[…] pay to guarantee assured outcomes to his backers: active members, after all, can rock the boat carrying the big donor cheques which keep New Labour afloat. The Conservative party is no better placed and it is difficult to see how they would want to change the direction of foreign policy anyway. Whatever Hutton concludes, […]
[…] Liberation Army (INLA) soon claimed responsibility. The widespread shock which greeted his assassination was probably nowhere more clearly felt than by Mrs Thatcher, then leader of the Conservative opposition. Neave had masterminded Thatcher’s rise to power in the Conservative Party, organising her election as party leader. It was probably him who directed the ‘dirty […]
Ex-British intelligence officer Richard Winch said KGB defectors regularly named 7 ‘MPs, trade union leaders and 1 former Conservative Cabinet Minister’ as KGB agents. (Daily Telegraph 24 and 27 September 1984) What, only 7? According to Frederick Forsyth’s ‘sources’ in the British labour movement there are 20. (See Times 31 August 1984). And doesn’t […]
Oliver Kamm London: The Social Affairs Unit, 2005, h/b, £13.99 Kamms’ Anti-totalitarianism was published in the same week and possibly on the same day as the Henry Jackson Society announced itself to the world. So this is a kind of manifesto for that group. (1 ) It’s a nice try, in a way, this … Read more
[…] Hurd, now Minister for Northern Ireland. It would be interesting to know if this Round Table connection has anything to do with his promotion within the contemporary Conservative Party despite his role as Heath’s private secretary and apologist. A profile of Hurd in the Sunday Telegraph (16 September 1984) contains a good deal of […]
[…] made public.’ You can’t buy an endorsement better than that, thanks very much. And if ‘the Establishment’ was cross with ‘West’ it didn’t stop him becoming a Conservative MP; and under Margaret Thatcher, who hated dishers of dirt and secrets. So, for me, ‘West’ has always been a puzzle: a conservative (and Conservative) historian […]
[…] Healey become leader many commentators believe the SDP would never have been launched and the result of the 1983 election would have been different (a much lower Conservative majority). By staying on and adopting an easy-going and lacklustre stance, Callaghan gave credibility to the many demands for a radical change of direction. When he […]
[…] the great Liberal newspaper. Casement’s appeal was heard – and dismissed – by the same judge who dealt with the Pemberton-Billing/Allen trial, Mr Justice Darling, an ex- Conservative MP. Other parallels? Both Wilde and Casement were Irish, both were gay, both were Protestants. How the English establishment takes its revenge! (And how little good […]
[…] as he ends his period in office mired by the honours scandal. The reason that the Economist gave for backing his re-election, that he was the best conservative on offer was totally true; but even die-hard conservatives must have been shocked at his totally supine attitude to the Bush administration. He provided legitimacy to […]
[…] the Labour Party and socialism. Hulton, who later joined the Common Cause Advisory Board, had earlier told his editor, ‘Kindly remember that I am not only a Conservative, I am loyal supporter of Mr Neville Chamberlain.’ (25) Hulton, like many right-wing Tories, may have supported corporatist aims in war-time, but never socialism. He was […]
