God is a cellar dweller as tumbleweeds greet Gove on Natcon stage
People came to day two of the National Conservative conference for Michael Gove, but they stayed for Gwythian Prins, an academic who, to illustrate the deleterious effects of wokeness on foreign policy, sang the skeleton song. “The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone, the leg bone’s connected to the thigh bone, the thigh’s bone’s connected to the….” He stopped and said: “It sounds Caribbean but it’s actually Walt Disney in 1929 with some Medieval Danse Macabre.”
This is why I come to Right-wing conferences. You always learn something. The audience is eclectic (“I run a campaign group against veganism”); the speakers are determined to go over their time and off-topic. That included a handsome journalist called Tim Stanley (great hair) who was asked to explain “what conservatism is” but talked about monasteries instead, and urged delegates to be kind to refugees. He apologised for missing the dinner the previous night, which was held at the Natural History Museum and addressed by Douglas Murray. “The Guardian headline writes itself,” he said, “Fossils Lectured by Caveman.”
There was a side event in the basement about God while, upstairs, security swept the room for the arrival of Michael Gove whose presence at this conference was surprising. These are weapons grade conservatives; Gove is a social liberal, blamed for lockdown.
I’m told that he agreed to speak to give cover for Right-wing MPS to do the same, the theory being that Suella Braverman or Miriam Cates could say “well, if Michael’s going, it can’t be all bad” – but those very people had spent the past two days attacking the modern Conservative Party and the political hill upon which Gove now strode out to die. In 30 minutes, he received no applause, except once when he told us he admired Roger Scruton. In this crowd, that’s the equivalent of saying “I like puppies!”
Expertly interrogated by Maddie Grant of The Telegraph, he observed that debate is healthy and the Tories, like the Church of England, have always been a broad church. True enough, but it is the contention of Natcon 2023 that the party has been captured by atheists.
How is it, after 13 years of Conservative government, that the country feels Left-wing? The answer, say the Natconners, is that the Tories have made no effort to drag it to the Right, because they didn’t really want to or they consider it vulgar to try.
The conference has been condemned by liberal Conservatives on Twitter because some of its speakers have odd ideas – but also, I suspect, because they have ideas at all. Philosophy. Principles. Red lines. A few of the crankier ones even believe in religion, which is totally alien to our country and its political tradition. Just ask William Wilberforce and all those slaves he helped to free.
We have to speak the truth, said the marvellous Dr Prins. “One cannot distil sunbeams from cucumbers!” No sir, even the Left “cannot rewrite the second law of thermodynamics!” I’ve absolutely no idea what he was talking about but it got a better reception than the Secretary of State for Levelling Up. Heading for the exit, the last thing I heard was the most Natcon thing imaginable: “As Immanuel Kant said in 1784 .…”