Just for the record, I’ve found British lefties to be just as capable as American lefties of performing pirouettes of hysterical jackassery. British animal rights activists, for example, are far more batty on the whole than American ones.

I do think, however, that Derb is on to something about British conservatives. But I think this has something to do with what British conservatives want to conserve versus what Americans wish to conserve. As Hayek and Sam Huntington have both argued, American conservatives are among the only conservatives in the world who wish to conserve fundamentally liberal, even radical, notions and institutions. When Hayek wrote his essay “Why I am not a Conservative” he was referring mostly to continental conservatives, but also to some British conservatives. In America, however, conservatives were still defenders of liberty because we seek to conserve and defend our constitution, the principles in the Declaration, property rights, liberty, etc.

British conservatism, which does have a lot going for it, is much more rooted in temperment and tradition, and is eager to defend such institutions as the monarchy which, needless to say, is not an institution America’s founders had much use for.