  His literary style is to argue clearly, but in doing so to include a manifest carefulness of qualification that will permit subsequent shifts of position—for instance his self-description as a ‘true but severe friend to monarchy’ is consistent with his occupying any point within the generous spectrum of parliamentary sovereignty—and, indeed, the sense of historical change which pervades Present Discontents suggests that movement is a common experience. Unease, perhaps, is increased even further: for against one equipped with this intellectual repertoire, the accusation of inconsistency is irresistibly tempting and utterly useless. Again, Burke's is a very sensible way for a statesman to think, but it is not how the public wishes politicians to appear on most occasions. Still less is it reassuring about Burke's intellectual bona fides: for this is not how people innocent of political experience, who are the majority, conceive the role of political principles. Coleridge put his finger on an important point when he suggested that from ‘principles exactly the same’ Burke could draw ‘practical inferences almost opposite’ in different situations (Coleridge, Biographica Literaria, vol. i, 191). Burke's philosophical and historical positions are clear, but they do not translate, and were not meant to translate, into a set of specific practical conclusions of permanent validity.