A selection of Lord Lexden's letters this year to The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The New Statesman, The Spectator and others. You can read letters from previous years in the menu to the left.
06/07/24 - A great Prime Minister's early death
The Spectator
Sir: Richard Symington errs in stating that the Younger Pitt died of liver disease (Letter, 22 June). The surviving medical records point strongly to gastric or duodenal ulceration, which can now be cured in a few days by antibiotic and acid-reducing drugs.
Alistair Lexden
London SW1
24/06/24 - Labour's education tax: sheer prejudice against independent schools
The Times
Sir, Labour says that its VAT levy on independent schools will be included in its first finance bill (report, Jun 21). Rachel Reeves claims to set great store by the verdict of the Office for Budget Responsibility on her plans and says she will not implement a budget until it has considered them. But what if the OBR finds that instead of raising new resources for the recruitment of extra teachers, the education tax will add to the state sector’s overall costs by driving large numbers of independent school pupils into it? A fiscally responsible government would at that point abandon the tax. If it persisted, it would show that the policy was driven by sheer prejudice against independent schools.Labour must make its position on this clear.
Lord Lexden
President, Independent Schools Association
07/06/24 - Selecting candidates at short notice
The Times
Sir, Are we going back to the era of the pocket borough? It was common enough 200 years ago for constituencies to get MPs without reference to the wishes of local people. It would seem that the Conservative Party today sees merit in that practice (“Backlash as safe seat is given to Tory chairman”, Jun 6). In 1998 the party agreed a constitution which was supposed to make it open and democratic. In reality, its internal affairs at national level are largely under the control of unaccountable, short-term officials, working alongside an appointed party chairman who is often a transient and embarrassed phantom, in Disraeli’s phrase.
Lord Lexden
Conservative Party historian
18/05/24 - The man Lord Randolph forgot
The Daily Telegraph
SIR-- George Goschen, who was made a viscount in 1900 on his retirement after a long political career, would have been appalled that Seacox House, which he bulit in 1871, should have passed into the hands of the Russians, enabling them to endanger the security of his country (“Secrets of the Kent Kremlin: Putin’s English spy mansion”, report, May 9). The great imperialist Lord Milner praised Goschen for his “ardent, unquenchable, almost boyish, patriotism.” He could not stand the thought that Ireland might be separated from the rest of the United Kingdom. He deserted Gladstone’s Liberals to fight Irish home rule. Queen Victoria would have happily made him prime minister in 1885-6 if he had been able to muster sufficient political support.
He is recalled today only as a result of Lord Randolph Churchill’s famous quip that “he forgot Goschen” when he tendered his resignation as Chancellor of the Exchequer in December 1886, believing that he was irreplaceable. Goschen ought to be remembered as a tireless defender of Britain’s greatness and freedom.
Lord Lexden
London SW1
23/04/24 - The rebirth of Sutherland's portrait of Churchill
The Daily Telegraph
SIR -- Graham Sutherland’s preliminary work for his controversial portrait of Churchill possesses all the qualities which made this great artist so famous (“Draft portrait destroyed by Churchill on sale for £800k”, report,17 April).
The finished portrait was later carefully recreated by a naturalised Englishman, Albrecht von Leyden MBE (1905-94), who had a huge admiration for both the painter and his subject. He felt strongly that the portrait ought not to be lost for ever.
Using Sutherland’s various preparatory sketches and detailed notes provided by his widow, von Leyden painted a faithful copy in 1981. He explained that his aim was above all to capture Churchill’s “defiance, resolution and contempt [for Hitler], which I felt sure had been the purpose of Graham Sutherland.” This picture, so painstakingly done, was presented to the Carlton Club in 1991, where it remains. Churchill’s daughter, Lady Soames, came to see it and agreed that the club should “act as its guardian”.
Lord Lexden
Co-author, The Destruction and Rebirth of Sutherland’s Portrait of Churchill (2016)
London SW1
26/03/24 - Women at the Carlton
The Daily Telegraph
SIR -- “Even places like the Carlton”, Ed Cumming notes, have admitted women as members (Features, March 22).
The Carlton Club certainly took its time. From the 1920s until 1958, a separate Ladies’ Carlton Club existed, lavishly equipped with squash courts and a swimming pool.
Agitation for a change in the Carlton’s rules began after Margaret Thatcher became Conservative leader in 1975. The Carlton got round the immediate problem by making her an honorary member, just like all her predecessors, since, curiously, women were not barred from that category of membership.
Two years later, women started to be admitted as associate members, paying a lower subscription - much to delight of the financially prudent among them. By the 1990s their admission as full members had gained wide support, creating bitter division within the club. A number of members resigned. Two votes in 1998 and another in the year 2000 produced a majority for change, but not the two-thirds majority that the Club’s rules stipulated.
That was finally obtained in 2007, the year of the Club’s 175th anniversary.
Lord Lexden
Co-author The Carlton Club 1832-2007 (2007)
London SW1
12/03/24 - Balfour and Palestine
The Times
Sir, Trinity College, Cambridge, might have been expected to condemn rather than merely “regret” the serious damage done to its portrait of Arthur Balfour, a formidable Tory intellectual who was a conscientious Chancellor of Cambridge University for 11 years (“Portrait of Balfour ripped and defaced by pro-Palestinian group”, Mar 9). The 1917 Balfour Declaration did not begin “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine”, as the vandals assert. Its author envisaged no more than “a small notch in what are now Arab territories being given to a people who for hundreds of years have been separated from them.” He hoped for “sympathetic goodwill on the part of Jew and Arab” to develop their common home.
Lord Lexden
Conservative Party historian
06/03/24 - Would the Queen have smiled?
The Daily Telegraph
SIR -- Queen Victoria was notoriously greedy. When her doctor tried to put her on a diet, she dutifully ate his healthy choices in addition to her normal huge meals.
One of the few things she did not care for was jam. She would have regarded it as quite unsuitable as an adornment for the marble bust of her in Glasgow (report, March 4). She loved orange jelly. If the environmental protesters had chosen that favourite food, she might have been amused.
Lord Lexden
London SW1
07/02/24 - Kings and cancer
The Times
Sir, It is immensely poignant that the King’s cancer diagnosis should have been announced the day before the 72nd anniversary of the sudden death of his grandfather, George VI, who suffered from cancer. Though he had undergone a serious operation to remove most of his left lung the previous September, he was left in the dark by his doctors about his condition. Winston Churchill, then prime minister, seems to have been almost the only person who knew the truth. Circumstances today are very different. King Charles will be kept properly informed by his doctors as his treatment proceeds, with an infinitely greater chance of success.
Lord Lexden
Conservative Party historian
03/02/24 - No united Ireland
The Daily Telegraph
SIR -- The excellent Ruth Dudley Edwards brings good news of Sinn Fein’s growing difficulties in the Irish Republic (Comment, February 1).
In Northern Ireland, its acquisition of the post of first minister on the return of devolved government will produce much confident talk about the inevitability of a united Ireland. The reality, as polls show, is that supporters of the Union, among whom are many Roman Catholics, outnumber those who want to leave it by two to one.
The Unionist majority can be expected to grow, since Sinn Fein seems unable to produce competent ministers. It has never managed to bring forward a budget capable of gaining the support of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Good government will depend on the Unionist parties in the Assembly. They deserve the wholehearted backing of Conservatives in Parliament, who should remember the full name of their party: Conservative and Unionist.
Airey Neave, for whom I worked long ago, never forgot his party’s overriding purpose.
Lord Lexden
London SW1
20/01/24 - Stepping out - backwards
The Daily Telegraph
SIR -- The ancient office of Lord Chamberlain will soon have a fresh incumbent (report, January 16).
The new holder of this august post will no doubt be relieved to know that about eight years ago the duties ceased to include walking backwards before the Sovereign at state functions. Those who were quite good at it in the past sometimes had to cope with an unruly companion, the Lord Steward.
Viscount Sandhurst, a very successful Lord Chamberlain under George V, recorded in his diary what happened at a state banquet for the President of Brazil in May 1919: “the long walk backwards from the Bow Room where the King and Queen received to the Ball Room I managed all right, but Farquhar [Lord Steward] was awful. Had it been a race Farquhar would have been disqualified for bumping and he was never in step. He bumped me, then recoiled and bumped again.”
Farquhar, about whom I have published a short biography, survived for another three years before finally being sacked.
Lord Lexden
London SW1