Conservative Party

The Conservative Party was one of the two dominant political parties (the other being the Labour Party) in the United Kingdom during the 20th (TV: The Empty Child, Victory of the Daleks) and 21st centuries. (TV: Aliens of London/World War Three)

Several of its leaders had held the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, including Stanley Baldwin, (PROSE: Players) Winston Churchill, (TV: The Idiot's Lantern, Victory of the Daleks, GAME: Amy's History Hunt, et al.) Anthony Eden, Harold MacMillan (TV: Knock Knock) Edward Heath, (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) Margaret Thatcher, (TV: Father's Day, Tooth and Claw, Knock Knock) John Major, (PROSE: Interference - Book One) Theresa May (PROSE: Lucy Wilson & the Bledoe Cadets) and Boris Johnson. (PROSE: Edge of Glory)

History

In 1933, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald was focusing much of his efforts on keeping the Conservative Party in check. The Seventh Doctor branded him "an idiot", whose efforts would be far better spent paying attention to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany. (PROSE: Log 384)

By the end of 1936, Stanley Baldwin served as Conservative Prime Minister at the time of the abdication crisis. Winston Churchill was marginalised within the party at the time, largely due to his opposition to appeasement. (PROSE: Players)

After becoming Prime Minister in 1940, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) Churchill led the Conservatives throughout the most of the Second World War in Europe, though with the political cooperation of Clement Attlee and the Labour Party. Following Germany's defeat in 1945, on VE Day, Churchill prepared to call a general election. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) Churchill's proposed post-war programme, focusing on the new threat of the Soviet Union, proved unpopular, and his comparison of Attlee's socialist Opposition to the Gestapo was poorly received. Attlee's Opposition ousted Churchill and the Conservatives at the polls, (AUDIO: Subterfuge) although Churchill became Prime Minister again in 1951 and stayed in the position until 1955. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)

The Conservatives were in office during the early 1960s. Harold MacMillan served as Prime Minister until his resignation in 1963. He was succeeded by Sir Alec Douglas-Home. (AUDIO: The Pelage Project) During Macmillan's premiership, he began development of Britain's own nuclear armament programme. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)

According to one account that was possibly unreliable due to its distorted nature, in 1963, Barbara Wright was a supporter of the Conservative Party whereas Ian Chesterton supported the Liberal Party. She regarded his politics as "wrong but romantic". (PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane)

In 1964, the Conservative Party was defeated by Labour in the UK general election and the latter's leader Harold Wilson became Prime Minister. In the immediate aftermath of the election, General Peters led a military coup against Wilson's government. However, it was defeated by the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group. (AUDIO: State of Emergency)

By 1965, Edward Heath was the Conservative leader. Some of the Conservatives were members of the Monday Club and the rival Sunday Club, the latter similar to the US neoconservative movement. William Heaton, shadow undersecretary to the Minister of Affairs and a Sunday Club member, believed Heath wouldn't win the next election. (AUDIO: Changing of the Guard; PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

In later years, Wilson's position seemed untenable after the failures of the Wenley Moor nuclear research facility in October 1969 and the Inferno Project in February 1970 were publicised by James Stevens in his "Bad Science" series of articles.

Wilson called a general election for June 1970. The Labour Party lost and Heath became Prime Minister. Political observers speculated that the publication of the book version of "Bad Science" had coincided not-so-incidentally with the election. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

In the 1970s, after a general election, various disenfranchised Tories joined a coalition government with the Liberals, minor fringe parties, and dissident Socialists. This government formed before Jo Grant joined UNIT (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune) and in her first year, a Conservative was Defence Minister. He authorised Horatio Chinn to use the Emergency Powers Act against UNIT. (TV: The Claws of Axos)

In 1979, the Conservatives were once again in office with Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. (TV: Tooth and Claw) Her predecessor was James Callaghan of the Labour Party. (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure)

On 9 June 1983, the Conservatives defeated Labour in the general election in a landslide. (AUDIO: Rat Trap) The party was still in office in 1987 while Thatcher remained Prime Minister. (TV: Father's Day)

By 1984, the former actor Heathcliffe Bower was a Conservative MP. In an alternative timeline which was later negated by the Fifth Doctor, Bower assassinated Thatcher in that year. (PROSE: The Assassin's Story)

As her parents were children of the 1960s, Sam Jones thought that the only methods of acting out open to her were becoming a major drug addict, or joining the Conservative Party. (PROSE: Vampire Science)

According to Rachel Edwards, a Conservative Party conference was filled with white men, and an "all-pervading stench of repressed homosexuality". (PROSE: Head of State)

Behind the scenes

• The Conservative Party evolved from the old Tory Party in 1834. The two terms are still used interchangably.
• The Conservative Party was represented by the blue-coloured Strategist Dalek in one of the three alternate covers of the 3-9 April 2010 edition of the Radio Times, promoting the 2010 redesign of the Daleks, known in-universe as the New Dalek Paradigm, which was introduced in Victory of the Daleks.
• The Tory Defence Minister in The Claws of Axos looks like Peter Carington, the real life Conservative Minister of Defence at the time of this serial's writing and broadcast.
• According to the BBC Classic Doctor Who website, in the early 1970s, the Liberal Jeremy Thorpe formed a coalition government after Tory and Socialist policies towards alien life drew people towards the Liberal and fringe parties.
• Former Conservative MP Tim Collins was noted for being a big fan of Doctor Who. Introducing later editions of The Dying Days, Lance Parkin recounts the story of Collins speeding through the novel on the night of the 1997 general election, in which he was first elected to Parliament. The Conservatives were set to lose to Tony Blair's Labour Party after 18 years in power, so Collins aimed to finish the novel and therefore complete the entirety of the Virgin New Adventures range under a Conservative government. In Putting the Shock into Earthshock, Collins also joked that the Cybermen were more convincing while the Conservatives were in power.
• Actor Giles Watling has served as the Conservative MP for Clacton since 2017. He performed his DWU roles prior to being elected to parliament, although he was still an active politician, having stood in the constituency as the Conservative candidate in 2014 and 2015.