If you look around you,” one glum questioner remarked in the first Q and A, “this isn’t exactly a young crowd.” But his comment must have been pre-prepared, because he was wrong. Instead one was struck, at the inaugural London National Conservatism conference, held May 15–17, by the number of under-thirties: a third of the attendees, according to the organizers, which gave it an energy often lacking from right-wing gatherings. Here, too, were wise old heads like Theodore Dalrymple, and distinguished academics like Eric Kaufmann, and bestselling authors like Douglas Murray, and public intellectuals like Louise Perry, and a few clerical collars, and some of the most senior politicians in the country. The tickets were sold out. You had to fight your way through to the coffee urns. The drinks flowed, the air hummed. The thing felt alive. But what did it all add up to?