ABSTRACT
With the collapse of the post-war consensus and the rise of the New Right, interest in conservatism as a political ideology has grown. In particular, the nature of Thatcherism and its relationship to previous forms of conservatism have become a matter of sharp debate. In this chapter I shall be examining the development of conservatism in recent years as a contribution to a larger understanding of the role of ideology in British politics. Some writers have taken the view that there is no set of core concepts within conservatism. Thus, for one writer, the suggestion that conservatism rests on a conception of unchanging human nature or of British character founders on the impossibility of such notions. Classical Toryism, it is claimed, could at least plausibly assert that society did not change. But this is impossible for modem conservatism, fated to exist in a continuously changing industrial society. Rather than resting on a coherent philosophy, then on this view conservatism is concerned essentially with securing continued political dominance (Harris 1972:262–3). A similar view is contained in the argument, drawn from the Conservative political philosopher Michael Oakeshott, that conservatism should not be studied as a body of ideas but as a set of beliefs about governing (Gamble 1974:1–2).
