Greatest Conservative Achievements

Rather than seeing their party as being consistently on the wrong side of history, what do tories (and other conservatives round the world) see as their party's greatest historical achievements?

Would prefer tangible & specific answers rather than 'inspiring the lower orders to pull themselves up by their bootstraps' or 'preserving the moral foundations of the nation' or whatever. Not so interested in wars, but if that's all they've got, let's hear it. Is it mostly a 'getting out my light' situation, or perhaps being the noble brakes on change that ensure society is ready before any progress happens? I can't quite believe tories are that unambitious, what am I missing?

right to buy

crushing the unions, creating a freer, more market-led economy

(and associated privatisations)

pulling the wool over millions of dupes' eyes

convincing the world that they don't exist

right to buy and unions are classic choices though of course negative/undoing actions. particularly interested in bigger/older stuff, back when they were more ambitious

forced the partition of Northern Ireland?

they're called conservatives for a reason, if they have big achievements they like to paint them as returns to an earlier, purer time. but I think the monetarist/Friedmanite subversion of western social democracy from the 1980s on probably is their finest hour

The M25

would like to see someone make a case for enclosure or the raj

Fall of the Berlin Wall
Breakup of the Soviet Union

There are a lot of Conservatives (often small-c garden variety) who have convinced themselves that they love Thatcher and maybe they do love the ballooning house prices and the cheap credit and a few bits of the consumer culture but in many other ways they hate the world that she's brought about, and yet they are usually unable to articulate that. The effects of that contradiction on domestic policy are only really becoming apparent now.

imagine the thriving communist utopia we'd be living in now if not for the tireless efforts of western conservatives

Didn't Disraeli do something good once? The Reform Act?

invented the phrase "one nation conservative" kind of so cheers for that Benj

I'm sure, like Right to Buy, it was done so more people would vote Tory:

The Reform Act 1867 passed that August,[149] extending the franchise by 938,427—an increase of 88%—by giving the vote to male householders and male lodgers paying at least £10 for rooms. It eliminated rotten boroughs with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, and granted constituencies to 15 unrepresented towns, with extra representation to large municipalities such as Liverpool and Manchester.[150] This act was unpopular with the right wing of the Conservative Party, most notably Lord Cranborne (as Robert Cecil was by then known), who resigned from the government and spoke against the bill, accusing Disraeli of "a political betrayal which has no parallel in our Parliamentary annals".[151] Cranborne, however, was unable to lead an effective rebellion against Derby and Disraeli.[152] Disraeli gained wide acclaim and became a hero to his party for the "marvellous parliamentary skill" with which he secured the passage of Reform in the Commons.[153]

it was one of a few reform acts, more a matter of seeing which way the wind was blowing and taking credit for it. obv not a lot of ppl in manchester and liverpool voted tory

Easy-to-claim unemployment and housing benefits in the 80s nurturing indie/club/fanzine culture

maybe we need a second thread for inadvertant conservative achievements

It's another tick in the Against column for me.