Abstract:
In the lead-up to the 2010 UK election, an apparently new idea was being floated by the conservative leader, David Cameron.We need to recover the ‘big society’, he argued, which has the truly conservative values of locality, family, moral economy, virtuous elites and common popular customs. But he did not pull these values out of thin air, for they were supplied by a man at times called Cameron’s ‘philosopher king’ – Phillip Blond, leader of the think tank ResPublica, proponent of the doctrine of ‘Red Toryism’ and sometime theology lecturer. For a couple of years now, Blond has been urging the conservatives to value the local over the global, family over its discontents (gays, single parents, promiscuity), virtue over cynicism, common custom over bland commercial labels; in short, he seeks a return to the progressive, communal values of conservatism. But what, in more detail, is Red Toryism and is it really new?
Details / PDF:
The full-text PDF of this article can be downloaded from Informit. You can purchase the article, or access Informit for free via a public library account, such as the State Library of Victoria.