The fact that something is being treated as controversial does not actually make it controversial
In 2019, the New Statesman published an interview with the late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton. Scruton was reported to have made “a series of outrageous remarks” — about a “Soros empire”, for example, and about Chinese people being “robots”.
Scruton was a titan of British conservatism. Conservative MPs hurried to prove themselves — by throwing him under the bus. “Antisemitism sits alongside racism, anti-Islam, homophobia, and sexism as a cretinous and divisive belief that has no place in our public life,” yelped Tom Tugendhat MP, “And particularly not in government.” “No brainer,” snorted Johnny Mercer MP, “Let’s not take our time on this. @TomTugendhat absolutely right.” Scruton was promptly fired, and the New Statesman’s George Eaton posted a photo of himself drinking champagne.
Eaton, it turned out, had done a poor journalistic job. When Scruton had talked about Chinese people being “robots”, a transcript revealed, he was referring to government conditioning and not to their essential nature. Other “outrageous remarks” simply were not outrageous. If we can refer to a “Murdoch empire”, or a “Koch empire”, why can we not refer to a “Soros empire”? Scruton was reinstated amid awkward apologies.
The lesson for British right-wingers should have been clear. When a journalist says “jump”, you don’t have to ask “how high?”
Perhaps this is sinking in. Robert Jenrick MP faced criticism this week over remarks at an Aldridge-Brownhills Conservative Association dinner in which he called Handsworth in Birmingham “as close as I’ve come to a slum in this country” and said that in ninety minutes he “didn’t see another white face”.
There was outrage — outrage, that is, among left-wing journalists and politicians. “Ten years ago, maybe even five years ago,” expostulated Lewis Goodall of the News Agents, “Comments like that would have gotten you the sack from the front bench of any major political party.”
Perhaps. If so, we live in more enlightened times. There was nothing outrageous about Jenrick’s remarks. I have never been to Handsworth, and I won’t pretend to know if “slum” is an appropriate descriptor. When the BBC went poking around the area, they found someone called Mariaj Khan who agreed with Jenrick and who seems unlikely to have been a white supremacist. Regardless, insulting the honour of Handsworth is not a sackable offence.
What really offends Jenrick’s critics is the reference to not seeing a single white face. But why? Some have disputed the accuracy of his claim. Well, less than 10 per cent of Handsworth is white so it is not implausible. Even if it was a slight exaggeration, though — is that a major problem? It was a private dinner — not a speech in Parliament. Besides, even if Jenrick did see an occasional Andrea or Andrzej, his general point is true. That wouldn’t make it right to exaggerate, for sure, but the facts demonstrate that it would not have been a huge exaggeration.
What really annoys left-wing journalists and politicians is that Jenrick thought that it was worth mentioning. It is something one is not supposed to notice. Never mind that the media is full of hostile reportage and commentary when areas are considered excessively white. The absence of non-white people, for journalists and politicians, is a problem. The absence of white people is to be ignored.
Jenrick argues that his point was about integration. If people with English heritage and migrants or people with migrant heritage are not mixing, that seems more suggestive of Balkanisation than cosmopolitanism. Obviously, skin colour is an imperfect metric here. White people may have Polish or Romanian heritage, for example. But the probability makes it an understandable reference point.
This is fair enough. But it would also be fair enough to use it to illustrate the scale of demographic change in Britain, not just its distribution. A majority of British voters have opposed the scale of immigration to the UK for decades — and have been promised for decades that it will be addressed. They have the right to know the extent to which they were ignored. Others have the right to welcome this change, of course. What cannot be justified is making it unmentionable.
This time, the Conservatives have not rushed to appease the Lewis Goodalls of the world. Kemi Badenoch has defended Jenrick’s remarks — and for once she has made the right decision. It is the right decision morally but it is also the right decision politically. Sometimes, the outrage of journalists reflects popular outrage but sometimes it reflects the modish standards of an ideological bubble. The average Briton would not find Jenrick’s comments outrageous. Indeed, his critics find them outrageous because they fear the average Briton.
The mere existence of journalistic criticism does not mean that it is valid
The sun is falling. The headlines have moved on. You can just ignore journalists. I don’t mean we should not be listened to. All of us should listen to criticisms, in case we have been morally or factually wrong. But the mere existence of journalistic criticism does not mean that it is valid — or that it has implications beyond a bit of angry discourse on BlueSky.
The world is not going to end if the News Agents hate you. Even they will have forgotten the controversy by their next episode.
