A radical and critical history of the Conservative party since 1945 by a former cabinet minister and editor of the Spectator.

The modern Conservative Right believe that true Conservatism started and (for the time being) ended with Margaret Thatcher's leadership. Everything else was an aberration motivated by cowardice, idleness or weak-minded liberalism - little better than socialism in disguise. This is the counterblast from the Conservative Left. Gilmour exposes Thatcherism as a narrow-minded and obsessive economic dogma wrapped in a nationalistic flag - and demonstrates its limitations and failures even in those areas where Thatcherites like to claim most success. And he presents the alternative Conservative tradition: scholarly, thoughtful, consensual and discreet. It is a tradition that has, to date, failed to match the slick presentation of the Thatcherite crusaders and revisionists, but Gilmour shows that it runs deeper in the Party and in the country than the Right recognise. This is the conservatism that was silenced for fifteen years. Now it has been given an articulate and championing voice.