"[T]he State, which the Labour Party is seeking to exalt...has seldom meant less to ordinary people. Its natural authority and prestige have never been so low. Paradoxically, this is to a large extent the fault of the socialists themselves. They have persistently denigrated the national institutions, derided the concepts of rank and hierarchy on which the State depends, deplored the spirit of national pride from which it draws its strength. The Tory idea of the State, rooted in history and tradition, pomp and circumstance, at least had some popular appeal. But in the language of socialism the State spells bureaucracy and bureaucracy spells all those aspects of the past which the working class find least palatable—bowler-hat-and-rolled-umbrella values, rigid hierarchy, orders from on high that have to be obeyed, impersonal authority. A socialist State in practice if not in theory, turns out to be the very last kind of State likely to appeal to the British working class."
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People from LondonConservatives from the United KingdomJournalists from EnglandEditors from EnglandColumnists from England
Original Language: English
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The Socialist Myth (1971), pp. 13-14
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peregrine_Worsthorne
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Peregrine Worsthorne
Sir Peregrine Gerard Worsthorne (22 December 1923 – 4 October 2020) was a British journalist, writer, and broadcaster. He spent the largest part of his career at the Telegraph newspaper titles, eventually the editor of The Sunday Telegraph from 1986 to 1989. He left the newspaper in 1997.
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