‘IT’S the end of an era. You know, the last 20, 25 years of doing things is coming to an end and people are responding in different ways, I think a lot of people feel that. The state is the biggest it’s ever been. We can’t continue to see the state growing and growing and growing. And, you know, what we’re seeing is that this collectivism, this statism has been reinforced by the bailouts from the crash, by the lifestyle politics imposed by climate politics, and then by the pandemic.
‘And all of that has reinforced the sense that, you know, statism is the right way to go, government telling you what to do is the right way to go. And we’ve got to stop that. The state is bigger than it’s ever been in this country. You know, government rules, influence over your own behaviour, has become stronger and stronger and it must stop. In a free society you’ve got to call a halt to this.’
Lord Frost, September 28, 2022
Well done to TRIGGERnometry for asking and getting Lord Frost – Britain’s chief negotiator with the European Union during the Brexit saga, former Conservative minister and now Telegraph commentator – to give a headline interview that gives succour for the soul to those of us who are moral, social conservatives, small-state, free-market economic liberals, principles that the Conservative Party has so dangerously abandoned in its near 20-year techno, statist, leftwards progress.
Through his confident advocacy of these ideas as the necessary solution to current ills, and in the home truths he sets out one after another, whether it be on the NHS, welfare or the economy, the greater efficiency of the market or immigration, Lord Frost emerges as a man standing head and shoulders above the party he once worked for – and as a desperately needed figurehead.
The observations selected to flag the interview give but a taster of Frost’s insights. On the red wall Brexit vote he says:
‘The people who voted Conservative in those seats, yes, it was partly about Brexit and Brexit was a way of . . . it was important to a lot of people, but I think it was also the thing that sort of tipped people over from realising that, actually, maybe they weren’t really Labour voters, that when they looked at what they actually valued and how they saw the world, maybe they were really Conservatives. And Brexit enabled them to kind of recognise that.’
He is right – whether it be about personal responsibility or the perils of welfare dependency, it’s the politicians who have lost touch with the people.
You can watch the interview below, and tomorrow we will run a transcript.
