To Rishi or not to Rishi, that’s the question.
Edward Heath was considered a break from the past when he became leader of the Conservatives; a break from Churchill, MacMillan, Eden, Douglas-Home all more or less Establishment and/or drawn from the aristocracy. Heath was downstairs Downton Abbey, the child of a lady’s maid and a carpenter, who went to Balliol on a scholarship. He might be remembered as a better Prime Minister if his economically literate Chancellor, Iain Macleod, had not unexpectedly died a month after he was appointed. His successor, Anthony Barber, was a disaster.
Heath’s legacy is the re-invention of the Conservative party. It’s no longer a party of entitlement, it’s a party that attracts voters, members and politicians from all over the place. Sorry, should I say “from diverse backgrounds”? What’s clear to me is the parliamentary party has attracted a high calibre of MPs better equipped to govern than the opposition. OK, there are still a lot of “old Tories”, slightly bonkers, populating the back benches but I think they are happy to be good constituency MPs, don’t seek high office and like a decent lunch after PMQs.
To digress, I have been invited to apply to be a Long Term Observer at elections in Bosnia Herzegovina in early October. I’m a Short Term Observer and don’t want to be away for about six weeks, so no dice. However, I reflect on the “democratic” process to elect leaders of political parties in the UK. They, the parties, change the rules to suit themselves. Let’s be thankful they don’t change the rules to stay in office in perpetuity. Which leads neatly on to a book I have just started.
I should declare an interest; I took Gretchen to the Proms a few years ago and sometimes she reads this blog. Her book, just published, tells mainly of two years (1979 – 1981) living in Wuhan teaching Chinese students to be English teachers. I am enjoying it very much.