From longstanding political columnist and commentator Daniel Finkelstein, a powerful memoir exploring both his mother and his father’s devastating experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during the Second World War. When he joined The Times in 2001, he knew he couldn’t pretend to be a neutral observer. No matter, because a columnist should, he says, be open about who they are and how their experience can inform the reader. “My column is much stronger if I tell people where I come from,” he says. Finkelstein is Jewish; [1] his mother, Mirjam Finkelstein, was a Holocaust survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, [5] while his father Ludwik Finkelstein OBE was born in Lwów (then in Poland but now in Ukraine), and became Professor of Measurement and Instrumentation at City University London. [6] [7] He is a grandson, via his mother, of Dr Alfred Wiener, the Jewish activist and founder of the Wiener Library. [5] He is the brother of Professor Sir Anthony Finkelstein CBE FREng, President of City, University of London and of Tamara Finkelstein, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. [8]

Both sides of the family were remarkable. His mother’s parents, Alfred and Grete Wiener, were highly educated and bookish (Grete had a PhD in economics, a rare achievement for a woman in the 20s), and ran the world’s first and foremost research centre on the Nazi party, collecting vast amounts of documents that charted its rise. Meanwhile, in Poland, Finkelstein’s father’s family had built a hugely successful iron business, and lived a settled, happy life in a peaceful multicultural city. The book is Everything in Moderation, and the writer is Daniel Finkelstein, known to his many friends as Danny Fink ( Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis on the cover says “This is Danny Fink at his very Danny Fink finest, elucidating, wise and intensely curious”). His formal title is Baron Finkelstein of Pinner in the London Borough of Harrow, since being made a Tory working peer in 2013. I’ve chosen a book about Richard Oastler, who was a radical figure in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He was a Conservative and that’s why the book is called Tory Radical. He was one of the driving forces behind the Factory Acts. One of the central events in British history, in my view, took place in 1832 in Leeds during the election in which the forces supporting the Great Reform Act were celebrating the fact that the Bill had been passed. Meanwhile, the Tory radicals were out on the street protesting about the failure to improve factory conditions, and these supporters of what later became Lord Shaftesbury’s reforms and the supporters of the Great Reform Bill had a stand-up fight in the streets of Leeds. I think this is absolutely fascinating. I think David Willetts is by far the most considerable Conservative political writer; and I don’t mean he is the most considerable Conservative writing today, I mean it in absolute terms, full stop. He is always interesting and he has read massive amounts of social research. He has inserted sociology into Conservative thinking.You seem to imply that seeing things as they are rather than as we would wish them to be is a Conservative virtue. Do you believe this is a uniquely Conservative starting point? In 2018 he became chairman of the new think-tank Onward, whose mission is to renew the centre right for the next generation. [17] Conservative Party [ edit ] The structure — alternating chapters telling the parallel tales of the Wieners and the Finkelsteins — reflects two separate yet similar stories, but brings home a wider point that is the book’s central thrust. Ramsden’s title, An Appetite for Power, reflects what he regards as the one consistent characteristic of Conservative organisation: an instinct for what people believe and a willingness to adapt to it; and he says the Conservative Party has done that over and over again, never remained adhering to some strict ideology for very long periods of time. And I think that’s a very adept reading of the Party, and one that is particularly interesting now. It was written during the long years of opposition before David Cameron became leader. John Ramsden recently died but he anticipated absolutely what the Conservative Party has now done. The Labour Party showed that kind of appetite for power under Tony Blair but normally Labour is much more ideological. I have deliberately chosen to be a bit arcane with my third book: Reggie by Lewis Baston. If you want to realise how conservative movements all over the world are exceptionalist in the same way that Republicans believe in American exceptionalism, then nothing could be better than reading histories of obscure British politicians. This is a book about Reginald Maudling, who was a very senior politician, singularly undynamic – so much so that when punched by a Member of Parliament over Bloody Sunday [the shooting in Northern Ireland of protesters by members of the British forces] because he was Home Secretary at the time, somebody shouted, ‘My God! She’s woken him up!’

If like Finkelstein’s mother’s family, for example, you’ve fled Berlin because it’s no longer safe to be Jewish there, and you’re in Amsterdam, living close to Anne Frank, once war breaks out, are you better off in the Netherlands or in Britain? Now we know the answer, but Finkelstein’s skilful use of dramatic irony helps us see that at the time, smart people could conclude that the Netherlands was the better place to be and so stayed put – with disastrous consequences. Find sources: "Daniel Finkelstein"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( March 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Between 1995 and 1997 Finkelstein was Director of the Conservative Research Department and in that capacity advised Prime Minister John Major and attended meetings of the Cabinet when it sat in political session. Finkelstein became among the earliest advocates of the 'modernisation' of the Conservative Party, laying out the principles of change in a series of speeches and columns in The Times.

Moderation should never mean indecisiveness, he says. “There are few policies where there’s no argument on the other side. But in the end you have to come down on one side.” So, the idea which has gained currency, that Cameron sat down and studied the New Labour manual to modernise his party, is all very well but, in fact, the Conservative Party repeatedly adapts to gain power? About Gatestone Institute". Gatestone Institute. Archived from the original on 9 April 2017 . Retrieved 17 March 2021. One theme in Finkelstein’s work is the futility of intellectual reasoning in the face of rabid irrationality. From 1919 onwards, Finkelstein’s maternal grandfather, Alfred Wiener, worked tirelessly to use logic to combat antisemitism, writing pamphlets and speeches that, among other things, “attempted to expose the contradictions of antisemites who blamed Jews for capitalism while simultaneously characterising them as communists”. You’re made to understand how even deeply intelligent and politically attuned people were caught unawares by war and genocideIt’s a departure for British politics, which spent decades transferring power between parties, but maintaining a centrist stance. The days of Blair, Major and Cameron feel like another age. So hurray for a book and a writer who reminds us, in a collection of his newspaper columns from The Times, that moderate, well-argued views are as important and powerful as emotive, passionately held tribalism. You said it’s not helpful to divide the ideas from the context but is that unique to Conservatism? Is it ever a good idea?