G.K. Chesterton once joked that "the business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." When one sees billboards around the country proclaiming "Vote for change: vote Conservative", one knows that the old Right is dead and buried. Conservatism ought to mean something like keeping things the same, but now there is nothing much left anyone wants to keep. It has all been broken and messed around, and all that is left to do is change it further. That, at least, is how many in England feel when they contemplate the schools, the NHS, the army, the Church of England, and Parliament. Everyone wants change, and the only question is what sort of change and who will deliver it.
The most radical kind of change we might hope for is one that cuts deeper than both Right and Left. There is an important strand of modern thought that identifies both our main political movements as manifestations of the same phenomenon - "Liberalism". This is a
