Who Dares Wins

by Dominic Sandbrook

  50. The Times, 6 August 1981, 5 October 1981; Guardian, 5 October 1981; Crewe and King, SDP pp. 140–41; Owen, Time to Declare, pp. 533–4.

  51. The Times, 16 September 1981, 17 September 1981; Daily Express, 16 September 1981; Daily Mirror, 16 September 1981; Jenkins, Life at the Centre, p. 546; Crewe and King, SDP, p. 140.

  52. Guardian, 19 September 1981; The Times, 19 September 1981; Jenkins, Life at the Centre, p. 547; Daily Express, 19 September 1981.

  Chapter 18. Up Yours from the Chancellor

  1. ‘Radio Interview for BBC Radio 4 The World This Weekend’, 4 January 1981, TFW.

  2. Millar to Thatcher, 6 January 1981, TFW; ‘TV Interview for Thames TV Afternoon Plus’, 6 January 1981, TFW.

  3. John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, vol. 2: The Iron Lady (2003), pp. 105–6; Daily Telegraph, 5 March 2012; and see Christopher Collins’s discussion of the changes at https://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/1981cac2.asp.

  4. Thorneycroft to Thatcher, ‘The Public Image of the Government and Party’, 19 January 1981, TFW; Alan Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, 1972–1982 (2000), pp. 202–3.

  5. Sir John Hunt to Thatcher, ‘Strategy for the Coal Industry: E (79) 45’, 26 September 1979, TFW; David Howell, ‘Strategy for the Coal Industry: E (79) 45’, 26 September 1979; The Times, 11 February 1981; Ingham to Thatcher, ‘Miners’, 13 February 1981, TFW; Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, vol. 1: Not for Turning (2013), p. 539; The Times, 19 February 1981.

  6. Daily Mirror, 19 February 1981; Daily Express, 19 February 1981; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 539; Tim Lankester to Julian West, ‘Coal: No. 10 Record of Conversation’, 20 February 1981, TFW; John Hoskyns, Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution (2000), p. 275.

  7. Guardian, 5 February 1981; The Times, 14 February 1981; Gow to Thatcher, 27 February 1981, TFW; Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, p. 205.

  8. Moore, Not for Turning, p. 550; Hoskyns diary, 5 March 1981, TFW.

  9. Daily Mirror, 5 January 1981; Tim Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, in Duncan Needham and Anthony Hotson (eds.), Expansionary Fiscal Contraction: The Thatcher Government’s 1981 Budget in Perspective (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 14–15; David Smith, Something Will Turn Up: Britain’s Economy, Past, Present and Future (2015), p. 91; Daily Telegraph, 5 January 2009.

  10. Walters diary, 6 January 1981, TFW; John Ranelagh, Thatcher’s People: An Insider’s Account of the Politics, the Power and the Personalities (1991), p. 227.

  11. Jürg Niehans, ‘The Appreciation of Sterling: Causes, Effects, Policies’, 7 January 1981, TFW; Walters diary, 7 January 1981, TFW; Hoskyns diary, 7 January 1981, 9 January 1981, TFW; Hoskyns to Thatcher, 5 February 1981, TFW; Hoskyns, Just in Time, pp. 256–7, 267–9; and see Smith, Something Will Turn Up, p. 93; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, p. 20; Christopher Collins, ‘The Origins of the Budget in 1980’, in Needham and Hotson (eds.), Expansionary Fiscal Contraction, p. 117.

  12. Nigel Lawson, The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical (1992: 1993), p. 94; Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (1994), pp. 202, 204; Hoskyns, Just in Time, pp. 283–4, 264; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, pp. 11–13, 21, 35; Collins, ‘The Origins of the Budget in 1980’, p. 118; Edmund Dell, The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945–90 (1996), p. 475. In general on all this, see Christopher Collins’s invaluable guide to the archives, ‘The 1981 Budget: Background and Documents’, at https://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/1981_budget.asp. For an alternative view, more favourable to Hoskyns, see Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 627–8, though note that Lankester and Collins both have disagreements with it.

  13. Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, pp. 13–14; Hoskyns diary, 25 February 1981, TFW.

  14. Ibid., 17 January 1981, TFW; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, p. 24; Howe to Thatcher, ‘Public Expenditure White Paper’, 23 January 1981, TFW.

  15. Howe to Thatcher, ‘The Budget’, 5 February 1981, TFW; ‘Treasury Minute (Chancellor’s Meeting with Governor): Monetary Policy and the Budget’, 6 February 1981, TFW. For Howe’s colleagues’ demands for more money, see Heseltine to Howe, ‘1981 Budget’, 5 February 1981, TFW; Joseph to Howe, ‘The 1981 Budget’, 30 January 1981, TFW; Prior to Howe, ‘The 1981 Budget’, 9 February 1981, TFW.

  16. ‘Note for the Record’, 10 February 1981, TFW; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, pp. 26–7; Walters to Thatcher, ‘The Budget, etc.’, 10 February 1981, TFW; Hoskyns diary, 10 February 1981, TFW; Hoskyns, Just in Time, pp. 269–70.

  17. Hoskyns diary, 11 February 1981, 13 February 1981, TFW; Walters, Hoskyns and Wolfson to Thatcher, ‘Budget Strategy’, 12 February 1981, TFW; Hoskyns, Just in Time, pp. 270–73.

  18. Lankester to Thatcher, ‘Meeting on the Budget’, 13 February 1981, TFW; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, p. 27; Hoskyns, Just in Time, p. 273; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 625; Hoskyns diary, 13 February 1981, TFW.

  19. ‘Note for the Record’, 17 February 1981, TFW; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, p. 27; Hoskyns diary, 17 February 1981, 18 February 1981, TFW; Walters diary, 20 February 1981, TFW; Walters, Hosykns and Wolfson to Thatcher, ‘Budget Strategy’, 20 February 1981, TFW; Hoskyns, Just in Time, pp. 274–6.

  20. Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, pp. 29–31, 35; Walters diary, 24 February 1981, TFW; ‘No. 10 Minute: Meeting with Chancellor and Wass’, 24 February 1981, TFW.

  21. ‘Treasury Minute: Chancellor’s Meeting’, 25 February 1981, TFW; Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (1993), p. 136; ‘No. 10 Minute: Meeting with Chancellor’, 25 February 1981, TFW; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, p. 32.

  22. Ibid., p. 33; Walters diary, 25 February 1981, TFW; Walters to Wass, ‘Budget’, 26 February 1981, TFW; Hoskyns diary, 3 March 1981, TFW; Hoskyns, Just in Time, pp. 279–80.

  23. Nicholas Henderson, Mandarin: The Diaries of Nicholas Henderson (1994: 2000), pp. 384–5; Hugo Young, One of Us: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher (rev. edn: 1990), p. 250.

  24. Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power (1995), p. 371; Ronald Reagan, An American Life: The Autobiography (New York, 1990), p. 204; Young, One of Us, pp. 251, 254–5; Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York, 1991), p. 25; Lou Cannon, Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power (New York, 2003), p. 139; Craig Shirley, Reagan’s Revolution: The Untold Story of the Campaign That Started It All (Nashville, TN, 2005), pp. 34–8.

  25. Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 571, 542; ‘Department of the Treasury Memcon: Howe-Regan Meeting’, 28 September 1981, TFW; The Economist, 24 October 1987. See also Young, One of Us, p. 251; Campbell, Iron Lady, pp. 270–71.

  26. Young, One of Us, pp. 252–3; Cannon, President Reagan, p. 120; Campbell, Iron Lady, p. 262; Virginia Fraser (ed.), Best Seat in the House: The Wit and Parliamentary Chronicles of Frank Johnson (2009), p. 105; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 547.

  27. Thatcher, Downing Street Years, p. 157; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 547; Campbell, Iron Lady, pp. 261–3; Geoffrey Smith, Reagan and Thatcher (1990), pp. 26, 51–2; Richard Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher: The Difficult Relationship (2012), pp. 49–50; Douglas Brinkley (ed.), The Reagan Diaries (New York, 2007), p. 32.

  28. Ibid., p. 250; ‘Remarks Arriving at the White House’, 26 February 1981, TFW; ‘Record of Phone Conversation’ (Reagan-Thatcher), 21 January 1981, TFW; Thatcher, Downing Street Years, p. 159; Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 541, 544–5; ‘State Department Briefing for President Reagan’, 17 February 1981, TFW; Martin Anderson, ‘Reaganism and Thatcherism’, 26 February 1981, TFW.

  29. Brinkley (ed.), Reagan Diaries, p. 5. See also Moore, Not for Turning, p. 545.

  30. ‘Exchange of Toasts at British Embassy Dinner’, 27 February 1981, TFW; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 546; Aldous, Reagan and Thatcher, pp. 42–3; Richard Ingrams and John Wells, The Other Half: Further Letters of Denis Tha
tcher (1981), p. 70; Brinkley (ed.), Reagan Diaries, p. 5; Henderson, Mandarin, p. 390.

  31. Ibid., p. 388.

  32. ‘Speech Accepting Donovan Award’, 28 February 1981, TFW; Henderson, Mandarin, p. 388.

  33. Moore, Not for Turning, p. 547; Henderson, Mandarin, pp. 387, 390; Brinkley (ed.), Reagan Diaries, p. 5; Thatcher to Henderson, 5 March 1981, TFW; Young, One of Us, p. 252.

  34. The Times, 14 February 1981, 9 March 1981; Sunday Times, 15 February 1981; Guardian, 9 March 1981.

  35. Jim Prior, A Balance of Power (1986), pp. 131, 140; Ian Gilmour, Dancing with Dogma: Britain under Thatcherism (1992), p. 44.

  36. Hoskyns diary, 10 March 1981, TFW; Hoskyns, Just in Time, p. 281; Moore, Not for Turning, p. 629; Prior, Balance of Power, p. 140.

  37. Hansard, 10 March 1981; The Times, 11 March 1981.

  38. Keith Britto, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 57’, 24 March 1981, TFW; Ingham to Thatcher, ‘Press Summary’, 11 March 1981, TFW; Guardian, 11 March 1981; The Times, 11 March 1981, 12 March 1981; Daily Express, 11 March 1981; Daily Mirror, 11 March 1981; and see Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, p. 210.

  39. ‘Speech at Guardian Young Businessman of the Year Award’, 11 March 1981, TFW; Guardian, 11 March 1981; The Times, 12 March 1981.

  40. Ibid.; Sun, 12 March 1981, 13 March 1981; Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, p. 208; Ingham to Thatcher, ‘Chancellor of the Duchy’s Lobby’, 13 March 1981, TFW; Moore, Not for Turning, pp. 629–30.

  41. The Times, 30 March 1981; Robert Neild, ‘The “1981 Statement by 364 Economists” Revisited’, Royal Economic Society Newsletter, no. 159 (October 2012), pp. 11–14. The statement and a list of signatories are also reprinted in the appendix to Philip Booth (ed.), Were 364 Economists All Wrong? (2006), pp. 121–32.

  42. Daily Express, 30 March 1981; Daily Mirror, 30 March 1981; The Times, 4 April 1981, 1 April 1981.

  43. The Times, 4 April 1981; Spectator, 11 April 1981; Daily Express, 31 March 1981. See also Ferdinand Mount, Cold Cream: My Early Life and Other Mistakes (2008), pp. 283–4.

  44. The Times, 1 April 1981; Daily Express, 3 April 1981; Daily Mirror, 2 April 1981.

  45. David Kynaston, The City of London, vol. 4: A Club No More, 1945–2000 (2001), p. 587; Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, p. 209.

  46. Lawson, View from No. 11, p. 98; for comparison, see Alan Walters, Britain’s Economic Renaissance: Margaret Thatcher’s Reforms, 1979–1984 (New York, 1986), p. 86.

  47. Howe, Conflict of Loyalty, pp. 226–7; Lawson, View from No. 11, p. 98; Lankester, ‘The 1981 Budget: How Did It Come About?’, p. 36; Dell, The Chancellors, pp. 480–81. See also Terry Burns’s comments in ‘IEA Seminar: The 1981 Budget’, 16 March 2006, TFW.

  48. See ibid., as well as the essays in Booth (ed.), Were 364 Economists All Wrong?. For a more critical verdict, see Jim Tomlinson, ‘Mrs Thatcher’s Macroeconomic Adventurism, 1979–1981, and Its Political Consequences’, British Politics, 2:1 (2007), pp. 3–19.

  49. Stephen Nickell, ‘The Budget of 1981 Was over the Top’, 13 March 2006, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2006/the-budget-of-1981-was-over-the-top. See also Nickell’s remarks in ‘IEA Seminar: The 1981 Budget’, 16 March 2006, TFW.

  50. ‘IEA Seminar: The 1981 Budget’, 16 March 2006, TFW; and see Derek Scott, ‘The 1981 Budget: A Turning Point for UK Macroeconomic Thinking’, in Booth (ed.), Were 364 Economists All Wrong?, pp. 112–21.

  51. The Times, 31 March 1981; and see Dell, The Chancellors, pp. 468–9.

  52. The Times, 1 June 1981.

  53. Ibid., 3 June 1981, 27 March 1980; and see TNA CAB 129/193, CP (76) 116, ‘The Case for and against Import Controls’, 30 November 1976. On the Alternative Economic Strategy, see Cambridge Political Economy Group, Britain’s Economic Crisis (Nottingham, 1975); Stuart Holland, The Socialist Challenge (1975); Andrew Gamble, Britain in Decline: Economic Policy, Political Strategy and the British State (Basingstoke, 1994), pp. 158, 171–185; Tony Benn, Against the Tide: Diaries, 1973–76 (1989), pp. 324–5, as well as Benn’s paper, ‘The Alternative Economic Strategy in Outline’ (1975), reprinted in ibid., pp. 725–7. On the evasiveness of the Labour right and centre, see The Times, 27 March 1980, 18 January 1982; Guardian, 25 June 1981; Brian Harrison, Finding a Role? The United Kingdom, 1970–1990 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 496, 531–2.

  54. Guardian, 5 March 1984, 9 July 1984, 4 May 1984; Rod Kedward, La Vie en bleu: France and the French since 1900 (2005), pp. 484–6, 491–5.

  55. The Times, 9 March 1982. On Ireland, see, for example, Patrick T. Geary, ‘Ireland’s Economy in the 1980s: Stagnation and Recovery’, Economic and Social Review, 23:3 (1992), pp. 253–81.

  56. Lawson, View from No. 11, pp. 62–3; Scott, ‘The 1981 Budget’, pp. 112–15; Dell, The Chancellors, pp. 479–80, 486–7.

  57. Keith Britto, ‘Public Opinion Background Note 57’, 24 March 1981, TFW; TNA PREM 19/423, Ingham to Pym, ‘Economic Presentation’, 19 March 1981.

  58. Campbell, Iron Lady, p. 112; ‘Speech to Conservative Central Council’, 28 March 1981, TFW.

  59. Hoskyns diary, 13 March 1981, 15 March 1981, 20 March 1981, TFW; Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, p. 217.

  60. Thatcher to Fowler, 21 May 1981, TFW.

  Chapter 19. One in Ten

  1. The Times, 30 April 1981, 2 May 1981, 5 May 1981, 15 May 1981; Daily Mirror, 13 May 1981; Stoke Sentinel, 16 May 2009.

  2. The Times, 30 April 1981, 15 May 1981; Tony Benn, The End of an Era: Diaries, 1980–90 (1992), p. 131; Daily Mirror, 29 May 1981.

  3. Stoke Sentinel, 16 May 2009; Church Times, 22 May 1981; Daily Express, 5 May 1981; Daily Mail, 1 May 1981; Daily Mirror, 29 May 1981, 26 May 1981.

  4. Ibid., 13 May 1981; The Times, 19 May 1981, 27 May 1981.

  5. Ibid., 30 May 1981, 1 June 1981; Sunday Express, 31 May 1981; Daily Express, 26 May 1981; Daily Mirror, 1 June 1981.

  6. The Times, 2 June 1981; Benn, End of an Era, p. 133.

  7. Beatrix Campbell, Wigan Pier Revisited: Poverty and Politics in the 80s (1984), pp. 163–5.

  8. ‘Speech to Conservative Party Conference’, 10 October 1980, TFW; Guardian, 17 February 1981.

  9. The Times, 26 February 1981, 26 February 1981, 27 January 1982, 9 March 1982.

  10. David Smith, North and South: Britain’s Economic, Social and Political Divide (1989), pp. 92, 94, 132–3; The Times, 5 May 1981.

  11. Guardian, 24 January 1981.

  12. The Times, 5 June 1980; Sunday Times, 15 May 1983; Jonathan Raban, Coasting (1986), pp. 255, 258.

  13. The Times, 1 September 1980.

  14. Guardian, 24 January 1981, 26 January 1982; The Times, 15 July 1982, 25 March 1981, 27 December 1980, 27 January 1982, 8 September 1980.

  15. Hansard, 9 November 1981; The Times, 25 November 1981.

  16. Ibid., 12 February 1981, 25 November 1981, 30 December 1980, 20 May 1981, 15 December 1981; Christopher Johnson, The Economy under Mrs Thatcher, 1979–1990 (1991), pp. 94–5.

  17. Daily Express, 21 March 1981, 21 December 1981, 8 December 1981; Sunday Times, 14 February 1982; The Times, 23 January 1984, 20 May 1981; Campbell, Wigan Pier Revisited, pp. 11–14, 17. For another example, see Ian Jack, Before the Oil Ran Out: Britain in the Brutal Years (rev. edn: 1997), pp. 135–7.

  18. Daily Express, 28 August 1981; Guardian, 28 August 1981.

  19. The Times, 22 July 1981, 23 July 1981.

  20. Ibid., 9 October 1981, 31 July 1984.

  21. Jeremy Seabrook, Unemployment (1982: 1983), p. 142; Campbell, Wigan Pier Revisited, pp. 175, 179–80.

  22. Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ (1982: 2002), p. 175; Campbell, Wigan Pier Revisited, pp. 184, 190, 169, 61, 173; The Times, 6 May 1983; Seabrook, Unemployment, p. 3.

  23. Alan Bleasdale, Boys from the Blackstuff (1982: 1985), pp. 66, 169, 176–7.

  24. Ibid., pp. 9, 10–12; Lez Cooke, British Television Drama: A History (2015), pp. 139–40.

  25. Ibid., pp. 141, 143; Bleasdale, Boys from the Blackstuff, pp. 97, 131, 197. />
  26. Ibid., pp. 187, 191, 218, 226.

  27. Ali Campbell and Robin Campbell, Blood and Fire: The Autobiography of the UB40 Brothers (2005), pp. 55, 77, 4; Daily Telegraph, 14 February 2013.

  28. Daily Mirror, 27 January 1982; Campbell, Wigan Pier Revisited, pp. 186–7, 175.

  29. The Times, 28 November 1980; Observer, 9 August 1981.

  30. Bill Williamson, The Temper of the Times: British Society since World War II (Oxford, 1990), pp. 202–4; Ben Pimlott, ‘The North-East: Back to the 1930s?’, Political Quarterly, 52:1 (1981), pp. 51–63; The Times, 29 September 1976, 2 February 1977, 23 February 1977.

  31. John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, vol. 1: The Grocer’s Daughter (2000), pp. 395, 413.

  32. The Times, 22 July 1981.

  33. Johnson, Economy under Mrs Thatcher, p. 235; The Times, 9 March 1982.

  34. See, for example, Paul Krugman, ‘Did Thatcher Turn Britain Around?’, 8 April 2013, https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/did-thatcher-turn-britain-around/. For comparative economic figures, see the invaluable data sets maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis at https://fred.stlouisfed.org.

  35. Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (1994), p. 687.

  36. ‘Party Political Broadcast’, 22 April 1977, TFW; John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, vol. 2: The Iron Lady (2003), p. 85. For another example, see ‘Speech to Conservative Rally in Birmingham’, 19 April 1979, TFW.

  37. See Bernard Porter, ‘“Though Not an Historian Myself …”: Margaret Thatcher and the Historians’, Twentieth Century British History, 5:2 (1994), pp. 255–6.

  38. The Times, 30 June 1980. I counted the Orwell references using the newspaper archive at www.proquest.com.

  39. The Times, 5 May 1980, 16 February 1983; Guardian, 19 February 1981. Methods of estimating unemployment figures have changed over time: for one set of figures, see James Denman and Paul McDonald, ‘Unemployment Statistics from 1881 to the Present Day’, Labour Market Trends (January 1996), https://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-trends--discontinued-/january-1996/unemployment-since-1881.pdf.