Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography

by Charles Moore

  * An issue which had just returned to public view because of MPs’ angry reception of the idea of ‘leaseback’, by which sovereignty of the islands would be ceded to Argentina – see Chapter 23.

  * Powell took a different view: ‘He said that if he was contemplating lending his lawn mower to his next door neighbour, when his next door neighbour was claiming that the lawn mower was his, and not Mr Powell’s, he, Mr Powell, would find it difficult to continue discussions as to whether he, Mr Powell, should lend the lawn mower to his neighbour.’ (Gow note of Powell meeting with Thatcher, 10 Feb. 1981, THCR 2/6/2/116.) The analogy is, untypically for Powell, inexact. The dispute was over the ownership not of the lawn mower but, as it were, of the lawn.

  * See Chapter 22.

  † While there was plenty of criticism for Mrs Thatcher’s stance in the US Congress, President Reagan and his close advisers never joined this chorus. ‘We do not wish to place any pressure on Britain regarding the situation there,’ the National Security Advisor Richard Allen wrote to Reagan during this period. ‘It is up to Mrs Thatcher’s government to work with its own citizens in Northern Ireland and with the government of the Irish Republic.’ (Allen to the President, 26 May 1981, UK: Prime Minister Thatcher, Box 35, Exec Sec, NSC: Head of State File, Reagan Library.)

  * Following the release of the state papers in 2011, the McCreesh family said that ‘the statements attributed to family members in the recently released report of a prison officer are untrue, inaccurate and falsified’ and that the claims had been made as part of an attempt by the British state to ‘vilify’ the family. (Irish Times, 31 December 2011.)

  * Michael Alison (1926–2004), educated Eton and Wadham College, Oxford; Conservative MP for Barkston Ash, 1964–83; for Selby, 1983–97; Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, 1979–81; Department of Employment, 1981–3; PPS to the Prime Minister, 1983–7.

  † Garret FitzGerald (1926–2011), educated Coláiste na Rinne, Waterford, Belvedere College, University College and King’s Inns, Dublin; PhD; Irish Senator, 1965–9; Fine Gael TD, 1969–92; Minister for Foreign Affairs, 1973–7; Leader of Fine Gael, 1977–87; Taoiseach, June 1981–March 1982, December 1982–March 1987.

  * Danny Morrison (1953–), director of publicity for Sinn Fein during the hunger strikes; Member, Northern Ireland Assembly, 1982–6. He was a prisoner between 1990 and 1995.

  † In 2009, Martin McGuinness confirmed that he had been in contact with Duddy, though not that the British had made any concessions (Irish News, 28 Sept. 2009).

  * In 2005 the former prisoner Richard O’Rawe published a controversial memoir of the hunger strike, Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-Block Hunger Strike, New Island Books, 2005. In this account O’Rawe revealed that the prison leadership, including McFarlane, had wanted to accept the British offer but that their decision had been overruled by the Republican leadership outside the prison, specifically by a committee which included Gerry Adams. O’Rawe alleged that the Sinn Fein leadership wanted to delay the ending of the hunger strike for political gain. This account is neither corroborated nor repudiated by the evidence contained in the state papers, but there is a bitter debate within the Republican movement about where responsibility lay for the decision to continue the strike. See also Richard O’Rawe, Afterlives: The Hunger Strike and the Secret Offer that Changed Irish History, Lilliput Press, 2011. Danny Morrison disputes O’Rawe’s account of events; see the Andersonstown News, 12 January 2012.

  * Philip Woodfield (1923–2000), educated Alleyn’s School, Dulwich and King’s College London; Deputy Secretary, Northern Ireland Office, 1972–4; Home Office, 1974–81; Permanent Under-Secretary, Northern Ireland Office, 1981–3; knighted, 1983.

  * See Chapter 22.

  † Lord Gowrie recalled that he asked to go to Northern Ireland with Prior because he, Gowrie, had been born in Ireland and was becoming increasingly concerned about the hunger strike (interview with Lord Gowrie).

  * Armstrong himself was not enthusiastic about the Prior proposals because they pressed forward without consultation with the Republic (from February, governed once again by Charlie Haughey). He did not mind if they eventually failed, but he did not want them replaced in government by more Unionist policies.

  † See Chapter 23.

  ‡ Nicholas Budgen (1937–98), educated St Edward’s School, Oxford and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West, February 1974–97; resigned as government whip in 1982 over devolution to Northern Ireland; a leading Eurosceptic and, in the 1990s, rebel against the Maastricht Treaty.

  § Robert Cecil, later 7th Marquess of Salisbury (1946–), educated Eton and Christ Church, Oxford; Conservative MP (as Viscount Cranborne) for Dorset South, 1979–87; Under-Secretary of State for Defence, MOD, 1992–4; Lord Privy Seal and Leader of House of Lords, 1994–7; Leader of the Opposition, House of Lords, 1997–8.

  * For full details of this see Chapter 24.

  † This reply led to an unfortunate misunderstanding on the part of Enoch Powell, who believed that Mrs Thatcher was ‘putting on ice’ her administration’s discussions with the Irish government. He spoke of a ‘real prospect’ of bringing the Official Unionists into communion with the Conservative Party. Ian Gow, noting Powell’s ‘passion for logic’, was well aware that Mrs Thatcher’s answer ‘does not have the implication Enoch thinks it does’. (Gow to PM, 2 Aug. 1982, THCR 2/6/2/117.)

  * David Goodall (1931–), educated Ampleforth and Trinity College, Oxford; diplomat; head of Western European Department, FCO, 1975–9; Cabinet Office, 1982–4; Deputy Under-Secretary, FCO, 1984–7; High Commissioner to India (1987–1991); knighted, 1987.

  † In fact, she was an O’Sullivan. The descent was on her father’s side. She is believed to have been descended from Colonel Sir John William O’Sullivan, Quarter-Master General to Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) in the rising of 1745. (Correspondence with Iain Thornber.)

  * David Willetts (1956–), educated King Edward’s School, Birmingham and Christ Church, Oxford; Prime Minister’s Policy Unit, 1984–6; director of studies, Centre for Policy Studies, 1987–92; Conservative MP for Havant from 1992; Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service, Cabinet Office, 1995–6; Paymaster-General, 1996; Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, 2005–7; for Innovation, Universities and Skills, 2007–10; Minister of State for Universities and Science from 2010.

  * On this important and busy day, Mrs Thatcher also delivered a speech to the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, for which she had prepared very extensively. Her private secretary, Nick Sanders, drew her attention, in the preparation, to an essay by Sir Peter Medawar in which he quoted Hilaire Belloc on the fate (electrocution) of the peer who did not recognize ‘the duty of the wealthy man / To give employment to the artisan’. Medawar wrongly named the peer as Lord Norwich. Mrs Thatcher was attentive and knowledgeable enough to alter it, correctly, to Lord Finchley. (Interview with Nick Sanders.)

  * To illustrate how bad the situation was, it should be borne in mind that, for the next thirty years, a deficit of 3 per cent of GDP was considered the maximum desirable. Towards the end of Gordon Brown’s administration in 2010, however, it was more than 11 per cent.

  † In other words, departments would no longer agree the need for x number of helicopters, hospitals or whatever, and then find the money needed. Instead, they would negotiate the amount of money needed and then buy only as much as they could afford.

  * Mrs Thatcher was conscious of some of these losses. At the beginning of 1982, she sought unsuccessfully to persuade Richard Ryder to return. She told him that she was worried by Alan Walters’s lack of political feel and wanted Ryder to ‘ride shotgun’ for him. (Interview with Lord Ryder of Wensum.)

  * Ken Livingstone (1945–), educated Tulse Hill Comprehensive School and Philippa Fawcett College of Education; Greater London Council, Member for Norwood, 1973–7; for Hackney North, 1977–81; for Paddington, 1981–6; Leader of Counc
il and of Labour Group, 1981–6; Labour MP for Brent East, 1987–2001; Mayor of London, 2000–2008.

  † François Mitterrand (1916–96), Interior Minister of France, 1954–5; Justice Minister, 1956–7; candidate of the left in presidential elections of 1965 and 1974; President of the French Republic, 1981–95.

  * Eventually, and reluctantly, Mrs Thatcher gave Heseltine a more lasting role, earning him the moniker ‘Minister for Merseyside’. His visits there, calling for more intervention, made a great splash.

  * Mrs Thatcher was sufficiently impressed, and perhaps intrigued, by President Reagan that, when she noticed he had left an assortment of doodled heads and faces at the summit table, she took them home as a souvenir. Today they survive among her personal papers (THCR 1/3/6 f101, http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/114249).

  * Charles Douglas-Home (1937–85), educated Eton; defence correspondent, The Times, 1965–70; foreign editor, 1978–81; deputy editor, 1981–2; editor, 1982–5.

  † John Kerr (1942–), educated Glasgow Academy and Pembroke College, Oxford; principal private secretary to Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1981–4; Assistant Under-Secretary, FCO, 1987–90; Ambassador and UK Permanent Representative to the EU, 1990–95; Ambassador to the United States, 1995–7; Permanent Under-Secretary, FCO, 1997–2002; created Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, 2004.

  * It is possible that Mrs Thatcher followed this advice too closely. She became notoriously shy of using the word ‘I’, sometimes slipping into a ‘royal we’, as, famously, when she said, speaking in public after the birth of her first grandchild: ‘We are a grandmother.’

  * Richard Needham (6th Earl of Kilmorey) (1942–), educated Eton; Conservative MP for Chippenham, 1979–83; for Wiltshire North, 1983–97; Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Northern Ireland Office, 1985–92; Minister of State, DTI, 1992–5.

  * At the time of the second interest rate rise on 1 October, Geoffrey and Elspeth Howe were staying with the Hendersons at the British Embassy in Washington. By chance, at the same time Roy Jenkins, an old friend of Nicko Henderson, and Ian Gilmour, were staying too. Henderson gave dinner to Jenkins and Gilmour himself, while arranging for the Howes and their entourage to have dinner in their room, an untypically gauche decision which indicated a bet about who was likely to be in, who out. Elspeth Howe said to the company: ‘Insurrection is being plotted downstairs.’ (Interview with Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. A sanitized version of this story appears in Geoffrey Howe’s memoirs: Conflict of Loyalty, Macmillan, 1994, p. 228.)

  * John Patten (1945–), educated Wimbledon College and Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; Conservative MP for City of Oxford, 1979–83; for Oxford West and Abingdon, 1983–97; Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Northern Ireland Office, 1981–3; Minister of State, Home Office, 1987–92; Secretary of State for Education, 1992–4; created Lord Patten, 1997.

  † Tristan Garel-Jones (1941–), educated King’s School, Canterbury; principal, language school, Madrid, Spain, 1960–70; Conservative MP for Watford, 1979–97; government whip, 1982–9; Deputy Chief Whip, 1989–90; Minister of State, FCO, 1990–93; created Lord Garel-Jones, 1997.

  * Michael Scholar (1942–), educated St Olave’s Grammar School, Bermondsey, St John’s College, Cambridge and University of California at Berkeley; private secretary to the Prime Minister, 1981–3; Permanent Secretary, DTI, 1996–2001; President, St John’s College, Oxford, from 2001; knighted, 1999.

  * In both these cases of anger, Mrs Thatcher, characteristically, felt remorse, and, equally characteristically, expressed it indirectly. To Geoffrey Howe, she wrote a note congratulating him on his Autumn Statement and its delivery (see Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, p. 233).

  * Foot’s wife, Jill, protested that it was, in fact, a smart new blue-green coat which she had bought for him. It was also reported that the Queen Mother had praised his coat. Mrs Thatcher herself was very polite about Foot’s appearance. In a short private account of the ceremony, she noted, ‘It was Michael Foot’s first attendance and he was a little uncertain what to do.’ (MT private account, 8 Nov. 1981, Margaret Thatcher Foundation.)

  † Peter Tatchell (1952–), educated Mount Waverley High School, Melbourne and Polytechnic of North London; activist/organizer, Gay Liberation Front London, 1971–3; UK AIDS Vigil Organization, 1987–9; Green and Socialist Conferences, 1987–9.

  * In the end, Mrs Thatcher actually paid £1,799.96, which included extra miscellaneous travel costs.

  * Emotions ran high. The Earl of Chatham (Pitt the Elder) challenged the government, ‘Will you so shamefully betray the king’s honour so to make it a matter of negotiation whether His Majesty’s possession shall be restored to him or not?’ During the Falklands War, the historian Hugh Thomas (Lord Thomas of Swynnerton) sent Mrs Thatcher a paper about the future development of the Falklands, using this quotation to support her resolve against the less robust position of her Foreign Secretary, Francis Pym.

  * For a discussion of these matters, see Sir Lawrence Freedman’s The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, 2 vols, Routledge, 2005, vol. i: The Origins of the Falklands War, pp. 8–12.

  † Lord Shackleton, son of the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, was asked by Harold Wilson’s government to produce a comprehensive survey of the Falklands. His report, published in 1977, called for major new investment and development of the islands.

  * The JIC is the Whitehall body responsible for directing the national intelligence organizations on behalf of the Cabinet.

  † Edwin Bramall (1923–), educated Eton; Commander-in-Chief, UK Land Forces, 1976–8, 1978–9; Chief of the General Staff, 1979–82; field marshal, 1982; created Lord Bramall, 1987; Knight of the Garter, 1990.

  ‡ Henry Leach (1923–2011), educated Royal Naval College, Dartmouth; Commander-in-Chief Fleet, and Allied Commander-in-Chief, Channel and Eastern Atlantic, 1977–9; Chief of Naval Staff and First Sea Lord, 1979–82; admiral of the Fleet, 1982; knighted, 1977.

  § David Omand (1947–), educated Glasgow Academy and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; private secretary to Secretary of State for Defence, 1981–2; Deputy Under-Secretary (Policy), MOD, 1992–6; Director, GCHQ, 1996–7; Permanent Under-Secretary, Home Office, 1998–2001; Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator, Cabinet Office, from 2006; knighted, 2000.

  * Richard Luce (1936–), educated Wellington and Christ’s College, Cambridge; Conservative MP for Arundel and Shoreham, 1971–4; for Shoreham, 1974–92; Minister of State, FCO, 1981–2, 1983–5; Minister for the Arts, 1985–90; Governor of Gibraltar, 1997–2000; Lord Chamberlain, 2000–2006; created Lord Luce, 2000.

  * There is no evidence that Enders or anyone else associated with the Reagan administration had any advance knowledge of the Argentine invasion, but some close to Mrs Thatcher saw connections nonetheless. ‘It is hard not to believe that some Argentinean Generals let their US counterpart have some inkling as to what was being planned in March,’ Hugh Thomas wrote to Mrs Thatcher later in April. ‘Surely Dr Costa Mendez must have winked, at least, at Assistant Secretary of State Enders, after the latter’s recent visit to Buenos Aires.’ Reviewing the letter with felt pen in hand, Mrs Thatcher scored no fewer than four lines under ‘Enders’. (Thomas to PM, ‘British foreign policy towards the Falklands in the light of Argentinean psychology’, 23 Apr. 1982, THCR 1/13/26.)

  * This has sometimes been referred to as a ‘nuclear’ submarine. The description is misleading. The vessel was nuclear-powered, but not carrying nuclear weapons.

  * Terence Lewin (1920–99), educated the Judd School, Tonbridge; Royal Navy, 1939; served in Second World War (DSC 1942); Chief of Naval Staff and First Sea Lord, 1977–9; Chief of Defence Staff, 1979–82; created Lord Lewin of Greenwich, 1982; Knight of the Garter, 1983.

  † John Fieldhouse (1928–92), educated Royal Naval College, Dartmouth; Royal Navy, 1945; submariner from 1948; Controller of the Navy, 1979–81; Commander-in-Chief Fleet, 1981–2; knighted, 1980; created Lord Fieldhouse, 1990.

  ‡ Antony Acland (1930–), educate
d Eton and Christ Church, Oxford; joined FCO, 1953; head of Arabian Department, 1970–72; Ambassador to Spain, 1977–9; Permanent Under-Secretary and head of Diplomatic Service, 1982–6; Ambassador to the United States, 1986–91; Provost of Eton, 1991–2000; Knight of the Garter, 2001.

  * Accounts of this meeting usually describe Leach as wearing ‘full-dress uniform’. In her memoirs, Mrs Thatcher says that he was ‘in civilian dress’. Neither is correct.

  * Mrs Thatcher remembered him saying forty-eight hours (see The Downing Street Years, HarperCollins, 1993, p. 179), but this is almost certainly wrong.

  * Renwick inaccurately records the time as 2 a.m.

  * Coles and Whitmore both say notes were taken. They do not survive in the archives, however.

  † Patrick Wright (1931–), educated Marlborough and Merton College, Oxford; Ambassador to Luxembourg, 1977–9; to Syria, 1979–81; Deputy Under-Secretary, FCO, 1982–4; Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 1984–6; Permanent Under-Secretary and head of Diplomatic Service, 1986–91; created Lord Wright, 1994.