Another voice

Nothing to say

Auberon Waugh

The silly season would appear to have arrived with a vengeance when Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien devotes his column in the Observer to what must surely be the least burning issue of the day: are Chris- tianity and Conservatism compatible?

The good Doctor — unlike Mr David Owen, he has a right to the title — claimed to have got the idea from a correspondent of his called Mr 0. J. Scott, of Bedford, who has been disabled and virtually house- bound for the past eight years. Mr Scott has put these eight years to good use, thinking, meditating and praying until he came up with the question: 'How can a sincere Christian honestly belong to the Conser- vative Party?'

The question is so fatuous, the answer so obvious and so boring that I do not propose to take him up on it. But in the course of his disquisition Dr O'Brien made several obser- vations which seem to merit further atten- tion. First, he discovered a delightfully asinine remark by Norman Stevas from a 1980 Bow Group address on 'The Moral Basis of Conservatism': `. . . faced with a clash of warring creeds, the Tory response is to mix them and somehow to synthesise Adam Smith with Karl Marx.'

`What rot!' cries the Doctor, and few of us would disagree with him. But when he tries to explain why it is rot, he finds himself being almost as silly as Mr Stevas: 'Marxism and the writings of Adam Smith are not warring creeds: the British classical economists, including Adam Smith, provid- ed one third of the tripartite basis of Marx- ism.'

Oh dear. Perhaps one should explain to these warring gentlemen that the writings of Adam Smith do not amount to a creed. They merely describe how things work — a system, possibly ordained by God, which one mucks around with at one's peril. Marx used the observations of these classical economists merely to suggest that he knew better. He was wrong, as history has prov- ed. The fact that Marxism has since become a creed, is the measurement of its appalling failure.

But the Tory response, when faced with two warring creeds, is certainly not to syn- thesise them. The Tory response has always been to ignore them both, go on singing . `Land of Hope and Glory' and hope the lower classes join in. The workers are either too stupid to understand or too intelligent to be interested in why it is that socialism, far from making anyone richer, freer or happier, actually creates nothing but pover- ty, oppression and general misery. The reasons are quite complicated and by no means always complimentary to the lower

classes themselves.

But now, according to a Gallup Poll on behalf of the Bible Society, the Church is putting people off religion: people find the traditional rituals too boring and pompous, the services too long and solemn. As every vicar in the country starts taking evening classes in banjo, is it, perhaps, time for the Conservative Party to learn a new tune? I do not think so, and feel it would be a great mistake if they tried, because Conservatism is not a creed. It is a perception of self- interest wedded, in the case of Higher Con- servatives, to a pious acceptance that self- interest should not and need not be detrimental to the interests of other people. There is no need for any of us to feel the slightest loyalty or affection for the Conser- vative Party. It is simply there, as the best of a bad bunch. The moment it starts trying to reconcile Karl Marx with Adam Smith is the moment to give it the boot.

Religion can perfectly well be explained within the Benthamite utilitarian philosophy in terms of the greater satisfac- tion to be derived from unselfish actions. Socialism's only claim to be the more moral system lies in the proposition that charity is best exercised through state institutions. Everything else about it is as queer as a nine-bob note, and Conservatism has taken over Poor Relief without synthesising anything.

As Dr O'Brien sees it, the Tories are in- curably evil, the Socialists are no better than a hopeless bunch of Jesus freaks. He perceived 'something Christ-like in the suf- fering of Mr Foot and the serenity of his en- durance'. And, to his eternal credit, Dr O'Brien did not like the spectacle at all. Jesus has no business to be leading a political party. Just think what we would have had to endure on this occasion if Jesus had won: 'People generally don't like their leaders to be all that Christ-like; they should have a touch of the old Adam . . . about them.'

So, torn between the sinners' party and the party of Jesus freaks, he plumps for the Alliance: 'They are sinners, without being hardened sinners. They have heard about Christ's teaching, and it troubles them oc- casionally as they go about their business in this world . • . They are quite good but not too good for this world. I hope they may prosper below.'

I suppose Dr O'Brien knows what he is doing, apart from making sentimental Irish noises about what a good fellow he is. Let us look again at Mr Stevas's deliciously idiotic remark: . . faced with a clash of warring creeds, the Tory response is to mix them and somehow to synthesise Adam Smith and Karl Marx.' Dr O'Brien's predicament is rather simpler. Faced with a clash of warring creeds, his response has also been to mix them and somehow to syn- thesise what he believes to be God with what he believes to be the Devil. Is this real- ly a useful operation?

My purpose in raising the matter is not so much to question his identification of con- servatism with the devil, socialism with God, or even to question his suggestion that the Alliance Party somehow represents a sensible middle course between these two unacceptable extremes. In passing, however, I would be interested to know how he reconciles this view of the Alliance Party with the embarrassing Catholic fer- vour of Shirley 'Two Wafers' Williams, or the teetotal Methodist frenzies of Mr David Owen or even the Boy Scout enthusiasm of Mr David Steel. In fact, now that Shirley Williams, in the most exciting result of the last election, has been sent packing, Mr Steel has retired hurt, Mr Rodgers has been sent packing and the soft sinner Roy Jenkins has waddled off into the twilight it is hard to know exactly what one is writing about when one writes about the Alliance Party. No, my purpose in raising the matter is simply to inquire why we are both writing such appalling tosh on a subject which does not interest either of us at a time when Parliament and courts are still sitting, and the silly season proper should be several weeks off.

Perhaps it is the heat, but I would like to think that something of the appalling ennui has set in which always accompanies the best Tory governments, and which can only be relieved by a really juicy sex scan- dal. One remark of Dr O'Brien's really made me sit up, however. Under the sug- gestive side-heading 'Sinful inclinations' he wrote: 'Personally, I like the Alliance. They like claret. So do I, though I prefer Her- mitage.'

To say that one prefers the tiny produc- tion of Hermitage to the whole gigantic spectrum of wines from Bordeaux seems to be making an extraordinarily precise state- ment about oneself, if only I could unravel it. I have met journalists who say they prefer claret — generally rather left-wing people, by my standards, or at very least from unsettled home backgrounds, and I know many who prefer burgundy moderate, easygoing, jovial, delightful folk. But I have never heard of anyone since Alexandre Dumas who said he thought Hermitage best.

Do not misunderstand me. There are some wonderful wines there. I myself am sitting on a case of the 1978 Hermitage La Chappelle, hoping for a sensational taste experience in 15 years' time. But I simply cannot fathom the sort of person who by some process of synthesis comes up with the conclusion that Hermitage is actually best. Perhaps I will try some in a future Spectator Wine Offer and see what hap- pens.