''The Salisbury Review'' is a quarterly

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

magazine of conservative thought. It was founded in 1982 by the Salisbury Group, who sought to articulate and further traditional intellectual conservative ideas. The ''Review'' was named after

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (; 3 February 183022 August 1903) was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times for a ...

, the British prime minister at the end of the nineteenth century. The philosopher

Roger Scruton Sir Roger Vernon Scruton (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher and writer who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views. Editor from 1982 ...

was the chief editor for eighteen years and published it through his Claridge Press. From 2000 the editor was the historian and hoaxer A. D. Harvey. The managing editor from 2006 to 2012 was Merrie Cave. The editor as of 2012 is Myles Harris who is a practising doctor and journalist. Contributors have included

Antony Flew Antony Garrard Newton Flew (; 11 February 1923 – 8 April 2010) was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, Flew worked on the philosophy of religion. During the course of his career he taught a ...

, Christie Davies,

Enoch Powell John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1 ...

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

Hugh Trevor-Roper Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003) was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Trevor-Roper was a polemicist and essayist on a range of ...

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repres ...

Norman Stone Norman Stone (8 March 1941 – 19 June 2019) was a British historian and author. He was Professor of European History in the Department of International Relations at Bilkent University, having formerly been a professor at the University of Oxf ...

Theodore Dalrymple Anthony Malcolm Daniels (born 11 October 1949), also known by the pen name Theodore Dalrymple (), is a conservative English cultural critic, prison physician and psychiatrist. He worked in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as in ...

, Roger Watson and

Peter Mullen Peter Mullen (born 11 January 1942) is a British Church of England priest. He is the former Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. Mullen is Chaplain to the Honourable Company of Air Pilots, one of ...

History

The publication was founded in 1982 by the Salisbury Group, who chose Roger Scruton as editor for his defence of

traditional conservatism Traditionalist conservatism, often known as classical conservatism, is a political and social philosophy that emphasizes the importance of transcendent moral principles, manifested through certain natural laws to which society should adhere ...

in ''The Meaning of Conservatism'' (1980) in opposition to the Thatcherite proponents of the

free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...

. The Salisbury group itself was set up in 1978 to support the view of the Third Marquess of Salisbury that "good government consisted of doing as little as possible." In ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'' of 21 September 2002 Scruton wrote an article, "My Life Beyond the Pale", in which he explained what he saw as the difficulties "of finding people to write in an explicitly conservative journal". He noted that finding subscribers was initially difficult, and that

Maurice Cowling Maurice John Cowling (6 September 1926 – 24 August 2005) was a British historian and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Early life Cowling was born in West Norwood, South London, son of Reginald Frederick Cowling (1901–1962), a patent agen ...

had told him that to "try to encapsulate onservatismin a philosophy was the kind of quaint project that Americans might undertake". He also wrote that the editorship :"had cost me many thousand hours of unpaid labour, a hideous character assassination in '' Private Eye'', three lawsuits, two interrogations, one expulsion, the loss of a university career in Britain, unendingly contemptuous reviews, Tory suspicion, and the hatred of decent liberals everywhere. And it was worth it."

Honeyford affair

A controversy involving Ray Honeyford, headmaster of Drummond Middle School in Bradford,

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

, gave ''The Salisbury Review'' much publicity in 1984. According to Scruton: "This episode was our first great success, and led to the 600 subscriptions that we needed." An article written by Honeyford for the ''Review'' in 1984 eproduction of Honeyford's 1984 article/ref> discussed themes on ethnicity, culture and assimilation, and educational performance.Obituary: Ray Honeyford
''Daily Telegraph'', 8 February 2012 He had already made public his views in two letters in 1982, to the ''

Times Educational Supplement ''Tes'', formerly known as the ''Times Educational Supplement'', is a weekly UK publication aimed at education professionals. It was first published in 1910 as a pull-out supplement in ''The Times'' newspaper. Such was its popularity that in 19 ...

'' (TES) and a local Bradford paper, and then in an extended article in the ''TES'' in November 1982. In that, he rehearsed a number of points, in particular on where the onus for integration and the limiting factors for educational performance lie in the home family environment in immigrant families. He attacked what he saw as the misplaced use of

multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...

in schools, and ' political correctness' in the form of scrutiny of textbook material. The 1984 ''Salisbury Review'' article "Education and Race — an Alternative View" covered similar ground, but caused a national outcry. Honeyford had already been in discussion with his local education authority after the 1982 ''TES'' article, in the context of Bradford Council guidelines on educational aims issued in that year, but had not been disciplined. After the second article he was disciplined, and was also the target of a campaign for his dismissal. He was sacked, reinstated and then took early retirement, about two years after ''The Salisbury Review'' article was published.

References and sources

References

Sources

* Halstead, Mark. (1988) ''Education, Justice and Cultural Diversity: an Examination of the Honeyford Affair, 1984-85''.

External links