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Humpty Dumpty and novichok

When I was a Leftie, at Cambridge, my abler Tory contemporaries often argued that their Party ought to embrace liberalism. This had nothing to do with the Liberal Party. They were referring to economic and social liberalism: free market economics plus personal freedom. They were drawing on the Bow Group, as it had been when Geoffrey Howe and others founded it. He and other impatient youngsters - this was more than sixty years ago - were fed up with the economic sterility to which the post-War UK seemed condemned. They also believed in the social reforms which came to be associated with Roy Jenkins: legalising homosexuality, abolishing the death penalty, making divorce easier. They were all in favour of entry into Europe, as a means of promoting economic and social progress. They did not realise just what a divisive issue Europe would become.

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