Andy Beckett is right to say that “the meaning of Conservatism is up for grabs” (Thatcherite conservatism is on its last legs. I’ve had a disturbing glimpse of what might replace it, 3 November). Although I would never vote for it, we need a decent party of the centre-right in the UK, and the present Conservative party is not it. We need a party that stands for fiscal prudence, challenges the utopian ideas of us on the left, and values traditions and culture.
However, we shall not get such a party until all those who supported Brexit, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have left politics, and their successors have ceased to worship Margaret Thatcher, deregulation, privatisation and market forces, and recovered the party of Rab Butler and Harold Macmillan.
