The Vermin Club was an organisation of grassroots Conservative Party supporters in Britain in the late 1940s.
On the evening of 4 July 1948, Aneurin Bevan, the Labour Government's Minister of Health, addressed the annual Labour rally for the North of England at Belle Vue, Manchester, and described Conservatives as "lower than vermin".[1] This was at a point when Conservative fortunes were starting to turn and Bevan's Labour Party was facing disillusionment and division. Young Tories took on the description with ironic self-deprecation and set up the Vermin Club.
Members took to wearing vermin badges (a chrome badge featuring a rat and the word VERMIN).[2] A whole hierarchy was established, so that those who recruited ten new party members wore badges identifying them as vile vermin; those who recruited twenty five were very vile vermin. Margaret Thatcher was an early member of the group[3] and rose through the ranks to become a "Chief Rat".[4] In her memoirs, Thatcher described another "Chief Rat" as having lived somewhere in Twickenham.[5] The club boasted a membership of between 105,000–120,000 at its height.[2]
See also
- Basket of deplorables, a similar disparagement that galvanised the political opposition
References
- ^ "Bevan's speech to the Manchester Labour rally 4 July 1948". Socialist Health Association. 5 July 1948. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
- ^ a b Martin, Paul (1997). "The Vermin Club, 1948–51". History Today. 47 (6). Retrieved 23 August 2015.
- ^ "£2,000 prize fund to launch creative internet campaigns". ConservativeHome. 26 April 2006. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
Margaret Thatcher was an early member of the Vermin Club.
- ^ Rowe, David (23 March 2015). "Politics – Flowers and Vermin". The A–Z of Curious Flintshire. The History Press Ltd. ISBN 978-0752493282.
One former Chief Rat was the late Baroness Thatcher.
- ^ Thatcher, Margaret (1995). The Path to Power. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-638753-4.