Wise words of warning against the enemies of liberty

FOR the past 50 years, the radical Left have mounted a relentless, merciless attack on the Western democratic world – an attack from within that has been far harder to counter than the attacks from without that we have also endured.

It has been a shocking period. Western societies have developed high levels of freedom, tolerance, the rule of law, generous welfare states, free education and generally good, accessible health care. They have achieved standards of living far above anything dreamed of in previous eras. They have welcomed and integrated large numbers of migrants. They have housed their populations in some comfort. They have withdrawn from colonial empires with some grace and generally peacefully.

Yet from their own universities and media, indeed from deep inside their own elites, these societies have come under incessant attack as supposed strongholds of oppression, cruelty, bigotry and backwardness.

Often these charges are based not on the present day, but on long ago crimes, both regretted and ended, such as imperialism and slavery. Far too few voices in our intelligentsia have been raised against this caricature of the truth based on a distortion of the past and present. Nobody pretends that the US or modern Britain, for instance, are perfect. But you only need to examine present-day China, with its imperial crushing of Tibet and its shocking treatment of its Uighur minority, to realise how fortunate we remain.

One voice who does speak out against the slanders of the Left is the author Douglas Murray, whose new book, The War On The West, is being serialised in the Mail newspapers. Mr Murray is uncowed by the tyranny of woke, and also warns that these critics are enemies of liberty who – if they succeed in winning the culture war – will move on to destroy much that we love about this country and the world. We are proud to be giving extra strength to his warnings.