Normal but not inevitably right

Although I agree with its general sentiments, Louise Goldsmith’s lyrical, romantic critique of the proposed sale of Bosham Manor appears to be simply naive or hugely hypocritical.

The marketisation of everything has been the underscoring ‘philosophy’ of Tory dogmatism for decades. Frequently described as neoliberalism or Thatcherism it draws on the traditional liberal free market model of capitalism emanating from Adam

Smith and promoted by the ideological economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Also with such bodies, inter alia., as the self called ERG ( European Research Group), the IEA (Institute of Economic

Affairs) and the earlier NFL (National Freedom League). More recently the anti-state stance of neoliberals has been colonised by the Alt. or New Right movements in this and other countries.

The latter have connections or communications with the Brexit Party, UKIP and Tory party right wing.

These links remove from both traditional liberalism and the modern, or political, liberalism where the state was given a key role to mitigate the ill economic and social consequences of ‘ free’ competition: inequality, unfairness, private aggrandisement etc... Those associated with or drawing on modern liberalism include, J.S. Mill, Beveridge, J M. Keynes, The younger Winston Churchill , and the Fabians.

In the UK Conservative or Tory tradition, philanthropism played a major role e.g. the 19c. factory acts promoted by Lord Shaftesbury and Richard Oastler. This vein continued as postwar Tory leaders Macmillan, Butler, Macleod and governments mostly accepted the political census of the welfare/corporate that Thatcherism Friedmanism and its progenitures set out to dismantle.

Under free, capitalist, competition (commented critically on, by both Adam Smith and Karl Marx) proper rights take precedence over the common good and social rights.

In English Toryism today feudal/imperial avocations have joined with neoliberal demands , including ‘Brexit’. So is it not of some surprise for a local government Conservative leader to criticise the sale of private property under ‘normal’ market conditions.

Or might it be a recognition that in society all that regarded as economically normal is not necessarily right or desirable? GORDON CHURCHILL The Saltings, Birdham