5 Feet of Fury

Colby Cosh: ‘[T]he Conservative brand is up for grabs, and to some degree the definition of ‘conservatism’ is too’

Colby Cosh writes:

 The characteristic suspicion that attaches to the word “conservative” is not weakness, but paranoia — overweening concern with strength, order and homogeneity. Conservatives are prone to being suspected of wanting society to remain static and “traditional” in its values. That is in fact what the word “conservatism” denotes, etymologically: to be “conservative” is to favour a brake on change of all sorts. By this standard, our truest conservatives are the New Democrats, who are keen to revive the strong labour unions, the factory-based economy and the state industrial planning of the 1970s.