Tim Bale - The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron

PRAISE FOR THE FIRST EDITION

There havent been a lot of good books published about the Conservative Party in recent years, but Tim Bale has written one that fills the gap... he tells the story well, combining breezy prose with academic rigour and anecdotes from the key participants.

Andrew Sparrow,Guardian.co.uk

A wonderful insightful account of the Conservative Party from the denouement of Margaret Thatchers leadership in 1989/90 through to the ascent of David Cameron.

Party Politics

A hugely impressive achievement and required reading for anyone who wants to understand the party most likely to run Britain in the new decade.

Sunday Business Post

Excellent... a very useful first account of how the oldest and most successful political party in the western world lost its electoral advantage and then, finally, took years to find its way again.

Total Politics

An intelligent and informative account of the Partys decline from 1990 to its recovery from 2005 onwards. This is a refreshing and hugely enjoyable study which brings the subject matter and dramatis personae to life, written by a highly respected political scientist who has interviewed many of the people involved, and who also has a wry sense of humour which makes his writing sparkle.

Politics & Policy

A highly insightful, and often very funny, commentary on the partys dysfunctionality in the post-Thatcher era.

Irish Times

A detailed yet splendidly readable study.

British Politics

In his new, rather good book, the academic Tim Bale provides a history of the Tories in the 15 years that preceded Mr Camerons ascent. Read it and it isnt hard to work out the partys problem.

Daniel Finkelstein,The Times

For a contemporary history of British politics, deliciously free of the jargon which usually masks the failure of academics to understand their subject, you will read nothing better than this.

Tribune

A mountain of insights about the tiny amount of space in which political leaders make their moves.

Independent Arts and Books Supplement

[An] exhaustive and authoritative account.

London Review of Books

A solid, meticulous account.

Financial Times

Its hard to think of anyone with an interest in British politics who will not enjoy, and profit from, Tim Bales outstanding book. His chapters on the Hague and Duncan Smith years in particular the latter a man for whom the word hapless could almost have been invented form a kind of how not to do it manual for any political party in opposition. I suspect Messrs Miliband and Balls have already ordered theirs.

Waterstones.com Booksellers Review

Contains the best account so far of the decontamination strategy pursued by Cameron after his surprise win in the leadership contest of 2005.

Progress

Bale provides a well-researched and very readable account of [his] thesis.

Times Higher Education

Bales book is a useful reminder of the chronology of the main political events, often stormy, which have taken place over the past 20 years.

House Magazine

Tim Bales book firmly avoids big picture explanantions focused on single issues like sleaze or Europe, and instead offers a detailed analytical narrative of the party leadership from the fall of Thatcher to the rise of Cameron. Bale in essence updates the old approach of High Politics, epitomized by the late Maurice Cowling, in which political history is the actions of a narrow band of senior politicians, and fuses this with a modern social scientists understanding of the interrelationship between ideas, interests, and insitutions.

Planet Magazine

Tim Bales study of the death and re-birth of the post-Thatcher Conservative Party is a delight to read. It is perky, cheeky, irreverent, packed with revealing quotes and in places deliciously funny. But Bale is not just an entertaining guide to the tribulations of the accident-prone Conservative leaders of the recent past. Only half-concealed by his jaunty prose and witty asides is a thorough scholar and insightful analyst. His anatomy of the modern Conservative Party will hold the field for a long time to come.

David Marquand, University of Oxford

How did David Cameron find the key to success which the Tory Party has lost since 1997? Tim Bales book, while thoroughly readable, covers this subject more convincingly and in greater depth than most political journalists. He has done an excellent job.

Douglas Hurd

Much the best book that has been written on the contemporary Conservative Party. Bales analysis is extremely impressive. It will make this book the leading book in the field, and very unlikely to be quickly surpassed.

Andrew Gamble, University of Cambridge

Tim Bales well-researched volume is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the Conservative Partys recent history. It is extremely accessible to the lay reader and chronicles not only some of the partys darkest days, but also its rediscovery of the will to win under David Cameron.

Jonathan Isaby, Co-Editor,ConservativeHome.com

Tim Bale has produced the best guide to the changing nature of the Conservative Party yet published. He appears to have read everything and spoken to everyone that matters to produce an eminently readable and interesting book. It should be required reading for all students of politics, as well as anyone wanting to know more about the contemporary Conservative Party.

Philip Cowley

This is an excellent book immaculately researched. Tim Bale traces the downfall of the Conservative Party leading to the catastrophic defeat of 1997. He sheds new light on the partys continuing slide, which was only conclusively ended when David Cameron became leader and moved back onto the centre ground of politics. He reveals the villains of the story not least the ideologically driven commentators but his central question goes wider. He asks how it was that a party which had consistently sought power through the years lost the will to win? It is a book which Conservative politicians would be well advised to read now that, at long last, they have the opportunity of returning to government.

Norman Fowler

This is the first comprehensive treatment of the Conservative Party since Margaret Thatcher. The period has seen extraordinary changes in the Partys fortunes and now we have a well-researched and balanced account of what happened.

David Willetts

Now poised for national success again, Conservatives should treat Tim Bales timely account of their recent history as essential reading. Detailing the Partys highs and lows, this book reminds us of the scale of the challenge that faced David Camerons new leadership, and illuminates his strategy for recovery.

Jo-Anne Nadler, author ofToo Nice to be a Tory

SECOND EDITION

TIM BALE

polity

Copyright Tim Bale 2016

The right of Tim Bale to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First edition published in 2010 by Polity Press
This edition published in 2016 by Polity Press

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