Spreading the word: Pfizer Forum

National Review, Dec 22, 1997 by Margaret Thatcher

Has conservatism triumphed? Is conservatism everywhere losing elections to a revitalized Left? These two questions dominated the first International Conservative Congress -- held in Washington, D.C., in September and sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, the Claremont Institute, and NATIONAL REVIEW. The nearest thing to a consensus that emerged was the paradox that conservative ideas had indeed triumphed but that leftist parties were winning because they had begged, borrowed, or stolen those ideas. And as a British Tory, David Willetts, improbably asked: Would or should the Chicago Bulls congratulate themselves on the triumph of "Chicago Bullism" if they were defeated by a team that had borrowed their tactics? Probably not. In which case what new ideas should conservatives now advance both to express their underlying philosophy in the circumstances of the post - Cold War world and to counter new follies from the pseudo-conservative Left? More than ninety prominent conservatives from four continents -- including Margaret Thatcher and Bill Buckley, the co-chairmen of the Congress -- debated such issues on topics from town planning to global warming. We offer no more than a few highlights here, including speeches by the principals, and a statement of conservatism adopted by the Congress. Now read on.

MARGARET THATCHER

WE conservatives now find ourselves in precisely the opposite position to the one we were in for most of the postwar period -- our ideas have succeeded, but our parties recently have not. That is true almost everywhere. The British Conservatives suffered a severe defeat in the last election. In the United States, the Republican Party again lost the Presidency; and though Republicans still thankfully control both the Senate and the House they seem -- to a friendly foreigner -- more afflicted with self-doubt than circumstances warrant. And in Britain in 1997, just as in America in 1991, one of Thatcher's Laws came into play: Conservative governments which increase taxation lose elections.

Yet there still is an enormous difference between the position conservatives are in now and the one we were in during the 1970s. For in the 1980s we moved the world, once and for all, in our direction. Even so, I must qualify this reflection in an important way -- which forms the starting point for my argument. For while we have converted our opponents to an extent on economics, we have not done so on much of anything else.

And, as conservatives above all should never forget, there is more to politics than economics. Indeed, if government is small enough (or even weak enough), the infinite inventiveness of human talent will see to it that, in general, the economics take care of themselves.

So if conservatism is not ultimately about economics, what is it about?

"The defense of the West" -- this is as near as I can come to expressing the mission of conservatives now. That defense involves securing our nations against internal and external threats alike. I shall list them in a minute. But what are the core convictions we are defending? Not having time to speak as long as a German politician, I shall set out my views with English brevity.

If I were to sum up the international conservative position today I would say it was sound but unimaginative. It is sound because there is no need for a fundamental re-thinking of basic principles, as had to happen in the 1970s. It is unimaginative because conservatives have been slow and timid in applying those principles to the new threats that face us today.

Let me list five such important threats and sketch out a conservative response to them.

The first is the threat to our traditional institutions of government.

In the United States, conservatives are concerned about the judicial imperialism of the courts and the sweeping social and economic changes they have imposed on the country. You are right to be so. The idea of courts as independent agencies of social and political change is inconsistent with democracy.

The framework within which this controversy takes place is different in Britain. We see an even more far-reaching attack launched by the New Labour government and its left-wing allies on the foundations of our Constitution. One part of this program of rationalizing change, significantly, is the extension of that judicial review which is causing so much trouble here. Another is the attempt to replace our traditional first-past-the-post electoral system by those who would prefer to have horse-trading politicians choose governments, rather than leave that choice to voters.

America has a written constitution, the United Kingdom an unwritten one. But in both cases they are rooted in history and enshrined by practice. A constitution is not something you change at a whim. We don't wish to go the way suggested by that famous Punch cartoon of the last century which depicts an Englishman entering a public library and asking the librarian for a copy of the French Constitution -- to be given the reply: "Sorry, sir. We do not stock periodicals."