Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality

by Aitken, Jonathan

  A more endearing example of her spontaneous reaction to a foreign-policy issue occurred later the same year when she went to visit Sir James Goldsmith at Montjeu, his country house in France. Escorted by her host and accompanied by her fellow house guests, Bill and Biddy Cash, she and Denis went for a walk on the estate. To her surprise they came across, in a woodland grove, a huge bronze statue of Lenin. Margaret Thatcher insisted on posing for a photograph in front of this monument to the founding father of communism saying, ‘I just want to show him we won!’9

  Winning battles remained on her agenda in the late 1990s. On the whole they were not political. She made occasional speeches in the constituencies of MPs she wanted to help, including a fiery one for me in South Thanet in which she all but called for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. But because she was so alienated from the official Conservative policy towards Europe she was a major contributor to the rift in the party which intensified the size of the government’s defeat in the 1997 election.

  Before that debacle took place she was always keen to do her bit for some cause in Britain’s interest where she felt she could make a difference. British exports generally and defence exports in particular received considerable help from her as she travelled across the world, well briefed by the Foreign Office to put right words into the ears of the heads of state or government she was visiting. As the following story shows, she could be at her best in the Gulf.

  STILL BATTING FOR BRITAIN

  Margaret Thatcher has remained a heroine in the Gulf for the part she played in the war to liberate Kuwait. Because of this, she seemed the best person to help with a different sort of rescue operation in that country. This was a crisis over a vital Kuwaiti export order for armoured cars made by GKN in Birmingham.

  As the Minister for Defence exports, I had been supporting GKN’s efforts to secure this contract. The company’s bid succeeded. The government of Kuwait publicly announced that it would be ordering £1 billion worth of GKN’s Warrior armoured cars as part of its armed forces re-equipment programme.

  But just before the contract was due to be signed, a US defence manufacturer put in a counter-bid. Under the conventions among NATO countries and under normal business practices in Kuwait, such an opportunistic move would never normally have been considered. But this particular American counter-bid broke all the rules. It was accompanied by an extraordinary level of political lobbying from Washington, which climaxed in a telephone call to the Crown Prince from the US Vice President Al Gore and a personal letter to the Emir from President Bill Clinton.

  Faced with the prospect of a British export triumph turning into a last-minute defeat, I did my ministerial best to organise some high-level counter-lobbying from London. Knowing that Margaret Thatcher, like the British government, had been personally assured by the Kuwait ruling family that this contract was coming to Britain, I went round to her house in Chester Square to see if she could help.

  The action of the next forty minutes was a marvellous demonstration of Thatcher power at its fiercest, funniest and most effective. As I recounted the sequence of events in the contract battle so far, my narrative was punctuated by a succession of explosive epithets from Margaret Thatcher: ‘Outrageous!’ ‘Appalling!’ ‘Disgraceful!’ and finally, ‘I will not allow this!’ Having started the adrenalin flowing at warlike levels in the former Prime Minister, my next challenge was to persuade her to charge at the right target. No such persuasion was required. The lady was for phoning. ‘Do you have the Crown Prince of Kuwait’s home telephone number?’ she demanded. Fortunately I had, and dialled it. Amazingly, Sheikh Jabr Al Sabah answered the line himself. ‘Your Highness, I am in Margaret Thatcher’s house. She is right beside me, and would like to speak to you about an urgent matter’, I began. ‘Jonathan, you must be joking’, the bemused heir apparent said. Before I could explain that jokes were not on the evening’s agenda, Margaret Thatcher seized the receiver. In tones of rising passion she reminded the Crown Prince of the part Britain had played in the liberation of Kuwait and of his pledge that Britain would get its fair share of the armed forces re-equipment programme. She also reminded him that debts of honour were debts of honour, and that only a month or so ago he had personally assured her that Britain had won the armoured vehicle competition.

  ‘Now what I want to know is: do Kuwaitis keep their promises?’

  The answer was apparently less than satisfactory. ‘Your Highness, I do not like what I am hearing. Let me ask you again. Do Kuwaitis keep their promises? Are you going to keep your word or break your word?’

  ‘I’m beginning to feel a bit sorry for this chappie’, observed Sir Denis sotto voce as he sipped his gin and tonic. His sympathy was evidently not shared by his spouse. Her decibels rose as she enlarged on her strong feelings to the Crown Prince. ‘So what exactly are you going to do at your cabinet meeting tomorrow?’ she crescendoed. ‘You are not going to run away from your responsibilities, are you?’

  I was beginning to wonder whether my bright idea would provoke a major diplomatic incident in Anglo-Kuwaiti relations when sweetness and light broke out. ‘Thank you so much, Your Highness. I knew you would be a man of your word’, I heard Margaret Thatcher coo in dulcet tones.

  ‘He was wobbly, but he’ll be all right’, she declared as she put down the receiver. ‘Now I must sort out the Americans. Let’s get Al Gore on the line.’ I confessed that my skills as an impromptu switchboard operator did not include carrying around the telephone number of the Vice President of the United States. ‘Well then, get Robin Renwick. He’ll know it.’ The number of the British Ambassador in Washington was not at my fingertips either.

  Margaret Thatcher was in no mood to be thwarted by these pettifogging obstructions. ‘Then I must speak to Ray Seitz at once. He must be made to order the Clinton administration to stop their dirty tricks immediately.’ With some difficulty I tracked down the Ambassador of the United States to the Court of St James, only to be told by the butler at the US Embassy Residence in Regent’s Park that His Excellency was unavailable to come to the telephone because he was having a shower. For the second time Margaret Thatcher seized the receiver from me. ‘This is Margaret Thatcher. Please tell Ambassador Seitz that I will hold on until he comes out of the shower.’

  The butler did not argue with these orders, and apparently delivered them to the ambassador’s bathroom, for a couple of minutes later a presumably wet and dripping Raymond Seitz came to the telephone to receive a broadside, from which he escaped only by promising to pass on a ‘back off’ message to Washington immediately.

  Justifiably pleased though she was by her evening’s work, Margaret Thatcher had not quite finished. ‘Now, our last task tonight is to tell the Prime Minister exactly what’s been happening. I’d like him to know that I can still bat for Britain.’ I said I would tell John Major about all the boundaries his predecessor had scored in the morning. That was not good enough. ‘A prime minister likes to know these things at once. Do it now!’ was the command. With some trepidation, I rang No. 10 and was relieved to be told that the Prime Minister could not be disturbed. ‘And perhaps it might be wiser not to disturb him at all on this one’, murmured the well-trained private secretary. ‘Let’s take stock in the morning.’ I agreed with alacrity to this proposition, with wise nods coming from Denis and Julian Seymour.

  By the time we got round to taking stock the following morning in Whitehall, the cabinet in Kuwait had approved the final details of the armoured vehicle contract, and authorised the Defence Minister to sign it in the British Embassy. GKN got its £1 billion order, and the Warrior subsequently performed superbly both in the snows of Bosnia and in the sands of Kuwait. Britain had achieved a great export success – but we would never have done it without Margaret Thatcher.10

  A BREAK IN THE HIGHLANDS

  Margaret Thatcher was not an easy holiday guest. She did not take naturally to the theory or practice of leisure. The month of August was always a challenging time for her. In the years
of retirement, when no red boxes were emanating from No. 10 to distract her from the burdens of relaxation, the challenge was even greater.

  In August 1996 Margaret and Denis travelled to the Highlands of Scotland to spend a few days as the guests of Lord Pearson of Rannoch. His Perthshire estate is one of the most windswept and inaccessible wildernesses in the United Kingdom. Its terrain is character building. The same could be said of a sojourn at Rannoch Barracks under the imperious direction of the laird. Amusing and lovable to his friends, Malcolm Pearson on the hill or on the port can be an acquired taste for newcomers who do not share his passions for militant Euroscepticism, deer stalking and political incorrectness.

  Margaret Thatcher had great respect and affection for her host. Their friendship went back to the mid-1970s when the Pearson chequebook funded telex machines in Central Office and, more daringly, samizdat newsletters behind the Iron Curtain. She admired his subversive support for anti-Soviet dissidents and his pioneering friendship with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn whose sons became his wards. For such good works, Margaret Thatcher made Malcolm Pearson a working Conservative life peer in 1990.

  The newly ennobled Pearson worked assiduously in the House of Lords, but not always in the Conservative Party’s interest. He was too wild a stag to be constrained by the dictates of the whips. So he bolted to the UK Independence Party, eventually becoming Leader of UKIP in 2008. Although this defection troubled traditional Tories, it was of no concern to their former leader, whose views on the EU had by this time become closely allied to UKIP’s. So her visit to Rannoch was as much an opportunity for recharging her Eurosceptic batteries with ‘one of us’ as it was for savouring the beauty of the Scottish scenery.

  Margaret Thatcher was an enjoyable guest but not an entirely peaceful one. First clash with the laird came over the timing of breakfast which she wanted to be at 7 a.m. The rest of the household preferred 9.30 a.m. After some discussion she agreed to what she called ‘a compromise’ – 7.15 a.m.

  The second argument came over suitable attire for hill climbing. ‘I can see you’re not a country girl’, said her host when he observed her black suede Ferragamo bootees topped with ribbons. ‘I have several excellent pairs of gumboots, so I can lend you one in your size.’ She declined his offer.

  The journey from the house to the hill was a royal procession, at least by the standards of Rannoch Moor. Two estate Land Rovers; one Scotland Yard Range Rover; two trucks towing Argo-Cats (mountain-climbing vehicles with rubber tracks); two back-up cars for the guests; one back-up car for the police; one lorry for assorted stalkers, gillies, lunch carriers and teenage boys.

  This caravan managed to get about half the way up the paths towards the destination of ‘The Craggie’, the highest peak on the estate. The last 1,000 feet or so could only be climbed on foot or navigated by Argo – which for most of the ascent was the guest of honour’s preferred mode of travel. But after an hour of bumping and twisting through the heather clumps and peat hags, she was still quite a trek from the summit, with the Argos juddering on sluggishly. ‘Oh I’ll walk the last bit’, declared Baroness Thatcher leaping into a bog completely unsuitable for her black bootees. Tightening her headscarf she strode onwards and upwards. It must have been one of the coldest and longest walks of her life. Determined not to be defeated by the elements, she struggled all the way to the top. On arrival at The Craggie, the Laird handed out soup to the frozen, observing that the panorama had been Solzhenitsyn’s favourite view. ‘He must have felt at home here after all those years in Siberia’, muttered Denis.11

  Hill walking would not by itself have constituted a sufficient holiday pastime for Margaret Thatcher. So her host invited suitable conversationalists to keep her entertained. ‘She likes to talk a lot about Europe these days’, he said.12

  The three front-line respondents for this task were Christopher Booker, author of The Great Deception and other writings on the evils of the EU; Malcolm Pearson, deliverer of innumerable pro-UKIP speeches in the Lords; and myself, a poor third, but qualifying as a Eurosceptic parliamentarian of early vintage. Between us, we engaged with the great lady from dawn to dusk on matters of detail and principle relating to Europe. She had lost little of her prime ministerial fire on the subject, except perhaps in the evening when the generous whiskies led to some repetition.

  Two other glimpses of Margaret Thatcher at Rannoch linger in the memory. The first was her sweetness and light towards Malcolm’s Down’s Syndrome daughter Marina. How she and the former Prime Minister managed to communicate so energetically for long periods of dialogue was a mystery, but it happened.

  A second example of Margaret’s rapport with the young came when Malcolm broke up the flow of adult conversation one evening with the command ‘Time for Prime Minister’s Questions’. This meant putting her metaphorically back at the despatch box responding to well over ninety minutes’ worth of questions from the four teenage boys staying in the house – Christopher Booker’s sons Alex and Nick; Edward Rose, the nephew of Lady Pearson; and my son William.

  The session bore more than a passing resemblance to the House of Commons on a rowdy afternoon. Some of the questions were bright, and the replies were often passionate. Heckling was encouraged. The adult audience cheered. At one point Denis said proudly, ‘If we’d ever gone broke she could have earned her living as a bloody good teacher’.13

  Some of her best sallies were about Europe. ‘If God had intended us to be a member of the EU he would not have put the Channel where it is’, was one.

  Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Booker followed up by asking her: ‘Lady Thatcher, do you think we should leave the European Union?’

  She replied: ‘There are five reasons why we should leave it.’ Then she soared away on the wings of her oratory, ticking the arguments off on the fingers of her right hand. When she drew breath some fifteen minutes later, Nicholas said: ‘Lady Thatcher, you’ve only given us four reasons. What is the fifth?’

  ‘You’re quite right’, she said, holding up her little finger. ‘The fifth reason why we should leave’ – dramatic pause – ‘is that THEY STOLE OUR FISH!’14

  The last question was about achieving greatness. She gave a splendid answer, whose last line was, ‘And if you follow my advice, you four will have great lives as great politicians and great servants of our country’. ‘Hear, hear!’ boomed Denis. ‘And now I’m taking you off to bed.’15

  It made a memorable evening. Yet there was poignancy too. For below the surface it was clear that she was a restless soul, utterly unfulfilled by retirement. As I wrote in my diary, paraphrasing Dean Acheson: ‘Margaret has lost an empire but not yet found a role.’16

  SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

  Her seventieth birthday was marked by events and celebrations designed to suggest that she might be moving into more senior and peaceful waters. She had other ideas.

  Her memoirs The Downing Street Years received a good reception in terms of both sales and critics. The only discordant note came when she told the book buyers in Hatchards that she should have titled the book Undefeated!

  Despite his predecessor’s tendency to express unhelpful views on his premiership, John Major graciously hosted a birthday dinner in her honour at No. 10. She, with rather less grace, paused on the doorstep to say that she still thought of this address as home; that Gladstone had formed his fourth administration when he was over eighty; and that if anyone thought that it was fine for her to relax and give the other side a chance, the answer was ‘No! No! No!’17 The humour was uncertain but the message was clear. In her own irrepressible way, she was going on and on.

  She reinforced this theme at a second seventieth birthday dinner for around eighty friends held at Claridge’s. She had arranged the seating plan for her guests with special care. One charming touch was that she put Jack Profumo at the top table on her right and on the Queen’s left – a beautiful touch of kindness agreed by both great ladies.

  Her health was elegantly and humorously proposed by Bill Deed
es, who in his own gentle way seemed to be suggesting that even ex-prime ministers may need to slow down. To drop this hint he quoted (though without attribution) from Psalm 90: ‘The days of our age are three score years and ten, and though some be so strong that they come to four score years, then is their strength only labour and sorrow …’

  Apparently thinking that these sentiments were from Bill rather than the Bible, when the guest of honour came to respond she gave Deedes a good handbagging in her speech along the lines of, ‘What’s all this stuff and nonsense about labour and sorrow after three score years and ten?’ Later in the evening when she was mingling with her guests, I asked if she realised that the stuff and nonsense was a quotation. ‘Who wrote it?’ she demanded. ‘King David – in the Psalms’, was my answer. Margaret Thatcher, on the crest of her seventieth-birthday wave, could have been back at the despatch box at Prime Minister’s Questions: ‘Well, he got a lot of things wrong’, she retorted, ‘as kings in the Middle East still do!’18

  FINDING HER SPIRITUAL HOME

  Faith was always important to Margaret Thatcher. Ever since her strict Methodist upbringing in Grantham she had been an assiduous attender of services, a thoughtful critic of the sermons she heard, and an occasional stirrer of public controversies against the Church of England.

  She did a great deal of Bible reading, even in her busiest years at No. 10. She liked to discuss faith issues with a handful of trusted interlocutors. The most regular of these were two evangelical Christians who were Downing Street insiders during the 1980s – Michael Alison, her PPS in her second term, and Brian Griffiths, the Head of her Policy Unit. She also had a high regard for the teachings and writings of the Chief Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, whom she elevated to the House of Lords in 1988. His greatest influence was to help her understand, through Judaism, that the rule of law had its roots in religious as well as secular principles.