Goat Boy wrote:Part of the natural appeal of conservatism is the mitigating of risk. If you have a family and you’re doing alright then naturally you might not be so keen on the kind of changes the left sees as desirable because this introduces risk, the unknown. It's natural to do what is "best" for your family. There are various examples around the world as well where the left have gained power and where it’s gone horrible wrong and as a consequence damn near everybody has suffered, including the poor of course who always suffer first and most. Some people naturally favour a more pragmatic approach to society whereby changes are small and incremental and thereby reduce risk. Reform.
Now if you’re at the other end of the economic scale (or you’re so well off that any risk is negligible anyway) and your family is struggling then of course you might be more prepared to support left wing policies believing that there is the possibility this will improve your family’s life and the potential prosperity of your grandchildren etc. It can’t get no worse, can it? You see this with Trump and Brexit of course. Working class people throwing the dice and voting for “change” and introducing the unknown and risk in the belief that it “can’t get no worse”.
I think you're living in the past - that John Major cobblers about warm beer, vicars cycling home after evensong and cricket on the village green is just a phantom. Since the mid seventies when the conservative party jettisoned its 'government by the seat of the pants' pragmatism in favour of its current hard=nosed neoliberal free market dogma - under Thatcher and her guru Keith Joseph - much of the cuddly 'small c' stuff and the 'careful, conservative incremental change has gone.
We have been living through a right wing, monetarist experiment and it has demonstrably failed again and again - How's that for mitigating risk?
And I think the things the left has achieved were born out of a desire for something better for all rather than selfish cynicism, a shrug and an 'It can't get no worse, let's give it a try' attitude. On the whole the NHS, the welfare state and the other things that were ushered in post WWII have delivered for most people - providing that all import security, a safety net if you will. A real viable alternative!