 | |
| Formation | 7 February 1951; 74 years ago (1951-02-07) |
|---|---|
| Type | Public policythink tank |
| Headquarters | London |
Official language | English |
Chairman | Ben Harris-Quinney |
Key people | Geoffrey Howe,Norman Lamont,Roger Scruton,David Starkey,Norman Tebbit |
| Website | www |
TheBow Group is a UK-basedthink tank promoting conservative opinion. Founded in 1951, it is the oldest group of its kind, counting many seniorConservative Party MPs and peers among its members. It represents a forum for political debate with its varied programme of events and official journal.
Although often associated with the Conservative Party, the group is now perhaps better categorised as a right-wing think tank.[1] The Bow Group exists to publish and promote the research and policy proposals of its members, through policy papers, policy briefs and larger collaborative projects.[citation needed]
The group's journal,Crossbow, usually published four times a year, and the group's programme of meetings during the parliamentary year also provide its members and guest speakers and writers with a forum for political debate.[citation needed]
The Bow Group accepts applications for membership. It also accepts outside donations, sponsorship and advertising.[2]
The chairman of the Bow Group has been Ben Harris-Quinney since 2011. In 2015, he was disowned by four of the Bow Group's patrons and suspended from the Conservative Party.[3][4] In 2016, he was accused byAndrew Neil on BBC'sDaily Politics show of being a "Walter Mitty figure" and dismissed byLord Heseltine as being "of no account".[5] The commentatorIain Dale has accused him of having turned the Bow Group into an "impotent and irrelevant vehicle for Harris-Quinney to seek airtime for himself".[6]
The Bow Group was founded by a group of students with the aim of providing an effective counter tosocialism and theFabian Society. Since then, it has expanded under chairmen such asGeoffrey Howe,Leon Brittan,Norman Lamont,Michael Howard,Peter Lilley,Christopher Bland, andDavid Campbell Bannerman.[7]
Much of the group's thought can be categorised as conservatism supporting both amarket economy andsocial responsibility. The reputation of the group was founded on the need for innovative conservative thinking to address the pressing problems of the day. In keeping with this trend, it was The Bow Group which promoted the idea of a World Refugee Year in the late 1950s. In the 1960s, the group attracted significant controversy in Conservative circles over its support forKenyan independence. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the group was closely associated with the development ofpost-Keynesian economics and government policy forthe Artsetc.[8] The publication in 1973 of Peter Lilley'sAlternative Manifesto marked the beginnings of the intellectual shift from the policies of theHeath government. The group was later in the vanguard of developing policy on privatisation and new enterprise zones, and promoting the extension of share ownership. The group continued to publish pamphlets on a wide range of issues during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.[9]
In July 2012, the Bow Group, reflecting on 60 years of its history in British politics, appointed former British Prime MinisterJohn Major as its President and Lords Howe, Howard and Lamont as its Senior Patrons to serve on the advisory board of the organisation.[10] In 2014 the conservative academicsDavid Starkey andRoger Scruton joined the advisory board,[11] with Scruton addressing the Group on the difference between modern Conservatism and ideologicalconservatism.[12] In 2015Norman Tebbit, formerConservative Party chairman and long-term confidant ofMargaret Thatcher, also joined the board. Addressing the organisation at a lecture prior to his appointment he criticised the centrism and lack of ideological clarity in the modern Conservative Party,[13] and called for an end to the "Bedroom Tax".[11]
In May 2015, with polls pointing to ahung Parliament in the run up to the2015 general election, the Bow Group chairman, Ben Harris-Quinney, called on voters in marginal constituencies to support the values of conservatism by votingUK Independence Party (UKIP) where Conservative Party candidates could not win, and the Conservatives where UKIP could not win.[14] However, this suggestion oftactical voting was opposed by Bow GrouppatronsLordsHeseltine,Howard andLamont, in a joint statement.[15]
In 2015, Lord Tebbit was appointed as the Bow Group's President, replacing Sir John Major who had stepped down in 2014.[16]
The Bow Group was a supporter ofBrexit and worked with both pro-Brexit campaigns to support Britain's exit from the EU.[17]
In 2016, long-standing member Heseltine was removed from the organisation on the basis that he did not support conservative ideals. He was criticised by the group's then-President, Lord Tebbit, for being a "backstabber" and betraying Britain in favour of the European Union.[18]
In March 2012, the Bow Group released a report opposing the Government's plans to trial badger culling in England, stating that the findings of the previous Labour government's major badger culling trials several years earlier were that culling does not work. The paper was authored by Graham Godwin-Pearson with a foreword byBrian May and contributions by leadingtuberculosis scientists, includingLord Krebs.[19][20][21]
In April 2012, at a Bow Group debate with David Starkey,Shami Chakrabarti andKwasi Kwarteng, Starkey described Scottish First MinisterAlex Salmond as a "Caledonian Hitler".[22]
In May 2013, the Bow Group warned MPs of the dangers of privatisingRoyal Mail, including the potential for stamps to increase in price, the threat to rural Post Offices and the political danger to the Conservative Party. The Bow Group also warned that Royal Mail was being significantly under-valued by the Government in its flotation by over £1 billion, which proved to be accurate.[23]
In April 2014Priti Patel, writing in the Bow Group'sCrossbow magazine, called for the coalition to come to an end stating that the country wanted to see "more Conservative policies", and with growth figures of 2.7% the reasons for the existence of the Coalition Government had "effectively expired".[24] These calls were echoed by the Chairman of the1922 CommitteeGraham Brady, at a Bow Group debate in July 2014.[25]
In October 2015 the Bow Group joined theLeave.EU organisation and declared it would be campaigning forBritain's exit from the European Union.[26]