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Article: The Pelican party. (Bagehot; Great Britain's Conservative Party) (Britain)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- November 17, 1990
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ONLY weeks after Mrs Margaret Thatcher derided the Liberal Democrats as the Dead Parrot party, her own Tories are tearing themselves to pieces. Pelicans, according to myth, are birds that rip their own breasts open; are the Tories now the Pelican party?
If so, the prime minister cannot escape some of the blame. After a year of bad opinion polls and with inflation still mocking their economic hubris, the Conservatives are panicking. Europe may be the casus belli; but a fight for the leadership is happening now because scores of Tory MPs are frightened that, some time in the next 19 months, they may be out of their seats and looking for work. Mr Michael Heseltine's ...