The difference between Liberals and Libertarians is that Liberals position liberty within community: the limits on individual freedom are set by consideration for others.  (In this Liberals follow J. S. Mill, Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and many others.)  Libertarians reject the idea that individuals are rooted in communities.  They are for individual freedom without qualification.  For them the pursuit of individual self-interest provides the dynamic for economic growth and personal freedom; state interference only limits both.

Reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic have brought out these differences in British politics.  Liberals have regretted the emergency powers that government has resorted to, but recognised that the situation required extraordinary measures.  We have focussed on accountability for measures imposed, limits on how long they would last for, and a preference for voluntary compliance where possible.  Libertarians, inside the government, writing for the Telegraph and sitting on the Conservative back-benches, have resisted lockdown when the evidence strongly supported it, have refused to wear masks whenever and wherever they can, and have urged the government to put the economy first and social considerations last.  The exaggerated rhetoric from the Tory right has touched hysteria.   William Wragg, currently Conservative MP for Hazel Grove, recently declared that the restrictions of lockdown were an “abomination” that “you’d expect in a Communist country.”  (I hope the Hazel Grove Liberal Democrats will keep that quotation for future use.)

Boris Johnson, you may remember, was heard to have claimed that the success of the Oxford team that developed the Astra Zeneca vaccine was driven by ‘greed’.  He thus swept away the possibility that scientists and doctors might be driven by concepts of public service rather than a simple desire to get rich.  It’s notable that so many of those who dominate the Conservative Party have made their careers in high finance: a world in which large egos make for success and considerations of social responsibility are secondary at best.  Saj Javid, one of the most successful self-made men in the Conservative Party, spent several years working for Chase Manhattan in New York, before becoming a director of Deutsche Bank International.  He has spoken of his agreement with the philosophy of Ayn Rand, whose influence on libertarian Republicans rested on her celebration of the selfish individualism of dynamic men.