1922 Committee
A01=Lee David Evans
Author_Lee David Evans
Brexit
Carlton Club
Category=JPF
Category=JPFT
Category=JPH
Category=JPHL
Category=JPL
Edward Heath
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
grassroots politics
leadership elections
Liz Truss
Margaret Thatcher
no-confidence votes
stalking horse
Product details
- ISBN 9781788219006
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jun 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
The Conservative Party and its leaders have shaped modern Britain. Who leads the Conservative Party matters, but how do they get to the top of their party?
Historically, leaders were expected to "emerge" through unknown and unknowable processes, typically involving the monarch and party grandees. Every party leader until the 1960s was chosen this way. But as postwar Britain embraced all things modern and meritocratic, the Tory party’s traditional ways of working appeared out of touch. The rules were changed subsequently and again after the 1997 landslide defeat. Tory MPs now decide which two candidates are to be put to a members’ vote. A decision which has resulted in the ignominious situation of a leader elected without the support of the parliamentary party.
In this lively telling of Conservative Party history, Lee Evans asks whether the leadership election rules are the source of the party’s current decline and considers what a more effective process might look like for choosing and deposing the leader while in opposition or in office.
Lee David Evans is John Ramsden Fellow at the Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London.
