Stuart Ball (1)

Stuart Ball explores this remarkable record in an innovative way, taking a thematic rather than a chronological approach. He begins with the foundations of Conservative principles, attitudes, and identities, and examines the nature of the party's electoral support. He investigates the Conservative toon meer Party as an organism, uncovering the composition, roles, and relationships of every level, from the local grass-roots, through the party machine and the parliamentary ranks, to the Cabinet Ministers and the Party Leader. Portrait of a Party is based upon a wide range of archives-including the personal papers of all five Party Leaders, nearly 50 Cabinet Ministers, and 85 backbench MPs, party officials, and others-combined with the rich resources of the national and regional records at the Conservative Party Archive, and a major investigation to locate all the significant collections of local Conservative Association records in England, Scotland, and Wales: a total of 215 constituencies, from Truro to Inverness. These sources shed new light on topics which are essential to an understanding of British history in the inter-war period and the development the Conservative Party to the present day. toon minder