Maybe the National Conservatism mob are right about ‘unconstrained individualism’

Last week’s National Conservatism conference grabbed plenty of headlines, as Tory politicians including Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg vied for influence, and activists and commentators such as Douglas Murray and David Starkey tried to outdo each other’s stoking of their confected culture war. Anxiety about the apparent breakdown of traditional family models is particularly acute, and is evident too in a statement of principles for the NatCon movement – drafted by various American conservative thinkers for the Edmund Burke Foundation, the institute which lies behind the broader National Conservatism project. Occasionally feeling the load of parenthood doesn’t mean you wouldn’t move heaven and earth for your children But truthfully, I’m kicking myself for not thinking when we paid for the trip that of course it was bound to mean an early start that would ruin my precious sleep. Likewise, as they willingly stayed up extra late to collect me from the very useful, sub-24-hour cultural experience, they would no doubt have been even more pleased to do so had they known that a significant portion of the journey home was spent debating whether my mate Nick should dispose of the small flick-knife he’d picked up in a Calais street market, before he got nabbed by customs.