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This article suggests that recent predictions of the death of British conservatism are based upon a misunderstanding of the doctrine. Examination of conservative thinking in the twentieth century indicates that essential to the doctrine is not a Whiggish endorsement of prudent statecraft but a commitment to inequality. However, Conservatives have often drawn a veil over this commitment by depicting the sound polity as one of ordered liberty and by representing their doctrine as a form of naturalism. An understanding of the doctrine suggests that British and American conservatisms are not so far apart as is often claimed, and also that the former is unlikely to have reached its 'endgame'.

The Biographical Dictionary of British Prime Ministers is a wide-ranging, comprehensive guide to the political lives of Britain's prime ministers from Sir Robert Walpole to Tony Blair. Written by some of the leading authorities on British politics this authoritative dictionary provides essential information about each premiership, including facts and analytical debate. Each entry has been written to the same formula and contains: * brief biographical information outlining career history and significant dates and events * a brief summary of the significance and peculiarities of a particular prime minister followed by a more descriptive and interpretative account of his or her political life and impact on British politics * references and further reading. The Biographical Dictionary of British Prime Ministers addresses many of the key themes to understanding the role and impact of particular prime ministers such as: the political context; party management and reform; intra-party intellectual debate; and where relevant the evolution of the office of prime minister.

At the beginning of the final decade of the seventeenth century Ireland’s rulers were solid in vindicating William’s victory over the Jacobite forces occupying their country, while at the end many of them were preoccupied with the relationship of the London and Dublin parliaments. The decade began with Anglican Ireland adapting casuistical arguments from the larger island to pretend that the Williamite revolution did not constitute a breach — at least, not a serious one — with the doctrine of non-resistance to an hereditary monarch, an argument reinforced by the claim that as inhabitants of a subordinate kingdom the English in Ireland were assigned ‘a passive lot’ in a dynastic struggle, as Edward Wetenhall put it, and whose business therefore had not been ‘to set up Powers; but yet we must own it is our Duty to obey them’.1 It ended with the contention, no less fanciful, that as an equal partner in the multi-kingdom of the British Isles Ireland was entitled to legislative autonomy.