Rutger Bregman, the Spectator and a right Reith row

The Dutch historian and best-selling author Rutger Bregman accused the BBC of “cowardice” last month after, conscious of upsetting the man in the White House again, they edited one of his Reith Lectures to remove a reference to “the most openly corrupt president in American history”.

Now the choice of Bregman to give the prestigious lectures this year has provoked an attack in the Spectator which could really have done with an editing job itself. The piece, by the history professor Lawrence Goldman, has been systematically dismantled by Bregman who described it as “a new low in the Spectator’s coverage of my Reith Lectures”. “There is so much wrong with the piece that it’s hard to know where to begin, but a few points stand out,” he writes.

Bregman takes umbrage with Goldman’s sustained and vigorous attack on the Fabian Society whilst praising “the Christian Socialist and genuine moral reformer, R.H. Tawney, probably the most widely read and admired British socialist of the 20th century”. “Perhaps he ought to have mentioned that Tawney was a proud member of… the Fabian Society,” notes Bregman. “He joined in 1906 and served on its executive for twelve years”.

Suggested Reading

The Monkey business behind Robin Ince’s BBC departure

Rats in a Sack

The Dutchman notes that Laurence writes that “no one talking about history should need, or want, to declare their political affiliations”, while singling out for praise R. H. Tawney and Eric Hobsbawm, both of whom were not shy to make clear their left-wing commitments. “Apparently political candour is acceptable, just not in the present tense,” writes Bregman. Indeed, he writes: “If Tawney were alive today, he would almost certainly be accused of ‘moralising’, of mixing history with politics, and of trying to change people’s ‘spiritual diet. In other words, he would be criticised for doing precisely what I am attempting to do in these lectures.”

And elsewhere Laurence, the writer of The Life of R. H. Tawney. Socialism and History, says: “For a self-declared moral revolutionist, Bregman’s worst failing is that he doesn’t understand either the Fabians or the other traditions of British socialism, many of which were deeply critical of Fabianism as anti-democratic, top-down, socialist elitism. The Fabians believed that by taking control of the state, pulling the right levers, and constructing the correct apparatus, they could dragoon everyone into the ideal socialist society of the future.”

As Bregman counters: “Tawney’s own project of ethical socialism, admirable as it was, failed politically on its own terms. The post-1945 settlement (the NHS, the welfare state) emerged through exactly the kinds of elite-driven, state-centred mechanisms that this author and the Spectator don’t like. Well, let’s just say the historical facts don’t care much about your feelings!”.
Still, perhaps the Spectator isn’t the place to look for reasoned analyses of history. It is, of course, the magazine which in 2018 published a piece by Taki Theodoracopulos titled “In praise of the Wehrmacht”.