Table Of ContentA History of Conservative
Politics since 1830
Second Edition
John Charmley
A History of Conservative
Politics since 1830
John Charmley is Professor of Modern History and Head of the School
of History at the University of East Anglia.
His previous publications include Chamberlainand the Lost Peace (1990)
and Churchill: The End of Glory(1993).
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A History of Conservative
Politics since 1830
Second Edition
John Charmley
British Studies Series
General Editor:Jeremy Black
© John Charmley 1996,2008
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this
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Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First edition A History of Conservative Politics 1900–1996published in 1996
Second edition published in 2008 by
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To Rachael
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
1. The Conservative Tradition 1
2. Stanley and the Protectionists 16
3. Derby’s Conservatives 31
4. Disraeli on Top 47
5. Balfour in Trouble 68
6. The Unknown Bonar Law 86
7. Scalped by Baldwin 101
8. Chamberlain in Charge 118
9. Churchill’s Consensus 133
10. The New Model Tory Party? 146
11. A Conservative Consensus? 159
12. Decline and Fall 176
13. From Heath to Thatcher 190
14. The Iron Lady 209
15. High Tide and After 224
16. After the Ball was Over 243
17. No Direction Home? 254
Notes and References 276
Bibliography 289
Index 295
vii
Acknowledgements
The first version of this book appeared in 1996 as A History of
Conservative Politics 1900–1996. This book updates the material in that
volume, but takes the story back to Peel and forward to David
Cameron, and in that sense (as well as others) is quite a different
version; there are many reasons for this, including the exponential
expansion of books on the Conservative Party over the past 10 years;
whatever the electorate might think, the party continues to fascinate
historians.
I remain grateful to those whose comments informed the first
version, my old colleague, Professor Geoffrey Searle, Andrew Roberts,
and the now, alas, late Alan Clark. I should also like to thank two
current MPs, Keith Simpson and Richard Bacon, at whose side I
learned a great deal about Conservative politics.
I am extremely grateful to Felicity Noble and Sonya Barker at
Palgrave Macmillan for bearing with me whilst this volume was
completed. I would like to thank one of Palgrave Macmillan’s anony-
mous readers for his advice, which has saved this volume from some of
the more egregious errors of its predecessor. I am grateful to my secre-
tary at the University of East Anglia, Judy Sparks, for her help in getting
the book ready.
On a more personal level, and at a professional one, I am very grateful
to my son, Gerard, who not only read the whole volume with a critical
eye, but provided much of the material on which the final chapter is
based. To my wife, Rachael, without whose encouragement and care
this volume could not have been complete, my gratitude is beyond the
power of words to express.
Harleston, Norfolk
1 The Conservative Tradition
The Conservative Party exists to conserve; it is the party of the status
quo. Unfortunately for it and its adherents all things change – ‘the
flower withereth and the grass fadeth’. In another world perhaps these
things are restored and made new, but in this world the process of
change poses a fundamental challenge to Conservatism as a political
force. Many of those who vote Conservative do so because of an instinc-
tive distaste for the consequences of change, but for a Conservative
Party some accommodation with this process is inevitable – if only to
ensure political survival. There is, then, a tension between instinctive
Conservatism and expediency. Because of this, all Conservative leaders
have faced charges of opportunism and betrayal; but historians have
generally judged them by their success in adapting to change. Since the
Conservative Party has existed for nearly 200 years, during which time
Britain has changed beyond recognition, historians are agreed that
theParty has been a great success; visceral Conservatives are less easily
convinced. Even in 2005, after three successive election defeats, there
were those in the Party who argued that its sufferings were due to its
failure to abide by traditional values. This ‘Tory Taliban’ tendency, as
one wag called it, has existed in every age, and its song has ever been
the same: it harkens back to some bygone golden age, and calls its party
to repentance and reformation of life. It might be unkind to point out
that in the last golden glow of aristocratic rule, before the country went
to the dogs, the Conservatives were, for the most part, in opposition,
and that it was only with the advent of democracy that they came to
dominate British politics; this always puzzled Marxists, since it ran
counter to their theoretical model, but since 1989 those remaining
disciples have had other things to distract them from this little local
difficulty.
The twentieth century dominance of the Conservative party has
created a misleading historiography, best expressed in Lord Blake’s
highly readable and influential history of it.1Robert Blake wrote with
elegance and a focus that can only be admired by lesser lights. He
knew the importance of having a strong narrative line, and his History
of the Conservative Party, in its many editions, told a good story. In so far
as it had a hero, it was Sir Robert Peel, whose moderate, judicious,
sensible conservatism was a model to be emulated; that this version of
1
