Who devised the famous concept? Not the man to whom credit has usually been given but a later Tory leader, as Alistair Lexden explained in a letter published in The Daily Telegraph on July 13.
SIR--Jacob Rees-Mogg (Comment, July 7) repeats the hoary old myth that Disraeli invented “One-Nation Conservatism”.
The great Tory hero thought that Britain would always be divided into two nations—the rich and the poor—between whom “no intercourse and no sympathy” could exist. Any attempt to bring about “the fusion of classes” would “diminish national and individual character”.
Stanley Baldwin was the first Tory leader to speak of ending the divide. In 1924 he told the party that it must work for “the union of those two nations of which Disraeli spoke two generations ago: union among our own people to make one nation”.
Lord Lexden
London SW1