Conservatives believe in freedom. We believe in free speech, free elections, and free enterprise. We believe in the talents of individuals, the benefits of the small battalions and free institutions, in the power of the family and the importance of traditions and learning passed down the generations. We wish to see a prosperous country with wealth and ownership widely spread, a well defended country safe from war and threats, and a civil society with sufficient common bonds and culture.Conservatives support limits placed on freedoms for the greater good. We expect a strong rule of law. Free enterprise does not extend to theft and fraud. Freedom to do things should not stretch to harming your neighbour or advancing by violence.Conservatives do not want to blindly follow the past, welcoming positive change from the ideas and actions of enterprising individuals and institutions. Traditions and the past should be respected and drawn upon but not become restrictive bonds preventing something better. Conservatives wish to be the “dwarves on the shoulders of the giants”, seeing further because we climb higher, inheriting past wisdom and knowledge.Conservatives welcome strong families and see them as their own welfare societies, transferring wealth and skills between generations and accepting most of the responsibility for bringing up children and caring for the elderly. The state has a welfare role when families break down or when the demands are too great on family members.Conservatives understand that whilst most individuals have plenty of capacity to do good and to advance themselves and those close to them, there is in some a criminal tendency to harm and evil which needs controlling by clear laws and punishments.Conservatives believe in equality of opportunity, offering a hand up in preference to a hand out. We want to help people on their individual journeys, and accept that those who achieve more and contribute more may earn more and save more.We believe in lower tax rates to protect incentives. We tax the rich who have the money by setting rates that they will stay to pay. We believe in the power of choice for individuals, and the power of competition to prevent monopoly abuse. We believe most goods and services are best delivered by free enterprise, whilst supporting free healthcare and education for all. The state defends and protects us with uniformed personnel and a monopoly of authorised force.Conservatives oppose most revolutions for their violence and extremism. Conservatives believe in evolutionary change. There is no perfect state or utopian society that can be created because mankind has criminals as well as saints. Imposing too many solutions from government leads to the abuse of power and to the distress of freedom loving citizens. One of the least perfectible of human institutions is government itself, which needs to be watched, checked and controlled to avoid tyranny.Conservatives love the countryside and the vernacular and varied styles of our urban architecture. We conserve the best. We value fresh air and clean water. We treat animals well, recognising their needs as they live alongside us or with us.Conservatives believe in democratic government with choice between parties and philosophies at elections. We believe that Opposition is an important part of democratic government, to prevent a tyranny of the majority and to represent the views of legitimate minorities.Conservatives believe in their countries, seeing the nation state as the means to create a voluntary common culture, shared experiences and team loyalty in friendly competition with other states.Conservatives are sceptical about drives to international and global government and to rule by an elite or bureaucratic class. There is no global democracy so global government is never government by the people or of the people. Conservatives oppose the imposition of bad international law. It is wrong to weaponise treaties, stretching their meaning well beyond their original intent. Over mighty quangos where power has gone to their heads regulate too much and govern badly. International quangos can be particularly remote and haughty.Conservatives oppose extremism. We see National Socialism and Communism as two evil creeds of the last century that resulted in mass murders, dreadful wars and the suppression of freedoms which we should strive to prevent in the future.Conservatives believe in the pursuit of happiness, with ownership and prosperity for the many. Freedom is usually the best means to achieve our aims. It should be moderated by a just and necessary rule of law to protect us and our precious freedoms
August 24, 2025
Sir, I believed in years past that this is exactly what I had been voting for at election after election. Only to be let down, And thank you for summarising our shared perspective’s so succinctly. Can the current party format allow for this “manifesto” to come to fruition I ask? Is the Conservative Party sharing these ideals actually?
August 24, 2025
Well put. To which I would add, has our democratic system been corrupted by a 2 party duopoly? We think we are voting for one set of plans, only to find little change from the last.
I think democracy has only one more chance in our Nation, if it fails to bring real change then we have nowhere to go but the violent alternative.
Reply Violence is no answer and is rightly against the law. Most of us want to live in a society at peace.
August 24, 2025
Reply to reply. JFK explained it very well. “Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.”
The Uni-Party has acted, since Blair, to make the peaceful change people voted for impossible via the ballot box. The Revolt is now well underway. Let’s hope Prof Betz is wrong with his analysis of the situation.
August 24, 2025
@Donna – agreed. That is why we have all the draconian laws open to very personal interpretation on what is acceptable or not. As soon as someone no matter how well meaning tries to impose their personal views on Society through the Law, they destroy Society. These have never been Laws required by the many, for the benefit of the many, but personal knee-jerk reaction to circumstances the Law makers created.
As you say having 25 years of the Uni-Party the signed up members of the Globalist/Socialist WEF wanting to control(control being the operative) the thoughts of the many to suit their desire to ‘rule’ we lost having a real Society, the Society of the personal responsibility, the contributors.
August 24, 2025
Thank you.
I don’t know why Sir J. is a bit squeamish, our history is quite busy with violent politics – even Shakespeare advocates ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers’. If you’re a corrupt politician making laws that suit you and your cadres, but not the majority, don’t expect generous surrender terms!
August 24, 2025
Much truth in this they delegated powers to quangos, international bodies, the BoE, OBR, the EU, English Nature, NHS England… so as to deny to voters what little democratic power they ever had. They also passed absurd vague laws like the ECHR, the climate change act… giving ever more powers to essentially parasitic lawyers who enrich themselves and make everyone else poorer – while producing nothing of any real value for the economy.
As Starkey put it “Blair did more harm to Britain than two world wars.” See his video. Then we had Heir to Blair Cameron through to the appalling May, Boris, Sunak and the surely evil Starmer.
August 24, 2025
Indeed.
The current and recent Conservative Party and most of their MPs believe in very little of the above. They are globalist Con-Socialist who worship the Net Zero religious insanity, they rig markets to make it rather hard for the private sector to compete fairly in healthcare, schools, universities, housing, transport… they also seem to think living standards in the UK should fall hugely through mass low skilled immigration legal and illegal. It is more government by lawyers and the state sector and for lawyers and the state sector.
The Boris/Sunak government even borrowed £400 billion to lock people down and jab them with net harm vaccines causing significantly higher deaths in the vaccinated and 1/3 few live births in the vaccinated and wrecking the economy.
August 24, 2025
The Conservative party have to a large degree become supporters of anarcho-tyranny. Which fails to punish or deter criminals and enforce legitimate order but also criminalises the innocent, and in this respect its failures bring the country, or important parts of it, close to a state of anarchy.
Anarchy coupled with many of the characteristics of tyranny, under which innocent and law-abiding citizens are punished by the state or suffer gross violations of their rights and liberty at the hands of the state.
Large fines for being a minute over on you parking meter, putting a tyre in a bus lane or filing a tax for a day late due to being ill but little or nothing is every done about serial shop lifting, illegal immigrants and many other serious crimes!
Listen to the Alison Pearson interview with Lucy Connolly (the political prisoner now finally released) and the NHS negligence leading to the death of her son.
August 24, 2025
Taxation at current levels is of itself a substantial tyranny and substantial partial slavery. This especially when so little of any real value or quality is delivered by the state in return.
August 24, 2025
@Lifelogic – its hard to even call them Conservatives, they don’t practice conservatism in any definition we can understand. Certainly they are not of the same completion as Sir Johns views. They lost me well before they picked up the mantle, as being those with the collective responsibility of the previous administration dire direction and wishing to force more of the same, as they call continuity. I would have been slightly more forgiving if only those from the new blood, the un-tainted had been given the reins
August 24, 2025
Unfortunately fine words butter no parsnips.
The Labour Party has a different script commending their outlook.
Many voters are fed up of listening to this rhetoric. When you get an older, law-abiding readership talking about violence and anarcho-tyranny then something is clearly not right.
Trump cleverly adopted some of the paleoconservative stuff – a sort of Pat Buchanan for Dummies version.Then, once elected, proceeded to ignore it. He avoided the Israeli stuff from the outset of course. Donors ensured he got more favourable coverage than Buchanan.
August 24, 2025
Morning Sir John.
An excellent summary of what Conservatism should mean.
The rule of law is important but, everyone should have the law applied equally to them. There is no place for two tier treatment under the law.
People living under the law, must be able to know what the law is and what rights and duties it affords to them.
Everyone should also have access to the law.
I would also like to see a strengthening of the family unit. The family must be the basic unit of any healthy society.
We need real education again in this country, free from all political interference. Education, not indoctrination.
August 24, 2025
Indeed.
“There is no place for two tier treatment under the law.“ under Two Tier Kier and Hermer there is almost no place where we do not have two justice! Look at for example the Notting Carnival this weekend as a perfect example. Or the appalling two tier sentencing proposals from the sentencing council or Lucy Connolly!
Or the failure twice to grant any appeal to Lucy Letby with her 15 clearly unsafe convictions. Top Hotels for migrants but home grown homeless and prisoners are released with no accommodation.
August 24, 2025
So Lucy Connolly should have gone to prison (for inciting violence) but should have been joined by many more from the opposing view point or she should not have gone to prison as others are let off.
August 24, 2025
She should not have gone to prison at all. She did not incite violence she just made a foolish tweet (which she removed four hours later). She was surely & understandably rather emotional about all those mothers and fathers who had had their daughters murdered and stabbed, as she herself had also lost a son due to NHS negligence. A small fine or a warning was the very most she deserved. But we have Two Tier Kier and the dire Lord Hermer! And three dire appeal court judged who thought there was “no arguable case” that 31 months was unreasonable!
August 25, 2025
She broke the law – my point was that either everyone who breaks the law should be treated the same by going to prison (illegal immigrants?) or that she should have been treated the same as those who get off.
Had she had a trial by jury like the Labour councilor she would have been acquitted.
Poorly advised but even then the Home Secretary might have intervened if the Prime Minister wasn’t posturing.
August 24, 2025
Well written john. A pity since Cameron these values have been lost. It was Cameron who pushed through gay marriage which was on nobody’s radar..
Under Gideon he believed our salvation would come from encouraging mass immigration.
Under Johnson and Sunak we were subject to Stasi like behaviour being confined to home for a flue bug.
M
Then of course there was treacherous May who did all she could to thwart Brexit, signed Net Stupid into law and signed the UN pact on migration.
There is no reason to believe todays Tory Party is any different as it is infected by the sane limp dumb one nation wets as before . Time to bow out gracefully.
Reply I am not bowing out. I am publishing this to get more buy in from
those who stand at the next election.
August 24, 2025
We need far more JR types in parliament – not even fewer of them.
May’s insane net zero law was nodded through by MPs without even a vote. Miliband Climate Change lunacy had only a tiny handful who did not support it (including the sensible JR). So idiotic, ignorant, bought, group think or corrupted are 95%+ of our MPs.
August 24, 2025
Reply to john. Conservative Central Office won’t acknowledge why th tories are so unpopular so the same quasi limp dumbs will be on the ballot paper next election.
August 24, 2025
Just for the record, wind is supplying 0.76gw or 2% of demand and we are Importing 34% of our electricity at £89.55 per mwh
Is this the governments idea of self sufficientcy in power.
August 24, 2025
Insanity and this is a nice warm light summer day with very little demand. Once zealot Miliband has forced us all on to heat pumps and electrict cars/vans/buses/ambulances… what will it then look like on a freezing dark short day in Jan or Feb when electricity demand might then be 15+ times todays summer demand? Plus the grid will not cope either.
August 24, 2025
I have no doubt in what you believe conservatism to be, you sum it up comprehensivly. If only those who flew and fly under the conservative flag all felt the same. Where we find ourselves today can be laid at the door of those in your party who did not accept your definition. The majority left in your conservative party are still unable to accept your definition and ergo render themselves unelectable.
Those of your view in the country have found themselves another party that preaches what you define as conservatism. I only hope that they realise that the rot extends way beyond parliamentary political parties and has infected the complete structure of governance at every level, such that the whole structure of the UK is teetering on the brink of breakdown. It will be a monumental task to re-establish the credo of the conservatism you espouse. The next time you are called upon to vote remember it is your description of conservatism that you are voting for, not a political party pretending to believe in it. Choose with instinct rather than past affiliations.
Reply Why do you keep on about the Conservative party? This is my site, not a Conservative party one.
August 24, 2025
Because it is the conservative party in government, of which you were a member in part until 13 months ago, that is responsible for the situation we find ourselves in. Blair began it, but heir to Blair Cameron perpetuated it.
Add to which it may be your site and you may well advocate real conservatism, but the conservative party in Parliament most certainly does not. In a normal world, one could reasonably point out that parliamentary conservatives should be promoting all that you accurately describe as conservatism. You confuse the label on the tin with the content. That you criticise me for associating the real conservatism you describe with a party labelled conservative that is not, is rather odd.
Reply I was not a member of the Coalition / Conservative governments this century and I did not stand to be a Conservative party MP in 2024. My points are 1 Come on this site to engage with my views 2, Go to an official Conservative site to criticise the party if you wish to do so.
August 24, 2025
Sorry SJR, you , the conservatism you espouse, and the party by that name are indivisible. At the same time I do not hold you in any way responsible for the party they have become. The conservative party needs to have its own damacene moment. I have no interest in telling them what to do. And when they have had it they need to be very open and honest with the electorate, having used up their credibility to date.
August 24, 2025
It is divided, so not indivisible at all.
August 24, 2025
A Great summery of what Conservatives used to be about 40 years ago, sadly it has been nothing like that since, indeed the last 14 years they were in power they were more like the LibDems, and dare I say it Labour.
Not one Prime Minister since Thatcher stood up for the values you outline John.
We had High Taxation and immigration, wasteful spending with a huge increase in Government and Local Authority employees, expensive vanity projects that failed to work, limitations on inheritance and freedom, more laws, rules and regulations for everything.
Do I see the present Party changing back to what you outline, and scrapping/reducing all of the taxes that have been put in place for the last 3 decades, reducing the civil service, getting all government departments working efficiently, getting value for taxpayers money.?
I wish, but sorry, not in a million years, because there are too many of the new intake of Mp’s over the last couple of decades who simply do not share your views !.
August 24, 2025
Cameron was the heir to Blair and as Starkey puts it in his excellent video:-
Blair did more harm to Britain than two world wars.” David Starkey
August 24, 2025
I don’t know about 40 years ago. All my life Conservatives have been about one ambition – getting into power and staying in power. Rather like the Labour Party, except with slightly different policies.
August 24, 2025
In 2024 the Conservative party suffered a far greater defeat than it has yet acknowledged – or understood. Sunak and his hard-right manifesto only managed to win 121 seats, on just 24% of the vote.
The Conservatives suffered their worst routing not just of recent decades, but of its entire history, with around half of Sunak’s own ministers being booted out by their constituents. Among the seats lost were four held by recent Conservative Prime Ministers – including Liz Truss, who lost one of the safest Tory seats in the country.
Ever since the election the media has tried to put spin on this electoral disaster. Despite the Lib Dems quintupling their seats, or the Greens – who managed to achieve four seats – the media has focused relentlessly on Farage and his “rise”. Even the BBC has given him airtime.
Yet Sunak’s right-wing manifesto was in many respects a watered down version of Reform’s – promising to further slash taxes, deport migrants and conscript students. The electorate decisively rejected it.
The right-wing media focus has now shifted to attacking Labour after they achieved their famous landslide victory. Despite currently languishing in the polls, Labour will still win the next election – with the Lib Dems the official opposition.
Reply Labour polled very badly in 2024, below Corbyn levels. Lib Dems hardly went up. The issue was the collapse of the Conservative vote to a mixture of stay at home or vote Reform. The views I set out here were not rejected but much wanted by the former Conservative voters.
August 24, 2025
@ Sir John
The party then shot itself in the foot by electing Kemi Badenoch as party leader. Given this summer’s discontent over the boat people, immigration generally and the recent attacks on white children by foreigners – who are clearly exploiting British good nature – Badenoch’s response has been feeble
Mainstream parties ignore the strength of feeling of the cover-up of the grooming gangs at their peril. The dreadful Farage will exploit this to the hilt.
August 24, 2025
The Sunday Times trails, on the front-page, its own lengthy interview with her, in the magazine. She has resorted to playing the race-card and I, apparently, am suffering from ‘Kemi Derangement Syndrome’. The simple truth is that the party has descended much further than what she thought was its nadir. The blame for that is on her – the leader. This week, the Conservatives defended four council seats in Surrey; they lost the lot, and control over Surrey County Council. And on Tuesday, Reform will establish more clear blue-water between them and the policy-free Conservatives.
August 24, 2025
God help us if you think the conservatives had a right wing agenda at the last election.
August 24, 2025
Ian
+100 to that.
August 24, 2025
Oh this Conservative Party does have a right wing approach – bordering on the National Socialist that JR correctly identifies as being unacceptable to his (and I believe our) definition of ‘conservatism’.
That’s the point. The two parties which used to represent the differences between the politics of the British people are not so far left and right that they have joined on the other side of the circle, leaving the whole population stranded where were have always been, but without anyone for whom we can vote.
August 24, 2025
‘Now so far left and right …’ sorry, a critical mistake.
August 24, 2025
Reply to reply
In the future, if Reform continues to poll around where it is or in the high to mid-teens, the right of centre vote will be hugely split.
The Conservatives can not get back in while Reform eats their lunch. Similarly Reform can’t get in while the Conservatives exist. Labour had similar issues with Lib Dems and SNP for many years and it took the collapse in the right leaning vote, staying at home to let them back in.
Your version of Conservatism will not get voted in while so many are clients of the state.
August 24, 2025
NS
Your last line sums it up precisely, too many taking out and voting for it to continue.
We are going back to the 1970’s.
Thus we need a new Margaret Thatcher to turn the tables 180 degrees back to the views John outlines in his post. Afraid the only name in the game at the moment is Farage, the danger is lifetime conservative voters may keep him out.
August 24, 2025
When the State is bankrupted they have fewer clients who will then be very angry … they will look about at what they can do to sustain themselves and their families and find they need conservatism.
August 24, 2025
NS, Reform are actually consistently polling in the high 20s% the last poll I saw had them in the 30+% ten points ahead of Labour.
If we are to rid ourselves of the Uniparty mentality that has prevailed in Westminster since Blair and possibly since Major then we must vote in a new mindset and a new Party.
The LibLabCon lot are finished. Labour only managed to secure 20.4% of the electorate at the last election. Despite their huge majority they are a very unpopular bunch for obvious reasons.
They and their fellow political brothers have got to go.
August 24, 2025
Polling and the ballot box are two different places Rod. Reform has made great strides but at an election many make the choice between Labour and Conservative only. At the last election the choice was mostly Conservative or stay at home.
Reform are in danger of becoming the right leaning equivalent of the Lib Dems
August 25, 2025
Could not agree more RE!
August 24, 2025
I don’t favour conscription. A letter from the CDS sent to every one of ONE MILLION NEETs aged 16-24 would generate enough volunteers.
August 24, 2025
Sir John, as a fellow Tory member I am sad to say I have just allowed my membership to lapse.
You rightly point out this is your blog not the Conservative party’s. With that in mind can I say your overview of what conservatism is chimes perfectly with my own desires on how society should operate and be conducted.
Sadly the Conservative Party does not follow your sensible presentation of conservative values. My own decision to abandon the once true party of aspirations and freedom hinged on the insane decision taken by Theresa May to make the international Net Zero project a part of British state legal policy.
That single act of submission to international pressures is why we are losing all of our manufacturing and why we are now importing even our most basic energy requirements i.e. electricity.
Just go and check out how much of our grid is now being fed by imported power from France the Netherlands and Scandinavia. It is shocking and unsustainable. For a developed nation of 70 million + people to rely on the neighbours for its fundamentally key security needs which is energy, is criminal and socially/national destruction.
Until the Conservative Party states clearly it is going to repeal and cancel Net Zero, then there is only one Party any sane believer in the preservation of Britain can back and support.
The Reform Party is the conservative party of the 21st century and will be my choice while their sensible political postures continue to advance.
August 24, 2025
Those who wish to see the electrical energy in real time should go to gridwatch.co.uk at this moment 8.45 am imported electricity feeding the grid is 40% of our demand.
August 24, 2025
+1
Their refusal to LEAVE the EU, following a clear result in the EU Referendum and then Sunak’s Windsor Treachery … dragging us towards Associate Membership which Two-Tier is now exploiting …. is also unforgivable.
August 24, 2025
Aptly put. If only we could vote in people to enable this to happen!
August 24, 2025
We can. Become politically active and demand the right to freely choose your own candidates free of Party Machine dictate.
They want ‘compromised’ people whose votes they can control.
We want the opposite!
August 24, 2025
As usual people are conflating the Conservative Party and your treatise on Conservatism. The replies already and umpteen in the past highlight the fact that these so called conservatives fail one of your key tests, namely living in the past which in any event was never as rainbow hued as many believe.
Thatcher defending the Falkland Islands might have been politically successful domestically but at vast cost financially and to relations with a key South American country over a few hundred people on rocks in the middle of nowhere resulting in a continuing belief we should be one of the worlds policeman, Afghanistan at vast wasted cost springs to mind and now we are threatening Putin. Lord Palmerston lives.
You are absolutely correct on the tenets of Conservatism but the party that carries its name should be basing its vision on those not the so called glories of yesteryear. Every time these are mentioned, negatives get weaponised amplified with ease through social media casting the shadow of the nasty party over it. Low taxes yes but that only benefits the ‘haves’ etc.
Therefore that vision has to be inclusive and the policy that emerges should be communicated relentlessly. Every time, and we see a lot of it on this blog, the past is mentioned to inform the future (not all negative) I see Gordon Gecko and Poll Tax riots, underfunded NHS etc.
It’s called rowing syndrome. Moving forward looking back.
August 24, 2025
Like flip-floping between Nationalisiang and Privatising the utilities, which has not worked out in the long run to the benefit of the tax payer, the same can be said for alternating between Labour and Conservative governments, with a dash of Lib-Dem from time to time.
New politics is need, reform of the system is needed, actions and results speak louder than political words.
REFORM is needed now, and not by the time of the next election.
August 24, 2025
More direct democracy is needed. One vote every 4-5 years under FPTP for largely dishonest liars and cheats – standing on manifestos they have zero intention of even trying to deliver is not even remotely democratic! Just scan the last few manifesto’s of the winning parties. About the only promise they made have tried to keep was their totally insane war on net beneficial CO2 plant, tree and crop food.
August 26, 2025
A 1st amendment as well as direct democracy would help.
We also should consider and contrast the benefits if we had become a US state rather than an EU satrap. The UK would be one of the poorest! if we joined now.
August 24, 2025
A solid and comprehensive description of a world view.
But while candidates and parties may present as having the same perspective there are no real consequences for misrepresentation, corruption and deceit in both the elected and non-elected arms of the state.
You may believe in evolutionary change but this is no longer practical when the system has progressed to an extremist position as ours has today where it is so rabidly against the citizenry. – how do you bring it back to a more more moderate and benign position other than by strong measures?
We need effective means to sanction anyone and everyone in public office who damages our interests at all levels of “authority” and in a timely process, otherwise we end up with gangster governments
August 24, 2025
A nice sermon Sir JR. It sounds rather like the 1950’s when I was born. Sadly that sort of Conservatism died out decades ago.
August 24, 2025
We did not have much of it even back then.
A little bit of a light and working compass under Thatcher after the appalling Heath. But even she was a dire education Sec. closed many good grammar schools, buried us further into the EU, failed to reform the dire state monopoly NHS or cut government and taxes remotely sufficiently and then appointed daft as a brush John Major as Chancellor who the. took us into the ERM disaster with a view to joining the Euro.
August 24, 2025
Agreed
August 24, 2025
Perfectly articulated Sir John. Very elegantly written too.
I notice there is no mention of the ‘centre ground’ or ‘right of centre’ and I interpret that is because it is a mistake to think like that.
Restricting oneself to a segment of the political distribution constrains Conservatism. It results in only some of the vision being offered and only some solutions when the entire vision needs to be offered and all the solutions.
I believe the Conservative Party’s recent misfortune is due it’s recent leadership not understanding this.
August 24, 2025
For the ordinary guy, it’s not about being right, left or centre. Most people are a mix. Only the political class try to categorise themselves.
I have a bit of socialism – I believe in all children getting secondary education whether or not their parents can afford it. I believe in healthcare for those whose medical condition prevents them earning sufficient for their treatment.
I also believe in capitalism – People should keep their hard-earned cash, particularly those who have risked and strived in their own enterprise, and it shouldn’t be confiscated from them to fund the ideology of others.
Neither hard left nor hard right.
Political extremes shouldn’t be the way things are, but unfortunately it’s the way of those who are motivated into politics and there are very few sensible candidates one can vote for.
August 24, 2025
I agree with you Dave except for the part about political extremes. Who on the right of British politics is offering anything extreme? Nigel Farage is not extreme. Robert Jenrick is not extreme either. Extreme is National Socialism and it would be laughable to categorise either of them as that.
August 25, 2025
49.99999% of us ‘right of centre’. A similar percentage is ‘left of centre’. There’s one man or woman in the middle. I suspect that Sir John, in his long political career, can’t remember his party ever having won 50% of the national vote. Today, BTW, the combined Reform and Conservative vote, according to the most recent Find Out Now poll, stands at ……………………….. 50%.
August 25, 2025
In Sir John’s time in the House, a combination of Labour and Conservative often had more than 50% of the vote.
However Nigel Farage’s Party does not poll anywhere close to the 43% Mrs Thatchers Conservative got repeatedly.
August 25, 2025
PS, parties are separate for a reason and combining their support to achieve 50% in theory never works out in practise.
August 24, 2025
I believe that family is the basis of all society and that marriage reinforces family. However, the liberal view that all lifestyles are equally valid and that we must not favour one over the other has led to damaged children in broken families and undermined society, .
August 24, 2025
A little to the centre for my tastes Sir John.
I prefer to aim for a society where one’s own efforts bring the rewards due from those efforts except in the case or incapacitating disability. I think charges for society should be borne by the users with the state only providing defence, law and order, education, necessary infrastructure and a legal framework within which to operate.
Earn what you eat, keep much of what you earn and pay for your own health care.
The problem with centrally provided services is that while many rely on them, no one appreciates them including the deliverers.
The Conservative party of which you (used to?) serve does not recognise your definition Sir John.
August 24, 2025
Great overview of Conservatism
August 24, 2025
“One of the least perfectible of human institutions is government itself, which needs to be watched, checked and controlled to avoid tyranny.”
As the Covid Tyranny, which was hardly opposed by any in Parliament (Charles Walker, MP made a belated attempt but was ignored) clearly demonstrated. Those who opposed the Tyranny, whether Scientists, Medics, journalists or “ordinary” citizens were vilified and as much as possible, silenced – with some losing their jobs.
The Not-a-Conservative-Party should be completely ashamed that it was their Government which imposed this Tyranny on the country and should beg forgiveness. But that has not been forthcoming and – as Lifelogic repeatedly points out – the experimental gene therapies coerced by the Government are responsible for killing and seriously injuring a large number of people who were at no risk from the virus.
It is unforgivable.
If the Not-a-Conservative-Party had lived and governed according to the excellent creed Sir John has written, it would not now be facing oblivion.
August 24, 2025
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/december-january-2023/the-roots-of-conservatism/
by David Starkey in The Critic.
August 24, 2025
I have found a simple solution, not living in the past and not letting it get under my skin. It’s lovely day, the beer will be cold, friends and family enjoyable.
Permanently angry, complaining, life’s half empty. So sad.
August 24, 2025
It’s called “holding them to account” and is part of the democratic process.
But then lefties aren’t very keen on democracy, as they continually demonstrate.
I think the electorate is right to be angry about:
£400 billion of debt caused by the NaCP (with Labour’s enthusiastic support).
Mass immigration of 3 million in 3 years (most of whom will never assimilate, 85% of which are students – many bogus – or dependants).
The REFUSAL to control our borders and stop the illegal invasion.
And the Net Zero insanity which is destroying manufacturing, thousands of jobs and is impoverishing the ordinary people of this country …. and will do SFA to affect the climate.
You know nothing about my life, so I respectfully suggest you stop making assumptions about it.
August 25, 2025
Your ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude is the reason we have lost control of our parties and our country.
If you are content with the current situation, I suggest you stop reading political commentary.
August 24, 2025
Compare and contrast all of the above with a party that (1) allowed Brexit to be sabotaged, indeed in some instances actually sabotaged it; (2) inflicted a needlessly prolonged and economically ruinous lockdown, when sensible alternatives were available; (3) failed to defend the nation’s borders; (4) adopted an energy policy founded upon stark lunacy; (5) stabbed a flawed but charismatic leader in the back when there was still scope to turn things round; (6) called a needless and premature General Election for the sole purpose of losing it. What was conservative – deliberate use of small c – about any of that?
August 24, 2025
Good summary, resonates with me.
R
August 24, 2025
What you have set out is certainly the Conservatism I have supported for as long as I can remember, and the Conservatism that I believe is supported by Conservatives all over the country, with the exception of the majority of Conservative Members of Parliament, and I can see little sign that that has changed under the new leadership. That is where the Party’s problem lies, and somehow something must be done to recruit candidates who espouse the same values as you set out in this excellent post. Otherwise the field is open to Reform, which though supposedly ‘Right wing’, does not in my view have the same ethos at all.
August 24, 2025
It wasn’t until Margaret Thatcher arrived with some sanity and common sense that the clarity between political parties was brought home to ordinary working people. Up to that point it needed a woman with basic common sense to sort out the country as most definitely Labour / Socialism wasn’t working -same as today.
Sir John Britain owes you so much as a country it so few recognise this due to many factors which you kindly outline, many thanks indeed.
August 24, 2025
IMHO Conservatives of old had to think more with their heads, even more than Labour who think more with their hearts (hence red emblems, Emotional appeals every time, non-stop) and have weaponise this to paint Conservatives as heartless Tories and using foul language to boot, smearing and spinning hints of the far right etc. Far worse.
August 24, 2025
Best summary of conservative philosophy I have seen.
Just on qualifalicayion. ‘We expect a strong rule of law.’ This should be strong rule of the laws msde by our democrstocally elected government, accountable only to the British people and no others.
August 24, 2025
An excellent exposition of conservatism. What you might have made explicit, tho’ it was implicit, is that Equality, the ideology that infects the British state at all levels, is not a conservative value. How many £billions have been wasted by a ‘Conservative’ party that failed to repeal the woke Equality Act once they were cut loose from the LibDems in 2015? Conservatives should refer to DEI as DIE – to indicate the death of any sensible way of running a country.
In your closing para you refer to Nazism and Communism. They had very much more in common than either had with liberal democracy, yet leftists routinely refer to conservatives as fascists!
August 24, 2025
Sir John
Like others on here today I 100% agree with your train of thought. Like others here I also have noted that there is no political grouping in Parliament, in either House of our Legislators support these views. The last 25 Years of their actions and inactions have proved that.
To many well meaning knee-jerk reactions have produced the opposite of everything you summarise as at no stage is there a follow up thought as to consequence. The majority are ignored in every situation.
Yesterday from a different source the phrase used was that ‘privacy was freedom’. The Government and the pretend conservatives don’t like that and legislate against it
Your well-meaning suggestion of ‘Freedom to do things should not stretch to harming your neighbour or advancing by violence’ agreed it shouldn’t but then this gets distorted, clouded and interpreted to take on personal, very personal views. Is ‘murdering a cup of tea’ a threat of violence? Is offering an albeit probably aggressive counter-view on social media a threat of violence? The Laws that Parliament has given us as they are practised head for the soft personal option and not what most sane people would call the real intention. The murder of children causes an outburst in personal very personal words and jail sentence. The calling for followers to ‘slit-the-throats’ of those with different views doesn’t even get a slap on the wrist. There is no equality before this parliaments Laws
There is a lot wrong in Society and conservatism in all its forms for the most part offers a clear remedy to them. But the UK Parliament as well as fighting freedoms of the People, just doesn’t want anyone to take on personal responsibility.
Without finding people capable and willing to stand for Parliament on a Conservative ticket, there is for know no way out of this mess
August 24, 2025
Going back at least 10 years I pointed out mass migration of low tax payers would lead to “dilution” of Government services.
Today we see the IMF warning of a bailout because Governments have tried to deliver more services with a much smaller tax per person.
People have warned Mass migration will turn the UK into a third world country. It will not only do so though violence, but through IMF bailouts pretending we still live in a modern country.
August 24, 2025
Agreed. Apparently the Scottish ‘government’ spends upwards of £44,000 per family pa. I wonder what their revenue calculated per family pa is … £400.00?
August 24, 2025
This is an excellent stemebt if Conservatives. I would only add three things. A fundamental respect for Christianity. Respect for but not necessarily deference to our ancient aristocracy and great respect for and support of our armed forces.
August 24, 2025
Respect is commanded, it can’t just be ‘given’.
August 25, 2025
I see that Advance UK – led by a Mr Habib – mentions Christianity in its mission statement.
August 24, 2025
“Conservatives oppose the imposition of bad international law.”
Who makes the decision on what is good and bad international law?
August 25, 2025
We do.
August 24, 2025
Sir John, all that may be (and actually is) true of yourself – but as to all the others, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. if this is what Conservatives believe and aim at, why are there so few of them represented among the Parliamentary Party? Time after time, from 2010 to 2024, we have seen so-called Conservative MPs defying the wishes of the electorate, deliberately betraying the country to Brussels, conspiring together to manipulate votes and tug party policy to the left, and trying to oust leaders elected by the electorate and party membership.
As i keep on saying, the Tory MPs seem to forget that we can see and hear them during debates and committee discussions – we can see what they do and say. Since 2010 I have seen even more sly hypocrisy on that side of the Chamber than on the other: at least Labour MPs are open about their harmful aims.
August 24, 2025
I’ve been thinking ahead to your party’s conference. It needs some lengthy, vigorous debates – on issues such as your post. But I suspect that the stage-management by CCHQ won’t allow for that, and any excitement will come from the fringe. Anyways, this year I’ll make a point of tuning in to it. Us sea warriors like to see manoeuvres!
August 24, 2025
The best definition of conservatism I have ever read; comprehensive yet concise. Thank you Sir John.
August 24, 2025
Agree 100% with your analysis of what conservatism should be. May I suggest you send a copy to every conservative MP and every conservative candidate, via Kemi Badenoch. If Kemi agrees to send it out and stand by it, maybe there is hope for the conservatives yet.
As a side issue, thank you to the comedians who made me laugh by suggesting Sunak had a right-wing manifesto.
If only he had!
Reply. Thanks. Will send to others.
August 24, 2025
An excellent set of principles but as the comments suggest, the challenge is delivering them especially in today’s polarised world? It would have been interesting had you became PM when you challenged John Major. I am happy to say that in my long Civil Service( second ) career that you were by far the cleverest of all theMinisters I have worked for and at a personal level, one of the nicest- for which I thank you.
Reply Thank you. I found please and thank you were useful words when trying to energise a civil service team. It was important to understand the advice before deciding, and if necessary amend or propose a better way.
August 24, 2025
Dear Sir John,
Thank you for this statement of principles. There is enough here for you to tease out in many weeks of your columns.
Perhaps you will permit me to add two more:
1) Our Government should protect and advance the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under a King or Queen who is there to represent that unity whatever parties are for the moment in power. Maybe that should include the Commonwealth.
The Unionist element of the Conservative and Unionist Party has become more pressing and needs to be emphasized more. It seems to me also to be a key common feature of the two main right-of-centre parties and an important basis for the co-operation between them that will probably be needed if many of your principles are to be advanced any time soon.
2) We should always welcome and embrace the stranger but resist at all costs any invasion or encroachment by any means of our nation by mass movements of peoples alien to us, whoever they are. The Brythons and Anglo-Saxons learnt this to their cost.
August 24, 2025
As a more general conservative principle, Sir John, it seems to me that we elect a government to run the state, which is to say the things we can only do together. Beyond what is needed for that, the government should not aim to govern the people, however wrong-headed they may think us to be.
Unfortunately, the near-monopoly of education and healthcare by the state and the constant efforts to extend that monopoly power, have encouraged successive governments of all parties to tell us ever more what we must or cannot do. We need to rethink this so that we retain the great benefits of good free education and healthcare for all without destroying your fundamental principle of liberty.
Otherwise, the old idea that “an Englishman’s home is his castle” will soon become “a Briton’s residential unit is his prison”.
August 24, 2025
Free Speech shouldn’t include the right to offend.There are many varying degrees of offense ranging from minor personal attacks to comments which cause war.Reform and Ann Widdicome think it is everyones right to offend and that is where I get off the new wheel.It is a dangerous stance.I also believe that conservatism,a political ideology most our age grew up with, involves self control with emotional intelligence guiding our every word and action.Many deviated from the standards taught by the Cof E etcetera but at least acknowledged it and modernised perceptions.
We are at threat from other ideologies who have been ingrained with very different teachings and the teachings are by no measure freedom promoting,in fact they are totally opposite,so where do society now find the balance to keep the scales of justice British.
August 25, 2025
I was going to advise against hitching this set of political beliefs to one political party now in dire electoral trouble but then I noticed the piece was actually entitled Conservatism, not Conservativism.
As for the principles themselves they are cleverly phrased to appear so platitudinous that most Conservatives, indeed probably most people (as do so many on this site) will readily agree with them, probably all of them. I suppose it is quite an achievement to devise something that the diverse types of Conservative, patrician ‘One Nation, traditional and libertarian are all likely to agree with and mask their enormous differences. I myself wouldn’t agree with every word. For instance I don’t wish to be a dwarf on the shoulders of giants(akin to the phraseology of Sir Isaac Newton) inheriting past wisdom and knowledge (at least not in academic terms though I am happy to do so in technological terms where ‘it works’ is a validation)because so many current notions are wrong and need to be reexamined, starting again from the very beginning.
Perhaps a core Conservative value is or should be tolerance of differences among people.
August 26, 2025
Yes GB I see the said distinction, however looking at the dictionary definition, it calls conservatism a political ideology .Hoping to conserve a large element of what conservatitism is , doesn’t include denial of Britishness.The central tenets may seem like a waffly piece of generalities,but from these phrases a more detailed up to date exposition should happen in the HoC.
August 25, 2025
All of the things we used to have before this dreadful excuse of a government got in by default. Why did the Conservatives purposely lose the last election? Unfortunately they have made themselves unelectable and many won’t forgive them. The damage Labour has and is causing is catastrophic, our own country is becoming unrecognisable. How do we stop it John before it’s too late?
August 25, 2025
Having played my part for the party, knocking on doors and talking to people extensively, I can wholeheartedly agree with your view of true Conservatism, Sir John. It was a joy to read your succinct précis, and it’s made me wonder how many younger people view these tenets. Have been away too long and have lost touch, but no doubt things will come full circle at some point.
As i see it, Change in the whole system of governance is desperately needed for the country to get back on the right track. The voting public have been hugely let down for too long and unless positive change happens within the establishment of governance best interests of the population will continue to be excluded no matter who people voted for.
I see so much that is wrong that my heart is heavy for my motherland.