The negligence of ‘not in my lifetime’

It is sometimes said, correctly, that conservatism is more an attitude than an ideology. And for me there have always been certain individuals who embody that attitude. The late and much-missed Tessa Keswick was one such person, and for some reason a remark of hers has recently been in my head. A few years ago we were at a friends’ house for dinner, with an eclectic group. At one point we were all debating something or other and one slightly left-wing woman at the table said: ‘Well, it’ll all be after my time, so I don’t see why I should care.’ If my eyebrows raised, Tessa’s positively shot up. After the meal the two of us debriefed. ‘That is one of the most shocking things I’ve ever heard,’ Tessa told me. I agreed. There was something so completely wrong about it that we both felt slightly nauseous.

And there is something seriously wrong about such a position – something positively immoral about putting off decisions that you can’t be bothered to take, or are not courageous enough to tackle. Why should those who come after you – whether your own descendants or not – be forced into a worse state of affairs simply because of the selfishness and short-termism of your own actions?

Yet in so much of what dominates our politics this instinct seems to prevail. For instance, on the issue of piling up national debt there is almost nobody who talks about this, or appears to see it as a moral issue. I know there are economists who insist that you can keep borrowing and borrowing and as you do the pie will grow so the debt will not matter. And I know there are those who think that the ‘emergencies’ since 2008 are so uncommon that of course we had to keep printing money. After all, we have been through some once-in-a-century events, which seem to come along every few years nowadays. In any case, those who come after us are unlikely to face any fiscal challenges in their own time.

It is the same with energy policy. It seems as though government after government has postponed the important decisions – and we already have to live with the consequences.

I recently found a video of Nick Clegg made while he was Liberal Democrat party leader: I have curious ways of passing the time. Anyhow, in this video Clegg is complaining about the then government mulling over whether or not to build a couple of nuclear power plants to make Britain more energy-independent. Clegg is very opposed to it. It makes no sense to his mind. So there he is at his House of Commons desk, speaking to camera and explaining with exasperation that what these pesky politicians don’t understand is that ‘by the most optimistic scenarios from the government itself there’s no way they’re going to have new nuclear come on-stream until about 2021-2022. So it’s just not even an answer’. My goodness – not on-stream until 2021-2022! Who could ever have foreseen that far-off year coming around? And what a nuisance it would be if we actually had a nice fresh supply of energy coming on-stream just about now. But again the lack of long-term thought, or even care, is the same with almost every issue.

The one that has blown up this week once again has been immigration. It is fascinating watching politicians and journalists forever kick this one down the road. After my time, they all think.

When the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said that she wanted to tackle the invasion of illegal migrants on the south coast of England, the British media had a gay old time with it. National papers held the front page to condemn the Home Secretary’s ‘language’. The weirdly preachy and moralising UK editor of ITV News warned that this was ‘strong language, given the tensions around the issue’. At which I’m sure that, like me, you put a hand to each of your cheeks and cried: ‘Oh no! Not strong language! Whatever will be next? Strong actions? I hope not.’

It is strange and familiar seeing this outrage cycle go round. Not least because something similar has happened with everybody in post at the Home Office for as long as I can remember. Priti Patel, obviously, was monstered whenever she presented any policy to deal with illegal migration. It was the same with Theresa May when she was at the Home Office. Hell, it’s been the same since David Blunkett and Phil Woolas during the Labour years. All my life, home secretaries have said a few tough things about immigration in order to please their grassroots, and otherwise have kicked the whole thing down the road.

But the problem with migration is that it is the thing more than any other that affects the future of a nation. A nation is composed of the people who are in it. Much of the British media and most of our politicians find it intensely difficult to talk about this. But let me put it this way. Take the 10,000 Albanian men who have broken into our country illegally by crossing the Channel in small boats this year. It’s not good, is it? But it is easy for the pro-illegal migration lobby and others to pretend that 10,000 is just 10,000 and after all we’re a big island and so on. But for every 10,000 illegals, there are millions who have already come and millions more who can come after.

Just consider the trajectory of that one group. The mass-migration fans like to pretend these are all fine young men seeking a better life in Britain: orthodontists, NHS care-workers, particle physicists and tech entrepreneurs to a man. More likely is that they will join the underground networks of Albanian gangs who already perform more than their fair share of crime in this country. But that won’t bother the people who allow this policy or criticise anyone who says a word to stop it. At root that isn’t because they believe the fairy tales about the migrants who are coming – it’s because they believe they won’t suffer the consequences. Not in their area and not in their day at least.