SMALL MEN ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY

THE DECLINE, FALL AND UNLIKELY RETURN OF CONSERVATISM

ED WEST

Constable, 352pp, £20

First there was Brexit. Then a huge Tory majority in the last election. So what’s not to like if you’re a conservative? Rather a lot, according to conservative columnist Ed West. Thanks to liberal dominance of the ‘commanding heights’ of culture, the Devil now has all the best tunes. No wonder most educated people under 40 dance to them.

The son of maverick Tory journalist Richard West, Ed West seems to have inherited what Niall Gooch, in the Catholic Herald, called his father’s ‘idiosyncratic blend of attitudes and beliefs’. This meant, said Gooch, that ‘West’s undoubtedly robust conservatism is nevertheless suffused with generosity and wit.

Small Men is not only full of selfdeprecating asides, but is laugh out loud funny.’ The Critic’s Christopher Snowdon agreed, describing it as ‘an often hilarious memoir of a born conservative watching the world go wrong’. But, added Snowdon, ‘This is a serious book. Behind the dry wit and self-mocking he has something important to say.’

In the Sunday Times Matthew Goodwin said West had written ‘an insightful, poignant and at times hilarious book’ that exposed the dilemma conservatives faced. They might win elections – for now. But in the long run they had less and less to offer. Where, asked Goodwin, were conservative thinkers like the late Sir Roger Scruton? Until he had some cogent successors, ‘conservatives will be on the back foot no matter how many elections they win’.