My dad's bewhiskered friend had 見解（をとる）s that'd make Dave wince. But today's Tories need his 肉親，親類d of working-class hero
The late Sir Rhodes Boyson: Once met, he was never forgotten
Once met, my late father’s 広大な／多数の／重要な friend Sir Rhodes Boyson could never be forgotten. With his mutton-chop whiskers, baggy 注目する，もくろむs (look who’s talking), his 大規模な fob watch and 幅の広い Lancashire accent, he might have stepped straight out of a Dickens novel.
特に, he seemed to have escaped from the pages of Nicholas Nickleby ― and friends and political 敵s alike 愛称d him Wackford Squeers, after the cruel headmaster of Dotheboys Hall.
But although Sir Rhodes had himself been a headmaster, who fully 株d Squeers’s belief in the efficacy of the 茎, the similarities ended there. For while Dickens’s character was a brute, 恐れるd and despised by his pupils, Boyson was unfailingly good-humoured and exuded 感染性の 好意／親善.
No 疑問, many of those he taught made fun of him behind his 支援する, for he was an eminently imitable gift to schoolboy satirists. But I 嫌疑者，容疑者／疑う that most loved and 尊敬（する）・点d their old-fashioned 長，率いる, realising that for all his 主張 on strict discipline, the three Rs and the importance of morning 議会, he was fundamentally on their 味方する.
Certainly, 地元の parents 高く評価する／（相場などが）上がるd his methods. For under his headship, Highbury Grove 包括的な, in a run-負かす／撃墜する area of Islington, became the most oversubscribed school in London ― 達成するing academic wonders from an intake that most teachers, then as now, would 解任する as hopelessly unpromising.
悲しみ
So a 広大な／多数の／重要な many people have 原因（となる） to be 感謝する to him from those days before he became an MP and 大臣 in Margaret Thatcher’s 政府. And I’m やめる sure that his family and friends were very far from alone in feeling a 深い pang of 悲しみ when he died on Wednesday, 老年の 87.
I first met Sir Rhodes soon after he entered 議会 in 1974, when he befriended my 新聞記者／雑誌記者 father as a fellow 支持者 of Thatcher’s （選挙などの）運動をする for Tory leadership. I was going to say that you won’t find many like him on the Tory frontbench of 2012 (I
suppose 地元の 政府 長官 Eric Pickles, from the other 味方する of the Pennines in Yorkshire, is the nearest approximation). But the truth is that there were very few like him even then, almost 40 years ago.
He stood out from the political smoothies not only because of his Dickensian 外見 but because of his solid working-class roots in Lancashire. His father was a cotton-spinner, Methodist and 社会主義者 who was 刑務所，拘置所d as a conscientious objector during World War I and later became a 労働 議員 and union 公式の／役人.
I learn from his obituary that the family lavatory was a waste-water ‘tippler’ at the end of the yard, while the 最高潮の場面 of his year was the 年次の trip to a take-your-own-food 搭乗 house in Blackpool.
The former Tory MP said of his working-class roots: 'There are people in the 労働 Party who would give £10,000 for my background.'
As he himself 発言／述べるd: ‘There are people in the 労働 Party who would give £10,000 for my background.’ It wasn’t until 井戸／弁護士席 into his teaching career in the Sixties ― after grammar school, war service in the 王室の 海軍 and taking degree
s at two universities ― that he became disillusioned with 社会主義 and switched to the Tory Party.
And when he did so, he threw himself into his new 忠誠 with all the zeal of a 変える. From the moment he entered 議会, Boyson 支持するd 政策s that would make David Cameron’s hair stand on end if any 保守的な frontbencher dared? 示唆する them today.
He called for the return of the 死刑 and corporal 罰, privatisation of universities and the NHS, 削除するing public spending by 25 per cent, 大規模な 税金 削減（する）s, ending all 移民／移住 except for 難民s, 減ずるing the 福利事業 明言する／公表する to a 明らかにする-最小限 safety 逮捕する, teaching Greek and grammar in all 明言する／公表する schools, and scrapping the 包括的な system (which he thought cruelly 不公平な on able, working-class boys).
And when he did so, he threw himself into his new 忠誠 with all the zeal of a 変える. From the moment he entered 議会, Boyson 支持するd 政策s that would make David Cameron’s hair stand on end if any 保守的な frontbencher dared? 示唆する them today.
He called for the return of the 死刑 and corporal 罰, privatisation of universities and the NHS, 削除するing public spending by 25 per cent, 大規模な 税金 削減（する）s, ending all 移民／移住 except for 難民s, 減ずるing the 福利事業 明言する／公表する to a 明らかにする-最小限 safety 逮捕する, teaching Greek and grammar in all 明言する／公表する schools, and scrapping the 包括的な system (which he thought cruelly 不公平な on able, working-class boys).
一方／合間, he （選挙などの）運動をするd vociferously against unmarried mothers and 性の ‘deviants’, 福利事業 scroungers, sex education and Britain’s 会員の地位 of the EU.
Can you imagine him 継続している five minutes in
a 政府 led by Mr Cameron?
The 広大な／多数の／重要な difference between then and now, of course, is that Mrs Thatcher had 非，不，無 of the 現在の 総理大臣’s fastidious, 主要都市の disdain for the more 強健な and illiberal 政策s of her party’s 右翼.
Authentic
Apart from 株ing many of Boyson’s 見解（をとる）s, she recognised in him an authentic 緊張する of aspirational working-class Toryism, rooted in the 産業の north.
And since she was 決定するd that the 保守的なs should be the party of the whole country, and every class, she was happy to give him 大臣の office (although she was wise, I believe, never to 促進する him to the 閣僚, since he shone much more as a （人が）群がる-pleasing （衆議院の）議長 than as an 行政官／管理者).
促進するing some old-fashioned Tory values would do David Cameron's 人気 the world of good
Now, I should 自白する at once that I 株 Mr Cameron’s queasiness over one or two of Sir Rhodes’s enthusiasms. As a bit of a 主要都市の, public-school softy myself, I’ve never supported 死刑 and I’m 非，不，無 too keen on the corporal variety, either. 一方／合間, thou
gh I still have strong 保留（地）／予約s about gay marriage, I （機の）カム around to civil 共同s years ago.
And unlike Sir Rhodes, I see nothing intrinsically wrong with 経済的な 移住, as long as it is 適切に controlled (which means a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 more tightly than it is now).
But although the Tory leadership has changed beyond 承認 since? Boyson’s heyday, with the 出現 of a professional political class that has never known a life beyond Westminster, the 見解（をとる）s of 抱擁する numbers of 伝統的な 保守的な 投票者s have changed very little.
As opinion 投票s 確認する, there remain a 広大な／多数の／重要な many Britons outside the 主要都市の エリート who would 温かく 認可する almost every （選挙などの）運動をする 追求するd by Sir Rhodes (with the possible exception of his advocacy of 古代の Greek, which may be thought a little cranky).
Indeed, some of his 政策s may have even greater resonance today than when he put them 今後 almost 40 years ago.
Doomed
I’m thinking 特に about public spending, 移民／移住, bringing 支援する grammar schools and pulling out of the EU. (Could anyone with an open mind have read Daniel Hannan’s brilliant 分析 of the doomed marriage between Britain and Europe, serialised recently in the Mail, and still believe we should remain yoked to Brussels?)
The 危機 直面するing Mr Cameron is that so many 直感的に Tories, who think like Sir Rhodes and 株 his roots, feel ますます disenfranchised by Mr Cameron’s party, obsessed as it seems with gay marriage, overseas 援助（する）, green 税金s and other 事柄s that have nothing to do with their aspirations to see their families 栄える.
No wonder the Conservati
ves’ 会員の地位 is 急落するing, as so many former 現体制支持者／忠臣s see no その上の point in licking envelopes for the likes of Louise Mensch, who seem to belong to a different world from theirs.
And no wonder Ukip is creeping up in the 投票s, 追いつくing the Lib Dems to become Britain’s third party, while Tory support is 落ちるing away.
This is a week when political attention has been 焦点（を合わせる）d on Nick Clegg’s half-baked 計画（する） for a wealth 税金 ― his 最新の pathetic 試みる／企てる to save himself and his party from the annihilation that surely を待つs them in 2015.
But as a 部族の Tory, my 恐れる is that the bigger story may be the 炉心溶融 of the party I’ve supported all my adult life. Indeed, I’m beginning to wonder how much longer even I can go on making excuses for Mr Cameron, as I search with 増加するing desperation for the faintest 調印する that a Tory heart may （警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域 in his breast.
In the coming weeks, we’re 約束d the first proper 内閣改造 since the 連合 （機の）カム to 力／強力にする. If the 総理大臣 fancies a second 称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 of office, he’d better 促進する a Rhodes Boyson or two, to 納得させる his grass-roots 支持者s that he’s fundamentally on their 味方する. But I’m damned if I know where he’ll find them.
