Formation | 1973 |
---|---|
Type | Public policy think tank |
Headquarters | London |
Official language | English |
Chairman | John Wilkin |
Affiliations | Conservative Party |
Website | www |
The Selsdon Group is a British free-market economics pressure group, closely associated with the Conservative Party. Selsdon Group members believe that economic freedom is the indispensable condition for political and social freedom. The group's President is John Redwood MP.
It was created in 1973 by a group of young libertarian Conservatives, with David Alexander as first chairman and Nicholas Ridley as first president, in order to promote free-market economic policies. This followed a conference held in January 1970 by Edward Heath and his shadow cabinet at the Selsdon Park Hotel in Selsdon, with the purpose of generating fresh policy ideas. The Selsdon Group took its name from this event.
The result of the 1970 discussions was a radical free-market agenda, ridiculed by the then Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson as the work of "Selsdon Man". Wilson lost the subsequent general election to Heath. After a short period, however, Heath abandoned the 1970 manifesto in the face of bitter opposition from the trade unions. This historic U-turn was the catalyst for the formation of the Selsdon Group in 1973. A handful of young libertarian Conservatives, including David Alexander, Stephen Eyres, Philip Vander Elst, Anthony Vander Elst, and Richard S. Henderson created the new group, with Nicholas Ridley as president, in order to uphold and promote the free-market policies that they believed had won the Conservative Party the 1970 general election.
The "Selsdon Declaration", to which all members must subscribe, was adopted at the Selsdon Group's first meeting, held at the Selsdon Park Hotel in September 1973. Nicholas Ridley closed his keynote speech at that meeting by citing the "Ten Cannots" of William J. H. Boetcker, adding that it "could well become the guiding principle of the Selsdon Group". (As often occurs with citations of Boetcker's document, Ridley wrongly attributed the quotation to Abraham Lincoln.) [1] [2] Early members informally stressed that the Group commemorated and advanced the general principles of the Selsdon Declaration, rather than the detail of what they regarded as an inadequate document.
The group was criticised by many figures within the Conservative Party establishment at the time. Many of its policies, however, influenced later governments led by Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was a British politician and stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.
Sir Edward Richard George Heath, often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath also served for 51 years as a Member of Parliament from 1950 to 2001. Outside politics, Heath was a yachtsman, a musician, and an author.
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Selsdon is an area in South-East London, England, located in the London Borough of Croydon, in the ceremonial county of Greater London. Prior to 1965 it was in the historic county of Surrey. It is located south of Coombe and Addiscombe, south west of Forestdale, West Wickham, Addington north of Hamsey Green and Farleigh, and east of Sanderstead.
Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale,, was a British Conservative Party politician and government minister. As President of the Selsdon Group, a free-market lobby within the Conservative Party, he was closely aligned with Margaret Thatcher, and became one of her Ministers of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1979. Responsible for the Falkland Islands, he tried to resolve the long-running sovereignty issue with Argentina, which detected Britain's reluctance to defend the territory, and later invaded it.
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Libertarianism in the United Kingdom can either refer to a political movement synonymous with anarchism, left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism, or to a political movement concerned with the pursuit of propertarian right-libertarian ideals in the United Kingdom which emerged and became more prominent in British politics after the 1980s neoliberalism and the economic liberalism of the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, albeit not as prominent as libertarianism in the United States in the 1970s and the presidency of Republican Ronald Reagan during the 1980s.
Tory! Tory! Tory! is a 2006 BBC Television documentary series on the history of the people and ideas that formed Thatcherism told through the eyes of those on the New Right. It was nominated for the best Historical Documentary at the Grierson Awards in 2006. The name is based on the 1970 Pearl Harbor war film Tora! Tora! Tora!
Selsdon Park Hotel is a luxury hotel located in Selsdon, London, England. It is housed in a country house.
Sir Adam Nicholas Ridley is a British economist, civil servant, and banker.
The Bruges speech was given by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to the College of Europe at the Belfry of Bruges, Belgium, on 20 September 1988. Thatcher was opposed to any moves to transition the European Economic Community (EEC) into a federal Europe that would take powers away from its members. She considered European Commission president Jacques Delors a campaigner for federalisation and clashed with him publicly. Earlier in 1988, Delors had reaffirmed his commitment for the EEC to take a greater role in establishing European economic, fiscal and social legislation, which Thatcher considered provocative. On 8 September, Delors spoke to Britain's Trades Union Congress, calling for their support.
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