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SINCE I LEFT 10 Downing Street, I have often thought – why politics?

From politicians themselves the standard response is a burning ambition to improve the lot of the poor, say, or the disabled, or to ‘change things for the better’.

There is truth in these claims – they are not to be disparaged. But the answer is too often calculated to win approval, too self-serving, and almost always incomplete. Motives for entering politics are much more complex. Mine certainly were.

Politics attracted me from an early age. I longed to be involved, and loathed the thought that I would have no part in making the decisions that would shape my life and times. The thought of a run-of-the-mill job did not appeal; I wanted excitement and the stimulus of the unexpected – although, I was to learn, one can overdose on that. I did believe in public service and public obligation, and if I’d had a double first I would have been attracted to a career in the Civil Service. But I had no wish to be a second-rank civil servant, and my background and lack of paper qualifications would more or less have dictated that fate, irrespective of any talent I might have shown. Being insufficiently educated to advise ministers, I decided early on to be a minister myself, and to harness others’ learning to my native good sense.

Fame is the Spur, wrote Howard Spring. He was right. Political life is stimulated by ambition, and providing ambition is not obsessive, I see nothing wrong in that. Even in these cynical days it is something to be a Member of Parliament, with those precious initials after your name.

I was attracted to the Conservative Party because it did not draw its language from the dark emotions of envy or resentment. It cared for the weak, the poor and the old, but unlike the Labour Party it did not demand a lifetime of adherence to a class struggle. It saw people as individuals, not as political troops. The Conservatism of Harold Macmillan, Iain Macleod and Rab Butler understood and spoke the language of compassion. Compassion is a virtue the best of the Conservative Party has long lived by, and without which it would never have become the broad-based, tolerant party I joined. The tone of Conservatism that appealed to me did not cultivate the envy of the few in order to improve the condition of the many. It argued for the opportunity to build security and ownership and wealth – and it showed the practical way to do so. It was not hidebound by ideology. This philosophy made me a Conservative from the first moment I truly thought about politics.

The life of politics is like no other. It has many joys and excitements, and I would not have missed them. But there is a price to be paid for the fame and the fun, and too often it is paid by family and friends. Politics at the top is all-consuming. Every interest is swept up and subordinated to its demands. I tried to guard against this by living parallel lives – politics and private life – which I did my best to prevent merging. In this I was largely successful, preserving my personal friendships and interests, and, I hope, providing a sense of balance for the life after high office.

However, private interests cannot be wholly hidden. Appearances at Lords and The Oval made my love of cricket apparent. Some knew of my affection for soccer, but few of my love of rugby, the cinema, theatre, music, gardening and, above all, books. I did not draw attention to them; I kept them, as far as possible, in the secluded area of my life. While part of me longed for the political limelight, another part demanded privacy.

And for very good reason. Even as my political profile rose and I became ever more public property, I knew this would not last for ever. Senior politicians spend only a limited time in the sun, and I did not want to leave the front line of politics as a husk, bereft of everything but a backward glance to memories of my political noontide. I knew that becoming prime minister at the age of forty-seven would mean being ex-prime minister within two Parliaments, unless something extraordinary were to happen. I intended from the outset to be prepared for the day I left office, since, following it, there would still be a lot of life to be lived.

Twenty years in Parliament, so far, has left me with a high regard for most parliamentarians. There are always a few charlatans in the Commons, concerned for self rather than country or party, and a few rent-a-quotes, avid above all for publicity. They strut the stage for a while, but are soon recognised for what they are. This shallow minority has inspired among the public an incomplete view of political life.

Government has changed over the decades. In the middle of the abdication crisis of 1936, Stanley Baldwin spent a month and a half at Aix-les-Bains, phoning Number 10 twice a week for news. Churchill’s ill-health during his last years as prime minister went unreported, and was unknown to most voters. In 1959–60 Harold Macmillan toured Africa for weeks, leaving Rab Butler in charge at home. None of that would be possible today. The prime minister’s instant reactions are demanded daily, and his press secretary provides them. The reporting of politics changed too, as the battle for newspaper circulation grew ever more intense. In the 1980s even The Times and the Daily Telegraph largely stopped verbatim reports of proceedings in Parliament, replacing them with columns by sketch writers. Caricature can illuminate and entertain, but the absence of proper reporting is a loss. I hope that one day it may return.

Even among lobby correspondents, the emphasis changed. There is more pressure to come up with sensational stories, less hesitancy to print speculative ones. In all this, there has grown up an unscrupulousness, a willingness to give credence to rumour, a refusal to correct or apologise, an amnesia about last week’s splash or leading article. ‘Government to do X’, the headlines shriek. The government patiently explains that it never had any intention of doing any such thing. The next morning, the headlines read ‘Government retreats on X’. No doubt this sells newspapers. But it also sells their readers short.

Television has brought immediacy to political events and much greater awareness of them. It has introduced modern politicians to the electorate, warts and all, in a way their predecessors never were. In 1989 I voted against letting the cameras into the Commons, but I now believe I was wrong to do so. Television has also introduced the electorate to their politicians. Even as the voters’ interest in politicians wanes, politicians themselves are absorbed by what people want and feel and do. Up to a point, this is a healthy development.

Television has great power, but its emphasis on brevity does distort. Politics is complex, and reports too often oversimplify. I commented once that an hour-long address on education would earn me one minute on prime-time television news. This would be accompanied by one minute from the Labour leader, who had not read or heard the speech, and one minute from the Liberal leader, who had not understood it. This was a parody, but one with a lot of truth in it. It is equally true that the crude picture of public opinion which the media offers MPs can oversimplify horribly.

At the top level of politics, the words of politicians are pored over to extract every possible nuance beyond their straightforward meaning. An industry has grown up of pundits who interpret what politicians may mean by what they say, and they are assisted by ‘friends’ of the politicians ever eager to explain. Too often these Chinese whispers mean the end product is unrecognisable, but, in an age where perception is all, what was meant becomes less important than what is reported.

The effect of all this has been to add immeasurably to the electorate’s cynicism about politics. I recognised this as prime minister, but I could not break free from it. I regret that. I longed to move away from ‘politician-speak’, but feared misinterpretation. I should have been bolder: it is appalling that we sometimes inflict such nonsense on the electorate as ‘the government’s position is clear’ (when it isn’t); ‘we have exciting new plans’ (when we don’t); and ‘we want a better future for our people’ (which we do, but how patronising that expression is. They are not our people. They do not belong to any political party. They are individuals who are worth more than those who patronise them).

In our age of ‘spin’ the electorate is thrown an increasing volume of pap. Every day it becomes harder to obtain widespread currency for ideas or beliefs without retreating into soundbite or cliché. I would not have recognised a ‘soundbite’ if it gripped me by the windpipe. I only hope my meaning sometimes, if fitfully, transcended my words.

As a young MP I did not court journalists, but as I rose through ministerial ranks, I came to know a few of them. Some I trusted, others not, and I kept well clear of those with a reputation for political fiction. Generally in the early years I had a friendly, perhaps even an over-generous, press, and no personal reason to mistrust them.

After I became prime minister this was to change; and so swift had been my climb up the greasy pole that I was unprepared for the onslaught. Party leaders are treated differently, prime ministers even more so. They are praised to excess or damned to perdition, sometimes both at the same time. I cannot claim to have enjoyed this, because no one could. I have yet to meet a politician with a hide like a rhinoceros. Those legendary thick-skinned beasts are said to exist, but if they are not extinct, or mythical, they are very rare. I learned to disregard the more obvious untruths and absurdities in the media, but yes, they stung, and those who say they do not deceive themselves.

But politics offers many rewards to offset these pinpricks. It is exhilarating to be at the centre of great events. It is satisfying to unravel a problem that seems insoluble. It is rewarding to help people who look to you for assistance. There are friendships that flourish amidst the rivalries as colleagues jostle for the same prizes. Cabals, gangs and partnerships are formed. The shared intentions, the hard work, the planning, the plotting, the highs and lows of joint campaigns create bonds that can be unbreakable and shared experiences that will never be forgotten. Nor is this surprising. Politics is about ideas, convictions, passions and ambitions, and MPs have these in abundance. It would be extraordinary if this did not lead to vivid exchanges and lasting relationships of friendship or, sometimes, enmity.

I found this especially true in the Whips’ Office, where there is one collective mind – the Office view arrived at after discussion – and one objective, which is to protect and advance the interests of the government. Nothing leaks from the whips. I often thought of their office as the most secure place in Western Europe.

Of course there are regrets. I shall regret always that I rarely found my own authentic voice in politics. I was too conservative, too conventional. Too safe, too often. Too defensive. Too reactive. Later, too often on the back foot. I inherited a sick economy and passed on a sound one. But one abiding regret for me is that, in between, I did not have the resources to put in place the educational and social changes about which I cared so much; I made only a beginning, and it was not enough.

I do not regret breaking the cycle of inflation. Or beginning the peace process in Northern Ireland. Or the health and education reforms. Or introducing a national lottery which would fund the arts, sport, heritage and charities more generously than ever before. I am proud to have introduced public-sector reform to protect the consumer and, by winning the 1992 election, to have enshrined the reforms of the preceding thirteen years, and forced Labour to accept what hitherto had been anathema to them. I was pleased to keep Britain in Europe and to prevent the Conservative Party from splitting. To do so I took a lot of criticism that the old pro-European Harold Macmillan would have understood. Selwyn Lloyd, once Macmillan’s foreign secretary, recalled him saying on his sickbed in 1963 that ‘Balfour had been bitterly criticised for not having a view on Protection and Free Trade. Balfour had said the important thing was to preserve the unity of the Conservative Party. He had been abused for that. But who argues now about protection and free trade? When was the last time the conventional arguments were exchanged? 1923? Whereas the preservation of great national institutions had been the right policy. Lloyd George might have been clear-cut on policy, but he destroyed the Liberal Party.’ The day may come when a similar judgement is made on the single currency.

When I talked of a classless society I wanted to say that the people who pushed wheelbarrows when I mixed cement for a living were human beings worthy of respect. They are as much in ‘God’s lively image’ as a nobleman with sixteen quarterings. I was in earnest about classlessness. I wanted to say that the subtle calibrations of scorn in which this country rejoices, the endless puttings down and belittlings, so instinctive that we do not notice ourselves doing them, are awful. They are so awful they stop us seeing men and women whole.

Class distinction is to me exactly the same as racial distinction. The utter repulsiveness of racial prejudice is something that I have sensed since I was a child. I loathe the language of contempt or hatred. I expect always to be colour-blind and class-blind, and not to spurn or despise anyone on those grounds. Contempt is first cousin to hatred. It is best replaced by understanding.

What I believe in – and I make no apology for being unscientific about it – is a rough-and-ready decency. I should have advocated it more often and made a virtue of it. But to many politicians and onlookers today a rough-and-ready decency is not enough. They demand an ideology, intellectual mentors, a political template by which to judge every circumstance. I reject that. Most people simply do not think in that way. Of course there must be broad principles and recognised values to underpin political decisions, but to believe that decisions can only be in the national interest if they conform to the ideology of some guru must surely be nonsense. Let us have convictions by all means, but not the sort of convictions that are the flip-side of bigotry. A politician’s responsibility should above all be a readiness to do what is best in all the circumstances to deal with the issue at hand.

My politics was quiet politics. I disliked brash populism. I distrusted bitter conflict. I was at ease with the knitting-up of conciliation. It may have been boring to some, it may have been seen as grey, but it had its points. In Can You Forgive Her?, the first of Anthony Trollope’s great political novels about the Palliser family, an aspirant candidate muses upon the duties of being an MP. He is duly elected, and serves his party and his country well. His name, I recall, was John Grey. And perhaps I should have reminded my critics of what the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro wrote in a letter to his son Lucien, also a painter: ‘Never forget to make proper use of the whole dazzling range of greys.’ Hallelujah.

This book is not a history of our time. It is a personal odyssey that covers successes and failures but which ended in a crushing rebuff on May Day 1997. We – I – made mistakes. We paid for them. But we had successes too. On the day I became prime minister interest rates were 14 per cent, inflation 9.7 per cent, and unemployment 1.75 million, on its way to three million. When I left Number 10, interest rates were 6 per cent, inflation 2.6 per cent, and unemployment 1.6 million and falling. It was the healthiest economy any government had handed to its successors for generations. How we lost, despite this economic turnaround, is part of this story. In it I will not concede possession of the recent past to the mythographers of left or right who have every self-interest in retouching the history we made. For New Labour a Year Zero view of politics conveniently covers up the follies and errors of Labour’s past and denies the advances of good Conservative government.

Nor do I concede the Year Zero philosophy of some on the right. Conservatism was not discovered only in the 1980s, nor was it lost in the 1990s. Such a view is absurd. The 1980s were indeed great years of achievement and I was proud to have been a small part of them. But a proper respect for those achievements is not enhanced by rewriting history and denying the successes that preceded them, or those that have followed. Continuity matters to Conservatives. Some ideologues on the right forget that.

My great predecessor as Member of Parliament for Huntingdon, Oliver Cromwell, cautioned the painter Lely as he began a portrait of him: ‘Remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.’ He wanted an accurate portrait. So do I, and I have tried to achieve one. Politics, like life, is not all black and white. Sometimes it is grey, and in this story I have tried to colour in all its shades.