Rowan Moore on Brexit, climate, Cummings, Johnson and 40 years of Tory power

Sun 3 Nov 2019 11.00 GMT Last modified on Mon 3 Feb 2020 11.45 GMT    from the Guardian

CHARLES MOORE:

As for Trump, no, I don’t believe he is a conservative. His essential message is “Trump first”. The only thing I like about him is his refusal to be cowed by the self-righteousness of his opponents.

On climate change, I resist what I see as a political viewpoint masquerading as “the science”. The aim of the large numbers of alarmists is unprecedented government control and the relative impoverishment of western societies.  (SELF: Charles' impoverishment will come once all the very finite fossil fuels are in short supply and becoming too expensive to pump out of the ground.)  

CHARLES:

Cheap energy is one of the greatest emancipations produced by our civilisation. (SELF: a pretty short-sighted, foolish, grab what you can while the going is good, sort of society.  In fact, a one-off geological inheritance we are blowing in 300 years.  And, in the process, with the downside of turning earth into uninhabitable venus with its runaway greenhouse effect!)

ROWAN MOORE:

Yes, I do take the Leave vote seriously. But it was a narrow vote after a flawed campaign (SELF: "sharp practice" - Cameron on prorogation; Cameron should have initially announced the best of three if no one side got 55% or, advisory for MPs to make the final decision) that has been taken as a licence for whatever Brexiter politicians want it to mean. The missed opportunity was to unite the country around a way of leaving the EU that most people would be happy with. I believe Boris Johnson argued for such a thing at the time.

Re climate: if conservatives like yourself don’t want the issue used against you, perhaps you should try harder to show how capitalism can be reconciled with protecting the environment. Thirty years after Mrs Thatcher raised the issue the noises from the right seem to be saying “it’s not really happening” or “it’s not that bad” or “we’ll muddle through”.

What I find really striking is how strongly you feel that the world is against you and likeminded people, and unfairly so. What I see is 40 years in which the Conservatives have mostly been in power (without ever winning a majority of the vote, thanks to our electoral system), in which Thatcherism has been hugely influential, and in which the Daily Telegraph has, with an amazing blurring of editorial and news, helped to put your fellow columnist into Downing Street.

Of course, if you think you are wrongly oppressed anything is allowable – Cummings’s rulebreaking, Johnson’s lies and betrayals – but I would ask you, too, to check your privilege.

However, you have given me a clearer idea of how liberal assumptions can sound from the outside. I intend to watch myself when I fall into the lazy habits that can go with my worldview. I hope you – or anyone else who feels like it – will point them out to me.