ATW QOTD

CHARLES MOORE, former Telegraph editor, doesn't think much of Andrew Marr's new series, "The Making of Modern Britain" so far (as if the BBC's talented but Marxist government mouthpiece would ever do our history justice):

As well as gaining much, we have also lost. Honour, manufacturing, oratory, worship, friendly societies, organised temperance, provincial pride, fair play, low taxes, reading and writing, public order, good trains and public clocks which kept the time – just a few of the things which our own age could improve if it bothered to admire the past rather more and itself rather less.

No, as thoughtful as Moore is, that's not the QOTD. That would be Raedwald's view:

But not lost, I think, as much as misplaced. Many of the benisons that Moore lists spring from our national sense of self-worth, the comfort of our place in our little platoons, and the binding effect of the shared sense of duty and responsibility that this brings.

To keep all we have gained - a more equitable society, a progressive 'one nation' Conservative Party, universal education and health care - and to rediscover what we have misplaced, we need to recognise the malignant forces that seek to prevent this. European federalism, Socialism, central Statism, the cult of the self, the assaults on our national sense of identity. These are evils that must be recognised as such.

Quite so.