What It Means Today To Be A Conservative

The world is a complex place, full of our hopes and fears intermingling seamlessly, where dangers effortlessly meet shining opportunities. Depending on one’s station in life, one’s vantage point, the world can appear monotonous or a shocking ensemble of many different shades. Indeed, to many of us, whomever and wherever we may be, the great unpredictability and uncertainty of life is one that calls into question our very own being and safety. To what institutions, what certainties, what hopes can we cling?

We wish not to live in the cave of Adullam, fighting off modernity or progress, yet seek to embrace and cling to that which is tried, tested, not temperamental. How do we grow our national economy but preserve our precious national community? The conservative seeks not to view the world in a Manichean light, as one that is black-and-white, but as one that can flourish if we take all that is good and reform that which is bad.

The conservative is one that views the world with a cautious hope, relying on the sentiments that with a quiet courage and unwavering heart, realistic and durable progress can be made. We join with the socialist, the liberal, the social democrat, in envisaging a world that is fairer, kinder, more sustainable – but we put our trust in a salvation that flows from human ingenuity and providential workings, not stale ideologies and conflicted experiments with the lives of humanity.

And now, in this unprecedented time of change and novelty, whence comes our salvation? Truthfully, it is regrettable that it is often in times of crisis when one, either in their personal or their public lives, discovers what mettle they are really made of, who they really are, indeed what life really can amount to. Indeed, be it war or a pandemic, we have shown ourselves able to rise to the challenge, to come together as a national community and join as one, to rediscover our common humanity, shared purpose, and strength. We become again one nation, one people, one community. But can this endure when the crisis lifts?

Lately, there has been much talk from the commentariat about this being a chance for a ‘New Jerusalem’ and a ‘Beveridge moment’, and rightly so because this is the moment for us to make progress and disband with the static, stagnant ways of yesteryear. Crudely put it may have been, but the Prime Minister was on to something when he said last summer about his plans to ‘build, build, build’ – but this is a moment that we must get right. Now is not the time for the blinded ideologues and firebrands of demagoguery to impose their time-worn prescriptive ideologies, to make society in their image by denying reality or customs.

Now is emphatically not the time for weak careerist politicians or those without imagination or depth of purpose to squander the precious chances that can arise out of misfortune and happenstance. Now is, in fact, the time for people of goodwill everywhere to come together and ensure that, in times of normalcy and peace, we can rebuild a society disturbed by the pandemic as one that counts the blessings often bestowed on this windswept, rainy isle but also makes the most of the potential that resides within all who have the will to succeed. A society where all are given a chance, indeed more than one chance, and an opportunity to be the best they can be. Not as isolated atomistic individuals without relation to one another, but as neighbours and compatriots of shared purpose.

People throughout the ages have reassured their contemporaries that ‘there is more that unites us than that which divides us’ and that ‘we are more than the sum of our parts’ – these timeless truths still prevail today. Armed by these resonant phrases, let us make them not sweet nothings but missionary statements of our purpose as Conservatives to defeat those who seek to divide us artificially or deeply, be it by class, race, nationhood or others. Charity, goodwill, and togetherness are not slogans for Christmas time or unfortunate disasters, but attributes which we should endeavour to show daily. When people ask why be a conservative, answer them this: We are conservatives due to our conviction that, though we may not presently have all the answers, if we listen to timeless truths, to stark realities, and to heart-lifting ideals, we can make our futures brighter than our present, and even our past. For surely, where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Darian Murray-Griffiths is a first-year reading History and Politics at Christ Church.