David Waddington Memoirs (18 page)

Then there was the strange case of Professor Bedi, his wife Kuldip and little Piti. The professor was a great Conservative supporter in, if I recall, Ealing and he decided to stand for the chairmanship of the Anglo-Asian Conservative Association, sure of the support of conservative-minded Sikhs. Little Piti came for tea with his mother Kuldip and all I can remember of that occasion is that Basil, our Norfolk terrier, rushed out of the kitchen and jumped on Kuldip’s
lap, causing Kuldip to throw up her hands in terror and deposit her tea in the middle of the floor. Then Kuldip took off for India and went to visit in gaol a Sikh suspected of terrorism. For this heinous offence she was put in gaol herself. Terry Dicks, Kuldip’s MP, set off to India to rescue her. He returned empty-handed but gave everyone in the House of Commons a marvellous afternoon’s entertainment. He asked the minister, Lynda Chalker, whether she was aware that he had been to India to see the Indian authorities about his constituent Mrs Bedi and that on being shown into the Indian minister’s room the latter had said: ‘Now first, Mr Dicks, what is the present you have brought for me?’ I thought the
minister
would have the vapours. The Foreign Office then got into a terrible fret because the Indian government started hinting darkly that Mrs Bedi and terrorists like her had friends in high places. One such was, they believed, a minister in the Home Office. I don’t know whether a spy employed by the Indian government had reported that Kuldip had been to tea at the Waddingtons’ or poor Kuldip had been talking in gaol of our friendship in the hope that it would do her some good. But perhaps at the end it did stand her in good stead; for a month or two later she was released from detention and reunited with her family.

M
uch has been written about the 1987 general election campaign and conflicts between the Prime Minister and Central Office, but we never really looked like losing. I spent almost every day travelling from constituency to constituency in the north of the country. On one trip to Huddersfield some West Indians invited me into their home where they were watching cricket and drinking rum – more attention being paid to the latter activity than the former. On leaving I asked the detective who was keeping an eye on me, ‘What are those
curious
plants in the front garden?’ ‘Cannabis, sir,’ he replied.

The result of the election in Ribble Valley was very satisfactory:

The Conservatives had won handsomely in the country, so the Friday after polling day, 12 June, was a day of anxious waiting. I had some idea of what might happen to me. I did not think for one moment that I would be sacked, but having been a Minister of State for so long I was bound to be moved. It seemed to me there were only two possibilities. I was going to be either Chief Whip or
Solicitor-General. John Wakeham had told me that after the 1983 general election he had motored home from his constituency on the Friday and had just got into the house at 10 p.m. when he received a call from No. 10, so I was expecting a call at about that time; and at ten precisely the telephone rang and the Prime Minister invited me to be Chief Whip. She asked me to get to London as soon as possible so that we could discuss ministerial changes the following morning, and I threw a few things in to a bag, said goodbye to Gilly and set off in the car. I arrived in London at about 1.30 a.m. and went to bed a happy man.

I later learned from Nigel Lawson that I was second choice for Chief Whip. The Prime Minister wanted John Major, but Nigel wanted him in his Treasury team as Chief Secretary and Nigel won the day. When I went in to No. 12 on the Saturday morning
someone
had forgotten to put away John Wakeham’s notes and in those my name appeared as a possible Solicitor-General. Whether John Major would have become Prime Minister had he spent a sizable part of the 1987 parliament as Chief Whip is extremely doubtful. If I had been made Solicitor-General I certainly would not have become Home Secretary.

I saw the Prime Minister at 9 a.m. on the Saturday and then set to work with John Wakeham on the middle-rank and junior ministers. Later in the day we had another meeting with the Prime Minister. Willie Whitelaw was there and after a while he told the Prime Minister she looked tired out and should pack it in until Monday. She agreed, very reluctantly.

Two good tales about the 1987 election should be recorded: the first concerned Ian Gilmour who failed to turn up for his own count at Amersham. When asked why, he said he had forgotten the way to the Town Hall. The other story is of a misfortune suffered by Dr Alan (later Sir Alan) Glyn at Windsor & Maidenhead. He asked a group of Young Conservatives to come to his hotel
in the morning to go canvassing with him. They duly turned up but there was no Dr Glyn. Eventually a search party went up to his room. There was no immediate sign of him, but there was an old-fashioned wardrobe lying face down on the floor and the team set about restoring it to an upright position. Underneath it they discovered the good doctor. In the middle of the night he had set off to go to the lavatory but instead of going through the door in to the bathroom he had found his way in to the cupboard. The cupboard had fallen over trapping him inside and he had spent the rest of the night there.

No. 12 Downing Street is at the far end of Downing Street from Whitehall at the top of the steps leading down to St James’s Park. It was once the Colonial Office and in the anteroom is a copy of Elizabeth Longford’s biography of Wellington in which she records that in that very anteroom took place the only meeting between Wellington and Nelson. Nelson was waiting to see the Secretary for War and for the Colonies, Lord Castlereagh, only a few days before he set out to join HMS
Victory
at Portsmouth and sail south for his last battle.

As Chief Whip I was following some very illustrious
predecessors
. Ted Heath had helped the Tory Party to survive the Suez
debacle
of 1956 and Francis Pym had masterminded Britain’s entry in to the European Community in 1973. Disraeli had once remarked that the government Chief Whip required ‘consummate
knowledge
of human nature, the most amiable flexibility and complete self-control.’ I was not sure that that sounded like me.

My secretary and right-hand-man was to be Murdo Maclean. Murdo had become secretary to the Chief Whip in 1978 and only two others had held the post before him. The first was appointed in 1917 when Lloyd George was Prime Minister, and his salary was paid by Conservative Central Office. When, in 1923, a Labour government came along the Labour Party wanted to keep the same
man on but could not afford to pay him. So by the stroke of a pen he was transformed into a civil servant.

The job of a Chief Whip’s secretary is very unusual. He forms an important part of ‘the usual channels’ and has to spend much of his time frequenting the various bars in the Palace of Westminster trying to strike deals with the Opposition to facilitate the progress of parliamentary business. For two years before I arrived on the scene life had been complicated for Murdo because the Opposition Chief Whip with whom most of the negotiating had to take place was Derek Foster – a member of the Salvation Army who did not drink. Michael Cox, Derek Foster’s predecessor, had been a very different cup of tea (if I may use a somewhat inapposite metaphor) and the business had been transacted in a most convivial atmosphere.

My team in the Office could not have been better. My deputy was David Hunt, very efficient and superb when it came to sorting out the detailed work of the office. After him came Bob Boscawen, the old soldier who hopefully could ensure the good behaviour of the old and bold on the back benches, and then Tristan
Garel-Jones
, known for his guile and subtle stratagems. There was not much subtlety about David Lightbown who came next in seniority. He was the heavyweight whom no troublemaker would willingly meet on a dark night.

Mark Lennox-Boyd was skilled in the handling of the well-born, and Tony Durant of those who had had fewer advantages. Michael Neubert was utterly dependable in any circumstances. Stephen Dorrell, Richard Ryder and Alan Howarth were the intellectuals of the office and Kenneth Carlisle, Peter Lloyd and David Maclean the workers. Altogether a very balanced outfit.

Throughout the Thatcher years the office had been used as a training ground for those whom it was thought had the qualities to become departmental ministers, and most of those I have named soon got promotion. We had some strange customers to deal with
on the back benches and strange customers often need strange treatment. Nick Budgen, who in the 1983–7 parliament had for a short time been a whip, was invited to attend a whips’ dinner. Before it took place he voted against the government. An outraged Lightbown told him he was no longer welcome at the dinner, and that, although he had already paid, late cancellation meant there would be no refund. We never quite got the measure of Elizabeth Peacock, another one who caused us trouble. Tristan suggested that we might get her vote one night if we used a bit of flattery. We all contributed to the purchase of a dozen roses. It did not do a ha’porth of good. Clasping them to her bosom she sailed off – into the wrong lobby.

At about the same time a little cartoon appeared in one of the dailies which neatly illustrated the public’s idea of Whips Office tactics. Three MPs are entering the ARGHHH lobby with their arms behind their back plaited like rope.

One of our more unusual backbenchers was Anthony Beaumont-Dark. One of his constituents asked me how he was getting on as an MP. With a note of admiration, almost veneration in her voice she added: ‘I knew him years ago you know, when he was plain Mr Dark.’ She obviously thought he had been awarded the ‘Beaumont’, probably by the Queen personally. One night shortly afterwards I went to look at the tape before going into dinner, and there I read the ominous announcement: ‘The pound has fallen against the Dark.’

The government Chief Whip has extraordinary influence with ministers, even Cabinet ministers. Shortly after I got the job my agent rang up and said that she had organised a big event in the constituency in July and badly needed a Cabinet minister to come and speak. I said that it was impossibly short notice but I would do my best. I sat down at my desk and extended an invitation to four Cabinet ministers, realising I had no time to wait for each
to refuse in turn before writing to the next one. It was a long shot but perhaps one of the four might feel sorry for me and accept. By return of post I received acceptances from all four and had to think of good excuses for not wanting three of them.

Most troublesome from a whipping point of view was the Local Government (Finance) Bill which paved the way for the abolition of domestic rates and the introduction of the community charge. It seemed so right at the time to get rid of rates and introduce a system which would make virtually everyone who benefited from local government services pay something towards their cost. With only 20 million of the 35 million people who voted in local
elections
paying a penny towards its cost, it was not surprising that councils that spent like sailors were triumphantly re-elected. The poll tax (as the community charge came to be called) undoubtedly contributed to the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, but in my belief it was not the introduction of a flat rate charge which sunk us. It was a combination of Treasury-driven cuts in the rate support grant and gross overspending by local authorities. At the time of the 1987 election the level of community charge forecast for Ribble Valley was £178. That I had no difficulty in defending; but by 1989 the estimated charge had already risen to £300 and further increases were forecast. What at first had been marketable no longer was.

But these problems were still in the future. What we had to cope with in the 1987–8 session was not the fear that the Treasury would reduce its contribution to local government just when local expenditure was rocketing out of control. Our fear was that
rebellious
Tory MPs who felt that a flat rate charge was unfair and that there should be a charge that went up in bands according to the value of a person’s property would derail the legislation. In April 1988 the so-called Mates amendment was debated at the report stage of the Bill and it was only with a lot of work that we managed to contain the revolt and see the amendment defeated. Even so,
I was not exactly happy that twenty-three Conservatives voted against the government and our majority sank from 101 to 25.

After the shooting at Hungerford in August 1987, Douglas Hurd introduced a very controversial Firearms Bill. The committee stage was taken on the floor of the House under a guillotine (or
timetable
) motion. At about midnight the guillotine came down with literally hundreds of amendments undebated. Michael Colvin rose and asked the Deputy Speaker whether the House was entitled to have a separate vote on each one of them. The reply from the Chair was in the affirmative and Dennis Skinner, who was as usual sitting in the chamber in the corner seat below the gangway looking for an opportunity to make a nuisance of himself, could not believe his luck. He proceeded to call for a division on amendment after amendment. Michael was a very nice man and his death was a great loss to Parliament, but on this occasion he had made himself far from popular and I told him that if he was wise he would go home. He made his getaway, but there was no getaway for us. For hours we were in the chamber voting on amendment after amendment and would have been there much longer had not the Deputy Speaker agreed after the first few divisions to implement the rule which enables an amendment to be declared lost on sufficient members rising to their feet to indicate beyond doubt their opposition to it. Chief Whips are not popular if they require the Parliamentary Party to spend the night bobbing up and down like this, and I was almost as unpopular as Michael Colvin as a result of this incident.

The most anxious exercise in my first year was the handling of Richard Shepherd’s Private Members’ Bill to reform the law on official secrets. He had come high up in the ballot so if his Bill got a second reading, it would go straight into committee. That meant that there would be the opportunity for prolonged and detailed debate on every aspect of the work of the security service. It was not being fanciful to fear that members might wittingly or unwittingly
disclose details of the service’s activities. But MPs are very jealous of their right to introduce legislation and nothing was likely to annoy our backbenchers more than the government setting out to destroy Richard Shepherd’s Bill before it had hardly got started. I decided that I had no choice but to whip the Party to vote against the Bill on second reading and there was no point in half measures. We had to make absolutely certain that the Bill would be defeated in spite of the sympathy a large part of the Party had for Richard, if not for the Bill. So we did something which was almost without precedent. We imposed a three line whip which put the outcome beyond doubt. Of course, I had to take a fair amount of stick in the debate. At one point David Owen, who as an ex-Foreign Secretary should have known better, said in his elegant way: ‘It is the day for the Patronage Secretary to get stuffed.’ But stuffed I was not; and the Party soon forgave me. In due course the government introduced its own
measure
to put the security service on a statutory footing.

In the summer of 1988 a reshuffle took place which infuriated the press and members of the lobby in particular. After we in the office had spread the story that there was to be no reshuffle until September we sprung one on them in July. Arrangements were made in complete secrecy and with the minimum of discussion with Cabinet ministers, and the announcement was made without a single leak. Martin Fletcher wrote in
The Times
that: