The politics of left and right are rooted in two very different accounts of human nature. Conservatives adopt a tragic view of existence, while it is axiomatic for progressives that we are born intrinsically good and corrupted by society. David Starkey, writing in The Critic, argues that the principle of humankind’s inherent goodness is unsupported by the empirical facts.

In Vino Veritas – Or, Whatever It Takes to Get the Truth Out of Such a Crew
Winston Churchill drank his way to saving the world from Nazism and, according to Alec Marsh in Spiked, the old bulldog would fit right in with certain current Parliamentarians enjoying a tipple to endure late-night sittings in Westminster. “Well, why not?” Marsh asks. “Politicians wouldn’t be human if they didn’t.” This news doesn’t, however, sit well with certain neo-puritan scolds from – you guessed it – the Green Party, which on the other hand does support providing free narcotics to welfare recipients.


