Back to Gideon RachmanOn my way into work this afternoon, I received a chilling e-mail from Clive Crook. It informed that he had blogged in response to my column on conservatism (see below, October 7th). Nervously I called up Clive’s blog on my BlackBerry, but could only read the ominous first line: “It’s rarely a good idea to pick fights with one’s friends – especially the clever ones – but I’ll take issue with Gideon Rachman’s column, “Conservatism overshoots its limit.”
My mood was further darkened by receiving another e-mail from 430Berea - otherwise, known as my mother. She cheerily informed me that “Clive Crook has done a very effective hatchet job on you.” This must count as her most supportive comment, since she remarked - “Of course, Martin Wolf is in a completely different intellectual league from you, darling.” Have I ever denied it? Still, there are some things better left unsaid - even in the closest families.
So, when I got into the office at 6pm, I called up Clive’s blog with a feeling of dread and began to read.
Actually, it’s not as bad as I had feared. Clive is courteous and logical. Better still , he thinks I got 1.5 out of 3 points right - which by my reckoning is a 50 per cent hit rate.
We agree that there has been a change in political rhetoric. The biggest disagreement comes on the second point. He writes: “What is false, I think, is the claim that pushing too far the central ideas of Reagan-Thatcher – said to be home ownership, financial deregulation and a fervent faith in the market – created this disaster.” Clive argues that the key politicians were never that “fervent” in their support of the market; that the promotion of home ownership has been a “bipartisan undertaking in the US and, if anything Democrats have pushed this agenda harder”; and that “financial deregulation has happened – but not so much recently. It was certainly not a conservative project”.
Point one - well, I suppose it depends how you define “fervent”. Most politicians are not very fervent about anything, except their own re-election. I think Reagan and Thatcher were unusual in that they genuinely were conviction politicians. And surely it is uncontroversial to suggest that a belief in the free market was fundamental to both of their philosophies? Of course, like all politicians they were sometimes forced to compromise. But they were free-marketeers and they were so successful that they changed the intellectual climate and created a new orthodoxy, which their less ideological successors embraced.
Point two - home ownership. I think there is, possibly, a US-UK distinction to be made here. It seems to me unarguable that the promotion of home-ownership was a conservative project in Britain: council-house sales (the privatisation of public housing) was one of Thatcher’s signature policies. In the US it is true that the Democrats played a big part in the sub-prime mess, by creating incentive for banks to extend mortgages to the poor. But widening home-ownership was also an idea embraced by conservatives. I quote Greenspan in my article, on this very point. (And he was a member of the Reagan campaign team in 1980, appointed to the Fed by Reagan and a self-avowed libertarian.)
Point three - I find it hard to agree with Clive that “financial deregulation” was “certainly not a conservative project.” Again, there may be an important US-UK distinction. But in Britain one of the central events of the Thatcher era was the “Big Bang” - the deregulation of the City of London. As for the US, Clive argues that it was Republicans who were pushing to regulate Fannie and Freddie and Democrats who opposed them. Maybe so, although as he points out, the Democrats “agreed with Greenspan” - who is a Republican. More broadly, pinning down the ideological origins of financial deregulation in the US is a complicated business. Take the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which partially repealed the Glass-Steagall Act. This was signed into law by Bill Clinton, a Democratic president. But its three Congressional sponsors were Republicans, including Phil Gramm, who later became a co-chair of the McCain campaign.
It’s clear that by 1999 there was bipartisan support for financial deregulation of this sort - but that, really, is part of my argument. And I’m sure Clive is right that a lot of this was driven by events. But there were also ideas and ideologies in play. And it seems clear to me, where the original intellectual impetus for deregulation had come from - from the right. That is why both McCain and David Cameron now sound faintly ridiculous when they denounce the excesses on Wall Street or in the City.
This blog covers a variety of topics from US foreign policy to European politics and the Middle East - and whatever else happens to be in the news or catch my attention. I joined the FT as chief foreign affairs commentator in 2006, after a 15-year career at The Economist which included stints as a correspondent in Brussels, Bangkok and Washington. I write a weekly column on foreign affairs, which appears in the paper on Tuesdays. Occasionally my FT colleagues contribute posts to this blog.
Geoff Dyer is the FT's China bureau chief. He has been a correspondent in Shanghai and in Brazil and has also covered the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries from London.
Roula Khalaf is the FT's Middle East editor. She has worked for the FT since 1995, first as North Africa correspondent, then Middle East correspondent and most recently as Middle East editor. Before joining the FT, she was a staff writer for Forbes magazine in New York. 
James Blitz is the FT's defence and diplomatic editor. He has been the FT's political editor, based in London, and Rome bureau chief. James is a former Moscow bureau chief for the Sunday Times.
Alan Beattie is the FT's world trade editor. He has previously been economics leader writer and spent two years in Washington DC as chief US economics correspondent. Before joining the FT, Alan was an economist at the Bank of England. 
Victor Mallet is the FT's Madrid correspondent. He is a former Asia editor of the FT, and, in more than 20 years at the organisation, has also worked in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. In 1990 he escaped from Kuwait after being one of the few foreign correspondents there when Iraq invaded. 
Stefan Wagstyl is the FT's eastern Europe editor, co-ordinating coverage of the region. He has also been the FT's bureau chief in Tokyo and New Delhi.
