the one-nation group of Tory MPs. In 1985, Forman published a pamphlet Work to be done : employment policy for 1985 and beyond. This was deeply critical of government policy and advocated a package of measures to stimulate employment. Forman's progressive views did not endear him to his party's leaders in his local Council and association. Many of them regarded him as disloyal to Margaret Thatcher and a traitor. There were repeated attempts to deselect him. Matters came to a head in 1986 after the Liberal-SDP Alliance gained political control of the Council. Forman publicly attributed this to the shortcomings of the local Conservative leadership. The matter is described in the following extract from an article in The Times on 21 May 1987:“The Carshalton Conservative Association suffers from bigots and zealots who indulge in internecine warfare.” Not Labour smear tactics, nor Alliance innuendo, but the words of its Conservative MP, Mr Nigel Forman. Several attempts to deselect Mr Forman failed. But when the election was called last week, five of the seven senior officers took their revenge on the beleaguered MP by resigning. – The Times, May 1987. However, Forman comfortably held his seat in the 1987 general election. His advocacy of redistributive but market-led policies was coupled with lack of a clear single Labour or Liberal/SDP opponent. This made Forman an acceptable candidate to many local voters who refrained from tactical voting to oust him. Forman won 54% of the vote, on high turnout, His political fortunes seemed to be in the ascendant.“Has Chancellor Nigel Lawson gone soft? Yesterday he appointed as his PPS a Tory so wet he drips. As recently as last year, Nigel Forman, vice-chairman of the party's backbench finance committee, was publicly calling on the Chancellor to 'give top priority to the unemployment challenge'. The year before, in Mastering British Politics, he wrote: 'Occasionally, in the course of its long history, the Conservative party has been swept along on the wave of some particular ideology, but such periods have not usually lasted or brought enduring political success'.” – "Rising Damp", The Times, June 1987. The ideology Forman referred to was the then fashionable combination of supply side economics, monetarism, deregulation and privatisation known in the 1980s as Thatcherism. After Mrs Thatcher was forced from office in late 1990 it was considered only a matter of time before Forman would be promoted. Later Parliamentary career “The