The Tories: Conservatives and the Nation State, 1922-97 Book

The Tories is Alan Clark's personal account of the modern Conservatives, who for the better part of this century have been the governing political party of Britain. During this period the country has fallen in stature, both comparative and absolute, by virtually every criterion of measurement which can be applied. Yet the Conservative Party's primary objective, or so it claims and it's supporters believe, is to advance and protect the interests of the British Nation State. To understand the catastrophic and repetitious failure of the Tories to attain that objective, over practically the whole of the past 75 years, Alan Clark examines afresh personalities and arguments on occasions as diverse as the Gold Standard dispute of 1925; the abdication of King Edward VIII; the failure of Appeasement; the mishandling of North Sea oil; the alternating inspiration and hubris of Margaret Thatcher. In The Tories he shows how the apparent interest of the Nation State seems often to have been neglected, but that Conservatives, with the sole exception of the first Churchill premiership, perceived its real interest differently as being best served, above all other considerations, by the perpetuation of the party in office. To this exposition, Alan Clark brings his personal experience of government, which he has recorded in his celebrated Diaries; and the acknowledged skills of a historian whose books on the extremes of two world wars, the British Expeditionary Force in 1915 (The Donkeys) and the Russo- German conflict of 1941-45 (Barbarossa) are classics.Read More