The View from Inside the Cocoon

It can be dangerous to be more catholic than the Pope. That was my immediate reaction to John O’Sullivan’s piece on David Cameron in the latest issue of National Review. O’Sullivan dismisses the notion that there’s anything the Republican party can, let alone should, learn from the Cameronian Makeover.

O’Sullivan is hardly alone in thinking this. That is, British conservatives exiled in Washington tend to disdain Toryism. From their comfortable berths at Heritage, AEI or National Review they tend to think British conservatism is fatally muddied by compromise and lacking the appealing clarity of the dominant strands in American conservatism. They dislike the uncomfortable truth that Britain is not an ideological country and forget that Thatcherism was a minority pursuit even within the Conservative party. They join American conservatives in worshipping at the altar of Ronnie and Maggie, forgetting that times change and so do voters.

Danny Finkelstein simply demolishes