The right needs some romance

Don't just campaign in poetry, live in it.

Photo credit Kris Lucas.

A few weeks ago, I read and recommended this piece. I thought it captured something of the moral decline of the modern American right, of the corruption of something recognisable as "conservatism" into whatever Trumpism appears to be. The line that stuck with me was "Any conservatism that is worth the name is a conservatism of spirit and of temperament". It is a sentiment I agree with, and one where the right of this country, as with the US, seems to have lost touch. This untethering has compromised both the minds of the right and its integrity and is perhaps the major cause of its current listlessness.

The right has, in many regards, lost that spirit, that temperament that defines conservatism. It has lost its sense of romance. It has become unpinned from the heart and, as a result, veered into two unhelpful directions. The first is cynically technocratic. The politics of bean-counters and spreadsheet-mongers, are more rooted in spreadsheets than stories. The second is a sort of punitive small-mindedness, the creed that is grimly reactionary, imbued with nothing more than "owning the libs" and a performative meanness—a politics against much but for very little.

As a result, the politics of the right struggles to find a compelling narrative. It struggles to communicate what it is for or, indeed, who it is for. It fails to inspire, excite or convert. Conservatism itself has retreated within the right, assailed not just by populism and nationalism but also by libertarianism and weak and woolly careerism. The idea of romance and love has been squeezed out of it, and the love of place, history, beauty, and the rest are mentioned but never felt. It needs to be regained.

There is an adage that "Everyone is conservative about the things they love".[1] It is often invoked as a counter to left-wing hypocrisy – when change comes to the things they care about, they fight it. There is something else to it, though. It is a tacit admission that conservatism is born of a love of things and that the political instinct is downstream of an emotional one. It points towards this more spiritual, more romantic ideation. It also hints at something else, that conservatism is a personal project rather than merely a political one, a philosophy perhaps, a way of being. This, again, is something that is too often jettisoned.

I've touched on this before on my own political journey and the things that shaped it, as well as on the links between the Conservatives and Toryism. In the current climate, it feels this philosophy needs some renewal. It needs rescuing from whatever MAGA is, an ugly and mean ideology driven more by resentment and grift than anything else. The right needs to regain those dynamics of cultivation, duty, and service – each of which is ultimately driven by love and flourishing rather than something darker.

Conservatism is about cultivation. It is rooted in the concept of stewardship, of both preserving and adding to what is passed on from one generation to the next. A good steward learns the contours of the land, the pockets of fertile and fallow ground. He tends to it carefully and deftly, but most of all lovingly. This is in his soul - an admiration for it all, an attachment to it that transcends rationality. Too little of this sort of sense is seen or felt within the modern right. Tradition, duty, service are things that are too often worn as a veneer, rather than deeply stained into the grain.

The right has become too obsessed with talking about things rather than living them. Concepts like patriotism, the family, or the community are proclaimed but not inhabited. Not enough is done to tend to these things, to allow them to flourish rather than bemoaning their absence. It is backseat driving, rather than stewardship. A desire to moan, rather than contribute, to blame others whilst still shirking the humility of service.

The result is a collapse into mere nostalgia and pastiche and the reactionary. It is this mentality which has largely surrendered the arts – bemoaning the "decolonising" of Shakespeare but never bothering to see or read it. Pining for the past yet being indifferent to the death of heritage crafts. Or concerned about children spending time on screens without stepping up to help a local football club or cub brigade. It is a hypocrisy that decries the individualism of modern times whilst revelling in the freedom from obligation it grants.[2] Of course, not all are guilty of this, but too often there is a thick firewall between those who preach political conservatism and those who live its values.

This feels like why the right is so often lacking in a positive vision. It has failed to cultivate the love and romance which sustains one. On an economic level, it has fallen for things it used to criticise on the left, reducing people to their utility and economic relationships rather than intrinsic value. It’s popular discourse has wandered into a spiritual meanness of the angry Boomer, demanding the world be shit again, met with a curt response from the nihilistic youngster. Or the exiled tax dodger who yearns not just for fiscal prudence but to be free of any obligation to anyone. Then there is the increasingly antagonistic online fringe, riven with a cruelty that delights in dismissing and mocking its opponents. None of these things add, only soil, but are platformed while the retiree tending his allotment, or volunteering for a charity are ignored.

The great conservative thinkers understood the importance of value and of virtue. They appreciated the work that was being done to build up society and were imbued with a love for it. A veneration of place and of nature, a respect and admiration for people – not just in the abstract or a political slogan, but in the practice of their everyday lives. From Disraeli to Tolkien, there was a romanticism in what they said and did and a conservatism that went beyond politics and policy. It was, as it should be, a philosophy that informs your interaction and contribution to the world.

The best conservatives I know now, both inside the party and outside of it, still embody it. Many of them wouldn't even describe themselves as conservatives – but their actions are unmistakable. Some still literally tend to their land. Others cultivate their communities, contributing to and building those platoons of which Burke spoke. They have found their duty and attended to it with dedication. This is part of the bargain of believing in the limitations of the state, that you step up and do what you believe the government cannot. This is why small governments should always be rooted not in a flight from obligations to others but in voluntarily taking them on.

There is an aesthetic and spiritual element to this, too. Conservatism should be a philosophy that both celebrates and adds to the beauty of the world. Not just lamenting decline like a content-farming statue profile pic Twitter account but seeking out and embracing the ordinary beauty of the world. Too much of the political right is now stripped of cultural appreciation altogether, hinterland-less, stopping with The Spectator when they get to the staples.

Broader conservatism needs to recover this romanticism. It needs to feel like something bigger than policy suggestions. Something which inspires and contributes to a way of life. The left is very good at pursuing the idea that politics is about more than who you vote for; it is about how you behave and live. Conservatism should do the same, inspiring and encouraging people to contribute and build something and embody the values they aspire to.

This is perhaps the way to break the stigma the right is now lumbered with. By failing to fully embrace ideas of community and contribution, it has become easy to be known for meanness or ruthless individualism. The Britain of Thatcher's son, rather than her father, as Peter Hitchens memorably put it. Rediscovering the romance of Toryism is a way back from this, a celebration of duty rather than shedding it, an image of contribution. There should be something appealing in a political movement that celebrates "I'll do this myself" rather than waiting for the government. The individualism of contribution, not of shirking. Such an approach should also stand out among its rivals.

This renewed conservatism cannot be merely aesthetic; it must be enacted. A politics of stewardship means rethinking the state's role—not an abdication, but an enabler of responsibility. It means policies that encourage civic life rather than replacing it: tax incentives for community investment rather than passive handouts, localism that is real rather than rhetorical, and a cultural agenda that protects beauty and heritage rather than bemoaning its loss. It also requires a shift in rhetoric—one that speaks not just of economics but of duty, not just of deregulation but of dignity. Without this, conservatism remains abstract, a philosophy unmoored from action.

Romance is essential to conservatism because it transforms duty into something freely embraced rather than merely imposed. Without love—for place, for tradition, for one another—what remains is obligation without joy, inheritance without meaning. A conservatism without romance risks becoming a politics of mere nostalgia or resentment, clinging to the past out of fear rather than fidelity. But romance gives conservatism a creative spark, an optimism that looks forward as well as back, not just conserving but consecrating.

If conservatism is to mean something again, it must recover this spirit—not just as a political theory but as a way of life. The right must stop waiting for someone else to tell its story and start living it. That means less complaining and more creating, less resentment, more reverence and more romance. A politics of love, not just of opposition. If the right cannot articulate what it is for—who it is for—then it will fade, becoming another lost tradition, remembered but not renewed. To do so, it must try to recover the love and romance which once drove it.

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[1] Sometimes attributed to Jorge Luis Borges, but this appears apocryphal.

[2] For more on this see Cartoons Hate Her’s “The Village Nobody Wants”

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