This thesis will trace the development of Conservative ideology in Great Britain between 1906 and 1914. During these years the Conservative party was defeated by the Liberal party on three separate occasions. Many historians believe that this string of electoral contretemps offers convincing evidence that Conservatism, as an evolving pattern of beliefs, was fundamentally unsuited to the political climate of Great Britain at the turn of the century. According to this interpretation of Edwardian Conservatism, it was only the timely onset of war which saved the party from having to come to terms with the democratic impulse of an unfamiliar era. This is a gross exaggeration of the plight of Conservatism before the war, for the party's unwavering commitment to the economic status quo was not in itself a recipe for electoral catastrophe. What may well have turned out to be fatal to the party's well-being was Joseph Chamberlain's Tariff Reform campaign. In 1903 Chamberlain offered the party an all-encompassing creed, a total solution to Britain's problems, both domestic and foreign, and a positive platform to sustain the party in office. Balfour sensed the dangers of a comprehensive ideology that was inherently of its own time. He, and Bonar Law after him, helped to rehabilitate Conservative ideology by limiting its scope and suggesting that Tariff Reform was merely one weapon among many in a large Conservative arsenal.

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During the 1980s, the government of Great Britain, led by Margaret Thatcher, promoted a political and economic ideology known in the demotic as the Thatcherite Enterprise Culture. This set of beliefs and actions included an encouragement of hard work, thrift, self-responsibility, and self-employment, as well as legislating for the support of small firms, privatisation, free markets and a strong - but minimal - central state. Behind the Enterprise Culture lay a religious paradigm, explicitly called upon by its chief creators, including Margaret Thatcher. The thesis builds an ideal-type of the Thatcherite Enterprise Culture, following a Weberian methodology, to form the major object of study. The work aims to discover whether the ideal-type under analysis is theologically coherent, and whether it can justifiably claim to be a continuation of Christian thought in this area. This thesis examines the development of Western European philosophy and theology as it relates to the key aspects of the Thatcherite Enterprise Culture, beginning with the Ancient Greeks and concluding with the Victorian Age of Enterprise. The historical review demonstrates that the Thatcherite Enterprise Culture is generally discontiguous with the tradition of religious thought, and in some instances is essentially in direct contradiction with important aspects of the tradition, such as the significance of the Incarnation. A review of the theological works of the Thatcherite Enterprise Culture and its critics adds to the findings of the historical examination, indicating further flaws and contradictions within Enterprise Theology. Critics of Enterprise Theology are found to be much more consistent with mainstream Christian Theology.

This thesis examines the ideas which underpinned early nineteenth century Toryism and their development in the late eighteenth century. It argues that a distinct, coherent, refined Tory identity emerged from the Tory splits between 1827 and 1830. This was preceded by a process of renegotiation and consolidation in Tory ideology and identity from 1760 onwards. The period between the accession of George III, in 1760, and the passage of the First Reform Act, in 1832, witnessed consistent and sustained crises regarding the constitution established in Church and state. The outbreak of revolutions in America and France reinvigorated debates regarding the nature and location of political sovereignty as well as the relationship between the crown and parliament. Lengthy wars against each nation were followed by severe economic depressions, the apparent proliferation of domestic political radicalism, and intermittent, but determined, demands for parliamentary reform. In addition, there were persistent attempts to alter the religious basis of the constitution to accommodate both Protestant pluralism and, from 1801, predominantly Catholic Ireland. This thesis contends that the debates surrounding these issues contributed to the rehabilitation and renegotiation of late-seventeenth-century and early-eighteenth-century Tory ideas. It also contends that, in moments of crisis and reaction, old Toryism converged with the conservative elements of an increasingly fractured Whig tradition in defence of the constitutional status quo. This convergence, apparent in the opening decades of George III’s reign, was consolidated in the context of the French Revolution. Consequently, after 1812, a broad, but loose, ideological consensus emerged, labelled as Tory, underpinned by anti-populism, commitment to the preservation of Christian orthodoxy, and the establishment of the Church of England. However, below this broad ideological umbrella, differences persisted which created tensions, contributing to the divisions between 1827 and 1830, and, through them, the refinement of Tory identity.

Two competing forms of sex education and the groups supporting them came to head in the 1970s and 1980s. Traditional sex education retained an emphasis on maintaining Christian-based morality through marriage and parenthood preparation that sex education originally held since the beginning of the twentieth century. Liberal sex education developed to openly discuss issues that reflected recent legal and social changes. This form reviewed controversial subjects including abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Though liberal sex education found support from national family planning organizations and Labour politicians, traditional sex education found a more vocal and powerful ally in the New Right. This thesis explores the political emergence of the New Right in Great Britain during the 1970s and 1980s and how the group utilized sex education. The New Right, composed of moral pressure groups and Conservative politicians, focused on the supposed absence of traditional morality from the emergent liberal sex education. Labour (and liberal organizations) held little power in the 1980s due to internal party struggles and an insignificant parliamentary presence. This allowed the New Right to successfully pass multiple national reforms. The New Right latched onto liberal sex education as demonstrative of the moral decline of Britain and utilized its emergence of a prime example of the need to reform education and local government.