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Conservatism
Political parties are a vital part of the UK’s representative democracy
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Most parties aspire to form a government
and adopt an agreed programme of policy commitments, linked to their core ideas
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Supporters of right-wing parties
(often known as conservatives) stress the importance of order, stability, hierarchy and private
property
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Thatcherite/New Right Conservatism – more right
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Political parties perform a number of functions within a democratic system
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Those who have a broadly right-wing outlook have historically been drawn to the
Conservative party
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Participation: In order to win power or influence, parties encourage people to participate in
politics – to vote, join a party and to support it through funding to get its message across
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Recruiting office holders: For a small number of people, party membership leads to recruitment
as candidates for public office and thus participation in the UK’s representative democracy
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Before the 2015
general election, Conservative activists in Thirsk and Malton (in North Yorkshire) and South
Suffolk did not allow the sitting MPs to stand again as candidates
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At a
general election they put these proposals before the electorate in a manifesto, a document
setting out their programme for government
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Parties
have an educative function, by communicating and explaining their ideas to the public (although
they do this to win popular support, so are likely to distort opponents’ policies in their own
interests)
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That party controls the business of parliament, with a view of passing its manifesto

into law
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A prime minster who loses the confidence of their party is vulnerable
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She resigned and was replaced by John Major, who
was regarded as better placed to unite the party and lead it to renewed electoral success
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They are also allowed to claim expenses to cover the cost
of running an office, living in Westminster and their constituency, and travelling between the
two
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There is special state provision
to support the activities of the opposition in parliament, known as short money
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The Conservative Party has historically be seen as the
party of big businesses
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This debate was complicated by issues of party-political
advantage because the Conservatives, who stood to lose most from such a move, wanted to
place corresponding restrictions on Labour’s trade union backers
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This was expected to lead to a significant
drop in the funding received by the Labour Party from the unions
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Traditional Conservatism
The Conservative Party can trace its origins back to the late 17th century, an aristocratic grouping
that first came together in defence of the historic privileges of the Crown and the Church of
England as powerful landowning institutions
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Peel stressed the
importance of gradual reform in order to protect, or conserve, established institutions – hence
the name ‘Conservative’
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One-nation Conservatism
One nation is a paternalistic approach adopted by Conservatives under the leadership of
Benjamin Disraeli in the 19th century – and continued by David Cameron and Theresa May in the
21st century – revolving around the idea that the rich have an obligation to help the poor
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The name came from a passage in one of Disraeli’ books, Sybil, in which he
contemplates the growing division between rich and poor in the mid-19th century, produced by
the development of industrial capitalism
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The ‘natural leaders’ of society would
accept an obligation to act benevolently towards the disadvantaged, in return for acceptance of
their right to rule
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One-nation conservatism peaked in the generation after the Second World War, when the party
broadly accepted the changes introduced by the Labour administration of 1945-51: the mixed
economy, a welfare state and government action to maintain a high level of employment
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Post-war Conservatives balanced an attachment to free enterprise with state
intervention in economic and social policy
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Margaret Thatcher (Conservative Party leader 1975-90) gave her name to a more sharply
ideological form of conservatism
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It sought to reduce state intervention in the economy,
while restoring order to society in the face of rising challenges from militant trade unions and
other groups on the left
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Thatcherism comprised the following key themes
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Privatisation of industries and services taken into state ownership to promote improvement and
wider consumer choice through competition
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A tough approach to law and order, with increased police and judicial powers
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A desire to protect national sovereignty against the growth of the European Community
(European Union)
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However, in practice the popularity of the National Health Service and the need
to maintain a framework of state welfare provision limited the scope for radical reform
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A Post-Thatcherite Party
Margaret Thatcher was a dominant but divisive figure who aroused both admiration and
hostility within and beyond her party
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Thatcher’s
immediate successor, John Major (prime minister 1990-97) to some extent represented the
continuation of Thatcherism, with the privatisation of coal and railways, but he projected a less
confrontational image
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A moderate pro-European, Major sought without
success to reconcile two competing party factions – hard-line Eurosceptics wanted stronger
resistance to what they saw as the encroaching power of the European Union, while a smaller
pro-European group sought to keep British influence over a now rapidly integrating continent
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The next three leaders of the party failed to unseat a triumphant Tony Blair, who successfully
held the centre ground of British politics to win two more electoral victories for Labour in 2001
and 2005
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All three
seemed unable to move the party beyond an association with traditional issues such as Europe,
immigration and law and order
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Only with the election of David Cameron as leader in December 2005 did a serious attempt to
‘detoxify’ the Conservative brand begin
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He learned from the way in which Blair had reinvented the Labour Party to win
support beyond its traditional core vote
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He showed an interest in the environment,
which was assuming greater importance as a political issue, even if his critics accused him of
staging superficial photo opportunities, such as posing with husky dogs on a visit to a melting
glacier in Norway
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Both Cameron and his successor, Theresa May, maintained that they stood on the side or
ordinary people, rather than just the interests of a well-off elite
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The morally authoritarian tone of Thatcherism was replaced by, for
example, support for the legalisation of gay marriage
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Cameron’s moderate tone helped him to form a coalition government with the Liberal
Democrats when he failed to win an outright majority in the May 2010 general election
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Nonetheless there were important respects in which Cameron (and still more his party)
remained close to the ideas of Thatcherism
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In traditional conservative fashion Cameron and his chancellor,
George Osborne, accused their predecessors of irresponsible overspending, which they blamed
for the financial crisis of 2008
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The budgets of Whitehall departments (with some
exceptions, such as health, schools and international aid) were cut by up to 25 per cent
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Welfare Policy: The coalition’s policies were intended to cut costs and encourage those
receiving benefits to be more self-reliant
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The ‘universal
credit’ system, which merges a number of in-work benefits in one payment, is intended to
simplify the welfare system and encourage low-income people to take up employment
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Law and Order: In opposition Cameron seemed to take a more liberal attitude towards law and
order, calling for more understanding of young offenders in a speech dubbed ‘hug a hoodie’ by
the media
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He supported tough
sentencing for certain crimes, especially after the August 2011 London riots, but promoted a
‘rehabilitation on revolution’ to reduce the problem of reoffending by people leaving prison
unprepared for life on the outside
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Cameron’s policies on law and order resembled Tony Blair’s insistence that government must be
‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’
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Cameron tried, as Thatcher did in the 1980s,
to fight his corner in the EU
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He resigned in July 2016 after the
referendum resulted in a majority to vote to leave the EU
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