Tory Radical

"I’ve chosen a book about Richard Oastler, who was a radical figure in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He was a Conservative and that’s why the book is called Tory Radical . He was one of the driving forces behind the Factory Acts. One of the central events in British history, in my view, took place in 1832 in Leeds during the election in which the forces supporting the Great Reform Act were celebrating the fact that the Bill had been passed. Meanwhile, the Tory radicals were out on the street protesting about the failure to improve factory conditions, and these supporters of what later became Lord Shaftesbury’s reforms and the supporters of the Great Reform Bill had a stand-up fight in the streets of Leeds. I think this is absolutely fascinating. The funniest thing is that Oastler has ended up having his statue erected outside the shopping centre in Bradford, when he was against markets and consumerism. This book gives you an insight into the complicated history of early Conservatism and how Conservatives have always formed different coalitions. In this case it was the coalition between the factory workers and the aristocrats against the mill-owners – the mill-owners being the Liberals. The paper that supported the Factory Acts was The Times and the paper that opposed the Factory Acts was The Manchester Guardian because The Manchester Guardian supported the new rising classes. There is a leftist history of progress in which the left have been in favour of all the good stuff and the Tories were against it all. Actually, history has been much more complicated than that, and very often – as in the case of the abolition of slavery, the Factory Acts and votes for women as well – those things were introduced by the Conservatives. Universal women’s suffrage was introduced by the Conservative Party. It is fascinating because the reason why the Liberal Party, and Labour too although not Keir Hardie, opposed votes for women was because they didn’t want a load of middle-class women voting – because they had a class view rather than a view across society. The Conservative Party has often been characterised as the party of suburban women: in fact, it is the case that the Conservative Party has never won an election in which it did not get more votes from women than men. Emmeline Pankhurst, of course, ended her life as the Tory candidate for Bethnal Green. At times the Conservative Party has pragmatically supported reforms because of the alliances that it has formed. So this alliance David Cameron has now formed with the Liberal Democrats is not an unusual feature of Conservative history. Conservatives made a common cause with even the most radical elements against the mill-owning classes partly because they thought it was their social responsibility, partly because of the importance of the evangelical church – which has recently also risen again in importance in the conservative parties across the world."