Blue-Green Is The New Red-Brown

Zac Goldsmith is not a patch on his father. But as well as the passage supporting fixed exchange rates mysteriously omitted from The Trap in English, yet there in the original French, even the Grand Old Man (whom I knew very, very slightly, for reasons that need not detain us so long after his death) was an opponent of nuclear power.

As Goldsmith the Younger was on The Week In Westminster this morning. So expect no help from a Cameron Government for this measure so vital to national sovereignty, the economic basis of paternal authority, and the avoidance of expensive, morally and socially disruptive wars. "It would require State subsidy", apparently. Well, yes. It would. State subsidy to secure national sovereignty, the economic basis of paternal authority, and the avoidance of expensive, morally and socially disruptive wars. What used to be called Toryism. Back when there was such a thing.

As, most of the time even if not on this issue, the Elder and Better Goldsmith both understood perfectly and articulated brilliantly, including with the courage to put his money where his mouth was. Although rather compromised by his own global billions, which at least he put to good use, he came from the same stable as those of whom Damian Thompson writes:

"Paleocons have historically been noisier in their anti-socialist rhetoric than any American political tradition (and that’s saying something). But, given a choice between big business driving an internationonalist foreign policy and an isolationist Christian America in which secularism can be curbed only by federal legislation, I increasingly get the sense that they’d plump for the latter."

His son, alas, does not.