On Tuesday 19 June the Conservative History Group is holding a speaker meeting at 6.30pm in the Grimond Room of Portcullis House at the House of Commons. Douglas Hurd will be talking about his new book on Sir Robert Peel, and Peel's relevance to the modern Conservative Party.
If you'd like to attend please email me (details in left hand column).
Check out the Conservative History Group blog HERE.
45 comments:
I'm deep in Tory land - South of Nottingham and in the Borders between Newark and Ruscliffe. Had a natter with young Ken Clarke this morning. May blog some more of it later. But one thing of interest to the CHG might be that he observed that Bingham and the villages around it have continuously been represented by Tories at Westminster. Even when there is only one Tory MP in the locale Bingham is in their constituency. Sadly for Ken it is moving from his Rushcliffe constituency to Patrick Mercer's Newark constituency under the latest boundary changes. So if one of them is bounced out it'll be cigars, Hushpuppies, jazz and BATty Clarke and not Black Bastards Pat.
Do hope that Hurd isn't going to try and tell us Eton Dave is the new Peel.
I enjoy a joke as much as the next person but that would be a belly laugh too far.
Patrick Mercer is a fine and is leadership material. I would be pleased to race back into the Tory fold were Derek Davis or Patrick Mercer leading the party.
(Ken Clarke's OK, but he is not leadership material. Senior, but not leader.)
Derek Davis - would that be the East Anglian football correspondent or the 18 yr old Virginian who fancies Asian Girls?
I have no idea who you're referring to, but I realise I got the name wrong. David Davis. Derek Davies was the editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review and very fine drinking man.
Look at you all! Some not especially fascinating notice that respected Tory elder is discussing Peel and Disraeli - one hopes half ironically - (or what is he going to tell us that wasn't obvious in the 19th century?) - and you turn it into a debate about David Cameron! It's like a reverse image of a demented marxist sect, to coin a phrase (prize for who remembers from whom).
(PS I notice Lord Hurd's book is about Peel, but I think my point remains, since I can't imagine discussing one without the other, or indeed Gladstone).
Good for you graeme,good for you.That's told 'em
the conservative history group blog is rubbish. there's only a post once in a blue moon (no pun intended), and it's normally pretty obscure.
The relevance of Peel to the Conservative Party which will be a matter of no interest to a Barbarian year zero epsilon like Chris Paul is in the effort to define Conservatism closer to small c conservatism and somewhat away from the anarchy of the middle classes that Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph are chiefly identified with. It will not be welcome news to many bloggers , that an acceptance that not everything Margaret Thatcher did was good is going to be implicit in election victory . To be kinder , that not everything she would have done now is appropriate.
Lord Blake , the Party historian , has suggested that the Conservatives from 1832( Ist Reform act …sigh) the Party had three alternatives each of which may be usefully juxtaposed with its current indecision. Firstly they could become the Party of the Landowning interest opposing change. Second there could be an anti progressive alliance with the working classes again the rising middleclass and its dark satanic mills . Finally they could accept the fact of the industrial revolution , the liberalism of economic law( Corn Laws that is ) and try to broker a compromise between the classes. Peel realised that the third option was the only realistic one and so moved to abolish the Corn Laws.
We might draw analogies with David Cameron’s move to seek rapprochement with central Liberal opinion which is supported , in fact , by the much maligned Cornerstone and resisted chiefly by the Thatcherite ideologues who feel wrongly that Libertarianism is true Conservatism which it very much is not . I strongly suspect Mr. Dale and others think that socially Liberal but economically dry will cut the mustard . It will not ! The Party has to embrace the Public services and stop assuming the market will always deliver better results .l
What happened here is that the anti progressive vote was catastrophically split . The Peelites dawdled along with the Liberals and the rebels took the name Conservatives Here we see the very clear danger from the reactionary Hefferish opposition to David Cameron .These views will never form any sort of majority and so a wider coalition has to be formed . This is plainly whatDavid Cameron is trying to do in the teeth of self serving polemics dished out Daily by journalists who only write this way because it is easier .Subtle balancing that is practical Politics and Conservative moderation offends the rules of the article . Simplify and exaggerate.
When Margaret Thatcher came to power the dead were unburied the Unions were trying to usurp democracy and the land was literally in darkness and a vicious reaction against the 60s screamed from tower blocks terrifying the civilised majority . We are now at period of unremitting growth with a swollen public sector crucial to key seats and amnesia about the facts of Thatcher and the circumstances in which she acted. It is essential that what can be done is done and that means supporting David Cameron . The right of the Party must grown up of the right of the country will sink into oblivion as they did following the Corn Law Rebellion. We are fortunate to have been gifted a Socialist Scottish opposition leader with no charm or ability to debate .
In fact now I`ve told you what they are going to say ( I have no doubt) there is no point in going) really.
In terms of policy this means certain outlines must be drawn
1 No promise to cut taxes
2 Kick leaving the EPP into the long grass , its pointless, and bad bad publicity
3 Avoid Libertarian attacks on Public Sevices
4 Forget the core vote , their seats are won
5 Continue to be socially Liberal on gay rights and women`s rights and the rest of the semitotic agenda
THis way and with the support of the right a working majority can be won and the country may be changed slowly from what it has become. This is the breadth of the coalition required and Peel`s period shows what will happen if COnservatives become ideologues and cut of their collective nose to spite their face.
Newmania
The relevance of Peel is that he chose to do the right thing, fully aware that it would split his party, and subsequently drive them from power. He followed his beliefs rather than a grasping, principleless quest for power for its own sake. Cameron isn't fit to so much as lick his boots.
Lerxst
Peel was aloof and an incompetent politician and his failure to carry the right( which became the Conservative Party) , left them irrelevant for two decades. This was certainly not his plan. Nonetheless the blame lies chiefly with the "Protecionists" , who should have done a deal.
Principled or inadequate to the task it makes little difference. The outcome was the worst possible for the landed interest just as it would be for UKIP if they let the Labour Party back in . Not so much on Europe but on the rest of the Cornerstone-esque agenda that Devil`s Kitchen bewilderingly represents as Neo Con Libertarian and "New". It is the reverse.
Sorry the Louise Bagshaw thread is shut . I don’t know what anyone was saying but it is scarcely surprising that a well connected Labour Party member being favoured above and beyond her deserving would irritate. Even those , who like me , realise we are going to have to put up with this sort of thing find it an unappetising prospect
It was easy for the Labour Party who do not value the meritocracy of the individual and think in terms of groups . For Conservatives this is a principle of great importance this is why the A list has been so much harder to broker through the Party. I trust Iain that this sort of point which is fundamental issue of principle has not been banned . I would doubt it .. Her defence that many people who are Conservatives voted for Tony Blair is not a good one .I was one of them ,but to join the Labour Party , to actually join it ? That is a different matter entirely and she will clearly be open to the accusation that she is not a Conservative at all.
In this case why should anyone bother with the tedious task of handing out leaflets ? I would have hoped that a fair debate on this matter might have emerged , I hope it has not descended into some sort of silly misogyny. ….although that can be quite fun !
She campaigned for the Tories in 97 and 01 according to ConHome
This is NOT going to turn into another bash Louise Bagshawe thread. Period.
Don't know who newmaniac is but wouldn't Ted Heath have just loved him to bits?
None of it matters. Blair is going to sign away the birthright of 60m British people in a few days' time, and you are fiddling while Rome burns. You will have no control over your economy, your laws or your civil society. You will be living under Napoleonic Law - guilty until proved innocent, and all the other horribleness of the Napoleonic Code.
How ironic that the country that gave such a large part of the world English Common Law should abandon it without a fight. One dictator is going to sign your birthright and the birthright of all our ancestors away, and you're discussing Robert Peel and others as though they have any relevance to the Britain that is about to suffer a mortal blow.
Iain,
I hadn't the faintest clue who Louise Bagshawe was until I read your post today.
I would have probably given it 50:50 between her being a character in a novel by Thomas Hardy or Anthony Trollope. I should have paid more attention in the past, I suppose.
I note your earlier comment "some of you people make me sick sometimes."
These are the exact words of a charming American teacher who taught my hateful class of A level Shakespeare students a quarter of a century ago +. Poor man - he was a saint to put up with us.
But, we still exchange Christmas cards.
I guess that my take on things over the past couple of nights is that there is something of the playground in the invitation to "post a comment."
There's a lot of name calling and mud slinging that people are prepared to do behind the deceitful masques of anonymity or alter ego.
Face to face in "The real World" very few of us would behave like that to each other.
So when things go a bit mad, bad or dangerous to know on your blog, Iain, it isn't a real reflection on your readers /contributors...
...and it certainly isn't a real reflection on you.
Cheer up! Despite the hiccups, this is still the best political blog in the UK.
P.S. While previewing my comment, I note that Verity has added a contribution. She clearly rattles a lot of your contributors, but for what it's worth, I think she's the greatest catalyst on any of the political blogs that I read; you're lucky to have her on board.
Newmania - fantastic posts. Thanks. It was very enlightening. What a shame Alan Clarke is no longer with us.
However, I am now confused. Are you saying that you are now for Cameron? I recall several conversations where you said I was wrong for supporting Cameron and the liberal direction he was taking us in?!?
Pax. I am not sure that anonymous posts should be allowed. But then again, nom de plume's mean that you are as good anonymous, can be as offensive as you like, and no-one knows who you are!
But I still think that the only form of censorship worth a fig is self-censorship.
Ted Heath have just loved him to bits?
To quote Bugs bunny, "He don’t know me vewy well do he ".
The problem with what you say Verity is that the voters of the UK would not want to leave the EU if they were asked tomorrow. The only way to distance ourselves from it realistically is a Cameron vote and that means that discussing the prospects of the Conservative Party is not a side show ,. It is the only show in town. To me it look as if Cameron is further to the right on Europe than he is prepared to go in any other area .
Adrian
I have considerable problems with much of the Cameron project but it is infinitely better than the options and that , in a sense , is that. Looking at the electoral history of the Party since Thatcher and the spread of seats he clearly has no choice but to determinedly head for the centre .Much of what he says is appealing and I am far more suspicious of people who claim to have immutable principles than those who want to compromise.In my serious moments I was always going to vote and campaign for him.
He is not taking us in a Liberal direction .he is reacquainting us with the Conservative tradition which is more than notes on Hayek. Hayek saw the market as protection against totalitarianism understandably perhaps given his background but I have always seen problems with pure market ideology which is quite different to the sort of Conservative I am . Immigration is the difficult question , David Cameron wishes to appear modern which I like but he is defining a sort of Conservatism that values tradition , local knowledge and coherence . If we are to be a kinder less individualistic society which most people want then we cannot have atomised communities in great numbers and clusters . He is wisely leaving this silent but it is the point on which what appears to be Liberalism and what is in fact conservatism will diverge. AS Scruton says , if we are going to decide what we want to do , there has to be a “we” in the first place.
Sorry to hear about you having to close the thread on Louise Bagshawe. I wanted to post that I think that she is doing an excellent job and she is clearly a committed Tory.
YALLAND
Anyway apporpos of nothing ..( *whistles innocently *)last time I heard from you , you were all in favour of women on the A list……( at the risk of incurring the wrath of Gruppen Fuhrer Dale ).Time was that localism was important as was meritocracy but I am not sayin` nuffin`…not me guv.
Zippit...
Newmania "If we are to be a kinder less individualistic society" ...
No! No! No! That way lies the death of the society.
Individuals within a society can be kind, and I applaud them, but no society can be institutionally kind and survive. This is why we are losing billions of pounds to Africa every year. The money of people who got up in the morning, got in their cars, drove to the station, paid to park their cars, waited on a cold platform for a train that may not come, got to London and waited on the Underground platform for a train they could squeeze into - and endured this day after day and week after week and month after month - and the seasons changed and it was lighter in the mornings and not so cold and they didn't have to use the scraper to get ice off their windshields - for the amount of their salaries they were allowed to keep after their money had been pinched by Godawful Brown to give to notional "immigrants" and their families.
Institutionalised charity is called communism.
And there was never any reason for this destructive programme. It was created by the left.
Verity would you be happy then to tip over the rotting body of a pauper with the glittering point of your bejewelled Jimmy Chou and mention to little Timmy “ See son that’s what you get if you don’t buy medical insurance”. Could you live somewhere where people literally starve to death if the market moved their job elsewhere or if they are sick . This was precisely what happened during the period of Victorian capitalism which , to be fair appalled Victorians. This period and beyond was also the high water mark of private philanthropy which vast sums given every year towards the relief of the suffering . Nonetheless not nearly enough and no one seriously thinks that voluntary groups can replace state provision of “Institutionalised charity “if you like.
I would say no society can expect to be institutionally selfish and survive and societies that have tried to have not , in the end , survived. Individuals are defined and freed by society .Take the right of property for example , you perhaps think private property is an inalienable right . Is it though ? Could you defend it , do you have an army and would you want a life when one might at any time be the prey of a larger force of arms. This is not freedom .So the state protects private property and it does and is able to do so with a measure of consent from the people in a free world . For this to persist the society has to be “fair” As people are hardly likely to act fairly on their own account there is a need fo the state to correct gross imbalances .
It’s all about this balance, and moving the point of equilibrium is a tricky business. Having said that over time it isn’t impossible and I would like this country to be more like the US myself . You have always had an unhealthy does of the anarchist about you . Anarchy is , in my view , an ugly slavery to immediate needs and more usually to an actual owner. Conservatism requires order and sacrifice , institutional charity ideally . Think of it this way. A Conservative plays the piano an anarchist sits on it ......
Newmania - No government that says, "We want to be kind and nice" is going to survive. It is always, always individuals who have prospered under that society who have the means and the vision to be generous to others who give.
Forced charity is always wrong.
When I lived in Houston and they had "Community" something and every employee of any of the companies that had signed up - oddly enough by CEOs who were hoping to elevate their profile in Houston by signing up - a fascist operation if ever I saw one. And I was asked to go to the "Human Resources" department, because I had failed to fill in my form.
And I said, "I threw it away."
And they said, "You cannot throw it away. You have to make a statement against company policy of giving money to approved charities. You have to tick the 'no' box, for the record."
Institutionalised charity is always to serve someone's ego, and I am not in that line of work.
Newmania - Your problem is, you can't spell your designers! It's Jimmy Choo, for heavens's sake! Everyone knows that!
Definitely I could step over that person and call for help in a half-hearted way. People - meaning taxpayers, because they are the shareholders of our country (until the end of June) - should decide who they want to help and who doesn't deserve any help.
Yes, the word "deserve" - finely judgemental - as in people who just need a little stake to get themselves back on track. They can be put in touch with private charities. It is not the business of the taxpayer to distribute money to people who don't contribute to the common weal.
Harsh. Capitalistic. Works.
Newmania I can't understand your comments let me buy you a beer before you leave London
Nope. Says in the Times she campaigned for her mother (a Tory)
Definitely I could step over that person and call for help in a half-hearted way
Enjoyed that Verity , as I happen to know you keep cats it is clear to me you are , in fact , a much nicer person that you claim to be.You are right I wouldn`t know a Jimmy Choo from a Wellington boot and it might just as easily have been "chew".
On the balance between state provision and taxes, rightly or wrongly , there is little appetite in this country for what they have come to see as the " Nasty Party". The phrase "There is no such thing as society " is still a problem and David Cameron , is , in my view , quite right to try and redefine Conservatism away from that .
It could have been applied to Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao and Robert Mugabe. Get a grip Iain.
Oh come on this is a bit ridiculous she may be sailing under a flag of convenience but I `m sure she is a decent person.
John Hayes put the problem well ( with the A list that is ),
“The idea that we can parachute insubstantial and untested candidates with little knowledge of the local scene is the bizarre theory of those people who spend too much time with the pseuds and posers of London`s chichi set and not enough time in normal Britain “ ,. Unlike Iain I like John Hayes who I met and found to be a thoughtful man.
The A list was initially a failure and Mr. Cameron has been obliged to introduce an element of compulsion. The very laudable idea is to produce candidates that may not appeal to the local Parties but will appeal to the vastly more important local and national voter. It is then a democratic move . I think including Adam Ricketts , obviously a congenital cretin was a mistake but the ramshackle localised structure of the Party cannot be allowed to prevent its competing. The problem with the individuals is that are going to tend to be Party conformists and dullards. This I `m afraid is the sort of thing that we are simply going to have to put up with. As such a candidate can be expected to have no power within the Party she will only be trotting about for show like a well clipped poodle . Nothing to panic about surely . New Logo , few pretty faces , …so what.
Verity and Newmania could just bore each other to death.
Don't think too many people will stop them.
Jimmy Choo? I didn't know that! I don't even know who Jimmy Choo is. Sound's like a kids TV character - Bob the Builder, Spongebob Square Pants and Jimmy Choo! It has a ring you know.
Newmania: In an ideal world, and outisde of the police 'force' (not service) and the military, Government should provide the skeleton of an infrastructure on public services (health, education etc), and then manage the providers of the frontline delivery.
Verity has a point, and I agree that Government's can never legislate in the best interests of the individual, because only the individual knows what is best for him/her, and Government governs mostly along Benthamite utilitarianism lines - the best amount of good for the largest number of people.
However, as you rightly point out, stepping over the dead and dying (a la India) is neither morally acceptable, or politically desirable. Therefore Government intervention is essential - for reasons I shall shortly try and explain.
My main difficulty is the more the Government does for people, the less they do for themselves, and the More Government does for people, the more it charges for the pleasure. Governments are notoriously bad at spending money wisely and effectively, but we have, as a society, since the post-war expansion of the state effectively given up on trying to provide for ourselves, and we increasingly look to the Government to clothe, house, educate, nurse, feed and bury us when we die. We even look to the Government to be compassionate on our behalf - to intervene in Africa, and to pick up the dying of the streets (we would never take in the sick and dying ourselves (as my granny would have done) as we would get strange looks, and we'd worry that the DVD player would go missing).
In return, the state (who simply cannot relate to people as individuals) has to increasingly monitor, measure, manage, control and dominate. Slowly but surely, the relationship between the state and the individual changes from one where the state is the servant to one where it is the master and we are all drones, zombied out on the drug of the welfare state.
But....to Cameron. I am not advocating scrappng the state, not least of all as there is no viable replacement. However, I do think that the current framework can be adapted, and over time, people can get used (and even enjoy) taking back responsibility over their lives. Vouchers in education for example, or making private health insurance a de-facto compulsory need (in return for stopping claiming a large proportion of tax which funds the NHS), or local government being simply one big commissioning body which issues licenses to private companies to fulfill public good.
I hope therefore that Cameron, whilst accepting where we are at this moment in history, moves us towards a situation where the balance is redressed, and the relationship between the state and the individual is put back in balance, where we, the individual (or the collective of individuals known as society) are the boss, and they are the servants, doing our bidding, making our life more comfortable, and where we are free to enjoy our liberties.
I am not a great conspiracy theorist, and I don't see great malign intention in the expansion of the state (indeed, by adopting an essentially collectivist and socialist view of how society should be order since 1945) we have shown a degree of paternalism. But, the inevitable conclusion of the road we are on now is not unlike the picture which Orwell paints in 1984.
Essentially, individuals need to take greater responsibility over their own lives (because they know their own lives better than the Government), and the Government needs, for the majority of cases, to be an 'enabler' and not a 'doer'. For the minority, well the Government should intervene where the voluntary sector, aided and supported by individuals, cannot.
So, it is individual first, society second, and state third!
It is a partnership, but one where the state knows its place in the pecking order.
Conservatism, 1837
She has never admitted to voting Labour that I can see, got a link?
Says she campaigned for her Tory mother in 97 and for the Conservative candidate in the Wrekin in 2001
If she was working for Labour then seems surprising that the Tory candidate there in that election commented how hard she worked for him
sounds like she was back working for the Cons in 97 and 01 and ever since
you should read her interview on ConHome and the comments in it before you start making stuff up, don't you think? Dan Hannan calls her a Tory, good enough for me
Anon 8.52. - We were talking about politics. Big brother is now available somewhere for braindead scrotum scratchers like you.Thankyou Blair for this Island of Dr. Moreau.
Thanks a lot
newmania said:
an acceptance that not everything Margaret Thatcher did was good is going to be implicit in election victory.
You've hit the nail on the head there, newmania. As a staunch Liberal - much to my surprise - I found it impossible not to admire and respect Maggie during her early years in office. Though I never voted for her - or the Conservatives - in my life. Hell would have frosted over first.
To understand how staunchly Liberals did not vote for Tories, you would need to see the war of the worlds at election time between myself and my former, thankfully, ex-husband - a Conservative. Every night during the election, he crept downstairs to put up his Conservative posters. Early every morning, I stomped downstairs and replaced them with my Lib Dem posters.
Yet I was hugely proud of Thatcher for smashing the glass ceiling to become our first female PM. And I couldn't help but admire her principled conviction and her love of our country and our freedom. She always putting Britain first and the fought for our interests in an incomparably gutsy manner. I seethed with rage and shame, however, when Maggie's defence of freedom became an appallingly divisive attack on ordinary working people - because these are my people. Like so many others, I can never forget that I straddle two classes, I am separated from generations of working class ancestors by just a thin, middle English, educational and professional veneer.
I detest Blair for many things, but perhaps most of all for an inverted form of Maggie's divisiviness - in his case it's towards middle England, who are also me and my people.
I instantly supported David Cameron because he seemed to be grounded in the old tradition of classless aristos who transcend the divisivness embodied by Maggie and Blair - a one nation man who would unite our country and restore trust in politicians and parliament.
Yet every time Cameron unethically uses the tawdry electoral device of splitting our country and his party into warring factions, every time he speaks of little Englanders, of being Blair's heir, every time he raises the worn out spectre of an intransigent leader who refuses to listen, Lib Dems and Liberals like me find that old anger and hatred we felt for Maggie and Blair rising.
Blimey, there are some long comments on here. I was just going to say I didn't realise the Conservatives had a history, just a past.
Anon ...you don`t seem to be leavbng him an awful lot of room for manouvre ? He is also under pressure from the right.
newmania [1.08 AM] You say: " ...there is a need for the state to correct gross imbalances."
I agree. But the key phrase is "gross imbalances" and that is what we have lost sight of. When a family which cannot afford foreign holidays is officially classifed as "poor" we are in danger of losing the plot.
And, everyone, please be careful about suggestions that "this country" wants more government intervention. In my country, England, (without which the UK would collapse in a matter of weeks) most people want nothing of the sort.
What is striking though trumpeter is that the lack of outcry against the state regulation of every aspect of our lives and the placid acceptance of an infantilised sub strata .When Frank Field was envisaging reforming the Welfare state he assume noone would oput up with this but they do. THis shows how the country has drifted to the left.
Ina similiar way it must drift back the right , sudden shifts are not , IMHO in the realm of the possible now
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