Hearts and Minds: The Battle for the Conservative Party from Thatcher to the Present

An important new book by one of Britain's great liberal thinkers, Hearts and Minds is part memoir, part political history and part history of ideas.

In it, former Cabinet minister Oliver Letwin explains how the central ideas and policies of the modern Conservative party came into being, how they have played out over the period from Mrs Thatcher to Mrs May, and what needs to happen next in order to make the country a better place to live.

Far from being a sugar-coated version of events, Letwin tells a story that he hopes will persuade readers that politicians are capable of recognising their mistakes and learning from them – and will show that social and economic liberalism, if correctly conceived, are capable of addressing the issues that confront us today.

The book also describes Letwin’s own journey from a remarkable childhood with American academic parents, via Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit, into the very centre of first the Conservative—Liberal Democrat coalition, and then the Cameron government, where, as Minister for Government Policy and then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, every piece of government policy crossed his desk.

It includes Letwin’s personal reflections on two devastating electoral events: the EU referendum and the general election of June 2017.

The Rt Hon. Sir Oliver Letwin is the Member of Parliament for West Dorset. He the author of three books - Ethics, Emotion and the Unity of the Self, Privatising the World and The Purpose of Politics - as well as many pamphlets and articles. He has been a civil servant (serving in Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit), an investment banker, a Member of Parliament and a Cabinet minister (where he served first as Minister for Government Policy and then as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster). He became a privy councillor in 2002 and was knighted in 2016.