I Think I Might Be a Conservative

Don’t worry - I still hate austerity. But I also hate chaos masquerading as change.

I never thought I’d find myself nodding along with Edmund Burke while yelling at the telly about Liz Truss - but here we are.

When I was researching my book, Bear Necessities of Politics and Power, I had to wade through a swamp of -isms - socialism, liberalism, nationalism, communism, you name it. Each came with its own baggage, buzzwords, and bizarre fan clubs. But one of the most quietly fascinating -isms was conservatism.

Not the culture war caricature of conservatism we’ve come to expect in recent years - the Union Jack avatars shouting about pronouns and potholes - but the deeper, philosophical tradition. Think Edmund Burke as opposed to Nigel Farage. Carlyle instead of 30p Lee. A worldview rooted in caution, continuity, and the belief that institutions matter because people are fallible.

What I learnt was that while I could never be a Conservative - capital C, blue rosette, Jacob Rees-Mogg fan club member, mean to poor people - there are parts of conservatism that don’t necessarily leave me shaken and reaching for the Sancerre. In fact, they made me pause - and in a world hooked on disruption and addicted to chaos, that pause feels surprisingly radical.

Now, before anyone panics and calls my husband to stage an intervention, let me reassure you for a second: No, I haven’t defected to the dark side, nor am I about to throw up a shrine to Maggie T. I haven’t developed a sudden fondness for austerity or started reading The Telegraph without protective gloves. But I have been thinking more critically about the idea of change - specifically, the kind that’s sold to us as progress but is, in reality, anything but.

The fact is that I’ve always considered myself to be progressive. I believe in equity, justice, social safety nets, public healthcare, and holding those in power accountable - ideals that, frankly, shouldn’t be radical but, where we find ourselves nowadays, apparently are. I’ve campaigned for change, strategised around it, and watched it play out on local, national, and international stages. But more recently, I’ve found myself asking a question I never thought I’d pose, at least not without irony: Am I becoming a conservative?

It’s a strange feeling, born not out of a desire to halt progress, but out of exhaustion from watching “change” weaponised as a distraction - or worse, a demolition tool. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the United States, where the bright orange game show host is preparing to bulldoze what’s left of the country’s institutional norms. This is not conservative in any classical sense; it’s chaos dressed up in a red tie. Trump isn’t preserving anything - he’s torching the American constitution while holding Bible photo ops and screeching about witch hunts.

And over here in the UK, we’re not far behind. Nigel Farage, Liz Truss (still somehow relevant?), Robert Generic, Cruella Braverman, and the rest of the Tufton Street cosplay crew are itching to rewrite the rules in their own image. “Radical reform” sounds appealing until you realise it’s code for deregulation, privatisation, and stuffing the House of Lords with unelected ideologues who think PPE is a character-building exercise.

So yes, I’m increasingly wary of change. But not because I want to cling to the past - I just don’t want to be dragged into a future designed by people who think empathy is weakness and facts are optional. There’s a difference between being against progress and being against reckless change. One is reactionary. The other is rational.

Small-c conservatism, at its core, isn’t about stopping time. It’s about caution. It’s about asking, Why this? Why now? Who benefits? It’s about resisting the urge to demolish for the sake of spectacle. And I have to admit: in an age of performative politics and policy made via podcast soundbites, that kind of sensibility feels oddly comforting.

Because I’ll be honest - some things are worth preserving. The NHS. Public libraries. Judicial independence. The idea that your government shouldn’t spy on you, lie to you, or funnel public funds to their mates. These aren’t nostalgic throwbacks - they’re vital parts of a functioning democracy. And when these institutions are under threat, it’s not reactionary to defend them. It’s responsible.

The problem is, we’ve allowed “conservatism” to become shorthand for a particularly cruel and cynical brand of politics - one that delights in marginalising the vulnerable, stalling progress, and enforcing a narrow, nostalgic vision of society that never really existed in the first place. We’ve mistaken performative grievance for principle, and equated rigid ideology with moral clarity.

But that’s not conservatism in its truest form - it’s just neoliberal rot in a tweed jacket. It’s austerity cosplaying as fiscal responsibility. Its manufactured culture wars deployed to distract from crumbling infrastructure and ballooning inequality. True conservatism, the kind you find in dusty old philosophy books, is about stewardship. It’s about duty. It’s about resisting the impulse to smash things simply because you can. It understands the weight of power and the long-term consequences of change.

Which is why, ironically, most of today’s self-proclaimed conservatives aren’t conservative at all.

If anything, they’re the radicals - tearing down institutions, rewriting norms, and calling it patriotism. They scream about defending tradition while actively dismantling the very systems that uphold democratic society. And in their hands, “change” becomes a euphemism for control. For silencing dissent. For deciding who belongs and who doesn’t, all while insisting the real threats to civilisation are gender-neutral toilets and drag queens reading to children.

It’s not caution. It’s chaos in a waistcoat.

So yes, I’m suspicious of change when it comes dressed in a Union Jack onesie, ranting about cancel culture and free speech while quietly dismantling human rights protections. I’m suspicious of reform that’s bankrolled by billionaires and boosted by bot farms. And I’m deeply sceptical of any movement that needs to invent a new crisis every week to stay relevant.

This doesn’t mean I’m giving up on progressive politics. Far from it. But it does mean I’m more attuned to the ways in which so-called progress and change can be co-opted, diluted, or redirected entirely. It means I’ve started reading the footnotes. Questioning the framing. Listening for the dog whistles.

Maybe that makes me a little more conservative than I used to be. Or maybe it just makes me someone who’s lived long enough to see how easily good intentions can be twisted, and how fragile the gains we’ve fought for really are.

So no, I’m not becoming a Conservative. But I am becoming more careful. More deliberate. And far less willing to cheer change simply because it wears the right branding.

Because not all change is progress. And not all tradition is oppression. Sometimes, the most radical act is to stand still, and refuse to move until you know exactly where you’re being led - and, most importantly, know exactly who’s holding the map.