Is this the end of globalisation?

The costs of decoupling; loose monetary policy; anti-Tory institutions; the need for restraint and commitment; the end of nationalism; gender ideology in schools; a case for classical education

We think conservatives need to talk more and get better at sharing ideas. So here we share the best newspaper columns, policy reports and books that will stimulate thinking and promote new ways of doing things.

The Conservative Reader is published every Friday lunchtime, so please do look out for it. And expect plenty of content about the things we think make conservatism such a compelling body of thought: identity and belonging, community and commitment, market economics, national resilience and good government.

You can find more about what we think on Twitter here and here.

Best wishes, Nick and Gavin

Towering columns

At Project Syndicate, Michael Spence says economic decoupling between the United States and China is now inevitable - but it will come with a cost:

Make no mistake: the economic consequences of this lurch toward confrontation are as far-reaching as they are severe. As global supply chains become less elastic, less efficient, and more costly, their ability to counteract inflationary pressures will decline. Central banks will thus be left to manage price growth alone, by suppressing excess demand. All of this generates powerful growth headwinds. Moreover, as we have recently seen, rapid monetary-policy tightening, after years of ultra-low or negative (in real terms) interest rates, produces financial stress and bouts of instability, especially when debt levels are substantial.

The combination of higher interest rates and heavy sovereign-debt burdens will compound fiscal pressures. Though lower inflation could ease those pressures, interest rates are likely to remain elevated for a while, especially if suboptimal global economic trends and secular forces like population aging cause supply-side conditions to deteriorate. Nor is the downward trend in productivity growth – which has become particularly pronounced in the last decade – likely to be reversed in a fragmented global economy with barriers to technology development and diffusion…

Many emerging and developing economies recognize that a fragmented global economy – let alone one where they must choose between two competing blocs – is not in their interest. But they currently lack the power to change the major players’ incentives. India may be able to play such a role someday, but not yet. And while Europe is big enough to resist the decoupling pressure, it is not fully integrated, and is hamstrung by its energy dependence. As for multilateral institutions, they are too beholden to their major shareholders in the developed world to advocate strongly for cooperation, openness, and an adaptive rules-based system that promotes efficiency, growth, and inclusiveness. That leaves no obvious off-ramps from the current trajectory. The future is partial decoupling and fragmentation.

In the FT, Martin Wolf takes on those who say over-loose monetary policy and bailouts thwarted creative destruction and explain our economic troubles today:

The big background changes were financial liberalisation, globalisation and the entry of China into the world economy. The latter two not only lowered inflation. They also introduced a country with colossal surplus savings into the world economy. In addition, rising inequality within high-income countries, combined with ageing populations, created huge surplus savings in some of them, too, notably Germany. It then needed exceptional credit-fuelled investment, notably in housing, to balance global demand and supply. Happily or not, the financial liberalisation facilitated this credit boom… All this blew up in the financial crisis. The decision then made was not to have another great depression. I do not regret my support for that self-evidently wise decision. But, given the realities of the world economy and the impact of the crisis, there then needed to be either ongoing fiscal support or ultra-loose monetary policy. The former was ruled out. So, it had to be the latter...

The central banks were not the evil puppet masters of some imaginings, but puppets under the control of more powerful forces. Yes, they made mistakes. Maybe monetary policy should have “leaned against the wind” rather more prior to the financial crisis, QE ended a bit sooner after that crisis, and monetary support been withdrawn faster in 2021. But, given our liberalised financial system and the huge shocks to the world economy, I am sceptical whether any of this would have made a huge difference. Crises were inevitable. Certainly, the legion of critics need to spell out precisely what they would have recommended instead and what effects they would expect their alternatives to have had. We need the counterfactuals specified and quantified. How high should interest rates have been? How big a financial collapse, economic slump, and rise in unemployment would they have then expected after the financial crisis? Why do they imagine businesses would have invested more if interest rates had been higher? Even if productivity would have been raised by slaying “zombie” firms, why would this have been a good thing if the costs included lower output for a prolonged period?

On ConservativeHome, Poppy Coburn says the Tories are right to see public institutions and charities as hostile - but they have their response all wrong:

Airdropping ideological allies into hostile environments achieves little without the additional heft of a high-profile popular campaign to ‘reclaim’ an institution, or a legislative stick by which to ram through root-and-branch reforms. The Conservative Party does not provoke the culture war, it responds to it – but incredibly poorly. Impartiality has been a useful tool to maintain balance in the past but, as the culture war becomes increasingly heated, it may no longer be enough. I will refer to Robert Conquest’s second law: any organisation not explicitly and constitutionally Right-wing will sooner or later become Left-wing.

The Conservative Party is not wrong to try and regain some semblance of representation. But tactics matter: carelessness will only embolden those who seek to remove right-leaning figures from public life entirely. Emboldened by the prospect of a long-Labour regime, disgruntled ideologues are unlikely to hold their tongues in the name of fairness and balance. The BBC and large swathes of the third sector are reliant on public funding, and many of the initiatives pushed by left-leaning employees are incredibly unpopular. The Government shouldn’t engage in the underhanded tactics used by the Left, and should instead wield their popular mandate for legislative reform before they lose their chance.

For the Spectator, Imogen Sinclair explores what Prince Harry gets wrong about therapy - and says we must understand restraint, commitment and associational life:

Inspired by a conservative reading of Freud, we must respond to the restraining forces that emerge from our associational life with others and deter us from toppling statues or leaving our spouses. This is not inhibition; this is order. We must face our fear of responsibility if we want to live genuinely free from the unceasing demands of our own desire. Of course, this poses a political challenge. How can the state shape a social order that facilitates – rather than undermines – self-restraint? Marriage, for instance, is not the dangerous institution de Beauvoir bewailed, but one that orientates both parties away from themselves and towards some common good – not only between themselves but society as a whole, especially if you do your bit to save us from demographic collapse.

Other structures can bestow similar advantages. The associational life maintained by places such as youth clubs, playing fields and village halls build reciprocity, trust and a well of social support. And the same goes for the patriotic bind that comes with national identity and national security. The state should be in the business of creating opportunities for people to answer the summons of civilisation and participate in associations beyond themselves in the family, community and the nation. A system of taxation that supports the care economy in every household; economic planning that protects local industry and pride of place; a ban on pornography.

If you baulk at the thought of the state taking an interest in such affairs, then you have an over-realised liberal view of the state, and its proper role to pursue a substantive vision of the good life. If market forces and state services were made to strengthen mediatory institutions in civil society, then a whole new political regime would unfold. Some call it post-liberal. I call it plain conservatism. It could happen. It’s what Freud would have wanted.

In the New Statesman, Chris Deerin says in Scotland the nationalist moment is coming to an end, and that is good news for Labour:

Forbes’s description of the Sturgeon ministry as “mediocre” angered many in her party – there have been threats of refusal to serve in her cabinet and even talk of resignations – but she wasn’t wrong. If the SNP is to reach 2030 in government it needs to change at a fundamental level. Continuity may console the hardliners, but the times and the national mood are shifting. It would be profoundly unwise not to recognise this.

In the course of the past week I have had conversations with senior figures from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. Each believes the nationalist moment is coming to an end, and that the collapse may occur surprisingly quickly. Both the Tory and the Lib Dem admitted ruefully that this will be overwhelmingly to Labour’s benefit.

For the first time, there is discussion of whether Labour could emerge as the largest party at the 2026 Holyrood election. In 2022 the SNP secured 64 seats, only one shy of an overall majority. Labour, with 22 seats, was far behind and this gulf was previously regarded as too wide to close within a single five-year parliament.

Wonky thinking

In a Policy Exchange paper titled Asleep at the Wheel, Lottie Moore examines gender and safeguarding in schools. Endorsed by former Education Secretaries, the Chairman of the Education Committee and Miriam Cates, Moore writes:

Our research reveals there to be a safeguarding blind spot when it comes to the issue of sex and gender. Safeguarding principles are being routinely disregarded in many secondary schools, which are neglecting their safeguarding responsibilities and principles in favour of a set of contested beliefs, in ways that risk jeopardising child wellbeing and safety. In doing so, schools are compromising both the law and statutory safeguarding guidance. Many schools are also disregarding published guidance in the teaching of the Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) teaching curriculum, and their legal requirements to remain politically impartial. This report focuses on the conflict between the application of gender identity beliefs in school, and the safeguarding principles they are required to adhere to.

By uncritically accepting contested beliefs on gender identify, as well as adopting affirmative practice, which involves affirming a child’s belief that they are the opposite gender to their sex, schools are failing to consider their safeguarding duties – not just to gender-distressed children – but to their peers as well. We have uncovered numerous cases of schools acting in complete disregard of standard safeguarding procedures, including by not informing parents – without good reason – in major life decisions by their child, promising confidentiality to a child about certain matters, or allowing children to make significant, potentially irreversible medical decisions without involving either parents or relevant professionals.

Encouraged by external agencies, schools have been adopting these practices in an attempt to deal with the rising numbers of children presenting with gender distress. Consequently, established laws and safeguarding norms are being disregarded, as teachers facilitating the social transition of children with the impossibility of knowing whether this is in a child’s best interests. Schools often overlook how affirmative practice affects their safeguarding duties towards other children, who are required to compromise their own rights to single-sex spaces as a condition of receiving their education.

Book of the week

Our suggestion this week is not a book but a lecture, by Dorothy Sayers, who in “The Lost Tools of Learning”, made a case for classical education that has since been supported by neuroscience and empirical research into pedagogy:

Let us now look at the mediaeval scheme of education… The syllabus was divided into two parts: the Trivium and Quadrivium. The second part – the Quadrivium – consisted of “subjects,” and need not for the moment concern us. The interesting thing for us is the composition of the Trivium, which preceded the Quadrivium and was the preliminary discipline for it. It consisted of three parts: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric, in that order. Now the first thing we notice is that two at any rate of these “subjects” are not what we should call “subjects” at all: they are only methods of dealing with subjects. Grammar, indeed, is a “subject” in the sense that it does mean definitely learning a language – at that period it meant learning Latin. But language itself is simply the medium in which thought is expressed. The whole of the Trivium was, in fact, intended to teach the pupil the proper use of the tools of learning, before he began to apply them to “subjects” at all. First, he learned a language; not just how to order a meal in a foreign language, but the structure of a language, and hence of language itself - what it was, how it was put together, and how it worked. Secondly, he learned how to use language; how to define his terms and make accurate statements; how to construct an argument and how to detect fallacies in argument. Dialectic, that is to say, embraced Logic and Disputation. Thirdly, he learned to express himself in language – how to say what he had to say elegantly and persuasively…

I ought to say why I think it necessary, in these days, to go back to a discipline which we had discarded… One cannot live on capital forever. However firmly a tradition is rooted, if it is never watered, though it dies hard, yet in the end it dies. And today a great number – perhaps the majority – of the men and women who handle our affairs, write our books and our newspapers, carry out our research, present our plays and our films, speak from our platforms and pulpits – yes, and who educate our young people – have never, even in a lingering traditional memory, undergone the Scholastic discipline. Less and less do the children who come to be educated bring any of that tradition with them. We have lost the tools of learning – the axe and the wedge, the hammer and the saw, the chisel and the plane – that were so adaptable to all tasks. Instead of them, we have merely a set of complicated jigs, each of which will do but one task and no more, and in using which eye and hand receive no training, so that no man ever sees the work as a whole or “looks to the end of the work.”

What use is it to pile task on task and prolong the days of labor, if at the close the chief object is left unattained? It is not the fault of the teachers – they work only too hard already. The combined folly of a civilization that has forgotten its own roots is forcing them to shore up the tottering weight of an educational structure that is built upon sand. They are doing for their pupils the work which the pupils themselves ought to do. For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.

Quick links

Kemi Badenoch has announced Britain is to join the CTPP free trade area.

The Government is looking at introducing carbon border taxes for imports from countries with poor environmental standards.

The Prime Minister has ordered an independent review of sex education.

20% of 3 year-olds and 50% of 9 year-olds have a mobile phone.

Goldman Sachs say generative AI could increase annual global GDP by seven per cent over a ten-year period.

Elon Musk and more than 1,000 tech leaders are calling for a pause in AI development.

The minimum wage for apprentices is less than a maintenance loan for university students.

The salience of immigration as a problem is rising, according to YouGov.

In the next half-century there will be four pensioners for every ten workers in Britain.

According to Deloitte, the UK has the lowest ratio of dwellings to residents in Europe and is building them at the third slowest rate.

Analysis of advanced economies shows Britain is a persistently low-investment nation.

Tory MPs in marginal seats have been accused of seeking to “chicken run”.

The King speaks excellent German.