The green and the blue

For as long as I can remember, the word ‘conservative’ has been used in intellectual circles as a term of abuse, while to call someone ‘right-wing’ has been the next thing to social ostracism. This habit has persisted throughout 50 years in which the Conservative party has had the largest overall share of the vote. But the habit is not new. It took root two centuries ago, when the French Revolution excited British intellectuals to think that they too might get the chance to cut off the heads that contained less brains than their own. John Stuart Mill, when a Liberal MP, spoke for the intellectual majority by denouncing the Tories as ‘the stupider party’. An intellectual who emphasises his leftist credentials has a career advantage that will compensate for any amount of obscurity, confusion or mendacity in what he writes.

Still, when the environment came to the top of the political agenda I allowed myself the hope that respite was to hand.