Did you know that you live in a communist country? No, nor did I. But, according to Jacques Chirac, we do. Both America and Britain, the French president told European leaders last week, represent “the communism of our time,” by which he means “Anglo-Saxon neo-liberalism” – or, in plain English, laissez-faire. He is worried about a new threat from Eastern Europe: not communism but competition.

I somehow doubt whether this rebranding would appeal to some of Mr. Chirac’s friends, such as the Chinese Communists, to whom he is eager to sell French missiles with which they can threaten Taiwan. In Hong Kong, at any rate, they would be only too happy.

Remember the pandemonium that broke out when Donald Rumsfeld contrasted Old Europe unfavorably with New Europe? The secretary of defense recently played down that prescient insight as “Old Rumsfeld,” though Mr. Chirac’s latest insult to the free market, pro-American nations of New Europe is proof positive that Old Rumsfeld was on target. Mr. Chirac’s provocation has been shrugged off. Yet the fact that such an outrageous slur from a European conservative can pass without comment tells us about what has gone wrong with the European right.

That applies to Britain, too. Having ruled the country for most of the last two centuries, the Conservative Party boasts that it is the most successful political machine in the world. But whatever genetic instinct for power the Tories once possessed has certainly been recessive since 1990, when they rewarded Margaret Thatcher by turning her out of Downing Street.

Having dissipated her hard-won reputation for economic competence, the Conservatives ceded that ground to Tony Blair, who has guarded it jealously. The present party leader, Michael Howard, has distanced himself from Thatcherite economics by firing two colleagues who dared to voice her ideas even in private. One, Danny Kruger, had called for “creative destruction” in the public services, using a phrase coined by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter to denote the dynamic impact of capitalism. The other, Howard Flight, was sacked for suggesting that tax cuts under a Tory government might go further than their modest election promises.

Over the last eight years, Mr. Blair has steadily internalized the rest of the Thatcher doctrine, including what one might call her Churchillian patriotism.

The core of that legacy is Atlanticism. This is not just a question of Mr. Blair’s undoubted ability to schmooze American statesmen. Even if he didn’t like and admire the president, it would still be his duty to preserve his country’s status as the only European ally on which America can always count. However, when Mr. Blair waxes lyrical about bringing democracy to the Middle East, or makes British blood run cold with the threat of terrorism, he means what he says. If Mr. Blair had not genuinely believed that the British national interest was as much at stake in Iraq as America’s, he would never have sacrificed so much political capital by risking being portrayed as one of the president’s men. Where, though, does Mr. Blair’s usurpation of Ms. Thatcher’s Atlantic mantle leave the Tories? Floundering, that’s where. The latest challenger to try his hand, Michael Howard, decided that if he couldn’t outdo a prime minister who’s more pro-American than most Americans, then he would dip a toe into the stagnant pool of anti-American resentment that is never far below the surface, even in England.

The British have still not fully grasped what is at stake in the war on terror. Many are easily persuaded that if we had known what the experts now claim to know about Saddam Hussein’s lack of weapons of mass destruction, there needn’t have been a war at all.

When Mr. Howard talked like this, he was telling his compatriots what some of them wanted to hear, but his words were noted in Washington, and used by the Democrats against President Bush. During the American presidential campaign, Karl Rove let it be known that Mr. Howard was unwelcome in the White House, and when the president was re-elected, Mr. Howard pointedly failed to congratulate him. Since then, Mr. Howard’s aides have sought to give the impression that relations between Tories and Republicans have been patched up, but a figure close to Mr. Bush assured me that this was nonsense. “As long as Howard is leader, the British Conservatives can forget about access to this administration,” he said.

So on May 5, the British are about to hold the first general election in modern times in which Labour is more Atlanticist than the Tories. If Mr. Howard replaced Mr. Blair as prime minister, he would be the first man to hold that office who was not even on speaking terms with the American president. When a few weeks ago, I had a chance to ask Ms. Thatcher whether she was happy about this state of affairs, she chose her words very carefully. “No,” she said. “I am not happy about it at all.” Nor, I suspect, is the British electorate.