The Broken Compass: How Left and Right Lost Their Meaning by Peter Hitchens

The Broken Compass: How Left and Right Lost Their Meaning Reviews

• 
  Nick Imrie

  Written 10 years ago, just as Brown was on his way out and Cameron was on his way in, the central premise of this book now seems obvious: that the main political parties are not doing a very good job of representing the people they claim to represent, left and right don't mean much, and there is very little difference between Blairite Labour and Cameronian Tories.
  
  Some of the chapters in this book are still pretty relevant. Not much has changed regarding education (that I can see, people I know who teach say that being a teacher is harder than ever) so the chapter on the destruction of grammar schools is still worthwhile (whatever your actual opinion on that debate), likewise everybody is still furious about trains so the chapter on Beeching is useful.
  
  What I'd really like to see is an update on the entire of Part 1: The New Permanent Government of Britain. The argument here is basically that there's very little difference between Conservatives and Labour, and most fights between them are nothing to do with principle or policy but just drama for the political pages of the newspaper. Political journalists are far more interested in personalities than policies because they're more fun and easier to report on. There is therefore almost no democracy in Britain, merely politicians and journalists having boozy lunches together to trade secrets and gossip for the kind of favourable coverage that controls public opinion. Hitchens says that the coverage of Brown was absurdly harsh and ridiculing, to the point of being mendacious. Apparently there were plently of moments in debates and speeches where Cameron came off badly, but because the papers had decided that Cameron was going to win, any flub on his part was a mere set-back, but even the most minor slips from Brown were evidence that he was unfit to lead. Basically, everybody was bored of constant Labour wins and had decided it was time for the teams to switch ends.
  
  Hitchens has been a political journalist, so he clearly knows how the game is played. But 10 years later in an age of social media, does it still work like that? I've heard people say that those who are on social media vastly over-estimate its influence, and the majority of people still get their news from traditional sources. On the other hand, it's certainly truer than ever that people are willing to 'throw their votes away' on weird outliers like the Brexit Party or The Greens, and Labour have moved further from the centre with the elevation of Corbyn: an actual genuine socialist. Depending on your politics this is either an inexplicable and disturbing rise in populism and extremism, or the return of true democracy. I'd very much like to know what Hitchens thinks, and whether he thinks there's any substance to it of it's all just more drama for the opinion columns.
• 
  Dfordoom

  Peter Hichen’s thesis in The Broken Compass: How British Politics Lost its Way is that Britain’s political parties have become almost indistinguishable, that all subscribe to the same broken-down failed leftist ideologies. A self-serving political class dangerously out of touch with reality and regarding the aspirations of ordinary people with contempt is concerned more with maintaining power by sleazy back-room deals than with anything approaching real democracy.
  
  Britain’s political parties have betrayed their own grass-roots organisations and have become increasingly centralised and undemocratic.
  
  He is equally critical of the media. He makes the point that to see public opinion polls as reflecting public opinion is getting things around the wrong way - the purpose of public opinion polls is to manipulate public opinion.
  
  Hichens combines all this with a kind of autobiography documenting his own increasing disillusionment with the leftist politics of his youth.
  
  Hichens’ analysis has relevance also to countries like Australia where politics is headed in the same direction, dominated by the same self-serving elites and just as out of touch as they are in Britain.
  
  An excellent and very provocative book.
• 
  Emily Ross

  I DNFed this book at page 105. I had a friend who constantly recommended Peter Hitchens, but after reading this, I can definitively say that he is not for me. The death of Hitchen’s own ideology does not mean the end of all Conservatism (though I do like his ideal that the Conservatives are the natural enemy of Conservatism), and maybe it would have been nice to actually read more about Cameron, considering that the book title is ‘The Cameron Delusion’.
• 
  Andrew Garvey

  Here we go. Good old Peter Hitchens, a man who can always be relied upon for a slightly unhinged rant (such as the one in this book's preface) about how unremittingly awful everything in the modern world is.
  
  It's one thing reading this bilge in a brief newspaper column or seeing his increasingly embarrassing attempts to go to war with medicine, science, reason and sometimes, even maths, as part of his new Twitter obsession on lockdowns and masks, but imagine listening to an audiobook, read by the author - all six-and-a-half hours of it.
  
  That's what I did. It was like being cornered by a monomaniacal, slightly inebriated uncle at a family gathering. For six-and-a-half hours.
  
  Six-and-a-half hours with Peter Hitchens.
  
  Peter.
  
  Hitchens.
  
  Typically, Hitchens manages, in one book to swing wildly and continually between his two most common positions - one, a shrill, pearl-clutching horror at everything that's happened in the past sixty or so years and the other, where he actually makes a lot of sense and expresses his traditionally conservative views in a lucid and convincing way.
  
  He dismisses David Cameron (the supposed subject of this misleadingly titled update of an older Hitchens work) as "dishonest and vapid", accurately labels the modern day Tory party as the true enemy of conservatism (and this was before they went on the Brexit wrecking spree of the last few years) and dismisses the Daily Express as "deranged."
  
  All these positions are absolutely true. But of course, he has to Peter Hitchens himself with such howlers as '80% of our laws are made in Brussels' - that simply isn't true and never was true - and his strident, and repeated claim that British politics are now, regardless of party affiliation permanently dominated by leftists. That was a spurious enough statement when he wrote it a little over a decade ago. Now, with hindsight it's beyond laughable.
  
  But I'll share a few more examples of times where this book is spot on. Because I'm a fair-minded person, despite being the sort of leftist (every single one of them, Hitchens reckons) who secretly harbours all sorts of pro-Soviet fantasies and whose every political instinct inevitably, eventually leads to gulags. Yes, he actually does claim this.
  
  Hitchens is absolutely right that opinion polls are tools for shaping, not measuring public opinion, that British political journalism is (largely speaking) a collusive, groupthink-dominated profession and he makes an excellent case - shockingly - for a complete ban on the 'n' word's usage on television. He's also strong when skewering the hypocrisy of Labour politicians sending their own children to private or selective schools while trying to tell everyone else not to (for a while towards the end of Blair's government this seemed to be at least a twice-weekly news story) and denouncing the new inequalities in education, chiefly the ability of rich parents to game the system.
  
  Unsurprisingly, Hitchens is excellent as he hammers the Beeching report and the ludicrous, damaging destruction of national railway network; a disastrous policy that has caused all sorts damage to this country, and its environment and was by definition, not conservatism of any kind.
  
  He's also excellent when discussing just how badly Britain's TUC failed themselves and their ideals when they refused to support the heroic Gdansk shipyard strike in 1980 because the striking dockworkers were largely religious right-wingers ('the wrong sort of strikers, apparently') facing off against a Communist-run state. Hitchens was present in the latter stages of that strike and was still, at the time a socialist, even if his commitment was waning heavily.
  
  Yes, of course he bangs on at length at how he used to be a Marxist. Doesn't he always? On this, he makes some eye-wateringly unconvincing claims. You see, because Trotskyites of his vintage and older admired USSR then this must still be true of all leftists now. Also, modern Britain is just like the USSR. Drivel. Absolute drivel.
  
  Possibly the best part of this maddeningly inconsistent book is his account of the authorities' brutal attempts to suppress protests in Lithuania in January '91. Hitchens happened to be there and he writes some of the best passages of this book on just how terrifying a situation that little-known incident actually was.
  
  But of course, before long he's off again.
  
  He says he can't understand why people call him racist, even as he tries to strip all meaning from the word and pretend it's a meaningless concept he doesn't understand because it's not as precise as the original meaning of the word 'racialist'. This is a hilarious self-own since this hatred of a change in language fits with his inveterate hate of anything modern. Of course he knows what the word means. He's back to being Posturing Peter of the Mail on Sunday.
  
  And on it goes.
  
  He makes the ludicrous claim that conscience is BASED on Christian morality. He also makes mention of anti-religious campaigners "smashing church altars" and suspects them ALL of wanting to "stage violent invasions of churches" and how awful this is. That's an impressive ignorance of how Christianity established itself - the violent destruction of the classical world, its religious temples, statuary and thought.
  
  He also throws out the standard sort of nonsense you'd expect for a Mail on Sunday columnist. There's plenty of shrill, hysterical, rile-up-the-readership cobblers like "the married family barely exists" and nurseries are "day orphanages." Another cracker is "boys no longer play rough games" and children don't sing. It goes on and on. Absolute bollocks. He appears to equate children's lives now to those of Victorian chimney sweeps. I'm not totally sure of that, though. I couldn't hear him over the sound of my eyes spinning in their sockets at the pearl-clutching nonsense of it all.
  
  His discussion on civil partnerships and why he and others oppose them is one of the most laughable bits of twisting oneself in knots to avoid just saying what you actually mean that I've ever heard. He also worries about those who have "moral objections" to gays being silenced. This, of course only works if you think gayness IS immoral.
  
  There's more, of course. There's six-and-a-half hours of it. But I think you get the picture.
• 
  George

  In the conclusion to this book Peter Hitchens writes that political debate can be broken down ultimately into two sides, "In the debates about the ordering of society two rival ideas of goodness as much loved by their adherents as loathed by their opponents have contended for centuries. One is based on the belief in original sin. The other, is based on the belief in the perfectibility of man." I find this to be an accurate summation, and Hitchens is firmly in the original sin camp. When I picked up this book I didn't really know what to expect. I love Peter Hitchens so I will enjoy everything he writes. Following his writing has taught me quite a bit about British politics, but I still consider myself a novice. This book has very little to do with James Cameron in actuality which ended up being a positive to me, but I have no idea what Brits would think of that. Instead, it is more of an autobiography of Hitchens' own political awakening and the philosophical changes he went through.
  One would think that a conservative writer like Hitchens would make the focus of Britain's failure the Labour party, but that is not the case. This is mainly a polemic written against the Conservative Party and its failures to conserve anything of value. To be fair to the Conservative Party this book was written in 2009, but I follow Hitchens' writing closely enough that I do not think his opinions on the matter have changed much. This does not mean that he lets the left escape cleanly, but he mostly discusses policies and decisions that the Conservatives have made that have been disastrous for Britain and have only led to a further fall of the country away from its past. This was good for me as an outsider who can easily see parallels between the British situation and the American one. I am more optimistic than Mr. Hitchens in general, but I think the importance of the tradition that Hitchens brings up is very important. Especially in this age of populism that we find ourselves in. Not that populism is inherently bad, just that it must be tamed.
  Hitchens covers a wide variety of topics in this book from racism to national railroads. I think he does a good job giving a history of British politics and the problems that the UK is facing in the 21st century. He is happy to give his opponents credit where credit is due, but his pessimistic nature is always his most defining trait. He talks about the fall of Britain not as a possibility, but an inevitability. This is the largest fault that I can find in this book as I think there can always be something that is done, and those who fall into despair often do not do their side any credit as fighting against the inevitable is impossible. Regardless, I enjoyed this book for the prose and the information and it is one of the better Hitchens books and serves as good introductory to British politics and Mr. Hitchens own thoughts on varied subjects.
• 
  R.M.F. Brown

  Peter Hitchens - a modern day Cassandra, doomed to forever predict the future with pin-point accuracy, but never believed until it's to late...
  
  Reading this in 2021, and looking back to the ghastly days of the Cameron premiership, it's uncanny how much Hitchens got right, and what sadly came to pass.
  
  Our MPs are corrupt and incompetent. The media class is useless and will never tell truth to power. Education, crime and punishment, and the UK's 'immigration' policy continue to stink the place up with their continued decay.
  
  Our political class offers us the same fare of managed decline for decades more, and yet, every 5 years, millions trot out to vote for this glitter being sprinkled on a turd!
  
  It pains me to say this, but the UK deserves everything it gets, because we the people, who should have ran these bastards out of London years ago, continue to vote for these wretched creatures.
• 
  Colin Hoad

  A very sobre reflection on conservatism as a political ideology and how the modern Conservative party shares more in common with the centre left than anything truly small-c conservative. Peter Hitchens is at his acerbic best, laying waste to common misconceptions and the various political pygmies that have been elevated to high office over the past sixty years.
  
  One of the most impressive arguments Mr Hitchens makes is how the modern neo-conservative movement can trace its origins back to the radical left. This had previously felt slightly incongruous to me, but I can now see how the neocon intellectual antecedents can be found in the ideas of the hard left.
  
  Another stimulating, engaging and powerful read from a widely misunderstood writer.
• 
  Michael Michailidis

  A great summary of what’s wrong with modern Britain
  
  This book is, surprisingly given its title, not about Cameron. It’s about the conditions that have created a single party from which to “chose from” every four years in the ballot box. If Aristotle was correct, and a regime is defined by its policies, then, the Conservative Party of Mr. Cameron is nothing but a Labour government.
• 
  James Cobbett

  Its interesting, but im no longer interested in these political topics. It is something that i no longer care about as I should fo us on my own life and not worry about the politica of this country. It will only drag me down!
• 
  Michael Potts

  The two consecutive chapters regarding the gutting of the grammar schools and railways are especially enlightening (and enraging).
• 
  Oolalaa

  15/20
• 
  Adrian

  While not the most broad ranging of political analyses, The Broad Compass is written with a superb poetic prose which demonstrates Mr Hitchens's superb master of oratory, and astute political analysis.
  The Broken Compass essentially contends that both major parties in Britain have lost their way, and the current trajectory of British politics and social dynamics is headed in a self defeating path.
  While a watershed moment in this is difficult to discern, Hitchens mainly contends that the End of the Cold War, the creation of New Labour, and the general movement of the Conservatives to the center, in effect, as Hitchens puts it, Cameron becoming the heir of Blair, are the defining moments of the loss of meaning for British politics.
  A former member of the left, Hitchens recalls his growing disillusionment with the movement of which he was once a member. This ranges from factors such as the stupidity of the trade union movement and the pointless and crippling strikes that were driving the country to its knees, and the large presence of Marxists and Trotskyists within the Labour movement, who were slavishly apologetic toward the Soviet system. A key moment Hitchens identifies is the general reluctance amongst the majority of the Union movement to support the Solidarity campaign in Poland, a gross betrayal of principle.
  The book contains some decent analyses of the comprehensive education system, the politically inflicted wounds on Britain's beleaguered public transport system, and the Left's uneasy embrace of the war on terror, and the journalistic editing and deception necessary to support this conversion.
  Hitchens also includes, at some length, some of his more socially conservative viewpoints, such as issues of relationships and the status of women in society, and while I do not necessarily share his opinions on such matters, they are nonetheless eloquently argued.
  The general theme is that the legacies of most successive governments are seemingly irreversible, and each successive party has molded itself to such legacies, making genuine change, and in turn choice, difficult to realize.
  While the town of the book is rather pessimistic, portraying a rather hopeless trajectory for the course of the nation (a hopelessness that this reviewer does not share), there is nonetheless no detracting from the eloquence and deep sighted analysis Hitchens lends to his work, and as such one is bequeathed with a thought provoking, and highly stimulating read. An essential book for even the mildest enthusiast of British politics.
• 
  Alfred

  "State ownership of industry is no longer politically important or particularly contentious. Regulation by unaccountable national bodies, and even by more unaccountable supranational and global authorities, has quietly taken its place, with implication that few have yet grasped."
  
  "People who think themselves benevolent can rarely grasp that others may also think them despotic and are especially bad at recognising that their opponents may have a point."
  
  "A liberal will defend to the death your right to agree with her. Disagree with her, and she will call the police."
  
  "In a country with a steadily diminishing supply of real power, the coverage of politics has increased when it really should have declined. But that is largely because it is not about power and its exercise, but about the soap opera drama of personality, rivalry and chicanery."
  
  "Unlike many conservatives, I do not view Leftism as dishonourable or deliberately evil. On the contrary, I respect its impulses and wish they led where they seek to go. I reject them because they lead somewhere entirely different, and rather unpleasant."
  
  "I believe people often understand far more about their opponents' ideas than they appear to, and know that what appear to be a few easy steps along a pleasant road of mild revision can end in a political and moral journey of thousands of miles. This is why they never take the first step, and why they fend off articulate criticism with anger, ostracism and abuse rather than with reason. This is why I abandoned the idea of writing a book entitled 'How to Change your Mind". It became clear to me that most people hate the very idea of changing their minds, while claiming to be open-minded. In the same way, most people hate freedom of speech, except for those who completely agree with them. But they pretend otherwise."
  
  "Idealist wars end just like the old cynical wars, with acres of graves and legions of cripples hobbling through the remainder of their lives, vast numbers of human beings impoverished and displaced, and nothing good achieved."
• 
  Tariq Mahmood

  I listened to an audio version of the book narrated by Peter himself, which made it interesting at times especially when the author was ranting about the devious class system. Peter first defines an ideal Left and and ideal Right and than proceeds to point out the differences with Labour and Conservative party policies against these ideal principles. I agree that there are differences but I failed to see how these differences are relevant as the whole nature of a political party is to change with the wishes of their electrol. If not what will be the difference between a despotic regime enforcing their policies on their subdued population and the Conservative party?
  
  The rant did throw interesting light on the 'defeat' of the UK by the USA in the second World War. I hadn't realize they were actually fighting :) But I do agree that there was a seismic shift in the global power after USA was able to make the decisive difference in an European war, yet again. Its also interesting how the Big Media Corporations are feeding populist history to their audiences and how their audience seems to be lapping it up. For instance the breakup of the British Empire is presented almost as a magnanimous act, even as a realization by their British master race that Colonization is wrong. The fact that USA wanted Britain to get rid of their costly assets before releasing the huge grant to help in the re-development of a bombed and shell shocked country is glossed over conveniently. I digress, I seem to have picked up a ranting bug after listening to the book.....
• 
  Al

  I am great admirer of Peter Hitchens, ever since I've watched him on television and listened to carefully enunciated intelligence with which he analyze today's events. Also, he did not support the war in Iraq like his famous (now deceased) brother.
  
  In this book, he basically continue his tirade on how much Britain has been transformed from a strong imperialistic state to a middle player in Europe. (his other book is called Abolition of Britain, FYI) He has a lot of good and alternative points, specifically when it comes to the media's kissing of government's "arse", which he can give exclusive details on exactly how it happens as he is an insider for many years. (and an outsider at the same side.
  
  He has other views which may be less strong and finished, as the sexual revolution being driven primarily by the Left movements of the 60s, the education system needing to be based on meritocracy, etc.
  
  Overall, a light and very enjoyable read, that would make you see a different side of things. Also interesting to note, Peter Hitchens was himself a communist, but after a visit at the communist states of Eastern Europe, he has a change of heart, very well explained and justified in the book.
• 
  Bryan

  Broken Compass is a depressing look at the swift decline of Britain.
  
  Mr Hitchens points out the sweeping victory of the left in most areas of British life. No the conservatives are not conservative. The Tories are just as eager as the Labour party to: remove free speech, undermine the rule of law, destroy the family unit, erase the history and traditions of these once favored Isles, hand over sovereignty to the EU, welcome barbarians into her midst, degrade the national school system and so on. This book was publish in 2009, fast forward to 2015 and the author sees no actual way out of this spiral.
  
  Hitchens' prose, in the vein of Orwell, uses Anglo-Saxon language and avoids latinisms.
  
  A recommended read to all 'conservatives' residing in Britain. The sun is setting in the west my dear friends!
• 
  David Fisher

  Hitchens throws light on much that is wrong in the UK. We're fairly closely politically alligned so my positive review is a tad biased. I would recommend this to those of left wing bent just to test your convictions and maybe just maybe you'll end up taking the red pill. For those centrists and Conservatives like myself it affirms that we are of course right.
• 
  Steve

  Really good stuff - the conservatives have become Blairite labourites. Traditional conservatism is no longer alive in the Conservative party.
• 
  Kyle Grindberg

  A helpful introduction to the mess that is British conservative politics. Some really good points and takeaways.