I have just finished reading Richard Allsop's Liberalism: a Short History

The book is good and full of history, but I'm disappointed as the arguments are flaky even though I broadly agree with them. Allsopp writes like a university professor and so definitions aren't like real world understandings. For example he describes the difference between small 'l' liberals and large 'L' Liberals for the Liberal Party of Australia. The books thesis is to do with the changing description of liberals in history. Liberals are the hero of the text. Only, in modern terms, Liberals tend to be economic conservatives like Howard while liberals tend to be social conservatives who go for big spending, big government, being centre left, like Malcolm Turnbull, Malcolm Fraser, John Hewson and Peter Collins. But in Allsop's view, Howard becomes a Dry while wets become the heirs of Liberalism who just happen to oppose pretty much everything that Liberalism stands for. The word Allsop is searching for is Conservative. He tends not to use it as he tries to pin anything worthwhile on liberalism.

Allsopp finishes in confused fashion, but he begins with it too. He refers to Pitt the Younger, who was PM of the UK from 1804 to 1806, and PM of Great Britain from 1783 to 1801, as a Tory. Pitt was a Whig. When Horatio Nelson wanted to serve in parliament, Pitt convinced him to be a Whig, even though Nelson's father was a life long Tory. But Nelson chose Whig on Pitt's advice because he wanted to be heard, and then, as now, the press hated conservatives and opposed them with rhetoric. Thing is, Whigs made grandiose claims and were reported glowingly. And so there is a temptation for modern historians to attribute much to those who were praised, but praised undeservedly because of tribal affiliation.

The true heir of classical Liberalism, proclaiming individual freedom and small state interference, are economic conservatives unfettered by left wing dandies. Australia had a glimpse with work choices, before extreme authoritarian left wingers from a metamorphosed liberal tradition wrecked it. And Abbott could be the touch stone which bestows it, if Turnbull is ever turned away.
https://conservativeweasel.blogspot.com/2021/10/8th-oct-review-of-historical-and.html