‘The truth is hard’: an interview with Roger Scruton

To the extent that Britain has philosophers, we do not expect them to address issues of any relevance to the rest of us. They may pursue some hermeneutic byway perhaps, but not the urgent or profound issues of our time.

Roger Scruton has always been an exception in this regard, as in many others. He has spent his adult life thinking and writing about the nature of love, the nation state, belonging, alienation, beauty, home and England. But even his closest readers may gulp at the relevance of his latest subject matter. His new novel, The Disappeared, is set in the north of England and centres on the recent rape-gang cases. It’s a gripping, disturbing narrative dealing with abduction and abuse but also love, escape and a type of redemption. I went to see him last week, a world away from all these subjects, at his farm in Wiltshire.

‘I’ve been thinking about these things for quite some time,’ he says as we settle into his book- and piano-filled study.