Dr Daniel Pitt is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Buckingham.
The Conservative Party needs to rebuild its connections and relationships with academics, so that we can utilise their skills and knowledge.
Yes, I know that the vast majority of academics in our country are on the left of the political spectrum, and they were and still are against Brexit. Yet, there are a few academics who are of a conservative persuasion, and the party must tap into this pool of talent.
Let’s take a look at what Thatcher did in Opposition to improve the party’s relationships with academics.
A few years ago, I was doing some research at Churchill Archives Centre, which holds the papers of Sir Winston Churchill and Lady Thatcher, and I stumbled across a folder called Conservative Party and Academics. The folder contained documents about the academic liaison exercise that the party conducted under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher.
We should do something similar today.
Let’s take a look.
In 1975, the Conservative Party desired to set up a formal body to improve the relationship between the party and academics, because the relationship was on an improvised basis at best. There was no single contact point for academics to reach out to the party and offer their services.
Thatcher wrote to Baroness Young stating that she was “very anxious to improve the Party’s relationship with academics”. So, a new body was to be set up.
It would be “set up outside Central Office and the Research Department.” It was to be a joint endeavour, with the Carlton Club’s Political Committee being “responsible for supporting the operation, both in terms of workload and finance”. Eric Koops, in July 1975, envisaged the composition of the committee would include a Conservative MP as chair, as well as the leader of the Conservative Research Department, the head of the Conservative Political Centre (CPC), a member from Thatcher’s private office, and two or maybe three members of the political committee of the Charlton Club. It surprised me that there was no seat at the table for a Conservative academic as such.
The core aim of the new academic liaison programme was to establish and maintain relationships between the shadow ministers and academics who had expertise in their portfolios, as well as increasing the “frequency of appearance on the media of friendly academics”. In other words, to help get more Conservative academics on the telly and radio.
Mrs Thatcher appointed Leon Brittan to be the “official link between the academic world” and the party. During the academic liaison work, many academics wrote to Mrs Thatcher as well as to some of her key colleagues, on a variety of topics, such as engineering, energy policy, the economy, constitutional affairs and many other topics.
One such example was when F.A. Hayek wrote to Keith Joseph in July 1975 to congratulate him and Mrs Thatcher on the Free Enterprise Luncheon that Hayek read about in The Times. Hayek wrote that he “devoutly” hoped that the “moment chosen for the courageous statement will prove to be well chosen.” Hayek also asked for his remarks to be forwarded to Mrs Thatcher if “my name means anything to her!”.
Joseph was rather pleased with the letter. He wrote back to Hayek, saying he was “touched” and that Hayek was an “outstanding man”. Joseph also wrote to Hayek that he would be forwarding a copy of the letter to Mrs Thatcher as “your words will give her great pleasure also”. Hayek’s letter was heartening to Joseph as he took it that it meant that party was now heading in the right direction.
Of course, the Thacher’s academic liaison program was not the first of its kind. Ted Health set up a project, which ran from 1965 to 1970 under the leadership of Michael Spicer. Mrs Thatcher did not want to make the same mistakes as Heath in relation to the academic liaison exercise. As Angus Maude wrote to Thatcher, Heath’s version left academics disappointed at best because the party was “unable to use all of them in any practical way”.
On the 14th of December 1977, Dr Keith Hampson MP wrote to Mrs Thatcher about how the Academics Register the party had created and could assist in finding Conservative academics who would be willing and able to be advisers to the next Conservative Government.
Jumping forward a few years, and now that the party was back in Government, it realised that it could not use all the academics on the Academics Register in any practical way, but they could at least be thanked for their work for the party while it was in Opposition.
In August 1981, Ian Gow wrote to Thatcher about arranging a drinks party for those academics who had helped the party. Robert Rhodes-James, a Member of Parliament and a scholar, drew up a list of 80 academics who had helped in Opposition and who should be invited to attend the planned drinks party. He also suggested that Lord Boys-Carpenter, Eric Koops and Alexander Macmillan be invited as representatives of the Carlton Club Political Committee, due to their involvement in the liaison exercise. To name one of the academics on the list who helped the Party in Opposition, and who was rather well known to me, “Dr Roger Scruton, Birkbeck College” was on the list.
The party may not wish to set up a committee in this way, but one thing is for sure: the party needs to tap into academic expertise systematically, as the competition for talent is fierce on the right of British politics.