January was the first paid month of the Potemkin Village Idiot, with articles out twice a week. Here’s a preview of the paywalled content free subscribers have missed, as well as what’s coming up. If you want access to these high-status insights, make sure you subscribe below.
Welcome to another month of asking what a right-wing Britain fit for the 21st Century looks like - and how we win it.
What’s coming up…
Grab the chainsaw
The truth is that Britain does not need to go to the extreme ends that Milei is. Our economic foundations are much stronger. But, as I have previously argued, our failure on austerity has left British politics in a position where all it can offer is managerialism. If we are going to overturn a decade of low growth, bloated government function and an over-weighted welfare state, we need Milei mindset. And we need it now, before it constrains our politics even further.
Beating back the Blob
The problem of the last 13 years, as Christopher Rufo puts it, has been that “the radical Left ruthlessly advances through the institutions, and the Right meekly ratifies each encroachment under the rubric of “neutrality.” Conservatives have wasted 13 years in power allowing these institutions to be weaponised against them without being prepared to dig in and defend — other than via a segment on Talk TV, if the issue is high-profile enough. Many of these institutions became weaponised against us; the Conservative Way Forward report Defunding Politically Motivated Campaigns worked out the total spend across government on politically motivated activities stood at a staggering £7bn a year.
Project 2029
The answer is that some of these functions can. But they require a combined theory of institutional arms, as Heritage has developed in support of Trump.
A think tank might have reason to bring forward policies, look at long-term problems or engage with the Blob. But they have little incentive to recruit or nurture early-career talent on the necessary scale. A political party might do that, but thanks to the iron laws of electoral cycles, they are historically unlikely to take long-term views on strategy. Without at least an institutional theory, processes necessary to the success of right-wing government are de-linked.
The Tory Party reached its turning point and failed to turn.
So far, her leadership mostly seems to have consisted of taking stock. But by giving herself two years before any major policy announcements, she has given herself time to catch up with the revolution. Regardless of who is leader, profound forces are profound forces. The answer to Britain’s problems – immigration, sluggish economic growth, excessive demand and supply of government, the increasing dominance of an unelected managerial oligarchy – will still be the same in two years. Pragmatic, hardline conservative leadership that spends 90% of it’s time on the 90% of things people care about the most, appealing to its natural voter base and riding a resurgence of democratic power.
Things you may have missed…
There is an important question for the liberal wing complaining about Jenrick’s comments; if a culture that enabled the mass, systematised, targeted rape of vulnerable girls along ethnic lines is not alien, and the attitudes that allowed the mass, systematised, targeted rape of vulnerable girls along ethnic lines are not medieval, then what are they? Is this culture familiar? Are these attitudes modern?
Imagine the Spad or Minister as a prisoner of the political system. In order to ensure resistance to enemy (the Blob) we need to not only increase the relevant push/pull factors, but select people who have naturally diminished responses to the relevant push/pull factors.
Starmer's overriding foreign policy interest is getting us back closer to EU. This is incredibly dangerous when combined with his procedural tendencies; he is likely to accept almost any price as condition for re entry, if he can be convinced that it is a necessary part of the process.