I came home by the overnight British Airways flight, confident that the outcome of the summit vindicated my approach to the crucial election issues of defence and the economy. This summit also marked a change in the relationship between President Reagan and the other heads of government. They had sometimes been dismissive of his grasp of detail. I, myself, had felt some concern about this earlier. Not so on this occasion. He had all the facts and figures at his fingertips. He steered the discussions with great skill and aplomb. He managed to get all he wanted from the summit, while allowing everyone to feel that they had got at least some of what they wanted, and he did all this with an immense geniality. What President Reagan demonstrated at Williamsburg was that he was a master politician.
Monday 30 May was a Bank Holiday. That day Denis Healey released what the Labour Party claimed was the ‘real’ Conservative manifesto, a fantastical affair, full of lies, half-truths and scares culled from reports of leaked documents, especially the CPRS long-term public expenditure document, the whole thing imaginatively embellished. I was not surprised. Labour had tried this tactic in 1979: it had not worked then either. Once again, Labour was catering not to the interests of the voter but to its own obsessions. They failed to realize that propaganda can never persuade people of the incredible.
I am not usually much affected either by pressure of work or by attacks from opponents. But on Wednesday 1 June Denis Healey made the tasteless remark that I had been ‘glorying in slaughter’ during the Falklands War. I was both angry and upset. We had deliberately decided not to raise the Falklands in the campaign and had done nothing whatsoever to make it an issue. The remark hurt and offended many people besides me – not all of them Conservatives – particularly the relatives of those who had fought and died in the war. Mr Healey later made a half-hearted retraction: he had meant to say ‘conflict’ rather than ‘slaughter’ – a distinction without a difference. Neil Kinnock returned to the subject a few days later, in an even more offensive form. These remarks were all the more revealing because they were politically stupid: indeed they did enormous harm to Labour. They were not made from political calculation, but can only have emerged from something coarse and brutal in the imagination.
One of the opinion polls on Sunday put the Alliance ahead of Labour for the first time. This gave the last days of the campaign a new feel and a new uncertainty. But personally I never believed that the Alliance would beat Labour into third place – even though the Labour leaders were doing their best to ensure it did.
I chaired our last press conference of the campaign on Wednesday morning, accompanied by more or less the same team as had launched the manifesto. There was an end-of-term feeling among the journalists, which we felt confident enough to share. I said that the vital issues on which the voters must decide between the parties were defence, jobs, social services, home ownership and the rule of law. I was keen to answer the charge that a large Conservative majority would lead us to ditch our manifesto policies and pursue a ‘hidden agenda’ of an extreme kind. I argued that a large Conservative majority would in fact do something quite different: it would be a blow against extremism in the Labour Party. And that, I think, was the real underlying theme of the 1983 general election.
While waiting for my own count to finish I watched the national results coming in on television. It really was a landslide. We had won a majority of 144: the largest of any party since 1945.
I returned to Conservative Central Office in the early hours. I was greeted by cheering Party staff as I entered and gave a short speech of thanks to them for their efforts. After that I returned to No. 10. Crowds had gathered at the end of Downing Street and I went along to talk to them, as I had on the evening of the Argentine surrender. Then I went up to the flat. Over the previous weeks I had spent some time clearing things out, in case we lost the election. Now the clutter could build up again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Back to Normalcy
Politics, the economy and foreign affairs from the election to the end of 1983
THE 1983 MANIFESTO did not inspire the Government with the sort of crusading spirit which would have got us off to a good start in the new Parliament. Some of the main pledges were popular enough, such as the abolition of the GLC and Metropolitan Counties and the introduction of rate-capping, but they ran into a difficulty with which any reforming administration must bear: that the generalized approval of the silent majority is no match for the chorus of disapproval from the organized minority. The left-wing municipal socialists and their subsidized front organizations were astute campaigners. Much of the manifesto promised ‘more of the same’ – not the most inspiring of cries, although there is no doubt that a lot more was needed. We had not yet cut taxes anything like as much as we wished. There was more work to be done on trade union law and the privatization programme was barely under way; the Bill to privatize British Telecom, which had fallen with the election, had to be reintroduced.
The second problem was that there was still too much socialism in Britain. The fortunes of socialism do not depend on those of the Labour Party: in fact, in the long run it would be truer to say that Labour’s fortunes depend on those of socialism. And socialism was still built into the institutions and mentality of Britain. We had sold thousands of council homes; but 29 per cent of the housing stock remained in the public sector. We had increased parents’ rights in the education system; but the ethos in classrooms and teachers’ training colleges remained stubbornly left wing. We had grappled with the problem of bringing more efficiency into local government; but the Left’s redoubts in the great cities still went virtually unchallenged. We had cut back trade union power; but still almost 50 per cent of the workforce in employment was unionized, and of them around 4 million were working in a union closed shop. Moreover, as the miners’ strike would shortly demonstrate, the grip of the hard Left on union power was still unbroken. We had won a great victory in the Falklands War, reversing the years in which British influence seemed doomed to an inexorable retreat; but there was still a sour envy of American power and sometimes a deeper anti-Americanism, shared by too many across the political spectrum.
In all this, my problem was simple. There was a revolution still to be made, but too few revolutionaries. The appointment of the first Cabinet in the new Parliament, which took place incongruously to the background accompaniment of traditional military music and the Trooping of the Colour, seemed a chance to recruit some.
In following Peter Carrington with Francis Pym as Foreign Secretary I had exchanged an amusing Whig for a gloomy one. Francis and I disagreed on the direction of policy, in our approach to government and indeed about life in general. But he was liked in the House of Commons which always warms to a minister who is believed to be out of step with the Government, something which is often mistaken for independence of mind. I hoped he would consent to become Speaker and I still believe that he would have done the job well. (In fact, I am not at all clear that we would have been able to ensure Francis got the job for it is, of course, a decision for the House itself.)
But in any case he was having none of it. He preferred to go to the backbenches where he was a not very effective critic of the Government.
I also asked David Howell to leave the Cabinet. His shortcomings as an administrator had been exposed when he was at Energy and nothing I saw of his performance at Transport suggested to me that my judgement of him was wrong. He lacked the mixture of creative political imagination and practical drive to be a first-class Cabinet minister. And I asked Janet Young to make way for Willie Whitelaw as Leader of the Lords. She had turned out not to have the presence to lead the Lords effectively and she was perhaps too consistent an advocate of caution on all occasions. She stayed on in the Government outside the Cabinet as a Minister of State at the Foreign Office. I regretted the loss of both David and Janet on personal grounds, for they had been close to me in Opposition.
Willie Whitelaw clearly fitted the bill as Janet’s successor. Willi
e had become, quite simply, indispensable to me in Cabinet. When it really mattered I knew he would be by my side and because of his background, personality and position in the Party he could sometimes sway colleagues when I could not. Yet Willie had not had an easy time as Home Secretary. In part, this is because Home Secretaries never do have an easy time; it is sometimes said that they possess a unique combination of responsibility without power, taking the blame for matters ranging from breaches of royal security, to the misdemeanours of police officers, prison break-outs and the occasional riot, when their power to prevent them is indirect or nonexistent. But there was more to it than that. Willie and I knew that we did not share the same instincts on Home Office matters. I believe that capital punishment for the worst murders is morally right as retribution and practically necessary as a deterrent: Willie does not. My views on sentencing in general and on immigration are a good deal tougher than his. And, flatteringly but often awkwardly, the great majority of the Conservative Party and the British public agreed with me and showed it regularly at our Party Conferences.
I chose Leon Brittan to be Willie’s successor. I never appointed a Home Secretary who shared all my instincts on these matters, but I thought that at least Leon would bring a keen lawyer’s mind and intellectual rigour to the job. He would have no time for the false sentimentality which surrounds so much discussion of the causes of crime. His was a powerful mind and I thought he should be given his chance.
With hindsight, I think that I should have promoted him to head another department first. He needed the experience of running his own ministry before moving to one of the three great offices of state. Too rapid promotion can jeopardize politicians’ long-term future. It turns press and colleagues against them; they become touchy and uncertain about their standing; and all this makes them vulnerable. Leon suffered in this way, but he also had great strengths. For example, he proved extremely capable in devising the package of measures to tighten up the sentencing of violent criminals which we introduced after the rejection of capital punishment by the House of Commons on a free vote in July. He was to prove tough and competent during the miners’ strike in 1984–85. Yet there were also weaknesses. He was better at mastering and expounding a brief than in drawing up his own. Moreover, everybody complained about his manner on television, which seemed aloof and uncomfortable. Of course, there have been plenty of complaints over the years about my manner too, so I had a good deal of sympathy with him. But that did not change the situation, particularly since I was shortly to lose from my Cabinet a really gifted presenter of policy.
I made Nigel Lawson Chancellor of the Exchequer – an enormous and to most people unexpected promotion. Whatever quarrels we were to have later, if it comes to drawing up a list of Conservative – even Thatcherite – revolutionaries I would never deny Nigel a leading place on it. He is imaginative, fearless and – on paper at least – eloquently persuasive. His mind is quick and he makes decisions easily. His first budget speech shows what good reading economics can make and I doubt whether any other Financial Secretary to the Treasury could have come up with the inspired clarity of the Medium Term Financial Strategy, which guided our economic policy until Nigel himself turned his back on it in later years. As Chancellor, Nigel’s tax reforms had the same quality about them – a simplicity which makes everyone ask why no one thought to do this before.
But what to do with Geoffrey Howe? The time had come to move Geoffrey on. Four gruelling years in the Treasury was enough and it seems a kind of psychological law that Chancellors naturally incline towards the Foreign Office. Partly this is simply because that is the next logical step. But it is also because international finance is nowadays so important that Chancellors have to take a keen interest in the IMF, the G7 and the European Community and so the longing to tread the world stage naturally takes hold of them. I had doubts about Geoffrey’s suitability for the Foreign Office. And, in retrospect, I was right. He fell under the spell of the Foreign Office where compromise and negotiation were ends in themselves. This magnified his faults and smothered his virtues. In his new department he fell into the habits which the Foreign Office seems to cultivate – a reluctance to subordinate diplomatic tactics to the national interest and an insatiable appetite for nuances and conditions which can blur the clearest vision. To the extent that Geoffrey did have a cause to guide him in foreign affairs it was one on which the two of us were far apart, though I did not give this much thought at the time. For Geoffrey harboured an almost romantic longing for Britain to become part of some grandiose European consensus. I never heard him define this misty Europeanism, even in the last turbulent days of my Premiership, but it was for him a touchstone of high-mindedness and civilized values. It was to bring us all no end of trouble.
My first choice for the job of Foreign Secretary had been Cecil Parkinson. He and I agreed on economic and domestic policy. Neither of us had the slightest doubt that Britain’s interests must come first in foreign policy. He had served in the Falklands War Cabinet. He had just masterminded the most technically proficient general election campaign I have known. He seemed to me right for this most senior job.
However, in the early evening on election day, after I had returned from my own constituency, Cecil visited me in Downing Street and told me that he had been having an affair with his former secretary, Sara Keays. I did not immediately decide that it was an insuperable obstacle to his becoming Foreign Secretary. But the following day, shortly before Cecil was due for lunch at No. 10, I received a personal letter from Sara Keays’s father. It revealed that she was pregnant with Cecil’s child. When Cecil arrived I showed him the letter. It must have been one of the worst moments of his life.
It was immediately obvious that I could not send Cecil to the Foreign Office with such a cloud hanging over him. I urged him to discuss the personal questions with his family. Meanwhile I decided to make him Secretary of State for the newly combined Departments of Trade and Industry. It was a job I knew he would do well – and it was a less sensitive post than Foreign Secretary would have been.
In September I appointed John Gummer to succeed Cecil as Party Chairman (I would have appointed a new Chairman sooner or later in any case). John had been a Vice-Chairman of the Party under Ted Heath and so knew Central Office well. He is also a gifted speaker and writer. Unfortunately, John Gummer was not a born administrator and when we ran into political trouble he did not carry the weight to help us get out of it.
An appointment that strengthened the Party, however, was that of John Wakeham who became Chief Whip. John would probably not dissent from his reputation as a ‘fixer’. He was on the right of the Party, a highly competent accountant, who had tried to make sense for me of British Leyland’s elliptical accounts. He had a manner which exuded self-confidence, a good deal of which was deserved. These talents made him a highly effective party manager.
Within months I had to make further important changes. At the beginning of October Cecil Parkinson, with the agreement of Sara Keays, issued a statement to the press revealing their affair and the fact that she was pregnant. I wanted if possible to keep Cecil. At first, it seemed that I might succeed. There was no great pressure from within the Party for him to go. The Party Conference took place the week after Cecil’s statement and his ministerial speech was well received. However, very late on Thursday evening, as I was completing my own speech for the following day, the Press Office at No. 10 rang my hotel suite. Sara Keays had given an interview to The Times and the story dominated Friday’s front page. I called a meeting immediately, with Willie Whitelaw, John Gummer and Cecil himself. It was clear that the story was not going to die down and, though I asked Cecil to hold back from resigning that evening, we all knew that he would have to go.
Early next morning Cecil came in to see me and said that he and Ann had decided that he should resign. There was only one problem. He had a public engagement to open the new Blackpool Heliport and to unveil a commemorative plaque. Clearly, it was impossible for hi
m to go ahead with this. Denis stepped into the breach and unveiled the plaque, which poignantly had Cecil’s name on it.
Thankfully, this did not mean the end of Cecil’s political career. But he had to endure four years in the political wilderness and lost whatever chance he might have had of climbing to the very top of the political ladder.
In everything but the short term, Cecil’s resignation weakened the Government. He had proved an effective minister and, though he was only at the DTI a short time, had made a big impact. It was Cecil who took the difficult but correct decision to introduce legislation to exclude the Stock Exchange from the operation of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act and so to terminate the court case which had been brought against it by the Director-General of Fair Trading. In return the Stock Exchange made a commitment to dismantle long-standing restrictions on trading and the process was begun that led to the Financial Services Act (1986) and the ‘Big Bang’ in October of that year. These reforms allowed the City to adapt to the highly competitive international markets in which it now operates and have been crucial to its continued success.
I asked Norman Tebbit to move from Employment to take over the DTI and shifted Tom King from Transport as Norman’s replacement. This enabled me to bring Nick Ridley into the Cabinet, as Transport Secretary. Nick’s arrival in Cabinet was a silver lining to the cloud that hung over us following Cecil’s departure. Like Keith Joseph, Nick was someone who wanted office in order to do what he believed was right. Although in my experience there are few politicians for whom doing the right thing is of no importance, there are fewer still for whom it is the only consideration. Nick and Keith were among them. At Transport Nick pressed ahead with privatization and deregulation. And in the later years of the Government he was someone I could rely upon for complete loyalty and honest dealing. Indeed, it was an excess of honesty that ultimately brought him down.
Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography Page 55
