Читать книгу Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography - Margaret Thatcher - Страница 13

The October 1974 general election and the campaign for the Tory Leadership

IT IS NEVER EASY to go from government to opposition. But for several reasons it was particularly problematical for the Conservatives led by Ted Heath. First, of course, we had up until almost the last moment expected to win. Whatever the shortcomings of our Government’s economic strategy, every department had its own policy programme stretching well into the future. This now had to be abandoned for the rigours of Opposition. Secondly, Ted himself desperately wanted to continue as Prime Minister. He had been unceremoniously ejected from 10 Downing Street and for some months had to take refuge in the flat of his old friend and PPS Tim Kitson, having no home of his own – from which years later I drew the resolution that when my time came to depart I would at least have a house to go to. Ted’s passionate desire to return as Prime Minister lay behind much of the talk of coalitions and Governments of National Unity which came to disquiet the Party. The more that the Tory Party moved away from Ted’s own vision, the more he wanted to see it tamed by coalition. Thirdly, and worst of all perhaps, the poisoned legacy of our U-turns was that we had no firm principles, let alone much of a record, on which to base our arguments. And in Opposition argument is everything.

I was glad that Ted did not ask me to cover my old department at Education but gave me the Environment portfolio instead. I was convinced that both rates and housing – particularly the latter – were issues which had contributed to our defeat. The task of devising and presenting sound and popular policies in these areas appealed to me.

There were rumblings about Ted’s own position, though that is what they largely remained. This was partly because most of us expected an early general election to be called in order to give Labour a working majority, and it hardly seemed sensible to change leaders now. But there were other reasons. Ted still inspired nervousness, even fear among many of his colleagues. In a sense, even the U-turns contributed to the aura around him. For he had single-handedly reversed Conservative policies and had gone far, with his lieutenants, in reshaping the Conservative Party. Paradoxically too, both those committed to Ted’s approach and those – like Keith and me and many on the backbenches – who thought very differently agreed that the vote-buying policies which the Labour Party was now pursuing would inevitably lead to economic collapse. Just what the political consequences of that would be was uncertain. But there were many Tory wishful thinkers who thought that it might result in the Conservative Party somehow returning to power with a ‘doctor’s mandate’. And Ted had no doubt of his own medical credentials.

He did not, though, make the concessions to his critics in the Party which would have been required. He might have provided effectively against future threats to his position if he had changed his approach in a number of ways. He might have shown at least some willingness to admit and learn from the Government’s mistakes. He might have invited talented backbench critics to join him as Shadow spokesmen and contribute to the rethinking of policy. He might have changed the overall complexion of the Shadow Cabinet to make it more representative of parliamentary opinion.

But he did none of these things. He replaced Tony Barber – who announced that he intended to leave the Commons though he would stay on for the present in the Shadow Cabinet without portfolio – with Robert Carr, who was even more committed to the interventionist approach that had got us into so much trouble. He promoted to the Shadow Cabinet during the year those MPs like Michael Heseltine and Paul Channon who were seen as his acolytes, and were unrepresentative of backbench opinion of the time. Only John Davies and Joe Godber, neither of whom was ideologically distinct, were dropped. Above all, he set his face against any policy rethinking that would imply that his Government’s economic and industrial policy had been seriously flawed. When Keith Joseph was not made Shadow Chancellor, he said he wanted no portfolio but rather to concentrate on research for new policies – something which would prove as dangerous to Ted as it was fruitful for the Party. Otherwise, these were depressing signals of ‘more of the same’ when the electorate had clearly demonstrated a desire for something different. Added to this, the important Steering Committee of Shadow Ministers was formed even more in Ted’s image. I was not invited to join it, and of its members only Keith and perhaps Geoffrey Howe were likely to oppose Ted’s wishes.

Between the February and October 1974 elections most of my time was taken up with work on housing and the rates. I had an effective housing policy group of MPs working with me. Hugh Rossi, a friend and neighbouring MP, was a great housing expert, with experience of local government. Michael Latham and John Stanley were well versed in the building industry. The brilliant Nigel Lawson, newly elected, always had his own ideas. We also had the help of people from the building societies and construction industry. It was a lively group which I enjoyed chairing.

The political priority was clearly lower mortgage rates. The technical problem was how to achieve these without open-ended subsidy. In government we had introduced a mortgage subsidy, and there had been talk of taking powers to control the mortgage rate. The Labour Government quickly came up with its own scheme, devised by Harold Lever, to make large cheap short-term loans to the building societies. Our task was to devise something more attractive.

As well as having an eye for a politically attractive policy, I had always believed in a property-owning democracy and wider home ownership. It is cheaper to assist people to buy homes with a mortgage – whether by a subsidized mortgage rate, or by help with the deposit, or just by mortgage interest tax relief – than it is to build more council houses or to buy up private houses through municipalization. I used to quote the results of a Housing Research Foundation study which observed: ‘On average each new council house now costs roughly £900 a year in subsidy in taxes and rates (including the subsidy from very old council houses) … Tax relief on an ordinary mortgage, if this be regarded as a subsidy, averages about £280 a year.’ My housing policy group met regularly on Mondays. Housing experts and representatives from the building societies gave their advice. It was clear to me that Ted and others were determined to make our proposals on housing and possibly rates the centrepiece of the next election campaign, which we expected sooner rather than later. For example, at the Shadow Cabinet on Friday 3 May we had an all-day discussion of policies for the manifesto. I reported on housing and was authorized to set up a rates policy group. But this meeting was more significant for another reason. At it Keith Joseph argued at length but in vain for a broadly ‘monetarist’ approach to dealing with inflation.

The question of the rates was a far more difficult one than any aspect of housing policy, and I had a slightly different group to help me. Reform, let alone abolition, of the rates had profound implications for the relations between central and local government and for the different local authority services, particularly education. I drew on the advice of the experts – municipal treasurers proved the best source, and gave readily of their technical advice. But working as I was under tight pressure of time and close scrutiny by Ted and others who expected me to deliver something radical, popular and defensible, my task was not an easy one.

The housing policy group had already held its seventh meeting and our proposals were well developed by the time the rates group started work on 10 June. I knew Ted and his advisers wanted a firm promise that we would abolish the rates. But I was loath to make such a pledge until we were clear about what to put in their place. Anyway, if there was to be an autumn election, there was little chance of doing more than finding a sustainable line to take in the manifesto.

Meanwhile, throughout that summer of 1974 I received far more publicity than I had ever previously experienced. Some of this was inadvertent. The interim report of the housing policy group which I circulated to Shadow Cabinet appeared on the front page of The Times on Monday 24 June. On the previous Friday Shadow Cabinet had spent the morning discussing the fourth draft of the manifesto. By now the main lines of my proposed housing policy were agreed. The mortgage rate would be held down to some unspecified level by cutting the composite rate of tax paid by building societies on depositors’ accounts, in other words by subsidy disguised as tax relief. A grant would be given to firsttime buyers saving for a deposit, though again no figure was specified. There would be a high-powered inquiry into building societies; this was an idea I modelled on my earlier James Inquiry into teachers’ training. I hoped it might produce a long-term answer to the problem of high mortgage rates and yet save us from an open-ended subsidy.

The final point related to the right of tenants to buy their council houses. Of all our proposals this was to prove the most far-reaching and the most popular. The February 1974 manifesto had offered council tenants the chance to buy their houses, but retained a right of appeal for the council against sale, and had not offered a discount. We all wanted to go further than this; the question was how far. Peter Walker constantly pressed for the ‘Right to Buy’ to be extended to council tenants at the lowest possible prices. My instinct was on the side of caution. It was not that I underrated the benefits of wider property ownership. Rather, I was wary of alienating the already hard-pressed families who had scrimped to buy a house on one of the new private estates at the market price and who had seen the mortgage rate rise and the value of their house fall. These people were the bedrock Conservative voters for whom I felt a natural sympathy. They would, I feared, strongly object to council house tenants who had made none of their sacrifices suddenly receiving what was in effect a large capital sum from the Government. We might end up losing more support than we gained. In retrospect, this argument seems both narrow and unimaginative. And it was. But there was a lot to be said politically for it in 1974 at a time when the value of people’s houses had slumped so catastrophically.

In the event, the October 1974 manifesto offered council tenants who had been in their homes for three years or more the right to buy them at a price a third below market value. If the tenant sold again within five years he would surrender part of any capital gain. Also, by the time the manifesto reached its final draft, we had quantified the help to be given to first-time buyers of private houses and flats. We would contribute £1 for every £2 saved for the deposit up to a given ceiling. (We ducked the question of rent decontrol.)

It was, however, the question of how low a maximum mortgage interest rate we would promise in the manifesto that caused me most trouble. When I was in the car on the way from London to Tonbridge on Wednesday 28 August in order to record a Party Political Broadcast the bleeper signalled that I must telephone urgently. Ted wanted a word. Willie Whitelaw answered the phone and it was clear that the two of them, and doubtless others of the inner circle, were meeting. Ted came on the line. He asked me to announce on the PPB the precise figure to which we would hold down mortgages, and to take it down as low as I could. I said I could understand the psychological point about going below 10 per cent. That need could be satisfied by a figure of 9½ per cent, and in all conscience I could not take it down any further. To do so would have a touch of rashness about it. I was already worried about the cost. I did not like this tendency to pull figures out of the air for immediate political impact without proper consideration of where they would lead. So I stuck at 9½ per cent.

It was a similar story on the rates. When we had discussed the subject at our Shadow Cabinet meeting on Friday 21 June I had tried to avoid any firm pledge. I suggested that our line should be one of reform to be established on an all-party basis through a Select Committee. Even more than housing, this was not an area in which precipitate pledges were sensible. Ted would have none of this and said I should think again.

In July Charles Bellairs at the Conservative Research Department and I worked on a draft rates section for the manifesto. We were still thinking in terms of an inquiry and an interim rate relief scheme. I went along to discuss our proposals at the Shadow Cabinet Steering Committee. I argued for the transfer of teachers’ salaries – the largest item of local spending – from local government onto the Exchequer. Another possibility I raised was the replacement of rates with a system of block grants, with local authorities retaining discretion over spending but within a total set by central government. Neither of these possibilities was particularly attractive. But at least discussion revealed to those present that ‘doing something’ about the rates was a very different matter from knowing what to do.

On Saturday 10 August I used my speech to the Candidates’ Conference at the St Stephen’s Club to publicize our policies. I argued for total reform of the rating system to take into account individual ability to pay, and suggested the transfer of teachers’ salaries and better interim relief as ways to achieve this. It was a good time of the year – a slack period for news – to unveil new proposals, and we gained some favourable publicity.

It seemed to me that this proved that we could fight a successful campaign without being more specific; indeed, looking back, I can see that we were already a good deal too specific because, as I was to discover fifteen years later, such measures as transferring the cost of services from local to central government do not in themselves lead to lower local authority rates.

I had hoped to have a pleasant family holiday at Lamberhurst away from the demands of politics. It was not to be. The telephone kept ringing, with Ted and others urging me to give more thought to new schemes. Then I was called back for another meeting on Friday 16 August. Ted, Robert Carr, Jim Prior, Willie Whitelaw and Michael Wolff from Central Office were all there. It was soon clear what the purpose was – to bludgeon me into accepting a commitment in the manifesto to abolish the rates altogether within the lifetime of a Parliament. I argued against this for very much the same reason that I argued against the ‘9½ per cent’ pledge on the mortgage rate. But so shell-shocked by their unexpected defeat in February were Ted and his inner circle that in their desire for reelection they were clutching at straws, or what in the jargon were described as manifesto ‘nuggets’.

There were various ways to raise revenue for expenditure on local purposes. We were all uneasy about moving to a system whereby central government just provided block grants to local government. So I had told Shadow Cabinet that I thought a reformed property tax seemed to be the least painful option. But in the back of my mind I had the additional idea of supplementing the property tax with a locally collected tax on petrol. Of course, there were plenty of objections to both, but at least they were better than putting up income tax.

What mattered to my colleagues was clearly the pledge to abolish the rates, and at Wilton Street Ted insisted on it. I felt bruised and resentful to be bounced again into policies which had not been properly thought out. But I thought that if I combined caution on the details with as much presentational bravura as I could muster I could make our rates and housing policies into vote-winners for the Party. This I now concentrated my mind on doing.

It was at a press conference on the afternoon of Wednesday 28 August that I delivered the package of measures – built around 9½ per cent mortgages and the abolition of the rates – without a scintilla of doubt, which as veteran Evening Standard reporter Robert Carvel said, ‘went down with hardened reporters almost as well as the sherry’ served by Central Office. We dominated the news. It was by general consent the best fillip the Party had had since losing the February election. The Building Societies’ Association welcomed the proposals for 9½ per cent mortgages but questioned my figures about the cost. As I indignantly told them, it was their sums which were wrong and they subsequently retracted. Some on the economic right were understandably critical, but among the grassroots Conservatives that we had to win back the mortgage proposal was extremely popular. So too was the pledge on the rates. The Labour Party was rattled and unusually the party-giving Tony Crosland was provoked into describing the proposals as ‘Margaret’s midsummer madness’. All this publicity was good for me personally as well. Although I was not to know it at the time, this period up to and during the October 1974 election campaign allowed me to make a favourable impact on Conservatives in the country and in Parliament without which my future career would doubtless have been very different.

Although it was my responsibilities as Environment spokesman which took up most of my time and energy, from late June I had become part of another enterprise which would have profound consequences for the Conservative Party, for the country and for me. The setting up of the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) is really part of Keith Joseph’s story rather than mine. Keith had emerged from the wreckage of the Heath Government determined on the need to rethink our policies from first principles. If this was to be done, Keith was the ideal man to do it. He had the intellect, the integrity and not least the humility required. He had a deep interest in both economic and social policy. He had long experience of government. He had an extraordinary ability to form relationships of friendship and respect with a wide range of characters with different viewpoints and backgrounds. Although he could, when he felt strongly, speak passionately and persuasively, it was as a listener that he excelled. Moreover, Keith never listened passively. He probed arguments and assertions and scribbled notes which you knew he would go home to ponder. He was so impressive because his intellectual self-confidence was the fruit of continual self-questioning. His bravery in adopting unpopular positions before a hostile audience evoked the admiration of his friends, because we all knew that he was naturally shy and even timid. He was almost too good a man for politics – except that without a few good men politics would be intolerable.

I could not have become Leader of the Opposition, or achieved what I did as Prime Minister, without Keith. But nor, it is fair to say, could Keith have achieved what he did without the Centre for Policy Studies and Alfred Sherman. Apart from the fact of their being Jewish, Alfred and Keith had little in common, and until one saw how effectively they worked together it was difficult to believe that they could co-operate at all.

Alfred had his own kind of brilliance. He brought his convert’s zeal (as an ex-communist), his breadth of reading and his skills as a ruthless polemicist to the task of plotting out a new kind of free market Conservatism. He was more interested, it seemed to me, in the philosophy behind policies than the policies themselves. He was better at pulling apart sloppily constructed arguments than at devising original proposals. But the force and clarity of his mind, and his complete disregard for other people’s feelings or opinion of him, made him a formidable complement and contrast to Keith. Alfred helped Keith to turn the Centre for Policy Studies into the powerhouse of alternative Conservative thinking on economic and social matters.

I was not involved at the beginning, though I gathered from Keith that he was thinking hard about how to turn his Shadow Cabinet responsibilities for research on policy into constructive channels. In March Keith had won Ted’s approval for the setting up of a research unit to make comparative studies with other European economies, particularly the so-called ‘social market economy’ as practised in West Germany. Ted had Adam Ridley put on the board of directors of the CPS (Adam acted as his economic adviser from within the Conservative Research Department), but otherwise Keith was left very much to his own devices. Nigel Vinson, a successful entrepreneur with strong free enterprise convictions, was made responsible for acquiring a home for the Centre, which was found in Wilfred Street, close to Victoria. It was at the end of May 1974 that I first became directly involved with the CPS. Whether Keith ever considered asking any other members of the Shadow Cabinet to join him at the Centre I do not know: if he had, they certainly did not accept. His was a risky, exposed position, and the fear of provoking the wrath of Ted and the derision of left-wing commentators was a powerful disincentive. But I jumped at the chance to become Keith’s Vice-Chairman.

The CPS was the least bureaucratic of institutions. Alfred Sherman has caught the feel of it by saying that it was an ‘animator, agent of change, and political enzyme’. The original proposed social market approach did not prove particularly fruitful and was eventually quietly forgotten, though a pamphlet called Why Britain Needs a Social Market Economy was published.

What the Centre then developed was the drive to expose the follies and self-defeating consequences of government intervention. It continued to engage the political argument in open debate at the highest intellectual level. The objective was to effect change – change in the climate of opinion and so in the limits of the ‘possible’. In order to do this, it had to employ another of Alfred’s phrases, to ‘think the unthinkable’. It was not long before more than a few feathers began to be ruffled by that approach.

Keith had decided that he would make a series of speeches over the summer and autumn of 1974 in which he would set out the alternative analysis of what had gone wrong and what should be done. The first of these, which was also intended to attract interest among potential fundraisers, was delivered at Upminster on Saturday 22 June. Alfred was the main draftsman. But as with all Keith’s speeches – except the fateful Edgbaston speech which I shall describe shortly – he circulated endless drafts for comment. All the observations received were carefully considered and the language pared down to remove every surplus word. Keith’s speeches always put rigour of analysis and exactitude of language above style, but taken as a whole they managed to be powerful rhetorical instruments as well.

The Upminster speech infuriated Ted and the Party establishment because Keith lumped in together the mistakes of Conservative and Labour Governments, talking about the ‘thirty years of socialistic fashions’. He said bluntly that the public sector had been ‘draining away the wealth created by the private sector’, and challenged the value of public ‘investment’ in tourism and the expansion of the universities. He condemned the socialist vendetta against profits and noted the damage done by rent controls and council housing to labour mobility. Finally – and, in the eyes of the advocates of consensus, unforgivably – he talked about the ‘inherent contradictions [of the] … mixed economy’. It was a short speech but it had a mighty impact, not least because people knew that there was more to come.

From Keith and Alfred I learned a great deal. I renewed my reading of the seminal works of liberal economics and conservative thought. I also regularly attended lunches at the Institute of Economic Affairs where Ralph Harris, Arthur Seldon, Alan Walters and others – in other words all those who had been right when we in government had gone so badly wrong – were busy marking out a new non-socialist economic and social path for Britain. I lunched from time to time with Professor Douglas Hague, the economist, who would later act as one of my unofficial economic advisers.

At about this time I also made the acquaintance of a polished and amusing former television producer called Gordon Reece, who was advising the Party on television appearances and who had, it seemed to me, an almost uncanny insight into that medium. In fact, by the eve of the October 1974 general election I had made a significant number of contacts with those on whom I would come to rely heavily during my years as Party Leader.

Keith delivered a further speech in Preston on Thursday 5 September. After some early inconclusive discussion in Shadow Cabinet of Keith’s various ideas, Ted had refused the general economic re-evaluation and discussion which Keith wanted. Keith decided that he was not prepared to be either stifled or ignored, and gave notice that he was intending to make a major speech on economic policy. Ted and most of our colleagues were desperate to prevent this. Geoffrey Howe and I were accordingly dispatched to try to persuade Keith not to go ahead, or at least to tone down what he intended to say. In any case, Keith showed me an early draft. It was one of the most powerful and persuasive analyses I have ever read. I made no suggestions for changes. Nor, as far as I know, did Geoffrey. The Preston speech must still be considered as one of the very few which have fundamentally affected a political generation’s way of thinking.

It began with the sombre statement: ‘Inflation is threatening to destroy our society.’ At most times this would have seemed hyperbole, but at this time, with inflation at 17 per cent and rising, people were obsessed with its impact on their lives. That only made more explosive Keith’s admission that successive governments bore the responsibility for allowing it to get such a grip. He rejected the idea embraced by the Shadow Cabinet that inflation had been ‘imported’ and was the result of rocketing world prices. In fact, it was the result of excessive growth of the money supply. Explaining as he did that there was a time lag of ‘many months, or even as much as a year or two’ between loose monetary policy and rising inflation, he also implicitly – and accurately – blamed the Heath Government for the inflation which was now beginning to take off and which would rise to even more ruinous levels the following year. He also rejected the use of incomes policy as a means of containing it. The analysis was subtle, detailed and devastating.

Keith then put his finger on the fundamental reason why we had embarked on our disastrous U-turns – fear of unemployment. It had been when registered unemployment rose to one million that the Heath Government’s nerve broke. But Keith explained that the unemployment statistics concealed as much as they revealed because they included ‘frictional unemployment’ – that is, people who were temporarily out of work moving between jobs – and a large number of people who were more or less unemployable for one reason or another. Similarly, there was a large amount of fraudulent unemployment, people who were drawing benefit while earning. In fact, noted Keith, the real problem had been labour shortages, not surpluses. He said that we should be prepared to admit that control of the money supply to beat inflation would temporarily risk some increase in unemployment. But if we wanted to bring down inflation (which itself destroyed jobs, though this was an argument to which Keith and I would subsequently have to return on many occasions), monetary growth had to be curbed. Keith did not argue that if we got the money supply right, everything else would be right. He specifically said that this was not his view. But if we did not achieve monetary control, we would never be able to achieve any of our other economic objectives.

The Preston speech was, of course, highly embarrassing for Ted and the Party establishment. Some still hoped that a combination of dire warnings about socialism, hints of a National Government and our new policies on mortgages and the rates would see us squeak back into office – an illusion fostered by the fact that on the very day of Keith’s speech an opinion poll showed us two points ahead of Labour. The Preston speech blew this strategy out of the water, for it was clear that the kind of reassessment Keith was advocating was highly unlikely to occur if the Conservatives returned to government with Ted Heath as Prime Minister. Keith himself discreetly decided to spend more time at the CPS in Wilfred Street than at Westminster, where some of his colleagues were furious. For my part, I did not think that there was any serious chance of our winning the election. In the short term I was determined to fight as hard as I could for the policies it was now my responsibility to defend. In the longer term I was convinced that we must turn the Party around towards Keith’s way of thinking, preferably under Keith’s leadership.

The Conservative Party manifesto was published early, on Tuesday 10 September – about a week before the election was announced – because of a leak to the press. I was taken by surprise by a question on it when I was opening the Chelsea Antiques Fair. The release of the manifesto in this way was not a good start to the campaign, particularly because we had so little new to say.

I had never had so much exposure to the media as in this campaign. The Labour Party recognized that our housing and rates proposals were just about the only attractive ones in our manifesto, and consequently they set out to rubbish them as soon as possible. On Tuesday 24 September Tony Crosland described them as ‘a pack of lies’. (This was the same press conference at which Denis Healey made his notorious claim that inflation was running at 8.4 per cent, calculating the figure on a three-month basis when the annual rate was in fact 17 per cent.) I immediately issued a statement rebutting the accusation, and in order to keep the argument going, for it would highlight our policies, I said at Finchley that evening that the cut in mortgage rates would be among the first actions of a new Conservative Government. Then, in pursuit of the same goal, and having consulted Ted and Robert Carr, the Shadow Chancellor, I announced at the morning press conference at Central Office on Friday that the mortgage rate reduction would occur ‘by Christmas’ if we won. The main morning papers led with the story the following day – ‘Santa Thatcher’ – and it was generally said that we had taken the initiative for the first time during the campaign. On the following Monday I described this on a Party Election Broadcast as a ‘firm, unshakeable promise’. And the brute political fact was that, despite my reservations about the wisdom of the pledge, we would have had to honour it at almost any cost.

It was at this point that the way in which I was presenting our housing and rates policies first began to run up against the general approach Ted wanted to take in the campaign. At his insistence I had made the policies I was offering as hard and specific as possible. But the manifesto, particularly in the opening section, deliberately conveyed the impression that the Conservatives might consider some kind of National Government and would therefore be flexible on the policies we were putting forward.

At the Conservative press conference on Friday 2 October Ted stressed his willingness as Prime Minister to bring non-Conservatives into a government of ‘all the talents’. This tension between firm pledges and implied flexibilities was in danger of making nonsense of our campaign and dividing Shadow ministers.

On Thursday I continued when campaigning in the London areas with the vigorous defence of our housing policies and combined this with attacks on ‘creeping socialism’ through municipalization. In the evening I was asked to come and see Ted at Wilton Street. His advisers had apparently been urging him to actually start talking about the possibility of a Coalition Government. Because I was known to be firmly against this for both strategic and tactical reasons, and because I was due to appear on the radio programme Any Questions in Southampton the following evening, I had been called in to have the new line spelt out to me. Ted said that he was now prepared to call for a Government of National Unity which, apparently, ‘the people’ wanted. I was extremely angry. He had himself, after all, insisted on making the housing and rates policies I had been advocating as specific as possible: now, at almost the end of the campaign, he was effectively discarding the pledges in the manifesto because that seemed to offer a better chance of his returning to Downing Street.

Why he imagined that he himself would be a Coalition Government’s likely Leader quite escaped me. Ted at this time was a divisive figure, and although he had somehow convinced himself that he represented the ‘consensus’, this accorded with neither his record, nor his temperament, nor indeed other people’s estimation. For myself, I was not going to retreat from the policies which at his insistence I had been advocating. I went away highly disgruntled.

The last few days of the campaign were dominated by all the awkward questions which talk of coalitions brings. But I stuck to my own brief, repeating the manifesto pledges sitting alongside Ted Heath at the last Conservative press conference on Tuesday 7 October. The general election result two days later suggested that in spite of the natural desire of electors to give the minority Labour Government a chance to govern effectively, there was still a good deal of distrust of them. Labour finished up with an overall majority of three, which was unlikely to see them through a full term. But the Conservative result – 277 seats compared with Labour’s 319 – though it might have been worse, was hardly any kind of endorsement for our approach.

Though my majority fell a little in Finchley, I was thought to have had a good campaign. Talk of my even possibly becoming Leader of the Party, a subject which had already excited some journalists a great deal more than it convinced me, started to grow. I felt sorry for Ted Heath personally. He had his music and a small circle of friends, but politics was his life. That year, moreover, he had suffered a series of personal blows. His yacht, Morning Cloud, had sunk and his godson had been among those lost. The election defeat was a further blow.

Nonetheless, I had no doubt that Ted now ought to go. He had lost three elections out of four. He himself could not change and he was too defensive of his own past record to see that a fundamental change of policies was needed. So my reluctance to confirm suggestions that I might myself become Leader had little to do with keeping Ted in his present position. It had everything to do with seeing Keith take over from him. Indeed, by the weekend I had virtually become Keith’s informal campaign manager. Accordingly I discouraged speculation about my own prospects.

Then, on Saturday 19 October, Keith spoke at Edgbaston in Birmingham. It was not intended as part of the series of major speeches designed to alter the thinking of the Conservative Party, and perhaps for this reason had not been widely circulated among Keith’s friends and advisers: certainly, I had no inkling of the text. The Edgbaston speech is generally reckoned to have destroyed Keith’s leadership chances. It was the section containing the assertion that ‘the balance of our population, our human stock, is threatened’, and going on to lament the high and rising proportion of children being born to mothers ‘least fitted to bring children into the world’, having been ‘pregnant in adolescence in social classes 4 and 5’, which did the damage. Ironically, the most incendiary phrases came not from Keith’s own mouth, but from passages taken from an article by two left-wing sociologists published by the Child Poverty Action Group. This distinction, however, was lost upon the bishops, novelists, academics, socialist politicians and commentators who rushed to denounce Keith as a mad eugenicist.

The speech was due to be given on Saturday night, and so the text was issued in advance with an embargo for media use. But the Evening Standard broke the embargo and launched a fierce attack on Keith, distorting what he said. I read its version on Waterloo Station and my heart sank. Afterwards Keith himself did not help his cause by constantly explaining, qualifying and apologizing.

Doubtless as a result of all this, Ted felt a good deal more secure. He even told us in Shadow Cabinet the following Tuesday that the election campaign had been ‘quite a good containment exercise and that the mechanics had worked well’. A strange unreality pervaded our discussions. Everyone except Ted knew that the main political problem was the fact that he was still Leader.

Ted was now locked in a bitter battle with the 1922 Executive. In reply to their demands for a leadership contest – and indeed for reform of the leadership election procedure – he disputed their legitimacy as representatives of the backbenches on the grounds that they had been elected during the previous Parliament and must themselves first face re-election by Tory MPs. Ted and his advisers hoped that they might be able to have his opponents thrown off the Executive and replaced by figures more amenable to him. As part of a somewhat belated attempt to win over backbenchers, Ted also proposed that extra front-bench spokesmen should be appointed from among them and that officers of the Parliamentary Committees might speak from the front bench on some occasions. It was also widely rumoured that there would shortly be a reshuffle of the Shadow Cabinet.

Not for the first time, I found the press more optimistic about my prospects than I was. The Sunday Express and the Observer on 3 November ran stories that I was to be appointed Shadow Chancellor. This was a nice thought and I would have loved the job; but I regarded it as extremely unlikely that Ted would give it to me. That was more or less confirmed by stories in the Financial Times and the Daily Mirror on the Monday that said that I would get a top economic job, but not the Shadow Chancellorship. And so indeed it turned out. I was appointed Robert Carr’s deputy with special responsibility for the Finance Bill and also made a member of the Steering Committee. Some of my friends were annoyed that I had not received a more important portfolio. But I knew from the years when I worked under Iain Macleod on the Finance Bill that this was a position in which I could make the most of my talents. What neither Ted nor I knew was just how important that would be over the next three months. The reshuffle as a whole demonstrated something of the weakness of Ted’s political standing. Edward du Cann refused to join the Shadow Cabinet, which was therefore no more attractive to the right of the Party, some of whom at least Ted needed to win over. Tim Raison and Nicholas Scott who did come in were more or less on the left and, though able, not people who carried great political weight.

The re-election of all the members of the 1922 Executive, including Edward du Cann, on the day of the reshuffle – Thursday 7 November – was bad news for Ted. A leadership contest could no longer be avoided. He wrote to Edward saying that he was now willing to discuss changes to the procedure for electing the Party Leader. From now on it was probably in Ted’s interest to have the election over as soon as possible, before any alternative candidate could put together an effective campaign.

At this time I started to attend the Economic Dining Group which Nick Ridley had formed in 1972 and which largely consisted of sound money men like John Biffen, Jock Bruce-Gardyne, John Nott and others. Above all, I buried myself in the details of my new brief. It was a challenging time to take it up, for on Tuesday 12 November Denis Healey introduced one of his quarterly budgets. It was a panic reaction to the rapidly growing problems of industry and consisted of cuts in business taxation to the tune of £775 million (£495 million of new business taxes having been imposed only six months before) and some curbs on subsidies to nationalized industries. Ted’s reply – in which, against the background of an audible gasp from Tory backbenchers, he criticized the Chancellor for allowing nationalized industry prices to rise towards market levels – did him no good at all.

My chance came the following Thursday when I spoke for the Opposition in the Budget Debate. I had done my homework and I set about contrasting the Labour Government’s past statements with its present actions. Some of the speech was quite technical and detailed, as it had to be. But it was my answers to the interruptions that had the backbenchers roaring support. I was directly answering Harold Lever (without whom Labour would have been still more economically inept) when he interrupted early in my speech to put me right on views I had attributed to him. Amid a good deal of merriment, not least from Harold Lever himself, a shrewd businessman from a wealthy family, I replied: ‘I always felt that I could never rival him [Lever] at the Treasury because there are four ways of acquiring money. To make it. To earn it. To marry it. And to borrow it. He seems to have experience of all four.’

At another point I was interrupted by a pompously irate Denis Healey when I quoted the Sunday Telegraph which reported him as saying: ‘I never save. If I get any money I go out and buy something for the house.’ Denis Healey was most indignant, so I was pleased to concede the point, saying (in reference to the fact that like other socialist politicians he had his own country house): ‘I am delighted that we have got on record the fact that the Chancellor is a jolly good saver. I know that he believes in buying houses in good Tory areas.’

No one has ever claimed that House of Commons repartee must be subtle in order to be effective. This performance boosted the shaky morale of the Parliamentary Party and with it my reputation.

Meanwhile, Alec Douglas-Home, now returned to the Lords as Lord Home, had agreed to chair a review of the procedure for the leadership election. On Wednesday 20 November I received a note from Geoffrey Finsberg, a neighbouring MP and friend, which said: ‘If you contest the leadership you will almost certainly win – for my part I hope you will stand and I will do all I can to help.’ But I still could not see any likelihood of this happening. It seemed to me that for all of the brouhaha caused by his Edgbaston speech Keith must be our candidate.

The following afternoon I was working in my room in the House, briefing myself on the Finance Bill, when the telephone rang. It was Keith to check I was there because he had something he wanted to come along and tell me. As soon as he entered, I could see it was serious. He told me: ‘I am sorry, I just can’t run. Ever since I made that speech the press have been outside the house. They have been merciless. Helen [his wife] can’t take it and I have decided that I just can’t stand.’

His mind was quite made up. I was on the edge of despair. We just could not abandon the Party and the country to Ted’s brand of politics. I heard myself saying: ‘Look, Keith, if you’re not going to stand, I will, because someone who represents our viewpoint has to stand.’

There was nothing more to say. My mind was already a whirl. I had no idea of my chances. I knew nothing about leadership campaigns. I just tried to put the whole thing to the back of my mind for the moment and concentrate on the Finance Bill. Somehow or other the news got out and I started to receive telephone calls and notes of support from MP friends. Late that night I went back to Flood Street and told Denis of my intention.

‘You must be out of your mind,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got a hope.’ He had a point. But I never had any doubt that he would support me all the way.

The following day Fergus Montgomery, my PPS, telephoned me, and I told him that Keith was not going to stand but that I would. I wondered how best to break the news to Ted. Fergus thought I should see him personally.

I arranged to see Ted on Monday 25 November. He was at his desk in his room at the House. I need not have worried about hurting his feelings. I went in and said: ‘I must tell you that I have decided to stand for the leadership.’ He looked at me coldly, turned his back, shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘If you must.’ I slipped out of the room.

Monday was, therefore, the first day I had to face the press as a declared contender for the Tory leadership. I was glad to be able to rely on the help and advice of Gordon Reece, who had now become a friend and who sat in on some of my early press interviews, which went quite well. It was, of course, still the fact that I was a woman that was the main topic of interest.

Ted’s coterie and, I believe, at least one Central Office figure had, in any case, alighted on something which they hoped would destroy me as effectively as had happened to Keith. In the interview I had given to Pre-Retirement Choice more than two months before I had given what I considered to be practical advice to elderly people trying to make ends meet in circumstances where food prices were rising sharply. I said that it made sense to stock up on tinned food. This was precisely the sort of advice I myself had been given as a girl. Any good housewife shops around and buys several items at a time when prices are low, rather than dashing out at the last minute to buy the same thing at a greater cost.

To my horror the press on Wednesday 27 November was full of stories of my ‘hoarding’ food. Someone had clearly used this obscure interview in order to portray me as mean, selfish and above all ‘bourgeois’. In its way it was cleverly done. It allowed the desired caricature to be brought out to the full. It played to the snobbery of the Conservative Party, because the unspoken implication was that this was all that could be expected of a grocer’s daughter. It reminded the public of all that had been said and written about me as the ‘milk snatcher’ at Education.

A veritable circus of indignation was now staged. Pressure groups were prompted to complain. A deputation of housewives was said to be travelling from Birmingham to urge me to give them the tins. Food chemists gave their views about the consequences of keeping tinned food too long in the larder. Martin Redmayne, the former Chief Whip, reliable Party establishment figure and now Deputy Chairman of Harrods, appeared on television to say that ‘any sort of inducement to panic buying was … against the public interest’ – although Lord Redmayne’s larder probably contained something more enticing than a few tins of salmon and corned beef. There was nothing for it but to invite the cameramen in and have them check the contents of my Flood Street larder and cupboards. This may have convinced some of the Tory hierarchy that my and my family’s tastes and standards were not at all what should be expected from someone who aspired to lead their party. But it certainly showed that the ‘hoarding’ allegation was malicious nonsense.

Finally, in order to keep the dying story alive my opponents went too far. On Friday 29 November I was in John Cope’s South Gloucestershire constituency when my secretary, Alison Ward, telephoned to say that the radio was now broadcasting that I had been seen in a shop on the Finchley Road buying up large quantities of sugar. (There was a sugar shortage at the time.) Alison had already checked and discovered that in fact no such shop existed. It was a straightforward lie. A firm denial prevented its circulation in the press and marked the effective end of this surreal campaign.

At the time, however, I was bitterly upset by it. Sometimes I was near to tears. Sometimes I was shaking with anger. But as I told Bill Shelton, the MP for Streatham and a friend: ‘I saw how they destroyed Keith. Well, they’re not going to destroy me.’

What had happened made me all the more determined to throw my hat into the ring. But there was also much talk of Edward du Cann’s putting himself forward as a candidate. As Chairman of the 1922 Committee – and a man – he might reasonably be expected to command more support than me.

One of Edward du Cann’s chief supporters, Airey Neave, the MP for Abingdon and a colleague of Edward’s on the 1922 Executive, was someone I knew quite well. As barristers we had shared the same Chambers, and he had been a neighbour at Westminster Gardens.

Airey was a man of contrasts. His manner was quiet yet entirely self-assured. As a writer and a war hero who escaped from Colditz there was an air of romance about him. He had seen much more of the world than most MPs, and suffered a good deal too. He had the benefit, in Diana, of a marvellous political wife. He had briefly been a junior minister in the late 1950s but had to resign because of ill-health, and I understand Ted had unfeelingly told him that that was the end of his career. It was difficult to pin down Airey’s politics. I did not consider him, ideologically, a man of the right. He probably did not look at the world in those terms. We got on well and I was conscious of mutual respect, but we were not yet the close friends we were to become.

Airey had come to see me shortly after my decision to stand was known. He hoped to persuade Edward du Cann to stand, but Edward himself remained undecided. Excluded by Ted from high office, he had devoted himself to a City career he was now reluctant to give up.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Meanwhile, dealings with the media were suddenly becoming important. In these Gordon Reece was invaluable.

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.’ 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. 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.

The Heath camp now changed the direction of their campaign. 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 …

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.

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 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.

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 my support actually hardened.

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.

Willie and I both attended the Young Conservative Conference at Eastbourne on Saturday 8 February. One woman on the platform was dressed in funereal black and glowering. I was rather concerned and asked her whether anything was wrong. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m in mourning for Mr Heath.’ There were few other mourners present. Willie and I were photographed as we kissed for the cameras. I remarked: ‘Willie and I have been friends for years. I’ve done that to Willie many times and he to me. It was not that difficult for him to do it, I think.’ Willie replied: ‘I’ve kissed her often. But we have not done it on a pavement outside a hotel in Eastbourne before.’ It was all good fun and the atmosphere lightened.

I used my own speech to the Conference to give a full-blooded rendering of my views. I said:

You can get your economic policies right, and still have the kind of society none of us would wish. I believe we should judge people on merit and not on background. I believe the person who is prepared to work hardest should get the greatest rewards and keep them after tax. That we should back the workers and not the shirkers: that it is not only permissible but praiseworthy to want to benefit your own family by your own efforts.

Conservatives had not heard this sort of message for many years, and it went down well.

On Tuesday the second ballot took place. Again I waited nervously in Airey’s room. And again it was Airey who came to give me the news. He smiled and said: ‘You are now Leader of the Opposition.’ I had obtained 146 votes to Willie’s seventy-nine. The other candidates were out of the picture.*

I now had to hurry down to the Grand Committee Room, off Westminster Hall, where the press were waiting. I told them: ‘To me it is like a dream that the next name in the lists after Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, is Margaret Thatcher. Each has brought his own style of leadership and stamp of greatness to his task. I shall take on the work with humility and dedication.’

Then it was off for the Leader’s traditional first visit to Conservative Central Office. On entering, I could not help remembering how hard some of the people there had worked to stop my becoming Leader.

Then I was driven back to Bill Shelton’s house in Pimlico for a celebration with my friends. Denis was there. I had tried to telephone the news through to him myself, but somehow the Press Association beat me to it. Mark learned the news while he was at work as a trainee accountant. As for Carol, she could not be disturbed until she had finished the solicitors’ exam she was taking that afternoon.

Only much later that night, after I had returned from dinner with the Chief Whip, Humphrey Atkins, could all of the family celebrate the good news. It was wonderful to be together. I suspect that they knew, as I did, that from this moment on our lives would never be quite the same again.

Nor would the Conservative Party.

* Jim Prior and Geoffrey Howe had nineteen votes each and John Peyton eleven.