AFTER Michael Howard’s spectacular falling out with the White House the most influential Tory in Washington is now said to be Oliver Letwin’s mother — who died 12 years ago.
A book about Baroness Thatcher written by the Shadow Chancellor’s late mother Shirley Letwin is being regularly quoted by Karl Rove, the President’s chief political adviser, in top-level discussions of Republican domestic policy.
The Anatomy of Thatcherism, an academic analysis of the achievements of the Thatcher years written in 1992, is said to have inspired President Bush’s second-term thinking with its focus on “vigorous values”, notably the impact of “the ownership society”.
While Mr Howard is persona non grata in Washington after attacking Tony Blair’s support of the Iraq war, Liam Fox, the Tory co-chairman, has kept strong links with Mr Rove and has heard him quoting Shirley Letwin at length.
At a private meeting between Dr Fox and Mr Rove, disclosed in The Spectator magazine today, the powerful Bush adviser said that Letwin’s analysis of Thatcherism was being used to “recast the domestic political debate” in America.
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Mr Rove read to Dr Fox from the book to explain how the ownership society fitted in with President Bush’s mission to “extend the frontiers of freedom” at home, as abroad.
Mr Rove quoted Letwin, who died in 1993, as saying: “The Thatcherite argues that being one’s own master — in the sense of owning one’s own home or disposing of one’s own property — provides an incentive to think differently about the world. The Thatcherite, whilst not believing that patterns of ownership absolutely determine people’s moral attitudes, nevertheless stresses that the two are connected, and sees in wider individual ownership a means of promoting moral attitudes Thatcherism seeks to cultivate.”
Mr Rove is said to be fascinated by what Letwin calls “vigorous virtues”, the patterns of behaviour encouraged by the status of ownership that underpinned Thatcherism.
In a recent speech to a Washington think-tank, Mr Rove also referred to the Shirley Letwin book. According to The Spectator, he said: “The closest analogy to what President Bush is attempting to do with his emphasis on an ‘ownership society’ may be found in the policies of Margaret Thatcher.”
The magazine suggests that the White House fascination with Thatcher and its antipathy to Mr Howard “shows how detached the two have become in the American mind — the Tories are no longer seen as guardians of the Thatcherite flame”.
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Dr Fox is attempting to keep alive the relationship between the Conservatives and the Republicans through his Atlantic Bridge think-tank which led to his audience with Mr Rove.
The Tory co-chairman told Dr Rove that Britain under Labour was increasingly looking towards Europe rather than the US and warned him that the Labour leader who succeeds Mr Blair would not be so pro-American. Dr Fox said: “Blair is not typical of his party’s views towards America. This is the party of unilateral disarmament in the Cold War, several of whose leaders have been strongly and vocally anti-American.”