History of the Conservative Party

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The origins of the Conservative Party go back to the Tory faction of 1678-1681 which opposed the exclusion of the Duke of York, later King James VII&II, from the order of succession to the throne. The name was an insult used by their enemies - a 'Tory' was a species of Irish bandit.

The name 'Conservative' was suggested by John Wilson Croker in the 1830s and later officially adopted, but the party is still often referred to as the 'Tory Party' (not least because newspaper editors find it a convenient shorthand when space is limited). The Tories more often than not formed the government from the accession of King George III (in 1760) until the Great Reform Act of 1832.

Widening of the franchise in the 19th century led the party to popularise its approach, especially under Benjamin Disraeli who carried through his own Reform Act in 1867. After 1886 the Conservatives allied with Liberals who opposed their party's support for Irish Home Rule and held office for all but three of the following twenty years, but when it split over tariff reform, the party suffered a landslide election defeat.

World War I saw an all-party coalition and the Conservatives then stayed in Coalition with half of the Liberals for four years after the armistice. Eventually, grassroots pressure forced the breakup of the Coalition and the party regained power on its own. It again dominated the political scene in the inter-war period, from 1931 in a 'National Government' coalition. However in the 1945 general election the party lost power in a landslide to the Labour Party.

After the end of the Second World War, the Conservatives accepted the reality of the Labour government's nationalisation programme and creation of the 'welfare state', but when it returned to power promoted an economic boom which led back to prosperity in the 1950s. In 1975 Margaret Thatcher became leader and converted it to support a monetarist economic programme; after her election victory in 1979 her government became known for a free-market approach and privatisation of public utilities. Here, the Conservatives experienced a high-point, Thatcher leading the Conservatives to two landslide election victories in 1983 and 1987.

However, towards the end of the 1980s, Thatcher's increasing unpopularity and unwillingness to change policies perceived as vote-losing led to her being deposed in 1990 and replaced by John Major who won an unexpected election victory in 1992. Major's government suffered a political blow when the Pound Sterling was forced out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism later that year, which lost the party much of its reputation for good financial stewardship. An effective opposition campaign by the Labour Party led to a landslide defeat in 1997.

The nineteenth century

Origins

The modern Conservative Party arose in the 1830s, but has as an ancestor the Tory Party of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Political alignments in those centuries were much looser than now, with many individual groupings. From the 1780s until the 1820s the dominant grouping was that following William Pitt the Younger and his successors, who gradually came to be called Tories. In the late 1820s disputes over political reform broke up this grouping. A government led by the Duke of Wellington collapsed admidst dire election results. Following this disaster Robert Peel set about assembling a new coalition of forces. Peel issued the Tamworth Manifesto in 1834 which set out the basic principles of Conservatism and that year he formed a temporary government. On the fall of Lord Melbourne's government in 1841 Peel took office with a substantial majority and appeared set for a long rule.

Crisis over the Corn Laws

However in 1846 disaster struck when the party split over the repeal of the Corn Laws. Peel and nearly every Conservative with official experience favored repeal, but were opposed by backbench country members, led by Lord George Bentinck, Benjamin Disraeli, and Lord Stanley (later the Earl of Derby), who favored protectionism. Following repeal the Protectionists combined with the Whigs to overthrow Peel's government. It would be twenty-eight years before a Conservative Prime Minister again had a majority in the House of Commons.

From this point on, and especially after the death of Peel in 1850, the so-called Peelites and Conservatives drifted apart. Most of the Peelites joined with the Whigs and Radicals to form the Liberal Party in 1859, under the leadership of Lord Palmerston.

Recovery and triumph under Derby and Disraeli

The Conservatives survived as an independent party, even though they would not form another majority government until the 1870s. The modern Conservative Party descends from the Protectionists who broke with Peel in 1846, although they did not reintroduce Protection when they were returned to power. Under the leadership of Derby and Disraeli they consolidated their position and attempted to present themselves as a viable alternative. Although Derby led several minority governments in the 1850s and 1860s, the party was never able to achieve a majority until 1874, after the passage of the Reform Act of 1867, which broadened the franchise. Disraeli's mixed message of patriotism and promises of social reforms managed to win him enough working-class support to win a majority in 1874, but the Conservative hold remained tenuous, and Disraeli was defeated in the election of 1880. It was not until the split in the Liberal Party over Irish home rule in 1886 that the Conservatives were able to achieve truly secure majorities through the defection of the Liberal Unionists.

The Unionist Ascendancy

The Conservatives, now led by Lord Salisbury, remained in power for most of the next twenty years, at first passively supported by the Liberal Unionists and then, after 1895, in active coalition with them. From 1895, unofficially, and after 1912 officially, the Conservative-Liberal Unionist coalition was often simply called the "Unionists". In 1902 Sailsbury resigned and his nephew Arthur Balfour became Prime Minister.

The party then split on the issue of Tariff Reform. The controversy had been taken up by the Liberal Unionist cabinet minister Joseph Chamberlain, who was Colonial Secretary. Like the earlier schism over the Corn Laws in 1846, the result lead to polarisation within the coalition between those who supported Chamberlain and his 'Imperial Preference', and those who opposed him in defence of the status quo and Free Trade. The split went across both Unionist parties. With the beleaguered Balfour in the middle, the government struggled on for another two years and saw many Unionist MPs defect to the Liberals. These defectors inlcuded the future party leader Winston Churchill in 1904.

Early twentieth century

The election of 1906 ended in a landslide defeat for the Unionists and their numbers were reduced to only 157 MPs. Balfour lost his own seat (although he soon returned to Parliament in a by-election) and this left the pro-tariff reformers within the Unionists as a large majority. However, the stroke suffered by Joseph Chamberlain in July 1906 effectively removed him from political influence. The the cause of Tariff reform would now be promoted by Chamberlain's son Austen Chamberlain.

The Unionists strongly opposed many of the proposed reforms of the new Liberal governments of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith. In 1910, the Unionist-dominated House of Lords rejected the so-called "People's Budget", leading to a long conflict over the nature and constitutional place of the House of Lords. The Conservatives managed to make up much of their losses in both the January and December elections of 1910. This forced the Liberals to rely on Irish Nationalist votes to maintain their majority. Although the Liberals were able to force through the effective subjugation of the Lords with the Parliament Act of 1911, their advocacy once again cost them support, so that by the time of the outbreak of World War I a Unionist victory in the next election looked possible. Liberal mismanagement of the early phases World War I led to the return of the Unionists to power: first in coalition with Asquith's Liberals, and then, with the split and collapse of the Liberals, the Unionists under Andrew Bonar Law were able to become the dominant party in Lloyd George's coalition government following the 1918 election.

The Baldwin era

For the next few years it seemed possible that the Liberals who supported Lloyd George and the Conservatives would merge into a new political grouping. However the reluctance of these Liberals to lose their identity ended this ambition and the moment was lost. From then on the rumblings of discontent within the coalition over issues such as the Soviet Union, trade unions and the Irish issue (leading to the de facto independence for the Irish Free State in 1921 led to many Conservatives hoping to break with Lloyd George. Bonar Law resigned in 1921 on the grounds of ill health and the parliamentary party was now led by Austen Chamberlain. Previously a contender for party leadership in 1911, Chamberlain was to prove ineffective in controlling his party—even passing up the offer of becoming Prime Minister when Lloyd George indicated he was willing to step down. The party eventually broke free from Lloyd George in October 1922 as the result of a meeting at the Carlton Club. Voting against remaining in the coalition, Chamberlain resigned and was actually replaced by Bonar Law, who had been persuaded by friends and allies to return to lead the party.

After winning the election of 1922, Bonar Law, now terminally ill with throat cancer, was to resign for good from political life in May 1923. He died later that year. Though holding a majority in government, the party was still split, as many of those who stayed to the bitter end of the former coalition had refused to take office in Law's cabinet. Their absence explains why the hitherto unknown Stanley Baldwin was to become leader of the party barely two years after first entering a major ministerial post.

The party reached a new height in the inter-war years under Baldwin's leadership. His mixture of strong social reforms and steady government proved a powerful election combination, with the result that the Conservatives governed Britain either by themselves or as the leading component of the National Government for most of the interwar years and all through World War II. Yet at the concxlusion of hostilites, the British public felt a different party would best guide them through the peace, and in the 1945 General Election the Conservatives were soundly defeated.

Post war recovery

The party responded to their defeat by accepting many of the Labour government's social reforms whilst also offering a distinctive Conservative edge, and they returned to government in 1951 under Churchill. Churchill remained leader for another four years, during which time the Conservatives showed their acceptance of Labour reforms, though modifying some, such as the denationalisation the steel industry. In 1955 Churchill retired and was succeeded by Sir Anthony Eden. Eden had an immense personal popularity and lengthy experience as Foreign Secretary, but his government ran into a number of troubles on the domestic front as the economy began to overheat. In international affairs the government was confronted by the decision of the Egyptian government of Gamal Abdel Nasser to nationalise the Suez Canal. Eden agreed to a secret collaboration with France and Israel to retake the Canal, but the resulting operation [see Suez Crisis] backfired miserably and left the United Kingdom heavily embarassed abroad and Eden discredited at home. With his health failing, Eden resigned at the beginning of 1957.

The succession was contentious, with Rab Butler as the favorite to succeed. However, it was Harold Macmillan who became the next Prime Minister and leader of the party. Macmillan sought to rebuild the governments' image both at home and abroad, and presided over strong economic growth and a massive expansion in the consumer-product economy. In 1959 he won the general election of that year on this economic success, summed up in the slogan "You've never had it so good." However, rising unemployment and an economic downturn in the early 1960s eroded support for Macmillan's government. It was further rocked in 1963 by the resignation of the Secretary of State for War John Profumo over the Profumo Affair. In October 1963 Macmillan was misdiagnosed with terminal cancer and resigned.

The party at this time lacked a formal process for electing a new leader and Macmillan's resignation took place in the week of the annual Conservative Party Conference. This event rapidly became a US-style Convention as leading ministers sought to establish their credentials. In the event Macmillan formally recommended to the Queen that she appoint the Earl of Home as Prime Minister. Home was appointed and renounced his peerage, becoming Sir Alec Douglas-Home, but was unable to restore the party's fortunes and narrowly lost the 1964 general election.

The Heath years: 1965-1975

Following the 1964 defeat, the party formally installed a system for electing the leader. Douglas-Home stepped down in 1965 and the election to succeed him was won by Edward Heath, beating both Reginald Maudling and Enoch Powell. The party proceeded to lose the 1966 general election. Heath's leadership proved immensely controversial, with frequent calls from many prominent party members and supporters for him to step down, but he persevered. To the shock of almost everyone bar Heath, the party won the 1970 general election.

The Heath premiership remains one of the most controversial in the history of the party. Initial attempts to follow monetarist policies that would later be consider Thatcherite did not produce early positive results, with high inflation and unemployment blocking Heath's attempts at reforming the increasingly militant trade unions. The era of 1970's British industrial unrest had arrived.

The situation in Northern Ireland continued to deteriorate and Heath recoursed to suspending the Parliament of Northern Ireland and introducing direct rule as a precursor to establishing a power-sharing executive under the Sunningdale Agreement. This resulted in the Conservative Party losing the support of the Ulster Unionist Party at Westminster, which was to have consequences in later years when the party found itself reliant on tiny Commons majorities. Heath himself considered his greatest success in office to be the United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community (or the "Common Market" as it was widely called at the time) but in subsequent years the UK's membership of the EEC was to prove the source of the greatest divisions in the party.

The country suffered a further bout of inflation in 1973 as a result of the OPEC cartel raising oil prices, and this in turn led to renewed demands for wage increases in the coal industry. The government refused to accede to the miner's demands, resulting in a series of stoppages and massive attempts to ration power, including the "Three Day Week". Heath decided to call a snap election on the question of "Who Governs Britain?" However the Conservative Party was unprepared, whilst the miners' unions stated that they did not see how the re-election of the government would change the situation. The Conservatives were further rocked by the resignation of Enoch Powell, who denounced the government for taking the country into the EEC and called on voters to back the Labour Party, who had promised a referendum on withdrawal. The February 1974 election produced an unusual result as support for the Liberals, Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru all surged, Northern Ireland's politics became more localised, whilst the Conservatives won a plurality of votes, but Labour had a plurality of seats. With a hung Parliament elected, Heath tried to negotiate with the Liberals to form a coalition, but the attempts foundered on demands that were not acceptable to both parties. Heath also made overtures to the Ulster Unionists to get them to retake the Conservative whip, which would have made the party the largest in the Commons, but they refused. Heath was forced to resign as Prime Minister.

These years were seen as the height of "consensus politics". However in the 1970s many traditional methods of running the economy, managing relations with trade unions and so on began to fail. At the same time the Labour Party was increasingly dominant, ruling for nearly twelve out of the fifteen years between 1964 and 1979. Many in the Conservative Party were left wondering how to proceed.

The Thatcher Years, 1975-1990

Heath remained leader of the party despite growing calls for a renewal of his mandate. At the time there was no system for challenging an incumbent leader but after renewed pressure and a second general election defeat a system was put in place and Heath agreed to holding a leadership election to allow him to renew his mandate. Few both inside and out of the party expected him to be seriously challenged, let alone defeated. However Margaret Thatcher stood against Heath and in a shock result outpolled him on the first ballot, leading him to withdraw from the contest. Thatcher then faced off four other candidates to become the first woman to lead a major British political party. Thatcher had much support from the monetarists, led by Keith Joseph. The Conservatives capitalised on the Winter of Discontent and the growing inflation rate, not to mention the humiliating bailout of the UK economy by the IMF in 1976, and won the 1979 general election with a majority of 43. Thatcher, thereby became the UK's first woman Prime Minister.

Thatcher, due to successful economic reforms after decades of economic decline, the Falklands War, the perceived "loony left" nature of the Labour Party, and the intervention of the centrist SDP-Liberal Alliance, won the 1983 general election with a landslide, gaining a majority of 144. Again due to the perceived "loony left" nature of the Labour Party, and the intervention of the SDP-Liberal Alliance, Thatcher won the 1987 general election with a large majority of 102.

The second and third terms were dominated by privatisations of Britain's many state-owned industries, including British Telecom in 1984, the bus companies in 1985, British Gas in 1986, British Airways in 1987, British Leyland, British Steel in 1988.

In 1989, the Community Charge (frequently referred to as the "poll tax") was introduced to replace the ancient system of rates (based on property values) which funded local government. This new charge was a flat rate per adult no matter what their circumstances, and was very unpopular as it seemed to be shifting the tax burden onto poor people. Once again Thatcher became very unpopular, but this time the Conservatives thought it might cost them the election. Michael Heseltine, a former cabinet member, challenged her for the leadership in 1990. She won the first round, but not enough to win outright, and after taking soundings from cabinet members, she announced her intention not to contest the second ballot. In the ensuing second ballot, the Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major beat Heseltine and Douglas Hurd.

The Major years: 1990-1997

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Major introduced a replacement for the Community Charge, the Council Tax, and continued with the privatisations, and went on to narrowly win the 1992 election with a majority of 21.

However, his first full term was beset with scandals. Many of these were purely about the personal lives of politicians which the media attempted to construe as hypocrisy, but the Cash for Questions affair and the divisions over EU were substantive. In 1995, Major resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party in order to trigger a leadership election which he hoped would give him a renewed mandate, and quieten the Maastricht rebels (people such as Iain Duncan Smith, Bill Cash, Bernard Jenkin). John Redwood then Secretary of State for Wales stood against Major and gained around a fifth of the leadership vote. He was one of the people whom Major inadvertently referred to as 'bastards' during a television interview. Major was pleased that Michael Heseltine had not stood against him and gave him the position of Deputy Prime Minister as a result.

As the term went on, with by-elections being consistently lost by the Conservatives, their majority reduced and eventually vanished entirely. Getting every vote out became increasingly important to both sides, and on several occasions ill MPs were wheeled into the Commons to vote. Eventually, the Government became a technical minority.

As predicted, the general election of May 1997 was a win for the Labour Party, but the magnitude of the victory perhaps surprised everyone. There was a swing of about 20% in some places, and Labour achieved a majority of 179 with 43% of the vote to the Conservatives' 31%. Tactical voting against the Conservatives is believed to have caused around 40 seats to change hands. They lost all their seats outside of England, and prominent members such as Michael Portillo and Malcolm Rifkind lost their seats. Major resigned within 24 hours.

It is often said that the Conservatives lost the 1997 election due to party divisions in policy towards the EU. However, it is likely that the European question played only a small or insignificant part in the result. Accusations of "Tory sleaze", apathy towards a government that had been in power for nearly two decades, plus a rebranded "New" Labour Party with a dynamic and charismatic leader (Tony Blair) are the probable factors that led to the Conservative defeat.

Tory \"sleaze\"

A number of political scandals in the 1990s (building on previous examples in the 1980s) created the impression of what is described in the British press as "sleaze": a perception, peaking towards the end of the Major era, that the Conservatives were associated with political corruption and hypocrisy. In particular the successful entrapment of Graham Riddick and David Tredinnick in the "cash for questions" scandal, the contemporaneous misconduct as a minister by Neil Hamilton (who lost a consequent libel action against The Guardian), and the convictions of former Cabinet member Jonathan Aitken and former party deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer for perjury in two separate cases leading to custodial sentences damaged the Conservatives' public reputation. Persistent unsubstantiated rumours about the activities of the party treasurer Michael Ashcroft did not help this impression.

At the same time a series of revelations about the private lives of various Conservative politicians also grabbed the headlines and both the media and the party's opponents made little attempt to clarify the distinction between financial conduct and private lives.

John Major's "Back to Basics" morality campaign back-fired on him by providing an excuse for the British media to expose "sleaze" within the Conservative Party and, most damagingly, within the Cabinet itself. A number of ministers were then revealed to have committed sexual indiscretions, and Major was forced by media pressure to dismiss them. In September 2002 it was revealed that, prior to his promotion to the cabinet, Major had himself had a longstanding extramarital affair with a fellow MP, Edwina Currie.

William Hague: 1997-2001

The ensuing leadership election was contested by five candidates. The electorate for the contest consisted solely of the 165 Conservative MPs who had been returned to the House of Commons. The candidates were Kenneth Clarke, William Hague, John Redwood, Peter Lilley and Michael Howard, with Stephen Dorrell launching an initial bid but withdrawing before polling began, citing limited support, and backing Clarke. Clarke was the favoured candidate of the Europhile left of the party, while the three latter candidates divided right wing support roughly equally. Hague, who had initially supported Howard, emerged second as a compromise candidate and won the final ballot after Redwood and Clarke negotiated a joint ticket which was derided as an Instability Pact by their opponents (punning on the economic Stability Pact of the European Community).

At first William Hague portrayed himself as a moderniser with a common touch. However by the time the 2001 general election came he concentrated on Europe, asylum seekers and tax cuts whilst declaring that only the Conservative Party could "Save the Pound". He was seen as a political lightweight by many, and was widely mocked for his claim that he drank 14 imperial pints (8 l) of beer in a day in his youth. Despite a low turnout, the election resulted in a net gain of a single seat for the Conservative Party and William Hague's resignation as party leader.

Iain Duncan Smith: 2001-2003

The 2001 leadership election was conducted under a new leadership electoral system designed by Hague. This resulted in five candidates competing for the job: Michael Portillo, Iain Duncan Smith, Kenneth Clarke, David Davis and Michael Ancram. The drawn-out and at times acrimonious election saw Conservative MPs select Iain Duncan Smith and Ken Clarke to be put forward for a vote by party members. As Conservative Party members are characteristically Eurosceptic, Iain Duncan Smith was elected, even though opinion polls showed that the public preferred Ken Clarke, a member of the Tory Reform Group. (Main article: 2001 Conservative leadership election.)

Iain Duncan Smith (often known as IDS) was a strong Eurosceptic but this did not define his leadership - indeed it was during his tenure that Europe ceased to be an issue of division in the party as it united behind calls for a referendum on the proposed European Union Constitution. Duncan Smith's Shadow Cabinet contained many new and unfamiliar faces but despite predictions by some that the party would lurch to the right the team instead followed a pragmatic moderate approach to policy.

In October 2003 (week beginning October 27) there were strong calls for Iain Duncan Smith to resign as leader or face a vote of confidence. Under the rules of the Conservative party, the backbench Conservative 1922 Committee will review the leadership, and in order for this to take place the chairman of the committee, Sir Michael Spicer must be presented with 25 letters proposing a vote.

On 28 October sufficient letters were presented to the chairman of the 1922 Committee to initiate a vote of confidence in Iain Duncan Smith. The vote was conducted on 29 October, and IDS lost 90 to 75.

Michael Howard: 2003-2005

Duncan Smith remained as caretaker leader until Michael Howard, MP for Folkestone and Hythe, was elected to the post of leader (as the only candidate) on 6 November 2003.

Howard announced radical changes to the way the Shadow Cabinet would work. He slashed the number of members by half, with Theresa May and Tim Yeo each shadowing two government departments. Minor departments still have shadows but have been removed from the cabinet, and the post of Shadow Leader of the House of Commons was abolished. The role of party chairman was also split into two, with Lord Saatchi responsible for the party machine, and Liam Fox handling publicity. Michael Portillo was offered a position but refused, due to his plans to step down from Parliament at the next election.

Also, a panel of "grandees", including John Major, Iain Duncan Smith, William Hague and, notably, Kenneth Clarke has been set up to advise the leadership as they see fit.

On 2 January 2004, influenced by Saatchi, Howard defined a personal credo and list of core beliefs of the party. At the party conference of October 2004, the Conservatives presented their "Timetable For Action" that a Conservative government would follow.

In the 2005 general election, the Conservative Party made a partial recovery, making a net gain of 31, cutting the Labour majority to 66.

The day after, on May 6, Howard announced that he believed himself too old to lead the party into another election campaign, and he would therefore be stepping down to allow a new leader the time to prepare for the next election. Howard said that he believed that the party needed to amend the rules governing the election of the Party leader, and that he would allow time for that to happen before resigning. See Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 2005

The campaign has received [criticism] from its main financial backer, Michael Spencer. In an interview with The Times Tim Collins claims the reasons the party won more seats will not or may not be repeated in the next general election were:

• The unpopularity of Tony Blair which helped the Liberal Democrats and hence the Conservative Party in close fights. Blair will not be Prime Minister at the next election.
• The left-of-Labour policies of the Liberal Democrats helped Conservatives in Conservative/Lib Dem marginals.
• Labour's campaign in their marginal seats was poor.

David Cameron: 2005 to present

David Cameron (6 December 2005 - ) was victorious in the subsequent leadership campaign. Cameron beat his closest rival David Davis by a margin of more than two to one, taking 134,446 votes to 64,398, and has announced his intention to reform and realign the Conservative Party in a manner similar to that achieved by the Labour Party in opposition under Tony Blair. British opinion polls have already begun to swing in the Conservative's favour and put Cameron ahead of either PM Blair or Blair's most likely successor Gordon Brown at a future General Election; the perceived realignment of the Conservatives to a more moderate and centrist position seems also to have caused a leadership crisis within the Liberal Democrats, who might have most to lose from a resurgent Conservative Party. David Cameron was elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament for the Witney constituency in West Oxfordshire in June 2001.

 

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