Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography. Margaret Thatcher
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