Wake Up! The Right Is Relying On Culture Wars To Win At The Ballot Box

There are two lines of attack in the culture wars. The first is slow, steady and discreet, marching by stealth through Britain’s institutions.

- Nesrine Malik

The second is a brazen, loud artillery attack armed with cliches and buzzwords that are fired across the media. A recent speech by the Conservative party chair is an example of the latter.

Addressing the Heritage Foundation in Washington, Oliver Dowden dished up a word salad into which he lazily and dispassionately (repeating this stuffreally must get very boring) tossed a target list of vague and intangible concepts such as “ cancel culture ”, “ woke psychodrama ”, “ obsessing over pronouns ” and attempts to “ decolonise mathematics ”.

If the purpose of this kind of quick-fire attack is recruitment, then the slower, more covert attacks are for annexation. An example of which came in the form of new guidance by the Department for Education on political impartiality in England’s classrooms. The document singled out topics such as empire, racism and the climate crisis as “political issues” that should be treated with care, moving the parameters of what teachers and students perceive as “neutral” and what is “ideological” another inch to the right.