The new right in Britain

The distinguished guest-speaker, the white Prime Minister of African lands, mopped his brow; he had good reason to. Though the smoking room of the exclusive political dub where he was lecturing may not have been very hot, the deception he received was disconcerting enough. Under fire from the Labour Party and radical opinion generally for his handling of certain colonial questions, he had come to talk to the 'Bow Group', a spearhead of the 'new right' organized by conservative intellectuals in their twenties and early thirties; there at least he might have hoped for moral support. But though the questions and discussions were polite and restrained, they made it quite clear that his appeals to national, group or class feelings would not succeed in taking the edge off their deep concern and sense of responsibility for the human and political rights of British subjects, whatever their colour or cultural level.