Howard’s Conservative party has made astonishing progress in a very short time

Just before the 1966 World Cup the England manager Sir Alf Ramsey remarked that his talented midfielder Martin Peters was ‘ten years ahead of his time’. Peters himself was displeased by the observation, but Ramsey was in reality being flattering. He meant that his player was not truly at ease among the clodhopping defenders and midfield ‘hard men’ who set the tone in the 1960s.