David Waddington Memoirs (19 page)

Also in that summer some crackpot decided that a government motion should be tabled incorporating a loyal address to the Queen
drawing attention to the tercentenary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. No one consulted me, the motion appeared on the order paper on a day on which the Party was not whipped – and the motion was debatable. Tony Benn seized what was an obvious opportunity to cause us maximum embarrassment and rose to speak on the motion, and after an hour or so it was clear that there was going to be a vote which could easily lead to a government defeat. Such a result would be construed as an insult to the Queen but would be even clearer evidence of the Chief Whip’s incompetence.

But where were the Conservatives needed to support the motion? Everywhere it seemed, except in the Palace of Westminster. A lot had, I knew, gone to the Carlton Club for the One Nation Group summer cocktail party. I could not leave the House but ready at hand were Gilly and Paddy Hunt, my deputy’s wife. Off to the Carlton Club they went and descended on the party goers. ‘Back to the House,’ they said, ‘quick, sharp,’ and back they came. One Tory MP was reported as saying: ‘The wives were brilliant. They sorted out the problem and were more competent at it than their husbands.’ Prudently he asked that his name should not be disclosed.

Leading up to the reshuffle Peter Brooke as Party Chairman and I had had three or four meetings with the Prime Minister over supper on a Sunday night. On one such occasion, we sat down to eat, but after a few minutes the Prime Minister said: ‘It does seem unfair; here are we enjoying ourselves and poor Denis is having supper all alone upstairs in the flat.’ Peter Brooke and I, taking what we thought was a pretty broad hint, told her to invite him down. The PM thanked us and said she could guarantee that Denis would not say a word when we were talking about the reshuffle. Denis then came down and on the whole was pretty good but at one stage he could not contain himself. ‘Oh surely not so-and-so. You were only saying the other day, Margaret, what a complete wimp he was.’

When it came to discussing ministerial appointments one thing was quite apparent and that was that the Prime Minister liked a pretty face; once or twice she had to be discouraged when she wished to see some good-looking fellow promoted who was known throughout the Parliamentary Party to be pretty useless. Indeed, there was a time when her eyes lighted on a minister who for a time she talked of as a possible successor. He was a fine-looking chap but no one else thought that he was anything like up to the job. I am talking of an interesting foible; I am not suggesting, for one moment, that she was not perfectly capable in the ordinary course of events of picking competent people to fill posts.

One of the things I remember about the 1988–9 session was the great egg fiasco. Edwina Currie started a rumpus when she told the press that all eggs contained salmonella or something to that effect. Backbenchers were told by their chicken farmers that she was going to bankrupt the lot of them and there were many demands that she should be removed from the government without delay. Kenneth Clarke, her Secretary of State, argued strongly that she had said no more than the truth but eventually he recognised, like everyone else, that she had to go. I rarely made a note of anything that went on in Cabinet, but I did scribble down this exchange. Kenneth Clarke presented to Cabinet a report which comprised a very lengthy list of types of food which his department considered carried a health risk. Top of the list in terms of risk came precooked chicken, soft cheese and raw eggs. Nick Ridley, anxious as always to ridicule the experts, said this was very strange as he only ate precooked chicken, soft cheese and raw eggs. For once the Prime Minister, who was extremely fond of Nick, did not come to his support. ‘You are not a pregnant woman,’ she said sternly and we moved swiftly to the next item on the agenda.

In February 1989 I sat on the front bench as John Major in his capacity as Chief Secretary replied to a debate on economic policy.
He reminded the House of the state of the country ten years earlier in February 1979 and read slowly from a newspaper, holding it up carefully so that the Opposition could see what it was. ‘Hospitals blockaded, docks closed by pickets,’ he intoned, and then went on, ‘food stocks running low, NUPE to select patients for treatment.’ All the while he was barracked by the Opposition. ‘The
Daily Telegraph
, ho! ho! Was that the best you could find?’ ‘Yes,’ replied John. ‘It was the only paper published that day. The rest were shut down by strike action.’ I thought then that he was learning and one day might make it.

Meanwhile Gilly had established herself in the affections of the staff at No. 12 and was doing a great job ‘supplying’ in the words of one press article ‘the laughter while her husband twists the arms.’ She was also busy helping to found SANE (Schizophrenia a National Emergency).

On a Sunday at about the end of June 1989 Gilly and I went off to lunch at Chequers. It was quite a big party and when we went into lunch I found that I was sitting on the Prime Minister’s left and a prominent businessman, who had donated a great deal of money to the Conservative Party, was on her right. On his right was Gilly. As soon as lunch started the PM leaned over the man’s back and, tapping Gilly on the shoulder, signalled that she wanted her to keep the fellow entertained. She then turned to me and told me what was on her mind.

In his memoirs, Nigel Lawson says that Geoffrey was not expecting to be moved from the Foreign Office because right up to the last moment I was consulting him about the reshuffle, asking him whom he wished to have as his junior Foreign Office minister responsible for Europe. This is simply not correct. What happened was that Geoffrey rang me at my home to say that he knew a reshuffle was in the offing and was most anxious that Lynda Chalker should not be moved from looking after the European side
of things in the Foreign Office. I, having been asked by the Prime Minister to say nothing of her intentions, could hardly have told him that there was no point in his worrying about Lynda because he would not be in the Foreign Office with her; so, having made one or two non-committal remarks, I got him off the line. Geoffrey later said that, in his view, I should have told him what was going on, but my first loyalty was to the Prime Minister and I was not free to do so. I do, however, understand what a shock it must have been when at nine o’ clock on Monday morning (24 July) he was called to No. 10 and told he was no longer to be Foreign Secretary. I gather from what the Prime Minister later said that she offered him the post of Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons, but Geoffrey wanted time to consider and asked if he could have till mid-morning to give his reply. Eventually he returned to Downing Street and was offered and accepted the posts of Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister also agreed to his having the use of Dorneywood which was apparently not being much used by Nigel Lawson.

That evening, Norman Tebbit said the ministerial changes were disastrous – not because of the removal of Geoffrey from the Foreign Office, but because of the weakness of the DTI team, the inability of one minister to make up his mind about anything and the disloyalty of another. ‘Otherwise,’ he said ‘the Party is pleased.’ If he was right, he did not stay right for long.

The next day the storm broke. The talk in the lobby was all of Geoffrey agreeing to stay only when the Prime Minister had promised to take away Dorneywood from Nigel Lawson. That was a part of the story which I did not want to see come out. It made Geoffrey look petty, and it made the Prime Minister look mean in refusing to allow Geoffrey to remain at Chevening which she knew he loved. And it gave the impression to the world at large
that there was too much interest in who was to have the grace and favour houses at the Prime Minister’s disposal and not enough in the jobs to be done. Then Bernard Ingham did not help matters by telling the lobby, in response to questions, that the title of Deputy Prime Minister did not really mean anything at all. Geoffrey would have no powers as such and certainly would not be responsible for British government policy when Margaret was out of the
country
. Everyone knew from experience that Bernard’s blunt answers echoed his boss’s views. She was far too honest to pretend that the title of Deputy Prime Minister, which she had offered at my suggestion but against her better judgement, meant anything very much when it clearly did not.

In September 1989 Gilly and I went to Amalfi for a week’s holiday. I soon learned that nowhere in the world can a Chief Whip escape his Prime Minister. The very first night I was called to the phone. Tony (Lord) Trafford, who in July had been appointed Minister of State in the Department of Health to pilot the NHS reforms through the Upper House, had died. The Prime Minister wanted to know who should replace him. We had a series of calls from her throughout the week and my reputation with those running the hotel was greatly enhanced. But Tony’s death was a very sad event. He was the unflappable consultant physician at Brighton Infirmary who had looked after John Wakeham and Margaret Tebbit after the Brighton bombing.

I had an unnerving experience when I arrived in Blackpool for the Party Conference. I walked in to the Imperial Hotel and someone, shoving a microphone under my nose, said: ‘Well, Chief Whip, what are your views on the collapse of the pound?’ Having spent the earlier part of the day hard at work and having listened to a brand new tape of military marches on the journey from Sabden to Blackpool, I did not know what the girl was talking about but did not wish to admit my ignorance of the world-shattering events
which had apparently taken place behind my back and without my permission. For a moment I wondered whether the best course might not be to fall to the ground in a simulated faint. Instead, I rambled on a bit and hoped for the best. The following week I got two rude letters accusing me of talking nonsense. I replied,
agreeing
with the writers.

When the House came back after the recess it was to face the television cameras. I had been against televising the House. It seemed to me that it was likely to encourage hooligan behaviour, not necessarily by members. After all, some lesbians had recently publicised their cause by abseiling from the public gallery in the House of Lords where cameras were already installed. I also doubted whether the Prime Minister would come over well on television. On the last point I was proved entirely wrong. On radio she sounded strident and unattractive, but for some reason, perhaps because one was seeing as well as hearing and not concentrating on the voice alone, she came over on television as a very much more sympathetic person.

Immediately after Cabinet on 26 October Norman Lamont came to see me and said a crisis was brewing. Nigel Lawson was in a state about Alan Walters’s role as adviser to the Prime Minister. Would I go and see Nigel and try and dissuade him from doing anything rash? I said I would and when I got to Nigel’s room, which was just through the door from No. 12, he said he was fed up and had made up his mind to go because of Alan Walters. The policies he was trying to pursue were constantly being undermined by Walters’s gossiping. I told him that it would be very damaging to the government if he were to go and, having deployed all the usual arguments about loyalty, I flattered him by saying he was the best Chancellor for many years. But I made little headway and
eventually
fell back on begging him to stay his hand for a while so that we could all sit down and talk about his grievances. He said that
he would think about it, and when I left I thought he was going to ponder before acting.

I went round to see Andrew Turnbull, then Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, and we agreed that as the Prime Minister was about to have her first Question Time after the summer recess and also had to make a statement about the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in Kuala Lumpur, we would not interrupt her briefing. That afternoon in the House of Commons she was in top form. I could hardly believe it when told later that only minutes before leaving No. 10 to come across to the House, Nigel’s letter of resignation had been handed to her. She must have been in some turmoil but appeared in complete command of herself and, as usual, of the House.

In mid-afternoon news of the resignation appeared on the tape. The business of the House was interrupted by points of order and then by requests for a statement from the Leader of the House. I was running between the chamber, the Leader’s room and the Opposition Whips Office trying to get the Opposition to agree to make progress with the business on our undertaking that there would be a statement on the floor of the House as soon as possible. In the middle of all this I was told to get over to No. 10 to see the PM. As soon as I got into her room she said she wanted me to join the Cabinet but at that stage did not say in what office. She wanted my advice as to who should succeed me and who should be Chancellor. The second question was a lot easier than the first. John Major had not had a happy time in his few months as Foreign Secretary and would be a lot happier back in the Treasury.

I had a short conversation with the Prime Minister about who should be Chief Whip and, expecting to return to the matter in due course, I went back again to the Commons. I had not been there long, trying to cope with major trouble, when I was called back to No. 10 and the PM asked me to be Home Secretary. She then went
on to say that Tim Renton was to be Chief Whip. I was surprised that she had made the appointment without further consulting me, and I thought that it was a mistake, made by someone who never did seem to have much of a clue about the workings of the office and had not the slightest idea as to how the Whips Office could watch the back of a Prime Minister in trouble.