LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
THE TORY PROGRAMME
Sta,—I wonder whether Mr. H. G. Rawlinson, whose despairing letter on this subject appeared in your last issue, was himself at Blackpool? I think not. If he had been there, I doubt whether he could have written that " the younger and more progressivl section were not even given a hearing ": for though it is true that I-Michingbrooke, Law and Molson did not speak, Hogg, Thorneycroft, Nutting and many such others most certainly did. Nor is it in the least true to suggest that through sheer snobbishness, working-class members of the party were given no encour- agement. Indeed, it seemed to me that the majority of the audience were inclined to applaud with quite unbalanced enthusiasm the mere fact that you happened to be under thirty (my own age, incidentally), and that you spoke with a cockney accent.
And why this sudden contempt for " the Old Guard," for " Messrs. Churchill, Amery and Company " (the Company presumably including Eden, Macmillan and Butler), whose past record is, after all, nothing to be ashamed of? Do political leaders automatically become disreputable after five years even of successful office? It is said that they have failed to formulate a new policy. But political parties do not formulate new policies just because they have been beaten at an Election. If they really believe that what they have said in the past is true, they continue to say it, as the Socialists did, adapting the detail of their. programme (which is a very different thing) to changing conditions. That does not mean that Conservative policy at the moment is purely negative. If you are being driven in a car in a manner which you consider to be extremely reckless, it is not " negative policy " to remonstrate with the driver and to persuade the passengers that they would be safer if you took over the wheel. All of us, Conservatives and Socialists, wish to arrive at the same destination—peace and prosperity—but we differ about the route and the speed. These differences remain as fundamental as any which have divided political parties in the past. How, then, can it be said that the Conservatives do not know what they stand for?—Yours faithfully,
to, Neville Terrace, S.W.7.
NIGEL NICOLSON.
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