Love them or hate them, one of the enduring legacies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher – the beacons of conservatism for the English-speaking world in the late 20thcentury – was the pursuit of excellence. “Hard work,” Thatcher pragmatically opined, “will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.” More optimistically, Reagan claimed that “Entrepreneurs are the heroes of modern times.”
Democrats and liberals may dismiss this aspirational language as impractical, even cringeworthy. We might read in them a dismissal of the more bitter realities of work and opportunity, which are often accidents of birth. This is why our Party Constitution prominently features the words “enslaved by poverty, ignorance, or conformity”. We do not accept that individual merit alone will make someone successful, healthy, or contended, and we accept that individual change is often impossible without social change to enable it.
However, we should agree, with the conservatives of yore,that individual excellence is to be prized. A common feature of liberal thought it the theory that when government removes barriers to excellence, there is room for exceptional personal development. The cornerstone of this thought, which we can find across classical luminaries such as Mill and Locke, is “choice”. For the liberal, the ideal civic person is the one who has directed their own destiny, free from external constraints.
So, although conservative and liberal ideologies will differ on the means to this end, we should agree that raising paragons of excellence above the modal norms of our social environment is generally a good thing.
Or, we used to agree.
While we can still find the pursuit of excellence in the words of liberal leaders such as Kamala Harris, Tsai Ing-wen, and our own Ed Davey, it is much more difficult to find these from their conservative contemporaries.
After a decade bailing water out of a rapidly sinking ship of state, a decade defined largely by brainless populism, empty rhetoric, and rank incompetence, one might have hoped that the Conservative leadership election in the UK would provide the opportunity for reflection and a rediscovery of these fundamental values. Surely the party of Churchill could produce some kind of statesmanship, some ability to rise above the weeds of politics.
It has not. Conservative heirs-apparent Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick seem convinced that the barriers to excellence are the excellent; academics, immigrants, actors, businesspeople, and athletes have all come into their crosshairs. Their pitch is that the enemy is without, rather than within. The message is that it’s pointless to fight above your station while someone else is to blame.
This other-blaming culture is not auxiliary to their thought. It is central. Jenrick and Badenoch’s brand is built solidly on fear, envy, and populism. Badenoch recently condemned actor David Tennant as a “rich, lefty white male celebrity” – something she thinks we should avoid, I guess – and has referred to civil servants as “inherently bad”. Jenrick, meanwhile, has claimed that refugees – a largely middle-class, aspirational group – have “values and lifestyles” that differ from his social idyll. His Twix biography leads with his pride in having “secured the largest reduction in legal immigration”, wilfully dismissing its cultural and economic advantages. And his signature contribution in the last Parliament was an ultimately doomed attempt to prevent transgender women from using public toilets.
These ridiculous and unscientific positions are echoes not of the Conservative Party’s grand history, but rather, of American pseudoconservative populists such as Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. Perhaps this is where Britain’s conservatives learnt their game. Or perhaps they perceive this to be the only path to success. Either way, it speaks to a deep ignorance of their philosophical tradition, and a bitter lack of aspirational leadership.
To any conservative who still believes in this once fundamental conservative value of excellence, I say, welcome. We might not always agree on the duties of government, or the fine details of taxation and spending. But we will always agree that a person striving to win at life should be encouraged, and not diminished, ridiculed, or feared.
* Em Dean is an intersex English teacher and computer scientist. They are a member of Waltham Forest Lib Dems.
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11 Comments
The Conservatives of Jenrick and Badenoch are vastly different from the past Conservative ideals. They are turning into a far right group, similar to others in Europe etc. The arguement is they will become unelectable. However,
conservative orientated voters and the way the World seems to be turning towards the right could bring them support. The term excellence will become unimportant as they lurch to the right that does not appreciate the term. The party must show that excellence works.
Hard work does not of guarantee excellence. If only it did!
Hard work must of course of be respected, and intrinsic ability without hard work and a decent mortality supporting it too often ends in disaster.
I agree the two chosen to compete for Conservative leader are out of line with Conservative history in a bad way but I find your definition of the liberal ideal civic person (“directed their own destiny free from all constraints”) inadequate. No one is free from constraints and it is unacceptable if someone directs their own destiny always to the detriment of other people.
As liberals we believe in people being non-conformist in many respects yet willing to contribute to society; indeed those who battle against some of society’s norms often have the most to contribute. The ideal civic people also have the strength of character and help from others to overcome constraints in the pursuit of excellence. The pursuit however, is for others as well as for themselves and that service to others is a good constraint on what they do or at least on how they go about the pursuit of excellence.
Regarding ”excellence’ in the Tory party..
Robert Jenrick says, “One of my first acts as leader would be to appoint Jacob Rees-Mogg as Chairman of the Conservative Party so we can truly reform and democratise our Party.”
THAT shows how much faith he has on those Tory MPs who actually held on to THEIR seats..
If one wanted to “reform and democratise” an organisation, on what planet would Jacob Rees-Mogg come to mind as a prime candidate for the job?
@ Tristan Ward: Many years ago when working in a local unit of an organisation which had better remain nameless, one of my colleagues was unwise enough to say to a visiting Director “We’re all working very hard”.
To which the Great Man responded, ” I don’t care whether you’re working hard or not; are you being effective?”
btw I assume that your “mortality” was a typo for morality: unless, of course, you favour using the term “dedicated worker” in its literal sense?
Might the decline in the quality of Conservative leaders correlate with their party’s zeal for that rentier group aiding socio-economic policy which is Neoliberalism/Austerity?
“The SW1 commentariat’s reaction to Jenrick and Badenoch’s success yesterday shows that it still inhabits a cosy little bubble in which anyone or anything that runs contrary to its own narrow liberal-centrist worldview is immediately branded dangerous or illegitimate”……P Embery Labour….
Just about sums up this post …
Below is an article which makes clear the harmful and dangerous consequences of Neo-liberalism/Austerity which so benefits rentiers. It can be found on today’s Richard Murphy blog.
://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/10/16/is-finance-our-master-or-servant/
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/10/16/is-finance-our-master-or-servant/
The problem with rewarding and celebrating excellence is that, just like inherited wealth, it is often something that is beyond our control. Both intelligence and the capacity for hard work are largely , though not entirely, inherited (look at the academic research before you tell me I’m wrong) while life events also play a part. It has been observed, for example, that many successful people lost a parent when they were quite young. I could go on, put you get the general point.