Following Tim Stanley’s emotional and unscientific appeal for green conservatism in the Telegraph, a number of other commentators in the paper itself and elsewhere have added their thoughts. In the same paper, but in the opposite camp, Stanley’s claims were dissected by Lord David Frost and Dr John Constable of the Renewable Energy Foundation. Subsequently, the paper’s resident solar power and greenomics evangelist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard joined the Stanley camp. Whatever else is argued between these four – and beyond – it establishes that if there is a Left-Right axis in British politics, there is at right angles to it another axis, such that both a ‘green Left’ and a ‘green Right’ can be seen. Now those of a green bent are furious that anyone should occupy any opposite space. But none can make a good argument for their own position, much less a good-faith response to their counterparts taking theirs.
The Left, claims Stanley, turned a “tangible ecological crisis into a culture war abstraction”. But the Right – which Stanley sometimes limits to the “online Right”, seemingly to distinguish it from more respectable quarters – responded to green-Left misanthropy with a “misplaced sympathy for the devil”, siding with “fossil-fuel giants” and against renewables. Evans-Pritchard, picking up on Stanley’s lessons for a form of green Conservatism “limited by voluntarism and property rights” from Aristotle and Disraeli, argues that “The political Right needs to rediscover its philosophical compass.” Accordingly, he channels “Edmund Burke’s contract of eternal society” and Margaret Thatcher
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The division between Left and Right is not accurate. It is between those who retain sense, and those that rely only upon logic. Sense includes the sense of proportionality and contextuality
An excellent article, thank you Mr. Pile.
Reform and Restore need to stop their bickering, work out their problems and cut a deal with Badenoch to save the UK from the misanthropes of the green movement.
Badenoch shoots herself in the foot by adopting and repeating the most sacred Green religious chant ‘Climate change is real’.
Until there’s a political leader who is willing to stand up for science and point out that the Green political movement has abandoned scientific enquiry and basically censored alternative scientific views on the climate, we are finished. This mythical leader could start by pointing out the UN’s claim that they ‘own the science’ and that they and their followers are working hard to make any alternative views a crime. In other words, they seek to criminalise the scientific method.
Badenoch shoots herself in the foot by adopting and repeating the most sacred Green religious chant ‘Climate change is real’.
Until there’s a political leader who is willing to stand up for science and point out that the Green political movement has abandoned scientific enquiry and basically censored alternative scientific views on the climate, we are finished. This mythical leader could start by pointing out the UN’s claim that they ‘own the science’ and that they and their followers are working hard to make dissent a crime.
The problem with that is, climate change is real. The climate is always changing, and always will do, for the simple reason that it’s primarily driven by a combination of solar and planetary dynamics.
The green blob seem to have brainwashed everyone into thinking that the climate was unchanging before we started burning fossil fuels, which is obvious nonsense.
During the last ice age, where I’m writing this would have been under an ice sheet around 1km thick which stretched most of the way to the north pole. The ice sheet didn’t retreat because some palaeolithic people found some coal on the beach and realised they could burn it to keep warm.
I think the only sensible “policy” Cameron ever espoused was to “cut the green crap.”
It’s been disastrous for the country that the LibCONs didn’t do it.
I used to think this too but now I am wondering whether Kemi will ever recover the credibility of the conservatives given their legacy on net zero, mass immigration, covid hysteria, welfarism,..A better strategy might be to accept their position as a soggy wet alternative to the Lib Dem’s in leafy suburbs for the time being rather than try to compete with Reform in a fight Kemi can’t possibly win thanks to Cameron, May, Johnson and Co.
Badenoch is part of the problem not the solution. Hired by Lib Dem’s in the party who voted for her because they did not want the party to be called racist by rejecting a fake Brit anchor baby. Never, never ever gonna vote Conservative again.
Ben Pile’s oddysey into big words, philosophy and geometric politics. Brilliant. We need someone to succeed Rod Liddle
Are they suggesting that “climate deniers” have had any kind of power over the last thirty plus years? The alarmists have been in control all the time, in every government, every institution, every corporation. If the result is that despite all their mighty brains and ideas the world is still getting hotter, when did a denier ever be in any real position to get in the way?
The truly depressing thing about the climate “debate” is that it’s not about the actual science, and the participants are almost exclusively totally ignorant on the subject.
Regarding the recent flurry in the Daily Telegraph which Ben refers to, Tim Stanley is a history graduate, and so is Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
By way of contrast, I have a PhD in geochemistry and university-level maths, physics, and chemistry, and have spent a substantial part of the last few years reading both sides of the scientific debate, including quite a few of the most influential papers, and keep up to date with latest developments. I don’t think it would take very long for me to demonstrate that the likes of the names referred to above don’t know what they’re talking about.
The Left have jumped on the green bandwagon for purely ideological reasons, stemming from their Marxist hatred of private enterprise.
You might have thought the Tories would at least mount a robust challenge, given that they purport to be on the other side. But the entire history of the Tory party from Disraeli onwards shows their aim has been solely to gain power. They’re that party that “doesn’t do” ideology.
The Tories were happy to… Read more »
Green Conservatism is an oxymoron, unless you think there is such a thing as Capitalist Socialism.
Green = Marxist Socialist ideology in a new guise.
And by the by, the Conservative Party stopped being anywhere close to Right or Conservative when Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street.
True small or big “c” conservatives never would have adopted Net Zero. It is the essence of central economic planning and control, the antithesis to Right wing Conservative politics.
And the fact is there is no Left/Right Green division in the Conservative Party – they are all Greens.
Interesting that Restore get a lot of stick for “dividing the right” but the Tories get a pass or are encouraged. They should disband themselves with most joining the Lib Dems and any actual conservatives joining Reform.
Liberal Tories enjoy dividing the right. Anything to stop actual conservatism.
It’s not just net zero, it’s the Online Safety Act, it’s the Human Rights Act (retained), non crime hate incidents, mass immigration. The list is endless. Cameron was truly the heir to Blair, and the Tories only got worse after him. That party is beyond redemption. Gaslighting on steroids. Hopefully finished.
“covid”, higher taxes
“But nobody is arguing for the abolition of wind turbines. Nobody – not even in the darkest recesses of the new blue-brown quadrant – is arguing for the phasing out of EVs. Nobody is going to prohibit heat pumps and veganism.”
The “right” generally do not go in for bans and prohibitions except for traditional criminal law and security matters. But please recognise there are few, if any, “on the right” who would continue to subsidise the activities you mentioned. Just as with illegal immigration and legal non-working immigration, removing the subsidies would solve the problems and make the country better off.
You are far too generous to the two green Tories on the DT payroll. They are scientifically illiterate and economically naieve at best. They are essentially LibDems who, for social or family reasons prefer to be associated with the Tories.
As to Badenock, well she cannot make true changes to the Tories’ policies on anything because she was a part of the policies and her parliamentary part will not tolerate the changes needed. They have fallen back on their decades long solution which attempted to bridge the gap between their supporters’ distaste for the EEC/EU with their own… Read more »
Wind, solar, battery back-up are not economically viable business ventures. If they were there would be no need to subsidise them and regulate out of the market place fossil fuels. They need not be abolished – just take away the subsidies and protectionist regulation and they will all go belly-up within a week.
Ditto BEVs. These already are on the way out as everybody in the auto sector, except the Chinese, is bailing out because of the huge losses because consumers don’t want the product. Since China does not have a free market economy, huge losses don’t matter.
Wishing for the revival of a party that spent 20 years rogering you. Strange
And from what I recall this is only for new candidates, not the current old guard.
…and will roger us silly again if they get anywhere near the levers of power. The fake Tory are still fake. They are on an electoral fishing expedition for fools. Why would anyone believe any manifesto promise of a party that betrayed its core voters for 14 years?