,The„
opectator October 12, 1974 There is one character in the book who causes the author to break from his attitude of factual reporting and to indulge in personal judgment. The character is Mr Edward Heath. It is as if Mr Gamble has come of age at this point — in the autumn of 1965 he was exactly eighteen — and presumes to exercise his critical faculties. I quote from page 91:— The crisis of leadership in these years was thus at the same time a crisis of ideology. The electoral perspective of the Conservative leaders no longer seems able to straddle the politics of power and the politics of support. The New Conservatism needed recasting, but the Conservatives chose as their Leader a man who was supremely ill-equipped to do this. Heath offered a detailed analysis of Britain's economic problems and a list of appropriate remedies, but he had little conception of how this programme could be presented to secure the support and enthusiasm of his followers in the party and in the country. The result was that Heath's Conservatism appeared to many little different from the Socialisru,it sought to replace. This was a serious handicap for a party in Opposition.
The author is at pains to keep the book from collapsing forward on the knees. Past political orations unless they are demosthenic always bring yawns and lowered eyelids and what Conservative politician since the middle 'fifties, save Enoch Powell, has provided different fare? But Mr Gamble forestalls the matchsticks by angry, opinionated writing of his own or else by the reproduction of a passage of arms from battles long ago which the reader may just remember. It is a skilful performance and should be required reading now for Ph.Ds and essayists in politics. No doubt the Conservative nation will visit its consultant again in a decade or less and request another acute diagnosis.
Victor Montagu, formerly Viscount Hinchinbrooke wag a Conservative Member of Parliament, disclaiming the Earldom of Sandwich on succession.
Previous page
