The Downing Street Years

by Margaret Thatcher

  I moved Nick Ridley to the sprawling Department of the Environment. Nick could not match Ken or John in presentation. But we still needed to come up with some radical policies for our manifesto and the third term. No one, I knew, was better suited to find the right answers to the complicated issues which faced us in Nick’s new field of responsibility. Housing was certainly one area which required the application of a penetrating intellect. The sale of council houses had led to a real revolution in ownership. But the vast, soulless high rise council estates remained ghettoes of deprivation, poor education and unemployment. The private rented sector too, in spite of some liberalization through the shorthold, had continued to shrink, holding back labour mobility. Housing benefit and housing finance generally was a jungle, always threatening to swallow up the best laid schemes. The community charge had to be thought through in detail and implemented in England and Wales.* And further ahead lay the vexed question of pollution of the environment.

  Nick flourished at Environment. He was never popular with the general public who saw what appeared to be a chain-smoking, dishevelled, languid aristocrat; by contrast, he was the object of universal respect and great affection from those who worked with him, above all his officials. Nick had those virtues which seem only to be cultivated in private: he was completely unaffected; he treated people and arguments on their merits; he was incapable of guile; and he was always seeking to take on the unrewarding and unpopular tasks.

  On the evening of Thursday 24 July I spoke to the ‘22 Committee to give the traditional ‘end of term’ address. This was always an important occasion, but particularly so on this occasion. My task was to ensure that the Parliamentary Party left in the past all the agonized debates about Westland, BL and Libya and came back in the autumn determined to demonstrate the unity and self-confidence required to fight and win the arguments — and then a general election. There is no point in telling back-bench politicians, who are in regular touch with their constituents, that things are good when they are not. All that achieves is to undermine confidence in you. So in an unvarnished speech I told them that they had had to take a lot of difficulties on the chin in the last year, but those difficulties had nothing to do with our fundamental approach, which was correct. They had resulted from throwing away the precious virtue of unity and also because, as over Libya, we had had to do genuinely difficult things which were right. I was glad to get warm and noisy applause for this, not simply because I prefer applause to execration, but because such a warm response to such a strong speech meant that the Party was recovering its nerve.

  The summer of 1986 was important too in another regard. At Conservative Central Office Norman Tebbit, the Chairman of the Party, had been having a very hard time. As Norman used to say, he was the ‘lightning conductor’ for me. A good deal of criticism of Norman found its way into the press and at one point he believed that it was coming from me or my staff. Norman arrived one day at Downing Street armed with a sheaf of critical press cuttings, asking where these rumours came from. I was surprised to read these cuttings — my press summary did not convey the flavour of these vicious attacks — but I reassured Norman that they certainly did not come from me, or my staff, nor — I emphasized strongly — did they reflect my views. These tensions build up when people do not see one another frequently enough to give vent to tensions and clear up misunderstandings: and the civil service machine never likes to give enough time in diaries to party political matters. Relations improved, I am glad to say, when Stephen Sherbourne, my political secretary who understood politics as well as any Cabinet minister and whose shrewdness never failed me, ensured that Norman and I had regular weekly meetings.

  THE STRATEGY GROUP AND POLICY GROUPS

  My third step was to involve senior Cabinet ministers in the strategy for the next election. In June Willie Whitelaw and John Wakeham, the Chief Whip, sent me a memorandum urging me to set up the group of ministers which was to be officially known as the Strategy Group and, no doubt to the great pleasure of its male members, was soon known by the press as the ‘A-Team’. Its purpose would be to plan for the next election, discussing policy, presentation and tactics. I agreed that, apart from Willie and John, the group should consist of Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, Douglas Hurd and Norman Tebbit. I vetoed the suggested inclusion of Peter Walker, and although I would have liked to have Nick Ridley as a permanent member of the group, I decided that it should be confined to the Deputy Prime Minister, the three great offices of state, the Chairman of the Party and the Chief Whip. Plainly, these had to be members. To have included other ministers would have provoked the usual political jealousies and back biting. Other colleagues, though, were invited when their departmental responsibilities were under discussion. Since it was a political rather than a government group it was serviced by Stephen Sherbourne and Robin Harris, the Director of the Conservative Research Department. As head of my Policy Unit, Brian Griffiths regularly attended too. The group met on Monday mornings.

  We began by looking through the programme of main events for the week and the response they required. As we got nearer to the election Norman Tebbit would often give us a brief report on the state of party preparations. But the main item was usually a paper from a Cabinet minister — either a permanent member of the group or another colleague — on his departmental plans for the future. Several ministers who today enjoy a reputation for radicalism had originally arrived at our meetings with proposals that would not, as I would privately put it, pull the skin off a rice pudding — and left with the distinct feeling that much, much more was required of them.

  At about the same time as the Strategy Group was established I set up eleven party policy groups. On this occasion I made the chairman of each group the Cabinet minister whose responsibilities covered its area of interest. Apart from the obvious areas — the economy, jobs, foreign affairs and defence, agriculture, the NHS — there were separate groups on the family (under Nicholas Edwards, Welsh Secretary) and young people (under John Moore — the nearest we had in Cabinet to a young person). At least on this occasion, unlike 1983, the groups were set up promptly and for the most part managed to send in their reports on time. The fact that Cabinet ministers chaired groups on their own areas meant, naturally, that even though outside experts and back-benchers were members, the groups’ conclusions bore an unremarkable similarity to the suggestions for policy initiatives advanced by departments. As in 1983, however, their real value was to make the Party feel fully involved in what was happening. In this sense they were a counterpart to the Strategy Group which served the same purpose as regards the Cabinet and Government.

  In general, the contents of the reports were not particularly exciting. It is, though, worth noting that Nigel Lawson’s policy group, bearing the unmistakable imprint of its chairman, advocated early entry into the ERM (possibly even before the election which would have been potentially disastrous), made no reference to the need to control public borrowing and did not even mention his own invention, the MTFS, which I regarded as the anchor for the whole of our economic strategy. This approach never made its way into the manifesto, but somehow it made its way into policy.

  THE 1986 CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE

  None of us had any doubts about the importance of the 1986 Party Conference in Bournemouth. This was likely, though not certain, to be our last Party Conference before the general election. Labour’s Conference the week before had been marked by highly professional presentation which, though it deliberately subordinated substance to public relations, was undoubtedly effective. Their device of substituting a red rose for the red flag as their Party’s symbol, impudent as it was, marked a shrewd understanding that whatever else the electorate might vote for, it would not be socialism. Still, their overconfidence persuaded the Labour leadership to offer a number of hostages to fortune — notably a neutralist and anti-American defence policy that was to leave them immensely vulnerable to our attacks in the election campaign.

  A temptation which N
orman Tebbit and I found easy to resist was that of trying to copy Labour tactics. One of the first rules of campaigning is to play to your own strengths: only if these are insufficient should you think about aping other people’s. This meant that we must stress our record of achievement, not just by reeling off figures but by portraying it as the basis for further progress — or, as the slogan Norman picked for the conference had it, for ‘Our Next Move Forward’. When Norman told me what he intended I was impressed. In the late summer and early autumn he had pressed ministers to come up with crisp statements of what had been achieved and targets which should be met, preferably within a given time-span. All of this material was cleared with the Treasury to see that there were no hidden public expenditure implications. By the time that we arrived at Bournemouth the material was ready and each day of the conference was marked by practical policy announcements which the media could not help but compare favourably with the glitzy Labour Conference which preceded ours. Happily, the Bournemouth Conference coincided with increasing evidence of prosperity, not least the fall in unemployment. As a result it gave us a lift of morale and in the polls which, in retrospect, set us on course for winning the next election.

  I took even more trouble with my speech at Bournemouth than on other occasions. The very success of the speeches which the conference had already heard made this a more difficult occasion. I had to sum up but not to repeat: above all, I had to provide a theme which would fire our people over the next few months.

  Throughout the year I had collected in a file called ‘ideas for speeches’ articles, speeches and different briefing and policy items which came across my desk. Stephen Sherbourne and the Research Department always provided me with a collection of the most stimulating articles of the week. Stephen also put in for me copies of speeches by those whose ideas he knew I particularly valued, such as Nick Ridley, David Young and Nigel Lawson.

  During the summer recess I would have a meeting to discuss the general themes I should put across in my conference speech. Speech contributions were commissioned from ministers, advisers, friendly journalists, and academics. On this occasion we began speech writing with no fewer than twelve separate contributions and two and a half hefty files of background material. The weekend before the conference different draft speech sections would be laid out and put together — literally — along the table in the Great Parlour at Chequers. Linking passages would be written and then the still disjointed and often repetitive first draft would be typed up. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they knew that we at least had a speech of some sort; even though past experience suggested that this might bear little relationship to the final text. Then would come the long hours of refining and polishing until midnight (if we were lucky).

  On the Friday morning I used to mark up the text with my own special code, noting pauses, stress and where to have my voice rise or fall. (I would familiarize myself with the speech using this text and always have it with me, even though when I spoke it would be from the Autocue tape.)

  My task in this year’s speech was to provide a trailer to the arguments on which we would fight the election and to give a thematic unity to the various reforms of the ‘Next Move Forward’. What would prove to be the single most important element in our victory — namely the rising prosperity achieved by our economic policies — was more a back-drop than a theme in the conference and my speech. Our second campaign theme was foreshadowed in my fierce attack on the Labour Party’s defence policy.

  The Labour Conference had voted for a non-nuclear defence policy, including the closure of American nuclear bases in the UK. Mr Kinnock had also made it clear that there were no circumstances in which he would ask the United States to use nuclear weapons in the defence of Britain. This, of course, went further than Labour had ever done before, because it meant that from the first day on which a Labour government took power Britain would be regarded by the Soviets as no longer under the American and NATO ‘nuclear umbrella’. I said:

  Labour’s defence policy — though ‘defence’ is scarcely the word — is an absolute break with the defence policy of every British Government since the Second World War. Let there be no doubt about the gravity of that decision. You cannot be a loyal member of NATO while disavowing its fundamental strategy. A Labour Britain would be a neutralist Britain. It would be the greatest gain for the Soviet Union in forty years. And they would have got it without firing a shot.

  But my main positive theme which was to be at the centre of our manifesto too was contained in the section of my speech entitled ‘power to the people’. This drew attention to the wider home and share ownership attendant on privatization and looked ahead to the manifesto reforms of education and housing designed to give ordinary people more choice in public services. I said:

  The great political reform of the last century was to enable more and more people to have a vote. Now the great Tory reform of this Century is to enable more and more people to own property. Popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation. We Conservatives are returning power to the people.

  When all is said and done, however, a speech is a theatrical as well as a political event. Just before 2.30 p.m. on Friday 10 October I walked onto the platform amid the usual uproar, which increased when people saw that I was wearing a rose on my lapel. I began by saying:

  There is just one thing I would like to make clear. The rose I am wearing is the rose of England.

  ELECTION PREPARATIONS AND THE MANIFESTO

  When Parliament reassembled the Party was in a quite different frame of mind than it had been just a few months earlier. We had a brief legislative programme on the advice of David Young, so crucial legislation would not be abandoned if we went for an early election the following summer. Our position in the opinion polls had begun to improve. The Strategy Group and the policy groups were meeting regularly. Norman kept me informed of the work which was going on in Central Office to prepare for the election when it came. Already, on 2 July, he had given me a paper setting out his view of possible election dates.

  The compilation of documents which constitute the Party’s plans for an election campaign is traditionally called the ‘War Book’. On 23 December Norman sent me the first draft ‘as a Christmas present’. I was not unhappy to see the end of 1986 but I felt a new enthusiasm as I considered the fresh policies and the battle for them which would be required in 1987.

  On Thursday 8 January I discussed with Norman and others the papers he had sent me about the election campaign. We met at Alistair McAlpine’s house in order to escape detection by the press, which had already started to speculate about election dates. Many details of the campaign had not been worked out as yet, but I found myself largely in agreement with the suggestions. I did, however, have one continuing worry; this was about the advertising. Several months earlier I had asked whether Tim Bell, who had worked with me on previous elections, could do so again now. I understood that he was a consultant to Saatchis. But in fact the rift between them was greater than I had imagined and the suggestion was never taken up. I might have been prepared to insist, but this would have caused more important problems with Norman and Central Office. In any case I continued to see Tim socially. At this stage in January, though, I still hoped that Saatchis would exhibit the political nous and creativity we had had from them in the past.

  I regarded the manifesto as my main responsibility. Brian Griffiths and Robin Harris brought together in a single paper the proposals which had come in from ministers and policy groups. We discussed this at Chequers on Sunday 1 February. Nigel Lawson, Norman Tebbit and Nick Ridley — in their different ways the three best brains of the Cabinet — were there. It was as important at this stage to rule out as to rule in different proposals: I like a manifesto which contains a limited number of radical and striking measures, rather than irritating little clutches of minor ones. It was at this meeting that the main shape of the manifesto proposals became clear.
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br />   We agreed to include the aim of a 25 per cent basic rate of income tax. We would not include a figure for the reduction of the top rate, though we were thinking about a top rate of 50 per cent. I kept out of the manifesto any commitment to transferable tax allowances between husband and wife which, if they had been implemented along the lines of the earlier green paper, would have been extremely expensive. I commissioned further work on candidates for privatization which I wanted to be spelt out clearly in the manifesto itself. Education would, we all agreed, be one of the crucial areas for new proposals in the manifesto. Largely as a result of work done by Brian Griffiths, I was already clear what these should be. There must be a core curriculum to ensure that the basic subjects were taught to all children. There must be graded tests or benchmarks against which children’s knowledge should be judged. All schools should have greater financial autonomy. There must be a new per capita funding system which, along with ‘open enrolment’,* would mean that successful, popular schools were financially rewarded and enabled to expand. There must be more powers for head teachers. Finally, and most controversially, schools must be given the power to apply for what at this stage we were describing as ‘direct grant’ status, by which we meant that they could become in effect ‘independent state schools’ — a phrase that the DES hated and kept trying to remove from my speeches in favour of the bureaucratically flavoured ‘Grant-Maintained Schools’ — outside the control of Local Education Authorities.

  Housing was another area in which radical proposals were being considered: Nick Ridley had already drawn up papers which were yet to be properly discussed. But his main ideas — all of which eventually found their way into the manifesto — were to give groups of tenants the right to form tenants’ co-operatives and individual tenants the right to transfer ownership of their house (or flat) to a housing association or other approved institution — in other words to swap landlords. Housing Action Trusts (HATs), modelled on the highly successful Urban Development Corporations, were to be set up to take over bad estates, renovate them and then pass them on to different tenures and ownerships. We would also reform local authority housing accounts to stop housing rents being used to subsidize the rate fund when they should have gone towards repairs and renovation.