Those of us who complained in the past that detective stories are not taken seriously enough in this country or the US (two countries that have been in the forefront of producing the actual literature) ought to be pleased with the amount of academic interest displayed in the genre in the last couple of decades. All Tory Historian can say is that one must beware of what one wishes for as it might just come true.
The rest of this long posting is on the secondary Conservative History blog.
It is fortuitous that Lord Lexden, the official historian of the Conservative Party and of the Carlton Club as well as the Chairman of the Conservative History Group should have a birthday on April 20, immediately after Primrose Day. He is, among other things, the historian of that very fine organization, his book having been reviewed on this blog soon after it was published.
When the CHG tweeted about the fact that Lord Lexden was 70 somebody replied that, given his extraordinary knowledge, he must be at least 150. And, indeed, it is hard to imagine how any one person can have packed that amount of learning into 70 years. I may add, as someone who has had to "edit" the then Alistair Cook's articles for the printed version of the Conservative History Journal is that he is every editor's dream: not a single comma had to be changed in his learned but crisply written pieces.
Not so long ago, this blog directed readers towards an article in the 2014 issue of the Journal about the end of the Stuart dynasty and the beginning of the Hanoverian one, written by Alistair Lexden. His most recent appearance in print was a letter in The Times that called attention to a long-standing Conservative idea: the property-owning democracy, which was originated by Noel Skelton in 1923 though he was more interested in a wider ownership of industry. That, of course, is a little out of date as industries tend to be smaller in size and ownership is more widely dispersed.
We can rely on Lord Lexden, however, for putting politicians and opinion-mongers right on details of Conservative history.
This is the day that all conservatives in the Anglosphere, with a small or large c, celebrate, even if they do not approve of everything the great Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield did. April 19, the anniversary of his death, was for a long time celebrated as Primrose Day, that being, allegedly, his favourite flower.
Out of that grew the Primrose League, the country's first popular political movement and the first political organization in which women played an important role. It is time to reconsider all these matters and, perhaps, revive and rethink those ideas and discussions. That would make a splendid change from the present election campaign.
Happy Primrose Day to all.
They tend not to deal with history, which is a pity as the Conservative Party and the conservative movement in Britain and the Anglosphere have a fine history but for all of that we need to congratulate Conservative Home on its 10th birthday. On to the next decade, chaps and, um, one or two chapesses. Perhaps, we could see some improvement in that? Just a thought. Think of all those feisty women in the Conservative Party from the Primrose League on.
