Has conservatism an essence? Many would answer yes. Its enemies will typically identify it as cynicism, nostalgia, reaction, inertia, privilege, inequality, injustice, authoritarianism, selfishness and more besides. Its friends will offer an alternative list: order, freedom, stability, pragmatism, accommodation to inevitable change, equality before the law, the securing ofdeserts and entitlements, patriotism, rights, duties, scepticism, pietas. Whichever side we consult, it is obvious that, intellectually speaking, and compared with its rivals socialism and liberalism, conservatism is a mess. At best it might be a family-resemblance term, covering a constellation ofdiverse, tangentially-related attitudes possessing no single common feature.