Jeremy Clarkson, car nerd and country squire, set tongues wagging recently when he called Vice President JD Vance a “bearded God-botherer” and a “twat”. Among the right-wing criticisms was a note of sad betrayal.
Isn’t Clarkson one of us?
Was this the same Jeremy Clarkson who had been leading farmer protests and criticising immigration? Was this the same Jeremy Clarkson who had spent years defying political correctness?
Well, of course it was. I’m no big Clarkson fan — chiefly because I think cars are as boring as golf and the colour beige — and I have a lot of time for Vice President Vance. But I have to wonder if Clarkson’s critics have ever actually read or watched him if they are surprised that he dislikes a (small “e”) evangelical Christian. Does he seem like the sort of chap who might spend a lot of time in church?
A noticeable feature of the recent Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London was its Americanness, and a key element of its Americanness was its preachy overtone. Speakers exhorted us to be better, stronger and more fertile.
You can’t understand the British people without accepting that the response of a lot of right-leaning Britons would be to blow raspberries and make “wanker” hand signs. A lot of right-leaning Britons hate nothing more than preachiness — the preachiness of diversitarians, and climate activists, and “public health” scolds, yes, but also the preaching of religious moralists.
Every now and then, a right-wing commentator will make the argument that this or that person is not a real conservative because they have endorsed some socially liberal idea. Peter Hitchens has argued that Nigel Farage is not a real conservative he backs the legalisation of cannabis. Rakib Ehsan has implied that Rupert Lowe is not a real conservative because he vaguely supports assisted suicide.
Indeed, most Britons are pretty damn liberal
I am absolutely not disputing Hitchens and Ehsan’s right to oppose drug legalisation and assisted suicide respectively. But to use these opinions to define the borders of right-wing acceptability would be to insist on your own marginalisation. Most British people support the legalisation of cannabis. A large majority of British people are, in principle, in favour of legalising assisted suicide.
Indeed, most Britons are pretty damn liberal. A large majority of British people support gay marriage (and a lot of the British people who don’t, one suspects, are fairly new arrivals). A huge majority are pro-choice. More people believe that religious leaders “should keep out of political matters” than do not.
Again, I cannot stress enough that I am not arguing that people should abandon their social conservatism because most people disagree with them. What is right and wrong is not determined on the sole basis of public opinion. If a majority of people believed that dogs should be killed and eaten, I wouldn’t join the queue to buy a Labrador steak.
Still, right-leaning commentators do have to accept that a successful right-wing movement in British politics will not be defined by social conservatism. Right-leaning opinions are popular, sure. Most British people think that Britain has had too much immigration. Most British people think that Britain is too soft on crime. Most British people think that, yes, political correctness has gone mad. But this does not add up to a kind of Scrutonian social conservatism. It adds up to something closer to a Clarksonian love of home and annoyance with being lectured to and taken for a ride.
I’ll be honest: I don’t think I’m a real conservative. A lot of the socially conservative sentiments I once expressed were largely vibes-based (as well as sometimes being intensely hypocritical). Other socially conservative attachments that I do have, as I’ve written before, are not easily translatable into politics. It’s one thing to believe in the nuclear family, for example, but it’s another thing to legislate effectively on its behalf.
Over time, then, I’ve become less concerned with what is good in politics than with what is simply true. Perhaps this is a fault of mine rather than a feature. Perhaps it expresses a philosophically rootless agnosticism. Hell, I’m pretty sure it does. But desiring a coherent objective moral order is not the same as actually having one, and desiring an electorate that clings to a coherent objective moral order is not the same as having one either.
The English, whether one likes it or not, are an unusually individualistic bunch, and relatively secular in a traditional as well as modern sense (strikingly, even in 1957 more British people wanted religious leaders to stay out of politics than did not). This is not to criticise people who believe in or promote socially conservative ideas. But it should at least be done with some awareness of who they are dealing with. I don’t think that it is fair to dismiss JD Vance as a “god-botherer” (and I don’t know what his beard has to do with it). But if he ran against Jeremy Clarkson in a British election, I’m pretty sure I know who would win.
