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Between the Thin Blue Lines: The Agents' View of Politics

; Edited by Jean M. Lucas

282 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #07-2601; ISBN 1-4251-5776-9; US$23.24, C$23.24, EUR15.88, £12.00

This anthology of Conservative Agents' recollections of events following the Second World War shows an insight into social history and the decline of a great and valuable profession.

About the Book

Between the Thin Blue Lines, with its powerful Foreword from Sir John Major, highlights the gradual diminution in the dwindling profession of Conservative Party Agents.

Once in 1947/8 nearly every constituency had the benefit of trained political advice. By the year 2000 fewer than a quarter of the previous number of Agents remained.

Contributors to this book range from former Directors of Organisation and Campaigning to constituency Agents. Key bye-elections are described and the development of Conferences discussed. The inevitable heightening of security after the Brighton bomb has had its effect on all of us participating in the democratic process. The phenomenon of the Young Conservative movement is featured, as are the changes which computerisation has introduced. Often amusing, these stories read between the lines of what is known to have happened.

Jean Lucas, for all of her professional life an Agent, but developing her late interest in writing, has drawn together the threads of the post-war decades into a tapestry of social history, irresistible to those who have ever taken an active role in UK politics.

About the Author

Jean Lucas has spent all her working life as a Conservative Party Agent in South London. She was awarded the MBE for political and public services, having been Chairman of the National Society of Conservative Agents, and also a Councillor in Wandsworth.

After retiring from politics, she turned to writing. An Edinburgh Lady, published in 2006, was widely enjoyed, and in a companion book, The Pictou Triangle she also uses the theme of Scots emigrating to Canada, in the 1820s. A previous political book was The Wandsworth Story, describing the winning of this marginal borough.

Excerpts