Tag: margaret thatcher

WHERE NOW FOR LIBERAL CONSERVATISM?

October 2, 2024 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the changing fortunes of liberal conservatism, was published in the Observer on 29 September 2024 under the headline “Can liberal conservatism survive the remaking of the right? We’ll soon find out”. Conservatism, the late philosopher Roger Scruton wrote, emerged into the modern world as “a kind of ‘yes but…’” response to liberalism. Conservatives, he observed, believe, like liberals, in the importance of the free market, of private property and of individual choice. They believe also in the overriding significance of […]

Categories: Britain, History, Philosophy & Ethics, Politics • Tags: alain de benoist, civic nationalism, conservatism, edmund burke, edmund fawcett, edward luttwak, ethnic nationalism, friedrich hayek, illiberal conservatism, immigration, liberal conservatism, liberalism, london, margaret thatcher, national conservatives, national identity, patrick deneen, roger scruton, volkisch, whiteness

MORALISING POVERTY AND MISTRANSLATING EQUALITY

February 2, 2023 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the problems in the ways we think of poverty and indequality, was my Observer column this week. It was published 29 January 2023, under the headline “Focusing on diversity means we miss the big picture. It’s class that shapes our lives”. “There is no primary poverty left in this country,” Margaret Thatcher told the Catholic Herald in 1978, five months before she became prime minister. “There may be poverty because people don’t know how to budget, don’t know how to spend their […]

Categories: Britain, Class • Tags: adolph reed, diversity, individualism, inequality, margaret thatcher, moralising poverty, poverty, walter benn michaels

THE UBERISATION OF BRITAIN

May 4, 2022 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on labour insecurity in Britain, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 1 May 2022, under the headline “In the name of job flexibility, ‘Uberisation’ is spreading its tentacles across society”. In the late 18th century, as the impact of the Industrial Revolution bit into the lives of the nascent working class, the high cost of fuel, one study notes, “forced inhabitants of many southern regions to abandon home cooking”. Fuel costs were much greater in the south […]

Categories: Britain, Class, Politics • Tags: anti-union laws, fire and rehire, gig economy, labour insecurity, labour market, margaret thatcher, new labour, p&o, poverty, thatcherism, tony blair, trade unions, uberisation, working class

REFUGEE POLICY FROM INSIDE THE BUNKER

August 24, 2021 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the Afghan crisis and Home Office refugee policy, was my Observer column this week. It was published on 22 August 2021, under the headline “Britain’s offer to Afghan refugees is not ‘generous’. It’s blindly inhumane”. Boris Johnson and Priti Patel believe that Britain’s “bespoke scheme” for Afghan refugees is “one of the most generous in our country’s history”. That says more about their ignorance of British history than it does about the scheme itself. The government has promised 5,000 refugees […]

Categories: Britain, International, Race & Immigration • Tags: afghan refugees, afghanistan, asylum seekers, boris johnson, david blunkett, deportations, home office, hungarian refugees, iran, margaret thatcher, nationality and borders bill, pakistan, priti patel, refugees, ted heath, ugandan asians, vietnamese boat people

THE FAILURE OF BRITISH FASCISM

May 5, 2020 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on why fascism failed in Britain, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on working class writers and publishing.) It was published on 3 May 2020, under the headline‘British fascism has never thrived but its failure has been useful for the mainstream’. The history of British fascism is a history of failure. In a new book, Failed Führers, the historian Graham Macklin retells that story through biographies of six fascist leaders, from Arnold […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: alain benoist, british fascism, british nationalism, conservative party, failed fuhrers, far right, fascism, graham macklin, identity politics, john tyndall, margaret thatcher, nationalism, nazism, nick griffin, nouvelle droite, oswald mosley

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE MODERATE?

October 15, 2018 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the meaning of being ‘moderate’, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on AI and bias). It was published in the Observer, 14 October 2018, under the headline ‘Call yourself a ‘moderate’? You’re just avoiding the need to make your case’. To be moderate is to be good. That is almost incontestable political wisdom. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, who has declared her intention to step down, is […]

Categories: Politics • Tags: austerity, british politics, european union, extremist, immigration, margaret thatcher, moderate, theresa may

DING DONG! WHEN PROTEST SONGS WEREN’T DEAD

April 14, 2013 by Kenan Malik

So, those who despise Margaret Thatcher for her vindictiveness and spitefulness want to celebrate her death by propelling into the charts a song about the death of a witch. Those who laud Thatcher for her supposed love of freedom want to ban that song. And the BBC settles on a cackhanded ‘compromise’ by censorsing the song while pretending it is doing no such thing. Nothing, perhaps, could better express the inanity of contemporary politics than the crass, puerile controversy around […]

Categories: Britain, Culture & Books • Tags: british politics, margaret thatcher, music, protest songs, protests, thatcherism