ninme

The Telegraph is 150.

Guided by the high tone of fearless independence1

One hundred and fifty years ago today, the following words appeared in the leading article published in issue No 1 of The Daily Telegraph: “In our conduct of this journal, we shall be guided by a high tone of independent action; we shall be bound to the fetters of no party; we will be fearlessly independent - not the independence of the unchecked and thoughtless attack, but the independence of the utterance befitting reflecting Englishmen.”

No one talks like that anymore. And given the subject of the post below, nobody lives up to that anymore.

They looked upon the world with a lively and curious intelligence, leavened with humour. Then, as now, the great majority of our readers believed in looking after themselves and their families by their own efforts, rather than depending upon others. Then, as now, they were sceptical of political ideologies of every kind, and conscious of the imperfectibility of man. They were the driving-forces of Britain’s economy and society, from the factory boss to the village schoolteacher, the Cabinet minister to the post office clerk. They didn’t want to be preached at - still less, to be shrieked at in the strident tones of so many other newspapers. They wanted to be informed and entertained, to read arguments well put and then to make up their own minds about what to think.

That’s nice.

Two constants have run through the entire 150 years of our history, while so much else has changed. The first is that The Daily Telegraph has always spoken up loudly for the liberty of the individual against the power of the state. The second is that we always were - and we intend to remain - fiercely patriotic. This is not to say that we wish anything but well to the other peoples of this planet, but only that our first interests always were, and remain, the happiness and prosperity of the people of these islands and their freedom to choose for themselves how they should be governed.

That’s very nice.

Never has it been more important to express those two principles than it is today. Already, this present Government and its allies in the town halls have intruded further into the private lives of individuals and their families than any of their predecessors in peacetime. They have made their oppressive presence felt in a thousand insidious ways: they have imposed mountains of paperwork on headteachers and small businesses; they have allowed speed cameras and CCTV surveillance units to sprout by almost every roadside in the country; their health and safety inspectors and racial awareness operatives have made ever more ridiculous demands on enterprises of every sort, public and private; they have limited the British citizen’s right to trial by jury, taken the power to impose house arrest without trial, and now they are proposing to introduce a fantastically expensive scheme to make every Briton carry a state identity card.

Not so nice.

Most insidiously of all, they have seized every opportunity they have found to take as much money as they can from individuals and into their own hands - whether by increasing National Insurance and other taxes or by back-door means such as ramping up fines for parking and speeding, rebanding houses for council tax purposes and increasing the costs of passports and pensions. Meanwhile, Tony Blair has allowed more and more political power to slip away from Westminster and the town halls to Brussels and unelected quangos.

Not nice at all.

A century and a half after Colonel Burroughs Sleigh committed The Daily Telegraph to fearless and reflective independence, bound by the fetters of no party, there has never been a greater need for its voice to be heard.

Very nice.