Jesse Norman

Letter to the London Review of Books

I much enjoyed Stephen Sedley's thoughtful review of my novel The Winding Stair.

Sedley suggests that Francis Bacon's handwritten memorandum "Reasons for the Remove of Coke" was not intended for King James I, since it lacks a formal address. But this hardly decides the matter: a separate note of address may have gone missing, or the memo might have been delivered via a clerk or courtier. At any rate, Bacon's memo was very likely read by James, since most of its (non-obvious) recommendations were adopted.

One of the purposes of The Winding Stair is to get as close as possible to that impossible ideal, the reality of a given period. Sedley looks in vain for detailed attributions, but one advantage of the novel form is precisely that, as with Bacon's memo, it allows the reader to sidestep the usual academic scaffolding. Not because that scaffolding is unimportant, but because it can get in the reader's way, and because the shaping context of current academic debates can itself be a source of anachronism and mystification.

Westminster scheming is not all bad. Just ask Bacon and Coke

The King sits fretful upon his throne, while all around him his courtiers jostle for attention and advancement. He insists on his own unfettered power, yet the judges would entrap him in the meshes of the common law.

Any resemblance between the politics of the early 17th century and of today is unlikely to be coincidental. But as my new novel The Winding Stair reminds us, while arguments rage in Whitehall over the use of WhatsApp messages, we can still read the WhatsApp messages of the Jacobean court in the Public Record Office, and they are no less illuminating.

In August 1613, Sir Francis Bacon – polymath, essayist and natural philosopher – was serving as Solicitor General in the court of James I. Bacon was 52 and, after a long period of frustrated hopes, desperate to ascend to higher political office. An opportunity opened up with the unexpected death of Sir Thomas Fleming, Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench.

The Winding Stair

Proceeds from the book will go to fund student bursaries and other support for students at NMITE, the new university project in Herefordshire.

The Winding Stair “An engrossing and compelling blend of political thriller and pitch-perfect historical novel” STEPHEN FRY | Buy from Amazon

Governments must step up to the mark and clean up our rivers

At a time when political debate is dominated by public concern over pollution and other threats to the environment, few things are more important than the protection of our rivers and the ecosystems, livelihoods and businesses they support.

 

That is the argument I will be making today, in a debate on water quality in the House of Commons.

 

The River Wye, which flows from the middle of Wales through my constituency and on towards the Severn, is a case in point.

 

The Wye is one of the glories of our country, a priceless national asset celebrated for its beauty since the 18th century, when it inspired the first domestic tourism and the aesthetic movement known as the picturesque.

 

Yet the Wye is at grievous risk from phosphate pollution, which destroys river life and natural habitats. It is the victim of what a recent Commons report identified as a “chemical cocktail” of sewage, slurry and plastic in our rivers, only 14 per cent of which meet good ecological standards.

 

The problem is complex, but the path to a solution is well understood and likely to be relatively inexpensive. But bureaucratic delays and inertia have impeded the way forward.

 

Much recent public attention has focused on the effect of sewage discharges, but the much bigger issue is the leaching of phosphate and other chemicals that have built up in the soil over many years of intensive agriculture on both sides of the border.

 

This has been exacerbated by the rapid development of chicken sheds in England and Wales. Chicken litter is a particularly potent source of phosphate, and discharges upstream are naturally carried all the way down the river.

 

Three agencies are crucial to the clean-up: the Environment Agency, Natural England and Natural Resources Wales. All are needed, together with Ofwat, which regulates the water companies, and with guiding support from the Welsh and UK governments.

 

The solution is evident, as I have argued for more than two years. It is for these organisations to develop a single team and a joint long-term cross-agency strategy covering the river from source to mouth. It will require testing, monitoring and enforcement. But once the team and strategy are in place, we will have the framework needed to secure the necessary funding.

 

And it is nothing new. A very similar issue was addressed in relation to the River Tweed, which straddles the border between England and Scotland, as long ago as 1807, and the Tweed is still regulated by its own commissioners. So the precedent is there.

 

It was that pioneering environmentalist Margaret Thatcher who said in 1988, “It’s we Conservatives who are not merely friends of the Earth — we are its guardians and trustees for generations to come.

 

“The core of Tory philosophy and the case for protecting the environment are the same. No generation has a freehold on this Earth. All we have is a life tenancy — with a full repairing lease. This government intends to meet the terms of that lease in full.”

 

She was right, and that obligation remains today. Now the agencies, the regulator and the Welsh and UK governments need to step up to the mark.

 

Published in The Times

Slow Politics Episode 5: Any ideas?

Who’s got all the good ideas in politics these days? Lara Spirit and Matt d’Ancona are joined by Jesse Norman MP, author of biographies of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith.

Click here to listen

My Letter of No Confidence in Boris Johnson

Dear Boris 

 

As you know, I have supported you throughout your career in politics: for Mayor of London in 2007- 8 and 2012, and for Leader in 2016 and 2019.

 

As Prime Minister, you have been dealt a very difficult hand with Covid and Ukraine, and you deserve great credit for much of the way in which the Government has handled these twin crises. Your recent visit to Kyiv was a conspicuous act of leadership.

Sterile debates over university expansion miss the point

In many ways, UK higher education has been a great success over the past two decades. But our public debate remains trapped in a sterile tussle about whether more university students is a good or bad idea. We need to move on and ask more fundamental questions about the deeper function, effectiveness and purpose of much of UK HE. 

Bright Blue: Centre Write Interview

Phoebe Arslanagic-Wakefield and Joseph Silke speak with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury about COVID-19 and what it means to be a conservative in modern Britain.

Who are the people who have most influenced your political philosophy?
I’d have to choose Michael Oakeshott, Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, since I have written so much about them, but that is by no means an exhaustive list. The joy of political philosophy is that it continues to be a very lively area of debate and thought. I’ve just written a piece for Prospect Magazine on John Rawls and his book A Theory of Justice, which presents a remarkably useful and prescient set of philosophical tools for thinking about where we are now with COVID-19.

The Spectator: My Clash with Cameron -- The true story behind the Lords reform rebellion

MPs have a standard approach to political biographies, which falls into three phases:  first, preliminary gossip about what will or won’t (always a lot more interesting) be in it; second, mildly salacious enjoyment of the usually tepid leaks and excerpts in the press beforehand; and, once the book comes out, the inevitable furtive rummaging through the index to see if they get any mentions.

UnHerd: The Tories should have listened to Jesse Norman

James Kirkup, published 30th December 2019

“Without realising it the free-market West, most notably the US and the UK, has sleepwalked into a species of financial crony capitalism that has disguised economic reality, shielded underperformance, cosseted poor management and leached away value.”

In 2011, a junior Conservative MP published a pamphlet, The Case for Real Capitalism, which anatomised the failures that led to the global financial crisis and — by implication — the policy responses that followed. Jesse Norman had been elected for the first time the previous year, and no one took much notice of his work; but looking back, he may well be considered a prophet whose foresight ought to have been perceived by his own party.

https://unherd.com/2019/12/the-tories-should-have-listened-to-jesse-norman/