Britain | Bagehot

Boris Johnson’s Conservatives plan to create a bigger, busier state

The government is increasingly activist, from raising taxes to stoking culture wars

THE CONSERVATIVES have undergone many transformations in their time: from the party of the landed squirearchy to that of the industrial bourgeoisie; from the post-war consensus to free-market radicalism. Now they are undergoing another. For 40 years, from the choice of Margaret Thatcher as its leader in 1975 to David Cameron stepping down as prime minister in 2016, Tories stood for small government. Today they are the party of big-government conservatism.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Blue Leviathan”

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From the November 6th 2021 edition

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