Keep a stiff upper lip
From Mr John Laurenson Sir: I am bewildered by a series of articles in The Spectator regarding the uncertain future of the Conservative party. Look at France and take heart. Here, as in Britain, defeat has led to defeatism, but it's the socialists who are disorientated.
The `Parti Socialiste', like the Conservative party, is unsure who should be leader, unsure what it stands for, and unsure how to respond when the government pushes through policies it once dreamed of implementing itself. There are just 22 miles of water between a country where it's all over for socialism and another where it is conservatism that seems doomed. But just as fretting about a socialist-free France must seem like idle speculation from elsewhere in the world, from this side of the Channel it is clear that the Conservatives will return to office in Britain.
It is natural that French socialists should be wondering about the point of it all. Existential 'douleur' is, after all, a French invention. British Conservatives should keep a stiff upper lip.
John Laurenson
Paris
Previous page
