A new factor that weakened Ted and strengthened his potential rivals was the announcement of the Home Committee’s conclusions on Tuesday 7 December. There would be annual elections for the Tory Leader, challengers needed only a proposer and a seconder to put themselves forward, and the majority required to win on the first ballot was significantly increased to 50 per cent plus 15 per cent of those eligible to vote. It was in effect an incentive to challengers, since it meant that a Leader in difficulties needed to retain the confidence of a super-majority of those voting.
Still, Christmas at Lamberhurst that year was less festive than on some other occasions. We could not even walk as much as we usually did; the weather was awful. I knew that I could expect a trying time when I returned to Westminster, whether I actually stood for the Leadership or not. Denis also had business worries because Burmah Oil had run into deep trouble. Neither of us was too confident about what the future held.
SMALL EARTHQUAKE IN WESTMINSTER
On my return to London I resolved to clarify matters as regards the leadership. I invited Airey to lunch at Flood Street to have a proper discussion. I also found waiting for me a letter from Robert Adley urging that Edward du Cann and I should sort out which of us should stand rather than split the vote. The trouble was that this was impossible until Edward knew what he wanted to do, and it was clear from a conversation with him that he remained undecided. This was still the case when Airey and I had our lunch on Thursday 9 January 1975. I told him that I thought Geoffrey Howe might support me. I also told him how impossible proper discussion was under Ted’s chairmanship. Airey gave me his own account of his recent talks with Ted. It was clear to both of us that there had to be a change, and the only question was whether Edward du Cann or I was better placed to effect it. Interestingly and shrewdly, as it turned out, Airey thought that Ted’s support in the Parliamentary Party was overrated.
On Wednesday 15 January Edward du Cann made it publicly known that he would not run for the leadership. The way was therefore open for me. It was now vitally necessary to have an effective campaign team.
Events began to move fast. That same afternoon I was leading for the Opposition on the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill. Fergus had just learned that he would have to go on a parliamentary visit to South Africa, though he still thought (wrongly as it turned out) that he would be back in time for the leadership first ballot. He therefore asked Bill Shelton, when they met in the Division Lobby, to run my campaign in his absence, and Bill agreed. I was delighted when Bill told me, for I knew he was loyal and would be a skilful campaigner. Then, as I learned later, in the course of a subsequent vote Airey approached Bill and said: ‘You know that I have been running Edward du Cann’s campaign? Edward is withdrawing. If we could come to some agreement I will bring Edward’s troops behind Margaret.’ In fact, the ‘agreement’ simply consisted of Airey taking over the running of my campaign with Bill assisting him.
This arrangement was confirmed when Airey came up to see me in my room, and we performed a diplomatic minuet. Slightly disingenuously, he asked me who was running my campaign. Hardly less so, I replied that I didn’t really have a campaign. Airey said: ‘I think I had better do it for you.’ I agreed with enthusiasm. I knew that this meant he would swing as many du Cann supporters as possible behind me. Suddenly much of the burden of worry I had been carrying around fell away. From now on Airey, with Bill as his chief lieutenant, went to work quietly and remorselessly on their colleagues to win me support.
When I began to make suggestions to Airey about people to contact, he told me firmly not to bother about any of that, to leave it to him and to concentrate on my work on the Finance Bill. This was good advice, not least because both in the upstairs Committee Room and on the floor of the Chamber I had every opportunity to show my paces. It was, after all, the members of the Parliamentary Conservative Party who would ultimately make the decision about the Conservative leadership, and they were just as likely to be impressed by what I said in debate as by anything else. The campaign team began as a small group of about half a dozen, though it swelled rapidly and by the second ballot had become almost too large, consisting of as many as forty or fifty. Canvassing was done with great precision, and MPs might be approached several times by different people in order to verify their allegiances. Airey and his colleagues knew that there was no short cut to this process, and day after day it went on, with Bill Shelton crossing off names and keeping the tally. From time to time Airey would report to me on the position, though with the caveats which any shrewd canvasser always adds. The campaign group would also come to Flood Street, usually on the Sunday, to discuss with me articles, speeches and other initiatives for the week.
During these early days I was encouraged by the number of backbenchers who came up to offer me their support. One of the first was Peter Morrison, later to become my PPS at Downing Street, who told me that three years earlier his father, Lord Marga-dale, a former Chairman of the 1922 Committee, had said of me: ‘That woman will be the next leader of the Tory Party.’ This may be the first recorded instance of the phrase ‘that woman’.
Meanwhile, dealings with the media were suddenly becoming important. In these Gordon Reece was invaluable. Angus Maude, a journalist who combined profound insights with pithy wit and who had been unceremoniously sacked from the front bench by Ted for writing a critical article in the Spectator in 1966, helped me with the crucial Daily Telegraph article called ‘My Kind of Tory Party’. (I also received useful advice from a group of Telegraph journalists such as Peter Utley, John O’Sullivan and Frank Johnson — and of course Alfred Sherman — who were advocates of my cause in spite of their newspaper giving Ted reluctant endorsement.) George Gardiner, who was one of the February 1974 intake of MPs, a journalist himself and as editor of Conservative News party to some of the Central Office gossip, also helped me with drafting. It was a lively team.
In fact, the attitude towards my candidature was tangibly changing. I spoke on Tuesday 21 January to a lunch in St Stephen’s Tavern of the Guinea Club, consisting of leading national and provincial newspaper journalists. By this time as a result of the soundings Airey had taken I was actually beginning to feel that I was in with a chance. I said to them wryly at one point: ‘You know, I really think you should begin to take me seriously.’ They looked back in amazement, and perhaps some of them soon started to do so. For by the weekend articles had begun to appear reappraising my campaign in a different light.
Nor were my prospects harmed by another exchange in the Commons the following day with the ever-obliging Denis Healey. In bitter but obscure vein he described me as the ‘La Pasionaria of privilege’. I jotted down a reply and delivered it a few moments later with relish: ‘Some Chancellors are microeconomic. Some Chancellors are fiscal. This one is just plain cheap.’ The Tory benches loved it.
With just a week to go, Airey, Keith and Bill came round to Flood Street on Sunday 26 January to discuss the latest position. The number of pledges — mine at around 120 and Ted’s less than eighty — looked far too optimistic. People would need to be revisited and their intentions re-examined. Presumably the Heath campaign, in which Peter Walker and Ted’s PPSs Tim Kitson and Ken Baker were the main figures, was receiving equally or even more optimistic information; but they made the mistake of believing it. Certainly, in marked contrast to Airey’s public demeanour, they were loudly predicting a large victory on the first ballot.
At Flood Street it was agreed that I should address my core campaigners in Committee Room 13 on Monday night. I could not tell them anything about campaigning. They had forgotten far more about political tactics and indeed political skulduggery than I would ever know. So instead I spoke and answered questions on my vision of a Conservative society from 10.30 till midnight. It was marvellous to be able to speak from the heart about what I believed, and to feel that those crucial to my cause were listening. Apparently my audience felt the same way; several MPs told me that they had never heard any senior Tor
y discuss policy in such philosophical terms. Plainly it was not I alone who was dispirited by the directionless expediency of the previous few years.
The Heath camp now changed the direction of their campaign, but still failed to get to the point. Ridicule had failed. Instead, the accusation became that the sort of Conservatism I represented might appeal to the middle-class rank and file supporters of the Party, particularly in the South, but would never win over the uncommitted. My article in the Daily Telegraph, which appeared on Thursday 30 January, took this head-on:
I was attacked [as Education Secretary] for fighting a rearguard action in defence of ‘middle-class interests’. The same accusation is levelled at me now, when I am leading Conservative opposition to the socialist Capital Transfer Tax proposals. Well, if ‘middle-class values’ include the encouragement of variety and individual choice, the provision of fair incentives and rewards for skill and hard work, the maintenance of effective barriers against the excessive power of the state and a belief in the wide distribution of individual private property, then they are certainly what I am trying to defend… If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it. Indeed one of the reasons for our electoral failure is that people believe too many Conservatives have become socialists already. Britain’s progress towards socialism has been an alternation of two steps forward with half a step back… And why should anyone support a party that seems to have the courage of no convictions?
This theme — the return to fundamental Conservative principles and the defence of middle-class values — was enormously popular in the Party. I repeated it when speaking to my Constituency Association the following day. I rejected the idea that my candidature was representative of a faction. I emphasized that I was speaking up for all those who felt let down by recent Conservative Governments. I was also prepared to accept my share of the blame for what had gone wrong under Ted.
But [I added] I hope I have learned something from the failures and mistakes of the past and can help to plan constructively for the future… There is a widespread feeling in the country that the Conservative Party has not defended [Conservative] ideals explicitly and toughly enough, so that Britain is set on a course towards inevitable socialist mediocrity. That course must not only be halted, it must be reversed.
It was in an open letter to the Chairman of my constituency released on Saturday afternoon, however, that I really summed up the gravamen of the charge against Ted and his leadership. Ted was a political paradox. He combined a belief in strong leadership (especially his own) with a record of buckling under the pressure of events. He was always talking about reaching out to win over the support of people from other parties, but he had no willingness to listen to the Conservative Party. By contrast, I said that what was required was a ‘leadership that listens’, adding that ‘in office… we allowed ourselves to become detached from many who had given us their support and trust’.
I knew from my talks with Conservative MPs that there were many contradictory factors which would influence their votes. Some would support Ted simply because he was the Leader in situ. Many would not dare go against him because, even after two successive election defeats, he inspired fear that there would be no forgiveness for mutiny. Moreover, many thought that I was inexperienced — and as I had publicly admitted, there was more than a little truth in that. There was also some suspicion of me as too doctrinaire and insensitive. And then, of course, there was the rather obvious fact that I was a woman.
As a result of these conflicting considerations, many MPs were undecided. They wanted to be able to talk to me, to find out what I was like and where I stood. Airey and his team would send these Members along to see me in the room of Robin Cooke — one of our team — in the House where, singly or in small groups, over a glass of claret or a cup of tea, I would try to answer their points as best I could. Ted, by contrast, preferred lunch parties of MPs where, I suspect, there was not much straight talking — at least not from the guests. Doubtless his campaign team marked them down as supporters, which many were not.
The press on Monday 3 February was full of the fact that the National Union of the Party had reported that 70 per cent of Constituency Associations favoured Ted Heath and that the great majority of Conservative supporters agreed with them. We were not surprised by this. The Conservative Associations, nudged by Central Office, were understandably loyal to the existing Leader: and the opinion poll results reflected the fact that I was a relatively unknown quantity outside the House of Commons. But obviously it did not help, and it certainly boosted confidence in the Heath camp. Indeed, there was evidence of a late surge of support for Ted among MPs. Airey’s and Bill’s final canvass returns suggested that I was neck and neck with Ted, with the third candidate, the gallant and traditionalist Hugh Fraser, picking up a few right-wing misogynist votes. But I was told that I came over quite well on the World in Action television programme that night.
On Tuesday 4 February, the day of the first ballot, I was up early to prepare Denis’s breakfast and see him off to work before driving from Flood Street to the House of Commons, exhibiting what I hoped was a confident smile and a few friendly words for the press gathered outside. For me it was another day on the Finance Bill Committee, while in another House of Commons Committee Room the voting for the leadership took place. The ballot was due to close at 3.30. I went up to Airey Neave’s room to await the result. Bill Shelton represented me at the count and Tim Kitson represented Ted. I believe that even after they had heard the sombre news of the outcome of that day’s voting the Heath camp had hoped that the proxy votes, counted last, would see Ted through. But most of the proxies also went to me. I was trying to concentrate on anything other than the future when the door opened and Airey came in. Softly, but with a twinkle in his eye, he told me: ‘It’s good news. You’re ahead in the poll. You’ve got 130 votes to Ted’s 119.’ Hugh Fraser had sixteen.
I could barely believe it. Although I was thirty-one votes short of the required margin to win outright on the first ballot — 50 per cent plus a lead of 15 per cent of those eligible to vote — and therefore there would have to be a second round, I was nonetheless decisively ahead. I had no doubt that if I had failed against Ted that would have been the end of me in politics. As it was, I might be Leader. Who knows? I might even be Prime Minister. I went downstairs and someone opened some champagne. But I had to keep a clear head, for I was soon back to the Finance Bill amid a certain raillery from friends and opponents alike, for the news had spread like wildfire. Later that evening I went back to Airey’s flat for a council of war.
My own surprise at the result was as nothing compared to the shattering blow it had delivered to the Conservative establishment. I felt no sympathy for them. They had fought me unscrupulously all the way. But I did feel sorry for Ted, who quickly announced his decision to resign as Leader and not to contest the second ballot. Willie Whitelaw now put his name forward and immediately became the favourite. I myself thought that Willie had a very good chance of winning; and though I could not seriously imagine him changing the direction of the Party as I wished, it did please me to think that between us there would be none of the bitterness which had soured my relations with Ted. Jim Prior, John Peyton and Geoffrey Howe also entered the contest. I was a little worried about Geoffrey’s candidature because he held similar views to mine and might split the right-wing vote, which in a close contest could be crucial. Hugh Fraser withdrew and urged his supporters to vote for Willie.
In fact, without knowing it, I had what the Americans call ‘momentum’. I had always reckoned that a substantial number of those voting for me in the first round would only do so as a tactical way of removing Ted and putting in someone more acceptable but still close to his way of thinking, such as Willie. But in fact, far from draining away, my support actually hardened. Perhaps there was an odd sense of gratitude to me for having done what no one else da
red, that is to remove from the leadership someone who quite simply made the Party unelectable. Perhaps a sufficient number of my colleagues genuinely felt that the way forward for the Party was the root and branch reconsideration that Keith and I advocated. Perhaps there was a feeling that it was ‘a bit offside’ for those who had failed to challenge Ted when he looked unbeatable to step in to scoop up the prize once he had lost it. There were probably also doubts about whether Willie, for all his amiable qualities, was the right man to rethink Conservatism in the face of a Labour Government with a newly militant and aggressive left wing.
Certainly, many people in the Party at Westminster and outside it were now desperately anxious to bring the whole process to a swift end. The very circumstances which had counted against me in the first ballot now assisted me as the leading candidate in the second. The Daily Telegraph, an important barometer of Tory grassroots feeling, swung decisively onto my side. When I talked with Willie at a dinner organized by the British-American Parliamentary Group at Lancaster House on Thursday 6 February he seemed fairly confident that he was the front-runner. The new canvass returns which Airey and his team were making strongly suggested otherwise. But I was cautious. There had been some whispers that I was secretly anti-Common Market, which it was thought might damage me. So at George Gardiner’s suggestion I made a short statement of my views endorsing Europe. I also continued to see — and sometimes communicate by note with — MPs who needed reassurance on particular points.
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