On this day 50 years ago: How Airey Neave brought Margaret Thatcher the Tory leadership Tuesday, 11 February, 2025 Airey Neave always spoke softly as born conspirators and spies are apt to do. When I worked for him as his political adviser on Northern Ireland during the last two years of his lfe, the ( not very remarkable) speeches I drafted for him were invariably delivered in a muffled voice in the House of Commons. Few bothered to listen. In the late afternoon of Tuesday, 11 February 1975, Neave made his... Articles
A caricature of independent schools 7th February 2025 An utterly misleading article in The New Statesman prompted the following rejoinder. Francis Green and David Kynaston claim that fee increases at independent... Articles
Labour widens its attack on independent schools 29th January 2025 On 29 January, the Lords debated a Government Bill which will remove the rates relief that independent schools with charitable status have always enjoyed... Recent NewsSpeeches
Can we trust the National Trust? 23rd January 2025 In the view of many people—of whom Alistair Lexden is one—the answer to this question is: not entirely. Of course, the National Trust does much valuable work... Articles
Book review - How the churches in Britain reacted to Hitler 16th January 2025 The way in which the British Churches faced up to Nazi evil is analysed in a remarkable book, which Alistair Lexden reviewed for Parliament’s magazine The House... Articles
One-nation Conservatism again 13th January 2025 Alistair Lexden returned to one of his frequent topics–the truth about the origins of One-Nation Conservatism—in an artticle in Parliament’s magazine The House... Articles
Sir Robert Peel and the Tamworth Manifesto 190 years on 11th January 2025 At the invitation of the Peel Society, based in Tamworth, Staffordshire, Alistair Lexden gave a lecture at the Castle Hotel, Tamworth on 11 January to mark the... Articles
Failure of a police watchdog 19th December 2024 Operation Midland was one of the most disastrous investigations in the history of the Metropolitan Police. Between 2014 and 2016, police officers mercilessly... Recent NewsSpeeches
The 1922 Committee's model chairman 17th December 2024 The following letter, published in the Christmas edition of The Spectator, was prompted by a review of Graham Brady’s memoir, Kingmaker: Secrets, Lies and the... Articles
John Prescott and Anthony Eden 13th December 2024 Some of the obituaries of John Prescott, who died on 20 November, referred to his early career as a ship’s steward. In January 1957, he found himself looking... Articles