Biography
I graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2015 with a BA in History and subsequently spent a year as the Craig Scholar at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where I studied for a one-year master’s degree. Having returned to Cambridge to undertake a PhD, I intend to continue my research into the reshaping of the Conservative Party’s political and electoral strategy during the 1970s and 1980s.
It was in the course of research for my undergraduate dissertation on the development of the ‘U-turn’ narrative in 1970s Conservative politics that I became convinced that a preoccupation amongst academics with the ideological dimensions of Thatcherism has obscured the importance of contingent concerns, in particular the constraint of public opinion and efforts to shape it, to the coherence of the Thatcherite project. During my time at Brown University, I reflected further on the extent to which the transnational New Right’s conceptions of social change and the dissemination of ideas were central to the transformation of conservative politics. My doctoral work will extend these insights in endeavouring to trace the process and limits of the Conservative Party’s attempts to overcome the constraints of the purported post-war consensus and generate a new style of Conservative governance.
Other academic interests
Political theory, political culture, social theory, class cultures, the language of politics, psephology.
