Posts Tagged ‘Alan Clark’

Smart people learn from their enemies

23/01/2012, 02:00:55 PM

by Rob Marchant

The furore over last week’s defection of former Labour staffer, Luke Bozier, to the Tories provides a convenient excuse for a closer look at the party that he has just joined. Not with a view to doing the same, you understand – it’d be a cold day in hell for most of us – but with a view to a bit of hard-nosed, non-partisan analysis.

Leafing through Alan Clark’s idiosyncratic history of his party, The Tories, there are some interesting lessons for Labour. Not ideologically, of course: but about the nature of politics, and the nature of power. And power is something which the Tories were uncommonly good at securing and retaining during the period of the book, from their successful defenestration of Lloyd George in 1922 through to their rout in 1997. Indeed, during this period, as Clark points out:

“…the Conservative Party was the dominant political force in Britain – even when, for short periods, it was in Opposition”.

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Nominate a government minister to reenact Alan Clark’s finest hour

21/06/2010, 03:24:09 PM

Since taking office on 12 May, the Tory Lib Dem coalition has spent £18,000 on restocking the government wine cellars. We know this through the good work of Tom Watson MP, who made a suitable fuss about it over the weekend.

As well as the famous first growth clarets in the government cellars, it also holds the super-stylish third growth, beloved of the English upper classes, Chateau Palmer.

The greatest Palmer ever was the 1961.  Indeed, it is one of the most elegant and glamorous wines ever made.

In 2005, millionaire Tory minister Alan Clark’s widow, Jane, sold a case from his cellar for £7,700.  A single bottle of Palmer ‘61 currently retails for £1,800. (more…)

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