Letters
A selection of Lord Lexden's letters this year to The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The New Statesman, The Spectator and others. You can read letters from previous years in the menu to the left.
22/06/19 - The duplicity of Conservative MPs
The Times
Sir, Tory MPs certainly deserve their reputation as "the world's most duplicitous electorate" ("Threats and trickery as Team Boris tightened thumbscrews", Jun. 21). They gained it at the very first contest in 1965. The victorious Ted Heath compared notes with the defeated Reggie Maudling; they found that 45 MPs had pledged support to both of them. Airey Neave lulled Heath into false complacency in 1975 by telling everyone that Margaret Thatcher had no more than 70 backers when he was confident of 120. In November 1990 Bernard Ingham noted in his diary that Mrs Thatcher was safe as long as 15 per cent of her backers were not lying, but as he noted sourly afterwards "the whole lot lied."
There have been other dirty tricks too. In 2003 when 29 letters were needed to trigger a leadership contest, 19 forgeries were submitted, five on Carlton Club writing paper. Fortunately they were spotted.
Lord Lexden
Conservative Party historian,
House of Lords
18/06/19 - Neville Chamberlain: a formidable politician
The Times
Dear Sir, Andrew Wigley (letter, Jun 17) errs in asserting that Neville Chamberlain lacked political skills. He dominated the Commons until the Norway debacle of May 1940 when he was unable to overcome the fierce criticisms created by Churchill’s mistakes. In 1938 he rebuffed Roosevelt because the United States was not prepared to make practical commitments to the peace of the world. Chamberlain’s efforts to enlist it in containing Japanese expansionism in the Far East had earlier been rebuffed. He said that “it was always best and safest to count on nothing from the Americans except words.”
Churchill’s criticisms of Chamberlain are often quoted; his praise is forgotten. In 1929, Churchill said: “He is one of our best men and he is a strong man.” In 1940, Churchill, as prime minister, expressed “feelings of the deepest respect and regard” for him.
Under Chamberlain spending on defence reached 50 per cent of gross national product. Yet the improvement of social conditions, the greatest passion of his life, was not neglected. Several million working men became entitled to paid holidays for the first time, and the universal pensions system, which he had introduced in 1925, was improved by making women eligible for payments at 60.
Lord Lexden
Author, Neville Chamberlain: Redressing the Balance (2018)
03/06/19 - Queen Victoria's sketches of her children
The Daily Telegraph
SIR – The drawings by Queen Victoria of her children that are to be displayed at the British Museum (report, May 27) represent only a small portion of her output. Dozens more fill a thick volume stamped “Sketches of the Royal Children by VR” in the Royal Archives.
All show the deep affection she felt for her nine offspring. Believing that even “the prettiest child is frightful when undressed”, she decked them all out in colourful silks, trimmed bonnets and sashes, some of the clothing appearing on more than one infant in tribute to her thrift. The pictures were lovingly annotated. The caption under a delightful sketch of the three eldest reads: “Pussy with Bertie in the dresses they wore on little Alice’s christening day June 2 1843.” These sketches by a skilled amateur artist shatter the widespread view that Victoria was an uncaring parent.
She wrote in 1844: “They say no Sovereign was more loved than I am(I am bold enough to say),& this because of our domestic home.”
Lord Lexden
London SW1
24/05/19 - Mrs May and history
The Daily Telegraph
SIR - Incumbent Tory Prime Ministers have departed involuntarily following parliamentary defeat (Sir Robert Peel over Irish policy in 1846), a sharp fall in parliamentary majority (Neville Chamberlain in 1940), broken health (Anthony Eden in 1957) and discontent among Tory MPs (Margaret Thatcher in 1990).
Mrs May will be the first to be driven out by massive revolts in both Parliament and Cabinet. Can there be any lingering doubt that she is the worst Tory Prime Minister ever?
Lord Lexden
London SW1
22/05/19 - Politicians and projectiles
The Times
Sir, Why should people who throw things at politicians have it all their own way (Hugo Rifkind, “Milkshake throwing isn’t as funny as it looks”, May 21)? Before the introduction of the secret ballot in 1872, elections were dominated by hustings, which evened things up a little. At High Wycombe in 1832, Disraeli picked up some of the lumps of pork that came his way and threw them back, scoring several hits. At Beverley in Yorkshire, “brave gentlemen on the hustings repulsed a series of sticks, the ladies having retired.” At Newark, however, a young Gladstone preferred discretion to valour, neatly dodging a hail of stones.
Without some means of protection, there must be a danger that more candidates will follow the example of John Prescott and punch their assailants.
Lord Lexden
Official historian, Conservative Party,
House of Lords
07/05/19 - A great man who was not a Tory
The Daily Telegraph
SIR -The great William Wilberforce would have been horrified by Professor Robert Tombs’s description of him as a Tory(Comment, May 1). When he arrived in the Commons in 1780, he declared that he would be “no party man”.
Independents then accounted for around a third of the House, and he was always among them, relishing attacks from both Whigs and Tories as opportunities for his much-praised oratory.
He said: “God has set before me two great objects: the reformation of manners and the abolition of the slave trade”.
Rudeness in the chamber and the campaign against modern slavery would have given him plenty of work to do if he had been in politics today.
Lord Lexden
London SW1
26/04/19 - The Conservative Party's greatest crisis ever
The Times
Sir, The Conservative Party is in greater turmoil today than ever before in its long history. Theresa May has completely lost its confidence both in and outside Parliament. The 1922 Committee, which determines how Tory leaders are elected, must respond to these unprecedented circumstances. It should revise the present arrangements, introduced after significant changes in 1998, under which the leader can be challenged annually if 15 per cent of Tory MPs write secret letters demanding a vote. Thirty per cent should become the threshold; challenges should be permitted whenever it is reached, with the disaffected making their names public (in the past letters have been forged). That will ensure that a disastrous leader cannot cling on for months without significant support. As Churchill said, leaders who fail must be poleaxed.
Lord Lexden
Conservative Party historian
11/04/19 - Prejudice against British India
The Daily Telegraph
SIR - Chris Devine (Letters, April 8) advises me to study the account of the “rapacious British exploitation of India” by Shashi Tharoor.
It is hard, however, to agree that this controversial politician has written a definitive historical work. He regards Churchill as among “one of the more evil rulers of the 20th century, only fit to stand in the company of Hitler, Mao and Stalin”.
Lord Lexden
London SW1
05/04/19 - Sir Robert Peel and Theresa May
The Times
Sir, Mrs May now “wants to secure Brexit with help from Labour” (report, Apr.3). The crucial vote on Sir Robert Peel’s legislation to repeal the Corn Laws in February 1846 was carried with the help of 227 Liberals who came to the aid of 112 Peel supporters; 231 Tories voted against. Is history about to repeat itself so that the interests of the nation as a whole can again be served?
Ever since then, leading Tories have striven to avoid following Peel’s example. Rab Butler shied away from blocking Lord Home’s move for the premiership in order to get the job himself in October 1963 because “the story of Sir Robert Peel splitting the Tory Party was for me the supremely unforgettable political lesson of history”. Sir John Major has spoken of how he too was haunted by that lesson during the ferocious party battle over the Maastricht treaty in 1993. Is it now about to be set aside by the hapless Mrs May? When Peel resigned ,a huge crowd lined Whitehall and cheered him all the way to the Commons. That perhaps is more than Mrs May could expect.
Lord Lexden
Conservative Party historian
05/04/19 - Centenary of the Amritsar massacre
The Daily Telegraph
Sir - The Amritsar massacre of April 1919 will always remain a truly terrible stain on our imperial record.
Churchill condemned it as being “without parallel in the modern history of the British Empire”. Anita Anand (Features, March 28) endorses the demand for a British apology. Support for one was voiced in a recent debate in the Lords. The Government was right to resist it.
Historical apologies came into vogue in Britain during the Blair years. They should themselves now be consigned to history. Apologies for crimes and mistakes can only have weight and meaning when they come from their perpetrators or, in the case of a great public misdeed like the Amritsar massacre, by those in government at the time. Later generations must resist Left-wing pressure to accept a measure of guilt.
Anand is concerned that Udham Singh, the man who was hanged for avenging the massacre by killing a senior British official who condoned it, “is all but unknown” in Britain today. This year’s centenary provides an opportunity for ignorance to be replaced by an informed understanding of what British India was like in 1919. An incident of appalling brutality could take place in one city, while elsewhere in the vast sub-continent British men and women were working tirelessly for the public good.
Lord Lexden
London SW1
28/03/19 - The worst Prime Minister
The Spectator
Sir: Lord North deserves to be released by Mrs May from the ignominy of being ‘the worst prime minister in our history’. This hugely popular man dominated the Commons for 12 years, speaking regularly for two hours without notes. One discerning contemporary noted that: ‘ He attracted almost all the attention, being powerful, able, and fluent in debate. It was impossible to experience dullness in his company’. Like all the best Tories, he cut taxes and increased prosperity. The great paradox of the American War of Independence is that North did not want to fight it. He stayed in the premiership out of loyalty to his monarch, who knew the value of this remarkable and loveable man. One day an opponent complained, in the middle of a violent attack, that ‘the noble Lord is asleep’-- whereupon North, his eyes still shut, said: ‘I wish to God I were’. He possessed all the qualities a prime minister needs, except luck and selfishness.
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords
23/03/19 - Judging the House of Lords fairly
The Aberdeen Press and Journal
SIR, - Campbell Gunn makes some serious points in his critique of the unelected Lords(Press and Journal, March 19) and while there may be support for an elected upper house as part of a new federal structure for the UK as a whole, Mr Gunn should acknowledge the value of the work done by the Lords currently.
The legislation that Parliament passes gets the line by line scrutiny that is essential in the Lords, not the Commons which lacks the time(and sometimes, it should be said, the inclination) to do that vital job. In my comparatively short time in the Lords, I have been repeatedly struck by the strength of the arguments made by the experts in technology, education, health, security, broadcasting—all the main subjects of the day(especially Europe!)—who are particularly well represented in our 180-strong group of independents or cross-benchers who help give the Lords its special character of calm, measured debate not found elsewhere in our institutions.
Each year, some 2,000 amendments are made to improve draft laws, thanks to Lords. It is on that unglamorous but crucially important work that we spend the bulk of our time. So let’s debate the case for fundamental constitutional change, a question on which the Commons has not managed yet to agree, despite several attempts. But don’t knock us too hard. As a scrutinising and revising chamber, the Lords plays a significant role.
Alistair Lexden
Deputy Speaker
House of Lords
14/03/19 - The worst Government defeats in Parliament
The Daily Telegraph
SIR - Tuesday’s vote was the fifth, not the fourth, largest defeat suffered by a government in the Commons.
In January 1855, a coalition under the Tory Lord Aberdeen lost a vote of confidence by 157 votes. In October 1924, Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour government lost two votes, by 161 and 166. Mrs May’s January defeat by 230 holds the Commons record.
The worst parliamentary defeat ever occurred in the Lords on September 8 1893, when they threw out Gladstone’s Second Home Rule Bill by 419 to 41.
Lord Lexden (Con)
London SW1
13/03/19 - Letters from Queen Victoria go astray
The Times
Sir, The impending sale of Queen Victoria’s letter in reply to Tennyson, written in 1884 after the death of her haemophiliac son Leopold, will not reveal what was “previously unseen” (“Victoria’s grief-stricken letter to Tennyson”, Mar. 9). It was printed in full in Dear and Honoured Lady: The Correspondence of Queen Victoria and Alfred Tennyson, published in 1969. The book’s introduction states that the queen’s letters to her poet laureate “are preserved, through the generosity of the present Lord Tennyson, in the Tennyson Research Centre at the City Library at Lincoln”. Subsequently, the letters were sold individually, breaking up an important collection, which all historians of Victorian England will deplore.
Lord Lexden
House of Lords
01/02/19 - How Churchill's father wooed Irish nationalists
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement
Sir,-- Christopher Cusack (In Brief, February 8) touches on the political ramifications of the 1882 Maamtrasna murders, describing them as “a rallying point for Irish nationalists”. In October 1884 Parnell and his colleagues held up Commons business for four days while they went over the case in detail, drawing from Gladstone one of his most magnificent speeches in defence of his Irish ministers.
The debates set the scene for machinations centring on a rising Tory star, Lord Randolph Churchill, father of Sir Winston. As a senior minister in 1885 he made clear that he supported reopening the case in defiance of a collective cabinet decision. In a further debate instigated by Parnell on July 17, 1885 Churchill spoke scathingly of the way the Liberals had handled the case, leading to widespread speculation that an alliance was being forged between Tories and Irish Nationalists which could well be the prelude to a Tory offer of Home Rule.
The dramatic impact of the Maamtrasna case on party politics is explored in detail in The Governing Passion (1974) which I wrote with John Vincent.
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords
01/03/19 - That's my Baby
The Daily Telegraph
SIR - It is hard to think of short, stout Queen Victoria dancing gracefully on stage, but the new ballet in which she is depicted with her adored, youngest daughter Beatrice, always referred to as Baby, will help make their extraordinarily close relationship much better known (Arts, February 25).
In 1884 Beatrice, then 27, fell in love with dashing Prince Henry of Battenberg. For six months the Queen refused to speak to her, passing notes with her orders for the day over the breakfast table. She wrote to her eldest daughter about her “horror and dislike of the most violent kind for the idea of my precious Baby marrying”.
Charming Prince Henry won her round, leading her to believe “there is no kissing etc (which Baby dislikes)”.
After marrying Beatrice, he seems to have developed an interest in her elder sister, Princess Louise, who complained of his “attempted relations with her, which she had declined”. Some very complicated manoeuvres could have been introduced into this interesting new ballet.
Lord Lexden
London SW1
19/02/19 - A great political philosopher
The Times
Sir, The many reasons for venerating William (Comment, Feb.14, and letters, Feb.15,16, & 18) include his insights into interwar politics. In the short story, “William the Prime Minister” (1930), the outlaws hold a mock election. William sets out his philosophy. “There’s four sorts of people tryin’ to get to be rulers. They all want to make things better, but they want to make ‘em better in different ways. There’s Conservatives an’ they want to make things better by keeping ‘em jus’ like what they are now. An’ there’s Lib’rals an’ they want to make things better by alterin’ them jus’ a bit, but not so’s anyone’d notice, an’ there’s Socialists, an’ they want to make things better by takin’ everyone’s money off ‘em, an’ there’s Communists an’ they want to make things better by killin’ everyone but themselves.”
William, the Conservative candidate, is elected unanimously.
Lord Lexden
House of Lords
08/02/19 - The mistaken critics of independent schools
The Spectator
Sir: Those who write about independent education rarely manage to stray beyond the 200-odd establishments they love to pillory as public schools, an antiquated term long since abandoned by all save their critics. This is perhaps because they have usually been educated at such places, or have taught in them. Alex Renton, like the books he reviews, presents a caricature of independent schools as a whole by repeating well-worn charges against the well-publicised few with their ‘faux-Gothic spires’ (‘Old school ties can’t last forever’, 2 February).
The Independent Schools Council has some 1,300 members, varying in size from 50 to 1,700 pupils. Few possess lavishly equipped theatres or vast playing-fields. Just 68 have top-class athletic tracks. Most of them stand at the heart of their local communities from which their students mainly come, and work closely with their neighbouring state schools which often share their (usually limited) facilities. Half of them are non-selective. Fees vary greatly, with an average gap of some £2,000 per term between schools in the north and south of the country. More than a third of families pay reduced fees. Parents are well aware that diversity and openness are the independent sector’s most striking characteristics today. Will commentators with their obsessions about exclusivity ever wake up to reality?
Alistair Lexden
General Secretary, Independent Schools Council 1997-2004
House of Lords
07/02/19 - Brexit and the Belfast Agreement
The Daily Telegraph
SIR -Theresa May constantly insists that she is determined to protect the 1998 Belfast Agreement as the foundation of peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland.
But my friends Lord Trimble (“Architect of Good Friday Agreement backs legal action to defend it against May’s plan”, report, February 5) and Lord Bew, the leading Irish historian, have shown that a backstop for an unlimited period will undermine that Agreement with potentially disastrous consequences for both Ulster and the Irish Republic.
This is because the backstop will transfer responsibility for key issues, such as cross-border co-operation on agriculture, from the power-sharing institutions set up under Agreement to new EU bodies.
At the same time Mrs May has abandoned the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, another product of the 1998 settlement, where discussions between Dublin and London ought to take place on all aspects of the relationships between the two countries. Things would never have come to this pass if the Stormont Assembly had remained in being. At the 1979 election, when devolution was also in abeyance, the Conservative Party put forward a plan for a halfway house so that democratic control over the major public services could be restored, with legislative powers to follow later.
Next month will mark the fortieth anniversary of the murder of Airey Neave, the architect of the plan, to whom I was political adviser from 1977. Is it too much to hope that Mrs May could learn from his inspiring example?
Lord Lexden
London SW1
29/01/19 - The truth about Stanley Baldwin and appeasement
The Times
Sir, Max Hastings (Comment, Jan. 29) rightly pays tribute to “the calming influence” exercised by Stanley Baldwin, the first Tory leader to speak of “one nation”, who was often invoked by Sir John Major as an inspiration for his achievements(letter, Jan.30). But Honest Stan ought not to be “viewed with contempt because of his identification with appeasement”. He should be praised for launching an ambitious rearmament programme in the teeth of widespread political opposition in an attempt to bring Hitler to heel—a mission not helped by Churchill’s habit of exaggerating German capabilities. Forty-one new RAF squadrons were commissioned in 1934, and another 39 the next year. Professor Philip Williamson’s deeply researched Stanley Baldwin: Conservative leadership and national values (1999) concludes that Baldwin “chose to plan for a possible war in the medium term (1939 and later) and in the short term to build a deterrent air force, while seeking to tie Hitler down to negotiated agreements. It cannot be assumed that if Churchill had been in his position his actions—rather than his words—would have been much different”.
In his years of glory after 1939, Churchill encouraged people to view Baldwin with contempt, but in 1935 he described the prime minister who had brought him out of the political wilderness by making him chancellor in 1924, as “a statesman who has gathered a greater volume of confidence and goodwill than any other man I recollect in my long public career”. Baldwin is now rightly commemorated by a fine statute in his native Bewdley, unveiled last year.
Lord Lexden
Conservative Party historian
24/01/19 - A gay landmark
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement
Sir, - F.W. Nunneley (Letters, January 18) regards Joseph Losey’s The Servant (1963) as the film in which the hero of my boyhood, Dirk Bogarde, first showed what a remarkable actor he was. But surely it was the earlier Victim (1961) which marked his transition from matinee idol to a new, glorious seriousness. At the end of the film a rising barrister with strong gay leanings played by Bogarde is confronted by his beautiful wife (Sylvia Sims) who asks him why he stopped seeing a young man who had committed suicide under pressure from blackmailers. “Alright—alright, you want to know, I’ll tell you. You won’t be content until I tell you, will you—until you’ve ripped it out of me. I stopped seeing him because I wanted him. Can you understand—because I wanted him. Now what good has that done you?” The scriptwriter’s lines were embellished by Bogarde to increase their power and force. The scene, John Coldsteam writes in his magnificent biography (2004) of this complex, restless man, “was, and remains, the most important of his acting life”.
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords
18/01/19 - The biggest ever Tory rebellion
The Daily Telegraph
SIR--Tuesday’s rebellion by 118 Tory MPs was not “the biggest on record” (article, January 16).
On February 28 1846, Benjamin Disraeli’s fierce defence of agricultural protection and his vicious jibes at his party leader led 231 Tories to vote against Sir Robert Peel’s Corn Laws Bill. An observer wrote that Disraeli “ hacked and mangled Peel with unsparing severity, and positively tortured his victim.”
Lord Lexden
London SW1
17/01/19 - Record Government defeats in Commons and Lords
The Times
Sir, The Commons has never defeated a government by a larger margin. The majority of 166 against Ramsay MacDonald on October 8, 1924, the worst government defeat of the 20th century (following its two earlier defeats of 140 and 161), exceeded those which occurred in the 19th century. Nevertheless, Tuesday did involve “the biggest parliamentary defeat of a government in more than a century” (leading article, Jan 16). As a result of its massive inbuilt Tory majority, the House of Lords threw out Lloyd George’s People’s Budget by 295 votes on November 30, 1909. The biggest parliamentary defeat in history occurred on September 8, 1893 when the Lords rejected Gladstone’s second home rule bill by 419 votes to 41.
Lord Lexden
House of Lords
07/01/19 - Churchill talks to his father's ghost
The Daily Telegraph
SIR- In briefing the ghost of his father about the state of the country’s great institutions in 1947 (Comment, January 1), Winston Churchill has faint praise for the House of Lords, referring only to its Bishops who “make a lot of speeches”. His father asks: “Are they better than they used to be?”
Winston speaks much more enthusiastically about the strength of the monarchy, buttressed by the Labour Party. “They even go to the parties at Buckingham Palace. Those who have very extreme principles wear sweaters.” Lord Randolph finds that “very sensible. I am glad all that dressing up has been done away with”.
But what he really wants to know is whether the House of Commons is doing its job well. Winston is surprisingly restrained, saying that he is “very much in favour” of the elected House. His father replies, “You had better be, Winston, because the will of the people must prevail”.
It is not hard to guess what he would have thought of Brexit.
Yours faithfully
Lord Lexden
London SW1
07/01/19 - A federal UK post-Brexit?
The Spectator
Sir, How astonishing that the historian Robert Tombs (‘ Beyond Brexit’, 15 December) should think that the Lords might ‘at last be seriously reformed’ after more than a century of schemes that foundered in the Commons. MPs have an unthreatening upper house; they will never agree on substantial changes that would increase its power. They will leave the Lords to implement its own sensible plans to cut its numbers to 600 by bringing party strengths into line with those in the Commons over the next few years.
Those interested in radical Lords reform should study the detailed proposals for a federal constitution drawn up by an all-party group chaired by the Marquess of Salisbury, the current custodian of a long family tradition of creative constitutional thinking. A member of the group, the distinguished former Clerk of the Commons, Lord Lisvane, has introduced a Bill which would completely recast the role of the upper house. Those seriously interested in finding a constitution fit for the post-Brexit world should turn to the Lisvane Bill.
Alistair Lexden
House of Lords