Patrick Wright meets the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, who argues that the EU has encroached on the fundamentals of Englishness: the landscape, and the common law.

And he hears from others who question the idea that the European Union has encroached in this way, including Martha Spurrier, the Director of Liberty, author Robert Winder, and Greg and Teresa Malciewicz, editor and publisher of UK-based Polish-language weekly New Time.

Producer: Phil Tinline.

Listen back HERE

According to Roger Scruton, traditions and attachments to place and home are precious as they give order and meaning to life. They fill a basic human need. Once destroyed, they cannot be brought back…

G.K. Chesterton famously wrote “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” What he meant, of course, is that travel awards us the chance of returning home with fresh eyes for its merits and a deeper appreciation thereof. It is of little surprise that this mental twister should emanate from Chesterton’s pen just as it is not surprising that it should be written by an Englishman, pampered by the rich history and bucolic beauty of his country. Yet such “home coming” took on a new form when twenty vacationers descended on Cirencester in Gloucestershire this past August to attend Scrutopia, a summer school hosted by Sir Roger Scruton. With the exception of one Englishman attending the course, the group of twenty, consisting of one Portuguese, one Polish, and two Norwegian participants and a diverse group of Americans, including me, came to discover a veritable “home” in a foreign place, a mental twist with a poetic crescendo.

Monuments to the victims of fascism exist everywhere, but communism’s victims are hardly remembered at all. 

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, it is fitting to ask whether we have learned what it tells us about its ideological root. Do we now appreciate that the Marxist ideology destroys legal order, political opposition and human rights? Do we have some idea of the death toll that has in every case followed the triumph of the ‘vanguard party’? Do we have an inkling of the human cost of collectivisation, or of what the gulag meant in terms of the humiliation and destruction of its victims?

Are human beings fundamentally different from other animals? Roger Scruton argues that we are, and that we need to think about ourselves in non-biological terms. He explains these ideas in conversation with Nigel Warburton.

Listen to Roger Scruton on Human Nature

Nigel Warburton will be in conversation with Roger Scruton about Human Nature at 11am on Saturday 2nd September in the Philosophy section of Blackwell's bookshop, Oxford. Free event, all welcome.

"European society", says Sir Roger Scruton, "is rapidly jettisoning its Christian heritage and has found nothing to put in its place save the religion of human rights".

But, he argues, this new "religion" delivers one-sided solutions since rights favour the person who can claim them - whatever the moral reasons for opposing them.

He says Europe needs to rediscover its Christian roots.

Listen to the podcast HERE

You can download the transcript HERE.

Roger Scruton looks at the impact of Harry Potter on our world view.

"People are starting to live in a kind of cyber-Hogwarts", he says, "a fantasy world in which goods are simply obtained by needing them, and then asking some future Prime Minister to wave the magic wand".

Listen to the podcast HERE

Roger Scruton asks: "What does the Tory Party really stand for?"

He says the Conservative party at present is muddling along without a philosophy.

But he argues that, far from being the 'nasty party', the most fundamental belief underpinning Conservative policies historically is the idea of responsibility towards others.

Producer: Adele Armstrong. Listen to the Podcast HERE

Read the transcript HERE

On Tuesday afternoon, Roger spoke to Jay Nordingler. You can listen to the Q & A here. 

I have been reading a collection of intriguing articles entitled What Matters Most by the late Sir Chris Woodhead, a courageous and outspoken defender of real knowledge in a sphere where knowledge is not always given its due. Woodhead was a highly cultivated man, a former teacher of English, who was appointed Chief Inspector of Schools in 1994 during the government of Sir John Major. His appointment inaugurated a period of conflict between the Inspectorate and the collection of leftist educationists that Woodhead called ‘the Blob’ (after the 1958 horror film about an ever-expanding and all-consuming amoeba from outer space). The name, Woodhead writes, ‘captures the inert mindlessness and sullen, rubbery resistance of the professors and quangocrats and officials and consultants who make up the educational establishment’.

James Delingpole interviewed Roger in June and here is the podcast. 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/delingpole-james-delingpole/id1163810679?mt=2