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in the latest newsletter we are presented with an observation from emily banting witch taken we re informed from her postal correspondence course in witchery when the witch walks a corpse road or lych way she does it in communion with those that travelled before a movement in which the intimate exchange of thoughts and feelings is possible a travelling not of trespass but shared journey we must always have the manners to know that you do not poke those walking beside you here we encounter transcendence the idea that our relationship with home isn t just about now or even tomorrow that relationship is also about those kipling evoked in his charm take of english earth as much as either hand may rightly clutch in the taking of it breathe prayer for all who lie beneath not the great nor well bespoke but the mere uncounted folk of whose life and death is none report or lamentation our idea of place and our identification with home is founded on the things that those mere uncounted folk did the walls they built the fields they tilled the woods they planted and a thousand other things that shaped our environment the work that made it possible for you to look out and say wow i love this place these thoughts were in my mind as i travelled to leeds grand theatre to see fisherman s friends the musical based on the true story of the port isaac fisherman s choir and the film that story inspired this musical tells of that choir and why songs and shanties matter the part when jago dies drew together the thoughts in my head the idea of why place matters and how that mattering is transcendent about hundreds of years of history and tradition if we want to understand true conservatism we can t start with the actions of government or the meanderings of philosophers we should to grasp conservatism s permanence sit and look out at the place our small heart loves most giovanni guareschi described the little world of don camillo and peppone in italy s po valley guareschi s creations came to life far beyond lombardy because we all instantly understood when he wrote in the little world between the river and the mountains many things can happen that cannot happen anywhere else here the deep eternal breathing of the river freshens the air for both the living and the dead and even the dogs have souls conservatism isn t about politics in the way that liberals and socialists think about politics we don t have a prescription for the perfect society written down by a prophet in the 18th or 19th century nor are we the shouty ignorant rant of nationalism where love of place is corrupted to we are better than them conservatives know that kipling was right about our small hearts and that we are mere stewards of the place we love but just because we love our home the most doesn t mean we cannot or should not love all the world or that we should dismiss those for whom somewhere else is belovèd over all conservatism is about us making the places we all love and even the seemingly ugliest of places is loved by someone a little bit better about us being a little part of the legion of barely remembered people who loved the place too the people whose wisdom the witch emily banting knows can help us make the right choices today and when something breaks in our place we won t sit in despair but will dig up the flag wave it proudly and set to fixing the broken not as an act of jingo but just because we love that place posted by simon cooke at 17 26 no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest conservatism if it means anything is a resistance to ideology and the world of ideas ideology represents whether that ideology is a function of the left or the right so wrote american conservative writer andrew sullivan i quoted this in one of the first articles i wrote about conservatism and have returned frequently to the theme that being a conservative isn t really an ideological position but rather a sort of fructified anti ideology doubt as an action plan conservatism is ill defined it s felt rather than analysed emotional rather than intellectual unlike the left there is no ur text no capital that provides a bedrock of religious certainty to ideological discussion we have a set of populist aphorisms hand up not a hand out people who do the right things choice and opportunity but these don t help except as a set of clues to what we believe every place has people who are actively and passively conservative these are the people who look out of their front window and see a world where they can make a little difference but somewhat contrarily also want nothing to change about that view out front it is this clash that sits at the heart of conservatism s confusion we want a better place out there but we also want it to stay unchanged and unchanging benjamin disraeli more than any other person the father of british conservatism and conservatism but we will get to that later set out that the purpose of his party was to see the betterment of conditions for the working man by conditions disraeli didn t just mean those workers rights the socialists always speak of but a broader sense of betterment and in seeking to improve the health wealth and happiness of working men disraeli realised that britain being healthier wealthier and happier as a nation would serve to make if done right the lives of those working men better so we got empire a wider franchise a safer workplace and parks from the 1850s up to the 1960s british conservatism steered its path between the preservation of society s institutions and the betterment of people s lives mostly these two missions didn t conflict since preserving institutions like marriage parish and professions sat well along side the dynamism and creativity of industry by the 1960s however conservatism was struggling to provide an economic rationale for preserving either the great industries or the carefully regulated city of london that had financed empire but failed to finance the rejuventation of commerce and industry worse the social revolution brought about by the pill and the growing up of the post war baby boomers seemed to place conservatism as the enemy of betterment not as its champion we entered a liberal age conservatives gave the post war working man better housing low crime high employment and a route to personal betterment via grammar schools and technical colleges but the party of institution and tradition crashed into gay love abortion mini skirts and middle class women who wanted a good job and after a brief moment of panic the conservative party gave the good job its leader to a middle class woman the problem was that in economic terms margaret thatcher wasn t a conservative and the party had let a liberal imp into the house it may be an apocryphal story but the tale of margaret thatcher slamming a copy of hayek s road to serfdom on the cabinet table and saying this is what we believe represented a huge change in the outlook of british conservatism the change is often presented as a move away from noblesse oblige where the conservative party switched from a dirigiste managerialist outlook to embrace classical liberalism with all its creative destruction the truth is that thatcher s enthusiasm for hayek was less about economics than it was about the need to confront socialism and communism the choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life and what a prize we have to fight for no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark divisive clouds of marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom by placing opposition to socialism are the centre of the party s mission thatcher probably did the right thing socialism was and still is an existential threat to britain s most important institutions monarchy church marriage property rights this is what thatcher meant by sharing a belief in freedom and is why her policies and actions sit within the conservative tradition our problem is that the secular canonisation and demonisation of thatcher largely ignored her traditionalist conservatism choosing to focus on the idea that she championed unfettered free markets something that is hard to square with the actual thatcher legacy since thatcher s removal something that would become a painful trend in british conservatism the conservative party has struggled to find a comfortable place a generation of enthusiastic free marketers clashed with careerists and latterly people who see the mission as one about society rather than economy and against this background sits the debate about europe indeed whereas thatcher s generation saw the enemy as socialism conservatism in 21st century britain increasingly sees itself as defined by being outside the european union by brexit the brexit referendum came about at least in part because of a divide within the right of british politics between those who wanted closer engagement with european countries and those who saw the european project as a threat just as thatcher saw socialism as a threat to important british institutions the importance of sovereignty that our institutions parliament and the courts cannot be overruled by non british institutions pushed aside the main part of disraeli s original mission making the lives of ordinary families better the economic impact of brexit is a matter for debate and an increasingly laputian debate it is too but the 2019 general election where what some called a new coalition emerged based on an electorate that was economically left and socially conservative fund the nhs hang the paedos as one wag put it posted by simon cooke at 17 19 1 comment email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday 25 october 2022 without planning reform building beautifully is just another barrier to development this is the fourth in a series of posts responding to questions and issues raised at my recent battle of ideas debate about the housing crisis these posts will touch on how planning committees work and whether they are political why we need council housing but it won t solve the housing crisis and the old chestnuts of empty homes brownfield sites and food supply i ll also try to set out why beauty is a good idea but looking good doesn t stop nimbys and how urban sprawl is what people want we do not see beauty as a cost to be negotiated away once planning permission has been obtained it is the benchmark that all new developments should meet it includes everything that promotes a healthy and happy life everything that makes a collection of buildings into a place everything that turns anywhere into somewhere and nowhere into home so understood beauty should be an essential condition for the grant of planning permission these are the opening words of living with beauty the 2020 final report of the building better building beautiful commission chaired by the later roger scruton and they have become something of a mantra for those who see the failure to meet housing need as a failure of will rather than a systemic problem if only we are told the houses shops and offices we build were more beautiful there would be fewer objections and the planning system newly empowered by demanding beauty would deliver the millions of homes we need it is hard to argue against beauty of course we want the homes for future generations to echo the best in residential architecture down the ages we want these buildings to use the best materials and to respect the topography of england the problem is that a few seconds into any discussion about beauty in housing people start talking about bath belgravia barcelona or paris usually accompanied by disparaging comments about american suburbia and cars we re told that beauty is contained in a thing called gentle density as its proponents show pictures of gorgeously fenestrated mansion blocks in kensington or reimagined suburbia free from such trashy and ugly things as private gardens and garages i was brought up in suburbia i d say i was biased when i say i love suburbs but truth be told a lot of people who grew up in suburbia also absorbed the popularised aesthetic that such places are naff dull places filled with dull people living dull lives the living with beauty report is filled with hints little asides about the poor quality of homes built by the big house building companies and sly references to how cars spoil everything the problem for our advocates of beauty is that not only do those terrible ugly homes built by persimmon or redrow sell but also the opponents of new homes don t give a fig about what they look like they don t want them built the duchy of cornwall previously under the stewardship of our new king now led by his son and heir has proposals for a major urban extension at faversham in kent in accordance with the swale local plan review 2021 allocation and guided by the local community through public engagement workshops and consultation events the duchy is drafting plans to deliver a high quality sustainable landscape led mixed use community that will become a thriving new urban extension to the town in broad terms this aspiration can be summarised as a net zero carbon development of around 2 500 homes and 2 500 jobs across a range of commercial and community uses with approximately one third of the site designated as high quality green space with at least 10 biodiversity net gains drawing on well regarded developments by the duchy at poundbury and nansledan the proposals are for a new community that is walkable mixed use served by good local transport and designed to reflect the historic vernacular of faversham it ticks except on density all the boxes that the advocates of beauty advocate and local nimbys are going to fight it tooth and nail while i recognise the need for new homes in and around faversham i am extremely concerned at the scale of development the council is proposing an unforgivable scale of development helen whateley the local mp this isn t simply adding a couple of housing estates this will change the nature of faversham it s hugely significant it is the largest expansion of the town since the victorian era cllr john irwin faversham town council the farmland is so rich in biodiversity and this scheme will destroy habitats so many protected species will be lost there are bats lizards butterflies and wild orchids it s so sad i have concerns about losing such good farmland in the current climate we need food self security farmland should be kept in operation at all costs local resident mark sewell the striking thing about this opposition is that there is no discussion of beauty the duchy may have filled the proposals with the language of responsible development community and environment and the design standards may be high but the opposition is to the fact of the housing not what it looks like or who will live there in my 24 years as a local councillor the issue of what new housing ...