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New Statesman
24-06-2025
- Politics
- New Statesman
Is the centre right doomed?
Photo byOne should not get too excited about individual opinion polls. If a poll result is surprising or otherwise remarkable, it is probably wrong. Best to wait for other samples to confirm it before drawing any conclusions. For this reason – plus the fact that other things in the world were happening over the weekend – Saturday's Ipsos poll, showing Reform on 34 per cent and the Conservatives on just 15 per cent, has created less excitement than it might. Caution here is sensible – it might turn out to be an outlier – but it does highlight the fact that even the less surprising, less remarkable polls – in which the Tories poll in the high teens and Reform polls in the high 20s – not to mention May's dismal local election results, still reveal a situation that is extraordinary. The Conservative Party appears to have been relegated from the top tier of British politics. It is of no comfort to the Tories that this decline is not an isolated example for the mainstream centre right. As Sam Freedman recently pointed out, only two of the G20 countries are currently led by centre-right parties (US Republicans no longer count as mainstream centre right). Whereas once the centre right was the dominant political force in many countries, it is now in structural decline and, in some cases, close to extinction. This theme is looked at in some detail in a report published last week by Bright Blue. It begins by trying to define and identify the centre right, and argues that, first, a centre-right party needs to be a centrist party, in that – unlike populist parties – it recognises the value of political institutions and seeks to develop policies based on evidence. Second, to distinguish the centre right from the centre left, a centre-right party will have at least two out of three attributes: a caution about change; what they describe as 'valuing the culture of the people local to it' (or 'non-cosmopolitanism'); and a belief in economic liberalism. Looking specifically at the UK, Germany, France, Poland and the Republic of Ireland, the paper argues that the nature of the centre-right varies depending upon that nation's history and culture. Nor is the way in which the centre right is represented in the party political system always the same. Nonetheless, there are sufficient similarities for comparisons to be worthwhile. In each case, with the exception of Ireland, the centre right has been diminished by the rise of the populist right – competing for an element of the centre right's traditional support. The response of the centre right has been either to try to delegitimise the populists (which has aggravated the anti-establishment feeling held by some voters), or imitate it (which alienates other parts of their electoral coalition and is often inconsistent with traditional beliefs). The paper also argues that centre-right parties have often been unable to differentiate themselves from parties of the centre left on economic policy. This was a big problem for the centre right in the 1990s when the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a generation of moderate centre-left leaders meant that the centre right had nowhere to go. In recent years, however, political convergence has been driven more by the centre right moving leftwards on economic policy than the centre left moving rightwards. Economic statism, driven by the need to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and a desire to appeal to both older and more economically left-wing populist voters, saw centre-right governments deliver higher levels of public spending which, in a period of low economic growth, inevitably resulted in higher taxes. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The temptation in these circumstances is to try to change the subject and focus on cultural issues, such as opposing wokeness and multiculturalism. But, as the report dryly notes, for those most concerned about these issues, 'the centre right is not the obvious outlet for these sentiments'. Does this leave the centre right doomed? The UK polling certainly suggests that it might be. But this may not so much reveal that the centre-right electorate no longer exists, rather that the Conservative Party is currently incapable of articulating a persuasive centre-right case. Tarnished by its recent history in office, it struggles to argue that it can deliver competent government and too often presents to the public an agenda that is indistinguishable from right-wing populism. In France, the party of the centre right, the Republicans, has become something of an irrelevance, even though a poll in 2021 showed that 31 per cent of French people identified as centre right, compared to just 19 per cent as centre left, and 17 per cent as centrist. The risk for the Tories is that something similar might happen here. What is needed, in contrast, is a confident assertion of centre-right values that distinguishes them from both the centre left and the populist right. Of course, there is plenty of criticism of the Labour government from the Tory frontbench, but it frequently lacks nuance or self-awareness. In response to the rise of the populist right, however, the approach is too often to give the impression that Conservatives think that Reform is right, but that people should not vote for them. That has started to change on the economy as Nigel Farage moves his party to the left economically, but a clear and forthright critique of right-wing populism is lacking. There is little prospect of that happening. Within the Tory party, the fear is that criticism of the populists would only increase divisions on the right. Reform voters, it is argued, are like Conservative voters, only more so. This view is preventing the Tories from occupying unashamedly the territory that is neither centre left nor populist. Until it does so, the centre right will remain a diminished force in the UK. [See more: Labour is heading for war over welfare cuts] Related
New York Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
1 Writing Class, 35 Years, 113 Deals, 95 Books
The night before the start of his final semester teaching, after 35 years, Sam Freedman had a dream that he was going to miss class. He woke up with a strange jolt of relief. What comfort, he thought, to know that after three decades he still couldn't shake his pre-semester agita. The most difficult work, he has always believed, ought to evoke fear. 'All these years later I'm still anxious the night before, still concerned about getting here at 7:15 in the morning to be ready for all of you,' he said, facing his students on a Monday morning in January, wearing the same dark suit that he purchased in 1989 at Rothmans when he was first starting to teach and realized he needed formal professional attire. The seminar that Freedman teaches at Columbia Journalism School began in 1991 as something of an experiment, testing whether students could, in the course of a semester, produce a book proposal to sell and hopefully publish. The results have proved his hunch: The class has led to 113 book contracts and 95 published books, out of some 675 people who have taken it. This spring Freedman taught the course for the last time. He didn't want to become one of those fading professors he remembers from college, the types who used laminated notes and made students wish they'd been around to take the class in its glory years. The journalism school does not have plans to continue the class in the same form after his departure. 'The course is an institution in itself and you could almost say that about Sam — his retirement is certainly the end of an era,' said Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia Journalism School, who regularly meets with Freedman at an Upper West Side diner to trade ideas about books and teaching. Freedman began his career as a reporter at the Courier-News in Bridgewater, N.J., and later worked on the culture and metro desks at The New York Times. He went on to write 10 books, including one following a New York City public-school teacher for a year. But he realized, at a certain point, that teaching the book-writing seminar for young journalists was one way of creating something that would outlive him. 'This is a big part of my life's work,' he told the class on their first day of the semester. 'Teaching this class, it feels like it's OK for me to keel over.' The day had echoes of a religious induction, as Freedman told his students to be 'worthy of the ancestors,' his term for class alumni. He projected onto the whiteboard at the front of the room a photo of his office 'shelf of honor,' crammed with most of the 95 books that came out of the class. Midway through that first day, four ancestors came to speak. 'If he believes you have a book in you,' said Grace Williams, the author of a 2024 history of a women-owned bank, glancing around the classroom, 'you definitely have a book in you.' The relationship between books and authors is obvious and glorified, but the relationship between books and teachers is less clear. The teachers behind books are often invisible, not the hand stirring the ladle to make the stew but the hand that once wrote the recipe down on some well-worn index card. When I wrote a book in 2020, about young doctors graduating from medical school early in the pandemic, I reached out for guidance to Freedman, the father of a childhood friend, because I'd heard about his Columbia course. He shared audio clips and met with me, over Zoom, to explain his approach to narrative writing. What struck me then was the exactitude with which he approached the craft, the lessons he pulled from his own career and then passed around the room: that the reader should never know more than the character, that authors should master methods before trying to subvert them, that narrative is an equation comprised of character, event, place and theme (N = C + E + P + T). 'Nothing in the class is contingent on having a gift, or having the muse speak to you,' said Leah Hager Cohen, who studied with Freedman in 1991, which led her to write 'Train Go Sorry,' about a school for the deaf. Freedman focuses particularly on demystifying the book proposal, a piece of writing that he likens to the albino alligators which, according to urban legend, once lived in the New York City subways — surviving without exposure to the public world, and therefore evolving to be mysterious and often misunderstood creatures. During the semester, his students draft such proposals. Afterward, he sometimes connects them to agents who he feels might be interested in their reporting topics, though he emphasizes that this won't always lead to representation. 'He's been the godfather to an awful lot of publishing over the years,' said George Gibson, the executive editor at Grove Atlantic. Over the decades that Freedman has taught, the publishing industry has gotten far more corporate. And other mentors who work with aspiring authors noted a recent increase in programs that support young book writers outside of journalism school, which can be costly to attend. What has stayed consistent, Freedman insists, is the need for an obsessive work ethic, and many of his lectures are paeans to just that. He emphasizes that there is no such thing as writer's block, only a failure to have done enough reporting, or an ego that's getting in the way of putting words on the page. He closes the classroom door at 9 a.m. and those who are late have to wait outside until the first break, at least an hour later. ('Latecomers will be seated at intermission,' read the sign he used to post on the door.) He tracks every grammatical error a student makes, with the expectation it will never be repeated. Kelly McMasters, who took the class in 2003 and went on to co-teach with Freedman, recalled that when she was his student, he got so fed up with her use of parentheses that he drew her a picture of parentheses, curling up like an old pet near a rug and a bowl of food, and showed it to the whole class. 'Your parentheses are fine,' she recalled him saying. 'Here's the rug they can lie down on, here's their food bowl. You may never use parentheses again.' 'I was so mad and hurt,' McMasters said. 'But you know what? He was one hundred percent right.' If Freedman enters his classroom a bundle of nerves, his students do far more so. One current student, Ally Markovich, 29, was so intent on getting into the class that she flew to Ukraine last summer to begin reporting her book proposal even before she had applied. Another, Carl David Goette-Luciak, 33, made a ritual of meeting his girlfriend for cheap pizza every Monday night so he could share with her the notes he took during Freedman's lectures. 'You can't go to the bookstore to tell the reader what you meant,' one of them read. 'It's this calculated measure of tough love,' Goette-Luciak said. 'He's developed some kind of algorithm of how hard he can push each individual person.' Freedman said that he holds himself to the same standards. When he was diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and was recovering from surgery, he took meetings with his students from home with his catheter concealed in a cloth Barnes & Noble bag. After his father died on a Saturday in 2010, he was in the classroom Monday morning with his line edits complete, ready to facilitate the writing workshop. 'As observant a Jew as I try to be,' he said, 'It was more important for me to be in the classroom teaching book class than to be observing shiva.' Back on that first day of the semester, Freedman gave the class marching orders that were impishly hyperbolic, though not far from what he really wanted out of them. 'Pull the heart of your work out of your chest and lay it out there for the gods, that's all I'm asking of you,' he told them. 'Not much.' During the farewell session, in early May, he told students that he expected that same exertion from all who left his classroom. 'In your book-writing life, I'm not going to be there to tell you what the deadline is,' Freedman said. 'All that is going to be on you.'
News.com.au
15-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Melbourne Cup champ Without A Fight retired
Melbourne Cup winner Without A Fight has been retired. Trainers Anthony and Sam Freedman announced the decision on Thursday. Former international Without A Fight, who famously completed the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups double in 2023, joined the Freedman yard in 2022. 'He has been an absolute gentleman to have in the stable and will be remembered as one of the finest stayers of his generation,' Freedman Racing said in a statement. 'His Cups double not only delivered the pinnacle of our training careers but also created unforgettable memories for all involved. 'He has left a lasting impression on everyone fortunate enough to be part of his journey.' Without A Fight was ridden out to win a 1500m trial at Caulfield Heath on Thursday morning. He placed third in the Group 1 Champions Stakes (2000m) last November at Flemington – his last Australian start – after a 12-month injury break following a tendon injury and rehabilitation. ðŸ'½ @10SportAU | #MelbourneCup — Victoria Racing Club (@FlemingtonVRC) November 7, 2023 Without A Fight contested the Group 1 Hong Kong Vase (2400m) last December but was unplaced. The $9.9m prizemoney earner won 11 of 25 career starts including four of seven with Freedman. 'As Without A Fight begins the next chapter of his life, we wish him the very best in his retirement,' Freedman Racing said. 'He has given us all so much – for that, we are forever grateful.' His Australian record included wins in the Group 3 Lord Mayor's Cup and Group 2 Q22 in Brisbane.
News.com.au
24-04-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Best bets and value play for Anzac Day races at Flemington
A former Kiwi galloper can continue on his winning way while a sprinter from the Anthony and Sam Freedman stable could score first-up at juicy odds at the Anzac Day meeting at Flemington.
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Report cards could make it harder for parents to choose schools, MPs warned
Report cards for schools could make it harder for parents to decide where to send their children, MPs have been warned. Sam Freedman, who worked as a policy adviser to Michael Gove when he was education secretary, said he had 'a lot of worries' about the proposals. He told MPs the previous system of single word Ofsted grades for overall effectiveness for schools had been 'helpful' for parents. The Government announced last year that headline Ofsted grades for overall effectiveness for schools in England would be scrapped. Previously, Ofsted awarded one of four single-phrase inspection judgments: outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate. Now schools in England would receive gradings – from the red-coloured 'causing concern' to orange-coloured 'attention needed', through the green shades of 'secure', 'strong' and 'exemplary' – for at least eight areas of a school's provision under the new proposals. On Monday, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, said she 'fundamentally' rejected the idea that giving more information on where schools need to improve is 'not something that parents want', after education unions and the sister of a headteacher who took her own life following an inspection criticised the plans. Schools in England could be graded across a variety of different areas – including attendance and inclusion – using a colour-coded five-point scale. Mr Freedman told the education select committee that Ofsted's problem has been 'reliability of assessments' and the proposed system of lots of graded sub judgments makes this 'harder'. He told MPs: 'I'm worried that this makes it harder for Ofsted to tackle its real issue which is reliability and consistency of inspection and doesn't actually deal with any of the concerns that schools have, and possibly makes it harder for parents to use them as well. So I have quite a lot of worries about this new model.' 'I don't think the problem with the previous model was that we had single word judgments and a single overarching judgment. I think that was actually quite helpful for parents.' The reforms follow criticism of the inspection system following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry who took her own life after an Ofsted report downgraded her Caversham Primary School in Reading from the highest to the lowest overall effectiveness rating. During the committee on Tuesday, Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said: 'We now have eight areas of measurement, (a) five-scale grade, that's 40 potential areas of judgment. 'Ofsted were tasked with bringing about a system of inspection that reduced pressure on the school system in quite tragic circumstances. It's our view that this will make things worse, not better. 'We've all got a shared challenge in regards to the crisis in recruitment and retention – Ofsted included. It's our fear that this will drive more teachers and school leaders out of the profession.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
