Unit 6B: Ideological Development in the UK Rodney Barker Professor at Government Department of the London School of Economics writes for BBC Parliament

Modern conservatism broke with the historic ideology

Conservatism has often been presented, and has presented itself, not as an ideology at all, but simply a reflection of common sense.

Or, in other words the Conservative Party preserves the way things naturally and historically are as a practical, as opposed to an intellectual, approach to politics.

ALSO IN THIS SECTION: Unit 6B - Ideological Development in the UK Ideological Development in the UK Liberalism in the UK Socialism in the UK Nationalism in the UK Reading list

This has never been true, and the very publications of those who have suggested that it was, from the publicist FJC Hearnshaw to the Conservative political philosopher Michael Oakeshott, have provided rich evidence of the vigour and volume of Conservative political thinking.

On the other hand, conservatism has frequently been most effectively articulated when the practices and conditions which it favoured were threatened rather than when they seemed secure.

It represented a clear set of aversions and aspirations, but the former were often the more powerful, even though they led to a restatement of the latter.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, conservatism was an amalgam of support for the existing social, constitutional, religious and political order and distribution of property, a belief in the necessity and value of elites, both social and political, and a support for markets not as an exercise of individual choice, but as a means of promoting individual virtue and social well-being.

The importance of religion, and specifically the Anglicanism of the established church, became less important as the century progressed.

But a Conservative of the 1970s would have recognised one from the 1900s as an ideological ally.

The New Right

The rise of the New Right as an ideological position, distinct from Conservatism and Thatcherism, as a party and governmental political force, respectively, marked a break with the politics of the past.

It created a division within conservatism over the nature of the elites it defended and advocated.

For Tories and one-nation conservatives, elites were distinguished by skill, or insight, or moral vision, but also by the responsibilities which they bore for the welfare of the nation as a whole, and for their less fortunate fellow citizens in particular.

For those on the New Right, who stressed economic liberalism, elites were simply those who by ability, energy, or simple luck, had prospered, but who owed no obligation on account of this to anyone else.

When this economic liberalism was wedded to an assertion of the superiority of the values and outlook of elites, a neo-conservatism was created which, in contrast to traditional defensive conservatism, was aggressive and sectarian.

This was fatal division, and conservatism in the United Kingdom largely disappeared as a coherent doctrine after 1989 along with socialism.

It was partly killed by the brief success of the New Right in dominating the Conservative Party.

This meant the Conservative Party and conservatism parted company, or at least had a far less easy and assured relationship with each other.

� Rodney Barker 2004
Department of Government
London School of Economics & Political Science