“Do British workers have no deep feelings for freedom, for order, for the education of their children, for the right to work without disruption by political militants? Of course they do. And if they are no more than cash-grabbing anarchists, then we must all bear some of the responsibility and try to show them the way back to sanity. But I do not believe they are. Most of them want to do a fair day’s work in a job that gives them satisfaction—and strongly resent what they regard as State subsidies to shirkers.”
by Margaret Thatcher
(Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Jan 30, 1975 on rebuilding a conservative party after electoral defeat.)
Two electoral defeats in a year do not represent total disaster; but they could prove to be the beginning of a disastrous decline unless Conservatives have the courage and humility to examine the reasons for their defeat and ask themselves in what respects they have failed the British people.
To deny that we failed the people is futile, as well as arrogant. Successful Governments win elections. So do parties with broadly acceptable policies. We lost. Continue reading