On the current refugee crisis, for example, this son of refugees says “It is not harsh to say that there is a problem,” and that it is not somehow anti-Jewish to say that there has to be some sort of policy to stop people taking to sea in unsuitable boats. You seem to imply that seeing things as they are rather than as we would wish them to be is a Conservative virtue. Do you believe this is a uniquely Conservative starting point? Daniel William Finkelstein, Baron Finkelstein, OBE (born 30 August 1962) is a British journalist and politician. [1] He is a former executive editor of The Times and remains a weekly political columnist. [2] He is a former chairman of Policy Exchange who was succeeded by David Frum in 2014. [3] He is chair of the think tank Onward. He was made a member of the House of Lords in August 2013, [4] sitting as a Conservative. In 2011 he was awarded the " PSA 2011 Journalist of the Year Award". [21] It was announced at the beginning of August 2013 that Finkelstein was to be made a life peer. [22] He was created Baron Finkelstein, of Pinner in the London Borough of Harrow on 11 September 2013. [23] But our ability to adapt, our primary characteristic as the most successful species, gives us the ability to go beyond those instincts and behaviours.

A typical column finds connections between several seemingly random themes: “In just under 1,000 words I intend to link the suspension of an academic at the University of Leeds, the weight of an ox, the outcome of the 2002 football World Cup, the recent dissenting speeches of Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn and the state funding of political parties. And of course cakes, graphology and Denise Van Outen.”Maudling was twice a contender for leader of the Party, once in a very serious way, and he lost because really, although he was thought to be the finest politician, he was thought to be too lazy. He then ran to seed, and ended up having to resign because of his relationship with a corrupt architect called John Poulson. And I think that Lewis Baston makes it pretty clear that Maudling’s business relationships were corrupt, I suppose in the way that Caro does with Johnson as well. Policy Exchange appoints David Frum as new chairman" (Press release). Policy Exchange. 19 September 2014. Archived from the original on 18 October 2014. ,

Yes, let’s start with An Appetite for Power by John Ramsden. Actually, this one book is acting as a substitute for six. Longman has produced a fabulous history of the Conservative Party in six volumes, of which John Ramsden wrote three; and An Appetite for Power is a single volume drawn from that. The series is a stunningly detailed history, which starts with constituency organisation and the power structure inside the Conservative Party and moves on to ideas. As the Conservative Party is primarily an organisational rather than an ideological body, that is a very good way of studying it.

The structure — alternating chapters telling the parallel tales of the Wieners and the Finkelsteins — reflects two separate yet similar stories, but brings home a wider point that is the book’s central thrust. Professor Ludwik Finkelstein". The Times. London. 2 September 2011 . Retrieved 29 March 2016. (subscription required) He was educated at University College School, the London School of Economics ( BSc, 1984) and City University London ( MSc, 1986). [10] Political career [ edit ] SDP [ edit ] Yes I do. Willetts does write about what he thinks should happen but he starts with where society is. It becomes more and more clear to me that the whole of democratic socialism was an intellectual error. I don’t mean that believing in greater social equality or wanting to eradicate injustice was an error. Rather, there was a particular democratic socialist idea, which was that it would be possible to control and organise the world. This was based on a fundamental misunderstanding about how complicated the world is. It didn’t proceed from how the world is, but from a misunderstanding of reality. Whereas what David tries to do is to rely on research about how people actually live their lives, what their first relationships really are; and it’s not theoretical, it’s based on social research. I also use this book to stand for something else – that Conservatives are increasingly turning to evolutionary psychology. Human behaviour and instinct is what it is, so then you have to do what you can to change it or change social arrangements to work around it. It’s not very likely to me that we are the one species that didn’t evolve and whose behaviour is not basically evolutionary in origin.

This book has only just been written and therefore can’t be described as being in the pantheon of Conservative classics. But, as a modern policy book, it’s hard to beat. It’s an absolutely brilliant book. His basic theory is that all policy questions should be considered through the generational filter: that means booms and busts of population are absolutely critical, that the ties between generations are critical. His views on the ties between the generations are what make this a distinctly Conservative book. Before working for the Conservative Party, Finkelstein was Director of a think-tank, the Social Market Foundation, for three years. During his period with the SMF, the organisation brought New York police commissioner Bill Bratton to London, for the first time introducing UK politicians to the new strategies being used there. Nobody who understands evolutionary psychology should go from that to believing, for example, that because women and men are different that either are superior or inferior to the others. But the starting point in discussions of fairness should be who we are and what we are, whatever that might be. All of that discussion is reflected in The Pinch. We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.The story of his mother and father’s early lives under, respectively, Hitler and Stalin, it is at once an epic tale on the scale of War and Peace, an intimate portrait of his family and its traumas and a book of compelling urgency, with a vital political message at its heart. Freedman, Sam (28 June 2023). "Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein review – escape from tyranny". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 June 2023.

Before I begin this review I must declare an interest: Daniel Finkelstein is a close friend. But if you think that disqualifies me from hailing this book a masterpiece then I urge you to read it and discover it for yourself. If anything can change that, Finkelstein’s book will. There is a central message to all his writing, well described in the title of his last book: Everything in Moderation. Every Conservative has to read Edmund Burke, and, in particular, the Reflections on the French Revolution, a timeless and brilliant statement of Conservative ideas. Conor Cruise O’Brien has produced a book that is simultaneously an anthology of Burke and a biography. It was a simply brilliant idea. So much of Conservatism is not abstract, so to try to separate ideas from context or biography never quite works. What Conor Cruise O’Brien has done here is reconnect the two. There are brilliantly chosen selections from Burke’s major works, for example, the Reflections, his letter to the electors of Bristol, his impeachment of Warren Hastings. Is this the key question for British Conservatives at this political moment, to formulate their own version of fairness? It’s appealing as the next stage of trying to abandon the ‘nasty party’ image.When we look at history we regard as heroes those who fought and those who conquered, those who were martyrs for their point of view, those who set out on great adventures, those who built fine cathedrals,” he writes in the first column of the collection. “Yet I think it is a fine ambition to have been an executive for extra-wet strength tissues. In the history of mankind how many better jobs have there been?” Ramsden’s title, An Appetite for Power, reflects what he regards as the one consistent characteristic of Conservative organisation: an instinct for what people believe and a willingness to adapt to it; and he says the Conservative Party has done that over and over again, never remained adhering to some strict ideology for very long periods of time. And I think that’s a very adept reading of the Party, and one that is particularly interesting now. It was written during the long years of opposition before David Cameron became leader. John Ramsden recently died but he anticipated absolutely what the Conservative Party has now done. The Labour Party showed that kind of appetite for power under Tony Blair but normally Labour is much more ideological.