George Wright is the Comms & Social Lead for the Conservatives at City Hall, as well as a former Parliamentary Assistant and freelance writer.
I was disappointed to discover a great and august Conservative institution, the Bow Group, appears to have missed its birthday this year.
Founded in 1951 by a group of Conservative students, the Bow Group turned 75 this last February. Not that you would know, of course: the website banner and logo are still set up for its 70th anniversary in 2021. Examine the website further, and you will find that Britain’s oldest Conservative think tank appears to have become a graveyard. No events are upcoming, and the last previous one was in 2022.
The latest articles and research are almost a decade old, if not older. Crossbow, the organisation’s quarterly publication, is dormant. The Bow Group, originally founded to combat the rise of socialism amongst students and to propose and propagate Conservatively-minded policy, now seems to stand like the House of Usher; decaying, sinking into the dirt, whilst the last inhabitants shun the outside world.
As Sir John Hoskyns’ memoirs Just in Time recounts of the preparation for Margaret Thatcher’s entrance into Downing Street, the Conservative Party must have a proper policy plan if it is to govern well. To do so, we must have capable think tanks prepared to support the stellar work of the CRD in formulating those policies. Let us then be Conservatives, and work to conserve one of the rich parts of our party’s history, so that it is here for its 80th, 90th, and 100th anniversaries: whilst so many still have so much more to give.
Typically, the Bow Group elected Chairs for a year-long term.
So successful then is the current Chairman Ben Harris-Quinney, that he has won the seat every year for the last 15.
Mr Harris-Quinney has been criticised by Iain Dale of using his Chairmanship to secure himself greater media attention and position – certainly, no other members of the Bow Group appear to have any digital or media profile, at least not consistently. The organisation’s social media is used just a few times a year, and no events exist. The Facebook group, full of supporters, has been dormant since covid.
Yet despite this, the organisation – whose website still lists many patrons who are in fact deceased as alive – continues to accept donations at varying levels, ranging from £5 to £200 a month. Whilst we cannot know how many people actually contribute, how many people are giving money to fund the means of the current executive, whilst the organisation outwardly seems to do nothing?
Our party is at a time when, like in 1951, it is hunting for new policies to transform this country and rescue its future from an unpopular socialist Government. The left has not stopped producing ideas that appeal to students. Now more than ever, our party’s oldest think tank should be a platform from which radical, thoughtful, and Conservative ideas should spring. Instead, the current occupants seem to have hollowed out the place like squatters. leaving the institution to crumble at a time when it should be in its prime.
I believe the time has come for Mr Harris-Quinney to relinquish his position at the helm of the Bow Group, and allow a new committee to come in and undertake the necessary work to revive this bulwark of Conservative opinion; if for no reason other than the fact that people are paying sums of money into a pot which’s purpose is no longer clear.
If Mr Harris-Quinney will not surrender his long standing sinecure, then time and resources should be pooled – at all levels; from the Peers and the Members, down to the grassroots – to establish a renewed Bow Group, if only to ensure that the name of a once-great Conservative organisation may continue without suffering the continued degradation and abuse it appears to suffer at the hands of its current jailors. We owe a moral obligation to those still paying for the organisation, and those who have contributed to it in the past, to act.
Ours is a party that is proud of its history – and rightly so. The oldest and most successful political party in the democratic world, the Conservative Party in all of its forms stretches back centuries. We have dedicated historians, entire libraries of archive material, and great tomes which have been written at length about the events that have shaped the Conservative Party.
On any given day, some activist somewhere will be minded to tell you that is in fact the XXth anniversary of some great Churchillian speech, Disraelian debate, or Thatcherite victory.
It is time to do some work to make sure that no one can pinpoint the anniversary of the day the Bow Group died.
George Wright is the Comms & Social Lead for the Conservatives at City Hall, as well as a former Parliamentary Assistant and freelance writer.
I was disappointed to discover a great and august Conservative institution, the Bow Group, appears to have missed its birthday this year.
Founded in 1951 by a group of Conservative students, the Bow Group turned 75 this last February. Not that you would know, of course: the website banner and logo are still set up for its 70th anniversary in 2021. Examine the website further, and you will find that Britain’s oldest Conservative think tank appears to have become a graveyard. No events are upcoming, and the last previous one was in 2022.
The latest articles and research are almost a decade old, if not older. Crossbow, the organisation’s quarterly publication, is dormant. The Bow Group, originally founded to combat the rise of socialism amongst students and to propose and propagate Conservatively-minded policy, now seems to stand like the House of Usher; decaying, sinking into the dirt, whilst the last inhabitants shun the outside world.
As Sir John Hoskyns’ memoirs Just in Time recounts of the preparation for Margaret Thatcher’s entrance into Downing Street, the Conservative Party must have a proper policy plan if it is to govern well. To do so, we must have capable think tanks prepared to support the stellar work of the CRD in formulating those policies. Let us then be Conservatives, and work to conserve one of the rich parts of our party’s history, so that it is here for its 80th, 90th, and 100th anniversaries: whilst so many still have so much more to give.
Typically, the Bow Group elected Chairs for a year-long term.
So successful then is the current Chairman Ben Harris-Quinney, that he has won the seat every year for the last 15.
Mr Harris-Quinney has been criticised by Iain Dale of using his Chairmanship to secure himself greater media attention and position – certainly, no other members of the Bow Group appear to have any digital or media profile, at least not consistently. The organisation’s social media is used just a few times a year, and no events exist. The Facebook group, full of supporters, has been dormant since covid.
Yet despite this, the organisation – whose website still lists many patrons who are in fact deceased as alive – continues to accept donations at varying levels, ranging from £5 to £200 a month. Whilst we cannot know how many people actually contribute, how many people are giving money to fund the means of the current executive, whilst the organisation outwardly seems to do nothing?
Our party is at a time when, like in 1951, it is hunting for new policies to transform this country and rescue its future from an unpopular socialist Government. The left has not stopped producing ideas that appeal to students. Now more than ever, our party’s oldest think tank should be a platform from which radical, thoughtful, and Conservative ideas should spring. Instead, the current occupants seem to have hollowed out the place like squatters. leaving the institution to crumble at a time when it should be in its prime.
I believe the time has come for Mr Harris-Quinney to relinquish his position at the helm of the Bow Group, and allow a new committee to come in and undertake the necessary work to revive this bulwark of Conservative opinion; if for no reason other than the fact that people are paying sums of money into a pot which’s purpose is no longer clear.
If Mr Harris-Quinney will not surrender his long standing sinecure, then time and resources should be pooled – at all levels; from the Peers and the Members, down to the grassroots – to establish a renewed Bow Group, if only to ensure that the name of a once-great Conservative organisation may continue without suffering the continued degradation and abuse it appears to suffer at the hands of its current jailors. We owe a moral obligation to those still paying for the organisation, and those who have contributed to it in the past, to act.
Ours is a party that is proud of its history – and rightly so. The oldest and most successful political party in the democratic world, the Conservative Party in all of its forms stretches back centuries. We have dedicated historians, entire libraries of archive material, and great tomes which have been written at length about the events that have shaped the Conservative Party.
On any given day, some activist somewhere will be minded to tell you that is in fact the XXth anniversary of some great Churchillian speech, Disraelian debate, or Thatcherite victory.
It is time to do some work to make sure that no one can pinpoint the anniversary of the day the Bow Group died.