The Conservative Dictionary
What is a neoconservative? Who are girlie men? What is the doctrine of pre-emption? Who belongs to the Tory Party's core vote? Is foxhunting a wedge issue? What does it mean to be pro-life? Is there such a place as Old Europe?
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The extent to which the income of voters is derived directly from government.
Democracies where success depends upon political parties' careful subservience to measured public opinion.
Political messages that stir targeted sets of voters without unsettling others.
Social conservatives believe that strong families and traditional values underpin 'one nation'.
Gordon Brown, John Reid, Charles Kennedy, Andrew Marr, Jim Naughtie, Kirsty Wark... is Britain run by Scots?
If the root causes of a nation’s problems are not addressed by a focused ‘nanny state’, those problems will only multiply and make much bigger calls on a bloated ‘welfare state’.
Appeasement processes encourage a new generation of terrorists to believe that violence provides a back door to political power.
Many green crusaders start off with a passion for the environment but end up embracing big state solutions. Blue environmentalism - with its belief in wider ownership, technological progress and market-based polluter-must-pay mechanisms – offers more hope for the planet.
Politicians don’t always have to change laws or spend money to achieve their goals. Sometimes their ability to influence the national conversation can trigger cultural and social progress.
Conservatives believe that the best institutions operate on a human, people-sized scale.
Taxpayers’ money delivered via vouchers, matched funding and asset transfer can build a voluntary sector that is less politicised and more rooted in the needs of stakeholder communities.
The bureaucratisation of Britain has been fronted by the 60,000 people appointed to Britain’s 529 quangos.
Defending the homeland from terrorist and other threats is a first duty of the state.
Michael Moore Conservatives are weak in the war on terror, opposed George W Bush’s re-election and are antagonistic towards Israel.
An unhelpfully negative term for the kind of government action that can strengthen society’s free institutions and civilising values.
Society may soon resent parents who choose not to terminate unborn babies with ‘abnormalities’.
The kind of men you may want your daughter to marry are often in short supply.
New technologies may eventually lead parents to abandon natural procreation in the search for the right kind of child – and one who can compete with its engineered peers.
A diverse number of free citizens will make better economic and political decisions than a small number of ‘experts’.
British voters want healthcare and education to be freely available to every citizen – regardless of income. State-funded public services do not have to be state-supplied, however.
A largely American movement that attempts to restore the 'til death do us part' character of traditional marriage.
Some potential dangers - like global warming - are so great that protective action cannot wait until the nature of those dangers has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Negative adverts may be disliked by the public but positive campaigns are less likely to impact voting behaviour.
The BBC, the Liberal Democrats and the NSPCC may look and sound moderate but their agenda can be anything but.
The desire to earn enough to own property or land is one of prosperity’s driving forces. Ownership is also one of life’s greatest sources of security.
Natural resources that are not owned by anyone are open to be misused by everyone.
From Essex Man to Do-It-All woman, each election's political stereotypes remind us of each period's political precoccupations.
The real world – particularly seen through the lens of parenthood - makes it harder for people to retain libertarian beliefs.
The limited powers of Britain's 'constitutional monarchy' are granted by the 'sovereign' democratically-elected Houses of Parliament.
Anecdotes can bring arguments alive but they’re not the basis for sound policies.
Reductions in the supply of government services will only be temporary if the demand for those services has never been tackled.
Intrinsic value is the worth of an object that cannot be gauged – easily or at all – by rational or other evaluative techniques.
Britain depends upon other nations for much of its food, energy and military needs.
Real people – used by politicians to humanise a political argument – have been nicknamed skutnicks.
Love of country is fundamental to all conservatism.
The day many Britons woke up to the folly of European integration and when the Tories mislaid their reputation for economic competence.
Many Tory ideas have been implemented by a kleptomaniac Labour government.
A nasty side of politics that plays the person rather than the ball.
Dispositional conservatism – is procedural and instinctively cautious. Substantial conservatism – emphasises fundamental beliefs.
Conservatives will resist libertarians as fiercely as they will resist socialists if they pursue their abstract ideas to logical – but practically destabilising – conclusions.
The fact that cultural and regulatory institutions are often outpaced by technological change.
Will we still be human after tomorrow's technologies have programmed, drugged and engineered us into healthier, longer-living, more athletic and hard-to-offend creatures?
'Outputs' are automatic products of policy changes. 'Outcomes' may have been produced by a particular policy change but may reflect other unrelated factors.
Self-interest is the driving force behind free market prosperity.
Pregnant political phrases that help to lead people to think in ways desired by the public figure that uses them.
The wasteful process by which money is taken from taxpayers only to be returned to them later.
The credentials that a political party needs to establish before voters will permit it to pursue otherwise contentious goals.
Ineffective institutions like the United Nations and welfare state that hide our consciences from the reality of the difficulties facing our fellow man.
The dangerous tendency of insulated groups to make terrible decisions.
Despite miserable records of failure some people and institutions retain public affection because of their grandstanding intentions.
Britain’s first-past-the-post system tends to elect strong governments on a minority of votes cast.
Some UK MPs serve 51,000 voters and some over 100,000.
The deceit that the private conduct of a public figure does not affect their public roles.
Effective government ministers will deploy the full arsenal of policy instruments available to them.
Britain’s political independence depends upon staying outside of the economically unsuccessful eurozone.
The tendency of our novelty-obsessed, 24 hours-a-day society to over-interpret – and therefore over-react to – news events.
A conservatism that addresses morally-important issues as diverse as human trafficking and the care of children with fathers in prison.
The belief that much of nature reveals the work of an intelligent creator.
Michael Moore, MoveOn.org and other media monsters have pushed America’s Democrats to left-of-centre extremes.
Old European and 'realpolitik' sophisticates prefer cleverness to wisdom and nuance to conviction.
The British public believes that pensioners and children are society’s two most vulnerable groups.
The most important care for vulnerable people does not come from the state. It is provided by a free society's people-sized institutions, particularly the family.
Seed policies change an existing law or institution only at the margins but they open up the possibility of more radical change in the future.
Healthy marriages are at the heart of strong societies and provide the ideal environment for the nurturing of children.
The institutions and values that a society can draw on - and must always replenish.
The politically unacceptable face of the libertarian right.
The proper moniker for the world’s most retrograde leaders.
A sentimental person or society will ignore the claims of reason and tradition and will be overwhelmed by the power of emotion.
The increasing importance of money in politics is one of a number of forces that are protecting the status of incumbent politicians.
The coming together of diverse groups for a common cause. Muslims, Catholics and orthodox Jews may come together to defend the family. Evangelicals, environmentalists and feminist groups may make unlikely bedfellows against cloning.
How the ousting of Margaret Thatcher poisoned and brutalised the Conservative Party.
A social or economic situation where someone's gain is at the expense of another person.
Ideologies like social Darwinism and scientism that build thick dogmas on the backs of thin truths.
The cruel (and destructive) belief that the weak be allowed to sink, and the strong be allowed to swim, in order for a society to flourish.
The natural tendency of every human institution is to decay.
Virtues - like courage, ambition and creativity - that drive a society towards wealth creation and its own defence.
The Judaeo-Christian teaching that within every human being there exists tendencies to anger, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, and sloth.
The profane idea that paradise can be built on earth.
Milton Friedman documented the many forces that stop ineffective government programmes from being closed down.
Civilisation depends upon the moral character of adult citizens but modern society is exposing children to ‘adult influences’ whilst bigger and bigger government is facilitating infantile behaviour amongst many adults.
The permanent things are the things that matter more than the things that change.
A way of making government study how its policies affect the family.
The relational philosophy challenges the prevailing culture of materialism to take more account of family, faith and social responsibility.
Peter Lilley’s tongue-in-cheek suggestion of an immediate device to help professed egalitarians move towards their ideal society.
The 'tolerated' status of non-Muslims in Islamic states and, perhaps, of all religious people in states ruled by secular fundamentalism.
Iain Duncan Smith asserts that a majority of Britons hold conservative views on economic welfare, national security, social conservatism and ‘one nation’.
The tendency of extremist liberals to demonise conservative attitudes towards sensitive moral issues.
Public policies to ensure that monopolies do not come to dominate sectors of the economy or society – thus causing them to stagnate.
Many national institutions rightly work hard to include women or people of different racial backgrounds in their workforces. Government grantmakers do something similar in their funding decisions. Inclusion of people of different worldviews and religions is often neglected, however, and a charitable or media establishment emerges that does not represent the real breadth of Britain.
A free society needs virtue if it is not to become anarchic. Virtue is best sustained by religious faith. And authentic faith only flourishes when people are free to practice religion.
President Roosevelt named freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear as the freedoms at stake in the allies' war against WWII's Axis powers.
The rich interconnectedness of natural ecosystems that human beings destabilise at their peril.
Backing from an influential and trusted profession, charity or celebrity can greatly increase public support for a political pitch.
The New Labour project has dominated British politics in the same way that Margaret Thatcher dominated her times. Unlike Thatcherism, however, and with the exception of the war on terror, Blairism will be remembered for winning elections rather than transforming Britain.
Dangerous forces are often served by unwitting allies. The peace-at-any-price brigade are the useful idiots of today's terrorists.
The English-speaking nations who share a system of law, a commitment to free market economics and a proactive approach to the war on terror.
Politicisation describes the tendency of the Left (and the Right) to over-emphasise political solutions to diverse challenges.
Externalities are the costs that have to be borne by the environment or taxpayer if businesses or individuals are not made to bear them themselves. A factory's pollution of the natural environment is the classic example of an externality.
Public figures reach a less partisan audience when they appear on daytime tv and face more unpredictable lines of questioning.
Through school choice parents can free their children from a bad school and choose a more successful school that might also be more consistent with their values or religious ethos.
By refusing to tolerate minor crimes - like vandalism and public drunkenness - a well-policed community can stop petty criminals jumping on the conveyor belt to more serious crimes.
The failure of left-liberal methods to build social justice and social peace puts conservative ideas in the vanguard of overturning failed status quo situations.
A mainstream strand of conservatism that believes that the government’s budget should be balanced over the course of an economic cycle.
Fairness involves fairness to the providers of help and fairness to those in need of help.
The totalitarian tendency that seeks to exclude people of different worldviews from the public square. Morally permissive people are particularly totalitolerant of religious conservatives.
The kind of diversity that a political party or organisation achieves when it involves people of different sexualities or ethnic backgrounds but without including people with diverse social and professional life experiences.
The intentional killing of a human being for the purpose of ending their suffering.
Socialists see the economy in static terms and devote their minds to distributing a flat economic cake amongst competing interest groups. Free marketeers understand the dynamic nature of successful economies and focus their energies on expanding opportunities for the creation of jobs and wealth.
Rogue states provide sanctuary, financing or weaponry to terrorist networks.
Children are poor when they are deprived of the security of family life as well as when they suffer financial hardship.
Moral issues like gay marriage played a decisive role in America's 2004 presidential election. Britain's voters are less energised by the same sort of issues but form a different kind of 'moral majority'.
Authentic conservatism is weak in Europe because of the lack of an integrated conservative think tank and media infrastructure.
When ministers never get the time to become masters of their departments, it is the civil servants who end up running things. Repeated changes of minister also blur lines of accountability for particular initiatives.
The home - as a symbol of ownership, security, family and independence from government - is a defining idea for conservatism.
A stingy form of compassion that meets a vulnerable person's immediate needs but does not help them to overcome the causes of their vulnerability.
A signature (or fingerprint) issue bears a person’s unique stamp and can define their place in the history books.
Promiscuity, drug abuse, tolerance of crime and other 1960s values produce social problems that necessitate bigger and bigger government interventions.
The BBC in Britain and CBS in America epitomise the left-liberal bias of the established media.
Strong civilisations will protect vulnerable members of society and provide freedom for every citizen to fulfil their potential.
The tactic by which politicians hide dubious policies behind personal life stories.
Position issues, like abortion and the level of tax, tend to divide voters. With valence issues, like prosperity and healthcare, all voters want to know which politicians can best deliver.
Public figures ‘triangulate’ to position themselves as the 'moderate middle' in a debate between two sets of antagonists.
A conservatism that is hopeful about what tomorrow might bring.
Economics only has a supporting role within the Hollywood studios. Tinseltown’s top-of-the-bill motivation is to attack the values that underpin civilisation.
Free charities operate independently of state direction.
The nurses, doctors, teachers and police officers who deliver Britain's public services.
The tax system can be used to help the environment but green taxes can also be misused as a form of stealthy, regressive taxation.
Stealth taxes are harder to detect and are therefore popular with politicians but it is often poorer people who are hit hardest by them.
The British tax and benefit system penalises people who get married despite the wealth of evidence that points to the social benefits of marriage
Winning a debate can depend upon how it is ‘framed’ - as much as by its substantial ingredients.
How can a smaller working age population care for a larger and larger elderly population?
Some people are Euro-sceptical because of the European Union's corruption and weak economic performance; the Euro-scepticism of others is rooted in a principled objection to nation states losing yet more sovereign powers.
The tendency of the media establishment to ask questions that pivot the national conversation towards the liberal left.
Crime rates have fallen since a larger number of repeat offenders have been jailed but imprisonment has produced few rehabilitative benefits.
Low taxation underpins job-creating economies and can be used to build strong and generous societies.
Members of Parliament are not 'whipped' on issues like abortion and euthanasia..
The influential members of constituency political parties that determine who represents 'safe' parliamentary seats.
The derogatory term for people who use ‘Trojan horse’ tactics to try to take over a political movement from within its ranks.
Left-of-centre coalitions look increasingly likely to fracture. The high tax, high regulation environmentalism of left-wing elites conflicts with the economic interests of many blue collar workers. The morally conservative values of Labour's heartland voters are also at odds with those of the left establishment's metropolitan elites.
George W Bush's successful targeting of 'core' supporters in America's 2004 election was the most powerful illustration of the importance of 'getting out the vote' in the modern era.
Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel - and the high profile it gives to conservative worldviews - has shaken America's old media monopoly.
The war on terror is most properly thought of as a race against terrorists determined to find and deploy weapons of terrible destruction against civilisation.
The cost of extra state activity is less business, voluntary and household sector activity.
Patterns of economic growth that protect the diversity and quality of natural resources.
Taxpayers’ money becomes pork when it is used by politicians to ‘buy’ votes amongst their constituents.
Sustainable reductions in the size of government depend upon stronger social values and institutions.
America may have become a 50/50 nation when it comes to presidential politics but most people still sit on the centre ground.
The liberal left believes in bigger national and supranational government.
Richer voters can afford to vote for political parties that embrace environmental or other policies that may reduce their economic wealth.
Compassionate conservatives aim to apply conservative ideas to issues of poverty - issues most associated with the left but which the left have failed to solve.
The once compelling idea that economics determines election results is no longer so compelling.
A parliamentary vote in which MPs and peers are free to vote according to their own conscience.
Fat government places job-destroying burdens on the economy and doesn’t give taxpayers value-for-their-money.
Road-pricing ensures that motorists pay for the congestion, pollution and noise costs of using their cars.
Limited redistribution from the rich to the poor can eliminate offensive inequalities that creates walls within nations.
A left-wing term that conservatives should colonise with their own distinctive approach to poverty-fighting.
Iain Duncan Smith has argued that today's voters don't just want to support a party that is 'good for them'. A decisive number also want to support a political party that is 'good for their neighbour'.
The Ten Cannots show the world that conservatives believe in prosperity, social justice, community and character but, unlike socialists, they understand that most short cuts to these goals are self-defeating.
Under a progressive tax system wealthier people pay a larger share of their income than poorer people - in a regressive tax system the reverse is true.
Tick box politics is a form of gesture politics that betrays the lack of importance attached to an issue by a politician.
An MP for a safe seat who having begun to rest on past laurels is preventing new talent from re-energising the parliamentary party.
Are indebted, obese, binge-drinking, shop-til-u-shop Britons trapped inside a prison of wants?
A belief that loving, values-based families build strong, compassionate societies.
A dangerous belief that people can be protected from sexual promiscuity or drug use
The values of a community - such as an aversion to indebtedness - that can protect against serious social ills.
The tendency to follow rather than lead public opinion.
A society unwilling to take risks will never make progress.
A worldview is a comprehensive way of seeing and understanding the world.
Falling birth rates – in developed and developing nations - are threatening to cause a crisis of underpopulation.
Some commentators believe that Britain’s journalists are as powerful – and sometimes as dangerous – as the ‘Red Robbo’ union barons of the 1960s and ‘70s.
Some government programmes survive in order to benefit the people employed to administer them – rather than those vulnerable people they were once intended to rescue.
Politics should be about substantial issues of policy and direction. Instead much modern politics is personality-driven. Much of the commentariat treat politics as a sport - spending disproportionate time discussing 'who is up' and 'who is down'.
The greed of tycoons represents capitalism's unacceptable face. But greed can also characterise the public sector.
Social liberals - because of their indifference to civil society's health and their permissive attitude to destructive behaviours - are unwitting allies of big government.
Through innovative interpretation of laws and constitutions, activist judges effectively create new rights – unilaterally adopting the functions of elected officials. Judicial activism swaps the rule of law for the rule of lawyers.
Big ideas can be used to glue smaller policy ideas together.
Families, charities, mentors, volunteers and other people-sized institutions provide the kind of personalised, holistic care that society’s most vulnerable people need.
Secular fundamentalists deny religious people opportunities for public expressions of their faith – even forcing faith-based organisations to hire irreligious people.
Those reductions in taxation that are targeted on 'good causes'.
Traditions represent the wisdom of previous generations and should test the desirability of all political and social innovations.
Changing totalitarian regimes into democracies is likely to build peace between nations.
Do changes of opinion show that an individual is pragmatic or devoid of convictions?
A wedge issue can be used to slice off a chunk of voters from the political party they traditionally support.
If individual policies do not contribute to a better, clearer Tory Party identity - they fail 'The Bridget Jones Test'
The Religious Right is an unfriendly term for faith-based politicians who take a traditional stance on issues of personal morality.
Values voters are motivated by issues like fox-hunting and the arms trade - rather than conventional economic concerns.
Increasingly well-organised American conservatives are driving US policy on terror, the environment and values issues.
Thatcherism restored Britain’s economy and its place in the world by honouring the vigorous virtues - like courage and enterprise – which drive all progress.
The Tao is that body of moral conduct that all strong civilisations have come to revere.
Supply-siders believe that individual people's ingenuity and skill drives economic progress. Tax cuts to encourage that ingenuity are supply-siders' favourite tool.
The idea that decision-making powers should be as close as possible to the people affected by those decisions.
Strivers are people who have to battle through layers of red tape, tax and congestion to improve their own and their families' lives.
For left-wing politicians society is synonymous with government. For conservatives, however, society is the rich diversity of civilising institutions that populate the space between the individual and the state.
The idea of right-versus-left is being replaced by new political clashes between centralisers and localists; hawks and doves; idealists and managers; and traditional values versus social liberalism.
Changes to the tax system that do not affect the overall level of tax-take.
A pro-life culture will guard the worth of every human person – regardless of that person’s age, gender, sexuality and ability.
Pre-emption is the alternative to suicide for democracies threatened by terrorist-supporting regimes with access to technologies of mass destruction.
Conservatives should not develop inflexible affections or dislikes for people, institutions and nations that might cloud an understanding of their permanent interests.
Opportunities that become unaffordable because of opportunities that are taken.
Benjamin Disraeli's idea that deep divisions between rich and poor halves of a nation are unacceptable.
Chirac’s France, Schroeder’s Germany, Heseltinia and Pattendom are all members of the economically and globally weak Old Europe.
Present day culture’s destructive love of novelty and change for their own sake.
Neoconservatives share the traditional beliefs of conservatives but actually want to put them into practise.
A society where people are drawn close to one another - to serve each other and to understand each other.
The balkanisation of the media industry into many competing – and often niche - suppliers.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is demonstrating that politicians can provide beefy and radical leadership from the political centre.
The pursuit of (1) ‘core vote issues’ like Europe, tax and crime, (2) social libertarianism, and (3) one nation policies have all been proposed as paths back to electoral success for Britain’s Tories.
Poseur multilateralists prefer a consensual foreign policy that looks good to one that does any good.
Conservatives believe in devolution to local politicians and, wherever possible, to the most people-sized of institutions.
The Liberati are privileged folk who want their sexual or drug-abusing freedoms expanded regardless of the cost for vulnerable members of society.
The Just War principles point nations to the circumstances in which armed conflict can be morally justifiable.
The propensity of political and commercial forces to trample upon the territory of families and civil society.
New media. Increasing euro-scepticism. The growth of Christian evangelicalism. The spread of democracy. Mounting evidence for marriage and against drugs. There are plenty of commanding trends that should encourage conservatives.
‘Girlie men’ are politicians who lack the courage of their convictions.
A conservative view of government that seeks to strengthen – rather than control or neglect – the free institutions of commerce and civil society.
Modern Britain is run by a left-leaning, liberal establishment of civil servants, lawyers and journalists.
Escalating patterns of disorderly behaviour that can lead a person towards a life of crime.
Politicians with genuine beliefs are a powerful antidote to the Blair and Clinton years of spin and triangulation.
This theory argues that low turnout elections can be won by energising core supporters on issues of disproportionate importance to them.
People and nations who understand that we can't wait for terrorists to strike again - we must strike them first.
The groups of conservative-minded people who come together to provide the funding and get-out-the-vote operations for conservative political victories.
The Roman Catholic idea that a good society is characterised by a concern for the well-being of every person - not just the few or the many.
The Vatican's tradition of social teaching emphasises the significance of every human life and the importance of people-sized institutions - like the family and church - that best care for people.
Every civilised society ultimately depends upon the character and virtue of its citizenry.
Cavemen Conservatives can talk about Europe, crime and tax but have nothing to say about poverty, the environment and the public services.
Big business conservatives overlook the diversity, ingenuity and democratic importance of small, upstart businesses, media outlets and charities in favour of cosy links with establishment businesses, broadcasters and voluntary organisations.
The ‘And theory of conservatism’ believes that it is necessary for conservatives to fuse their 'core vote' beliefs with imaginative and compassionate responses to today’s greatest challenges.