Too Nice to be a Tory : It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want to (New ed)

More Bridget Jones than Peter Jones, Jo-Anne Nadler is a professional, sophisticated urban career woman. And a Conservative. In recent years her affiliation has come to feel more like an affliction -- one of educated society's remaining taboos.

Why? her liberal friends ask her. Why does she persist in thinking the Conservative Party is the way forward?

Why did she write a biography of William Hague? Surely she's too nice to be a Tory? In such circles her Toryness is more likely to induce sympathy than provoke disapproval.

How, though, has this come to pass? What happened to Britain, and to the Conservative Party, to make such a sea-change possible?

Are we just victims of New Labour spin, or did the dog-days of the Major government inflict irreparable damage?

Fearlessly delving back through her own history of Young Conservative balls, bedroom posters of Mrs Thatcher and a career which has taken her from party activist to party worker to professional party observer, Jo-Anne Nadler explores both her own political awakening and the seeming political somnolence of the post-Thatcher party.

Funny and affectionate, balanced and passionate, TOO NICE TO BE A TORY is a fascinating personal reflection on growing up Conservative.