Michael Gove speaks
Michael Gove gave a tour-de-force at a Policy exchange Q&A last night.
In between revealing that his first headmaster had been a Battle of Britain fighter pilot and defending the principle that more people should go to University (not an entirely popular proposition with Tory audiences), he set out a philosophical reaction to the credit crunch and what it means to Conservatives.
The Gospel according to Gove is that the Tories have never worshipped wealth or its acquisition per se - it is the use to which it’s put that matters. And if regulation is necessary to prevent excessive power - or excessive irresponsibility - in the hands of the few then so be it. That is the proper role of the state and the Tory party is more than ‘the political wing of Merril Lynch’.
This was all good stuff, but there is something a bit fake about it. Proper Tories should believe that wealth creation is good in its own right, surely: because the ends to which it is put are an issue for the individual, but economic activity is positive (unless criminal).
But Gove was on surer ground when he talked about a great dividing line between Right and Left. Tories do not believe in the perfectibility of either human nature or man-made systems. It is better to have something that works fairly well left alone: ‘do not make the best the enemy of the good’. Statist interventionists like New Labour think differently. There is always a perfect solution out there to be attained, they say. Unfortunately the result is bureaucratic nightmares like tax credits and Sure Start.
Gove quoted the elegant dictum of Isaiah Berlin: ‘Out of the crooked timber of humanity not a straight thing was ever made’. Seems to sum up the credit crisis pretty well too…