Has British Conservatism Lost Its Way?

This is an edited version of a speech the Right Honourable Lord Frost gave at the Danube Institute in Budapest on March 21

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IT IS a privilege to give my thoughts about conservatism in a forum with John O’Sullivan, a man who has been at the vanguard of conservative thought and action across the West for so many years, and who continues to argue for freedom and Western civilisation at every opportunity.

I can answer the question in my title straight away. There’s no doubt about it. British conservatism has certainly lost its way. That’s not a value judgment. It’s a judgment based on the polling that shows the party at 20 to 25 per cent of the vote—the worst ranking for many years. As things stand, the party is heading for a very severe defeat at the election later this year. So the question is not have we lost our way, but how and why have we lost our way, and what can be done about it. 

This address appears in May’s Quadrant.
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