In the attack on the euro, the Conservative party has discovered what looks like a principle which may well have a snowball effect in shaking the mor… - Maurice Cowling

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In the attack on the euro, the Conservative party has discovered what looks like a principle which may well have a snowball effect in shaking the moral invulnerability that has been Mr Blair's strongest card since 1997. Nor is it only the euro which may have this effect. No one any longer believes the government's assurances about hospital waiting-lists; everyone understands that taxation, especially on motorists, is too high; and there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the government's devotion to reverse discrimination and the Macpherson Report.

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About Maurice Cowling

Maurice John Cowling (6 September 1926 – 25 August 2005) was a British historian and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Maurice John Cowling
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Additional quotes by Maurice Cowling

I suppose on a census I would describe myself as a member of the Church of England. If you ask me, do I think I ought to be an Anglican, the answer is that I probably ought to be a Roman Catholic, but I don't see any prospect of that happening... I'm not saying that I couldn't become a Roman Catholic. What I'm saying at the moment is that I feel quite a large part of the time that I ought to be a Roman Catholic.

[T]he sense of national identity that existed in Britain until at least twenty years ago, with its mixture of common memories, images and expectations, may in places have been eroded; intelligence and skill will be needed if it is to be restored and, more important, extended to those who have never felt it.
For this, the Conservative party is no longer as well equipped as it used to be. Europeanism on the one hand has combined with doctrinal antitotalitarianism on the other to create the impression that the object of British policy should be resistance to Marxism. It is not, however, Marxism that it should be the object of British policy to resist. What it should be the object of British policy to resist is any threat to the independence and integrity of the United Kingdom, and in relation to this, EEC, NATO and the Commonwealth are merely instruments with no permanent claim on loyalty or attention. The only permanent claims are those which arise from the national interest defined in terms of sovereignty, historic continuity and national identity, and beyond these no other focus of loyalty is either necessary or desirable.

[T]he most important feelings for Conservatives to be expressing at the moment...are the cynical feelings of disbelief which have been held at bay since May 1997, which are capable of welding middle-class and working-class sentiment together, and which need to be moved out from being Lord Tebbit's speciality into being what, rather vaguely, they are already: the rhetoric with which Mr Redwood, Miss Widdecombe and Mr Hague will expose the higher humbug which emanates from Downing Street.

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