Fine, Call Me "Right-Wing"

For years I have aggressively rejected the label of "conservative" and "right-wing" not only because it was being used as a smear in "elite discourse", but also because it does not accurately describe how I think. My political journey is best summarised by the cartoon above from my friend Colin Wright at

Reality's Last Stand

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That said, being right-wing was never a term of insult to me because it has never occurred to me that half of every country in the world is evil. We should demonise anyone who is on the Right? Really? How carefully have you thought about this? How many woke people do you really think there are in the U.S Marine Corps and the British SAS? 

What, we're going to pretend the men and women who defend our country have nothing to offer it when it comes to values, mindset and worldview?

And yet, the consensus opinion in the barracks is the worst opinion you can have if you tell people what to think on TV every night. Really? 

You know which other professions lean right? Engineers, farmers, business owners. The people who build the buildings we live in, grow our food, and create jobs for most of us…they have nothing to offer? Surgeons, to whom we pay a lot of money because we entrust them with cutting our loved ones open with a knife in order to save them… they have nothing of value to offer society? Really? 

I never thought of the term "right-wing" as an insult because I didn’t regard being "right-wing" as a bad thing. This is also how I’ve always thought about the Left. Both sides of the political spectrum have valuable instincts that need to be incorporated into our public policy to create a harmonious society. Right?

How naive I was. As my profile began to grow, so did the questions of "but, are you right-wing though?". I quickly deduced from the tone and body language that the question wasn’t  exactly being posed with open-minded curiosity. This was a trap designed to give the listener an excuse to ignore what I was saying. All I had to do was confess and everything I did and said would suddenly become tainted. Eww, "right-wing".

This started with free speech, of course. This value, which the left had fought for most of my adult life, was, suddenly, to my great surprise, a "right-wing talking point". I wonder what comedian George Carlin, who spent most of his career mocking religious conservatives, would make of this given that he had himself arrested under obscenity laws in 1972 for performing a routine called "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television".

Then I discovered that being patriotic was "right-wing". When I used to do stand-up, I'd often joke that "I love this country and I say so publicly, which is how you know I haven't integrated". It always got what comedians proudly call "a laugh of recognition" in woke comedy clubs up and down Britain. But I do love this country. I want the country I raise my children in, and the civilisation it's part of, to be good and I recognise that it is good. Not because I think it's perfect but because I've experienced the alternative. 

And then there was immigration. The position which had always been held by all sane people everywhere suddenly became controversial. Apparently wanting to make sure that people who came to your country did so legally was "racist". As someone who did come to your country legally, that's just insane. Countries need borders. This isn't controversial but it is "right-wing".

Over time I became increasingly defensive when people asked me whether I was "right-wing". But, after spending two weeks on each side of the election here in the US, I just don’t care anymore.

I was at the Trump event in Madison Square Garden which was roundly described as a "Nazi rally". I did not go there with my MAGA hat and pompoms. I went there to see it with my own eyes. You have probably read or watched my satirical take on what I saw there. But in all seriousness, the gap between the media lies and reality was too big for me to leave the event unchanged.

What affected me most was not what I saw, it was what I didn't see.