The Argument of the Right

At the Conservative Party Conference last week, Daniel Hannan MEP was a hugely popular speaker at the right-wing fringe events. A cogent, articulate and personable man, he is the current hero of the recidivist Tory right. Although he is a British representative in the European Parliament, his real ideological home is America, and he has just written "The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America", in which he urges them not to follow the European route towards statism and welfare. To mark its publication, he has been interviewed by the right-wing National Review, and the interview makes for genuinely fascinating reading. He correctly marks the historical beginning of America's move towards greater federal state action with the two Roosevelts, especially FDR. He rightly sees FDR as in some ways a model for Obama, although draws, naturally enough, rather different conclusions to those of liberal sympathisers from this comparison.

Since he covers American politics and the broader themes of relevant ideological trends, and always in a very cogent form, this interview is a must-read for A2 students, but it is illuminating for any observer of politics to read one of the more articulate assessments of right-wing Toryism around, and straight from the horse's mouth in a sense. I hate the fact, as a One Nation Tory, that I sometimes listen to Hannan and agree with him! Happily, this was less of a problem in reading the interview.