Should the Party adopt another name? An article published in The Daily Telegraph at the start of the Party Conference argued that it should. That prompted a letter from Alistair Lexden published in the paper on October 8.
SIR--Leaders of the Conservative Party have often favoured changing its name. For nearly 40 years after 1886 they succeeded. It became the Unionist Party. But in 1925 it reverted to the earlier name in deference to the wishes of the party conference.
In the Thirties, Neville Chamberlain, a Liberal Unionist who detested narrow-minded conservatism, pressed unsuccessfully for the creation of a National Party to include as many Liberals as possible. After the war Churchill took the same view, favouring a Union Party. In 1946 the Party Conference overruled him: “the delegates would have nothing to do with the proposal of changing the Party’s name”, he was told.
Why not reinstate the party’s original name which it bore proudly from its emergence in 1679 until the 1832 Reform Bill? Tory is a Gaelic word meaning “brigand” or “thief”. That could help the current leadership to shed its image of wealth and privilege. Tory and one nation are natural partners.
Yours faithfully
Lord Lexden
London SW1