Following in a fine tradition of set-piece conferences which have hosted world leaders, leading academics, senior policymakers and journalists, the Centre for Policy Studies will next year host the Margaret Thatcher Conference on remaking conservatism.
To some people, the idea of remaking conservatism is an oxymoron. Conservatism is about retaining the best of what has come before, they would say, about preservation, not reinvention. But as my CPS colleague Karl Williams noted, when we announced the conference theme, Friedrich Hayek understood that ‘[i]f old truths are to retain their hold on men’s minds, they must be restated in the language and concepts of successive generations’.
Never has that felt more true for those of a conservative – and Conservative – persuasion in the UK. Ideas which feel to us so innate, natural and obviously correct are not widely understood, never mind widely held, and have been supplanted by the notion that the state knows best.
Like for example the notion that, broadly speaking, parents know what childcare arrangements work for them and their families – whether that is parents staying home, grandparents, childminders, full-time nursery, nannies or au pairs, or simply the mum on the corner taking care of two or three of the neighbours’ kids once a week. Instead, successive governments have regulated childminders to the brink, forced up the burdens on nurseries and invested millions in getting women back to work with little attention paid to whether they’d actually rather be at home. Parental choice downplayed and the role of the state reinforced.
As much as some may claim, this isn’t a problem contained to the Left. They have always instinctively believed in not just the power of the state, but the duty of the state to direct society. Yet 14 years of Conservative governments under five different leaders have left us with the highest tax burden in 75 years (so much for lower taxes), an unwillingness to defend house building to an electoral coalition who blindly refuse to see the need, and a state so large the idea of regulating football is simply nodded through.
Many on the Right seem to enter politics with not so much an ideological determination but a managerial stubbornness, a belief that if they could just get their hands on the levers of power they could run socialism more effectively and efficiently than the socialists.
The public certainly have not come out of extended governance by the centre-right with a burning desire for conservatism – with either a lower-case, or capital C. A recent Centre for Policy Studies report by James Frayne found low support for big businesses, with people feeling ‘ripped off’ as a result of the cost of living crisis, and limited appetite and audience for traditional low-tax, small-state ideas because, above all else, the public are concerned about funding for the NHS.
Electorally, the picture is hardly less rosy. Prior to the most recent general election, the largest Conservative-to-Labour swing in post-war history was seen in Brent North in 1997, at 18.8%. That swing was surpassed in an astonishing 46 constituencies on July 4.
There is a mountain to climb to persuade the public that conservatism can work for them or the country.
And so the case for free markets, lower taxes and a smaller state does need to be remade. Our instincts, beliefs, and most importantly policy recommendations need to be articulated in terms suited for modern audiences, but we also need to address critical questions about why, when it comes to elections, the public are not so much drifting away from the Conservatives as running full speed in any other direction.
The next Margaret Thatcher Conference on March 17 will be just one part of the CPS’ work on this. Our mission over the last 50 years has been to develop new ideas, hold governments to account and provide a platform for original thinking. I hope CapX readers will want to be part of this vital conversation and join us for the event in central London, alongside the expert voices hosted on stage for speeches and fireside chats, so get the date in your diaries, and tickets are on sale now.
‘Margaret Thatcher Conference 2025: Remaking conservatism’ will take place in central London on March 17, 2025. Buy your ticket here.
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