Sentamu and Farage – the Liberal Establishment loathes them because they’re authentic

That repulsive creature, the Liberal Establishment, has been spitting bile this past week at the possibility that two non-members could be about to taste success without its permission. How dare they!

There’s a chance that the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, could be crowned the C of E’s biggest cheese later this year when the befuddled twit currently in charge wanders off into the sunset, wittering incomprehensibly into his beard. And bumptious saloon-bar spiv Nigel Farage’s Ukip could very well outpoll the Libdems in the forthcoming local elections.

The commentariat has been hard at work rubbishing Ukip as a disorganised rabble largely made up of racist xenophobes, while C of E “sources” have been painting John Sentamu as a primitive homophobic spear-chucker. Farage doesn’t believe in the EU and Sentamu isn’t keen on gay marriage. This means they’ve both committed the unconscionable crime of not being enlightened: they don’t share what Thomas Sowell describes as “the Vision of the Anointed”. They’ve failed the liberal equivalent of the breathalyser test and should therefore have their car keys confiscated and be banned from driving until they’ve learned the centrist Highway Code (i.e. always stick to the middle of the road).

Both men are guilty of being traditionalists. John Sentamu not only appears to actually believe in God (how quaint!), but he also seems to believe that the Church shouldn’t condone many of the things it has always disapproved of – including gay marriage. Farage believes in the very traditional view that, as Britain hasn’t recently lost a war, its government should be in charge of the nation’s economy and its laws, and that the unelected, undistinguished, inept rag-bag of foreign socialist bureaucrats currently ruling this country from their various European lairs should be told to go and piss up a rope.

Of course, the liberal establishment is normally ever so keen on black Africans – but only if they’re starving or blaming their sufferings on colonialist oppression: liberals like to show how compassionate they are by giving Africans money, or how sensitive they are by empathising with their burning sense of injustice. What they really don’t like is an extremely intelligent, educated African who has risen in the world through his own talent and effort and who doesn’t entirely subscribe to their enlightened view of the world. I mean, what, for liberals, is the point of Africans if they can’t be patronised?

As for Farage, well, dammit, he should be a Tory backbencher tootling off to his various committee meetings and sounding off about Europe and Cameron in private, and then being alternately fobbed off by his  leaders with amorphous promises of tougher right-wing policies after the next election, or being kept in line by whips hinting at a junior government position in the near future if he just toes the line. Instead of which, the bastard turns Ukip into a perfectly natural home for right-wing Tories. Pity he didn’t die in that plane crash.

Ultimately, it’s the whiff of authenticity both men exude which unnerves the establishment. They both evidently believe in what they say and are unwilling to abandon those beliefs in the light of focus group findings or because of a snippy Times leader or because power would come more easily to them if they just, you know, soft-pedalled a bit.

Back in 1979, Mrs Thatcher was able to point to one of Hayek’s books (in fact she smashed it angrily down on a table at Central Office) and say “This is what we believe”. Similarly, if you asked Sentamu and Farage what they believed in, they’d have no problem telling you. David Cameron has been Tory Party leader for seven years. Does anyone have a clue what he actually believes in (apart, of course, from gay marriage and his right to be Prime Minister)?  Rowan Williams has been Archbishop of Canterbury for nine years. We know he’s a raving Socialist, but when it comes to his day job, i.e. religion, does anyone have a clue where he’s at? Thought not.

Sentamu probably won’t be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Ukip probably won’t do as well as the polls suggest. And there are many issues on which I don’t share their beliefs. But at least I know what their beliefs are, and that makes a nice change in these vapid, febrile times.