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Daniel Finkelstein
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The Case for the Centre Right Paperback – 29 Sept. 2023

by David Gauke (Editor), Rory Stewart (Contributor), Michael Heseltine (Contributor),
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In recent years, the once familiar landscape of British politics has fundamentally changed. The Conservative Party in particular has undergone a profound transformation. Centre-right values that steered British politics for decades – internationalism, respect for the rule of law, fiscal responsibility, belief in our institutions – were cast aside in the wake of the Brexit referendum to the detriment of UK prosperity, electoral trust and the long-term fortunes of the Conservative Party. 

But this radical rightwards shift can and must be reversed. In this bold intervention, David Gauke and other leading figures on the centre right – including Michael Heseltine, Rory Stewart, Amber Rudd, Gavin Barwell and Daniel Finkelstein - explore how the Conservative Party morphed into a populist movement and why this approach is doomed to fail. Together they make the case for a return to the liberal centre right, arguing with passion and conviction that the values that once defined the best of British conservatism remain essential both to the party and to the UK’s political future.

Previous page
  1. ISBN-10
    1509560823
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1509560820
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Polity
  5. Publication date
    29 Sept. 2023
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    13.97 x 2.54 x 21.59 cm
  8. Print length
    232 pages
  9. See all details
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Review

"A superb case for the centre-right of politics – and a classic indictment of the deceptions of populism."
―The Rt Hon Sir John Major KG CH

"In an era of superficial sloganising and breathless soap opera it is easy to forget that what really matters in politics is ideas. This book is brimful of them. The Case for the Centre Right deserves to be at the heart of any debate about how to revive the Conservative Party and the country."
―Nick Robinson

"A timely and compelling intervention in the debate on the future of Conservatism."
―Andrew Gamble, University of Sheffield

“thoughtful and thought-provoking”
―Stephen Bush, Financial Times

“I can recommend The Case for the Centre Right, edited by David Gauke, which includes intelligent essays by contributors such as Rory Stewart, Dominic Grieve and Amber Rudd.”
―Matthew D’Ancona, Prospect

“The Case for the Centre Right contains much that is needed. All those who care for moderation in politics, from the centre left as well as the centre right, should applaud David Gauke for assembling an excellent collection of essays that sets out the issues starkly.”
―William Waldegrave, New Statesman

“In The Case for the Centre Right, David Gauke, Rory Stewart and other unfashionable types anatomise populism with cool intelligence.”
―Daniel Hannan, Telegraph

About the Author

David Gauke is a former Conservative MP and Cabinet Minister, serving as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Work & Pensions Secretary, and Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor. He lost the Conservative whip for opposing a no deal Brexit and fought the 2019 General Election as an independent. He is now a regular columnist for the New Statesman and ConservativeHome.

Rory Stewart is President of GiveDirectly and the Co-presenter with Alastair Campbell of The Rest Is Politics. He was an MP from 2010-9 serving as a Minister in DEFRA, DfiD, FCO and MoJ and finally as Development Secretary. Before entering politics, he served as a British diplomat, ran a charity in Afghanistan and had a chair at Harvard University. His books include the New York Times bestseller The Places in Between, which records his 21 month walk across Asia.

Michael Heseltine was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001. During this time, he held various Cabinet positions including First Secretary of State and Deputy Prime Minister under John Major. He has continued to work and publish on issues of growth, industrial strategy and devolution. A fierce campaigner for Remain, he became President of The European Movement in 2019. He is also founder and Chairman of the Haymarket Group, a privately owned media company.

Dominic Grieve is a barrister and King's Counsel and a visiting Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London. He was MP for Beaconsfield from 1997 to 2019, sitting as a Conservative before becoming an Independent, as a result of having the Whip withdrawn over his opposition to a No Deal Brexit. He was Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010-14, in the government of David Cameron and Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament from 2015-19.

Daniel Finkelstein OBE is a columnist for The Times newspaper, and the author of Everything in Moderation and a forthcoming family memoir Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad. He provided political advice to Prime Ministers John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, and was director of policy for William Hague during his time as opposition leader. In 2013 he was appointed to the House of Lords.

Gavin Barwell had a long career in Conservative politics, serving as the party's Director of Campaigning, the MP for Croydon Central from 2010 to 2017, a Government minister and Downing Street Chief of Staff for the last two years of Theresa May's premiership. He has written about the latter experience in Chief of Staff: Notes from Downing Street. He is the co-founder of NorthStar, which advises global businesses on geopolitical risk.

Amber Rudd is a former politician who held cabinet roles under David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. As Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, she led the UK delegation at the Paris Climate agreement in 2015. She left Parliament at the end of 2019 and pursues a career in the energy transition working in the private sector and on policy initiatives to influence government policy.

Andrew Cooper served as Director of Strategy to Prime Minister David Cameron during the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. He is founder of the polling consultancy Populus and advises businesses and campaigns on strategy. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 2014 as Lord Cooper of Windrush. He is a visiting lecturer at the London School of Economics.

Anne Milton is a former nurse who worked in the NHS for 25 years before being elected as a Conservative MP. She was a Minister for Public Health, Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships and Government Deputy Chief Whip. She now chairs a Social Value Recruitment Board for PeoplePlus; is an associate for KPMG; Chairs the Purpose Health Coalition and is an advisor to PLMR. She continues to work for a number of organisations on skills and further education.

Sam Gyimah served as a Government Minister with responsibility for Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, and was Parliamentary Private Secretary to David Cameron. Elected to Parliament in 2010, he was the Conservative MP for East Surrey from 2010-19 and, for a brief period at the end of 2019, he was a Liberal Democrat MP. Sam started his career as an Investment Banker and continues to advise a number venture capital and private equity firms with a focus on geopolitics and financing the innovation economy. He is also a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs International.

Tim Pitt served as a special adviser at the Treasury to Chancellors Philip Hammond and Sajid Javid. Since leaving the Treasury in 2019, Tim has been a partner at Flint Global, the business consultancy, and written widely on economic and fiscal policy, including for the Telegraph and the Financial Times. He is also a Policy Fellow at the think tank Onward. Prior to going into politics, Tim was a corporate lawyer at the City firm Slaughter and May.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Polity; 1st edition (29 Sept. 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 232 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1509560823
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1509560820
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 2.54 x 21.59 cm
  • Customer reviews:

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Daniel Finkelstein

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4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
21 global ratings

Top reviews from United Kingdom

Mr Flim Flam Shoes
5.0 out of 5 stars A timely book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 October 2023
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I'd class myself as being centre left and I doubt I'd ever vote Tory. That said I have always had respect for men like David Gauke, Rory Stewart and Dominic Grieve. Unlike the present charlatans in charge, these are writers with a sense of decency. I find much to agree with here. An important book that those of us in the centre and centre left would do well to read.
3 people found this helpful
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HarmonyPoint
2.0 out of 5 stars if this is their best case, it offers little but remoaning
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 March 2024
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If you read this book in the hope that, as the title suggests, it sets out the case for the centre right, you will be disappointed. Because, on the basis of most of the contributions to this book, the case for the centre right can be summarised as follows: Brexit is a disaster; we should never have voted to leave the EU; most or all of those who did so are old, northern and so stupid they fell for a pack of lies; we should rejoin immediately; and on and on, as one angry remainer after another bleats about what they see in their rear view mirror. If their “vision” is simply to re-hash a debate long since settled and refuse to accept the reality as it is, they have nothing to offer.

Almost nowhere in the book is a positive, forward-looking case made for why a centre right position offers a better prospect for the UK than any other political stance. There is a curious notion throughout that if leaving the EU has had a negative economic impact (and all the contributors appear certain this is the case) then that in itself establishes beyond any other argument that it must be a bad thing and was a mistake. What about principles that may matter more than mere economic gain? If our parents and grandparents had adopted the same view in 1939, we would now all speak German, as fighting the Nazis certainly came at a very significant economic cost.

Michael Heseltine, in his chapter, is at least honest enough to admit that the EEC (as it was then) was sold to the British public as a common market, an economic free trade area, when in reality the project was always intended eventually to result in not only “an ever-closer union” but a united states of Europe. But what if the British people don’t want to be part of a united Europe and were willing to accept some economic cost in breaking free from this project? This proposition appears not even to occur to the book’s authors.

In order to square the circle of claiming to be democrats but at the same time rejecting the results of the largest democratic vote ever to have taken place in the UK, the authors need to trot out the same insulting lies about how those voting to leave the EU didn’t know what they were doing and were somehow less enlightened, less well informed and more easily led than the superior people who voted to remain, conveniently ignoring the scale of untruths which formed the heart of the remain campaign: that if we left there would have to be an emergency budget (untrue), that tax rates would increase dramatically (they actually came down), that share prices would collapse (the FTSE All Share Index ended the year up 16%) and the UK would suffer more terrorist attacks as EU members would refuse to co-operate (and we all thought they co-operated to stop people being murdered, not because we belonged to their club). And so on, as they gave us 'Project Fear'.

Inevitably, the book trots out the tired lie that we were told that if we left the EU the money saved would be spent on the NHS and people are so stupid they fell for it. The truth is the infamous ‘slogan on a bus’ said “We send the EU £350 million a week [which was true, although the correct figure was higher, before rebates], let’s fund our NHS instead”. It did not promise the money would be spent on the NHS because it was the slogan of a campaign group and the government decides funding priorities, not campaign groups and the vast majority of voters fully understand this but the book repeats the claim – itself a falsehood – that people were told it would be spent on the NHS, which is clearly not the case.

And as we’re on the NHS, nowhere in the book will you find any reference to a simple fact: had the UK been a member of the EU when Covid struck, it would have participated in the EU’s vaccine programme, which was something of a car crash, and as a result, tens of thousands of UK residents who are alive today would have died. And yet is seems the ‘centre right’ are so fanatical about the EU that its supporters, at least those contributing to this book, are unwilling to accept that there can be any benefits whatsoever from not being within the EU block. Anyone telling you that leaving the EU is entirely beneficial with no negative impacts and anyone saying the same about remaining a member is clearly deluded and ought to be ignored. As with most things in life, there are benefits and disbenefits to each.

Rory Stewart wastes his chapter by setting out his case that Boris Johnson is an unprincipled cad, a self-serving liar and a complete bounder. Who knew? Who needs fifteen pages hammering the point home? It’s sad that Stewart is so bitter at his political career going up in smoke and blaming Johnson (when he bears much of the responsibility for that outcome himself) but most of us don’t care and already know Johnson is a truth free zone.

Michael Heseltine’s chapter is amusing: it’s well-written, without doubt but oh my goodness, the ego, the ego! I counted at least forty-nine self-references, mentioning every ministerial position he ever held and such gems as “I was involved in the development of President Reagan’s Star Wars Project …”. Apparently, Heseltine believes a united states of Europe is a good thing and that settles the matter. The fact that most UK votes disagree with him is seemingly irrelevant – he knows best and what he thinks is really all that counts.

If this is the best case that can be made for the centre right, it has no future and no hope of persuading anyone to support it.

I'm giving two stars as some of the chapters (Finkelstein, Grieve) are worth reading but most are not, as they're consumed with fighting old battles, rather than offering a brighter vision for our collective futures.
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Harry P. Seaford
3.0 out of 5 stars Buy the paperback not the hardback
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 December 2023
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The text and all this book covers is excellent. However as a product is the hardback worth the extra £20 over the paperback?
Definately NOT!
It's merely a cheap hard card cover
2 people found this helpful
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Simon T
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read, powerful case for the centre right
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 November 2023
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The book is a great collection of essays by 11 authors - all authoritative and experienced in their fields. Collectively they make a strong and powerful case why the U.K. needs a strong centre right voice (something that has been lost by the Conservative Party’s embrace of populism).
3 people found this helpful
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Mr Roberts
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful voices trying to be heard against the din
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 October 2023
An essential book for those in need of hope.
7 people found this helpful
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BC
2.0 out of 5 stars Intellectual Hubris
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 October 2023
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I am yet to finish this book. But that does not matter for my review, because each of the contributors have written an "essay" as a chapter, so there is minimal continuity between each essay. A number of the chapters are thoughtful and considered. But what I am struck by is the "intellectual hubris" of some of the contributors, and particularly those of Lord Andrew Cooper of Windrush, who sets the tone for the rest of the book.

He has written the (first) chapter entitled, "The Realignment of British Politics". He laments that the axis of politics has moved from left vs. right to "open vs. closed", citing PM Blair's 2006 prophecy that political debate in the UK has moved away from "the economy, stupid" (in the words of Bill Clinton) to an argument about globalisation. Lord Cooper's predictable trope from members of the Centre Right is that those who believe in "open" values (the benefits of immigration etc.) are clever, educated, rich, and, at base, correct: "on the right side of history", as Barack Obama would no doubt put it. By contrast, and again predictably, those who are drawn to "closed" values (isolationism, nationalism, reduced immigration etc.) are ill-educated, poor, and "wrong". Lord Cooper singles out Clacton as epitomising a "closed" society, describing it as "one of the poorest, oldest, least well educated, least healthy and most non-diverse places in the UK" and later as a "decaying seaside town". His logic takes this form: (i) the EU is an "open" project; (ii) to support Brexit necessarily means that that voter must have "closed" values; (iii) people who have closed values are typically poor and stupid, as Clacton demonstrates; (iv) Brexit voters are poor and stupid; but (v) Brexit has proven to be a bad idea, socially and economically, so we should ignore the poor and stupid people and reverse Brexit.

I have not made the last step of this reasoning up. Lord Cooper cites with approval the work of Matthew Parris (in full in his conclusion), who said: "I am not arguing that we should be careless of the needs of struggling people and places like Clacton. But I am arguing ... that we should be careless of their opinions".

This is intellectual hubris writ large. It is distasteful, snooty, and grotesquely obtuse. What Lord Cooper fails to understand, and fails to address in his essay, is that the very reason why the poor and ill-educated people of Clacton (as he puts it himself) voted for Brexit, and why the populist tactics - which Lord Cooper laments and attacks - were so successful in the Brexit referendum, is because the pro-Remain "elite" think that the opinions of ordinary voters (read: of poor and stupid people in decaying seaside towns) are necessarily wrong and therefore should be ignored. Lord Cooper, in arguing for an "open" value system (which I wholeheartedly support, by the way), merely reinforces the "closed" thinking he lambasts.

His only policy concrete policy proposal is the assertion that, "if Clacton had a high-speed rail link into London, it would be rejuvenated almost overnight". This, again, is telling. The "rejuvenation" would no doubt be led by the rich, educated, health, diverse London-ers who Lord Cooper sees eye-to-eye on Brexit with, pushing out the ill-educated and unhealthy ordinary Clacton-ers who can carry their wrong opinions somewhere else to be ignored by another Centre Right politician.

I was genuinely saddened by Lord Cooper's chapter. It amounts to "I am right, they are wrong". A much more convincing chapter would have been an investigation into how the Centre Right could make the disaffected seaside Brexit voter feel valued in their job, accepting of multiculturalism, and "open" to the globalisation changes that are here to stay. All I know is that making people feel better about their lot in life (and thereby more likely to vote in favour of the EU) is not by advocating, as Lord Cooper does, that downtrodden voices should be ignored.
5 people found this helpful
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Chris Forwood
1.0 out of 5 stars Verbal diarrhoea
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 November 2023
A LOT of muddled thinking, by people who can neither think nor write.
2 people found this helpful
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