Which way is right: Tories should seek truth, not comfort

The below is a response to a piece by Spectator columnist Matthew Parris

‘If you look for truth,’ counselled C.S. Lewis, ‘you may find comfort in the end.’ If, however, you look for comfort ‘you will not get either comfort or truth’. A patriotic politician should reflect on Lewis’s wisdom. In good times almost anyone can succeed in politics but in tough times voters expect more. Voters don’t look to elect politicians, but statesmen, and they can usually smell the difference between the two.

Statesmen don’t begin every day wondering how they can win power; they begin by thinking about how they can serve their country. They ask themselves about the challenges facing the nation and they wonder what the country needs its government to do. Only then, as secondary questions, do the political and tactical questions kick in.