Over at CentreRight, I ask What is “Right-wing”?:
So the Conservative Party for over 100 years has become the defender of the individual against the State, historically a Left-wing position. Since the 1970s there has been an ideological pull to economic liberalism. This sought to radically empower the People v the State, a historic Left-wing position. Much of the social-conservatism of Thatcher, such as “Clause 28” stayed in place. With Cameron, we now have a continuation of the economic liberalism coupled with a socially liberal agenda. Localism is about powering local communities in ways which they have not had power before, dispersed from the top to the bottom and wielded thereafter by smallest local community for its betterment. This bears little resemblance to the State power of old that the Tory would hold in such reverence.
