Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography. Margaret Thatcher
in particular, over the examination by which children were selected at the age of eleven, the 11-Plus. To oversimplify a little: first, there were those who had no real interest in state education because they themselves and their children went to private schools. This was a group all too likely to be swayed by arguments of political expediency. Second, there were those who, themselves or their children, had failed to get into grammar school and had been disappointed with the education received at a secondary modern. Third, there were those Conservatives who had absorbed a large dose of the fashionable egalitarian doctrines of the day. Finally, there were people like me who had been to good grammar schools, were strongly opposed to their destruction and felt no inhibitions at all about arguing for the 11-Plus.
But by the time I took on the Education portfolio, the Party’s policy group had presented its report and the policy itself was largely established. It had two main aspects. We had decided to concentrate on improving primary schools. And in order to defuse as much as possible the debate about the 11-Plus, we stressed the autonomy of local education authorities in proposing the retention of grammar schools or the introduction of comprehensive schools.
The good arguments for this programme were that improvements in the education of younger children were vital if the growing tendency towards illiteracy and innumeracy was to be checked and, secondly, that in practice the best way to retain grammar schools was to fight centralization. There were, however, arguments on the other side. There was not much point in spending large sums on nursery and primary schools and the teachers for them, if the teaching methods and attitudes were wrong. Nor, of course, were we in the long run going to be able to defend grammar schools – or, for that matter, private schools, direct grant schools and even streamed comprehensive schools – if we did not fight on grounds of principle.
Within the limits which the agreed policy and political realities allowed me, I went as far as I could. This was a good deal too far for some people, as I learned when, shortly after my appointment, I was the guest of the education correspondents at the Cumberland Hotel in London. I put the case not just for grammar schools but for secondary moderns. Those children who were not able to shine academically could in fact acquire responsibilities and respect at a separate secondary modern school, which they would never have done if in direct and continual competition and contact with the more academically gifted. I was perfectly prepared to see the 11-Plus replaced or modified by testing later in a child’s career, if that was what people wanted. I knew that it was quite possible for late developers at a secondary modern to be moved to the local grammar school so that their abilities could be properly stretched. I was sure that there were too many secondary modern schools which were providing a second-rate education – but this was something which should be remedied by bringing their standards up, rather than grammar school standards down. Only two of those present at the Cumberland Hotel lunch seemed to agree. Otherwise I was met by a mixture of hostility and blank incomprehension. It opened my eyes to the dominance of socialist thinking among those whose task it was to provide the public with information about education.
There were still some relatively less important issues in Conservative education policy to be decided. I fought hard to have an unqualified commitment to raising the school leaving age to sixteen inserted into the manifesto, and succeeded against some doubts from the Treasury team. I also met strong opposition from Ted Heath when, at our discussions at Selsdon Park in early 1970, I argued that the manifesto should endorse the proposed new independent University of Buckingham. I lost this battle but was at least finally permitted to make reference to the university in a speech. Quite why Ted felt so passionately against it I have never fully understood.
The Selsdon Park policy weekend at the end of January and beginning of February was a success, but not for the reasons usually given. The idea that Selsdon Park was the scene of debate which resulted in a radical rightward shift in Party policy is false. The main lines of policy had already been agreed and incorporated into a draft manifesto which we spent our time considering in detail. Our line on immigration had also been carefully spelt out. Our proposals for trade union reform had been published in Fair Deal at Work. On incomes policy, a rightward but somewhat confused shift was in the process of occurring. Labour had effectively abandoned its own policy. There was no need, therefore, to enter into the vexed question of whether some kind of ‘voluntary’ incomes policy might be pursued. But it was clear that Reggie Maudling was unhappy that we had no proposals to deal with what was still perceived as ‘wage inflation’. In fact, the manifesto, in a judicious muddle, avoided either a monetarist approach or a Keynesian one and said simply: ‘The main causes of rising prices are Labour’s damaging policies of high taxation and devaluation. Labour’s compulsory wage control was a failure and we will not repeat it.’
This led us into some trouble later. During the election campaign the fallacious assertion that high taxes caused inflation inspired a briefing note from Central Office. This note allowed the Labour Party to claim subsequently that we had said that we would cut prices ‘at a stroke’ by means of tax cuts.
Thanks to the blanket press coverage of Selsdon Park, we seemed to be a serious alternative Government committed to long-term thinking about the policies for Britain’s future. We were also helped by Harold Wilson’s attack on ‘Selsdon Man’. It gave us an air of down-to-earth right-wing populism which countered the somewhat aloof image conveyed by Ted. Above all, both Selsdon Park and the Conservative manifesto, A Better Tomorrow, contrasted favourably with the deviousness, inconsistency and horse trading which by now characterized the Wilson Government, especially since the abandonment of In Place of Strife under trade union pressure.*
Between our departure from Selsdon Park and the opening of the general election campaign in May, however, there was a reversal of the opinion poll standing of the two parties. Quite why this turnaround had occurred (or indeed how real it actually was) is hard to know. With the prospect of a general election there is always a tendency for disillusioned supporters to resume their party allegiance. But it is also true – and it is something that we would pay dearly for in government – that we had not seriously set out to win the battle of ideas against socialism during our years in Opposition. And indeed, our rethinking of policy had not been as fundamental as it should have been.
The campaign itself was largely taken up with Labour attacks on our policies. We for our part, like any Opposition, highlighted the long list of Labour’s broken promises – ‘steady industrial growth all the time’, ‘no stop-go measures’, ‘no increase in taxation’, ‘no increase in unemployment’, ‘the pound in your pocket not devalued’, ‘economic miracle’ and many more. This was the theme I pursued in my campaign speeches. But I also used a speech to a dinner organized by the National Association of Head Teachers in Scarborough to outline our education policies.
It is hard to know just what turned the tide. Paradoxically perhaps, the Conservative figures who made the greatest contribution were those two fierce enemies, Ted Heath and Enoch Powell. No one could describe Ted as a great communicator, but as the days went by he came across as a decent man, someone with integrity and a vision – albeit a somewhat technocratic one – of what he wanted for Britain. It seemed, to use Keith’s words to me five years earlier, that he had ‘a passion to get Britain right’. This was emphasized in Ted’s powerful introduction to the manifesto in which he attacked Labour’s ‘cheap and trivial style of government’ and ‘government by gimmick’ and promised ‘a new style of government’. Ted’s final Party Election Broadcast also showed him as an honest patriot who cared deeply about his country and wanted to serve it. He had fought a good campaign. For his part, Enoch Powell made three powerful speeches on the failures of the Labour Government, urging people to vote Conservative. There is some statistical evidence that Enoch’s intervention helped tip the balance in the West Midlands.
My own result was announced to a tremendous cheer at Hendon College of Technology – I had increased my majority to over 11,000 over Labour. Then I went down to the Daily Telegraph party at the Savoy, where it quite soon became clear that the opinion polls had been proved wrong and that we were on course for an overall majority.
Friday was spent in my constituency clearing up and writing the usual thank-you letters. I thought that probably Ted would have