The Path to Power m-2

by Margaret Thatcher

  On the other hand, there was an outpouring of public support for Keith in opinion polls and five bulging mail bags. One of these letters, a sample of which was analysed by Diana Spearman in the Spectator, summed up the feeling. In an unlettered hand, it read simply:

  Dear Sir Joseph,

  You are dead right.

  For, with the exception of those few unfortunate phrases, the speech sent out powerful messages about the decline of the family, the subversion of moral values and the dangers of the permissive society, connecting all these things with socialism and egalitarianism, and proposing the ‘remoralization of Britain’ as a long-term aim. It was an attempt to provide a backbone for Conservative social policy, just as Keith had started to do for economic policy. The trouble was that the only short-term answer suggested by Keith for the social problems he outlined was making contraceptives more widely available — and that tended to drive away those who might have been attracted by his larger moral message.

  The Edgbaston speech was bound to be dynamite, but it might at least have been a controlled explosion. Unfortunately, that is not how it happened. The speech was due to be given on Saturday night, and so the text was issued in advance with an embargo for media use. But the Evening Standard, for whatever reason, broke the embargo and launched a fierce attack on Keith, distorting what he said. I read its version on Waterloo Station and my heart sank. Afterwards Keith himself did not help his cause by constantly explaining, qualifying and apologizing. The Party establishment could barely contain their glee. Keith had been found guilty of that one mortal sin in the eyes of mediocrities — he had shown ‘lack of judgement’, i.e. willingness to think for himself. The press camped outside his house and refused to leave him or his family alone. He had probably never experienced anything quite like it. Having been vilified as the ‘milk snatcher’, I felt his hurt as if it were my own. But there was nothing to do except hope that it would all die down.

  Doubtless as a result of all this, Ted felt a good deal more secure. He even told us in Shadow Cabinet the following Tuesday that the election campaign had been ‘quite a good containment exercise and that the mechanics had worked well’. A strange unreality pervaded our discussions. Everyone except Ted knew that the main political problem was the fact that he was still Leader. But he thought that we should now concentrate on Scotland, on how to improve our appeal to the young and on how to increase our support among working-class voters. Even on its own terms this analysis was flawed. As I was to point out two days later in an interview with Max Hastings in the Evening Standard, which appeared under the headline ‘Mrs Thatcher and the Twilight of the Middle Classes’, we should be trying to re-establish our middle-class support, for ‘[being middle class] has never been simply a matter of income, but a whole attitude to life, a will to take responsibility for oneself’. And I was surely not the only one present at Shadow Cabinet who felt that our recent election defeat was hardly a cause for even modest self-congratulation.

  Ted was now locked in a bitter battle with the 1922 Executive. In reply to their demands for a leadership contest — and indeed for reform of the leadership election procedure — he disputed their legitimacy as representatives of the backbenches on the grounds that they had been elected during the previous Parliament and must themselves first face re-election by Tory MPs. Ted and his advisers hoped that they might be able to have his opponents thrown off the Executive and replaced by figures more amenable to him. As part of a somewhat belated attempt to win over backbenchers, Ted also proposed that extra front bench spokesmen should be appointed from among them and that officers of the Parliamentary Committees might speak from the front bench on some occasions. It was also widely rumoured that there would shortly be a reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet.

  Not for the first time, I found the press more optimistic about my prospects than I was. The Sunday Express and the Observer on 3 November ran stories that I was to be appointed Shadow Chancellor. This was a nice thought and I would have loved the job; but I regarded it as extremely unlikely that Ted would give it to me. That was more or less confirmed by stories in the Financial Times and the Daily Mirror on the Monday which said that I would get a top economic job, but not the Shadow Chancellorship. And so indeed it turned out. I was appointed Robert Carr’s deputy with special responsibility for the Finance Bill and also made a member of the Steering Committee. Some of my friends were annoyed that I had not received a more important portfolio. But I knew from the years when I worked under Iain Macleod on the Finance Bill that this was a position in which I could make the most of my talents. What neither Ted nor I knew was just how important that would be over the next three months. The reshuffle as a whole demonstrated something of the weakness of Ted’s political standing. Edward du Cann refused to join the Shadow Cabinet, which was therefore no more attractive to the right of the Party, some of whom at least Ted needed to win over. Tim Raison and Nicholas Scott who did come in were more or less on the left and, though able, not people who carried great political weight.

  The re-election of all the members of the 1922 Executive, including Edward du Cann, on the day of the reshuffle — Thursday 7 November — was bad news for Ted. A leadership contest could no longer be avoided. He wrote to Edward saying that he was now willing to discuss changes to the procedure for electing the Party Leader. From now on it was probably in Ted’s interest to have the election over as soon as possible, before any alternative candidate could put together an effective campaign.

  At this time I started to attend the Economic Dining Group which Nick Ridley had formed in 1972 and which largely consisted of sound money men like John Biffen, Jock Bruce-Gardyne, John Nott and others. Above all, I buried myself in the details of my new brief. It was a challenging time to take it up, for on Tuesday 12 November Denis Healey introduced one of his quarterly Budgets. It was a panic reaction to the rapidly growing problems of industry and consisted of cuts in business taxation to the tune of £775 million (£495 million of new business taxes having been imposed only six months before) and some curbs on subsidies to nationalized industries. Ted’s reply — in which, against the background of an audible gasp from Tory backbenchers, he criticized the Chancellor for allowing nationalized industry prices to rise towards market levels — did him no good at all.

  My chance came the following Thursday when I spoke for the Opposition in the Budget Debate. I had done my homework and I set about contrasting the Labour Government’s past statements with its present actions. Some of the speech was quite technical and detailed, as it had to be. But it was my answers to the interruptions which had the backbenchers roaring support. I was directly answering Harold Lever (without whom Labour would have been still more economically inept) when he interrupted early in my speech to put me right on views I had attributed to him. Amid a good deal of merriment, not least from Harold Lever himself, a shrewd businessman from a wealthy family, I replied: ‘I always felt that I could never rival him [Lever] at the Treasury because there are four ways of acquiring money. To make it. To earn it. To marry it. And to borrow it. He seems to have experience of all four.’

  At another point I was interrupted by a pompously irate Denis Healey when I quoted the Sunday Telegraph which reported him as saying: ‘I never save. If I get any money I go out and buy something for the house.’ Denis Healey was most indignant, so I was pleased to concede the point, saying (in reference to the fact that like other socialist politicians he had his own country house): ‘I am delighted that we have got on record the fact that the Chancellor is a jolly good saver. I know that he believes in buying houses in good Tory areas.’

  No one has ever claimed that House of Commons repartee must be subtle in order to be effective. This performance boosted the shaky morale of the Parliamentary Party and with it my reputation.

  Meanwhile, Alec Douglas-Home, now returned to the Lords as Lord Home, had agreed to chair a review of the procedure for the Leadership election. On Wednesday 20 November I received a note from Geoffrey Finsberg,
a neighbouring MP and friend, which said: ‘If you contest the leadership you will almost certainly win — for my part I hope you will stand and I will do all I can to help.’ But I still could not see any likelihood of this happening. It seemed to me that for all of the brouhaha caused by his Edgbaston speech Keith must be our candidate.

  The following afternoon I was working in my room in the House, briefing myself on the Finance Bill, when the telephone rang. It was Keith to check I was there because he had something he wanted to come along and tell me. As soon as he entered, I could see it was serious. He told me: ‘I am sorry, I just can’t run. Ever since I made that speech the press have been outside the house. They have been merciless. Helen [his wife] can’t take it and I have decided that I just can’t stand.’

  There was no mistaking his mood. His mind was quite made up. I was on the edge of despair. We just could not abandon the Party and the country to Ted’s brand of politics. I heard myself saying: ‘Look, Keith, if you’re not going to stand, I will, because someone who represents our viewpoint has to stand.’

  There was nothing more to say. My mind was already a whirl. I had no idea of my chances. I knew nothing about leadership campaigns. I just tried to put the whole thing to the back of my mind for the moment and concentrate on the Finance Bill. Somehow or other the news got out and I started to receive telephone calls and notes of support from MP friends. Late that night I went back to Flood Street and told Denis of my intention.

  ‘You must be out of your mind,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got a hope.’ He had a point. But I never had any doubt that he would support me all the way.

  The following day Fergus Montgomery telephoned me, and I told him that Keith was not going to stand but that I would. I wondered how best to break the news to Ted. Fergus thought I should see him personally. I spent the weekend at Lamberhurst retreating from the press comment and speculation which now swirled about. There was plenty to think about. The main thing was that though I had few ideas about how to proceed, I was sure my reaction to Keith had been the right one. Ted had to go, and that meant that someone had to challenge him. If he won, I was politically finished. That would be sad but bearable; there are worse places than the backbenches. And it seemed to me most unlikely that I would win. But I did think that by entering the race, I would draw in other stronger candidates who, even if they did not think like Keith and me, would still be open to persuasion about changing the disastrous course on which the Party was set.

  I arranged to see Ted on Monday 25 November. He was at his desk in his room at the House. I need not have worried about hurting his feelings. I went in and said: ‘I must tell you that I have decided to stand for the leadership.’ He looked at me coldly, turned his back, shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘If you must.’ I slipped out of the room.

  Monday was, therefore, the first day I had to face the press as a declared contender for the Tory Leadership. I was glad to be able to rely on the help and advice of Gordon Reece, who had now become a friend and who sat in on some of my early press interviews, which went quite well. It was, of course, still the fact that I was a woman that was the main topic of interest. The evening was spent in the somewhat tense and awkward circumstances of Shadow Cabinet and the Steering Committee. Looking around the table, I felt that apart from Keith I would find few supporters here. I suspect that it was only due to the fact that they considered my decision ridiculous that there was not more open hostility. No such inhibitions were evident when I attended the Conservative Board of Finance shortly afterwards. I felt like the female equivalent of ‘the man who said he wanted to be Tory Leader’, with enraged colonels and indignant dowagers exploding about him in one of Bateman’s more excruciating cartoons.

  Ted’s coterie and, I believe, at least one Central Office figure had in any case alighted on something which they hoped would destroy me as effectively as had happened to Keith. In the interview I had given to Pre-Retirement Choice more than two months before I had given what I considered to be practical advice to elderly people trying to make ends meet in circumstances where food prices were rising sharply. I said that it made sense to stock up on tinned food. This was precisely the sort of advice I myself had been given as a girl. Any good housewife shops around and buys several items at a time when prices are low, rather than dashing out at the last minute to buy the same thing at a greater cost.

  But to my horror the press on Wednesday 27 November was full of stories of my ‘hoarding’ food. Someone had clearly used this obscure interview in order to portray me as mean, selfish and above all ‘bourgeois’. In its way it was cleverly done. It allowed the desired caricature to be brought out to the full. It played to the snobbery of the Conservative Party, because the unspoken implication was that this was all that could be expected of a grocer’s daughter. It reminded the public of all that had been said and written about me as the ‘milk snatcher’ at Education.

  A veritable circus of indignation was now staged. Pressure groups were prompted to complain. A deputation of housewives was said to be travelling from Birmingham to urge me to give them the tins. Food chemists gave their views about the consequences of keeping tinned food too long in the larder. Martin Redmayne, the former Chief Whip, reliable Party establishment figure and now Deputy Chairman of Harrods, appeared on television to say that ‘any sort of inducement to panic buying was… against the public interest’ — although Lord Redmayne’s larder probably contained something more enticing than a few tins of salmon and corned beef. There was nothing for it but to invite the cameramen in and have them check the contents of my Flood Street larder and cupboards. This may have convinced some of the Tory hierarchy that my and my family’s tastes and standards were not at all what should be expected from someone who aspired to lead their party. But it certainly showed that the ‘hoarding’ allegation was malicious nonsense.

  Finally, in order to keep the dying story alive my opponents went too far. On Friday 29 November I was in John Cope’s South Gloucestershire constituency when my secretary, Alison Ward, telephoned to say that the radio was now broadcasting that I had been seen in a shop on the Finchley Road buying up large quantities of sugar. (There was a sugar shortage at the time.) Alison had already checked and discovered that in fact no such shop existed; in any case the family consumption of sugar was minimal. It was just a straightforward lie. A firm denial prevented its circulation in the press, and marked the effective end of this surreal campaign.

  I suspect that it ultimately backfired. It demonstrated to women throughout the country how ignorant male politicians were about what constituted ordinary housekeeping. It showed many people from modest backgrounds like mine how close to the surface of the Tory grandees lay an ugly streak of contempt for those they considered voting fodder. Most seriously for my opponents, it evoked a good deal of sympathy from fair-minded Conservative MPs who could see that I had been made the target of false and silly attacks.

  At the time, however, I was bitterly upset by it. Sometimes I was near to tears. Sometimes I was shaking with anger. But as I told Bill Shelton, the MP for Streatham and a friend: ‘I saw how they destroyed Keith. Well, they’re not going to destroy me.’

  What had happened made me all the more determined to throw my hat into the ring. But there was also much talk of Edward du Cann’s putting himself forward as a candidate. As Chairman of the 1922 Committee — and a man — he might reasonably be expected to command more support than me. On Thursday 5 December, with the hoarding story having more or less run its course, I was in Robert Adley’s constituency of Christchurch for a Party function. He was a great du Cann supporter and told me that he thought Edward was going to stand. I said that if he did, I would have to think again about my position. We must not split the right-wing vote.

  One of Edward du Cann’s chief supporters, Airey Neave, the MP for Abingdon and a colleague of Edward’s on the 1922 Executive, was someone whom I already knew quite well. Our paths had crossed many times. As barristers we had shared the same Ch
ambers, and he had been a neighbour at Westminster Gardens. When I was Opposition Social Security spokesman I had helped him with his Bill to make provision for pensions for the over-eighties. We both had a strong interest in science. As Secretary of State for Education and Science I had helped persuade Airey to stay on as Chairman of the Select Committee on Science and Technology when he was thinking of resigning.

  Airey was a man of contrasts. His manner was quiet yet entirely self-assured. As a writer and a war hero who escaped from Colditz there was an air of romance about him. He had seen much more of the world than most MPs, and suffered a good deal too. He had the benefit, in Diana, of a marvellous political wife who backed him loyally. He had briefly been a junior minister in the late 1950s but had to resign because of ill health, and I understand Ted had unfeelingly told him that that was the end of his career. It was difficult to pin down Airey’s politics. I did not consider him ideologically a man of the right. He probably did not look at the world in those terms. We got on well and I was conscious of mutual respect, but we were not yet the close friends we were to become.

  Airey had come to see me shortly after my decision to stand was known. He hoped to persuade Edward du Cann to stand, but Edward himself remained undecided. Excluded by Ted from high office, he had devoted himself to a City career he was now reluctant to give up. Until Edward decided one way or the other it was not, of course, possible for Airey to support me actively, but I knew that I could rely on his advice and he promised to stay in touch, which we did: he came to my room in the House to exchange notes on several occasions between then and the end of the year. The whole ‘hoarding’ episode certainly demonstrated how tough a battle I could expect. If I did finally and formally enter the lists, Airey was the sort of person it would be good to have on my side.