Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad: A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival

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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. 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. Between 1997 and 2001 he was political adviser to the Leader of the Opposition William Hague and, together with George Osborne, Secretary to the Shadow Cabinet. His mother was politically moderate too. “She was always pretty wary politically of anybody — how shall I put this — over-excitable,” he writes. In his maiden speech in the House of Lords (watched by his mother) he said that compared to Belsen and Siberia: “Pinner is nicer.”

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] Between 1995 and 1997 Finkelstein was Director of the Conservative Research Department and in that capacity advised Prime Minister John Major and attended meetings of the Cabinet when it sat in political session. Finkelstein became among the earliest advocates of the 'modernisation' of the Conservative Party, laying out the principles of change in a series of speeches and columns in The Times. So, the idea which has gained currency, that Cameron sat down and studied the New Labour manual to modernise his party, is all very well but, in fact, the Conservative Party repeatedly adapts to gain power?

The public interest in Stalin’s crimes didn’t come. It has never come. Nobody invited him to tell his story in schools. Nobody spoke of the Katyn murders, hardly anyone knows of the Polish deportations. Eaton, George (18 May 2018). "Onward, the think tank on a mission to remake conservatism". New Statesman. London . Retrieved 27 August 2019. a b Silva, Rohan (4 June 2023). "Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad by Daniel Finkelstein review – a family in peril". The Observer. London . Retrieved 4 June 2023. Zaheer, Mohammad (18 February 2019). "Opinion: It shouldn't have taken a report from outside the Muslim community for Tory Islamophobia to be taken seriously". The Independent. London. Find sources: "Daniel Finkelstein"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( March 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Of course. But one of the things in evolutionary psychology which is very important for politics is the understanding of the origins of altruism. What’s very important about this book is that Willetts is trying to find a Conservative theory of fairness rooted in the question of what we actually regard as fair, not what somebody else happens to decree we should regard as fair. Our altruism is based on a desire to reciprocate other people’s favours. We know that’s a good way of surviving, so we try to reciprocate other people’s favours and hope they reciprocate ours. This has a good consequence, which is altruism towards others who are not our family; the bad consequence is we tend to look for other people who are like us and we tend to co-operate with them. So it can lead to tribalism but it can also lead to social cohesion. His columns range much wider than politics, of course. In the index, Diet Coke sits alongside Diddley, Bo, and Theodor Herzl nestles between Michael Heseltine and Jimi Hendrix. He is exceptionally well-read, and regular readers know they can rely on him to tell them what’s in books they haven’t even heard about, let alone read.I think David Willetts is by far the most considerable Conservative political writer; and I don’t mean he is the most considerable Conservative writing today, I mean it in absolute terms, full stop. He is always interesting and he has read massive amounts of social research. He has inserted sociology into Conservative thinking. You said it’s not helpful to divide the ideas from the context but is that unique to Conservatism? Is it ever a good idea? One of the reasons why there is no such thing as a single international conservatism is because conservatism is so rooted in the institutions and values of particular places, in preserving them, in trying to understand the essence of a nation. And the essence of nations is different. So Republicanism in America and Conservatism in Britain will be different; and they reflect their nations; they are trying to preserve and advance vastly different things.