Cultural Coherence

This month Owen Kelly looks at some of the deeper meanings of Katie Lam’s recent remarks on cultural coherence.

 

NOVEMBER 7 | SERIES 2025

STREAM Meanwhile in an Abandoned Warehouse | EPISODE 80

 
PARTICIPANT

Owen Kelly

COMMENTARY

In this episode Owen Kelly looks into the idea of cultural coherence, something that bubbled to the surface after Katie Lam, a member of parliament for the Conservative Party used it in an interview with the Sunday Times. She appeared to use it one way, and then later claimed she meant it in a rather different way.

What do people mean by cultural coherence? Should we regard the idea as dog-whistle politics, or should we see it as a useful idea we need to claim for ourselves, before it gets claimed by those who would whistle to dogs…

REFERENCES

Sam Leith: In Defence of the Rules-based Order, in The Spectator 

Tali Fraser: The Tories and the search for cultural coherence on ConservativeHome

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