Liberalism, conservatism, and evidence-led government

This account presents the early political right as a reaction to liberalism, which it describes as an explicit ideology. The conservative alternative claimed to choose policies from facts and circumstances instead of a fixed theoretical program. That approach is contrasted with accepting a preferred solution when the evidence favors another answer to the immediate problem. The account argues that the modern left and right have both hardened into ideologies and criticizes governments that defend failed policies by insisting they were never properly tried. It is an interpretation of political traditions, not a neutral definition of every liberal or conservative movement.