The Spectator’s Notes | 24 September 2005

Even in successful parliamentary democracies there comes a time when no political party is confronting the questions which matter most, and so the voter feels cheated. The worst time for this in Britain was the 1930s. Conservative appeasement seemed more and more inadequate, but the Labour party, then in pacifist mood, did not offer a convincing alternative. It is similar today, only the other way round in party terms. The biggest problem facing the country is Islamist terrorism, not so much because of the security threat (grave though that is), but because of the cultural and political war that is behind it. An effort is being made, like the effort once made by communists, to undermine our Western, plural, free, semi-Christian way of life. In a way it is more dangerous than communism was — at least in Britain — because it has more adherents and fellow travellers. Tony Blair and some in his government are very aware of this, and some of their ideas about it are right, but they are hamstrung by their own ideology which has for so long taught that a multicultural society is a self-evident good.