ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie has written a sensible piece with many good points; your humble Blog Goliard must admit that there may be some lessons to learn from Britain’s Tories after all, comments in the post immediately below notwithstanding. But I still bristle at two aspects of the Cameron leadership.

1) “Modernization”. Many of those who call for conservatism to “modernize” don’t go very far in defining that term. They’ll sometimes go on about 20th-century-this versus 21st-century-that, but that’s meaningless blather—the fact that the giant odometer rolled over recently isn’t an argument for or against anything.

Once again, the sense I get is that this “modernization” mainly consists of asking “what is the modern thing to do?” and then declaring “let’s do that!” But if conservatism means anything, surely it’s standing against the clueless chasing after what is trendy and new, and all other manifestations of presentism.

2) Public Relations. I’m still convinced that hiring a PR person as national leader holds every promise of being an even worse choice than hiring an MBA (W.) or an engineer (Hoover, Carter). The profile of that job’s professional strengths and occupational hazards may match up well with the business of campaigning…but with wise, effective, and far-seeing governance? Color me dubious.