Conservative History Journal

Tory Historian's duty would not be fulfilled if there were no mention of the England World Cup win on July 30, 1966. Not a particularly conservative occasion, unless we count the game (actually it is not all that beautiful) one of this country's traditions, as it happened under a Labour government who proceeded to take credit for it. Harold Wilson was a spin doctor on a level to which Tony Blair can only aspire.

Let the row about those two goals begin. Tory Historian will take no part, though remembers watching the game.

The anniversary is sandwiched between two that appeal to Tory Historian a great deal more. July 29, 1588 was when the Spanish Armada was sighted off the coast of Cornwall and the English fleet under Admiral Howard and Sir Francis Drake (who had, presumably, finished his game of bowls) set out in pursuit.

July 31, 1667 is an even more important date for England and the Anglosphere. The Second Anglo-Dutch War ended with the Treaty of Breda. The Dutch lost Delaware and New Jersey and New Amsterdam was renamed New York. The Dutch empire in North America did not happen.

The BBC has its uses. Not many, admittedly, but it is useful to find out that July 22 is the anniversary of Sir Alec Douglas-Home's resignation from the Conservative Party leadership.

It seems many MPs were surprised by his decision, taken during a week-end in Scotland, and blamed the relentless campaign conducted against him by the media. Hmmm. Sounds vaguely familiar.

Sir Alec was lambasted for being a toff, for having mild manners, for seeming out of date, for being an idiot. The first two were certainly true. What the media could not explain was why a toff with mild manners who is completely out of date and is also an idiot nearly managed to swing the election in the Conservatives' favour, after a number of unpleasant scandals, and as the next Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, liked to say, "thirteen years of Tory misrule and incompetence".

Sir Alec's successor was to be chosen by an electoral procedure, for the first time in the Party's history, a procedure put into place by him. The two main candidates were Reginald Maudling and Edward Heath. When asked, Sir Alec refused to offer support to either and explained that he would be happy to serve the Party in any capacity under any ruler. I don't recall his successor making such promises.

There are some people in history who fill Tory Historian with a deep sense of inadequacy (OK, less of that sniggering at the back).

Today's birthday boy, Sir Kenelm Digby, is one of them. A man, who managed to be a Catholic, an Anglican and a Catholic again; a courtier to Charles I and Charles II but also an emissary from Oliver Cromwell to the Papacy; a sailor, politician, dueller, scientist (one of the earliest members of the Royal Society); a famous husband and widower of a lady of doubtful virtue, Venetia Stanley; he was also a man interested in cooking, spirit-making, preserving, candying and the creation of lotions and potions.

His recipes were collected after his death by a servant and the ‘The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt Opened: Whereby is Discovered Several ways for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry-Wine, &c. together with Excellent Directions for Cookery: As also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, &c.’ has remained one of the most entrancing historical cookery books in the English language.

Sir Thomas More, former Chancellor of England and particular friend of Henry VIII’s was executed on July 6, though it is not clear from the accounts whether this is according to the Julian or the Gregorian calendar.

More was, as mentioned in a previous posting, one of the people who had helped to create the malign image of Richard III, undoubtedly because of his loyalty to the Tudor dynasty or, at least, Henry VIII.

Tory Historian recalls teaching history of political thought to some students many years ago, in the course of which Thomas More’s “Utopia” was discussed and being somewhat astounded to read an essay in which the student in question maintained that it was that rather turgid novel that brought about the author’s fall from favour and eventual demise. That would have been an interesting theory to propagate.

It is worth remembering that More remained loyal to the King for a very long time, even accepting that Parliament had the right to proclaim Anne Boleyn as Queen. It was the need to swear to the Act of Succession and, above all, the Act of Supremacy that put the King at the head of the English church that he found impossible to square with his conscience.

More was, in many ways, a much more interesting character than the one in Robert Bolt’s play, “A Man for All Seasons”, even as portrayed by the great Paul Scofield. A learned man, an enlightened man, a humanist, he was, nevertheless, ferocious in his hunt of all “heretics” and determined that they should suffer torment on earth as a foretaste of eternal torment in hell.

Tory Historian, being an Anglospherist, takes the view that the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent war was, in actual fact, another civil war within the English commonwealth, the last act of that struggle between autocracy and liberty that started in the 1640s and continued through the 1680s.

A recent book by Michael Barone, the well-known American political analyst, “Our First Revolution”, deals with that theme through a history and discussion of the 1688 Revolution.

Here we run into a difficulty for it was a Whig Revolution. In the case of the American Revolution, political opinion was divided in Britain not according to party lines in so far as there were set political parties at the time. The great hero of conservative thought, Edmund Buke, famously supported the colonists. Others, such as Dr Johnson, were more sceptical, to put it mildly.

How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Tory Historian intended to put up a couple of serious conservative quotes but found the following two comments from P. J. O'Rourke:

You say we [reporters] are distracting from the business of government. Well, I hope so. Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

Today is the anniversary of the Duke of Gloucester, ascending the throne no more legitimately than his immediate predecessors or his successor, as Richard III.

The details of his reign are less important than the propaganda that has blackened his name since the sixteenth century on. He is regarded as a usurper (as were Henry IV, Edward IV and Henry VII) and a man who disposed of all his opponents (as did all the Lancastrians, Yorkists and, particularly, the two first Tudors). In particular, he is seen as the murderer of his two nephews, the Princes in the Tower. Available evidence on that deed (again, hardly unusual for the period) points as much to Henry VII as the villain as to Richard III.

Ah but Henry VII, who had no rights to the throne whatsoever and he knew it, won the war, had himself crowned and, just as his son, systematically disposed of anybody and everybody who might have had a better claim and who simply opposed him. The two Henrys were considerably more efficient than Richard in this respoect and they and their dynasty, consequently, survived.

It is not the various political innovations that were truly the Tudors' achievement, as much of that had been started by the Yorkist kings, but by the efficient and skilful use of propaganda.

The court historian Polydore Virgil, the courtier (until his coscience got the better of him) Sir Thomas More and the playwright who knew which side his bread was buttered on, William Shakespeare produced a vivid but villainous figure of the evil, monstrous, hunchbacked usurper.

Interestingly enough the whole Shakespearian sequence of the Wars of the Roses is considerably more balanced than the last play in it and it is notable that Shakespeare never managed a play about Henry VII. In fact, the worst episode in the entire cycle is the murder of the Rutland, the Duke of York's youngest son and the witch-like Queen Margaret's taunting of the captured general with a napkin dipped in the boy's blood. Margaret, herself responsible for much of the trouble that undermined Henry VI's reign, is, of course, a Lancastrian.

Once we get to the last play, Richard III, all nuances disappear and one can see why. The Tudors were, rightly, uncertain of their rights to the throne and had to paint their immediate predecessor as a usurper.

The first two Tudor kings were not precisely popular and their memory, even in Elizabeth's day, was far from rosy so the immediate predecessor had to be a double-dyed villain. And so he has remained largely to this day though not for all. In Tory Historian's view the best analysis of the problem of the Princes in the Tower is in a novel, Josephine Tey's "Daughter of Time".

We all know that science does not develop in a straight line. Well, most of us know that. We also know that consensus in science is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, consensus in science is almost always wrong. Think Galileo, Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister among many others.

Do we know, however, how very complicated scientists' attitudes are to the world around them? An interesting example has appeared on Tory Historian's horizon.

Three-century-old manuscripts by Isaac Newton calculating the exact date of the apocalypse, detailing the precise dimensions of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and interpreting passages of the Bible — exhibited this week for the first time — lay bare the little-known religious intensity of a man many consider history's greatest scientist.

Newton, who died 280 years ago, is known for laying much of the groundwork for modern physics, astronomy, math and optics. But in a new Jerusalem exhibit, he appears as a scholar of deep faith who also found time to write on Jewish law — even penning a few phrases in careful Hebrew letters — and combing the Old Testament's Book of Daniel for clues about the world's end.

The Serjeant at Arms has unfortunately notified us of a change of venue for the Douglas Hurd meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) starting at 6.30pm. If you are attending, please note that the event will now take place in Committee Room 17 (which I think is in the Upper Committee Room Corridor) in the main building of the House of Commons. For those coming from outside, please enter the building via the St Stephens Entrance. Please allow enough time to get through security. Do NOT try to enter the building via Portcullis House.

Tory Historian is covered in shame. Call for the sackcloth and those ashes. This blog did not mention the ending of the Falklands War with the surrender of the Argentine forces on June 15. Oh the shame of it! No, Tory Historian has no excuse.

Instead, there are a couple of pictures. One of our lads celebrating in the Falklands 25 years ago and one of the fly-past today in London. Tory Historian was fortunate enough to see the helicopter fly-past (was Prince Andrew piloting one of them?) but, sadly, not the Red Arrows. Sigh. Maybe next time.

Of course there can be no doubting of John Buchan as a Conservative. He was one of Lord Milner’s young men; he was a great Empire man, believing in its future as well as its past; he was, of course, a Unionist; he was Scottish Unionist MP for Edinburgh University from 1927 to 1935.

Beyond that he was a man who believed in public life, in ambition, in bettering oneself for one’s own good and that of one’s country. A son of the manse, he became a successful lawyer, writer, politician and, finally, Governor-General of Canada.

The question of whether he was a Tory or not arose in Tory Historian’s mind on re-reading the splendid “Huntingtower”, first of the Dickson McCunn stories. Mr McCunn is a highly successful Glasgow grocer, who sells his business and retires at the beginning of the novel.

Being an incurable romantic he decides to celebrate the beginning of his retirement by a jaunt and runs into remarkable adventures that severely test his intellectual and physical stamina. The adventures involve a Russian princess on the run from a particularly evil Bolshevik who had been a rather unpleasant Tsarist officer, the Tsar’s jewels (though this is a side issue), an English poet by name of John Heritage, Sir Archie Roylance, one of Buchan’s reappearing heroes, slightly lame as a result of dare-devil behaviour as a Great War pilot and, above all, the Gorbals Die-Hards.

The latter is a group of tough boys who live on the streets and survive by their wits until they are taken under Mr McCunn’s wing. Uncared for and discarded by society they show their courage, intelligence and superlative morals in the fight for Princess Saskia.

The novel, like many others by Buchan, have little time for authorities. The police in “Huntingtower”, as everyone keeps repeating are of little use and will arrive too late as they always do. It is up to the disparate individuals to win the tremendous battle with the forces of evil. They do so through steadfastness and intelligence, although they are severely outnumbered.

It is not society or the authorities who understand the goodness of the Gorbals Die-Hards but a particular individual, himself a grocer, a bourgeois, not a man highly regarded by the average Tory squire but greatly admired by Buchan.

Nor are the views about the Russian Revolution expressed in the book entirely what one would expect. The Bolsheviks are power-crazed criminals but the worst of them had had a bad reputation in Bokhara in 1912 as Archie Roylance makes it clear. He is simply evil and goes with whoever will let him exercise control. (Oddly enough, there is a note of compassion even for him.)

While Russia and Russians are seen as victims of the most terrible historical tragedy, there is a clear indication that Buchan and his characters feel strongly that the tragedy was brought about by the carelessness and thoughtlessness of the Russian aristocracy.

The man Saskia marries, the erstwhile Prince Alexis Nicolayevich, now Alexander Nicholson, an Australian engineer and budding businessman, makes it clear that he had left Russia because he was disgusted by the behaviour of his own class, going back only to fight in the War and then joining the Australian divisions. He it is, who explains to Saskia that Dickson McCunn, far from a figure of fun, is the real strength of a country and a nation. Russia will not become truly great until she has people like him. (Sadly, that remains true to this day.)

Interestingly enough, Richard Usborne, in his highly entertaining “Clubland Heroes” shows himself to be far more of a Tory than Buchan. In fact, he does not exactly like Buchan, partly because his were the “clean” adventure stories that parents and teachers always approved of but partly because of his tendency to write about outsiders who make good. Usborne prefers the upper class thugs of Sapper and Dornford Yates, characters who have long been forgotten, while in one form or another (usually the wrong one) Buchan’s heroes and heroines go on, appealing to generation after generation of readers.

On Tuesday 19 June the Conservative History Group is holding a speaker meeting at 6.30pm in the Grimond Room of Portcullis House at the House of Commons. Douglas Hurd will be talking about his new book on Sir Robert Peel, and Peel's relevance to the modern Conservative Party.

If you'd like to attend, and are not yet a member, please email iain AT iaindale DOT com

Tomorrow is the 150th anniversary of Sir Edward Elgar and the media is falling over itself to try to justify the fact that this serious and melodious composer remains so popular.

It is not just the Pomp and Circumstance Marches that are loved by many but his symphonies, "Dream of Gerontius", "Enigma Variations" and many others. He is loved by musicians and singers. In a recent article Dame Janet Baker wrote excitedly about the joy of singing in the "Dream of Gerontius", the glory of that wonderful music. Sir Georg Solti was a great advocate of Elgar's music; Sir John Barbirolli conducted him; other conductors found great riches there.

So what is the problem? Why this rather shame-faced apology by critics and columnists. Well, first of all, the very fact that the music is popular makes the man unacceptable to many of them. But, more importantly, there is the question of the Last Night of the Proms (boo, hiss) that rumbustious letting off of steam and display of high spirits that include a certain amount of singing of patriotic songs. Well, up with this we cannot put.

Anyone who has ever been to the Last Night or watched it on TV (the real Last Night not the rather silly extensions to Hyde Park and ever more cities in the UK) knows that it is not precisely ultra-nationalistic. It is jolly and happy and rousing, a party for those who had attended the concerts throughout the summer and paid serious attention to them. (Yes, I know other people go as well but they are not the real prommers.)

The Last Night as an institution was invented not by Sir Henry Wood but by Sir Malcolm Sargent, "Flash Harry" himself. It has been changed and refined over the years and every change is greeted with dismay by the faithful and every year that does not do away with "Land of Hope and Glory" or "Rule Britannia" invokes gloom among the self-righteous and trendy commentators who see nothing wrong about display of patriotism by almost any other country except Britain. The other exception is the United States.

Just like the Proms in general, with Nicholas Kenyon finally releasing his deadly grip on them, will continue to evolve and change and, one hopes, improve, so will the Last Night of the Proms that will retain much of its traditional character as well.

Behind it all, there will remain the inescapable figure of Sir Edward Elgar, a man whose music is loved by many, high and low, for many different reasons. Long may that continue.

On May 14, 1607 the Virginia Company explorers, 108 of them, landed on Jamestown Island. Their intent was to establish the Virginia English colony on the banks of the James river, 60 miles from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. This is the real beginning of the history of what later became the United States of America and is now the sole real superpower in the world. It is also the beginning of the spread of Anglospheric ideas across the world.

This brief history tells an interesting tale of the settlement and its subsequent history. Tory Historian was particularly taken with the point that historians and archaeologists have discovered that probably the “gentlemen” and certainly the others worked hard to create the new colony and to make it successful.

The early history of English colonization of North America (an attempt to rival and overcome the Spanish, Portuguese and French colonizers, often by warfare) had a mixed history.

As it happens, Tory Historian visited the excellent British Museum exhibition, “A New World”. Astonishingly enough, this exhibition has not closed, which indicates some attempts at good timing on the part of Tory Historian, and is strongly to be recommended to anyone who happens to be in London.

The core of the exhibition is a selection of watercolours made by John White in what was called Virginia but is now North Carolina during several voyages there in the late sixteenth century. The man was interested in everything he saw: people, their habits, their buildings, the birds, plants and animals around them.

His paintings and John Harriot’s descriptions, reprinted subsequently on the Continent, influenced greatly the Old World’s view of the New World, particularly in England. John White’s influence went on as his paintings were copied and engraved for a long time.

He was interested in establishing an English colony in Chesapeake Bay, not far from where the Jamestown settlement was built eventually. However, when he took a number of potential settlers, including his daughter and son-in-law, matters did not work out well.

The second colony of Roanoke was founded in 1587 with John White as governor. Somewhat mysteriously, he was persuaded to return to England by the other settlers, for more supplies and more people. Having fitted out several ships he found that because of the threat of the Spanish Armada he could not leave the country until 1590.

When he finally reached Roanoke he found that the entire colony had disappeared with only the word “Croatan” carved on one of the posts as an indicator as to where the settlers might have gone to. Croatan was an island where, it was assumed, the Indians were still friendly towards the English settlers.

The “Lost Colony of Roanoke” has remained a mystery. Sir Walter Raleigh, who had been given the rights to “Virginia” by Queen Elizabeth found himself in disgrace, as well as without the necessary funds. So the attempts to establish an English colony were abandoned until King James and the Virginia Company.

On August 21, 1602, in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, Raleigh expressed his undying faith in the overseas English Empire which he had attempted to establish, saying, ". . . I shall yet live to see it an English Nation."

It is not often that Tory Historian recommends extreme libertarian publications but this long essay by Murray Rothbard seemed interesting enough to recommend to readers of this blog.

With celebrations of the Act of Union and forthcoming celebrations (one hopes) of the Jamestown settlement, the Anglosphere and its various members are being discussed. Naturally, the American Revolutionary War, to some extent another English civil war, is an important part of that history.

Rothbard, the well known economist of the Austrian school, libertarian historian and philosopher, here analyzes the work of various modern historians who have looked at the American Revolution.

Tory Historian is due to attend a dinner this evening, which will celebrate the Act of Union that came into effect 300 years ago. (Actually, there may be a problem here because of the changes in the calendar but the wording says Ist Day of May, so that is when we celebrate it.) Among the speakers will be the Countess of Mar, whose ancestor, the 23rd Earl of Mar played a prominent part in bringint the union of the two parliaments and the creation of the new one. So the more interesting blog will come tomorrow. But it was not right that a day of such importance in this country's history should pass unnoted on this blog.

Commissioned portraits throughout history have, in one way or another, shown the social standing and political and cultural viewpoint of the sitter, whether it is done through the pose, the artfully arranged clothing or the extras in the painting – books, works of art, other implements such as swords or paintbrushes.

The recently closed exhibition at the Royal Academy, mentioned by Tory Historian before, “Citizens and Kings 1760 – 1830”, was of particular interest from this point of view, this being a period in which most political and social ideas were turned upside down. With it went many of the ideas of how to paint portraits.

Interestingly enough, the last of those was not entirely true. While Enlightenment ideas of greater emphasis on private and family life certainly took hold, attitudes to the correct way of posing and the correct understanding of aesthetic forms remained not dissimilar and, therefore, very different in Britain from the Continental ones.

On entering a room it is possible to pick out the English and Scottish paintings immediately, not just because Gainsborough, Lawrence and Reynolds are unmistakable or because there is a curious continuity about English physiognomy, but because of the attitude to and by the sitters.

No Continental painter, however hard he tried, could produce that odd feeling of relaxation and certainty that the British ones did. (It is important to remember that there were several extremely good Scottish portraitists at the time.) The one exception is Elisabeth Vigée LeBrun, who even managed to paint children credibly and certainly produced interesting portraits that were much discussed as the emphasis was on the likeness instead of the sitter’s position.

Even or, perhaps, especially the animals in British paintings are relaxed and certain of their position – it being the most important in the household as is clear from the dogs and horses one saw in the exhibition.

The curator of “Citizens and Kings 1760 -1830”, whose notes and explanations were, as is common with the Royal Academy, excellent, drew attention to an interesting comparison between royal portraits.

At the start of the period the Continental countries were largely absolutist monarchies with Britain being the only country where the King’s power was circumscribed by Parliament. This, he thought, may well have been the reason why Reynolds painted King George III and Queen Charlotte in far more relaxed poses than his contemporaries painted other monarchs.

Interestingly enough, George IV eschewed that attitude. The famous Lawrence portrait shows him in an almost Continental manner, bestriding his space, full of “empty pomp”, according to the curator, who is clearly not a Whig.

Looking at other portraits, Goya’s Ferdinand VII, for instance, or the various ones of Napoleon, one can see the difference between attitudes very clearly. In many ways, it is not the great imperial splendour of Napoleon or his appearance as conqueror of Europe that is particularly interesting but David’s portrait of him in the study at the end of a long night’s work “for the good of the French people”, as the curator sardonically notes.

Napoleon is always the ultimate romantic hero, despite his less than total love of freedom, but this portrait surpasses all others. He is in uniform as he is about to inspect a regiment, surrounded by charts and documents, including the Code Napoleon, still the basis of French law. The man who is full of pride and is, yet, ready to sacrifice himself for his country. As it happens, he sacrificed the country to his ambitions for it and himself. How very different from the relaxed view of George III and the stiff emptiness of George IV imitating the Continentals.

First of all, apologies from Tory Historian for the paucity of posting. (Actually, the non-existence). Other commitments and the presence of builders in the home have made working life extremely difficult. But things are about to change.

In the meantime here is a portrait of a great British philosopher and historian, a Scotsman but one who belongs to us all, something we ought to recall in this year of the Union's Tercentenary.

David Hume cannot quite be called a Tory or anything else. Like all great thinkers he is of himself and not to be pigeonholed. His own comment was charactaristically wry:

I have written on all sorts of subjects . . . yet I have no enemies; except indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians.

All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be skeptical, or at least cautious; and not to admit of any hypothesis, whatsoever; much less, of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

Tory Historian, as most readers of this blog know, is addicted to films, particularly films of a certain vintage. It has always been a matter of some sadness, therefore, that so much of the film industry is and has always been in the grip of left-wing and socialist delusions.

Many of the best American films of the thirties show the evils of capitalism and capitalists, coming out on the side of the “little man”, that being the acceptable left-wing version at the time of straightforward socialism. (The idea of those big studios who destroyed anyone who got in their way coming out on the side of the "little man" is quite amusing but there is an interesting history behind all that.)

One can trace similar trends in British and Continental cinematography. In France, with the rise of the Front Populaire films that were much more obviously propaganda were made right up to the outbreak of the Second World War.

We know about the Communist infiltration of Hollywood. As Ronald and Allis Radosh have shown in their “Red Star over Hollywood” all those accused of being Communists were, indeed, that. Moreover, they used the hearings to shout their own propaganda, thus actually losing some support among their colleagues who preferred to stand on a position of free speech.

The situation now is well-known. There is no left-wing idiocy that Hollywood and the rather dilapidated British film industry will not embrace. And yet, and yet. It seems that no matter which way you turn it is conservative ideas that make good films.

Take, for example, “High Noon”, which is supposed to be a symbol of resistance against McCarthyism (only self-obsessed Hollywood types could talk about resistance against something so pathetic). Once you see it, you realize that it is nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it is no different from “Rio Bravo”, John Wayne’s supposed response to it. Well, actually, it is a little more conservative in its attitude, being a hymn of praise to individualism, courage against heavy odds and the need to use guns when necessary.

Both films display another conservative principle, as does “On the Waterfront”, the most openly anti-socialist film – human nature is complex and simple solutions do not work.

What of the many British films made in the late forties and fifties? Some are dark thrillers like “The Noose”, others are more light-hearted comedies and social dramas. By and large, they are morally ambivalent about crime, even murder. Above all, they show the British society in its heyday of socialism, the time all good Labour people hark back to, as being grimly dull and oppressive. It is individual endeavour that is celebrated, even if in a slightly back-handed way.

Libertas is a conservative American website devoted to films and film-making. There is a discussion on it at present about why it is that so many of the Hollywood mainstream films, made according to Hollywood’s ideas by Hollywood’s darlings bomb while films that are dismissed by all the biens pensants attract audiences of enviable size.

The answer may be that those despised films tell a better yarn. Or it may be that Dirty Harry, the main blogger, is right in that the films of gratuitous sex and violence, no moral grounding, no heroes, no-one to cheer for are actually seriously out of date as well as being establishment in its worst form. What audiences want is something completely different, something that is new. Or, perhaps, old.

There are some comments and disagreements as to whether it is movement forward or backward that is being approved of. The truth is that there is no real movement forward or backward, except maybe in terms of technology and technique. The same ideas come around again and again. This is what the more successful films tap into now as they have always done.

From the general to the particular. Tory Historian went to the Riverside Studios on Easter Sunday evening to see “A Foreign Affair”, one of Billy Wilder’s better known efforts. (Incidentally, how is it that no matter how many Billy Wilder films one sees, there is nary a dud one?) The film, which takes place in post-War Berlin, has just been kind of remade into a dud vehicle for George Clooney and Cate Blanchett, “The Good German”.

Let us focus on the original. Its main theme is simple: a group of Congressmen and one Congresswoman arrive in Berlin some time in 1946 or 47 (certainly, after fraternization had been allowed) to check on the American troops’ morale. They find that morale is very high, not least thanks to the fraternization with Germans, particularly the fräulein, and to some extent, other Allied personnel, particularly the Russians. Congresswoman Phoebe Frost, from Iowa, decides to do something about it and all sorts of romantic complications ensue with an ending that is not entirely straightforward.

The Congresswoman is played delightfully by Jean Arthur, one of the best comediennes, and the hero, Captain Pringle, by John Lund (who?). Then there is Marlene Dietrich, who plays her usual part, a development of Lola-Lola from “The Blue Angel”. She is a world-weary nightclub chanteuse, irresistible to men, with a past but determined to have a future. In this case, her past appears to include a long-standing affair with a Gestapo general and a position at the very top of the Nazi hierarchy. An interesting part for Dietrich who had spent the war entertaining American troops, because, in her words, “it was the decent thing to do”.

What is so fine about the film is its understanding of all the characters. Unlike the modern version (well, kind of version) the Americans are shown in a good light, if somewhat lax on questions of black market and chatting up German young ladies. The politicians are of little interest except for Miss Frost, who turns out to be honourable beyond her political convictions. The Germans are having a hard time and one can almost see them as victims until there is a little nudge from the Director that reminds one of why exactly they are in the position they are in.

Nobody is completely bad and nobody is completely good. Even the singer, the nearest we have to a bad person, given her past, is allowed one speech in which she describes what her life and that of other German women had been for the previous three or four years. Of course, had she been saying it to a British woman politician (hard to visualize) rather than an American one, she might have had a reply along the lines of: “Oh so you’ve been bombed out? Well let me tell you what happened to us in London or Plymouth or Coventry.” But even the British politician would not have been able to talk of starvation and the city being over-run by Russians.

If anyone is a hero, it is the colonel who is a secondary character. He knows a good deal of what is going on but disregards petty problems with his eye on the main task: to find the remaining Nazi leaders and to rebuild a country and a nation. Maybe playing baseball and being allowed to shout at the referee is a slightly simplistic way of changing children’s attitudes. And maybe not.

Through the complexity of various human emotions and reactions, the colonel and his subordinates assert definite truths of freedom, human endeavour and ordinary existence, all conservative ideas. Made in 1948, “A Foreign Affair” and its optimism for Germany as well as America may have seemed a little doubtful. But the colonel was right. Germany was reconstructed on acceptable principles.

The William Wilberforce Lecture by David Davis, Tuesday 17 April

SPEAKER Rt Hon David Davis MP

DATE Tuesday 17 April

TIME 6 for 6.30pm

VENUE St Pauls Church, Rectory Grove, Clapham

Just to let you know that Hannah Wilberforce (great, great, great, great granddaughter of William Wilberforce) and her father (great, great, great grandson of William Wilberforce) will be attending the event.

Peel & the Remaking of the Conservative Party: Tuesday 19 June

SPEAKER Rt Hon David Davis MP

DATE Tuesday 19 June

TIME 6 for 6.30pm

VENUE House of Commons (room tbc)

Lord Hurd is publishing a book in June on Sir Robert Peel and how he refashioned the Conservative Party. He has kindly agreed to speak to the Conservative History Group on Tuesday 19 June at 6.30pm. Please put the date in your diaries.