Conservatives have no solutions, or so the story goes

 

Adam Smith, the Father of Capitalism and a key proponent of classical liberalism (1723-1790) [CC0]

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Conservatives have no solutions, or so the story goes.

Alexandra Marshall in Unfiltered:

Leading Flat White, Michael de Percy addresses the criticism that ‘conservatives only have complaints, not solutions’ where he rightly points out that socialists keep inventing ‘solutions’ to problems that don’t exist which triggers some of these complaints. In this case, the best solution is to simply stop doing stupid things. If only the left would listen.

Terry Barnes in Morning Double-Shot:

But in the very next piece, Michael de Percy castigates conservatives and classical liberals for not having any solutions at all, and hence always playing catch-up to the Left. De Percy insists he’s a classical liberal and not a conservative, but we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: until the Centre-Right agrees on what unites us and defines who we are and what we stand for, the ideological wilderness is ours for years to come. Labels like ‘conservative’ and ‘classical liberal’ simply are barriers to ever finding that unity.