How the anti-intellectual Tory party has betrayed the legacy of Maurice Cowling

Not long after John Major became prime minister Maurice Cowling, who died last week, asked me to a feast at Peterhouse. In the port-soaked aftermath in a candlelit Senior Combination Room, and between intermittent insults to the then Master, Lord Dacre (‘Come over here, you old bugger, somebody might want to meet you’), we had a conversation about the new prime minister. Precisely because he held the highest power in the land, Mr Major was not deemed worthy of the Cowlingesque sneer; that would come later. But his obvious managerialism and his lack of bottom provided causes for concern. For Maurice, being a Tory was not merely about having a machine to fight elections, important though the acquisition of power was; it was about upholding a philosophy that, without being in the least priggish, was unquestionably high-minded. He would not condemn Mr Major for having no philosophy other than that of keeping his job, for he knew politics was largely about the naked self-interest of politicians.