The Downing Street Years

by Margaret Thatcher

  THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS

  In 1983, as in 1979 and 1987, we usually began the morning with a press conference on a prearranged topic. Before the press conference I was briefed in Central Office — during this election by Stephen Sherbourne, who managed to be both quick and methodical and who would shortly join my team in Downing Street as political secretary. This briefing took place at 8.30 a.m. in a cramped room at Central Office. We would begin by approving the day’s press release and go on to consider questions likely to come up. Someone from the Conservative Research Department would come in part way through the briefing to report what had happened at Labour’s press conference — somewhat easier then than now, for at that time Labour headquarters was at Transport House, just across the road from Central Office in Smith Square. It was convenient too that Labour’s daily schedule ran ahead of ours. Our press conference would begin at 9.30 a.m. and was planned to last an hour. We had arranged my tours so that I spent very few nights away from London, and therefore I was nearly always available to chair it. I would field some of the questions myself, but try to give whichever ministers were appearing beside me that morning a chance to make their points. We were willing to change the subject of the day almost up to the last minute. In fact, during this campaign we were able to keep to the planned topics, though extra press conferences, which I did not attend, were arranged to deal with particular matters like Labour’s social security spending pledges.

  Our main aim both in the press conferences and speeches was to deal with the difficult question of unemployment by showing that we were prepared to take it head on and prove that our policies were the best to provide jobs in the future. So successful were we in this that by the end of the campaign the opinion polls showed that we were more trusted to deal with this problem than Labour. People knew that the real reasons for the high level of unemployment were not Conservative policies but rather past overmanning and inefficiency, strikes, technological change, changes in the pattern of world trade and the international recession. Labour lost the argument when they tried to place the whole blame for this deep-seated problem on the callous, uncaring Tories.

  Then there were the speeches. During the campaign I used Sundays — almost the only time available — to work on speeches for the forthcoming week with Ferdy Mount and others at Chequers. I often saw Ferdy for final revision when I arrived back in No. 10 from campaigning during the day. He had prepared about half a dozen speech drafts on different topics before the campaign. The actual speeches I delivered consisted of extracts from these, with additional material often provided by Ronnie Millar and John Gummer, and topical comment addressing the issue of the day. I would put on the finishing touches in the campaign coach, trains, aeroplanes, cars and just about anywhere else you can imagine along the campaign trail. There were a few big speeches during this election but a large number of short speeches on ‘whistle stops’, often delivered off the back of a lorry on a small mobile platform, always off the cuff. I preferred the whistle stops, particularly when there were some hecklers. People tell me that I am an old-fashioned campaigner; I enjoy verbal combat, though it has to be said that neither I nor the crowds derived much intellectual challenge from the monotonous chants of the CND and Socialist Worker protesters who followed me round the country.

  Third, there were the tours themselves. The basic principle, of course, is that you should concentrate the Leader’s appearances in marginal seats. One day on the campaign bus David Wolfson chided me for waving too much to people watching us pass: ‘only wave in marginals, Prime Minister’. As the importance of television and the ‘photo-opportunity’ increases, the leader’s physical location on a particular day is rather less important than it once was. In this election, moreover, our objective was to hold our vote and our seats so that (with a limited number of exceptions) my task was to concentrate on campaigning in Conservative-held seats. But one thing you must do is to visit all the main regions of the country: nothing is more devastating to candidates and party workers than to think they have been written off.

  Finally, there were the interviews. These came in quite different styles. Brian Waiden on Weekend World would ask the most probing questions. Robin Day on Panorama was probably the most aggressive, though in this campaign he made the mistake of plunging into detail on the problem of calculating the impact of unemployment on the public finances — a gaffe when cross-examining a former Minister of National Insurance. I made a gaffe of my own calling Sir Robin ‘Mr Day’ throughout. Alistair Burnet specialized in short, subtle questions which sounded innocuous but contained hidden dangers. One needed all one’s nimbleness of wit to make it unscathed through the minefields. Then there were the programmes on which members of the public asked questions. My favourite was always the Granada 500 when a large audience quizzes you about the things which really matter to them.

  Our manifesto was launched at the first Conservative press conference on Wednesday 18 May. The whole Cabinet was there. I ran through the main proposals, and then Geoffrey Howe, Norman Tebbit and Tom King made short statements on their sections of the manifesto. After that I invited questions. Manifestos rarely make the headlines unless, as on this occasion, something goes wrong. The press will consign carefully thought-out proposals for government to an inside page and concentrate on the slightest evidence of a ‘split’. At the press conference a journalist asked Francis Pym about negotiations with Argentina. I felt that Francis’s reply risked being ambiguous, so I interrupted to make clear that while we would negotiate on commercial and diplomatic links, we would not discuss sovereignty. The press highlighted this: but there was in fact no split. That’s politics.

  D-21 TO D-14

  In Britain the general election campaign is only about four weeks long, usually less. For planning purposes during elections we always used the so-called ‘D- (minus)’ system, numbering each day in a countdown to ‘D-Day’ — polling day itself. The most intense period of the campaign is from D-21 on, which in this case fell on Thursday 19 May. We opened our campaign on D-20, Friday 20 May, two days after the launch of the manifesto. The first of our five Party Election Broadcasts (PEBs) had been shown on D-23.

  It was not Francis Pym’s week. He told a questioner on BBC’s Question Time that in his opinion ‘landslides on the whole don’t produce successful governments.’ Naturally, people drew the inference that he did not want us to win a large majority. Of course, this was all very well for those with safe seats like Francis himself. But it was distinctly less good news for candidates in the Conservative marginals and those of our people hoping to win seats from other parties. And since complacency was likely to be our worst enemy in the campaign this remark struck a wrong note.

  The first regular press conference on the campaign took place on Friday 20 May. Geoffrey Howe challenged Labour on the cost of their manifesto proposals and said that if they did not publish them we would. This was the first deployment of a very effective campaign theme. Patrick Jenkin, taking it up, drew attention to Labour’s plans for nationalization and regulation of industry. There were a number of questions about the economy. But, inevitably, what the press really wanted to know was what I thought about Francis’s remark. We had seen this coming and I had discussed what to say at the briefing session earlier that morning. Francis had been Chief Whip under Ted Heath and I made that the basis of my reply:

  I think I could handle a landslide majority all right. I think the comment you’re referring to was natural Chief Whip’s caution. Ex-Chief Whip’s caution. You know there’s a club of Chief Whips. They’re very unusual people.

  I left after the press conference for my first campaign tour, which was in the West Country. At 10.45 a.m. we drove from Central Office to Victoria Station, and from there went by train to Gatwick to catch the flight to St Mawgan in Cornwall. A group of around 40 or 50 journalists joined us, sitting together at the back of the plane. It was a pleasant rural day. I visited the fish market at Padstow Harbour and went on to Trelyll Farm, near Wadeb
ridge. There I was caught out by the press. I was standing on a heap of cut grass and the Daily Mirror photographer asked me to pick some up. I saw nothing wrong with that, and so I obliged. He took his photograph — and the picture duly appeared the following day with the caption ‘Let them eat grass’. It does not do to be too co-operative.

  It was on Monday 23 May (D-17) that my campaign began in earnest. We started as usual with a briefing meeting for that morning’s press conference where we spent some time discussing the Party’s advertising. Saatchi & Saatchi had devised some brilliant advertisements and posters in 1979. Most of those they produced in 1983 were not quite as good, although there were exceptions. One compared the Communist and Labour Party manifestos by printing side by side a list of identical commitments from each. It was a long list. A second poster set out 14 rights and freedoms that the voter would be signing away if Labour was elected and carried out its programme. Another poster aimed at winning us support from ethnic minorities with the slogan ‘Labour Think He’s Black, Conservatives Think He’s British’ caused some controversy. But I thought it was perfectly fair. I did, however, veto one showing a particularly unflattering picture of Michael Foot with the slogan: ‘Under The Conservatives All Pensioners Are Better Off’. Maybe that was a fair political point too: but I do not like personal attacks.

  My speech that evening was at the Cardiff City Hall. It was a long speech, made a little longer but much more lively when I broke away from the text, which always seems to help the delivery. I covered all the main election issues — jobs, health, pensions, defence — but the lines I liked best related to Labour’s plans for savings:

  Under a Labour government, there’s virtually nowhere you can put your savings where they would be safe from the state. They want your money for state socialism, and they mean to get it. Put your savings in the bank — and they’ll nationalize it. Put your savings in a pension fund or a life assurance company — and a Labour government would force them to invest the money in their own socialist schemes. If you put money in a sock they’d probably nationalize socks.

  I had returned early to No. 10 from Tuesday’s daily tour in order to prepare for a Question and Answer session with Sue Lawley on Nationwide. This unfortunately degenerated into an argument about the sinking of the General Belgrano.

  The Left thought it was scoring points by keeping the public’s attention focused on this, exploiting minor discrepancies to support its theory of a ruthless government intent on slaughter. This was not only odious; it was inept. The voters overwhelmingly accepted our view that protecting British lives came first. On the Belgrano, as on everything else, the Left’s obsessions were at variance with their interests. But I found the whole episode distasteful.

  Wednesday 25 May was a difficult day for both the major parties, though we suffered far less damage than Labour. The Labour Party was so ineffective during the campaign that the newspapers, in desperation for stories, concentrated heavily on leaked documents. The main interest on this occasion was the leaking of a draft report of the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, which attacked our economic policies. Cecil Parkinson contacted Edward du Cann, the Committee Chairman, who promptly issued a statement drawing attention to the fact that the report had not been approved by the committee. It was typical of the Labour Party’s lack of grip that they completely missed this opportunity to embarrass us, preferring to spend their morning press conference talking about ‘women’s issues’. We were amazed. As we joked about it I said to my male colleagues at the briefing session: ‘if they have their way, you’ll soon be having the babies.’

  Our press conference that day, though allegedly on defence, was in fact devoted to the revelation that our candidate at Stockton South had once been a member of the National Front. He had left the National Front some years before and now claimed to be an orthodox Conservative and regretted his past. As far as we were concerned this was a peripheral embarrassment but some left-wing journalists seemed to see themselves as Woodward and Bernstein, fighting the Establishment. Again, it served to distract the Labour Party from issues of genuine interest to the public.

  The Labour Party was now in deep trouble. That same day — the very day we had chosen to devote to defence — Jim Callaghan made a speech in Wales rejecting unilateral nuclear disarmament. The newspapers were full of contradictory statements about Labour’s position on nuclear weapons. Even among Labour front-benchers there was disarray: you could choose between Michael Foot, Denis Healey and John Silkin — each seemed to have his own defence policy. Michael Heseltine at our press conference and throughout the campaign was devastating in his criticisms of Labour’s policy.

  I always realized that there were a few issues on which Labour was especially vulnerable — issues on which they had irresponsible policies but ones to which the public attached great importance. They were the ‘gut issues’. Defence was one. Another was public spending, where the voters always have a suspicion that Labour will spend and tax too much. For that reason I was very keen that Geoffrey Howe do a more comprehensive costing of Labour’s manifesto promises than usual. He produced a superb analysis that ran to twenty pages. It showed that Labour’s plans implied additional spending in the life of a Parliament of between £36–43 billion — the latter figure almost equal to the total revenue of income tax at that time. Labour’s economic credibility never recovered. Indeed, Labour’s profligacy has been its Achilles heel in every election I have fought — all the more reason for a Conservative government to manage the nation’s economic affairs prudently.

  That Wednesday my election tour took me to the East of England, travelling by aeroplane and coach. It was a beautiful day. I spent part of it campaigning in East Dereham in Norfolk for Richard Ryder. As I have noted, he had been my political secretary, and I was glad to be able to help. And, of course, his wife, Caroline, had also worked for me. Almost a family occasion. I addressed a crowd in the packed market square. There were a few hecklers which made it more fun. I let rip with an old-fashioned barnstorming speech. Later someone told me that above the platform where I had stood to deliver the speech there was a large cinema sign advertising a film called The Missionary.

  D-14 TO D-7

  On Thursday 26 May (D-14) the opinion polls reported in the press gave us anything between a 13 and 19 per cent lead over Labour. The principal danger from now on would be complacency among Conservative voters rather than any desperate Labour attempts at a comeback.

  Thursday was to be another pleasant day of traditional campaigning, this time in Yorkshire. One highlight was lunch in Harry Ramsden’s Fish and Chip Shop — the ‘biggest fish and chip shop in the Free World’ — in Leeds. I thoroughly enjoyed myself but the occasion was quite chaotic, with cameramen crashing around among the startled diners.

  That evening I spoke at the Royal Hall, Harrogate, dwelling on a theme which was central to my political strategy. The turbulence of politics in the 1970s and 1980s had overturned the set patterns of British politics. Labour’s own drift to the left and the extremism of the trade unions had disillusioned and fractured its traditional support. The SDP and the Liberals failed to grasp the significance of what was happening. They projected their appeal to the middle-class Left, especially those who worked in the public sector, probably, I suspect, because Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams instinctively sought out their own kind and allowed that instinct to overcome their judgement. In fact, the more numerous and dissatisfied Labour supporters were in the rising working and lower-middle class — the same group that in America Ronald Reagan was winning over and who were known as ‘Reagan Democrats’. They were benefiting from the opportunities we had made available, especially the sale of council houses; more important, they shared our values, including a strong belief in family life and an intense patriotism. We now had an opportunity to bring them into the Conservative fold, and I directed my speech at Harrogate to doing just that:

  In this country the things that most of us believe in are greater th
an the things that divide us. There are people in all walks of life who share our vision, but who have not voted for us in the past. At this election there is so much at stake that I feel I must say to them: the Labour Party today is not the party you used to support. It no longer stands for the traditions and liberties which made this country great. It is the Conservative Party that has stayed true to those traditions and those liberties.

  Politicians generally dislike elections. But one advantage is that in the course of a campaign you see a great deal of the country that would otherwise be concealed in reports and memoranda. For example, no official report could convey the excitement of the advanced electronics factories around Reading that I visited on the Friday. It was also my first encounter with the portable telephone.

  By the time that I arrived back in London there had been yet another extraordinary development in Labour’s campaign. Labour’s General Secretary, Jim Mortimer, reported to an astonished press corps that ‘the unanimous view of the campaign committee is that Michael Foot is the Leader of the Labour Party.’ With statements like that one wondered how long either of them would keep his job.

  My own mind that evening was very much on the forthcoming G7 economic summit at Williamsburg, for which I would leave for the United States at midday on Saturday. President Reagan was keen to have me there. He had sent me a message on 10 May to say that he would perfectly understand if I was not able to come to Washington for a pre-summit bilateral meeting, but that he very much hoped I would go to Williamsburg. The message concluded: