Conservative History Journal

As every school child ought to know but probably does not, only one of this country's Prime Ministers was assassinated and that was Spencer Perceval. This blog will have more on him on May 11, the 200th anniversary of his death but in the meantime, we have great pleasure in advertising an event. Dr Caroline Shenton, (Clerk of the Records, Parliamentary Archives) will be giving a talk about Spencer Perceval on May 11 at 1 o'clock. It will take place in the Boothroyd Room in Portcullis House (that's that newish one with the fig...

Harvey Klehr is one of  the undoubted experts on matters to do with Communist infiltration, espionage and agents of influence in the United States and has fought the good fight with many in the media and academia who still insist that a.) Alger Hiss was not a Soviet spy because b.) he has always said he was not and c.) if by some chance it may be remotely true that he passed on some insignificant amount of information to a deeply unpleasant hostile regime then he was fully justified to do so because d.) there was McCarthyism...

What better way of celebrating St George's Day as well as Shakespeare Day than by posting Laurence Olivier's rendering of Henry V's speech outside Harfleur....

Some time ago there was a review on this site of Alistair Cooke's (now Lord Lexden) excellent book on the Primrose League, the country's first and largest popular political movement. (Those who point to the Chartists ignore the fact that these had no time for women members.) Today is the anniversary of the death of Benjamin Disraeli, the Earl of Beaconsfield, whose favourite flower the primrose was alleged to be and in whose honour both...

J. C. Masterman's claims to fame are various. He was an academic and a noted amateur sportsman; he was also the chairman of the Twenty Committee during the Second World War, in charge of double cross and turning of enemy agents. Typically of the sort of people who ran intelligence and counter-intelligence, mostly very successfully, the name Twenty Committee came from the Roman double cross: XX. After the war Masterman, sensibly, thought...

What could be more conservative in the true sense of the word that does not imply any idea of class, let alone class warfare, than gardening? Whether we mean a large garden in the country, a suburban square behind the house, a small town garden, just a balcony in a block of flats, mucking about with soil, plants, bulbs, seeds, cuttings or bushes is being part of a long tradition. Even new or newish, radical or supposedly radical ideas of...

Book Review: Philip Ziegler, Edward Heath – The Authorised Biography, London: Harper Collins, 2010 (£25) Dr Harshan Kumarasingham, the Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Potsdam and a past contributor to the Conservative History Journal, gives his views on Edward Heath and Philip Ziegler’s biography. Edward Heath did not emerge, but was elected as leader of the Conservative Party in 1965.  The new leader was...

I am trying to create some order among my various collections of books, particularly those that come into the category of detective fiction. After a couple of days of intermittent work I have managed to put in order all the A to C ones though I keep finding ones that were hidden in piles on the stairs. On the whole I did very little re-reading in the process but have emerged with the certain knowledge that I need to go through Edmund Crispin's...

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Staying off the internet has its good and bad signs. Not sure where forgetting this anniversary fits. Thirty years ago yesterday Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, announces the invasion in the House of Commons. ...