What is “right wing”


Over on ConservativeHome, my Cobden Centre colleague Toby Baxendale discusses the origins of the term “right-wing”:

After the French Revolution of 1789, those who sat on the right hand of the Legislative Assembly were supporters of the Ancien Regime, of the Monarchy and Aristocracy, those on the left were the radicals who would oppose its reinstatement.  So the conservatives seeking to conserve were Right-wing and the liberals, seeking to entrench the move of power away from the old arrangements and into that of the people were left wing.

What does it mean to be a conservative and hence a person of a Right-wing disposition? I summarise here Roger Scruton’s The Meaning of Conservatism to help with the question.

You can read the full article here.

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