Quote of the day

From the One Nation group of Conservative MPs(pdf):

The central tenet of One Nation Conservatism is that the Party must be a national party rather than merely the representative of sectional interests.

It is important to establish what this means – and what it does not. It is not a search for universal support or the elimination of conflict. No party can represent everyone,certainly not all the time. Much political activity reflects the clash of conflicting interests: there are limits to how far consensus can be achieved, and concepts of ‘national unity’ can be unhealthily authoritarian. In both a geographical and a social sense, some people have been more likely to identify with the Conservative Party than others.

Nonetheless, One Nation Conservatism is committed – in the words of an earlier group of Conservative MPs – to "the maintenance of a national community from which no citizen is excluded."