There is No Alternative

by Claire Berlinski

  “What kind of language did she use?”

  “She didn’t use bad language, never used bad language. ‘Forceful’ and ‘strident’ are the sort of words that come to mind. She could behave—it was pretty embarrassing at times to listen to it, frankly. You know, that she could treat someone like that. Because it was bound to have an effect, really, bound to.”

  Enter now Geoffrey Howe, who until this point has not figured largely in my story not because he was insignificant—he was Thatcher’s first chancellor and her longest-serving cabinet minister—but because, honestly, he is boring. Mild-mannered. Bland. Uncon-frontational. In 1978, Labour Chancellor Denis Healey said that being challenged by Howe in debate was “like being savaged by a dead sheep.”

  There is a sequel to this anecdote. When in 1983 Healey congratulated Howe upon his appointment as foreign secretary, Howe told the House that it was “like being nuzzled by an old ram.” A nice riposte. But think about that: Howe had been stewing over that insult and storing up that response for five years.

  Nigel Lawson writes that Thatcher found Howe’s “quiet, dogged manner intensely irritating. Increasingly, over the years, she felt compelled—to the acute embarrassment of everyone else present—to treat him as something halfway between a punchbag and a doormat . . . she went out of her way to humiliate him at every turn.”257 When I spoke to Lawson, I asked him just why, exactly, Howe’s manner irritated her so. “She bullied people who she thought were bully-able,” he said tersely. “Which is not a very attractive characteristic, but you know, nobody’s perfect.”

  Howe was not the only one she had bullied. The list of those she had aggrieved was long. Lawson, by this point, was among them, and so was her former defense secretary, Michael Heseltine. She had enemies everywhere. But she did not believe they would dare rise up against her.

  ARTEMIDORUS

  Caesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come not near Casca; have an eye to Cinna, trust not Trebonius: mark well Metellus Cimber: Decius Brutus loves thee not: thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius.

  CAESAR

  What, is the man insane?

  Thatcher’s popularity declined in 1989. Inflation was once again rising. She blamed Nigel Lawson. She claimed that her chancellor had been following an economic policy in preparation for monetary union without her knowledge and against her wishes. The story does not reflect well on her. If he was doing this without her knowledge, she was not in control; if he was doing this against her wishes, she was not in command. In either case, she was not accepting responsibility.

  At the Madrid European summit, Lawson and Howe threatened to resign unless Thatcher agreed, at a minimum, to state the circumstances under which she would join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Thatcher saw the Exchange Rate Mechanism as the precursor to monetary union. She capitulated to their ultimatum because she had no choice, but she took revenge. She demoted Howe to leader of the House—a position he rightly saw as ceremonial—and from then on permitted her economic advisor Alan Walters, a caustic Euroskeptic, to eclipse Lawson.

  When Howe first rose to speak in his new, diminished capacity, Lawson recalled,A loud and long spontaneous cheer rose from the massed Conservative benches of a kind that is rarely heard. It was a tribute to the affection with which Howe was held within the Party. But more than anything else, it was a clear warning to Margaret. No experienced Tory Member could have failed to get the message—except perhaps one: Margaret Hilda Thatcher.258

  Lawson resigned from Thatcher’s cabinet that October, stating—correctly—that Thatcher’s reliance on Walters had undermined him.

  Lawson’s resignation came as a great shock to her. This in itself indicates that her uncanny political judgment had begun to fail her. Shortly after Lawson’s resignation, Thatcher was interviewed for ITV by Brian Walden. It is a remarkable exchange: It is clear that Thatcher is losing her grasp not only politically, but emotionally. It is the only interview I can recall watching in which Thatcher’s interlocutor pulverizes her. She appears bewildered, off-balance, flustered, and insane.

  Walden: Prime Minister, it is fairly clear, is it not, what was getting up Nigel’s nose. It was not that you had an economic adviser who very quietly and silently whispered things to you in the still watches of the night. He felt that you were not seen to be united because Professor Alan Walters, a very able man, was making absolutely clear to anybody who cared to listen to him, fundamental disagreements that he had with the Chancellor. . . . Now surely he put that point to you and what did you say to that?

  Prime Minister: Alan Walters is part-time as my adviser. He has only just recently returned . . . It is just not possible that this small particular thing could result in this particular resignation . . . I am very sad that [Lawson] has gone. But he has and now we must turn to the future. The same policies will continue because they are sound and we shall carry on in precisely the same way.

  Walden: I want to ask you about that of course Prime Minister. But let us come back to Professor Alan Walters . . . [Thatcher says the same inane things] All right, well let us consider Lawson. I have to take it the way you have put it, Prime Minister, that you blame Nigel for the resignation, not yourself? . . . [Thatcher repeats herself] Of course, so let me ask you again, why did Nigel resign? You say he knew that he was unassailable, he knew that you loved him and that everything that he did was marvelous, but he resigned . . . [Thatcher repeats herself, voice rising] He was unassailable, you say; you were in agreement, you say; everything was going well, you say; and he said to you: “Margaret, you have got to get rid of Alan Walters!” Why didn’t you and keep your Chancellor? . . . [Thatcher repeats herself, voice hysterical, and begs him to change the subject] Do you deny Nigel would have stayed if you had sacked Professor Alan Walters? . . .

  Prime Minister: [Nearly shrieking] I do not know!

  Walden: You never even thought to ask him that?

  Prime Minister: I do not know! Nigel had determined that he was going to put in his resignation. I did everything possible to stop him! I was not successful! No! You are going on asking the same question!

  Walden: [Calmly] Of course, but that is a terrible admission, Prime Minister.

  Prime Minister: I do not know! Of course I do not know!

  Walden: You do not know you could have kept your Chancellor, possibly, if you had sacked your part-time adviser? . . . Let me sum you up so far. You do not accept blame for the resignation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, you do not know why he resigned, he is to tell me himself, you can offer no guidance on that. And you do not accept that the other resignations from your government, or the other sackings from your government, have arisen because you cannot handle strong men . . . You come over as being someone who one of your Back Benchers said is “slightly off her trolley,” authoritarian, domineering, refusing to listen to anybody else . . .

  Prime Minister: Nonsense, Brian! I am staying my own sweet reasonable self, . . . reasonably, firmly, strongly—

  Walden: Prime Minister, I must stop you there!

  Prime Minister: No, you must not!

  Walden: I must! Thank you very much indeed!259

  In November 1989, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party by Anthony Meyer, an unknown backbencher. She defeated him handily, but it was now clear that the knives had been unsheathed. She did not seem to sense it. Asked by an interviewer where she stood, she replied, “In the lead, I am the Leader, I am Prime Minister. That is where I am and I shall just carry on as I have always carried on.” Did that mean she would go on ad infinitum? he asked. “No, no, no,” she said blithely. “I did not say ad infinitum—no-one can go on ad infinitum . . . One is, after all, finite.”260

  CAESAR

  Cowards die many times before their deaths;

  The valiant never taste of death but once.

  Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.

  It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

  Seeing that deat
h, a necessary end,

  Will come when it will come.

  By the fall of 1990, the Conservative Party had come to see Thatcher as a liability. Europe was not the only reason for this. The introduction of the so-called Community Charge—a fixed-rate tax for local services—was intended to expose the wastefulness of Labour-controlled local governments. It replaced a tax pegged to the notional rental value of a taxpayer’s house. Thatcher hoped that voters would at last realize how much the Labour councils were really spending and throw the bums out. But unsurprisingly, a tax that appeared to penalize the poor at exactly the same rates as the rich was not well-received. In March, a demonstration in London against the poll tax turned into the worst riot seen in the city for a century. Millions refused to pay. Protestors resisted the bailiffs and disrupted the court hearings of the debtors. At Balliol—a very left-wing college—students were constantly organizing and marching against the poll tax. All through that autumn they were making banners and passing around leaflets and petitions. I watched this with puzzlement: It seemed to me that for a change they were right. The poll tax was insanity. I couldn’t figure out what Thatcher was thinking.

  Thatcher refused to compromise or change the tax.

  CAESAR

  Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause

  Will he be satisfied.

  But I am constant as the northern star,

  Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality

  There is no fellow in the firmament.

  The economy was headed toward recession. The Conservatives were trailing in the polls. The Conservative Party is not known for loyalty. In 1975 Thatcher herself had studied the omens, then challenged and vanquished Ted Heath.

  “The most tearing blow,” Neil Kinnock recalls, “was the fact that we were 14, 16 points ahead on the day she went through the door. And an objective assessment of the reasons for her departure will take account of her arrogance, the distance that she developed between herself and her party, the poll tax—but really, what lit the fuse was that month after month after month we were way ahead in the opinion polls, and the Tories were starting to worry about their own security. Political security. So a group said, rightly, ‘If she stays there, we’re going to lose the next election.’ They were right about that.”

  It is impossible to say if they were right about that. She never had the chance to put the matter to the test. “You might not like it,” says Powell, “but for eleven years, every time the British people were given a chance to express a view on it”—“it” being Thatcherism and Thatcher—“they supported it, voted for it, and I think she would have won the election in 1992 as well, had she stayed in. She was always a pragmatist. She always knew how to retreat sometimes. She was very good in Europe. You had to adjust, obviously, you could never have outright victory on anything in Europe, and she was very good at blowing smoke and retreating behind the smokescreen . . . on the poll tax, the community charge, she would have done exactly what John Major did, that is, loan some of the costs off of central taxation and make some changes, and I think would have won the 1992 election on the back of it. You always have to remember she was dislodged by a coup d’état, not by any democratic procedure.”

  At the end of October 1990, upon returning from a European Council meeting in Rome, Thatcher again made it clear to the Commons that she was vehemently opposed to the idea of a European single currency and the development of a federal Europe. “The President of the Commission, Mr. Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate.” With this, she sucked in a great lungful of air, and then with all the drama of a concert soprano hitting the high note of a tragic aria cried out: “NO! NO! NO!” 261

  This spectacle pushed the long-suffering Howe over the edge. On November 1, 1990, he resigned.

  It was obvious now to everyone—but her—that the rats were briskly paddling away. “I don’t think she realizes what a jam she’s in,” Alan Clark wrote in his diary. “It’s the bunker syndrome. Everyone around you is clicking their heels. The saluting sentries have highly polished boots and beautifully creased uniforms. But out at the Front it’s all disintegrating . . . whole units are mutinous and in flight.”262

  On November 13, Howe plunged the first dagger. His resignation speech was by far the best of his career. It was, in Thatcher’s words, “cool, forensic, light at points, and poisonous.”263 He would from then on be remembered, she predicted, “not for his staunchness as Chancellor, nor for his skilful diplomacy as Foreign Secretary, but for this final act of bile and treachery. The very brilliance with which he wielded the dagger ensured that the character he assassinated was in the end his own.” The evaluation is bitter, to be sure, but not unfair.264 No one remembers Howe for anything but this speech.

  It was essential, he warned,. . . not to cut ourselves off from the realities of power; not to retreat into a ghetto of sentimentality about our past and so diminish our own control over our own destiny in the future . . .

  It would have spared us so many of the struggles of the last 20 years had we been in the Community from the outset; had we been ready, in the much too simple phrase, to “surrender some sovereignty” at a much earlier stage. If we had been in from the start, as almost everybody now acknowledges, we should have had more, not less, influence over the Europe in which we live today. We should never forget the lesson of that isolation, of being on the outside looking in, for the conduct of today’s affairs . . .

  As Thatcher had done years before, Howe summoned to arms the spirit of Winston Churchill:I have to say that I find Winston Churchill’s perception a good deal more convincing, and more encouraging for the interests of our nation, than the nightmare image sometimes conjured up by my right hon. Friend, who seems sometimes to look out upon a continent that is positively teeming with ill-intentioned people, scheming, in her words, to “extinguish democracy,” to “dissolve our national identities” and to lead us “through the back-door into a federal Europe.” . . .

  The tragedy is—and it is for me personally, for my party, for our whole people and for my right hon. Friend herself, a very real tragedy—that the Prime Minister’s perceived attitude towards Europe is running increasingly serious risks for the future of our nation. It risks minimizing our influence and maximizing our chances of being once again shut out. We have paid heavily in the past for late starts and squandered opportunities in Europe. We dare not let that happen again. If we detach ourselves completely, as a party or a nation, from the middle ground of Europe, the effects will be incalculable and very hard ever to correct.

  He concluded on an ominous note. “I have done what I believe is right for my party and my country. The time has come for others to consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I myself have wrestled for perhaps too long.”265

  These words were widely interpreted as they were meant: They were an invitation to Michael Heseltine, Thatcher’s longtime adversary, to force a leadership election.

  BRUTUS

  If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: —Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.

  ALL
/>   None, Brutus, none.

  Heseltine: Big hair. An oily charisma. A self-made millionaire with eight gardeners and a personal arboretum. The press called him “Tarzan.” On Spitting Image they depicted him in a superhero cape: By day, Michael Heseltine is a suave millionaire MP. By night, he is a vain, ambitious little weasel. “The Tory Party Leadership? This is a job for Blondeman! Into the Blondemobile!”

  Heseltine was more than ready to strike the coup de grâce. After months of declaring that he could “foresee no circumstances” under which he would challenge the prime minister, he suddenly saw them clearly.

  On November 20, 1990, Heseltine was defeated, 204–152, in the first ballot for the party’s leadership. But according to the party’s rules, this was not sufficient to give Thatcher an outright victory. Thatcher was at the time at a summit in Paris. She did not return to campaign for the second round.

  A fatal misjudgment.

  She underestimated the seriousness of the challenge. She did not cajole or reassure her wavering supporters. “It’s absolute madness,” wrote Clark in his diary. “There’s no Party mileage whatever in being at the Paris summit. It just makes her seem snooty and remote. And who’s running the campaign? Who’s doing the canvassing? Who’s putting the pressure on?”266

  Charles Powell understands her decision thus: “A lot of people say, ‘Well, why wasn’t she in London for her reelection as Party leader instead of sitting in Paris at this great conference on the end of the Cold War?’ And in her view, of course they were going to reelect her as leader of the Party after all she’d done for them. Why should she be groveling in the House of Commons’ tea room soliciting votes from people who she created, got elected, had given ten years in government? I mean, they owed it to her, her right place was representing Britain in the triumphal conclusion of the Cold War, and it never occurred to her to go. I think that attitude—it’s perfectly easy to understand, but that’s what brought her down.”