the unvarnished truth. It means tossing aside the security blanket of Left and Right ideology – preferring instead to reject the sacred belief in favour of the mortal emergency.

Radical realism doesn’t assume that the ends justify the means. Instead, it recognises that misguided means will never reach any kind of end to truly benefit humanity as a whole.

On that basis, Cameron’s lazy pragmatism and Balls’ crazy Socialism would be rejected out of hand as being unsupportable: for neither approach has a future goal. Instead, both are designed to serve the ego-drive of people stuck in the mud of the distant past and the immediate present.

Think about it for a second: did a decent idea ever emerge from what happened sixty years ago, or what might happen in six hours time?

I think not. They are, as ever, two sides of the same coin: one a naif, the other a cynic.

And that’s why I’m a radical realist.