What have Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell, Peter Cook,
Spike Milligan and, more recently, Chris Morris got in common? They are all Tory anarchists – which sounds
like a contradiction in terms – but Peter Wilkin explains why it is not.



Surely
conservatism and anarchism are opposites? Tories respect and venerate tradition
whilst anarchists want to smash the system. And how can figures as politically
distinct as George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh be similar? Part dandy, part fogey,
part anti-establishment satirist, sometime nostalgist for lost empire, the Tory
anarchist is a walking contradiction, with only his distrust of all
politicians, ideologies and utopias to keep him together. From Cobbett and
Swift through to Chris Morris, The Strange Case of Tory Anarchism
explores an awkward strain of good-old-fashioned Englishness that refuses to
conform.