Over the years, Alistair Lexden, formerly Alistair Cooke, has referred to himself inconsistently in his publications as: A.B.Cooke, Alistair B. Cooke, Alistair Cooke, Alistair Lexden and Lord Lexden.
His publications fall into two broad categories: those on British and Irish political history (his greatest lifelong interest); and those on more recent politics,mainly in the years 1983-97 when he was a senior official of the Conservative Party(Assistant,then Deputy, Director of the Conservative Research Department(1983-97) and Director of the Conservative Political Centre(1988-97)), whose duties included writing and editing material on all aspects of Tory policy. During much of this period, he was also deeply involved in trying to promote a greater understanding of the importance of Northern Ireland remaining part of the United Kingdom as Chairman of the Friends of the Union.
The following are not included here: innumerable book reviews in a wide range of newspapers and magazines ; contributions to the Conservative Party’s blue blog(up to 2011) and to the ConservativeHome website( since 2008); a number of short historical articles; unsigned obituaries in The Times,The Daily Telegraph and other publications; forewords and introductions to books written by other people; contributions to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; occasional journalism, chiefly about independent schools with which he was connected as General Secretary of the Independent Schools Council(1997-2004); several hundred letters published in the press—chiefly The Times and The Daily Telegraph—though all those that have appeared since 2011 can be found on this website.
British and Irish History: Books, Booklets, Chapters in Books by Divers Hands , and Articles in Journals and Magazines
*Ireland and Party Politics 1885-7: An Unpublished Conservative Memoir, in the journal Irish Historical Studies (1969)
Gladstone’s Election for the Leith District of Burghs, July 1886, in the Scottish Historical Review (1970)
*Herbert Gladstone, Forster and Ireland 1881-2, in Irish Historical Studies (1971)
*Lord Carlingford’s Journal: Reflections of a Cabinet Minister,1885 (1971)
*Lord Spencer on the Phoenix Park Murders, in Irish Historical Studies (1973)
The Ashbourne Papers 1869-1913 : The Papers of the 1st Lord Ashbourne, Lord Chancellor of Ireland in four Conservative Cabinets(1974)
*The Governing Passion: Cabinet Government and Party Politics in Britain, 1885-86 (1974)
A Conservative Party Leader in Ulster: Sir Stafford Northcote’s Diary of a Visit to the Province, October 1883 (1975)
‘The Great Lord Salisbury’, in The Salisbury Review (1982)
Ulster: The Origins of the Problem (1988)
The Conservative Party: Seven Historical Studies 1680 to the 1990s, Editor and contributor (1997)
The Conservative Party and its Manifestos, in Conservative Party General Election Manifestos 1900-1997 (2000)
The Conservative Research Department 1929-2004 (2004)
The Conservative Research Department’s First 75 Years, in the Conservative History Journal (2004)
*The Carlton Club 1832-2007 (2007)
How Miss Brant Saved the Prime Minister, in the Conservative History Journal (2007)
Dorothy Brant, in Jean Lucas(ed.), Between the Thin Blue Lines (2008)
Miss Brant, in The Salisbury Review (2008)
Tory Heroine: Dorothy Brant and the Rise of Conservative Women (2008
A Party of Change: A Brief History of the Conservatives (2008)
“The Club whose time has come again”: The Carlton Club 1832-2007, in the Conservative History Journal (2008)
Tory Policy-Making: The Conservative Research Department 1929-2009, Editor and contributor (2009)
A Gift from the Churchills: The Primrose League, 1883-2004 (2010)
The Stag at Bay: Disraeli, Bentinck and the Downfall of Peel, in the Conservative History Journal (2011)
The Formation of the Conservative and Unionist Party 100 Years Ago, in the Conservative History Journal (2012)
All in the Name: 100th anniversary of the Renaming of the Conservative Party, in Parliament’s House Magazine(2012)
Enoch Powell and Ulster, in Lord Howard of Rising(ed.), Enoch at 100: A re-evaluation of the Life, Politics and Philosophy of Enoch Powell (2012)
A Conference to Remember [The battle to succeed Harold Macmillan in 1963 ] in Parliament’s House Magazine (2013)
The Hanoverian Succession and the Downfall of the Tory Party: A Tercentenary Essay, in the Conservative History Journal (2014)
The House of Lords and the First World War, in Parliament’s House Magazine (2014)
Hanover Cure [a new Royal dynasty in 1714], in Parliament’s House Magazine(2015)
Wellington and Waterloo : His Victory and the Political Aftermath, in the Conservative History Journal (2015)
*Homage to a Hero and a Masterpiece: The Destruction and Rebirth of Sutherland’s Portrait of Churchill, in The London Magazine (2016)
Never Again [Battle of the Somme], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2016)
Suez 60 Years On, in Parliament’s House Magazine (2016)
“A Theatre Watched by the Whole World”[Parliament and the Abdication Crisis], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2016)
Anthony Eden: A Man of Peace, in the Conservative History Journal (2017)
The Tories and the Somme, in the Conservative History Journal (2017)
The King, the Prime Minister and the Loss of the American Colonies, in The London Magazine (2017)
The Diaries of a Tragic Tory Leader [Sir Stafford Northcote], in The London Magazine (2017)
A Tragic Tory Leader [Sir Stafford Northcote] and His Diaries, in the journal Parliamentary History (2018)
Life’s Work [the introduction of life peerages in 1958], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2018)
Honouring the Courage of the Commonwealth[in the First World War], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2018)
A Perfect Partnership [Chamberlain and Churchill in 1939-40], in The London Magazine (2018)
Neville Chamberlain: Redressing the Balance (2018)
The Suffragists’ Victory, in the Conservative History Journal (2018)
*The 1918 Election and its Consequences, in Journal of Liberal History(2018)
New Dawn for Democracy [in 1918], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2018)
The Champion of National Union [Stanley Baldwin], in the Conservative History Journal (2018)
Stanley Baldwin: A Statesman in Bronze, Editor and principal contributor (2018)
Class of Their Own [Parliamentary Deadlock in 1914 and 2019], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2019)
Leading Question [Tory leadership contests since 1965], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2019)
Airey Neave and Ulster 1975-79, in the Conservative History Journal (2019)
Home Truths [on the origins of one nation conservatism], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2020)
The First Conservative College, in the Conservative History Journal (2020)
VE Day in Parliament: Churchill’s Victory Statement in the Lords Chamber, in the Conservative History Journal(2020)
Churchill’s Unexpected Election Disaster: The 1945 Labour Landslide 75 Years On, in the Conservative History Journal (2020)
Lloyd George and an Anglo-Irish Centenary: The Government of Ireland Act 1920, in the Journal of Liberal History (2020)
Solving a Mrs Thatcher Mystery: A Painting by Alfred Reginald Thomson RA (1894-1979), in The British Art Journal (2020)
Lloyd George and the Versailles Treaty 100 Years On, in 100 Jahre Staatvertrag von St Germain—Der Rest is Osterreich! (2020), a German publication marking the centenary of the Treaty of St Germain in 1919 (which dissolved the Austro-Hungarian Empire): reprinted in the Journal of Liberal History (Winter 2021-22)
The Man Who Enriched—and Robbed—the Tories, in the journal Parliamentary History (2021)
The Empire Shrine that Never Was, in The London Magazine (2021)
Elections to the House of Lords—100 Years of debate, in Parliament’s House Magazine (2022)
Fusty English Customs: Lloyd George and the 1922 Committee, in The London Magazine (2022)
Secrets of the Ballot Box: 150 years of voting in private, in Parliament’s House Magazine (2022)
Basil de Ferranti, in Dianne Hayter & David Harley (eds,), The Forgotten Tribe: British MEPs 1979-2020 (2022)
At the top of the greasy pole: Disraeli’s first premiership, February to December 1868, in the Conservative History Journal (2021-22)
The ‘Great Lord Salisbury’ and Reform of the House of Lords, in the Conservative History Journal (2021-22)
Remembering Sir Henry Wilson, the MP the IRA assassinated—and the Commons forgot, in the Conservative History Journal (2021-22)
Horace Farquhar: A Bad Man Befriended by Kings (2023)
The Island of Ireland [partition a century ago] , in Parliament’s House Magazine (2023)
The King’s Choice [centenary of Baldwin’s appointment as prime minister] , in Parliament’s House Magazine (2023)
A Prime Minister of the left in coalition with the right: Lloyd George and the Unionists, 1918-22 , in the Journal of Liberal History (2023)
A Tory Christian Warrior: The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, in the Conservative History Journal (2023)
Stanley Baldwin: An Unexpected Prime Minister One Hundred Years Ago, in the Conservative History Journal(2023)
A Tale of Two Parties [Origins of Whigs and Tories], in Parliament’s House Magazine (2024)
Politics: The Conservative Party
Comprehensive Surveys of Policy
The Campaign Guide, seven volumes in a series first published in 1892 (1987, 1989, 1991, 1992 [centenary edition],1994,1997, 2005)
Nine Years’ Work: The Achievements of the Conservative Government(1988 with updated versions in subsequent years to 1996)
Edited Speeches of Conservative Leaders
Margaret Thatcher, Our Threatened Environment: The Conservative Response (1990); A Grand Finale: Last Speech as Prime Minister (1990)
Collected speeches with editorial commentaries: Margaret Thatcher, three volumes(1986 and 1989); John Major, three volumes (1991,1992, 1997); David Cameron (2007)
Pamphlets on the Conservative record in specific areas
Northern Ireland (1980, 1982, 1984, 1986)
Education (1982,1985,1986)
Proportional Representation (1983)
Machinery of Government (1984)
The Coal Industry (1984)
Working for Jobs (1985)
Politics: Pamphlets and Articles on Unionism and Northern Ireland
*Making Unionism Positive (1988)
Ulster: The Unionist Options (1990)
Conservatism and Unionism, in Strengthening the Union, proceedings of a Friends of the Union conference(1992)
The Untried Solution: A Stronger Union, policy proposals by the Friends of the Union, Editor (1993)
Strengthening the United Kingdom, policy proposals by the Conservative Poltical Centre, Editor (1996)
The Victory of Ulster’s Extremists, in The Salisbury Review (2007)
Publications as General Secretary of the Independent Schools Council(ISC)
Editorials and articles in the ISC Bulletin (1998-2004)
ISC Schools: The Facts,The Issues, Co-editor (2001)
*Independent Schools, in Liam Gearon (ed.), Education in the United Kingdom:Structure and Organisation (2002)
*co-author