Between all the brutal Brexit fireworks, the British government took an initiative of rare poetic dimension by establishing a “Building Better, Building Beautiful” commission.

According to its official terms of reference, the commission's task is to “develop practical policy solutions to ensure the design and style of new developments, including new settlements and rehabilitating city centers, to help grow a sense of community and place, not undermine it” and vows to “do so with popular consent.” Like any other commission, it will have to produce a report, which is expected to be submitted to the Minister of State for Housing by the end of 2019. Even impoverished by its exit from the Single Market, Britain will be entitled to a makeover.

It’s easy to laugh off such bureaucratic pretensions. Will Her Majesty's Cabinet, unable to produce a coherent strategy on its relations with the European Union, get involved in the color of its people’s shutters?

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But this commission is not trivial. It’s chaired by Roger Scruton, one of the most famous English philosophers, author of a reference book on The Aesthetics of Architecture. Scruton is conservative in the British sense of the word (and therefore anything but reactionary): He’s an heir to Burke, who considers attachment to tradition as the best guarantor of freedom, and spontaneous order as the surest path to progress. Scruton sees the need for roots as a way to strengthen the individual in the face of impersonal market or state forces.

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