The Spectator’s Notes | 21 November 2009

On Monday I attended a party at the Carlton Club for a new book about the Conservative Research Department, now 80 years old. Traditionally, this would have been a dusty occasion: the Research Department has almost prided itself on its separation from the vulgar worlds of media and power. But it was all rather glamorous. The fact is that, for the first time ever, its alumni have taken control of the Tory high command. George Osborne and Oliver Letwin began political life there; so did Cameron’s closest assistants, Steve Hilton, Ed Llewellyn and Kate Fall; and so did David Cameron himself. As Andrew Gimson discusses on page 19, Mr Cameron is the first CRD product ever to have led the Tory party. He spoke, revealing that when he worked there in the late Eighties and early Nineties, he conducted espionage on Labour extremism, joining groups like Militant Tendency and Red Wedge under the pseudonym of Robin Norse (or North, I couldn’t quite hear).