In 1947 Heath was selected as the Tory candidate for Bexley. ibid.
Within four years the organisation man was made chief whip. ibid.
Harold Wilson described him as a shiver looking for a spine to run up. ibid.
Heath had pulled off the biggest election upset of the century. ibid.
He was pledged to tame the trade unions, slash public spending and cut back the social services. ibid.
He was determined that this time he would at last take Britain into the Common Market. ibid.
His annus horribilis continued when he lost a second general election. ibid.
Out of 10 Downing Street with the prime minister steps Britain’s most controversial Conservative council leader. This is Lady Porter. Panorama: Lady Porter: The Pursuit of Power, John Ware reporting, BBC 1989
She spent millions of pounds of ratepayers’ money to try to keep her Tory council in power. A policy which may be unlawful. ibid.
Lady Porter’s domain is in the very heart of the capital. ibid.
Three years after the sale and the ‘cemeteries affair’ still haunts Lady Porter. ibid.
Lady Porter identified eight key battlezone wards in Westminster which were so marginal a few hundred votes in each of them could decide the balance of power. ibid.
It is on estates like this that Lady Porter plans to literally move in potential Conservative voters she needs. ibid.
Tomorrow Tory MPs vote for a new leader. For years now they have been at war with themselves. So are the Tories doomed to be yesterday’s men? Panorama: Yesterday’s Men? Nick Robinson reporting, BBC 1997
The party engaged in a bitter civil war on the one issue which really divided them: Europe. ibid.
VAT on fuel became the most unpopular tax since the Poll tax. ibid.
Tory MPs were alleged to be on the take. ibid.
I’ve never seen a campaign like it in forty years of reporting politics. The frontrunner Boris Johnson successful as a mayor, less so as a minister. And his rival Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary who took on the junior doctors. Panorama: The Race for Number Ten, Jon Pienaar, BBC 2019
Friends and enemies call him [Boris Johnson] irrepressible for a reason. ibid.
He and Boris Johnson both come from privileged backgrounds. ibid.
Brexit is the huge challenge facing the next prime minister. ibid.
David Cameron and the missing billions. The former prime minister promoted his friends’ controversial investment schemes. We reveal the truth about Lex Greensill’s dodgy deals. How UK tax-payers could lose hundreds of millions. And how David Cameron pocketed a fortune. Panorama: Cameron and the Missing Billions, BBC 2021
This is a story of a former British prime minister and a dodgy scheme that could cost investors billions. ibid.
This used to be the headquarters of Greensill Bank until it went bust earlier year. The bank’s offices and the homes of its former bosses have been raided by police. Billions of savers’ cash looks to be lost. ibid.
The bank was part of a British-based investment company – Greensill Capital. ibid.
There had already been allegations in the press about some of Greensill’s investment schemes … With David Cameron on board, Greensill Capital attracted billions from investors. Their money was supposed to be safe. ibid.
Greensill made loans to businesses that were waiting to be paid for goods and services they had supplied to customers. But it didn’t use its own cash; the money for the loans was raised from investors, and Lex Greensill brought in a famous friend to drum up business. (Prime Minister & Conservatives & Ethics & Banks & Investment) ibid.
The invoices simply didn’t exist. ibid.
We investigate the money going into our political parties. Our evidence raises serious questions about the funding of our democracy. Leaked documents expose financial secrets of financial donors to the Conservative Party. Are the rules on political donations up to the job? Panorama: Pandora Papers: Political Donors Exposed, Richard Bilton reporting, BBC 2021
The Pandora Papers: 12 million leaked documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists from a secret source. ibid.
The race to lead the nation: who are the men who could shape the future of Britain? And who has a plan to fix Brexit? … We are in the grip of a battle for number 10 … whether Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt will take the top job. Tonight: Who’s Our Next PM? ITV 2019
For almost two centuries the Conservative Party has shaped Britain. But today the Tories are in crisis. Today the most successful political party in the history of democracy is torn in pieces, gripped by the greatest national crisis since the Second World War. How did it come to this? Portillo: The Trouble with the Tories I, Channel 5 2019
I’ve watched appalled as my old party has all but destroyed itself. ibid.
Theresa May’s deal with Europe was rejected by a majority of 230: the largest government defeat in history. ibid.
A growing number of Tory MPs and their electorates now believed that being part of the European Union threatened our democratic institutions. ibid.
‘I think Cameron was almost driven mad by me.’ ibid. Farage
On 23rd January 2013 David Cameron made an announcement that would be momentous for the volatile Tory party and for the nation. ibid.
Margaret Thatcher had once been keen on the European idea. During her time as Tory leader, Mrs Thatcher journeyed from Europhile to Eurosceptic and took many of us with her. ibid.
The Referendum result destroyed David Cameron and his government, yet for many Conservatives this was the greatest moment ever – Independence Day. ibid.
The result of Britain’s referendum to leave the European Union deepened the divisions throughout the country and within the Conservative Party … A party and a nation bitterly split on the question of Europe. Portillo: The Trouble with the Tories II
Parliament has got its teeth into Brexit and it has not let go. ibid.
‘The [election] campaign she fought was terrible.’ ibid. George Osborne
Mrs Thatcher’s journey from Europhile to Euro-Sceptic has had a profound impact on her Party. ibid.
A new power rose within the Tory Party: the European Research Group. Jacob Rees-Mogg became chair of the ERG in January 2018. ibid.
The Euro-Sceptics fought the Maastricht Treaty day and night in a struggle that one compared to the Battle of the Somme. ibid.
The deep wound in the Conservative Party has never healed. ibid.
The split in the Conservative Party has been developing over decades and is now a chasm. ibid.
‘It will be an in/out referendum.’ The Cameron Years I, Cameron, BBC 2019
‘What’s happened to that twat David Cameron.’ ibid. Danny Dier
From 2009, a crisis with the Euro sparks violent unrest and fans the flames of Euroscepticism. ibid.
‘You can have verbal reassurances but you can’t have Treaty changes: I knew at that moment they were going to leave me with no choice but to veto the Treaty … They go ahead and do the Treaty anyway.’ ibid. Cameron
25th May 2014: At the EU elections, a surprise UKIP win pushed the Conservatives into third place. ibid.
‘The four horsemen of Her Majesty’s government arriving at a high-tech research facility in Bristol’ … Sign: £4,300 a year: Cost to UK families if Britain leaves the EU. ibid.
‘Britain will be permanently poorer if we left the European Union. And the price would be paid by British families. ibid. Osborne
‘Project Fear now stalks the land.’ ibid. Andrew Neil
‘I believe the party needed to change; the party needed to modernise.’ The Cameron Years II, Cameron
14 October 2005: The Party Conference in Blackpool is Cameron’s first big chance to impress. ibid. caption
Within weeks, Cameron launches his plan to modernise the Conservative party. ibid.
‘The Conservatives have been great social reformers.’ ibid. Cameron
So how did we as a nation get from this [Theresa May] to this? [Boris Johnson] … That most dysfunctional of political families … I’ve seen the bitter animosity unleashed as Brexiteers slowly tighten their grip on the Conservative Party. Tories at War, Channel 4 2019
On 24th July 2019 Boris Johnson entered Downing Street. But waiting inside was a lesser-known figure who long harboured a radical vision for the future of the country. Dominic Cummings had led the campaign to take Britain out of the European Union. And it was to him the Prime Minister turned to help shape a vision for a post-Brexit Britain. But Cummings’ controversial career hadn’t sprung from nowhere: it’s a story of over two decades of British politics. Taking Control: The Dominic Cummings Story, BBC 2020
Cummings joined the Euro-sceptic fight as director of research at a pressure group opposing the Euro. ibid.
‘You’re just a young politician on the make.’ ibid. Colin Perry, Euro debate 5 Live radio November 1999
Cummings, who claims never to have belonged to a political party, now sat of the heart of the Tory establishment. ibid.
‘I am a golfer. But I am also a Conservative.’ Rowan Atkinson before Tory conference, cited Utterly Outrageous X-Rated Comedy V: Politics, Channel 5 2021
We cannot get any worse than a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute vile… banana republic, vile, nasty, Etonian… piece of scum. Angela Raynor, re Conservatives, to Labour Party meeting 2021