The Broken Compass: How British Politics lost its way [Hardcover]

The chapters are quite loosely arranged and more often than not the connections between them amount to themes, in this way the book reads like a collection of essays. This is by no means a bad thing, but if you are looking for an intricately argued work against the socialist political consensus then this is not it.

What you do get is a passionately argued polemic against the socialist political consensus, the Conservative abandonment of the battlements, and besides this, a well written and at times witty book. His treatment of education is excellent.

The Broken Compass is a disquieting book which I am not surprised to see ignored by the liberal left establishment which now encompasses most of the print and broadcast media, the legal system and the three main British political parties. Yes, there is such a thing as conspiracy-as experienced journalist and former Marxist Hitchens writes, given that a conspiracy is basically 2 or more people working quietly behind the scenes to achieve something they'd prefer not to openly tell the rest of us about, the astonishing thing would be if there were no conspiracies. This conspiracy is so big, and grew so gradually and with such sleight of hand, we don't ordinarily notice it.

He writes about the many deals done quietly between journalists and politicians over lunches, the deals which decide which stories are reported, which stories are killed, who rises, who falls. He has seen it at first hand.

He explains why the 'Conservative' party unexpectedly (and as I thought at the time, insanely) elected the wealthy, smooth-tongued Liberal David Cameron as leader over the much more popular centre-right David Davies. I remember where I was when I heard about this stunning decision. So does Peter Hitchens-he was at the conference where it happened. He explains why he believes that it was a done deal, with the BBC Guardianista opinion-formers, the people who decide which news is fit to feed us and how we shall interpret it, and their fellow travellers realising that the post-60s permissive revolution would be safe in the hands of David Cameron (Blair mark 2). You'll have to read the book for the details.

He writes a lot about the lies, selfishness and hypocrisy of socialists who have pulled the ladder up after themselves, especially as regards grammar schools. As a bright kid from a poor family who benefited from the chance to go to a grammar school 40 years ago, I related to this. He explains why our state education has been degraded for political ideological reasons, schools used for social engineering rather than education, to the harm of poor bright kids and others, with the ruling elite-as ever-seeing themselves and their children all right by the usual back channels.

A revelation which supports much else in the book concerned the singing of 'The Internationale' by assembled new Labour dignitaries at Donald Dewar's-a senior Labour figure- funeral. The Internationale is an explicit, hard line Marxist revolutionary anthem, and apparently they all knew the words and sang it heartily. He provides detailed evidence to support his assertion that Labour is a Marxist wolf in Social Democrat's sheep's clothing and is now effectively farther to the left than at any time in its history, determined to make its social and economic revolution irreversible by completing the de-Christianisation of Britain and creating a client state where almost everybody is employed directly or indirectly by the government and our thought is controlled by Politically Correct (more accurately called Received Left) machinery which has increasingly taken over our lives and made us less free to speak our minds than we were during the Hitler war.

The reason why he sometimes rants and raves is that he can see this-he used to be a revolutionary Marxist, which is why he knows so much- and wonders why the rest of us mugs don't see it. But the book contains too many hard facts and carefuly reasoned arguments to be fairly dismissed as a rant.

Anyone who reads Hitchen's blog knows that he hopes the present 'Conservative' ('Blue Labour') party will lose the election and then self destruct, opening the way for the possibility of a new centre right (he hasn't used this term but I think he means Christian Democrat) political party representing the values which today's Tories have abandoned. This book provides the facts and reasoning which support this view.

I fear that it is too late, too many of us are too befuddled and dependent, but-for the present-at least we can inform ourselves and scream.

A very stimulating book...what is refreshing is how the author shows that much of the left's ideas of the 1960s and 1970s started off in the right way (eg on racialism,sexism etc) but ended up in the monstrous PC dogma of the modern era.What is more....most of the right seem to have adopted them too! The chapter on the railways is also very illuminating...something for modern Tories to think about.