It was reported recently that the Countess of Swinton had won a seat on her local council in North Yorkshire as a Lib Dem. Alistair Lexden, Conservative Party historian, felt that there were lessons to be learnt.
“How should Conservatives react to the news that Lady Swinton, whose castle was once a great Tory stronghold, has been elected as a Lib Dem councillor, ridiculing their party as “a bit of a kind of pantomime”? They should reflect on the case for making provision once again for the kind of serious political education that took place in part of her castle between 1948 and 1975.
“Some 54,000 party members took part in courses at Swinton Conservative College. Norman Tebbit and Cecil Parkinson sat alongside constituency chairmen, activists and agents in the 1960s. Margaret Thatcher was given a memorable grilling as Education Secretary in the early 1970s.
“A successor to the College should be established in some congenial place where members of the party, in and out of parliament, could meet on equal terms again for detailed political discussion, and so help lay the ground for an effective election programme.
“The current Lady Swinton might then reconsider her defection. Perhaps the castle itself might ultimately regain the role it acquired in the time of the first Earl of Swinton, a member of Tory cabinets between 1922 and 1955.”
