How Britain’s Tories came to resemble the trade unions
The new enemy within
The 50th birthday party of the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) on March 6th was a swish affair. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, and scores of Conservative MPs tucked into champagne and pork in the gothic splendour of the London Guildhall. There was much to celebrate. Founded by Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph in 1974 to “think the unthinkable” about Britain’s stalling post-war economy, its ideas and policies had powered her administration. The think-tank’s principles remain the government’s lodestars, Mr Sunak declared. “In no small part, we live in the world created by the Centre for Policy Studies.”
Explore more
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “The enemy within”
Britain March 16th 2024
- Was the Barclay brothers’ business empire built on a fraud?
- Northern Ireland’s new government puts on a show of unity
- The government wants investors to buy British
- England’s historic buildings are causing headaches
- British museums remember the 1984 miners’ strike
- How Britain’s Tories came to resemble the trade unions
From the March 16th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
British MPs vote in favour of assisted dying
A monumental social reform is closer to being realised
The slow death of a Labour buzzword
And what that says about Britain’s place in the world
Britain’s Supreme Court considers what a woman is
At last. Britons had been wondering what those 34m people who are not men might be
Can potholes fuel populism?
A new paper looks at one explanation for the rise of Reform UK
Are British voters as clueless as Labour’s intelligentsia thinks?
How the idea of false consciousness conquered the governing party