Essay about Assessment of Conservatism

(Davies, 1997) Conservatives are mostly for preserving the society instead of a takeover, which emphasizes stability.(McLean and McMillan, 2009) Viscourt Hailsham a former chairman of the British Conservative Party described conservatism. "Conservatism is not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human nature itself."(Hailsham, 1959)

In Great Britain, there are several key political parties such as the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party. Each of these parties have many different views, ideologies and policies that they believe would make Britain the best that it could be. However only one of the many parties are able to get into government and implement what they believe to be the best policies for the people of Britain. In this essay I will be looking at the differences between the Conservative Parties policies and the Labour Parties policies as each of these parties have very different views in how Great Britain should be governed. The Conservative Party are a very right wing party and the Labour Party are a very left wing

But has the Conservative party actually abandoned Thatcherism? Considering the points displayed in this essay, I have come to the conclusion that Cameron’s ‘progressive’ party may not so adverse to Thatcherism at all. The most important issues over specific reforms raised by the current Conservative Government seem to be highly influenced by the ideas of Thatcher. What is essential to point out is that times have evolved since the Thatcher timeframe and the Conservatives have had to evolve along with these times and adapt their attitudes to gain support from the electorate who view the ‘Iron Lady’s’ concepts as out of date. As to any argument, there are two sides to the story; let us remember that Cameron’s Government has only had the chance

It can be argued that Disraeli was the architect of reform during the late 1860’s and through 1867 reform act, mainly due to the fact that he realised that the conservative party might be seen as non-reforming. To counter this he would expand the franchise and gain potential new voters. However there is also significant evidence that Lord Derby was the main architect of reform, mostly due to the fact that he had been part of the 1832 reform bill and when he returned to power in 1866 he took the lead in presenting the conservative reform bill.

As stated by Holmes, in the 1980s, there was a lot of chaos in the party as Margaret Thatcher had moved the party to the extreme right amongst other things, making her members of parliament keen to replace her. She was replaced by John Major in 1990 who won four successive elections. Between 1900 and 2000, the conservatives were in power two-third of the time. The period in time when they were not in power, was in 1997 were they lost the election and also in 2001.At that point time, the conservative leaders were (William Hague and Iain Duncan smith) who struggled to win back votes of the people. The policies that were left by Margret Thatcher were not favoured by the people. In 2003, Michael Howard (right winger) revived the conservatives but the conservatives were defeated by the liberal democrat party in the 2005 general election. (Holmes pg276-277)

It is important to give a brief explanation as to what is meant by the term Thatcherism in British political discourse. Thatcherism according to Heffernan suggests that there are several contradictory explanations to the meaning of Thatcherism. He contends that Thatcherism could be explained via “a short hand description of what the Thatcher-led Conservative governments did at any one time” or similarly it could be explained as “ a popular political movement, a policy style; a form of leadership; or.an ideological project, a vehicle which advanced a post-social democratic neo-liberal political agenda‘ (Heffernan, 2001). The term Thatcherism is therefore an umbrella term that not only describes the Leader of the ruling

The French revolution was seen as an important element in the development of new critical, political debates. In Edmund Burke’s book Reflections on the Revolution in France, he is critiquing the French revolution with a conservative framework. Friedrich Hayek’s text, “Why I am Not a Conservative,” on the other hand is critiquing conservatism with a more liberal approach. Conservatism as a political ideology promotes the idea of preserving traditional institutions. Liberalism on the other hand is an ideology which promotes the ideas of liberty and equality within a social institution. For the purpose of this essay, different elements of the French revolution will be discussed using Burke’s critique and his critique will be countered with Hayek’s individualistic view.

Wellington tried but members of the Tories didn’t want to create a government that had different views than most people in Britain so William aske Grey to come back and he agreed to add more Whigs to the House of Lords. The House of Lords passed in Reform Act. The Tories rejected the Reform Act of 1832 because since they were conservatives they didn’t want change and wanted to keep things the same.

Election of 1964 was a huge step toward the rise of Conservatism; because it was so uncompetitive.

meant taking a democratic collectivist vision for Britain's post war future. The political changes of the 1940s is best understood as launching a distinctly modern political settlement.

In conclusion classic liberalists and modern conservatives differ in some ways. They have different attitudes towards capitalism, they have different views on why the state should allow individuals to have negative freedom and they would largely disagree on how much the state should be involved even though they would still have low state interference where as the classic liberalists would have minimal state intervention. In the UK it

Margaret Thatcher introduced right wing ideas which sought to break away from the post war Keynesian consensus on state welfare (Scott-Samuel et al, 2014 pg 54). The conservative shifted to ideas of free market economics and the advocated for responsibility of the individual families for their own welfare and moral traditional values. Privatization and marketization was introduced into utilities such as water, electricity and gas. There was encouragement of free market ideas in health care and massive cuts on social welfare and reductions in state pensions.

This also means that the idea of a fixed political response or formula is rejected. However, it is interesting to note that many Thatcherites often adopted fixed principles for political action. There is generally a strong emphasis on order. Conservatives believe that the first concern of any government is to maintain order and security. There is also emphasis on

Beginning with Nixon and continuing with Reagan after the radical changes of American culture in the sixties and seventies, Americans would begin to shift towards more conservative ideas unsure of the rapid radical change. In the 1994 mid term elections, the American people would elect a congress of mostly conservatives for the first time in nearly 50 years. At the core of this success would be the Contract with America. A set of promises and goals devised by conservative congressional representative Newt Gingrich. In 2000 the Republicans (modern conservative party) would retain the Congress and capture the White House. Conservatism has been a leading political ideology since the inception of the United States to

Disraeli believed this reform would appeal to the working classes and eventually benefit the conservative party. He was highly motivated by winning, but he was extremely flexible in handling parliamentary reform and structuring a strong political system that worked. Disraeli’s political party