The conservative party has been in existence since the 1670s and was first called the ‘Tories’, a term used by the Scottish and Irish to describe a robber. This party is a right- wing party which believed in conserving the tradition and the king, as the name entails. David Cameron, the current party leader became the leader in 2005. He is also the present prime minister of Great Britain and he has made a lot of changes since he became the leader of the party. In this essay, I will talk about the history of the party, looking into detail at their gradual changes or transition in ideology and the various changes that David Cameron has made to the party’s image and beliefs.
As previously mentioned, the conservative party dates back to the late seventeenth century, when the British parliament was established and there were independence from the British Monarchy. The Tories of that century wanted as much preservation of the ‘Old ways’ which basically included the hierarchy, social class difference and most importantly, the preservation of the power of the king. They generally wanted the conservation of their old constitution as the members of the party were the royalists (Conservatives.com).
In the year 1832, the time of the Great Reform Bill, the name ‘conservative party’ became the official name of the party. Conservative leaders like Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli did not refuse all changes because they knew that change was good for progress. The post war consensus was between the year 1945-1979 and it was established immediately after the year 1945 by Attlee (Labour party). The conservatives were in power for 17 years out of the 34 years under the leadership of Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas ...
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...n government between David Cameron and Nick Clegg has definitely made an impact in history because there has been no coalition since 1945. Even though many compromises have been made, the parties are still getting along well.
In conclusion, before David Cameron came into power, the Conservatives were in the right side of politics were Thatcher left them. He brought the party closer to the centre. He changed people’s perception about the Conservative party because he changes a lot of things leaving few things unchanged. David Cameron definitely moved the party to the centre of politics.
Works Cited
Holmes, P, Introducing Politics for AS Level, London: Polity Press, 2008. [Chapter 8, sections 5, 6 & 7]
Kelly, R., ‘Conservatism under Cameron,’ Politics Review17, 3 February 2008.
The Conservative Party website. [access at: http://www.conservatives.com ]
The next year the Tories had different periods experienced 5 different prime ministers all whom were of no good, therefore the party became very rocky and unstable. If finding a prime minister who was good for the job was not bad enough, across the waters major conflict was arousing in Ireland. (just give them potatoes.) Daniel O'Connell, with the support of the Catholic Association, won the county Clare election.
The conservative approach to state intervention post 1979 has been on the whole to go for the minimum as is illustrated in their economic policy and this was included in their critique of government economic policy at that time. On the whole the government felt that levels of state intervention were far too high in regards to the economy which led to various negative consequences such as making industry uncompetitive and laid back since the government would bail them out at the first sign of smoke as Labour always did. They also felt it destroyed the incentives for individual entrepreneurship leading people into not achieving their full potential as it was not worth there while, this led to lack of money within the economy as well as top businessmen leaving for pastures new. On the whole Thatcher was a strong advocate of believing regulation by the state should be minimised as it had a large amount of control over things like wages, prices, profits and production systems which was thought to stifle business expansion. Most regulation was in nationalised industries and the way this problem was solved was through privatisation which was a major step towards reducing state intervention in the economy. This was passing major sections of the economy that were state run onto the private sector, although it did contain advantages such as managers pursuing profits it was primarily the disengagement of the state that was at the heart of “Thatcherism”, and this policy was indeed rather Thatcheresque. Classical economics believed state interference was negative and Thatcher considered herself as a modern heir to this classical view. Of course privatisation was a trend that continued beyond the 1980’s and with New Labour who converted to it b...
The Tory party were in office prior to parliamentary reform and for years they had time and again strenuously refused to widen the electorate, arguing what made the British political system so very successful was due to the fact that their was more emphasis on the landowning than the sheer numbers of electorate. The Tory party dominated British politics with the support of royals such as George III and George IV. However, by 1830 divisions in the party began to form and came to prominence. The cause of these divisions was the issue of Roman Catholic Emancipation which led to Tory hardliners threatening to support reform in order to ensure a wider electorate that would throw out any idea of emancipation with fervour. This split in the Tory government eventual became so bitter that the Tory government eventually collapsed in November 1830.
Conservatives, on the contrary believe that public social welfare services should be funded and controlled by the public. They believe in personal responsibility, limited government; in fact the lowest decentralized level of government that is possible. Conservatives deem that decision-making at the level of the individual states is preferable to federal supervision. “Conservatives are less inclined to support widespread entitlement programs which provide for the welfa...
middle of paper ... ... d therefore the smaller parties can be considered to have very little effect on the overall political situation. In conclusion, the UK can still best be described as a two party system, provided two considerations are taken into account. The first is that Conservative dominance victories between 1979-97 was not a suggestion of party dominance and that eventually, the swing of the political pendulum will be even for both sides. This can perhaps be seen today with Labour's two landslide victories in 1997 and 2001.
Conservatives generally go with the perspective that less is more. Most would side with the argument that less government action is a better approach for society as a whole. Rather than promoting the idea of social equality, like the Liberal perspective, they promote social inequality. Most would like little government regulation and intervention of economy. Conservatives have the "big business" and "trickle down" theory, that even though the rich stay rich, their wealth will eventually reach the poor and poverty-stricken.
1992 is a year of change for England. The Norsefire party, lead by Adam Sutler, has come into power in the most recent election. With 87% of the votes this party beat the Conservative party and the Labour party by a landslide.
Classical conservatism or traditional conservatism, Burkean conservatism, and Toryism, is a party that has re-expressed their convections to fit the time. (Frohnen, Beer, and Nelson, 2006) In classical conservatism, many parties have adapted their view points. One of the first parties in American that adapted the philosophies of conservatism was the Whigs. The Whigs opposed monarchial power, advocated internal reform of administration, and freedom under the law. They believed in balancing orders in the common wealth and religious toleration. (Kirk, 1953) One person highly recognized for his work in the public sector for conservatism was Edmund Burke.
The conservatives are a political party who make up the right side of the political spectrum who have a strong stance on law and order, religion, social order, traditional values (i.e. marriage) and strict law enforcement. As it can be seen, these values are highly interrelated and so if one of the values changes then that would lead to a chain effect and as a result, the party would develop a huge amount of distrust, therefore, they largely do not support change.
In recent years, our political system has become more and more divided. The system that is supposed to bring our country working as a “machine” has essentially torn it apart. Liberals lean more toward the government being active in supporting local and political change. Conservatives have more traditional viewpoints on political and social aspects of the government. Although the viewpoints may have changed over the years, the principals have remained the same.
Modern liberalism and modern conservatism are both political outlooks that involve acceptance or support of the balance of the degree of social equality and social inequality; while they tend to avoid political changes that would result in extreme deviation of society to either side. Modern liberalism and modern conservatism tend not to be as centrist or middle-of-the-road ideologies as they once could be. Ideology is a set of ideas and beliefs that guide the goals, expectations, and actions of a group (Webster’s Dictionary). Individuals who are conservative or liberal tend to have views that align within a political party, whether it be Republican or democratic, but this is not always the case. There are conservative democrats, such as, Jim Costa and Jim Cooper and there are liberal republicans, such as, Nathaniel Banks and George Washington Julian. Another name for conservative democrats would be blue dog democrats while the nickname for liberal republicans is the Rockefeller republicans. These two ideologies tend to be more of the centrist ideologies. Modern liberals tend to be members of the Democratic Party because they support a wide range of welfare programs and government support of the public sector and tighter corporate regulations (PP Modern Liberalism). U.S. Conservatism evolved from classical liberalism, which makes them similar, yet there is many differences between modern conservatism and modern liberalism. There are principles and tenets that govern each ideology. A tenant is a belief or idea that is held as being true from a group (Webster’s Dictionary). In understanding both ideologies, it is imperative to have an understanding of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism was built on ideas from the seventeenth ...
Since the 1950s there has been a rise in the power of the Prime Minister, specially Crossman in 1962 and Benn, who in 1979 referred to “a system of personal rule in the very heart of our Parliamentary democracy”. As Britain has remained the “world’s most successful representative democracy”. The role of the executive has significantly increased at a great deal since the end of World War 2, however, the outward dangers of a supplementary individual hegemony attached to the Prime Minister shouldn’t be overemphasized. Although the modern examples of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair whose styles of leadership have each been labelled as presidential. In this essay I will be assessing the four main prime minister’s power and if his or her powers constrained under the British system. For instances, the power of patronage, cabinet power, the party leadership and the mass media. These are four main factors of the prime minister and its effectiveness can be argued.
The Labour party has had a long and tenuous history in British politics and has helped shape Britain into the great nation it is today. Whether it was the post-war majority government of Clement Atlee deriving from the ‘bowls of the trade union movement’ or the so called new labour government under Tony Blair, the Labour party have been integral in the progression of modern British politics and has a long and interesting history.
"In what ways and to what extent does the political system of the UK fit Lijphart’s models of democracy? How has this changed over recent decades?"
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that encourages the traditional institutions but opposes rapid changes held in society. Like social conservative is an idea for defending traditional values. It was basically started in America in 18 century and based on culture in order to preserve American old ways. After French revolution the ideology of conservative has been started, with the main point of tradionalism , in order to respect institutions and customs. In conservative view they belief that people are unequal physically and mentally. The attempts to remove these differences causes violence. Conservatism strongly produce the feelings of patriotism and each person tries to serve his country with honesty. But the