This week I point you in the direction of a fantastic podcast by James Delingpole where he interviews Peter Hitchens, available free through iTunes.
In this hilarious but also serious episode Delingpole tells Hitchens that he is a miserable b*stard whom he would not trust to keep his post in the battlefield. Hitchens points out that in essence Delingpole is a selfish libertarian (or something of that nature).
However, it is Hitchens’s analysis of New Labour which is the most important part of the podcast, because it is the brutal truth. You have no idea how extensive the Blair project is, a friend had informed Hitchens before the 1997 election.
New Labour engaged in ‘meaningless populist slogans’ such as ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ and ‘education, education, education’. They were aided and abetted by the media [my phrase].
New Labour said these things to appear conservative while they were ‘abolishing heterosexual marriage, destroying what rigour was left in the education system, plunging us ever deeper into the EU, engaging in idealistic foreign wars, and bankrupting the country’. All this was done behind a front of manipulative populism.
Not that Hitchens thinks the Conservative party is any better – they would execute the Queen if it kept them in power.
True conservatism is Christian, he says at one point. So as you can imagine I liked that one.
If you listen to one thing this week, listen to this.
