Quote of the day 3rd September 2026

"The whole "but you were in government for 14 years" argument - when used to dismiss any change of policy by the Conservatives or to close down debate about what should happen next - is intellectually absurd.

By that same logic Margaret Thatcher, Keith Joseph and Geoffrey Howe should have been ignored between 1975-79 because they all served under Ted Heath. They had four years in government that gave Britain the Barber boom, statutory wage and price controls, the miners’ strike in 1972 and the Three-Day Week. 

Yet the whole significance of Thatcherism was that the Conservatives learnt from the failure of the policies and assumptions they had previously accepted. 

Political parties are supposed to learn from failure, not remain permanently imprisoned by it. 

The test is not whether Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives have changed their minds. It is whether their new diagnosis is correct and the policies they put forward are capable of addressing the problems they have identified."

Maurice Cousins on X.

Maurice Cousins on X: "The whole "but you were in government for 14 years" argument - when used to dismiss any change of policy by the Conservatives or to close down debate about what should happen next - is intellectually absurd. By that same logic Margaret Thatcher, Keith Joseph and Geoffrey Howe https://t.co/mUvQUe3iFi" / X

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