British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.

The
Conservative Party’s policies are on the whole hard to
characterise. ‘At some periods ideas such as individual freedom will
be clearly articulated and may even produce concrete policy
proposals designed to promote such values.’
4 At some other periods, as witnessed in the
policy of the Labour Party, and any other party, it may ‘seem to
embody so wide a range of political ideas that few distinctive
doctrinal features can be detected.’ 5

The Conservative Party, as
was touched on earlier, always overtly
felt a strong sense of involvement with the Empire. Such sentiment
was evident at the party’s annual conference in 1949.

Let us never forget the
Imperial spirit, the indefinable,
sentimental, if you like, feeling which is the spark that sets our
reason aglow; and it is our reason that tells us that the policy
which we are now advocating, the policy of Joseph Chamberlain and
the policy of Benjamin Disraeli, remains the right one.6

The
‘indefinable, sentimental feeling’ for most Conservatives is
simple pride. For the Conservatives, the British imperial
achievement was something to be distinctly proud of. Conservatives
credited the Empire with

maintaining over a large
part of the Earth’s surface the rule of
law, of justice, and the moral influence of the only league of
nations which has ever worked. More than this, it was held to
provide the whole basis of Britain’s claim to national greatness