Book review - 'Conservative Revival' by Chris Phillip et al

A remarkable book for those of you interested in why David Cameron is doing what he's doing and what this means for the Conservative Party.

The central thesis is, "Britain has changed, so must the Conservative Party if it wishes to be in power again." That might not come as a surprise to many of you but even to those of you who might consider yourselves to be modern and not part of the old guard (like myself) the depth of change required comes as quite an eye-opener.

However, this is a handbook about how to achieve power and not necessarily a book that proposes a better society. T E Utley once wrote something along the lines that the British want high public spending combined with low taxes and this is pretty much the insight of this book as well. However, the insight doesn't extend to dealing with how to avoid threatening letters from creditors when a plainly unsustainable situation of high spend/low tax unravels.

However, the book is brutally honest when dealing with the conservative brand and how to repair it. While some of this might seem a slap in the face for some readers, it also emphasises strategies to rebuild trust. These are not things that can happen overnight but it also demonstrates the importance of building an authentically caring local party representative of its community.

Highly recommended.