Jesse Norman

Twitter thread: Conservatism, the party leadership, and the future of our country

In recent days I’ve been asked a lot if I would stand for Leader of the Conservative Party. It’s already a crowded field, and my reply has been that the views of my constituents, party members and colleagues should shape that decision, and I will carefully consult among them.

As a campaigner, over the past fifteen years and more, through books and articles, in interviews and speeches, as candidate, MP, Select Committee Chairman and Minister, I have tried to make the case from first principles for a proper, classic conservatism of public service.  That conservatism ties thought and action together, and I have argued for it in politics since 2006:  in Compassionate Conservatism, Compassionate Economics, The Big Society and my books on the ideas and impact of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith. 

Why Burke and Smith? Because they wrote the Operating System for representative government and open markets, for politics and political economy. Their ideas underlie my conservatism. And they have taught me a vast amount about Ireland, Scotland and the Union. 

The same core belief in public service has always inspired me:  in 1989, when I gave up a job on Wall Street to run a charitable project giving away medical textbooks to doctors behind the Iron Curtain, helping build free institutions in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia; it inspired me in 1997, when I left Barclays to do an MPhil and PhD in philosophy and teach at University College London; and over 20 years in working with astonishing organisations such as The Roundhouse in London which my father created, the Hay Festival, and many others in Herefordshire.

The Legacy of Adam Smith: A Conversation With Jesse Norman MP

How did Smith’s insights into moral sentiments and governance transform the modern world? Do they offer answers to the deepest political challenges of the twenty-first century? Jesse Norman MP sits down with Mark Pennington to discuss his new book on the Governance Podcast.

KCL: Centre for the Study of Governance & Society, The Governance Podcast

Brexit amendments put the British constitution in danger

One of the most striking things about Brexit has been that so far it has been debated, however rancorously, through the medium of normal politics. Yes, the EU referendum in 2016 was unusual, but it was hardly a constitutional innovation. Tempers have run high, there have been all kinds of argy-bargy in the House of Commons, but the British constitution—the political “rules of the game”—has broadly held.

All that changed two weeks ago. The question is, what does it mean?

First, it’s important to be clear again why the Speaker’s decision to accept the Grieve amendment, dictating the pace at which Brexit legislation is moved, really matters. The Speaker’s authority derives from his position as the elected nominee of MPs, his adherence to expert legal advice, and his neutrality. None of these was in play here: he acted on his own personal authority, against expert advice, and apparently not in a neutral way.

Some people have said, in effect: “There has been a lot of constitutional skulduggery on all sides so far. So what?” But this argument does not work.  Yes, party politics can fray the understandings and trust that underlie the British constitution. But changes made on purely personal authority by a Speaker to the rules of procedure of the House of Commons strike directly at its heart.

It’s also said that this was a democratic act. But the truth is that in many ways it was the exact opposite. It overturned the agreed rules of Parliament without notice, without previous deliberation and apparently without reflection on the precedent created, or its potential effects. It also undermined the status of the Clerks. Why should any MP or Government seek a ruling from them as to the correct legal procedure now, when the Speaker may simply decide to change the rules?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope 2019 brings all readers of this website great joy and happiness.

For me, 2018 was a year in which I tried to make an extended argument for a different kind of economics, or rather, political economy, in the UK, USA and elsewhere.  

My book on Adam Smith and his impact was written to help us regain a better public understanding of the ways in which different markets work, the dangers of crony capitalism, the factors that shape social norms and expectations, the benefits of "commercial society" and open trade, the co-evolving mutual advantages of markets and a well-functioning state, and the dynamic nature of human commercial, moral and intellectual exchange.  On all of which issues Smith has insights of still-astonishing depth and importance.

Literary Review: Letters

Jesse writes to The Editor.

Download Letters Page

Philosopher, king?

Jesse Norman, the former philosophy teacher tipped as a future Tory leader, tells Mark McLaughlin how austerity is compassionate, tuition fees are progressive and why the robots are our friends.

Download Holyrood

Unpublished Letter to The Times, 19 October 2018

Sir

On 9th February 1825 The Times printed an open letter from the poet Thomas Campbell to Henry Brougham MP, calling for a new university, the first in England outside Oxford and Cambridge, to be established in London.

The Price of Freedom

Adam Smith’s free-market economic theories may be more than two centuries old, but we still have much to learn from him, Jesse Norman MP tells Alec Marsh

Download Spears_Magazine_Price_of_Freedom

Wall Street Journal book review: ‘Adam Smith: Father of Economics’ Review: Obvious, Simple and Wise

The British politician and philosopher Jesse Norman has written that rarest of things, a wise book accessible to the general reader. Clever and well-written books abound. But most are unwise. And most wise books are difficult to get beyond page three. Not this one.

Financial Times: Economic fairness is a bipartisan challenge

At 304 pages and 18 months in the making by 22 commissioners — including the Archbishop of Canterbury — the new Prosperity and Justice report by the UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research is clearly intended to be a heavyweight piece of work. And it is.