Politician Mentions Chesterton

Hold the Front Page!

The Canadian Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper PC MP, has moved higher in my estimations since I read the transcript of his speech given this past Friday to the Canada-U.K. Chamber of Commerce. The Prime Minister recalled the words of Sir Winston Churchill speaking in Ottawa in 1929 that at the heart of the relationship between Canada and the United Kingdom “is the golden circle of the Crown which links us all together with the majestic past that takes us back to the Tudors, the Plantagenets, the Magna Carta, habeas corpus, petition of rights, and English common law… all those massive stepping stones which the people of the British race shaped and forged to the joy, and peace, and glory of mankind.”

The Prime Minister continued: “Britain gave Canada all that – and much more. Including: Parliamentary democracy; a commitment to basic freedoms; the industrial revolution; and the entrepreneurial spirit and free market economy. Not to mention Shakespeare, Dickens, Kipling, Lewis, and Chesterton.”

Chesterton! How splendid to hear a politician, not to mention a head of government – an American head of government (North American, if you insist) – include G.K. Chesterton as one of the precious gifts of the Mother Country to her far-flung children in the English-Speaking World.

Previously: Dilbert on Gilbert | Chesterton Remembered