Fascinating historical post by Alistair Cooke over on the official Conservative Party blog remembering Britain’s economic troubles of the 1970s: "To conserve vital stocks, Ted Heath’s Government put industry on a three-day week from 1 January 1974. There was no legislation: industry simply did as it was told in that very different period in our […]
Interviewed on Andrew Marr this morning, former Prime Minister John Major warned against further taxpayer funding of political parties. Politicians are already remote enough from the grassroots, he warned, and any further taxpayer funding would risk diminishing the connections that the party elites had with ordinary voters. Other highlights of Sir John’s interview: The loss […]
The dramatic political effect of Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s inheritance tax announcement has been recognised today by The Spectator’s annual parliamentary awards. Mr Osborne has been made politician of the year for what Fraser Nelson, the magazine’s Political Editor, believes was "the single most effective policy ever announced by the Conservatives in Opposition". William Hague […]
It’s been a quiet news day so far. So, time for a debate… The three leaders the Party had after Major and before Cameron were the first leaders of the Party not to make it to Prime Minister since Austen Chamberlain in the 1920s. William Hague got something of a hospital pass but impressed at […]
A tear or two appeared in Iain Duncan Smith’s eye this afternoon during a sustained standing ovation. He had addressed the Conference without notes on the cause that has come to define his politics – the mending of Britain’s broken society. I have to say I was a bit tearful, too, as I stood watching […]
Andrew Billen interviews William Hague in the Times today about his career, and his nostalgia for the era of great parliamentarian William Wilberforce. Comparing Pitt the Younger and Wilberforce, the subjects of his biographies, he says: "Pitt is the ultimate career politician: Prime Minister at 24, dead at 46, having worked and worried and drunk […]
Can Party members really be trusted any more than Labour’s to choose a good leader?