When he was a teenager, Winston Churchill is thought to have told James Humes, a future Presidential speechwriter, to “study history” for in it “lies all the secrets of statecraft”. Unlike most of the quotations the internet attributes to the great man, this one seems to be genuine. Even if it isn’t, it has long been a boon for any history department desperate to attract a few ambitious students. Unfortunately for Britain, our politicians today seem all too often to have failed to have taken Churchill’s advice.
Anthony Seldon, the self-styled chronicler of modern British history, whose latest volume on the Truss era is out this week, claims to have “never known more ignorance of history than among today’s politicians”. The last Labour prime minister with a history degree was Gordon Brown. The last Tory was Alec Douglas-Home (he got a gentleman’s Third). And to the extent that modern politicians are called upon to think about history, it usually involves commenting on their predecessors. Boris Johnson had his Churchill biography, enjoyable in direct proportion to the outrage it induced among knighted professors. Liz Truss aimed to channel Margaret Thatcher through her wardrobe, like a voodoo C. S. Lewis. Keir Starmer chose Harold Wilson as his favourite former Labour leader.
But this approach is more exposing than revealing. Over the course of this Tory leadership campaign, the six candidates have been asked to pick their political heroes. Their choices mixed Thatcherite notables – Kemi Badenoch opted for Airey Neave and Priti Patel the Iron Lady tout seul, with Robert Jenrick picking Keith Joseph and Nigel Lawson – and US Presidents. Tom Tugendhat opted for Dwight Eisenhower, Mel Stride for JFK, and James Cleverly for Ronald Reagan. Just as Starmer picked Wilson because he brought together a fractured party, these picks tell us how each of the candidates sees themselves. Patel and Cleverly’s token similarities to their chosen idols are obvious. Stride’s selection was more aspirational: he suggested he liked Kennedy’s call to do things not because they were easy but because they were hard, hoping perhaps, at 62, to capture some of his hero’s youthful élan.
Not for nothing did Tugendhat pick a former military man with no prior experience of economic or social policy, or did Jenrick opt for a Tory who only realised what it meant to be right-wing when he was out of office. Badenoch opting for Neave is probably the most ambitious implicit comparison. Thatcher’s campaign manager escaped from Colditz. Some wish Badenoch could be freed from her X account. Nonetheless, she has previously hailed Neave’s choosing to become Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, despite the assassination risks that eventually took his life, as an example of a politician wanting to achieve something rather than be someone. A noble sentiment, most often trotted out when politicians are running for their party’s leadership. But at least she has read his biography.
Even so, in a party whose history can be traced back to the Exclusion Crisis, it’s notable that the candidates have either chosen Americans or icons of the Thatcher cult. Despite Dominic Sandbrook’s best efforts, no space has been made for Stanley Baldwin. Tugendhat has also spoken positively about Harold Macmillan, but today’s Conservative Party sees building council houses as not far off a mortal sin. There are good reasons for picking a hero associated with Thatcher. She was the last Tory to win three elections and to succeed in setting Evelyn Waugh’s clock of conservatism back a single second. The revivifying of conservatism that she and Joseph managed between 1975 and 1979 has already been held up as a model for today’s opposition. Similarly, presidents become known by their characters, great men of history to be aped or despised.
But still. It puts one in mind of Truss’s recent GB News interview. When asked which Conservative leader was her favourite, other than Churchill or Thatcher, the 49-Day Queen paused, strained, and eventually answered: “Well, I like Javier Milei.” Since Argentina’s President was only elected last December, this does not suggest that Truss has the most extensive of historical hinterlands. She also appeared confused when asked whether she favoured a foreign policy approach closer to that of William Gladstone or Benjamin Disraeli. As a former Liberal Democrat, one would hope she had a little knowledge of at least one of those. Once she had it explained to her, she couldn’t see the relevance. Morality against realpolitik is not a debate that Truss worries herself with.
You may very well think that this belies the paucity behind the eyes of Britain’s worst-ever prime minister. I couldn’t possibly comment. Nonetheless, Truss might have a point. Is history really that useful to politicians? Can we at once condemn someone for not knowing much history, and then for aping their heroes? History has no set lessons and no set answers. But even the most desiccated PPE-ist would see that that is nonsense. History might teach no set lessons, but reading it, as Churchill suggested, provides a depth of knowledge and wisdom about the world that no other subject can match. If nothing else, it does at least let us know that nothing new is under the sun. If a little party history was good enough for Churchill, it’s good enough for Truss.
But what pressure is there for politicians to read detailed history today? Not only because Wikipedia is at our fingertips, but because the subject itself is reduced, a collection of vibes and folk memories to be deployed as the backdrop to period dramas or to appease the party faithful. Far more Tory MPs will have watched The Crown than have read The History of the English-Speaking Peoples. Why bother? Even some of the most established tropes of Tory history are based on distortions. Benjamin Disraeli’s name has become most associated with “One Nation Conservatism” – a phrase he never used and which today bears little resemblance to his record in office. But generations of his successors – from Churchill to Baldwin – tacked his name onto whichever initiative they were pursuing.
What they were interested in was taking a little credibility from a politician they thought greater than themselves. Against their chosen heroes, Tory leadership candidates are pygmies. But they are acting in the same spirit. In the absence of an ideology, the blessing of one’s ancestors is the route to party sanctity. If today’s Tories lack deep learning, it’s an indictment of a political system that long since stopped thinking it was necessary. If in history lies all the secrets of statecraft, not knowing any might explain why my party is in the state it’s in. But as long as paying fealty to the Lady is the depth of knowledge required from any candidate, the pressure to learn a little will remain absent.
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