There is...the...argument that under PR extremist minorities, like the Front Nationale in France, get a look in which otherwise would be denied them.… - T. E. Utley
" "There is...the...argument that under PR extremist minorities, like the Front Nationale in France, get a look in which otherwise would be denied them. But is it thoroughly unhealthy to pretend that such minorities do not exist?
I am no fascist, but I represent a brand of Toryism, at once traditionalist and populist, which holds sway in every public bar in the kingdom and is almost entirely denied parliamentary expression by the Establishment.
Above all, PR would increase the independence of MPs both from their constituency associations and their party machines. I would give it a try.
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About T. E. Utley
Thomas Edwin Utley (1 February 1921 – 21 June 1988), known as Peter Utley, was a British High Tory journalist and writer.
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Thomas Edwin Utley
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Additional quotes by T. E. Utley
On Thursday, I went to a party of the Primrose League, founded 100 years ago in favour of the constitution, patriotism, decency and all that. The members are mostly very old and they have not got much money; but they speak more accurately in the voice of British Conservatism than anyone else. I know rather more young Conservatives than most people do and I think that this sort of thing strikes a stronger chord in their hearts than Monetarism v. Keynesism. What a wonderful thing if someone would try to revive the Primrose League to its former eminence. Think of the patronising remarks from Brian Redhead and other media connoisseurs of Tory antiques. And think how reassured Britain would be!
Contrary to popular belief, maintained in the face of much historical experience, the danger-point in the affairs of any régime which is seriously challenged by a substantial number of its subjects, comes not when that régime is resisting all reform but when it has started belatedly on the path of concession.
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Internally, the State is menaced not only by a powerful Fifth Column, strongly represented in the trade unions and in politics, but also by new social divisions more potentially destructive than any it has known before. Massed immigration has saddled it with a "racial problem", to which it has still given no systematic thought and which is being sedulously exploited by people on both left and right who are openly committed to overturning our political and social arrangements. The rule of law is threatened from above and below, by arbitrary bureaucracy and by a steady increase in crime... In these gloomy circumstances, it is mysterious and a scandal that the energies of the Tory party should still be so largely employed in debating the merits of an incomes policy which, at any rate for the moment, has become obligatory. It is certainly not that the electorate has been unwilling to hear about such matters as immigration, terrorism, and violent crime generally; on the contrary, the political establishment has used all its influence to divert attention from these issues, incurring a good deal of unpopularity in the process.
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