Britain should be proud of its role in spreading universal morality

I promised to provide, in this space, a forum for thinking about ‘what we believe’. We the West. There are two articles worth noting in the last few days.

Toby Young, right here in The Spectator, wondered how liberal values can be sexed up. Should we hope that potential Islamists will be won over by ‘a crash course in the virtues of limited government and the rule of law, drawing on the writings of John Locke, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Jefferson’? He goes on:

‘Liberalism offers its adherents peace and prosperity – it appeals to man’s desire for comfortable self-preservation, as Nietzsche pointed out. That’s fairly tepid and uninspiring compared to the intoxicating wine of Islamic radicalism, which promises life-and-death struggle, followed by eternal bliss.’