Tory grandees urge Conservatives to channel Margaret Thatcher’s 'zeal' to 'save' Britain from Corbyn government

The Conservative Party has been warned by two Tory grandees that they are losing "the battle of ideas" against Labour and must harness the zeal of Margaret Thatcher to "save Britain" from a Jeremy Corbyn led government.

Former party chairman Lord Saatchi and 1922 Committee chair Graham Brady penned a joint article in The Telegraph on Sunday, claiming that the party needs to grit its teeth as “defenders of a discredited status quo”.

The article serves as a precursor to "New Generation", an initiative that Home Secretary Amber Rudd will launch on Monday that looks to draw ideas from MPs to “showcase the talent, the energy and the ideas on the centre-right”.

The initiative has been spearheaded by the Centre For Policy Studies (CPS), the think tank created by Baroness Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph in 1974.

Some are seeing Ms Rudd’s speech as an effort to integrate the potential conservative leader amongst the party faithful, old and new, as well as shifting focus away from Momentum, the 31,000-strong grass roots organisation which was built from the leader of the Opposition’s initial election victory.

Both Lord Saatchi and Mr Brady state that the new voices of recently elected MPs will be devising “fresh thinking”, while the government continues to engage with “the monumental, and necessary, task of steering Britain through the Brexit process”.

“At the moment, the wrong ideas are winning. The British people think that business can’t be trusted. That the free market isn’t working. That the rich get richer, and the rest get screwed.

“That is why, rather than being terrified at the prospect of a hard-left government, many of them ­actively welcome it – to the point where at the last election, Jeremy Corbyn was only 2,227 votes from power,” the article continued.

“The challenge facing the CPS, and others, is to meet the challenges of the 21st century with the same zealous spirit that Joseph and Thatcher did back then.

“To show the public that we know how to fix the problems they face. To explain why Conservative solutions can help. To come up with solutions that are as appealing, and encapsulate our principles as perfectly, as the sale of council houses back in the Eighties.

“If we are to save Britain from a Corbyn government, the case for the market needs to be made once again. Not just with slogans, but by the kind of concrete, practical, aspirational policies that these politicians, and the many others who are engaging with this project, are producing.

“Conservative ideas and Conservative policies have helped make Britain a better place. Now is not the time for us to lose faith in our beliefs – but to show why, and how, they can meet the challenges of this turbulent era.”