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Text Who is the Conservatives' greatest hero? Tories pick Margaret Thatcher as the key figure from their history Margaret Thatcher. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex Last week in a Guardian debate. Tonight it's the turn of the Tories to pick their key figure. Michael White is chairing the debate, which begins at 6pm, with David Willetts, the shadow universities secretary, Lord Baker, the former minister, Michael Gove, the shadow schools secretary, all taking part. The four people the Conservatives have to choose from are: Edmund Burke , the 18th century politician and political philosopher. Benjamin Disraeli , the 19th century Tory prime minister. Winston Churchill , Britain's wartime leader. Margaret Thatcher , the UK's first female prime minister and the woman who reshaped the Tory party in her own image. Join us from 6pm for live coverage, and let us know your own views below. 6.05pm: I'm sitting at the front row of a steep auditorium waiting for kick off. My colleague Martin Kettle is sitting behind me and he thinks it's like being at a very posh cinema. Personally, the blue tint is a little more like sitting in a swimming pool. 6.05pm: Michael White is opening matters. He's telling the audience he was surprised by last week's result so warns that we shouldn't assume tonight's winner. Mike has just had to tell the younger members of the audience who Lord Baker is, to much hilarity. John Whittingdale, hitting the bottle of water, is now pitching for Thatcher. He says that of the four candidates she is the most controversial. He says her place in history is assured - she's the longest serving PM of modern times and the first female PM. All remarkable. 6.10pm: Back when she was chosen, he says, electing a female leader was regarded as an aberration and it was thought that "the party would soon return to its senses". The audience titters at this. Whittingdale now describes the dire economic conditions of the late 70s, and says that the economic reforms Thatcher put in place are responsible for the economic success the UK has since enjoyed. Laughter now at the idea that Thatcher's privatisation of elements of the UK could ever be reversed. They are laughing because we've just had a second bank nationalised. Now he says, the biggest redistribution of wealth was achieved by Thatcher through the sale of council houses. 6.15pm: And what of personal courage? He says she had that too. Airey Neave murdered just before she became PM ... Other instances showed she had mettle. Against all the threats on her life and her political standing, "she did not back down, she did not surrender". She went to war over the Falklands "to defend the right of her own citizens to determine their own future. She did so against the advice of her own Foreign Office and cabinet ministers." Thatcher restored pride. "Most important of all was the role she played in the alliance with [Ronald] Reagan [the former US president], which brought to an end the cold war." Whittingdale sums up: "She didn't just change Britain, she changed the world," and gets loud applause. Mike White now asks panellists to turn off their mobiles, before realising it is his own causing the interference. Hmmm. David Willetts at the debate. Photograph: Martin Argles 6.15pm: David "Two Brains" Willetts on Benjamin Disraeli now. Big picture of Disraeli appears on the screen behind our clever five men on the panel. Two Brains says Disraeli created the party everyone in the hall now supports. Then they had 30 years in opposition. "In that period we could well have disappeared. Or, if not disappeared, have become a backward-looking, peasants', country party." Step forward Disraeli, Willetts says. "Putting the condition of England question at the heart of the Conservative party ... to become an urban political force. Only because of this it was able to engage with modern problems. No other political leader since has had a comparable effect." 6.20pm: Challenges he faced: the divided nation. Disraeli brought the two together for the first time after 30 years in opposition. That's why DW choses Disraeli. If DW is Two Brains, how many would he give Disraeli? 6.20pm: I have to say DW is very brief in his pitch - impressively so. Now, on to the third pitch. Kenneth Baker on Winston Churchill. "This isn't a seminar... The Guardian wants to identify who you want to [influence] David Cameron. That's what they'll make of it in the Guardian tomorrow. Just you wait and see." Baker says - to the loudest applause yet - that Churchill wouldn't have made it into the hall since we all had to leave our wine glasses at the door. More seriously: Churchill got Hitler when most of the country didn't. "Showed judgment in the war again. Then, after the war, he was the first major politician to realise the party had changed." There was, Baker says, one speech - not often talked about - that he made at the time. He realised that the special relationship with America was only one of the special relationships the country needed. 6.30pm: "He has a tremendous symaptico with ordinary people that none of these people had - certainly not Disraeli" - a little laugh - "and certainly not Margaret Thatcher". Hearty laughter from all of the audience. "The great contribution Britain could make was as a nation state, not in Europe." Churchill always put Britain first, Baker says. Loyalty, courage, and a passionate love of his country. Wonderful oratory too. Baker winds up and I actually think his applause is the loudest. Mike White is just saying how interesting it is what the panellists have been leaving out so far. Now, Michael Gove on Burke. "He is the most ancient figure of these four," says Gove. "All the other candidates are celebrities ... could be on a political X Factor ... Disraeli is flashy - a Victorian Jeffrey Archer [howls of laughter]. Margaret Thatcher - did what Edna Everage did for Australian comedy [no laugh] ... If you vote for any of them you are voting for the Simon Cowellisation of politics." This audience love Gove. 6.35pm: "Burke ensured that there was rich stock of ideas, concepts and arguments which Conservatives will use for time to come." One of his first acts in the House of Commons was to limit the rights of the monarchy. He rebelled against bullying. Burke first raised the standards for individual constituents against arrogant, centralising authority. He fought against corruption and arrogance, pressed for political emancipation. At the time of the American revolution it was Burke who pointed out that you can't have taxation without representation. But while he recognised liberty was important, he also understood where authority needed to be recognised, so he became a trenchant opponent to tyranny on the European continent. Fundamentalism took hold of Europe at that time. Burke saw this. He saw that if you pursue utopian politics you usher in hell on earth. The audience is rapt. Churchill, Thatcher, Disraeli, they would not have been possible without Burke, Gove asserts. "In that respect, he is the daddy of them all." Gove winds up. Thunderous applause. No idea who has the heart of the audience right now. Let's see. Mike is going to abuse his position as chair and ask some of his own questions. 6.40pm: The first is about how Disraeli was a romantic imperialist. Willetts says this is not relevant any more. A little slap down to my colleague? Or fancy footwork? Baker joins in, saying he doesn't agree that Disraeli did have that much of an effect. Disraeli actually, Baker says, only mentioned one-nationism once in his books and never mentioned the concept in his speeches. So, Disraeli debunked by Baker. 6.40pm: There is now some toing and froing on a Disraeli call for an aristocratic House of Lords, proof, Baker says, that Dizzy was not that radical. 6.40pm: Whittingdale weighs in, dragging things back to Thatcher. He makes the point that three of the panel worked for Thatcher. "And worked against her," Mike White says. A little laugh. 6.40pm: Gove now says that Churchill was the leader of a one-man party - albeit a fantastic party - and life with him was one long party. But Burke was about the wider party, not a cult to himself. 6.45pm: Baker makes a point about Burke. Gove strives to intervene and then gets a laugh for calling Baker's comments "off beat". I think Baker has called Burke "the candidate of torpor". Gosh. Mike White: "David Willetts, you've got lots of GCSE" - laugh - "who else [would he pick]?" 6.45pm: Hayek would also be up there. Oakeshott. Adam Smith. David Hume. Incredible flowering of the British enlightenment, but great thinkers are not the same as great leaders. We're now going to questions. Councillor Fiona Guest gets to her feet and says Thatcher got to the top without being a feminist. "Without being an A-lister either," says Whittingdale, being a little rude about the mechanism Cameron used to try to get more female candidates into the party. 6.50pm: Baker is now saying: "She was such a phenomenon but was she a Conservative? I doubt it. I never heard her say the word Tory nor use the word Conservative - or at least only to describe this conference." Mike now tries to draw Baker on the plots to overthrow Thatcher. Baker tells Mike to read his memoirs. Was it treachery? Whittingdale says yes. Willetts says the Labour party should read the history books before it does in Brown. 6.55pm: Now to Alex Williams's question: was Churchill a success because of the time he was PM, the 1940s? Baker says he is sure he would have been a success any time on account of his activities before the second world war, yes. "Yes," says Mike, "but it did take Hitler to rescue his career." "Yes, but that was his strength, dear boy," Baker says. Next question: what did these marvellous politicians do wrong? He supplements with some points of his own. Churchill got India badly wrong. As for Disraeli, he was a bit of a charlatan. 7pm: Mike then asks the clever audience member whether he has any dirt on Burke, who was briefly paymaster-general. Gove butts in: "He certainly didn't lend [Peter] Mandelson money for that mortgage." Whittingdale says that Thatcher regrets taking Britain into the ERM. "Every leader who takes bold, courageous decisions is going to make mistakes." Gove makes this striking point: "All of the people on the panel were all outsiders." 7pm: Mike asks Gove what this tells him about the Tory party. "People have this caricatured view of the Conservative grassroots, that grassroots are only really happy if it is an identikit male figure ... No, the whole point about the Tory party is that it has throughout its history been far more relaxed - someone of talent, no matter what their background, can put something right." We're entering the home straight since I think another fringe event is due to get the room. Last few questions. A lady called Lynn stands up and says she looks for someone who speaks to her heart - Hague did it yesterday. Churchill did it. 7.05pm: Whittingdale concedes that Thatcher wasn't very good at telling jokes in her speeches and says one of the more surreal moments in his career was sitting in her office watching the dead parrot scene again and again ... Then, as she was going on stage to deliver the speech she turned to Whittingdale and said, "John, Monty Python, are you sure that he is one of us?" A clever question: who would be the panellists back if they didn't back their own choice? Whittingdale's second: "I think I would support Churchill." Gove's second: Churchill. Willetts's second: Thatcher. Baker didn't say. 7.10pm: Whittingdale concedes that Thatcher was socially divisive. "Yes, there are people who do still hate Margaret Thatcher." 7.10pm: Last question. Thatcher famously said "Everyone needs a Willy." Who would the other candidates' Willy be? 7.15pm: Gove: "I am very proud of our Willy: William Hague. The ideal elder statesman and he's still only 46." 7.15pm: Down to business ... the vote. Burke gets a good show of hands - more than I expected. Quick size up: about a third of the audience. Now Churchill. Actually seems to be a little less. 7.15pm: Disraeli now and he gets a handful. Someone in the audience asks: "Are you allowed to vote twice?" Mike White: "No, Disraeli got rid of that sort of thing." And lastly Thatcher. She has won overwhelmingly but let's have the numbers. 7.15pm: The very lovely Carla now walks the results on stage. Burke: 52. Thatcher: 97 Well, there we are. 7.20pm: Interestingly, a greater share of the people in this room voted for Burke than did Tory MPs when asked a similar question. 7.25pm: Well, there we are. The room empties. The result wasn't even close; the Tory faithful still love Thatcher and they needed no persuading of it. But I imagine you need persuading. Tell us what you think ... Who is your greatest Tory? 7.40pm: The results in full. Public vote: Burke: 52 Churchill: 53 Disraeli: 18 Thatcher: 97 MPs' vote: Burke: 22 Churchill: 47 Disraeli: 27 Thatcher: 48 Incidentally, Mike White asked Cameron yesterday at a reception who his own greatest Tory hero was. Cameron replied: , the Tory leader who was PM in the 1830s and again in the 1840s. His reason was that he wanted the party to do better in Lancashire. Posted by Monday September 29 2008 17:27 BST | Email Your IP address will be logged Share Contact us Contact the Politics editor Report errors or inaccuracies: Letters for publication should be sent to: If you need help using the site: Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard: +44 (0)20 7278 2332 · · More from on Politics · · More on this story Related Sep 30 2008 Sep 29 2008 Sep 26 2008 Sep 26 2008 Email Your IP address will be logged Share Contact us Contact the Politics editor Report errors or inaccuracies: Letters for publication should be sent to: If you need help using the site: Call the main Guardian and Observer switchboard: +44 (0)20 7278 2332 About this article Who is the Conservatives' greatest hero? This article was first published on on Monday September 29 2008. It was last updated at 19:44 on September 29 2008. 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