A good friend recently asked me what I thought of the Conservative Party manifesto following the election of David Cameron’s Tory government. Here is my response:

Although I have not actually read the Conservative manifesto, I am very aware that the Conservatives have fallen under the mostly benign influence of the so-called “Red-Toryism” of Philip Blond, which is itself influenced largely by the distributism/subsidiarity of Chesterton and Belloc. This is obviously good and to be celebrated. Nonetheless, corruption is now endemic in British politics and I have no confidence in David Cameron who is a typical chameleon politician, i.e. he will change his political complexion according to the way the winds of media-driven public opinion are blowing. He is a typical pragmatist who will willingly sacrifice principle for “success”, i.e. staying in power. He is also very weak on the European Union, i.e. he will do nothing meaningful to resist its onward draconian march. Finally the hung parliament means that he will have to compromise the manifesto to placate his partners in the Liberal Democrats, who are morally liberal in the extreme and sickeningly pro-EU, but who also profess some subsidiarist principles. I suppose my judgement, in a nutshell, is that a dark cloud still looms over Britain, portending a deluge, but that there is perhaps a silver subsidiarist lining even to the darkest of stormclouds.