Letters: On quitting Facebook, and putting down Nigel

Why we joined

Sir: I was astonished by the assertion made by Wyn Grant (Letters, 21 September) that ‘the postwar surge in Conservative party membership was due to people rebuilding their social lives after the war’. Where did that idea come from?

I grew up in south London before and during the war. I recall that social contact increased during the war and friendships made then endured when the war was over. Of course the nature of social activities gradually changed after the war, but the suggestion that most people joined the Conservative party purely for social reasons is wrong. It should be remembered that the Labour party’s clause 4 was central to their policy commitments and Clement Attlee’s government embarked on a major programme of nationalisation. Many people like me joined the party largely because we did not want to live in a progressively socialist state.

The basis for our discussions was often provided by the book of political essays entitled One Nation, two of the main contributors to which were Edward Heath and Enoch Powell, who belonged to a group of Conservative MPs who had adopted that name.