Conservative Cool

What young person would be a conservative in Britain? That is the question that Nigel Farndale asks in the Daily Telegraph.
The answer, unfortunately, is nobody. The problem is the David Starkey test.

Dr Starkey once said that, as a young man, he felt more embarrassed about coming out as a Conservative than he did about coming out as a homosexual.

Hmm. And that is just the half of it. Your average impressionable Brit is deeply affected by his favorite rock stars and comedians. One leading comedian asserts on his website that he is “committed to non-violence and is an active campaigner for CND and the Campaign Against Arms Trade.” Thank goodness.

But here in the United States things are a little different. There is a feeling—tell me if you have felt it too—that there is something risky, something edgy, something transgressive about being a conservative. It must help that we have a genuine conservative movement with campus chapters and all. And then there are the conservative rites of passage, being hauled before the diversity Star Chamber for conducting a diversity bake sale, and having the conservative speakers you bring to campus heckled by the Angry Left.

If you are a conformist, a girl for instance, you listen with rapt attention to your professors railing away against the evil Bush and the awful Halliburton. If you are a guy, you just cannot be a man and just let yourself be covered in ordure by some pimply lefty.

But how can we help our Brit fellow travelers get some backbone?