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After all these years of being casually dismissed as some sort of childish loony because of my hopelessly naïve and idealistic (never understood why ‘idealistic’ has come to be a pejorative term) left wing views, it seems I’m finally, at long, long, last, in good company.

I’m very grateful indeed to Julian Coman in The Observer for telling me that Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, no less, wrote in July: “Is the left right after all?”

Moore explained: “The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.”

The old closet Marxist also offered: “It turns out – as the Left always claims – that a system purporting to advance the many has been perverted in order to enrich the few. The global banking system is an adventure playground for the participants, complete with spongy, health-and-safety approved flooring so that they bounce when they fall off. The role of the rest of us is simply to pay.”

And Moore admitted that the left was correct about Murdoch being an anti-social force.

One waits with baited breath to see what Charles Moore’s reaction will be when he finds out what bears do in the woods.

 (Don’t worry, by the way, Moore hasn’t completely taken possession of his senses. He concluded: “One must always pray that conservatism will be saved, as has so often been the case in the past, by the stupidity of the Left. The Left’s blind faith in the state makes its remedies worse than useless. But the first step is to realise how much ground we have lost, and that there may not be much time left to make it up.” Which, actually, contains statements with which many on the left would agree – and another interesting admission at the same time…)

Is Charles Moore just one exception to the rule? Not necessarily.

Peter Oborne writes not only for the Telegraph, but also for the Daily Mail. He attacked society’s “feral rich”, including politicians who criticise rioters from the comfort of one of their many homes.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell noted: “The free market all too often turns out not to be a free market at all, but a corporatist racket for the few.”

In the Daily Mail, historian Dominic Sandbrook said the capitalist system had failed to deliver its most fundamental promise, equality of opportunity.

Billionaire Warren Buffet has suggested to America’s crazed far right that maybe the rich should indeed pay more taxes.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy are said to be considering the introduction of a tax on the financial transactions of speculators who have brought us to this sad pitch.

Crikey, what a line-up. All of them perched out here on the far left with little old me, keen on, if not bringing down, then at least regulating and improving that creaky old capitalist system that’s caused all this trouble.

At least Charles Moore will be able to take comfort when somebody points out to him that the Pope is still a Catholic – though even the Pope last week noted: “Man must be at the economy’s centre, which is not profit, but solidarity.”

Up the revolution, comrades!

It’s great, outdoors

Just back from the Great British Camping Experience.

You know. Decant entire contents of house into boot of car. Round up children. Drive car a short distance. Place contents of house inside flimsy canvas structure. Cremate some food. Lie on deflated airbed upon cold hard ground through sleepless night listening to the groans and farts of your fellow sufferers and the patter of rain on mouldy canvas. Rise at dawn and replace contents of house, which have doubled in volume, in boot of car. Round up what children you can find. Go home smelling like a three-day-dead badger wearing Eric Pickles’ dirty underpants.

As you can tell, I am not one of nature’s campers.

But there are compensations, of course: happy children playing with their friends, wine and good company round a blazing camp fire, an escape from the tyranny of electronica that surrounds us.

I may never come to love camping, but for taking us all away from our cosy lives and reminding us that there’s a great deal more to it, I’m very glad it’s there.

And finally

Thanks for the comments last week. They really are much appreciated.

Roger, old stick, I don’t believe you make pithy comments about the future unless you know a bit about the past. If you want pith, go to Numbers’ comment!

Though actually, it must be said Iain’s conclusion is probably the only sensible sentence in the entire debate….