Margaret Tatcher

British Conservatism in the Twentieth Century: An Emerging Ideological Tradition
Author(s): John D. Fair, John A. Hutcheson and Jr.

Source: Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Winter,
1987), pp. 549-578
Published by: The North American Conference on British Studies
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British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury:

An Emerging Ideological Tradition*
John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.
LordActon, one of the most formidableintellectsof the last century,was a

master of transformingseemingly complicated or contradictoryprinciples into
concise epigrammatic statements. Attempting to reconcile Edmund Burke's
many liberal views with his reputedConservatism,Acton asked why was Burke
"not an entire liberal? How thoroughlyhe wished for liberty-of conscienceproperty,trade, slavery, etc. What stood against it? His notion of history. The
claims of the past. The authorityof time. The will of the dead. Continuity."'
One of the most important lessons to be derived from Burke's writingsrecognized by countless authorities as the wellspring of modern British
Conservatism-is that Conservatismis not so much a system of thought or
ideology as it is a general inclinationand regardfor history.The behaviorof the
ConservativePartyhas been governedby precedentand pragmatismratherthan
by rationalismand idealism. Words such as dogma, program, or even policy
have never been part of its lexicon, whereas such words as spirit, tradition,or
even "way" have more aptly described its approachto politics.
By the twentiethcentury the ConservativeParty'spreferencefor lessons from
the past (in accordancewith England'scommon law tradition)to any scientifically derived formulas had gained for it the twin monikers of "the national
party" and "the stupid party."But Conservatismdoes not claim to possess the
"keys or the Kingdom,"notes Ian Gilmour, an active politician and Conservative theoretician. "There is no certaintyabout the route and no certaintyabout
the destination. As Burke said of himself, the lead has to be heaved every inch
of the way."2Such is the way that modern British Conservatives,at least, have
wished to perceive themselves.
Perhapsthey protest too much about their non-ideologicalbases. In a recent
overview of Conservativethinking from Burke to Thatcher, Burkean scholar
Frank O'Gormanadvises that "we should not take too seriously the carefully
fostered impression of a safe, pragmatic, and thoroughlynondoctrinaireConservatismas the last word on the subject."3Indeed, an investigationof printed
*Partiallysupportedby a grant from the AuburnUniversityat MontgomeryGrant-In-AidProgram.
We also wish to thank ProfessorJoe Thompson for his assistance in the preparationof this article.
'Acton Papers, MSS. 5376, CambridgeUniversity Library.
2IanGilmour,Inside Right, A Study of Conservatism(London, 1978), p. 120.
3FrankO'Gorman, British Conservatism,ConservativeThoughtfrom Burke to Thatcher(London,
1986), p. xiii.
Albion 19, 4 (Winter 1987): 549-578 ? AppalachianState University 1988
550
works reveals that there is a greaterdoctrinalbasis for British Conservatismin

the twentiethcenturythan most party memberswould willingly admit. However
much Conservativewriters stress that the party has no ideological commitment
and that it is solely empirical in its approachto government, party literature
reveals an increasing preoccupationwith image and ideology that developed
largely as a result of the emergence of the Labour Party (with its Marxist
orientation)at the beginning of the twentieth century. The need to establish a
firmer sense of identity in order to combat socialism led to an examinationof
the party's traditions and its role in society. A body of thought constructed
largely aroundBurkeantraditionswas the first result of this striving for greater
coherence and purpose. By the 1920s, however, program politics-a concept
borrowedfrom the left-became the order of the day for Conservatives. The
creation of the ConservativeResearch Departmentin 1929 was a further step
towardthe projectionof an attractivepublic profile to face Labour'schallenge.
In mid-centurythe ConservativeParty continued to condemn its opponents for
stressingideology, but at the same time it unwittinglydevelopedwhat amounted
to much the same thing in its own literature.For several decades the Conservative programand style of leadershipresembledthose of the moderatesocialists,
and not even a successful right-wingrebellion and a new formulafor governing
in the 1970s could dispel these structuralisttendencies. By the Thatcherera the
Conservativetraditionhad hardenedinto a full-blown ideological matrix. Recognition of this developmentfalls squarely into an historiographicaltrend that
has become fashionablerecently with the publicationof TheInventionof Tradition by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger and in William McNeill's 1985
presidentialaddressto the AmericanHistoricalAssociation.4Conservativetradition became an ideological commitmentin the twentiethcenturyto meet democracy's need for doctrinalclarity and to establishan identity distinct from that of
the emergent left.
The convergence of at least three forces at the turn of the century began to
impartgreaterstructureto Conservativethought. In the first instance, there was
a naturaldesire for greaterclarity of ideas as the party faced a growing electorate in the late-nineteenthcentury.There was also a need to offer votersa positive
policy, showing initiativeand intent, to overcome the largely negative course of
restraintand resistance to change that was characteristicof Lord Salisbury's
administration.Finally, the addition of the Liberal Unionists to Conservative
ranksby the 1890s broughtaboutan infusion of programmaticpolitics from the
4EricHobsbawmand TerenceRanger,TheInventionof Tradition(Cambridge,1983) and William H.
McNeill, "Mythistory,or Truth, Myth, History, and Historians," TheAmerican Historical Review
91 (February,1986): 5. Also see McNeill's Mythistoryand Other Essays (Chicago, 1986). For an
earlier formulationof these ideas see Henry Steele Commager, "The Search for a Usable Past,"
AmericanHeritage 16 (February,1965): 4-9.
British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 551

leftwardside of the political spectrum.From the partywhich had introducedthe
"Newcastle Programme"came the leader who had sponsored the "Unauthorized Programme."Joseph Chamberlain, largely by force of his personality,
would endow the Conservative Party with the ideological concerns of social
imperialismand tariff reform, and an intransigentstand on Irish home rule.5
Chamberlain'scontribution of program politics reinforced the party's response to the rise of socialism as a political force in the early years of the
century. This ideological challenge was first evident in the general election of
1906 when the Labour Party returnedtwenty-ninemembers to Parliamentand
there were fifty-threeworkingclass M.P.s elected. The significance of this was
not lost on ArthurBalfour,who wrote to Lady Salisburythat "what is going on
here is the faint echo of the same movementwhich has producedmassacresin
St. Petersburg,riots in Vienna, and Socialist processions in Berlin."6Conservative popular literaturesuddenly shifted from warning of the "crying evils of
Radicalism"to the need to "shun Socialism." A 1906 pamphletentitled "What
Socialism Really Means" warnedvotersthatit would mean "the end of libertythe Socialists would make every man a puppetand a slave to the Socialist godthe STATE. All men would become machines for the use of the STATE,their
work parcelled out when and where the STATE thought fit and its results
snatchedfrom them for the purposes of the STATE."7Then, duringthe controversy engenderedby Lloyd George's 1909 budget, there was a misguided attempt to identify the radical wing of the Liberal Party with socialism,
particularlyin light of its advocacy of a tax on the increment in land values:
"Mr. Henry George is the real author of the Budget," it was claimed, which
aimed at "Confiscation & Robbery, Socialism Pure & Unadulterated.'8The
Liberals remainedin power through most of the next decade, but beyond any
confusion over labels it became increasinglyevident that the principal force to
be reckonedwith was socialism.
5Thoseauthorswho have contributedmost to an understandingof ChamberlainiteConservatismas a
coherentbody of thoughtinclude BernardSemmel, Imperialismand Social Reform:English SocialImperial Thought,1895-1914 (Cambridge, 1960); G. R. Searle, The Questfor National Efficiency:
A Study in British Politics and British Political Thought, 1899-1914 (Oxford, 1971); Robert J.
Scally, The Origins of the Lloyd George Coalition, The Politics of Social-Imperialism,1900-1918
(Princeton, 1975); and Alan Sykes in TariffReformin British Politics, 1903-1913 (Oxford, 1979)
and "The Radical Right and the Crisis of Conservatismbefore the First World War,"Historical
Journal 26 (September, 1983): 661-76. Also see chapter two in Samuel Hynes, The Edwardian
Turnof Mind (Princeton, 1968).
6Balfourto Lady Salisbury,January1906, in Blanche E. C. Dugdale, ArthurJames Balfour,2 vols.
(London, 1936), 1:438-39.
7"WhatSocialism Really Means," Archives of the British ConservativeParty (Brighton, 1977),
Series One, Pamphletsand Leaflets, PartTwo, 1906/51, p. 1; and "The Duty of Conservativesand
Unionists," ibid., 1905/116, p. 4. Originalsare located at the Bodleian Library,Oxford.
8"It is Henry George's Budget," ibid., 1909/109.
552
The first Conservativethinker to recognize the need to challenge socialist

ideologues on their own groundwas William HurrellMallock, who took up the
quest in the 1880s, while the Disraelian afterglow still shone brightly. He was
induced to write by his belief that most of his party's supporterscould discern
virtually no intellectual merit in Conservatism;that it was "no more than a
vague sentiment, healthy so far as it went, but incapable of aiding them in
controversy with any glib Radical opponent." In his memoirs he relates an
electoral canvass in which a local Conservativeagent in Devon once replied to a
question of "what the differencebe between a Conservativeand a Radical? . . .
I didn't rightly knaw the philosophyof the thing, so I just said to 'un this: 'You
knaw me; well, I be a Conservative. You knaw Jack Radford-biggest blackguard in the parish-well, he be a Radical. Now you knaw."'9It was to combat
this kind of ignorance and to instill some intellectual rigor to his party that
Mallock sought to establish a Conservativesystem of thought on a scientific
basis. "All that bears any semblance of organized thought or system has belonged to the attackingparty,"he wrote, and "it has been met by nothingbut an
obsolete dogmatismthat cannot even explain itself."'0In Social Equality (1882)
and Labour and the Popular Welfare(1893), Mallock advancedhis principal
contentionson how equality benefittedno one and that social inequalitywould
eventually produce the greatest wealth and well-being for the community at
large. The themes appearedrepeatedlyin all his subsequentworks. His arguments succeeded to some extent in counteractingthe statistical and polemical
assaults on established institutions by the Fabian Society and other leftist
groups, but they failed to generateany complementaryintellectualresponses on
the right. Although Mallock may have foreshadowedthe Thatcheriteinitiatives
of the 1980s, his propositions were too scientific to suit the spirit of his own
age's Conservatism.
By 1910, when the fifth Earl of Malmesbury,a militanttariff reformer,prepared his anthology entitled The New Order: Studies in Unionist Policy, Conservativethoughtstill had little coherence. Malmesburypointedout the need for
a "logical and intelligible system of political philosophy"to supporthis party's
electoral struggles. "Unionism would hardly gain more even by the longed-for
returnof Mr. Chamberlainto the fighting line, or by the advent of a Pitt or a
Disraeli to its front bench," he claimed, "than it would if some philosophical
writerof genius were forthcomingto lay the permanentfoundationsof its twentieth century policy." Admittedly,his volume of essays by leading Conservative
spokesmen was hardly the place for such a momentousundertaking;they propounded "no logical theory" or programand were even "somewhatdisjointed"
9W.H. Mallock, Memoirs of Life and Literature(London, 1920), pp. 20 & 157.
'?W.H. Mallock, Social Equality:A Short Studyin a Missing Science (London, 1882) and Labour
and the Popular Welfare(London, 1893).

in their approachto issues of the day." Things were no better by 1912. "What
does Unionism stand for?" wrote the Diehardleader Lord Willoughbyde Broke
to Henry Page Croft. "I confess I don't know. Tariff Reform and Imperial
Preferencecertainly. But we want to form a definite plan for consolidatingthe
Empire. . . . We want credit, reputation,courage, and a moral existence as a
Party."'2
Likewise Pierse Loftus, a businessmanand aspiringparliamentarycandidate, saw the need for his party to end its state of "driftingopportunism.The
Citizen could never foretell what action the party would take on any one measure, because he did not know . . . what the principles of the party were."'3On
the other hand, Arthur Boutwood, another Conservativewriter, pointed out in
1913 that the reason why modernConservativeshad "neverdevelopeda distinctive philosophy of politics, or defined a distinctive ideal" was because Conservatism itself was "a practicalattitude,ratherthan a reasonedcreed or an articulate hope."'4Quite true; reluctanceto formulatepartydoctrines stemmedfrom a
naturalConservativesuspicion about the perfectibility of man and disdain for
rationalformulas. But it should also be pointed out that the very notion of the
ConservativePartyitself, in any modern sense, was still quite new, and definitions of "what conservatism is" were much less obvious than they appear to
historiansat the end of the twentiethcentury.'5
More typical of Conservativewritings prior to 1914 was the work of several
authors who began to extract some philosophical meaning from various Conservative historical figures. An example is the series of biographicalsketches
which T. E. Kebbel, noted for his works on Disraeli and Lord Derby, composed
into A Historyof Toryismin 1886. Remarkably,he made only scant referenceto
Burke, but his recognitionof a pantheonof Conservativeheroes, includingPitt,
Liverpool, Canning, Wellington, Peel, Derby, and Disraeli served as a sort of
model for twentiethcentury writers who would extractand blend variousphilosophical notions from the actions and words of these individuals.'6Foremost
"Lord Malmesbury,77TeNew Order, Studies in Unionist Policy (London, 1908), p. 4.
'2Willoughbyde Broke to Page Croft, March 30, 1912, Croft Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge, W1/4.
'3PierseLoftus, The ConservativeParty and the Future, A Programmefor ToryDemocracy (London, 1912), p. 9.
'4ArthurBoutwood, National Revival, A Re-statementof ToryPrinciples (1913), p. 4.
'5Recognitionof the rise of the modem British party system, in fact, very likely began with the
social scientific studies of Moisei Ostrogorskii,Democracy and the Organizationof Political Parties, 2 vols. (New York, 1902); A. Lawrence Lowell, "Influence of Party upon Legislation in
Englandand America" in the Annual Reportof the AmericanHistorical Association, 1 (1901), pp.
321-542; and Robert Michels, Political Parties (New York, 1915).
16T.E. Kebbel, A History of Toryism(London, 1886). F. E. Smith follows much the same approach
in Toryism(London, 1903) by employing extracts from speeches and writings of representative
Conservatives from James I to the Duke of Wellington. Again, however, Burke receives slight
recognition.
554
among these writers was Lord Hugh Cecil, a son of Lord Salisburyand Fellow
of HertfordCollege, Oxford.
More than any other writer, Cecil discoveredthe treasuretrove of Conservative thoughtin the writings of EdmundBurke, and he standsas the first twentieth century author to publish a coherent statementof Conservativeprinciples.
The origins of Conservatism,accordingto Cecil, were to be found in the events
associated with the French Revolution, against which Pitt was the "practical
leader."But it was in Burke that "Conservatismfound its first and perhaps its
greatestteacher, who poured forth with extraordinaryrhetoricalpower the language of an anti-revolutionaryfaith, and gave to the Conservativemovementthe
dignity of a philosophical creed and the fervour of a religious crusade." Cecil
did not condemnthe libertarianand individualistideas of liberalismor the state
authorityand social reform concepts of socialism-herein his differences with
Conservatismwere more a matter of degree than kind-but he remained opposed to each on principle. The inherenttendenciesof socialism, however,made
it the greaterthreat. There appearedto be in the socialist movement
an element of Jacobinismas the antagonistConservativeshave for more than a hundred years opposed. The Jacobin went indeed to lengths to which no reasonable
socialist would dream of following, but there is sometimes a taint of Jacobinismin
socialist language. We seem sometimes to catch the Jacobinaccent of reckless disregard of private rights; of merciless hatred towardsthose who, perhaps through no
fault of their own, have become associated with some real or fancied abuse; of that
disposition, not graduallyto develop one state of society out of another,but to make a
clean sweep of institutionsin the interestof a half-thought-outreform. It is in so far
as these elements are present in the socialist movementthat Conservatismis opposed
to it. Conservatismarose to resist Jacobinism,and that is to this day its most essential
and fundamentalcharacteristic.'7
Just as Conservatism,then, had originally emerged as a reactionto the threatof

tyrannyduringthe FrenchRevolution,a similar response seemed appropriateto
the rise of socialism. And it was the great body of Burkeanthought, with its
emphasis on organic change, that providedan inspirationfor the formulationof
a modem Conservativephilosophy.
Cecil's preoccupation with Burke and history was reinforced by Geoffrey
Butler, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, whose 1914 account of
The Tory Traditioncontinued the practice of hagiology. It was the result of a
series of lectures he had delivered at the University of Pennsylvaniaon the four
great captains of Conservatism-Bolingbroke, Burke, Disraeli, and Salisbury.
"Awaywith the glosses of the Radicalcommentators,awaywith the books about
books. 'Man kannnichts anders,''Back to Burke,' 'An open Burke.'He must be
'7LordHugh Cecil, Conservatism(London, 1912), pp. 40, 246-49. In his essay on "Lord Hugh
Cecil," ArthurMejia explores the religious and libertarianbases of Cecil's thoughtand confirms the
influence of Burke (forthcomingin J. A. Thompson and ArthurMejia, eds., EdwardianConservatism: Five Studies in Adaptation[London, 1988].

the Bible of the pure and reformedConservatism,"claimed Butler. It was only
by studying the great leaders of the past that Conservatism could be made
intelligible for the present-"the Tory traditionis the Tory hope.""8Keith Feiling, a young Oxforddon, took anothertack by using the device of a dialogue. In
Toryismhe spoke through Edward Franklin, a sage Tory man of means and
leisure, who instructs his friends on the lessons of Burke and the great Tory
writers of the past. Franklindefined the "genuine Tory spirit" as a "constant
and deep attachmentto the Crowncoupled with a horrorof uniformityof institutions and of economic formulas."He rejectedsocialism for its doctrinalqualities. But these were the propertieshe most found lacking in his own party. "The
very accusationI bring againstthe presentConservativePartyis thattheir policy
is not dictatedby any coherent body of principles: some of it is Whig practice
masqueradingas Tory principles, some of it is prejudiceparadingwith reason,
some of it vote-catching,claiming the name of policy."19
The irony of desiring most the very notion they found least attractive in
socialism would plague thoughtfulConservativesthroughoutthe twentiethcentury. That Cecil, Butler, and Feiling first reckoned with it, and that they were
susceptible to socialist methods as well as critical of them, no doubt stemmed
from their association with academic life. Togetherthey imposed a greaterdegree of structureon Conservativeideas, not in the sense of a rationalconstruct
for some future utopia but of an ordering of practices from the past into a
coherent and defensible body of thought.
The war years broughta hiatusto partisanpolitics and were noticeablydevoid
of theorizing on the natureof Conservatism.After the war the attackon socialism resumedin pamphletand partyliterature.A tractentitled "Bogey Socialism
and Real Socialism" warned voters not to be mislead by Labour protestations
that it would not erect a republic, abolish titles, or close churches. "It is its
economic demandsthat matter.The 'Labour' Partyis going to replace individual enterprise,which has been a success, by Socialism, which, has failed wherever it has been tried."20The intensityof this assault was magnifiedby Labour's
emergence as the major oppositionparty to the Conservativesand by the defection of many Liberalsto Conservativeranks. As with the LiberalUnionists in an
earlier generation, this developmentbroughta furtherinfusion of structuralist
tendenciesto Conservatism.It is hardly surprisingthat Conservativesadopteda
more combativeand principledattitudetowardsthe Labourthreatin the twenties
and issued policy statementson such matters as unemployment,housing, for"8GeoffreyG. Butler, The Tory Tradition,Bolingbroke-Burke-Disraeli-Salisbury
(London, 1914),
pp. 59 and ix.
'9KeithFeiling, Toryism,A Political Dialogue (London, 1913), pp. 96, 40-41.
20"BogeySocialism and Real Socialism,"Archivesof the ConservativeParty,Series One, Pamphlets
and Leaflets, Part Three, 1922/47.
556
eign affairs, the empire, Ireland, trade and industry,and agriculture.2'Program

politics became the order of the day.
Those who wrote on a more philosophical level, though no less cognizant of
the socialist threat, approachedthese programmatictendencies more warily. In
an article in The Timeson "ConservativeBeliefs" in 1923, EdwardWood (later
Lord Halifax) observed that his party had become "the only effective opponent
of Socialism" and that Conservativesshould "reexaminethe intellectualfoundations of their traditionalbeliefs. . . . Throughoutthe country men and women,
of no fixed political allegiance, are eagerly and almost pathetically,inquiringfor
what Conservatismstands, and what message it has to give." Instead of prescribing any program, however, Wood retreated into the vagaries of human
More direct in its attack
instincts-comradeship, independence,and reverence.22
on socialism but equally indirect in formulatingany campaign of action was
E. H. Begbie's The ConservativeMind. Writingunderthe pseudonym"A Gentleman with a Duster," Begbie seemed to attack the socialist monster with a
Burkeanlance:
Conservatismis the very breathof English history.Modem Socialism is a mushroom
forced by Russian atheism on the dunghill of Germaneconomics. The one is at least
an element in every Englishman'spatriotism; the other, the poisonous vodka with
which internationalenthusiastsstimulatetheir blissful vision of a world proletariatin
chains to a world bureaucracy.. . . The danger of the present time lies in a Conservatism false to its traditionsand a Socialism masking its aims. Democracy may here
very easily be confused.
Yet in orderto "help people to understandand appreciatethe fundamentalprinciples of historic Conservatism"Begbie could do no more than present short
biographiesof leading Conservativesof his day. Sir RobertHome, Chancellorof
the Exchequerin the late Coalition, most nearly approximatedBegbie's views.
Home wished the party's rank and file to exhibit "the same enthusiasm for
Conservativeprinciples as that which sends the volunteermissionary of Socialism into the streets of great cities and even into the villages of the countryside."
He also insisted that "the politician cannot live on negatives, and that to be anti
this and anti that does not cut much ice; but he holds that an assertionand a reassertion of Conservativeprinciples is in fact an active and positive effort, and
2ISee such Unionist publications as "What Unionists are Fighting For," ibid., 1922/102; "Answered, A Reply to Philip Snowden'sCase for Socialism," 1923/19; "Whydo Socialists call Themselves 'Labour,'" 1923/29; "Socialists without a Practical Plan," 1923/109; "Socialism Cannot
Cure Unemployment,"1923/120; "Employment,Trade,and EmpireDevelopment,The Prime Minister's Policy," 1923/123; "Five Points of Unionist Programme,"1923/13; "Unionist Six Point Plan
to Help Employment,"1923/132; "Points from Three Programmes,"1924/47; "Looking Ahead, A
Re-statementof Unionist Principlesand Aims," 1924/198; and "The YoungSpiritin an Old PartyProgress," 1925/1.
22EdwardWood, "ConservativeBeliefs," 77TeTimes, March 14, 1924, p. 13.

that it is far better to make this assertion than to attemptto outbid in detail the
millennialpromises of the Socialist." The leader whose views were least agreeable to Begbie was Neville Chamberlain.Ironically it was ultimatelyChamberlain, who saw much in socialism to emulate, who fulfilled Home's hope for a
positive effort.23
In 1927 WalterElliot, M.P. and occupant of various ministerialposts, published Toryismand the TwentiethCentury,but there was little in it to indicate
that the party had yet emerged from the nineteenthcentury or was preparedto
handle contemporaryproblems in any deliberate way. Fully half the book is
consumed with reconditedetails on the party's tradition,citing not only Burke
and Pitt but John Hampden, John Wesley, and various episodes from British
regimentalhistories. Perhapsthe most atavisticdisplayof reasoningis contained
in his argument for the superiority of the English "twelve" over the metric
"ten" and "five." The latter he regardedas
one of the most inconvenientnumbersto figure with, since it can neitherbe divided
into halves, thirds or quarters.The five-fingeredlimb was evolved millions of years
ago to transmitpower and not to reckon by. Thereforeby practice many races have
worked out a foot that should contain twelve inches, a shilling that should contain
twelve pence, a day that should contain two periods of twelve hours, a year of twelve
months, etc., etc., etc. Against this the rationalistsstill wage unceasing war-in the
name of Progress.
To Elliot, Toryismwas "first of all the creed of continuity,the knowledgethat a

generationof men is no more than a trusteein the name of the past for the sake
of the future."24
The appeal of Anthony Ludovici, an author and sometime artist best known
for his translationsof Nietzsche, was also to history.In A Defence of Conservatism he disclaimed any intentionto write a historicaltreatise, but his account is
steeped in the traditionsof the past two centuries. However much he avoided
doing it himself, he saw the need to clarify Conservativedoctrine for rankand
file members who have "too often stolen a leaf from the Liberal and even the
Jacobin book, or initiated policies which were not Conservativein spirit." As
Hugh Cecil must have felt earlier, it was obvious to Ludovici that his party
labouredunder the great disadvantageof having only a very sparse literature.Even
historical treatises, ever since the Grand Rebellion, have been chiefly the work of
Whigs. . . . Treatises on the principles of the Tory and Conservativefaith hardly
exist, and the studentof these principleshas to fall back upon the writings of Bolingbroke, Burke and Disraeli, with possibly Pitt's speeches thrown in. Now none of
these writers, except possibly Bolingbrokeand Disraeli, ever set out to write a methodicaltreatiseon Conservativepolitics, and the consequenceis that, even with their
23E.H. Begbie, "A Gentlemanwith a Duster,"The ConservativeMind (London, 1925), pp. 9, 41,
70.
24WalterElliot, Toryismand the TwentiethCentury(London, 1927), pp. 57 and 19.
558

works at his fingers' ends, the student is often in possession of mere epigrams and
tags, ratherthan systematic doctrine. And the same holds good of modern writers.
The majorityof able penmen are either Liberal or Socialist.
The great weakness of the ConservativeParty Ludovici perceived to be "the

absence behind it of any thinking body, to which its active politicians could
resort for enlightenment,guidanceand ideas."25Little appearedto have changed
since the days of Mallock.
It was fortuitousthat at the very time when Ludovici was making his appeal
for a "think-tank,"Neville Chamberlainwas laying the foundations for the
ConservativeResearchDepartment.Originallya LiberalUnionist, he sharedhis
father'spenchantfor programpolitics, and sponsorednumeroussocial reforms
as Minister of Health in the 1920s. The ResearchDepartmentdeveloped out of
the perceived need to formulateparty policy for electoral purposes, chiefly in
industrial,imperial, and social affairs, and therebyreverse the election defeats
of 1923 and 1929. The institutionresultedin a greaterideological commitment
and contributedin no small way to Chamberlain'semergence as leader of the
party.In 1930 he recordedthat "it is an immense comfortto my orderlymind to
have the Research Department in existence. I wish I knew a rich man who
would give it a whackingbig sum to endow it." No longer would Conservatives,
with this capacity to collect, analyze, and disseminateinformation,deserve the
derisive left-wing label of "stupid party."Furthermore,as its historian points
out, the Research Departmentwould serve as a training ground for numerous
party leaders, includingIain Macleod, ReginaldMaudling, and Enoch Powell.26
Conservatismat last seemed to be enteringthe twentiethcentury.
With the advent of the second Labour Governmentin 1929 there appeareda
spate of books which attemptedto improve upon the definition of Conservatism.27ArthurBryantwas inspiredto write The Spirit of Conservatismby questions from studentsat StottCollege aboutwhy they were Conservatives.Bryant,
25AnthonyM. Ludovici, A Defence of Conservatism, A Further Text-Bookfor Tories (London,

1926), pp. 75, 131-2, 245.
26SeeJohn Ramsden, TheMakingof ConservativePartyPolicy: The ConservativeResearchDepartment since 1929 (London, 1980), p. 52. Ramsden furtherestimated that the Parliamentelected in
May 1979 included no less than 25 ex-researchofficers as ConservativeM.P.s.
27Therewas also a dramaticincrease in the numberof books on Toryism.Keith Feiling observedthat
"the intellectualgenealogy of Toryismhas been dissected of late with as much ardourand diversity
as that of Communismor the English Church."Forewordby Feiling in R. L. Hill, Toryismand the
People, 1832-1846 (London, 1929), p. v. Also see his History of the ToryParty, 1640-1714 (Oxford, 1924); Maurice Woods, A History of the ToryParty in the Seventeenthand EighteenthCenturies (London, 1924); Sir R. M. Banks, The ConservativeOutlook (London, 1929); and Viscount
Lymington,Ich Dien, The ToryPath (London, 1931). On Conservatismsee A. A. Baumann,Burke:
The Founderof Conservatism(London, 1929); and T. E. Welby, "The True Conservatism,"The
FortnightlyReview 133 (February,1930): 178-183.

like many previous Conservativeauthors,was indirect, identifyinghis partyless
by what it was thanby what it was not. "It does not pretend,"Bryantcontended,
"to expound a programme,to discuss the details of contemporarypolicy, or to
representan official view." It was "history"that providedConservatismwith "a
practical creed for men."28The concomitant notion of Tories as the natural
leaders of the English people is a logical extension of this concept. For many
Conservatives, the belief that they had no ideology had become in itself an
ideology. Despite repeateddenials that Conservatismcould be molded into an
ideology, philosophy,or creed, the frequentembodimentof the same ideas and
leaders from the past into Conservativethoughtwas having a crystallizingeffect
on it. Conveniently,there now existed a corpus of twentieth century writersStanley Baldwin, Baron Melchett, Geoffrey Butler, Walter Elliot, Austin
Hopkinson, Ian Colvin, and Lord Hugh Cecil-who could be added to party
luminariesof previouscenturies for inspirationand guidance.29When a need to
counter Labour policy initiatives and the desire for greater voter appeal were
mingled with this propensityfor historical lessons, the inevitable effect was to
induce greaterstructureto Conservativeideas.
During the ideologically-orientedthirties the threatof socialism continuedto
govern the course of Conservativethought. This was essentially the basis for
The Rebirthof Conservatismby Conservativewriter Dorothy Crisp, who supplemented her own polemic with spirited essays from young Conservativesat
the universities.30But the most rigorous articulationof Conservative thought
thus far came from Professor F. J. C. Hearnshawof King's College, London.
He presumed to understandthe "menace of socialism" by having previously
publisheda study of it, in which he concluded that the "history of socialism in
all its protean forms-Utopian, Marxian, Fabian, Guild-is a long and lamentable record of unrealised theories, addled experiments, and disillusioned
dupes."3'His observationthat Conservatismwas the only practicalalternativeto
socialism, since the demise of the Liberals, was by no means new. Neither was
it new that socialism, with the resources of the FabianSociety and the London
School of Economics, was far more analyticaland explicit about its aims. What
Hearnshawdid for Conservatismwas to provide an etymology and rationalefor
Conservative intellectual reticence. "Compared with socialists, conservatives
28ArthurBryant, The Spirit of Conservatism(London, 1929), pp. ix-x.
29SeeStanleyBaldwin, On England (London, 1926), Lord Melchett, Industryand Politics (London,
1927); Butler, The Tory Tradition;Elliot, Toryismin the TwentiethCentury: Austin Hopkinson,
Religio Militis (London, 1927); Ian Colvin, Origins of Empire (London, 1926) and Cecil, Conservatism.
30DorothyCrisp, The Rebirthof Conservatism(London, 1931), p. 8.
31F.J. C. Hearnshaw,A Surveyof Socialism, Analytical, Historical, and Critical (London, 1928),
p. 327.
560
are as a rule conspicuouslyunreadyto state precisely what they believe and why
they believe it." Conservatism,a defensivecreed, "tends to be silent, lethargic,
confused, incoherent,inarticulate,unimpressive.. . . From the natureof things,
conservatismcan never produce, and can never require, such masses of verbiage
as are produced and required by socialism. For socialism is little else than
literature.Destroy its tractsand its manifestos, and most of it vanishes into thin
air. What remains is merely the lamentablerecord of its few disastrousexperiments." Conservatism,on the other hand, rested on tried and provenhistorical
realities, and Hearnshawmaintainedthat, given the scantinessand inarticulation
of Conservativeliterature,the best textbook on British Conservatismwould be
the constitutionalhistory of England-the works of Stubbs, Hallam, Maitland,
and May.32The essence of Conservatismshould be seen as implicit within the
developmentof the English nation.
Hearnshaw'saccount was traditionalistin the Burkeanmold. Despite his insistence that Conservatismwas a spirit and not easily reducedto a program,he
recognized that many public statementson supposed Conservativeprinciples
during the previous decade had a Marxian ratherthan a Burkeanbasis. "They
all, accepting the socialist lead, lay almost exclusive emphasis on economic
concerns." For evidence he cited a policy statementissued in October 1930:
Rigorous economy; reduction of taxation; thorough reform of the unemployment
system; effective protectionfor our manufacturingindustriesagainstforeign competition by the immediateintroductionof an emergency tariff; a guaranteedwheat price
for the British farmer,combined with a tax on foreign maltingbarley,and the prevention of the dumpingof foreign oats and other produce; a system to secure a definite
market for home-grown and empire wheat; and, finally, concerted action with the
dominions in order to promotethe economic unity of the empire.33
Especially in a section entitled "The Problem with a Programme"Hearnshaw

recognized, for the first time, that the more Conservatismwas defined in programmaticand economic terms the less it was Conservatism.Unfortunatelythe
very process of his making Conservativeideas more coherent and better able to
counter socialist ideas on a practicallevel only made them more susceptible to
theoreticaldilution.
With the emergence of nationalsocialism in Germanyin the thirties, Conser32F.J. C. Heamshaw, Conservatismin England, An Analytical, Historical, and Political Survey
(London, 1933), pp. 4-10. Hearnshawtracedthe lineage of his own accountback to the historiesof
Toryism by Kebbel, Feiling, and Woods, and to the formulationsof Conservativeideas by Cecil,
Butler, Banks, Elliot, and Bryant.See also William Stubbs, The ConstitutionalHistory of England,
in its Origin and Development, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1874-79); Henry Hallam, The Constitutional
History of Englandfrom the Accession of Henry VII to the Death of George II, 2 vols. (London,
1827); FredericWilliam Maitland, The ConstitutionalHistory of England (Cambridge, 1903); and
Sir Thomas Erskine May, The ConstitutionalHistory of England since the Accession of George the
Third, 1760-1860 (London, 1861-63).
33Ibid.,pp. 294-5, and The 7imes (October 16, 1930), p. 14.

vatism faced an even greater ideological threat, made much more serious because it came from the rightand appealedto manyof the same values Conservatism did. Reginald Northam, a young barristerwho later became Principal of
Swinton ConservativeCollege, pronounced Conservatismas "the only way."
"Socialism is defeatism. So is Fascism. To introduceeither system would be to
admit that we are unable to cope with new conditions."34In an anthology on
Conservatismand the Future, Lord Eustace Percy, formerly President of the
Board of Education, noted that to Toryism, "more than to any other school of
political thought, 'totalitarianism'is, in principle, fundamentallyrepugnant."
Another rising M.P. (and future Speaker), W. S. Morrison, echoed Hearnshaw
in his regret that economics had intrudedinto public affairs. The Conservative
Party,he alleged, had always been "very suspicious of any meddling with its
politics by non-political people." But E. Thomas Cook insisted that the only
recourse Conservativeshad in the face of the more structuredmethods of their
opponents was to become more structuredthemselves; that they should "lay
before the electors, not at a general election, but (say) two years before it, a
planned long-term policy, explicitly based on coherent principles." He recognized that the secret to the socialists' strengthwas regimentationof the masses
by the party'stuning its appeal to "one constantpitch."
The materialof their propagandahas been of the crudest, unsubstantialas a wraith,
often a mere emotional appeal to the discontents of the underdog;but it has proved
potent because it has been embodied in the actual and continual sacrifice by thousands of party workers . . . If they, with such poor material, have been able to do so
much, there is groundfor believing that a real policy, backed by all the resources of
tradition and foresight which the conservative party have at their disposal, would
enlist sufficient constant support to guarantee a governmentat least ten years of
office.
Cook believed that if dictatorshipwas to be averted, the ConservativeParty

"must formulateits alternativemuch more clearly than it has yet done."35
It was the achievementof Harold Macmillan to bring about a reconciliation
between the seemingly disparateprinciples of maintainingConservativetraditions and resortingto systematicpreparationsfor nationalgrowth.Appropriately
titled The Middle Way,Macmillan's 1938 book was a culminationof ideas on
national planning he had been formulatingsince the mid-twenties with other
ConservativeM.P.s representingindustrialconstituencies.36Macmillan did not
34ReginaldNortham, "Conservatismthe Only Way"(London, 1939), pp. 257, 273.
35E.Thomas Cook, ed., Conservatismand the Future(London, 1935), pp. 21, 43, 311, 318.
36Macmillan'sideas on social and economic development were first formulated in R. Boothby,
Harold Macmillan, John de V. Loder & Oliver Stanley,Industry& the State, A ConservativeView
(London, 1927). They were then carriedforwardby PEP (Political and Economic Planning)in 1931
and "The Next Five Years Group" in 1935. For a discussion on how Macmillan's group was
inspired by the ideas of Noel Skelton, M.P. for Perth, see W. H. Greenleaf, The British Political
Tradition,4 vols. (London, 1983), 2: 247-248-volumes three and four forthcoming.
562
believe his new philosophy, based on Keynesian economics, was inconsistent

with Conservatism.Indeed, it representedan evolutionaryratherthan a doctrinaire approachto the social and economic problems of his day. His recommendation for a modicum of regulated capitalism was based not so much on any
abstractprincipleas it was on the Conservativetraditionof applying knowledge
gained from experience to the solution of current problems. He advocateda
Burkeanview that society should not be seen as a laboratorybut as a complex
organism, "as an inheritanceof the past and a precursor of the future; as a
changing and developing structurewhich must of necessity be modified and
adaptedto new circumstances."Britain,he insisted, "has been movingalong the
road towards economic planning for many years now in accordance with the
traditionalEnglish principles of compromise and adjustment."It was only by
pursuing"this middle course that we can avoidresortingto measuresof political
discipline and dictatorship."37
Macmillan's initiative broughtabout the so-called "New Conservatism"and
shaped the party's developmentover the next thirty-five years. It could be argued, indeed, that The Middle Wayeven preceded any Labour manifesto as a
harbingerfor post-war planning. Though eclipsed by the Beveridge Report, it
did at least serve as a basis for the Conservatives'Industrial Charterof 1947.
This remarkabledocument,thoughadoptingthe style of socialism, drew a sharp
distinction between the parties. "Socialists believe in giving people orders.
Conservativesbelieve in giving people opportunity.That is the great difference
between these two big Parties.' A bitter denunciationof socialism was accompanied by a vigorous claim that planning was, after all, not out of line with
Conservativetraditions.38In spite of its devastatingelectoral defeat in 1945,
post-warConservatismobviously had never resigned itself to defeatismor guilt
for alleged shortcomingsduring the interwarperiod. Two years before the Industrial Charter,QuintinHogg, a Macmillanprotege who later served as Lord
Chancellor under both EdwardHeath and MargaretThatcher,fought fire with
fire by counteringvarious scurriloussocialist publicationspoint by point on the
same level in TheLeft was NeverRight.39 By such means Conservativesbegan to
resemble their opponentsin style and eventuallyin substance.
37HaroldMacmillan, TheMiddle Way:A Studyof the Problemof Economicand Social Progressin a
Free and Democratic Society (London, 1938), pp. 109-86. For commentary on this important
statementof conservatismsee also Macmillan'sTheMiddle Way:20 years after (London, 1958) and
Windsof Change (London, 1966), p. xvi.
38"TheIndustrialCharter,"Archives of the British ConservativeParty, Series One, Pamphletsand
Leaflets, Part four, 1947/36. Also see "The Right Road for Britain," 1949/27.
39QuintinHogg, The Left WasNever Right (London, 1945). The publicationswhich Hogg attacked
most strongly were GuiltyMen, ToryM.P, The Trialof Mussolini, and Brendanand Beverley.For
other attackson socialism, on a slightly differentplane see AubreyJones, The Pendulumof Politics
(London, 1946), pp. 30, 32, and the Marquess of Salisbury, "The Faith of a Conservative,"Archives of the British ConservativeParty, Series One, Pamphletsand Leaflets, Partfour, 1948/20.

Despite Macmillan's claims of continuity, his gospel of planning departed
from traditionalConservatism in two importantparticulars-its emphasis on
structureand its almost total preoccupationwith economic matters. There still
existed, however, a distinctive and distinguishedbody of Conservativewriters
who adheredto Burkeanvalues. L. S. Amery, R. J. White, and Nigel Birch all
reiteratedthe Conservatives'view of society as an organism, the impossibilityof
codifying its precepts, and the importanceof history to any understandingof
them.' Such an approachunderlaywhat is generallyconsideredthe most revealing statementon post-warConservatism,made in 1947 by QuintinHogg in Case
for Conservatism.Relying heavily on Lord Hugh Cecil's Conservatism,Hogg
denied the existence of any precise philosophyfor his partyand devotedchapters
to "The Liberal Heresy" and "The Socialist Heresy."Conservatives, he said,
see "no inconsistency in having opposed Liberals and Whigs in the name of
authority,Socialists in the name of freedom. The ground is the same, but it is
being attackedfrom a differentdirection. . . . The great heresy of our age is no
longer self-interest, it is StateWorship,and insteadof the altarsbeing ablaze in
honour of Mammon, we make our children pass throughthe fire of Moloch."
Successive chaptersdealt with policy matters, but they were largely couched in
terms of traditionalConservatismand freely laced with quotes from Cecil.4'
Much serious thinkingwas going on aboutthe party'sidentityby mid-pointin
the twentiethcentury.Althoughit still clung tenaciouslyto the inarticulatetraditions of the previous century, the structuredforce of socialism was driving the
party forwardalong the path of ideology.42Some of the most importantcontributions to Conservative philosophy at this time came from abroad. In the
atmosphere of the Cold War, American writers demonstrateda strong anticommunist bias, but their views on British Conservatismwere often objective
and astute. Peter Viereck, Professor of History at Mount Holyoke College,
attemptedto define the Conservativeposition in ConservatismRevisited, The
4OSeeL. S. Amery, "The ConservativeFuture, An Outlineof Policy,"ibid., 1946/68; R. J. White,
The ConservativeTradition(London, 1950), p. 1; and Nigel Birch, The ConservativeParty (London, 1949), p. 31; and a series of articles by W. L. Burn on "Conservatism"in the Nineteenth
Centuryand After 141 (February,1947), 57-67; 145 (Januaryand February,1949), 1-11, 67-76. A
very young PeterWalker,who later held CabinetrankunderEdwardHeath, recalled meetingAmery
about this time and was strongly urged to read the works of Burke. Peter Walker, The Ascent of
Britain (London, 1977), p. 14.
4'Quintin Hogg, The Case for Conservatism(West Drayton, 1947), pp. 13, 62. This blend of
traditionand regimentationis echoed to a great extent in Conservatism,1945-1950 (London, 1950)
publishedby the ConservativePolitical Centre.
42A realization of the impact of Labour on the Conservatives was evident in the contemporary
observationsof Marxiantheorist John Strachey: "If a man were asked to name the greatest single
achievementof the British LabourPartyover the past twenty five years, he might well answer, the
transformationof the British Conservativeparty."A. Rogow and P. Shore, The Labour Government
and British Industry,1945-51 (Oxford, 1955), p. x.
564
Revolt Against Revolt, 1815-1949 and Conservatism, From John Adams to

Churchill.Especially in the latterbook he drew from the experience of Britain,
notingthat "so manyauthoritiesagree thathers is the most conservativetemperament of all," which pervaded "the Labor party as much as the Conservative
party. The result is to make her capitalists nondoctrinaireand her socialists
gradualists."He datedthe origin of Conservatismto Burke'spublicationin 1790
of the Reflectionson the Revolutionin France "in the same way that the birth of
internationalMarxism is dated by the CommunistManifesto of 1848," and he
recognizedHugh Cecil as "a leading twentieth-centuryphilosopherof conservatism." Encapsulatingthe movement as an "ism," Viereck derived perhaps a
more succinct definition than any previous author,considering it to be
an inarticulatestate of mind, not at all an ideology. Liberalismargues, conservatism
simply is. When conservatismbecomes ideologized, logical, and self-conscious, then
it resemblesthe liberal rationalistswhom it opposes; it becomes a mere liberalismof
conservatism. . . . Because conservatismembodies ratherthan argues, its best insights are not sustainedtheoreticalworks . . . but the quick thrust of epigrams.43
Likewise, Russell Kirk, America's foremost theorist of Conservatism,denied

that it could be reduced to any set formula in a book incongruouslytitled A
Programfor Conservatives.The ideologist, he asserted, "is convinced that in
his rigid closet-philosophyall the answers to all the problems of humanityare
plain to be discerned. . . . He is the devotee, often, of what Burke called 'an
armed doctrine.' His ancestor was Procrustes, and he is resolved to stretch or
hack all the world until it fits his bed." The true Conservative, on the other
hand, "knows that the economic problemblends into the political problem, and
the political problem into the ethical problem, and the ethical problem into the
religious problem."'
Conservatismcould outwardlybe perceived as a religion, but the forces that
most matteredin the New Conservatismof the fifties and sixties were materialistic. In the early fifties there emerged three socialist-style supportinggroups
that would lend it structureand identity. The Conservative Political Centre,
formed in 1947, sought to disseminateideas within the partyby providingparty
workerswith general informationthroughtwelve area officers, organizingconferences and meetings (including a summer school at Oxford or Cambridge),
stimulatingdiscussion between the party faithfulin the constituencies, and serv43PeterViereck, Conservatism,FromJohn Adams to Churchill (Princeton, 1956), pp. 10, 15-16.
Also see his ConservatismRevisited:TheRevoltAgainst Revolt, 1815-1949 (New York, 1949), and
Luigi Savastano'sContemporaryBritish Conservatism:Its Natureand Content(New York, 1953) for
similar views.
"Russell Kirk, A Programfor Conservatives(Chicago, 1954), pp. 3-5. See also his The Conservative Mind (London, 1954).

ing as a publishing house. By 1961 the Centre had published over 225 titles.45
Secondly, in 1951 a small group of recent Oxford graduatesat an east London
Conservativeclub formed the Bow Group. It developed into a sort of Fabian
Society for Conservatives,having as its object the promotionof ideas that were
liberaland progressive,but withoutadheringto any collective policy. The group
exercised influence through several dozen study groups, which performedresearch, and educatedthe public by means of pamphletsand its quarterlyjournal,
-the Crossbow. Finally, the One Nation Group was foundedin 1950 by a group
of outspoken backbenchersto exercise influence over the parliamentaryparty.
The effect of these three bodies, contendedthe Bow Group'sJulianCritchleyin
1961, was to change the public image of the Tories and to disprove the once
fashionableleftist taunt "thatto be both a Conservativeand an intellectualwas
After nearly a centurythe Conservativeswere still tryingto divest
impossible."47
themselves of the "stupid party" sobriquet.
The presence of these ginger groups, along with the theoretical orientation
providedby Macmillan'sMiddle Wayand the general acquiescence in Labour's
collectivist innovations between 1945 and 1951, propelled the Conservative
Party to a position somewhat akin to that of Labour. Conservatives merely
presided over what they inherited, did not attemptto turn back the clock, and
competed electorally for the middle ground. A drift, therefore, towardssocialism and corporatism was a prominent feature in Conservative regimes from
1951 to 1964 and 1970 to 1974. An entire issue of The Political Quarterly
devotedin 1961 to the ConservativePartyemphasizedits adaptability;an editorial introductionobserved that "if a guiding principle must be looked for, it is
simply the assumption,unquestionedat any level of the party,thatthe Conservative Party ought to govern and will govern, even though there be no other
principleto guide its course." Likewise RichardHornby,ConservativeM.P. for
Tonbridge,stressed pragmatism."Conservativeprinciples, in fact, will not and
cannot provide a precise and infallible guide to futureconservativepolicy. Frequently these principles point in completely opposite directions."48To Harvey
45Twoof the most importantCPC publicationsduring this period were Enoch Powell and Angus
Maude, eds., Change is Our Ally (London, 1954) and The New Conservatism,An Anthologyof
Post-WarThought(London, 1955).
46Forexample, see David Howell's Principles in Practice (London, 1961), a series of Bow Group
essays for the sixties by LeonardBeaton, Alec Campbell, David Fairbairn,and Geoffrey Howe in
which the party's principles are claimed to be "loose and unexceptionable."
47JulianCritchley, "The Intellectuals,"Th7ePolitical Quarterly32 (July-Sept., 1961): 267.
48"TheAdaptableParty,"and Richard Hornby, "ConservativePrinciples," The Political Quarterly
32 (July-Sept., 1961): 210, 233. An earlier special edition on Conservatism appeared in The
Political Quarterly24 (April-June, 1953): 125-209. William Rees-Mogg, in "The Personalityof
the Conservative Party," The WisemanReview 236 (Winter 1962-63): 276-9, presents another
typical view of this period.
566
Glickmanit was the adaptabilityof Toryismand its receptivityto doctrinewhich

enabled it to accept the welfare state after World War II. Collectivism and
doctrinalconcepts, Glickmanargued, were as much a part of the Conservative
tradition as was pragmatism.49And David Howell, in an article in Crossbow,
relished the way in which Conservativeshad acceptedthe Keynesianframework
of national economic planning. He rationalized, strikingly,that "planningbecomes, in a sense, a means for doing without more detailed Socialist planning."50This argumentwas simply a more explicit and updatedversion of the
strategyof combattingsocialism with socialism which Conservativeshad been
employing since the time of Mallock.
The Conservative Party's success in securing by such techniques a larger
share of the political middle groundwas called "Butskellism"in the later fifties
and early sixties when R. A. Butler and Hugh Gaitskell dominated policy
formation in the Conservativeand Labour parties respectively. It resulted in
three successive (and incremental) electoral victories and coincided with an
upturnin trade and a comparative"age of affluence." The most troublingfeature of this consensus style for Conservativeswas its acceptanceof materialist
concerns as the basis for the conduct of government. The CommonProblem
recognized in his book of that title by Angus Maude, a former Director of the
CPC, was that "the primacyof economics" had "usurpedalmostthe entire field
of politics."5 Confrontedby this time with the post-industrialphenomenonof
"stagflation,"Britishpoliticians had become absorbedby the more bureaucratic
notions of technical efficiency, statistics, and techniques, forsaking Churchill's
admonition that "the role of the expert is not to be on top but on tap."52To
FrederickHayek'sobservationin 1960 that "it has been regularlythe conservatives who havecompromisedwith socialism and stolen its thunder,"David Howell retortedfrom the vantagepoint of the Bow Groupthat "the economics of the
right . . . continue to be shot through with what the Germans used to call
Manchesterismus,the very antithesisof Toryism, combined with the starkstric49HarveyGlickman, "The Toryness of English Conservatism,"The Journal of British Studies 1
(November, 1961): 111-43. Glickmanhastenedto add, however,that "receptivityto a lTdor mercantilist conceptions of the role of governmentshould not be magnified into reformist zeal, or
worse, into notions of Tory Utopianism. Although Toryism entails identifiable beliefs about the
natureof society, it remains merely a simulacrumof an ideology."
50DavidHowell, "Modern Conservatism in Search of Its Principles," Crossbow 6 (July-Sept.,
1963): 24. W. L. Burn's chapteron "The ConservativeTraditionand Its Reformulations"in Henry
R. Winkler,ed., Twentieth-Century
Britain:National Power and Social Welfare(New York, 1976),
stresses the adaptive and accommodative nature of Conservatism, and represents a considerable
advancein his thinking on the natureof Conservatismfrom his post-wararticles.
51AngusMaude, The CommonProblem(London, 1969), p. 273.
52Citedin Philip Norton and Arthur Aughey, Conservativesand Conservatism(London, 1981),
p. 73.

It was equally obvious, however,that
tures of professorsHayekand Friedman."53
the left and the right wings within the ConservativePartywere well advancedin
their acceptanceof the divergentconcerns of economics and ideology.
The bases for an intrapartyrift had been laid as early as Hayek'spublication
of TheRoad to Serfdomin 1944.54 It slowly became a reality afterthe Conservative defeat in 1964 and reached a climax a decade later with the two electoral
defeats in 1974. The first prominentparty member to repudiatethe "middle
But
ground"was LordColeraine, Bonar Law's son, in For ConservativesOnly.55
in
that
of
the
within
the
the
there was a growing sense
party general
policy
Macmillanyears, so closely akin to socialism, was bankrupt,as Britainexperienced relativedecline and a host of economic woes. Therewas also a heightened
awareness of the menace of socialism as the party gravitatedfrom the New
Conservatismto the even more ideologically based politics of the "New Right."
This shift took place during the Edward Heath administrationfrom 1970 to
1974, which was permeatedwith socialistic tendencies. Heath professeda kind
of moderate Conservatismcharacteristicof Macmillan, but he was forced to
adopt the "Selsdon Man" approach, which required a large degree of state
interventionin the form of an incomes policy.56
The failure of the IndustrialRelations Act either to control inflation or break
the power of unions resulted in the party's downfall in 1974 and the rise of
Margaret Thatcher as Conservative leader in 1975. The importance of this
change in leadershipin the Conservatives'emerging ideological traditioncannot
be understated.By her emphaticrejectionof Keynesianeconomics, advocacyof
monetaristeconomic policies, and emphasison freedom from state interference,
Thatcher clearly advanced to the intellectual vanguardof British politics. "I
feel," she boasted in the forewordto RobertBlake's Conservatismin an Age of
Revolution, "that at long last Conservativesare winning the ideological battle
against Socialism."57In 1977 Robert Behrens even labelled the resultantConservativesearch for identity in terms of ideology.
The twin circumstancesof national decline and Partyelectoral failure have precipitated a retreat (or an advance) by Conservatives into a discussion concerning the
natureof Conservatism.Much of the debatehas takenthe form of a search for what is
called "true" or "authentic"Conservatism. . . . It derives from those transcendent
notions which are said to constitutethe Conservativeideology.
53Howell,"Modern Conservatism,"p. 25.

54FrederickHayek, The Road to Serfdom(London, 1944).
55LordColeraine, For ConservativesOnly (London, 1970).
56Forstudies on Heath and his approach to politics see George Hutchinson, Edward Heath, A
Personal and Political Biography (London, 1970), and Andrew Roth, Heath and the Heathmen
(London, 1972).
57RobertBlake, Conservatismin an Age of Revolution(London, 1976), p. 3.
568
The most recognizable featureof Conservativerhetoric, according to Behrens,

was its emphasis on "freedom."From this position Toriesdenied that there was
"any substantialdifference between the policies of the LabourPartyand Marxism." At the 1976 annualconference, Thatcherdeclaredthat "the dividing line
between the LabourPartyprogrammeand Communismis becoming harderand
harderto detect," and Michael Hesseltine declared that the "red flag has never
flown throughoutthese islands yet....
It is only our party that can keep it that
way."It was the Soviet press, after all, that first dubbedMargaretThatcher"the
Iron Lady" for her defense speech in Kensingtonin January1976.58
Partymoderatesregardedthese new posturingsas regrettableand out of keeping with the Burkeantraditionsof Conservatism.Even as late as 1977 it was still
possible for most Conservativesto believe that "any account of conservatismas
a political theory must start with, and largely consist of, Burke's thought."59
What Burke was attacking,said Peter Walker,a close associate of Heath, "was
very much like the ideology of Marxist, socialist, or believer in extremelaissezfaire of our own day. For,just as in the eighteenthcenturymen believed that the
scientific discoveries of the Enlightenmentenabled them to plan the future developmentof society, so, in our own time, the developmentof Marxismhas led
many to believe that politics can be reduced to ideology." Walker urged the
restorationof the single nation traditionof Burke, Disraeli, Chamberlain,and
Macmillan which "rejects dangerous doctrines; it is a tradition that Britain
needs to turn to today more urgently than at any time in our history."' On the
other hand, Rhodes Boyson, a recent convert from socialism, argued in Centre
Forwardthat the Thatcheriteposition was fully in keeping with Burkeantraditions. Just as Burke had reacted to the threat of the French Revolution, "a
revised broad Conservatism"was emerging in Boyson's view as a "reactionto
the growthof Marxist ideas and the armedthreatof the brutalrepressiveSoviet
empire. There is once again an internal ideological and an external military
threatwhich should bring us to realize what we standto lose: our freedom and
our lives." Attackingthe former party leadershipas much as he did the socialists, Boyson maintainedthat the "real centre ground" in the views of the electorateon most issues was "twentydegrees to the right of the ConservativeParty.
The voters have not left us. We have left them."6'
The strongestexpressionof "New Right" views was containedin a volume of
ConservativeEssays producedby the SalisburyGroup, a collection of scholars
58RobertBehrens, The ConservativePartyin Opposition, 1974-1977-a critical analysis (Coventry,
1977, pp. 3, 18, 21.
59R.J. Bennett, "The Conservative Traditionof Thought: A Right Wing Phenomenon?" in N.
Nugentand R. King, TheBritish Right: Conservativeand Right WingPolitics in Britain (Westmead,
1977), p. 14.
6OWalker,
Ascent of Britain, pp. 14, 39.
61RhodesBoyson, CentreForward,A Radical ConservativeProgramme(London, 1978).
BritishConservatism
in the Twentieth
Century 569
MauriceCowling,
sharinga common associationwith Peterhouse,Cambridge.62
the editor, explained that Thatchergrew up in the late forties and early fifties,
and reflected "the antitotalitarianism
inventedat thattime by writers like Hayek,
Popper,Talmon,and Berlin,"though it was hardlytheir intentionthat their ideas
should be appropriatedby the Conservativeright. Likewise her use of Adam
Smith was "partly to play a respectabletheoreticalname against Marx." Cowling regardedLord Salisbury,whom he called the "giant of conservativedoctrine,"as a much more appropriatemodel, whose traditionalToryviews evoked
more sympathythan Thatcher'sclassical liberal tendencies.
Thatcher's doctrinaire approach to party politics had a strong appeal, and
Cowling looked approvinglyon the reentryof the intellectualinto politics. "It
used to be implied-it was one of the most important assumptions of
post-war Conservatism-that the intelligentsia had done enough damage and
should now keep quiet. In face of Cole, Laski, Stracheyand Tawneyand in the
shadow of Churchillian reassurance, this was an understandablereaction."63
The intellectual bases for the "New Right" were sketched with sympathetic
irony by T. E. Utley's essay on "The Significance of Mrs. Thatcher":
On the one hand, we are told, there is Sir Keith Joseph and his intellectual Mafia.
This is representedas a group of dedicated fanatics wholly outside the authentic
English Conservativetraditionand committedto a total reorganizationof society on
the basis of the principles of classical liberalismas understoodby the populist interpreters of Professor Hayek. Sir Keith is portrayedas sitting in a private office in
Westminster,surroundedby remorseless academics, of alien spiritualancestry, preparing the establishmentof a liberal Utopia in Britain.
Although Utley made light of the new doctrinairequality of Conservatism,he

did admit that the circumstancesof Thatcher's rise "made it easy for her to
become a prisoner of a faction." Her interests in economic and fiscal matters
were derivedlargely from her tax lawyertraining,and she rose to the leadership
as an understudyof Sir KeithJoseph, an Oxforddon. Utley insisted, unconvincingly, that despite these ideological inclinationsThatcher"is an instinctiveand
wholly English Conservative" who possibly has "less need of support from
busy pamphleteers,think tanks, seminarsand researchthan she has been led to
suppose."'
Other authors in Cowling's group were less assured of the authenticity of
Thatcher'sConservatism.JohnCasey, in "Traditionand Authority,"insistedthat
62SeeDavid Edgar'selaborationon "The PeterhouseSchool" in Ruth Levitas, ed., TheIdeology of
the New Right (Oxford, 1986).
63MauriceCowling, ConservativeEssays (London, 1978), pp. 2, 19, 21-22. Accordingto Cowling,
"the giant of conservativedoctrine is Salisbury,with Churchill, Eliot, Disraeli, Waughand Burkein
the 1790s best thought of as trailing in his wake. Yet all of these (except perhaps Burke) are
inadequate."
64Ibid.,pp. 41-2, 50.
570
the "conservativetemperamentis at presentmuch more beset and challengedby

liberalism than it is by Marxism," and that "the liberal position is at present
being taken within the Conservativeparty,where it is mistakenfor some sort of
PeregrineWorsthorne,Fellow of Gonville and Caius ColauthenticToryism."65
asserted that there was "too much freedom" and that
even
lege, Cambridge,
Thatcher'sview of Labour as an agency for authoritarianismwas the opposite
of reality.What the LabourPartystood for, Worsthornedeclared, was a collapse
of authority and discipline, and there was actually little danger of totalitarian
despotism.
The real cause of the growing disillusionmentwith British Socialism has very little to
do with its threatto individualfreedom, and a very great deal to do with its failureto
discipline the social forces it has unleashed. The underlying fear is of a collapse of
authority,of having to live in a leaderless society that is being allowed to spin into
chaos; of being the passive victims of a growing licence in privateand public life, of
being preyed upon by corruptionand profligacy; of there being no escape from the
very ills to which the Iron Curtaincountries are not at all prone. Britain is not the
Soviet Union, and when Mrs. Thatcherbends her knee to Solzenytsin, she is worshipping at the wrong shrine and going wrong where George Orwell went so wrong
with his nightmarepredictionsof 1984. The spectre hauntingmost ordinarypeople in
Britain is neither of a totalitarianstate nor of Big Brother, but of other ordinary
people being allowed to run wild. What they are worried about is crime, violence,
disorder in the schools, promiscuity, idleness, pornography,football hooliganism,
vandalismand urbanterrorism.The film ClockworkOrange, with its terribleportrait
of a gang of juvenile thugs bereft of all moral restraint,terrorizingthe old and the
weak without mercy, is what most people fear today.16
Nevertheless it was clear that the authors of ConservativeEssays were more

supportiveof Thatcher'sembrace of classical liberalism than EdwardHeath's
flirtationswith socialist traditions.
Moderatesand extremists at least agreed that the ConservativeParty, which
traditionally stressed unity, was very divided, and that this had come about
because of a greaterpreoccupationwith ideological matters. In The ToryParty,
Trevor Russell emphasized the uniqueness of this situation. "On only a few
occasions during the last century have the reactionariesactually dictated Conservativepolicies: contraryto the claims of the Right, the self-appointedguardians of the so-called 'true Toryism,' successive Conservative leaders and
governmentshave seldom been motivatedby ideology, dogma or doctrine."Russell praised the moderationof Macmillanand Butler, and heaped contumely on
the reactionarytendencies of Salisbury and Balfour. "The dream of Tory reactionaries has always been to stop the clock, then turn back the hands of time.
65Ibid.,p. 84.
66ibid., pp. 148-50.

Now, they are in their strongestposition for perhapsfifty years to try to do S0.267
Less willing to admit the ideological course in which his party was moving was
Ian Gilmour: "Conservativesavoid ideology because they have seen that all
ideologies are wrong" and suspect that "the adoption of an ideology would
make them a partybased on class:' The closest the ConservativePartyhad ever
come to an ideologue, noted Gilmour, was Enoch Powell.68Yet it was the free
marketstrategiesintroducedby Powell in the 1960s that were the entree for the
ideas of Joseph and Thatcher.Powellism, in effect, became Thatcherism.69
The dilemma that confronted Conservatives in the seventies, according to
Noel O'Sullivan, was by no means new. "Whetherthe party would indeed be
able to proceed 'in the spirit of the old constitution"or whetherit would not (in
the face of the socialist challenge identifiedby Mallock) have to find some other
means of holding the nation together, was the problem to be faced by British
conservatismin the twentiethcentury."O'Sullivanbelieved the time had come to
removethe "mistakenprejudice"that
conservatismis not really an ideology at all, but merely a collection of emotional and
pragmaticresponses to change by men who are either too indolent to face a new
world, or else too complacentto risk sacrificingone which they have a vested interest
in preserving. In practice, of course, a conservativeideology involves emotional and
pragmaticresponses to change, but then so does every other political ideology. The
main point, however,is that a conservativepolitical commitmentis just as capable of
being defended in the light of a philosophicalview of the natureof man, of society,
and of the world as is a liberal or socialist one.70
Coinciding with O'Sullivan's exhortations, there was a concerted effort

amongstthose who were receptiveto the party's new directionand commitment
to discredit previous traditions as unconservative. R. J. Parlett, in Conservatism, The Standpointof a Rank & File Tory,admitted in 1976 that although
67TrevorRussell, The ToryParty,Its Policies, Divisions and Future(Harmondsworth,1978), pp. 7,

9, 12. Other assessments of the ConservativeParty prior to its resumptionof power in 1979 are
includedin Philip VenderElst, "RadicalToryism-The LibertarianAlternative,"Political Quarterly
46 (January-March, 1975): 65-72; Lord Blake and John Patten, The Conservative Opportunity
(London, 1976); Robert Eccleshall, "English Conservatism as Ideology," Political Studies 25
(March, 1977): 62-83; William Waldegrave,The Binding of Leviathan, Conservatismand the Future (London, 1978); RobertBehrens, "Diehardsand Ditchers in ContemporaryConservativePolitics," Political Quarterly 50 (July-September, 1979): 286-95; and Zig Layton-Henry, ed.,
ConservativeParty Politics (London, 1980).
68Gilmour,Inside Right, pp. 132-33.
69Forstudies on Powell and Powellism see T. E. Utley, Enoch Powell, The Man and His Thinking
(London, 1968); Andrew Roth, Enoch Powell, Tory Tribute(London, 1970); Douglas E. Schoen,
Enoch Powell and the Powellites (New York, 1977); and Roy Lewis, Enoch Powell, Principles in
Politics (London, 1979); and Greenleaf, British Political Tradition,2: 316-326.
70NoelO'Sullivan, Conservatism(London, 1976), p. 118 and 31.
572
Tories "acquiescedin left-wing policies" duringthe previous thirty years, there

was "a gut reaction that it would prove the ruin of the country in the end."7'
David Howell, reversing his stance of twenty years earlier, agreed that "the
more one thinks about the Torytraditionthe odder this post-warepisode in Tory
thinking becomes." Conservativesof the Macmillan years, he claimed, were
preoccupiedwith "a Whitehallworld of institutionsand bureaucraciesand supposed classes and class interests, playing court politics with a vengeance,"and
were "tossing aggregateabstractconcepts about, shuntingaroundthings called
'demand,' 'the working class,' 'employment,''growth,' 'investment,''manufacturing industry,'as though they could, by being placed in proper magical sequence, generatecreative activity and prosperityall on their own." The current
retreatfrom that position, arguedHowell, was "not because we have read a few
books-Adam Smith, Hayek, Friedman-and have been converted. It is because
the certaintiesof the past thirty years can no longer be taken for granted. It is
because things have not worked out as we were promised they would."72Of all
the voices clamoring to lend an aura of historical credibility to Thatcher'snew
course, perhapsthe most formidablewas that of Robert(later Lord) Blake, the
biographerof Disraeli and Bonar Law. Ironically,in Conservatismin an Age of
Revolutionhe spoke more in the tone of a party ideologue than of Burke, proposing that "Butskellism"should end and that the British people should be set
free. It was not so much revolutionarymovements staged by other countries
which threatenedBritain, wrote Blake, but "ratherthe dark forces of barbarism
from within" and omnipotenceof the state.73
Socialist writers have been perhapsmost sensitive to the changes wroughtby
the new right and most adept at describing them. Contraryto the reluctanceof
many Conservativesto admit their party's doctrinal character,Labouritesincreasinglylabelled the new movement"Thatcherism"and repeatedlyreferredto
it as an ideology. "Thatcheriteideology and practice" was examinedin a series
of lectures given by a group of Christiansocialists called the Jubilee Group in
1980. In "The Changing Face of Toryism," Eric Heffer, a left-wing Labour
M.P. arguedthat the ConservativePartywas possessed of a group of ideologists
who "proclaima positive 'conservative'philosophy."He sportedwith the Conservatives'internalrifts by quoting the scathing remarksof Julian Critchley in
an unsigned article in The Observer:
Mrs Thatcher is didactic, tart and obstinate. Her economic policies are
"Thatcherite" rather than Conservative, for her Treasury team have placed the
Public Sector Borrowing Requirement up on a pedestal. . . . We are suffering
7'R. J. Parlett, Conservatism,The Standpointof a Rank & File Tory(Cobham, 1976), p. 16.
72DavidHowell, The ConservativeTraditionand the 1980s, ThreeGifts of InsightRestored(London,
1980), pp. 1-4.
73RobertBlake, Conservatismin an Age of Revolution,pp. 3, 8.

from "'A"level economics. In consequence of this new ideology, economics have
been elevated above politics . .. and it cannot be long before the Conservative
Partywill be obliged to pay the price.
To Heffer, the ThatcheriteTorieswere outside the traditionnot only of Macmillan, Butler, and Macleod, but also Disraeli and other great Toryfigures. "They
are, despite being designatedby some as the 'true Tories,'actually a new brand
of Right-wing radical Tories, whose thinkingis not pragmaticbut is dominated
by dogma and ideology."74
This harsh assessment was reinforcedby a host of articles that appearedin
MarxismTodayfrom 1979 to 1983 and were collected by StuartHall and Martin
Jacquesinto ThePolitics of Thatcherism.A common theme is that the Thatcher
ideology arose as a common sense reaction to an economic and social crisis
resultingfrom the break-downof the social-democraticconsensus.
The main referencepoints of the postwarpolitical settlement-already weakenedand
eroded in fact under successive Labour governments-have been contested in principle. One after anotherthe old landmarks-full employment, welfare state support,
equality of opportunity,the "caring" society, neo-Keynesianeconomic management,
corporatistincomes policies-have been reversed.In their place a new public philosophy has been constructed,rootedin the open affirmationof "free marketvalues"the market as the measure of everything-and reactionary "Victorian" social
values-patriarchalism, racism and imperialist nostalgia. The whole shift towardsa
more authoritariantype of regime has been groundedin the search for "Order"and
the cry for "Law" which arises among many ordinarypeople in times of crisis and
upheaval-and which has been dovetailedinto the impositionof authorityfrom above.
Editor Hall contended that these new elements did not just "emerge"-"they
have to be constructed.Political and ideological work is requiredto disarticulate
old formations, and to reworktheir elements into new ones." The Thatcherite
system was consciously aggressive, innovative, combative, and populist. Hall
creditsThatcher's"translationof a theoreticalideology into a popularidiom" as
a "majorpolitical achievement,"and recognizes "the conversion of hard-faced
economics into the language of compulsive moralism" as "the centerpiece of
this transformation.""5
It arose as a stern remedyto a nationalcrisis perceivedto
have been abetted by earlier compromises with socialism and which was incapable of solution by any stock Conservativemethods.
The most recent socialist pronouncementon the new right, composed by Ruth
Levitas in 1986, recognized that the present upsurge in ideological Conserva74EricHeffer, "The Changing Face of Toryism," in Kenneth Leech, ed., Thatcherism(Milton
Keynes, 1980), pp. 2, 5, 7.
75StuartHall and MartinJacques, 7he Politics of 7hatcherism(London, 1983), pp. 11, 23. Andrew
Gamble, concurring with Hall, contends that "unless Labour can recapture the 'popular' from
Thatcherism,it will remainon the defensive, ideologically and politically; and threatenedby decline
into a permanent minority position." "Rise of the Resolute Right," New Socialist (JanuaryFebruary,1983), p. 14.
574
tism owed much to the traditionalfear of socialism that fueled Conservative

polemicists at the beginning of the century.The "Cold Waris a vital ingredient.
The national interest is situatedwithin the NATO alliance, and opposed to the
'Red Menace,'both in the form of the enemy without (the Soviet Union) and the
enemy within." But the unique feature of Thatcherismwas that it had by the
mid-eighties become as formidablean ideological force as socialism ever was
within the Labour left. "It is precisely because New Right ideology, in its
variousforms, has become influentialbeyondobviously definablesocial groups,
that it is necessary to combat it in its own terms, as an ideology." Indeed, the
Thatcheriteassault on the social-democraticconsensus was devastating.Levitas
conceded that "the New Right has succeeded in its hegemonicprojectso that we
are all Thatcheritesnow."76The element that was most common to all such
socialist accounts was that they were on the defensive ideologically and thereby
occupied much the same position as Conservative writings held previously
throughoutthe twentiethcentury.The whole Labourmovementseemed stunned
and in a state of disarrayby the intellectualthrustof Thatcherismand its three
successive electoral triumphs.77
Thatcherismoccupied the very unconservativerole of being an ideological
force to be reckonedwith. Indicativeof the ConservativeParty'senhancedprofile since the late sixties was the appearanceof numerouspartyhistories. Robert
Blake's The ConservativePartyfrom Peel to Churchill, an expandedversion of
his 1968 Fordlecturesat Oxford, was the foremostof these undertakings,and in
a 1985 edition of this popularwork Blake broughthis story up throughthe first
Thatcher government. Although dispassionate and traditionalin approach, it
does refer at least once to "her ideology."78A more Burkean conception informed a collection of historical essays written by Norman Gash, Donald
Southgate,David Dilks, and John Ramsdenwhich was edited by Lord Butler in
76Levitas,TheIdeology of the New Right, pp. 7, 10, 12. Justas there has been a great outpouringof
books on the Thatcherphenomenonfrom the left, the numberof sympatheticbiographieshas been
no less remarkable. See Patrick Cosgrave, Margaret Thatcher,A Toryand Her Party (London,
1978); Allan J. Mayer, Madam Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcherand Her Rise to Power (New
York, 1979); PatriciaMurray,Margaret Thatcher(London, 1980); Hugh Stephenson,Mrs Thatcher's First Year(London, 1980); N. Wapshott& G. Brock, Thatcher(London, 1983); PennyJunor,
Margaret Thatcher, Wife, Mother, Politician (London, 1983); R. Lewis, Margaret Thatcher:A
Personal and Political Biography(London, 1984); Bruce Arnold, Margaret Thatcher:A Study in
Power (London, 1984); Patrick Cosgrave, Thatcher, The First Term(London, 1985); and Hugo
Young& Anne Sloman, The ThatcherPhenomenon(London, 1986).
77Attemptsto mount a counter-offensivefrom the left are containedin Sam Aaronovitch, The Road
from Thatcherism-The AlternativeEconomic Strategy (London, 1981); John Ross, Thatcherand
Friends: The Anatomyof the ToryParty (London, 1983); Jon Lansman and Alan Meale, Beyond
Thatcher,The Real Alternative(London, 1983); Edward Nell, ed., Free Market Conservatism,A
Critiqueof Theoryand Practice (London, 1984); TariqAli and Ken Livingstone, Who'sAfraid of
Margaret Thatcher?(London, 1984); and M. Loney, ThePolitics of Greed, TheNew Right and the
WelfareState (London, 1986).
78RobertBlake, The ConservativePartyfrom Peel to Thatcher(London, 1985), p. 321.

1978. In the introductionButler referredto Cecil's Conservatismand Hogg's
The Case for Conservatismas the two lone twentieth century contributionsto
the party'sphilosophy.79
The most ambitiousenterpriseis the so-called "official
history" being publishedby Longmansin four volumes. Only the first and third
segments, by Robert Stewartand John Ramsdenrespectively,have thus far appeared;the second volume will be writtenby R. T. Shannon,and Ramsdenwill
also provide the final installment.80Even Sheila Moore's ConservativeParty,
The First 150 Years,with a forewordby MargaretThatcherand an introduction
by Lord Blake, was traditionalistin character.But Blake did make the ideological point that Burke had a "policy of 'economical reform' " and that it was
applied by successive Governmentsduring the Liverpool-Peel era when there
was "a real reductionin governmentexpenditureand governmentemployees."8'
Not only were Conservativesin searchof historicalgroundsto supportpresent
beliefs, but their ideological assertivenessreplacedtheir antipathyto Labouras
a point of departureand means of establishing self-identity. Thus there was a
broaderperceptionof the party's role in what Hall and Jacquescalled the "public philosophy."82
Cowling identified this concept as the "public doctrine,"defined as "that loose combination of interlocking assumptions about politics,
economics, science, scholarship, morality, education, aesthetics and religion
which constitutesthe basis on which decisions are made about public matters."
All this was not far from Rousseau's "civil religion," and Cowling's personal
quest for this realizationultimately led to his projectedthree volume work on
Religion and Public Doctrine in ModernEngland which casts a longing look at
a Christianconservativetradition.Remarkably,he concluded that "in this century the public doctrine has on the whole been liberal or of the Liberal-Left."83
AndrewGamble, on the other hand, presenteda differentview in The Conservative Nation, where he emphasized the party's ability to maintainpower and
develop a politics of the nation.'4Anotherview of the public philosophy,which
79LordButler,ed., 7he Conservatives,A Historyfrom their Origins to 1965 (London, 1977), p. 14.
80RobertStewart, The Foundationof the ConservativeParty, 1830-1867 (London, 1978) and John
Ramsden, TheAge of Balfour and Baldwin, 1902-1940 (London, 1978).
8ILordBlake in Sheila Moore, The ConservativeParty, TheFirst 150 Years(London, 1980), p. 10.
Histories of a more limited scope duringthis period include T. F. Lindsayand M. Harrington,The
ConservativeParty, 1918-1979 (London, 1974); Donald Southgate,ed., Th7eConservativeLeadership, 1832-1932 (London, 1974); and EdwardP. Wilmot, The ConservativeParty,A Short History
(London, 1981). There is also an essay on party history and much valuable informationon the
make-up of the party in Philip Norton and Arthur Aughey, Conservativesand Conservatism,pp.
90-166. For an informativehistoricalperspectiveon the natureof the conflict in the partybetween
"wets" and "drys" see Geoffrey Finlayson, "The Changing Face of British Conservatism,"in
History Today33 (October, 1983): 15-21. More than 2,000 conservativequotationsfrom 3000 BC
to the present have been compiled by EdwardLeigh in Right Thinking(London, 1979).
82Haland Jacques, Politics of Thatcherism,p. 11.
83Cowling,ConservativeEssays, p. 21, and Religion and Public Doctrine in Modem England,
3 vols., (Cambridge, 1981 & 1985)-volume three forthcoming).
84AndrewGamble, The ConservativeNation (London, 1974), p. 7.
576
tied in with Britain'srealizationof its nationalcrisis in the seventies, was Martin

Wiener's prize-winningstudy on English Cultureand the Decline of the Industrial Spirit. Wiener argued that the kinds of traditionsand attitudesfosteredby
the ConservativeParty were largely responsible for the country's woes.85It is
undeniablethat the hundredyears of British decline coincide with a century of
mass democracy dominatedlargely by Conservative-styleGovernments.
By the 1980s the same kind of historicalperspectivewhich was discerningthe
characterand philosophy of the British people was also better able to interpret
the kinds of forces that had shaped the Conservative Party in the twentieth
century.A book by Cowling in 1971 on TheImpactof Labour, 1920-1924, and
a series of essays edited by Kenneth Brown in 1974 dealing with hostile responses to the rise of the Labourmovement,verifiedthe influencethat socialism
had on the ConservativeParty in the first half of the century. The formereven
went so far as to attributethe "beginning of modern British politics" to this
phenomenon.86
It is significantalso that W. H. Greenleafs massive work on Te
British Political Traditionbegins with the assumptionthat there has alwaysbeen
in the twentieth century an ideological basis for Conservative Party politics,
albeit in two modes.87The extent to which ideological concerns have permeated
the historical interpretationsof Conservativesin the twentiethcentury has most
recently been made evident in G. C. Webber'sstudy of the British Right between the wars. "The most strikingfeatureof the Right," accordingto Webber,
was "its opposition to others," especially Liberals; and "its favouritecriticism
of the ConservativePartywas precisely that it had abandonedits 'principles'and
deterioratedinto a party of 'mere' anti-socialism."88
Undoubtedlythe rise of socialism and the concommitantdemise of Liberalism
had the greatestdegree of influenceon twentiethcenturyConservatism.With its
roots in Marxism, Labourhad a far more systematic ideological foundationas
well as a naturalappeal to voters in an increasinglydemocraticage. The initial
response of W. H. Mallock to this threatwas to put Conservatismon an equally
systematicbasis and to wage a polemical war with socialism. Most Tory essays
in the first half of the twentieth century, however, followed the lead of Hugh
Cecil's early account with its stress on continuityand the Burkeanorigins of the
party.Ideological commitmentswere regardedas anathema.But with continued
attemptsto give the party'scharactersharperrelief and create a greatersense of
its identityfor voters, this collection of traditionsbuilt on a Burkeanbase began
85MartinWiener, English Cultureand the Decline of the Industrial Spirit (Cambridge, 1981). A
more explicit statementof this view is made by Wiener in "Conservatism,Economic Growthand
English Culture,"ParliamentaryAffairs 34 (Autumn, 1981); 409-421.
86MauriceCowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920-1924, The Beginning of Modem British Politics
(Cambridge, 1971), and KennethD. Brown, ed., Essays in Anti-LabourHistory, Responses to the
Rise of Labour in Britain (London, 1974).
87Greenleaf,British Political Tradition,2: 187-346.
88G.C. Webber, The Ideology of the British Right, 1918-1939 (New York, 1986), p. 135.

to resemble a party doctrine. What gave it greaterviability during the interwar
years was the programpolitics introducedby Neville Chamberlainand Harold
Macmillan's orientation towards Keynesian formulas. Conservatives not only
employed Labour's theoretical methods but actually acquiesced in socialistic
dogma during the four administrationsin which they held power after the Second WorldWar.EdwardHeath'stechnocraticstyle in the early seventies marked
the climax of the more deliberateapproachto politics borrowedfrom the socialists; his ouster as party leader in 1975 signaled the end of the search for a
"middle way."The 1983 campaign, accordingto MartinHolmes' assessmentof
The First ThatcherGovernment,"laid the ghosts of 1945."89
The politics of the Thatcherera brokedecisively with socialism by incorporating generous doses of classical liberal philosophy.But as in virtually all Conservative initiatives since the beginning of the century, the only effective
antidoteto the perceived socialistic menace was some form of pseudo-socialistic
structuringof ideas. Thatcherismassumed such a formidableideological stance
that Labourreactedto it, ratherthan vice-versa. The reasonfor such a hardline,
directedby an "Iron Lady,"may be in partthe appearancein Britishpolitics of
what former ResearchDepartmentDirectorJames Douglas (borrowingthe terminology of Daniel Bell) referredto as the "knowledgeclass"-M.P.s possessing more knowledge and a higher degree of education than most of their
predecessorsand more likely to be careerpoliticians. "By contrastwith the men
of business, the knowledge class is suspicious of compromise and prefers a
powerful idea logically and consistently pursued. The knowledge class is attractedto ideology, the men of business were suspicious of it. To some extentthe
shift from pragmatismto ideology is quite simply due to the fact that there are
now more ideologues and fewer pragmatists."Douglas believed, however,that
axiomaticallythe "longer the party stays in office, the more we can expect it to
move towards consensual and incrementalpolicies."90The persistence of the
89MartinHolmes, The First ThatcherGovernment,1979-83 (Brighton, 1985), p. 191.
90JamesDouglas, "The ConservativeParty:From Pragmatismto Ideology-and Back?" Hugh Berrington, ed., Change in British Politics (London, 1984), pp. 66-67, 70-71. The extent to which
Thatcher has been successful in implementing her ideological imperatives has already been the
subject of several book-length assessments of her first administration.See Peter Riddell, The
Thatcher Government(London, 1983); William Keegan, Mrs. Thatcher's Economic Experiment
(London, 1984); Lord Jock Bruce-Gardyne,Mrs Thatcher's First Administration,The Prophets
Confounded(London, 1984); Melanie McFadyean& MargaretRenn, Thatcher'sReign: A Bad Case
of the Blues (London, 1984); David S. Bell, The ConservativeGovernment,1979-84: An Interim
Report (London, 1985); PatrickCosgrave, Thatcher,The First Term;Peter Jackson, Implementing
Policy Initiatives: The ThatcherAdministration,1979-83 (London, 1985); and Holmes, The First
ThatcherGovernment,1979-83. Dennis Kavanagh'sThatcherismand British Politics: The End of
Consensus? (Oxford, 1987) is a more comprehensive analysis of the post-war rise and fall of
consensus politics, the emergence of the Thatcheritephenomenon,and the Conservativerecordafter
1979. Joel Krieger, in Reagan, Thatcherand the Politics of Decline (New York, 1986), describes
these developmentswithin an Anglo-Americancontext.
578
JohnD. Fairand JohnA. Hutcheson,Jr.
present social-economic crisis in Britain, however, and the lack of any seemingly viable alternativesfrom the divided left militates against any retreatfrom
the ideological politics being waged by the Conservatives. In what must be
regardedas the latest work on British Conservatismin the twentieth century,
FrankO'Gormanis hardput to reconcile "the ideology of the New Right" with
"the traditions of Conservatism."Indeed "the almost biblical commitmentto
monetarismsits a little oddly on a party which has normally distanced itself
from magical cures and remedies. The monetaristview of a rationaleconomic
man . . . does not square with the traditionalConservativeview of the imperfections of man." The only semblance of continuity O'Gormancan discern in
Conservativedoctrineis the "objectiveof the salvationof the existing social and
political order which might even have been recognizableto EdmundBurke."9'
Where then, must one go to find any connection or resemblanceto the traditional Conservatismwhich is so prominentlydisplayedin the twentiethcentury
rhetoric of Conservatism,but is increasinglyless evident in the actions of the
present party? Very likely a key can be found by resorting to Lord Acton's
conundrumover how the Liberaltendencies of Burkecould still yield the most
profoundConservativethinkerof all time. It was his "notion of history."Likewise, the apparentaberrationof Thatcherismcan be reconciled in part by referring to Thatcher's appeal to nineteenth-centuryLiberal dogma or even the
twentieth-centurysocialist preoccupationwith economics and ideology. Such
borrowingscan be interpretedas little more thana modernmetaphoricrendering
of Disraeli's dictum, "Torymen and Whig measures."Even the overwhelming
ideological concerns of the party can be rationalizedin the light of history. For,
as this article has attemptedto show, a growing ideological commitment has
been an integral part of the Tory literature and intellect of the twentieth
century-perhaps even to the extent that the acceptanceof ideology will become
an inherentpart of the Conservativetradition.
910'Gorman,British Conservatism,pp. 57-9.

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British Conservatism in the Twentieth Century: An Emerging Ideological Tradition

Author(s): John D. Fair, John A. Hutcheson and Jr.

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury:

LordActon, one of the most formidableintellectsof the last century,was a

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

works reveals that there is a greaterdoctrinalbasis for British Conservatismin

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 551

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

The first Conservativethinker to recognize the need to challenge socialist

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 553

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

Just as Conservatism,then, had originally emerged as a reactionto the threatof

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 555

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

eign affairs, the empire, Ireland, trade and industry,and agriculture.2'Program

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 557

To Elliot, Toryismwas "first of all the creed of continuity,the knowledgethat a

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

The great weakness of the ConservativeParty Ludovici perceived to be "the

25AnthonyM. Ludovici, A Defence of Conservatism, A Further Text-Bookfor Tories (London,

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 559

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

Especially in a section entitled "The Problem with a Programme"Hearnshaw

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 561

Cook believed that if dictatorshipwas to be averted, the ConservativeParty

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

believe his new philosophy, based on Keynesian economics, was inconsistent

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 563

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

Revolt Against Revolt, 1815-1949 and Conservatism, From John Adams to

Likewise, Russell Kirk, America's foremost theorist of Conservatism,denied

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 565

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

Glickmanit was the adaptabilityof Toryismand its receptivityto doctrinewhich

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 567

53Howell,"Modern Conservatism,"p. 25.

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

The most recognizable featureof Conservativerhetoric, according to Behrens,

Although Utley made light of the new doctrinairequality of Conservatism,he

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

the "conservativetemperamentis at presentmuch more beset and challengedby

Nevertheless it was clear that the authors of ConservativeEssays were more

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 571

Coinciding with O'Sullivan's exhortations, there was a concerted effort

67TrevorRussell, The ToryParty,Its Policies, Divisions and Future(Harmondsworth,1978), pp. 7,

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

Tories "acquiescedin left-wing policies" duringthe previous thirty years, there

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 573

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

tism owed much to the traditionalfear of socialism that fueled Conservative

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 575

John D. Fair and John A. Hutcheson, Jr.

tied in with Britain'srealizationof its nationalcrisis in the seventies, was Martin

British Conservatismin the TwentiethCentury 577

JohnD. Fairand JohnA. Hutcheson,Jr.

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