Conservative

I am ceaselessly amazed, as I look at our media, political parties, schools and universities, how formerly conservative people and institutions have adapted themselves to ideas, expressions and formulations which they once rejected and confidently mocked. Almost everything that was once derided as the work of the 'loony left' or 'political correctness gone mad' is observed daily in grand, expensive private schools and is the official policy of the Conservative and Unionist party, or soon will be. I am too keenly aware of the good things which have been utterly lost in recent years to be comforted by what looks like an attempt to reconcile us with the revolutionary order. [Peter Hitchens (2018), The Spectator]

What I've witnessed is a creeping malaise not dissimilar to the one afflicting the Conservative party: institutions that no longer believe in their own brand, that are desperate to pretend they are something they are not (and never should be) in order to impress the kind of people who are always going to hate them anyway. Take Eton. Almost everything that was good about it, from the arcane terminology to the kit to the remarkable independence the boys enjoy, was the result of the accumulated values of its first 550 years of existence. It was not the result of any measures that modernisers have introduced in the past decade or so. [James Delingpole (2019), The Spectator]

At long last, some Conservative British MPs are raising their standard for conservatism: up to 40 Conservative MPs will refuse to accept the "unconscious bias training" intended to tackle racism in the Commons, accusing the parliamentary authorities of "pandering to the woke agenda". Such training is not intended to address racial prejudice. It's intended instead to coerce conformity with approved attitudes — in this case, the anti-white racism of Black Lives Matter, which BLM uses to further its openly-stated agenda of undermining and overthrowing western society. "Unconscious bias training" is based on the Marxist concept of "false consciousness". Its sinister, Kafka-esque goal is to persuade people that they are really odious on account of views they don't even know they have — and the very fact that they don't know they have these views, or worse still deny having them, is proof of just how odious they are. Nevertheless, this onslaught on freedom, rationality and western cultural identity is being ruthlessly applied in companies, public sector bodies and other institutions around Britain and the west. And in Britain, it's being enforced by a Conservative government. It can't be stated too strongly that if conservatives don't conserve what is valuable, true and decent about our society they aren't conservatives at all. [Melanie Phillips (2020)]