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British Conservatism: The Grand Tour

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Factual: History

Anne McElvoy on the challenges that have spurred British conservative thinkers into action

Anne McElvoy tells the stories of big challenges that have spurred leading British conservative thinkers into action, from the French Revolution to the Permissive Society

British Conservatism: The Grand Tour: 13/09/2013

13/09/2013

BBC Radio 4 - British Conservatism: The Grand Tour, 13/09/2013

Anne McElvoy on Mrs Thatcher's father and the transformation of conservatism.

Anne McElvoy visits the chapel in Grantham where Mrs Thatcher's father preached, to explore how his story encapsulates how conservatism has changed across the last two centuries.

Anne McElvoy tells the stories of big challenges that have spurred leading British conservative thinkers into action, from the French Revolution to the Permissive Society.

Episode 10: In this final episode, Anne visits the chapel in Grantham where Mrs Thatcher's father preached, to explore how his story encapsulates how conservatism has changed across the last two centuries.

In the pew where his daughter Margaret sat listening to his sermons, Anne hears how Alderman Roberts, a Wesleyan Methodist, was a Victorian liberal who came, in the twentieth century, to see himself as a conservative.

She explores how his story captures something of the changing role of religion and class in conservatism, and the ways that, over the last century, conservatism has absorbed key elements of Victorian liberalism. 

And how, in the process, it has transformed itself from an ideology that was focused on the land, paternalist benevolence, traditional social hierarchies and the Church of England, into something rather different.

With: Dr Eliza Filby, Dominic Sandbrook, Professor Jon Lawrence

Producer: Phil Tinline.

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British Conservatism: The Grand Tour

13/09/2013

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