You Know It Makes Sense

James Delingpole

30 May 2009

The right to swear is integral to being a true conservative

‘Bugger,’ says my delightful eight-year-old daughter, dancing round my desk. ‘Bugger, Daddy. Bugger, bugger, bugger!’

‘Don’t say that word darling, it’s really unattractive,’ I say.

‘You use it, Daddy. I learned it from Coward on the Beach,’ says daughter, gleefully looking up the offending word, which isn’t difficult, because it’s the second one in the book.

All right, so I swear. Probably more than is good for me. But that still didn’t stop it coming as a nasty shock when, out of the blue the other day, I had an important interview with American Family Radio cancelled on me at the last minute because another of my books — Welcome to Obamaland — apparently contained ‘lots’ of bad words.

‘But what bad words?’ I wondered, seriously flummoxed, because when you’re writing a book for an American audience you always take extra care with your potty language. The F-word, it goes without saying, is a complete no-no. So too are most other letter-of-the-alphabet words. When I was in the US a few months back and had to go cold turkey on the profanities, I tried using ‘twat’ a lot instead. But then I discovered that in America, ‘twat’ is considered as offensive as the C-word.

‘Jesus!’ I thought. ‘Talk about two nations divided by a common tongue.’ Except I didn’t dare say it aloud in case that got me in trouble too. After all, with so many Christians around, you can get yourself in deep doo-doo for taking the Lord’s name in vain.

I’m also a practising Christian, of course. Except my God, I get the impression, is a touch more laissez-faire than theirs. My God, being an old-school Anglican God, has absolutely no problem with pre-marital sex, swearing or drug-taking. He doesn’t applaud abortion, but he concedes grimly it might be necessary under certain circumstances.

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paul C

May 29th, 2009 10:26am Report this comment

Nicely put, James

Rob Slack

May 29th, 2009 5:46pm Report this comment

I am writing this to see if it makes it through. Almost (if not all) I have ever tried to post has vanished into the ether. No bad language or personla comments (possible wrong on the last point). Am I banned?

Wayland

May 30th, 2009 9:08pm Report this comment

Yeah, I like that sort of conservatism. Beats the fascist Labour government we have now. What a shame that there is not a party or candidate I can vote for who thinks like this.

Richard L

May 31st, 2009 9:53am Report this comment

Nicely argued, very thoughtful - and spot on. A Libertarian view in the old, true sense of the term.

Jeremy

June 3rd, 2009 8:24pm Report this comment

I'm glad you wrote this piece and I think that what you had to say needed saying. After many years of Labour and the EU I can see how things, people, modes of dress and behaviour have become increasingly standardised and conformist. These things are the result of big-state monitoring and regulation and are, or course, essentially anti-conservative. Conservatism to me is about the autonomy of the individual. And that is about freedom of thought and expression. The freedom to dress as you please and to think as you like. And also the freedom to disagree with the majority, the state and whatever the fashionable orthodoxies of your day may be. Conservatism is not about big-state blueprints for the masses. It is not about uniformity and conformity to the state's idea of what you - and by extension all of its citizens - should be, should wear, should think and should say.

But then - like yourself, I imagine - I am an English conservative. The American variety has never struck me as being true conservatism.

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