If I start with a reference to the sorry condition of the Tory party, I hope readers will not immediately turn to another page. If only the Tories can take a fairly cool look at themselves, it will quickly be apparent that the condition is not as serious as all that; and that it is certainly capable of repair. Housman’s ancient ‘three minutes of thought’ will suffice to show that there is only one direction in which the Tories can go. Once their collective mind is concentrated on that fact the rest will be, if not easy, at least far advanced in ease from the complicated and tragic business of the present run-up to what looks like being a bitter leadership contest.
A commonsense analysis of this confused situation would run as follows. Any new Tory leader will need courage of a quite special kind, and Mrs Thatcher has that. Everybody accepts that the party must begin to examine its conscience and find out where it stands, and that this process will be difficult, and require some certainty of mind on the part of the new leader — bearing always in mind the fact that the Conservative party depends much more on its leader, and accords, by its constitution, more power to that leader, than any other.
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