CHAPTER XI
Home and Dry
The background to and course of the 1983 general election campaign
THE MANIFESTO
The central importance of the manifesto in British general elections often strikes foreign observers as slightly odd. Party manifestos in Britain have acquired greater and greater significance over the years and have become increasingly detailed. In the United States and continental Europe, party ‘platforms’ have less authority and as a result they are not nearly as closely studied. Even in Britain it is only relatively recently that manifestos have been so full of detailed proposals.
The first Conservative manifesto was Sir Robert Peel’s 1835 address to his electors in Tamworth. The ‘Tamworth manifesto’, for all the obvious differences, has one basic similarity with the Conservative manifesto today: it was then and is now very much the party leader’s own statement of policies.
I was never encumbered with the ramshackle apparatus of committees and party rules which makes the drafting and approval of Labour’s manifesto such a nightmare. However, the party leader cannot dictate to senior colleagues: the rest of the government and parliamentary party need to feel committed to the manifesto’s proposals and consequently there has to be a good deal of consultation. I discussed the question with Cecil Parkinson and we agreed that Geoffrey Howe was the right person to oversee the manifesto-making process. There has never been a more devout believer in the virtues of consultation than Geoffrey. It had been necessary to exclude the Treasury from the Falklands War Cabinet and naturally he welcomed this chance to widen his role. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he had the seniority and experience to supervise the required policy work. Looking back, this arrangement was successful in one of its aims — that of reducing the burden on me — but, as we shall see, it turned out to have significant drawbacks. In 1987 I decided to oversee the preparation of the manifesto myself.
The whole process began almost a year before the election. On Saturday 19 June 1982 I approved the setting up of party policy groups with the remit of identifying ‘tasks for Conservative administration during the rest of this decade; to make proposals for action where possible; where not possible, to identify subjects for further study’. Eleven such groups were originally envisaged, though in fact two were never set up: we dropped the idea of a group on ‘constitutional reform’ because I felt that there was really nothing of note to say on that subject, and the terms of reference on ‘the extension of choice’ turned out to be too vague. (This was a theme better dealt with in detail by the other groups.) The nine we did set up covered unemployment, enterprise, family and women’s affairs, education, the cities and law and order, the poverty trap, the European Community, nationalized industries and urban transport. We decided that the chairman of each group should be a parliamentarian — an MP or peer — who would help to select members for their group from among the Conservative-minded in the worlds of business, academe, voluntary service and local government. To keep the Government informed, special advisers to the relevant Cabinet ministers would sit in on the meetings. (Special advisers are political appointees, and so free from the constraints of political neutrality which prevent the use of civil servants in such roles.) Secretarial and research work was done by members of the Conservative Research Department.
Essentially, the policy groups had two purposes. The first and more important was to involve the Party as a whole in our thinking for the future. In this I believe they were successful. The second was to come up with fresh ideas for the manifesto, and unfortunately in this purpose they failed. For one reason or another it took too long to find appropriate chairmen and the right balance of group members. It was not until October or November 1982 that the groups actually got down to work — originally, optimistically, we had thought that they might get started in July. The groups were due to report only at the end of March 1983, but by then of course we in government were all well advanced on our own policy work. Another problem is the human vanity of wanting to demonstrate that you are on the inside track. All too often their proposals trickled out through the press. Indeed, The Times published a detailed account of the report from the Education Policy Group.
The fact is that the really bold proposals in any manifesto can only be developed over a considerable period of time. Relying on bright ideas thought out at the last moment risks a manifesto that would be incoherent and impossible to carry out. So, in the end, the real work for the 1983 manifesto had to be done in No. 10 and by ministers in departments.
As head of my Policy Unit at No. 10, Ferdy Mount was ideally placed for manifesto drafting, and uniquely gifted for it too. He was able to see how ministers were thinking from the ‘Forward Look’ papers I received at the end of 1982. The next step was taken in February 1983, when Geoffrey Howe wrote to Cabinet colleagues, asking them to send him their suggestions for the manifesto not later than April. Their submissions would then be accepted, sharpened up or rejected by a smaller group of ministers and advisers directly responsible to me. The Treasury would keep a weather eye on the cost of proposals — another advantage of Geoffrey’s close involvement — with the result that we were able to say during the election that all of our proposals had been taken into account in the latest Public Expenditure White Paper. Since we expected the contrast between Tory prudence and Labour profligacy to be a central issue in the campaign, this made political as well as economic sense.
Ferdy, Geoffrey Howe, and Geoffrey’s special adviser, Adam Ridley, worked intensively together on Ferdy’s first draft during March and early April. Subsequently, they were joined by Cecil Parkinson, Keith Joseph, Norman Tebbit, David Howell and Peter Cropper (the director of the Conservative Research Department), over the weekend of 9–10 April at which departmental submissions were fully considered. By the end of April we had a fairly complete draft, on which I worked with Geoffrey, Cecil, Ferdy and Adam at Chequers on Sunday 24 April. Shortly afterwards, the Party’s Advisory Committee on Policy met under Keith Joseph’s chairmanship to give it the Party’s final seal of approval: interestingly, in the light of later events, the main criticism came from the two representatives of the ’22 Committee who thought that we were not doing enough to reform the rates. On Wednesday 4 May chapters of the draft manifesto were sent for checking and agreement to individual ministers. A few final changes were made later still at my last pre-election strategy meeting at Chequers the following Sunday, after which it was at last ready to go to the printers. It was finally submitted in proof to an unofficial meeting of Cabinet.
The most important pledges in the manifesto fell into three groups. First, we promised to accelerate privatization, which was fundamental to our whole economic approach. If elected, we committed ourselves to sell British Telecom, British Airways, substantial parts of British Steel, British Shipbuilders, British Leyland and as many as possible of Britain’s airports. The offshore oil interests of British Gas would also be privatized and private capital would be introduced into the National Bus Company. This was an ambitious programme — far more extensive than we had thought would ever be possible when we came into office only four years before.
The second important group of pledges concerned trade union reform. Building on the consultations on our Trade Union Democracy Green Paper, we promised legislation to require ballots for the election of trade union governing bodies and ballots before strikes, failing which unions would lose their immunities. As I have noted, there was also a cautious pledge to consider legislation on the trade union political levy and on strikes in essential services. The caution was justified: we legislated on the former. At a time when Labour was promising to repeal our earlier trade union reforms, we were moving ahead with new ones: the contrast was stark, and we were sure the voters would appreciate the fact.
The third significant group of manifesto proposals related to local government. In particular, we promised to abolish the Greater London Council (GLC) and the Metropolitan County Councils, returning their functions (which
we had already limited) to councils closer to the people — the boroughs in London, and the districts in the other metropolitan areas. The proposal surprised most people and was subsequently portrayed as a last-minute measure, sketchily thought out. The truth was very different. The previous year a Cabinet committee had examined the issue very thoroughly and recommended abolition, though past experience of leaks led me not to put the question to Cabinet for final decision until shortly before the election. We also promised to introduce what came to be known as ‘rate-capping’ — legislation enabling us to curb the extravagance of high-spending councils, in the interests of local ratepayers and the wider economy.
Though the manifesto took our programme forward, it was somehow not an exciting document. The first years of Conservative administration had been dominated by the battle against inflation and by a different kind of warfare in the South Atlantic. Great as the achievements were, neither economics nor defence is the kind of issue that generates exciting material for manifestos. Social policy is very different, but we were only really starting to turn our attention to this area, which was to become increasingly important in the next two Parliaments. And on this occasion at least, perhaps Geoffrey Howe was too safe a pair of hands. I was somewhat disappointed, though tactically I could see that it made sense for us to produce a tame manifesto and to concentrate on exposing Labour’s wildness.
Perhaps the most important feature of the manifesto was what it did not contain. It did not promise a change of direction or an easing of the pace. It gave no quarter to the advocates of socialism and corporatism. In the foreword I stated my vision of Britain and the British:
…a great chain of people stretching back into the past and forwards into the future. All are linked by a common belief in freedom, and in Britain’s greatness. All are aware of their own responsibility to contribute to both.
Was I right in believing that this was the spirit of the time? Or was socialism what the people really wanted? The electorate would shortly give their answer.
PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN
On Wednesday 5 January 1983 I set aside a full day for discussion of our general election strategy. It was in the recess, so we held it at Chequers, always a relaxing place to think things out. The first half of the morning was spent with Cecil Parkinson, Michael Spicer (Deputy Chairman of the Party), Ian Gow and David Wolfson. We reached provisional decisions on a number of practical issues.
One of the most important things was to decide who would accompany me on my campaign tours. A coach had been hired and specially fitted out to take me around the country. We tried to keep the team as small as possible, though when the election was underway there always seemed to be a sizeable number on the bus. My PPS, Ian Gow, was a natural choice, with Michael Spicer taking his place on days when he had constituency engagements. At various times either Derek Howe or Tony Shrimsley would act as Press Officer. John Whittingdale, years later my political secretary and then only twenty-three, was chosen to do research. From Downing Street, Alison Ward and Tessa Gaisman would type the speeches, while one of the ‘Garden Room girls’ would keep me regularly in touch with No. 10 in case something happened which required my immediate attention. And last, but by no means least, we would be accompanied by my daughter Carol, who wrote and published a daily diary of the campaign. Harvey Thomas would go ahead to set up arrangements for meetings and reconnoitre for the press, while his wife typed text for the Autocue, which I now used for all big speeches. Travelling in the coach was bound to be tiring but we knew it would allow us to obtain better press and television pictures. Often it would be possible for me to fly or take the train to the spot at which the tour itself began, using the travel time to work on speech notes and briefing.
At this meeting we considered the arrangements for the manning of the correspondence unit which would be set up to deal with my mail during the election period. I decided to ask Sir John Eden, a former minister who was not standing again for Parliament, to take on this task. There was also the problem of deciding who should serve on the Questions of Policy Committee at Central Office, set up at each election to give authoritative answers to difficult questions put to our candidates. I concluded that Angus Maude, who was also standing down as a Member of Parliament, was the ideal person to chair this Committee.
Later that morning at Chequers we were joined by several other senior people from Central Office. They reported on their plans. One difficulty that came around at every election was to know when to produce the Conservative Research Department’s lengthy and rightly famous Campaign Guide — an encyclopaedia of political facts used by people of all political persuasions, including left-wing journalists too lazy to do their own research. The Campaign Guide’s appearance invariably triggered election speculation. We decided to aim at a publication date in July, though in the event the election came earlier and it had to be produced in a great rush to be ready for the start of the campaign in May. We discussed other literature which would be required for the constituencies. A Boundary Commission report was due and though the Party would benefit substantially from its proposals for the redistribution of seats, by the same token it was difficult to identify precisely the critical marginal seats in which the election would be won or lost. And it was vital that we focus our efforts on the marginals.
We discussed how to handle television: it was likely to be even more important than in earlier elections, though the new breakfast television would have less impact than had often been predicted. Gordon Reece had come over from the United States to help with this aspect of the campaign. Gordon was a former television producer with a unique insight into the medium. He had a much better grasp of popular taste than might have been expected from a man whose principal diet was champagne and cigars. He was always cheerful himself and he never failed to cheer others too. In fact, this was one of the few occasions when I can remember disagreeing with Gordon. He argued that we should be prepared to accept a series of televised debates between myself and Michael Foot, and (separately) with the Alliance leaders. This was an exceptional suggestion: British prime ministers have never accepted challenges to election debates of this kind. The calculation usually is that prime ministers have nothing to gain from them, and quite a lot to lose. But I stood so much better in the polls than Michael Foot that Gordon thought that on this occasion the orthodoxy was wrong and that I could only gain from such a confrontation. I rejected the idea. I disliked the way that elections were being turned into media circuses. And, as I have already said, I did not underrate Michael Foot as a debater. In any case, the arguments were too important to be reduced to a ‘sound bite’ or a gladiatorial sport.
One of our principal assets was the state of the Party’s organization. Cecil Parkinson had done wonders for Central Office. He had brought the Party’s finances into order in the year or so since he had become Chairman: this was essential, because it is only by husbanding resources in mid-term that you can afford to spend as heavily as required in a general election campaign. Cecil had also brought in some very able people. Peter Cropper had reintroduced rigorous standards in the Research Department. Tony Shrimsley, in charge of press relations, was a highly professional and talented journalist who shared my own outlook; sadly, this was to be his last campaign — he was probably already fatally ill. Cecil had placed Chris Lawson in charge of a new Marketing Department, which dealt with opinion research and publicity; Chris was that rare and useful animal, a businessman with acute political instincts.
In the afternoon Tim Bell presented a paper summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of our position, based upon opinion polls. Tim had a more sensitive set of antennae than most politicians. He could pick up quicker than anyone else a change in the national mood. And, unlike most advertising men, he understood that selling ideas is different from selling soap. Tim set out a communications strategy whose main theme was ‘keep on with the change’, an approach which I welcomed. Its wisdom lay in the perception that it was the Conservative Government rather
than the Opposition parties which was the radical force in British society. As we ourselves had shown in 1979, there are few more potent slogans for an Opposition than that it is ‘time for a change’. Tim showed that we could deprive Labour of that slogan and turn the argument against them.
We held another all-day session on general election strategy at Chequers on Thursday 7 April. Manifesto work was in its final stages by then and I was worried that campaign planning seemed to be taking place in a separate compartment. However, that could not be helped. The key members of the Central Office team, along with Tim Bell, Ferdy Mount, David Wolfson, Ian Gow and myself ran over the style and content of the campaign and, in particular, my part in it. By now speculation about an early general election was feverish and there was little or nothing that I could do to prevent it, without firmly ruling out an early election, which of course would have been a very foolish thing to do. I had already stated in public that I would not go to the country before the end of our fourth year and at this meeting I made no secret of the fact that my own instincts were against an early election; I had in mind an election in October. Certainly, the argument was finely balanced. Were we to wait, there was a danger that if the polls started to turn in Labour’s favour the prospect of their grossly irresponsible economic policies being implemented would weaken sterling and hold back investment. It is also generally true, as Jim Callaghan learnt to his cost when he postponed the election in the autumn of 1978, that in politics the ‘unexpected happens’. However, on the other side of the argument, I was convinced that we were now seeing sustainable economic recovery, which would continue to strengthen the longer we waited: clearly, the more solid economic good news we could show the better.
The Downing Street Years, 1979-1990 Page 37