“THE WORD 'CONSERVATIVE' IS USED by the BBC as a portmanteau word of abuse for anyone whose views differ from the insufferable, smug, sanctimonious, naïve, guilt-ridden, wet, pink orthodoxy of that sunset home of the third-rate minds of that third-rate decade, the nineteen-sixties.” Writing for the Independent back in 1990, former Conservative cabinet minister, Norman Tebbitt, demonstrated how the 1960s counter-culture still enraged traditionalists. Hard to believe today, but for conservatives the impact of the 1960s was as problematic as trade unions and flying pickets.

[. . .]