In the May European elections, the Tories won 9.1 per cent of the vote; just three of their candidates were successful. This result was widely described in the media as the Party’s worst since 1832, the year of the Great Reform Bill.
It is Alistair Lexden’s view as a historian that Mrs May has done worse than any of her Tory predecessors. He has repeated his view on a number of occasions, and did so again in a letter in The Daily Telegraph on 24 May, the day she finally announced her resignation.
Speaking in the Lords on 11 April (see below), Alistair Lexden condemned the barbaric decision of the Brunei government to make homosexuals liable to death by stoning under a new sharia penal code.
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A light-hearted article in The Times on May 21 discussed the new fashion for dousing election candidates with milkshakes. In a letter published in the paper on May 23, Alistair Lexden recalled how candidates in the 19th century tended to deal with projectiles aimed at them.
Alistair Lexden was asked to give a short address at a reception in the House of Lords on 20 May to mark the 40th anniversary of the start of Mrs Thatcher’s premiership. The text of his address follows.
The grave damage done by the fire in Notre Dame last month has increased concern about the danger of a similar catastrophe at the Palace of Westminster, which is in a serious state of disrepair.
William Wilberforce will always be revered for the leading part he played in the long campaign to secure the abolition of the slave trade which was finally achieved in 1807. The well-known claim that he was a Tory was repeated in an article in The Daily Telegraph on 1 May.
Each week, Parliament’s House Magazine includes a diary piece by a member of the Lords. Having written it from time to time in the past, Alistair Lexden was asked to contribute again for the issue of the magazine published on 6 May.