The Conservative Party has been, and has seen itself to be, the national party; the British party; the one-nation party.
Conservatism is not a political ideology designed around a set of abstract principles. Rather, it is the embodiment of instincts and emotions which have characterised our nation.
But what is Britishness, Englishness?
A tidy definition of the national character may not be practical. But Conservatives would be right to appeal to the intrinsically British disposition, founded in history, in favour of enterprise, in favour of a mobile and open society, and in favour of local, not regional communitites. This is a story which Conservatives can tell and Labour cannot.
