What Jack Monroe has in common with Lee Anderson

In 1966, during the Republican primaries for the Californian gubernatorial race, the internecine fighting amongst the GOP candidates had grown so vicious – and particularly targeting a disruptive actor turned politician (whatever happened to those?) – that the state Republican chairman, Gaylord Parkinson, proposed an eleventh commandment: ‘Thou Shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.’ The actor, a certain Ronald Reagan, loved it, and adopted it as a personal maxim; sticking to it, he would go on to win that election. In time it came to be known as ‘Reagan’s eleventh commandment’ and its meaning more broadly paraphrased as ‘thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow conservative.’

I thought of this edict often during the recent furore over Lee Anderson’s comments about how his local food bank, to which he donates his time and money, makes its meals conditional on cooking lessons. To me, such a policy, which did not originate from Lee, encapsulates the values of communitarianism, voluntarism and the imparting of self-respect and sufficiency that characterises British conservatism.