John Osullivan

Theresa May’s victory in the 1922 committee confidence vote is one of those boxing matches that leaves both sides preparing for an early rematch—with the challengers somewhat more eager for one than the champion. The defeated Noes got 37 per cent of the vote, according to the numerate Tim Stanley, of an electorate that provided a 100 per cent turnout of Tory MPs. That’s seventeen votes short of a two-thirds majority for the Prime Minister compared to John Major’s achievement of getting four votes more than that traditionally decisive margin in 1995. Her critics got about the same percentage of the non-payroll vote.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s 'controversial' (i.e. conservative) prime minister, travels today to Vienna to meet the new premier of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, for their first serious political conversation since the latter’s election. Orban and Kurz are seen in the conventional narrative shared by the international media, the European Left, and most Western European governments as the terrible twins of the populist nationalism now emerging across Europe. Both are better described as nationalist-minded conservatives who draw on populist support—Kurz’s conservatives have the populist Freedom party as their junior coalition partner, Orban’s substantial parliamentary majority is achieved in part by populist votes from the still unrespectable Jobbik party.

The occasion was a central European conference on the subversive disinformation campaigns of Putin’s Russia (which, incidentally, are real, subtle, and potentially effective). The speaker was an American warning that the central European democracies were in imminent danger of succumbing to the lures of authoritarian populism, even of abandoning democracy itself, under this influence. He cited the probable election of the media billionaire Andrej Babis as prime minister in Czech elections as one sign of this democratic collapse. A heavy sigh came from a European participant, standing next to me: ‘Why do Americans exaggerate so?

Europeans are usually alarmed or sniffy about American concern for democracy’s fate, but this time liberal opinion on both sides of the pond sings in unison: populism is a threat to democracy. A recent issue of the Journal of Democracy (a sober publication published by America’s National Endowment for Democracy) provided a handy compendium of all the parties, policies and histories that can be included in the vast cabin-trunk of populism. A lead article by Takis S. Pappas, a Greek political theorist living in Hungary, lists 22 different parties he cautiously calls ‘challengers to liberal democracy’. He breaks them down into three categories: anti-democrats, nativists and populists. (All are commonly called populists in European and American media.

One name leapt off the text of Theresa May’s Birmingham speech, which began as the launch of her leadership campaign but morphed instantly into a programme for her government this week. It was that of Joseph Chamberlain, who was listed by the new Tory leader in her apostolic succession of great conservatives. It became clear as May developed the themes of her new Conservatism, moreover, that Chamberlain senior wasn’t being praised just because she happened to be speaking in Birmingham — the city he made into a worldwide symbol of great municipal government. She intended to follow in the footsteps of ‘Radical Joe’. And that could take her along very different paths from those trodden by both David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher.

In June 1975, I was given the heavy responsibility of writing the Telegraph’s ‘light’ op-ed on the conduct of the first Euro-referendum campaign, which duly appeared on the day of the vote. My theme was that it had been the nicest possible stitch-up. ‘From the establishment and the respectable anti-establishment, from the Economist and the New Statesman, from the Lord Feather [of the TUC] and Mr Campbell Adamson [of the CBI], from Mr Wilson and Mr Heath, from the Royal Commission Volunteers to “Actors and Actresses for Europe”, the same advice, the same dire predictions of life outside the Market…’ It rings loud bells today.

In June 1975, I was given the heavy responsibility of writing the Telegraph’s ‘light’ op-ed on the conduct of the first Euro-referendum campaign, which duly appeared on the day of the vote. My theme was that it had been the nicest possible stitch-up. ‘From the establishment and the respectable anti-establishment, from the Economist and the New Statesman, from the Lord Feather [of the TUC] and Mr Campbell Adamson [of the CBI], from Mr Wilson and Mr Heath, from the Royal Commission Volunteers to “Actors and Actresses for Europe”, the same advice, the same dire predictions of life outside the Market…’ It rings loud bells today.

The Spanish, in their local elections, just elected a bunch of radicals who oppose the austerity needed to keep Spain in the euro. Poland on Monday elected a Eurosceptic challenger from the conservative Law and Justice party. And leaks from the Euro-summit suggested that David Cameron will respond to this rare combination of crisis and opportunity by demanding… well, not much in the way of reforms and concessions. Admittedly these leaks may be feints to mislead all sides about London’s negotiating strategy. It’s early days. Nor is Poland yet a reliable ally for Britain in such negotiations: its government will be divided between a Eurosceptic president and a pro-Brussels administration until at least October.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/Untitled_2_AAC_audio.mp3" title="John O'Sullivan discusses why we shouldn't be so afraid of Putin" startat=1088] Listen [/audioplayer]If Vladimir Putin’s invasion and occupation of the Crimea brings to an end the Pax Americana and the post-Cold War world that began in 1989, what new European, or even global, order is replacing them? That question may seem topical in the light of Russia’s seemingly smooth overriding in Crimea of the diplomatic treaties and legal rules that outlaw aggression, occupation and annexation. In fact, it is six years behind the times. To understand the situation in the Ukraine, we need to go back to the Nato summit in Bucharest, in April 2008.

Shock is probably the predominant emotion evoked by the decision of Pope Benedict XVI to resign at the end of February. Given that the last papal resignation took place 600 years ago, it’s understandable that the world has got used to the idea that being pope is a life sentence. Indeed, previous popes seem to have got used to it as well. Some of them, including Benedict’s immediate predecessor, were martyrs to the job, and not entirely metaphorically. Suspicion is another reaction, less common perhaps but rife in high places. Mr Piers Morgan, himself a Catholic (who knew?), tweeted his suspicion that there was more to Benedict’s resignation than met the eye.

My apologies for responding so tardily to Alex Massie's post of Friday, but it was quite well hidden, maybe prudently so. He begins by objecting to my assertion on National Review Online that given the failure and unpopularity of Labour, "the Tories [as the main opposition party] ought to be winning easily and by a landslide." This is an unfair critique, he argues, because "it's the failures of the past and that he inherited that make Dave's task so difficult. If 2005 hadn't been such a ghastly failure perhaps the Tories wouldn't need to win an extra 130 seats to win a majority. *In other words, they essentially need a landslide just to win a small victory*." Well, let me try to unravel the confusions here.