Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography (26 page)

According to Muriel Cullen, ‘Daddy was expecting it. Mother wasn’t’; he was upset, however, ‘because he really loved Grantham’.
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Certainly Alfred Roberts was prepared to make a drama of the occasion. Candidates stood fully robed as the aldermanic results were declared. When Roberts was voted off, he said, ‘It is now almost nine years since I took up these robes in honour, and now I trust in honour I lay them down,’
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and as he spoke, he pulled off his robes and laid them on the table in front of him. A fuller description was given in the
Grantham Journal
in Roberts’s obituary in 1970; ‘He stood, took off his robe, looked longingly at it as he laid it on the aldermanic bench, and then said with tremendous emotion and
so quietly it was almost inaudible: “No medals. No honours, but an inward sense of satisfaction. May God bless Grantham forever.” ’
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*

The incident had a profound effect on Roberts’s younger daughter. In what was probably the most revealing television interview she ever gave, with Miriam Stoppard in 1985,
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Mrs Thatcher described her father being ‘turned off that council’ and said it was ‘such a tragedy’. As she spoke of it, tears came into her eyes, and she had to pause for a moment. It was as if she had a premonition of the ingratitude which, she later believed, allowed her to be displaced from the Conservative leadership in 1990. As she put it, confusedly yet revealingly, to Jim Allen, Grantham’s local historian, when he interviewed her after she left office: ‘I thought my father’s example there was so wonderful. So hurtful but so wonderful, and so dignified. But he was overwhelmed with letters, as I was. I didn’t forget.’
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It may not be too fanciful to see some of the impetus for Mrs Thatcher’s attempted re-entry into politics in her father’s downfall. His departure meant that, for the first time in her memory, he had no part in public life. Roberts left the aldermanic bench in May 1952, and Mrs Thatcher reapplied to Conservative Central Office in June.

In fact, as shown above, the arrival of the twins prevented Mrs Thatcher from going forward in politics quite as fast as she had hoped, but did nothing to quench ‘the necessary fervour’. It seems likely that she had dropped the idea of standing in the coming general election because of her duties as a mother, but when the seat of Orpington became vacant because of the death of Sir Waldron Smithers, the sitting Conservative, it seemed too good a chance for Mrs Thatcher to miss. Orpington was close to Dartford, but much more Conservative, the heartland of the Tory suburban Kent to which marriage to Denis had introduced her. She telephoned Conservative Central Office to express her interest in December 1954, and was encouraged by John Hare.
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Mrs Thatcher was shortlisted, but defeated by Donald Sumner, the chairman of the local party association. This rejection brought her closer than ever, before or since, to departing the political scene. Writing to Hare on 3 January 1955, Mrs Thatcher told him that she wanted to pursue tax and estate duty at the Bar. Orpington had been ‘the only political temptation left for the next 10 years’ because she had ‘long had an affinity for it’, but now that the temptation had been removed she wished to have her name withdrawn from the candidates’ list.
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Hare wrote back, urging her to reconsider if a winnable seat came up, but she replied
that she had ‘quite made up my mind to pursue law to the exclusion of politics’ and would not consider any offers before the coming election, though she was happy to make herself available as a speaker.
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The ten years’ self-denial, however, turned out to be thirteen months. On 28 February 1956, Mrs Thatcher wrote to Donald Kaberry, the new vice-chairman of the party responsible for candidates, and asked to come and see him. Once again, she used the word ‘temptation’ – the ‘temptation to return to active politics’. She told Kaberry that her study of tax and company law had only made her more interested in a parliamentary career: it had turned her attention to ‘the body which is responsible for the legislation about which I have come to hold strong views’.
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Kaberry agreed to see her and got her to fill in the necessary form to become a candidate once again. Mrs Thatcher returned it with a note. ‘When I come to write it all down on one sheet of paper,’ she lamented, ‘I seem to have done very little in the last 30 years.’
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Few would have agreed, but, in any event, the second thirty years would overcompensate for any slacking in the first.

In the course of the following year, Mrs Thatcher tried for several seats. She declined to be considered for City of London and Westminster, telling Kaberry that she lacked the necessary distinction for such a seat, while at the same time putting herself forward for South Kensington.
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She applied, unsuccessfully, for Beckenham and for Hemel Hempstead, and she flogged round the speaking circuit. ‘I spoke at a women’s afternoon meeting in North Kensington on Tuesday,’ she wrote to Muriel while in the process of buying their new house in Farnborough. ‘It went very well indeed – but what is the use of it’s [sic] going well in a bad constituency?’
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Her best chance seemed to be at Maidstone, where her benefactor Alfred Bossom was stepping down. Here, in March 1958, she made it on to the shortlist of three, her main rival being John Wells, ex-Eton, Oxford and submarine service during the war. Although the president of the local association reported to Central Office very favourably of the woman candidate with a ‘tendency to the right of centre’ (‘A fine brain – great “appeal” – This lady should surely be in Parliament soon’), the report from the area agent makes it clear why she lost the selection to Wells:

Mrs Thatcher spoke next, and went straight into politics, leaving only a very short time at the end of her talk for her tactics in nursing the seat. She was asked about her ability to cope as a Member, having in mind the fact that she had a husband and a small family, and I do not think her reply did her a lot of good. She spoke of having an excellent nanny and that as a Member she would have the mornings free (quite ignoring the fact that Members have committees in the mornings). She also spoke of having the weekends free,
and made no reference to spending time in Maidstone at the weekends.
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She did say she would have to give up the Bar.
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It was all very discouraging. On her merits, Mrs Thatcher seemed to do well every time, only to lose because of her sex. And then came Finchley.

In March 1958, the elderly and somewhat inactive Member, Sir John Crowder, announced his retirement from Finchley, in suburban north London, at the next election. Mrs Thatcher put in her name, and was shortlisted, receiving the largest number of votes. But she did not allow herself to express high hopes. Writing to Muriel on 3 July, eleven days before the final selection, she began her letter with other matters. Denis, she said, had had to engage in the unpleasant sacking of the long-standing works superintendent because ‘he just doesn’t pull with the team,’ and now he was in Africa (Entebbe, Uganda) on a big business trip. She worried about him: ‘As Denis usually loses about 10 lbs on one of these trips, I hope he won’t look too thin when he returns.’ Then she mentioned the contest: ‘Once again I have been shortlisted for a “safe” constituency. This time it is Finchley, which has a Conservative majority of 12,000. Three of us are on the final list
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and we have to go down on Monday evening 14th July for the final selection. I expect the usual prejudice against women will prevail and that I shall probably come the inevitable “close second”.’
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On the night, the ‘usual prejudice’ was certainly present. Even Derek Phillips, who, as the Young Conservative representative at the final selection, might have been expected to favour innovation, said to himself, ‘If there’s a lady, I shan’t be voting for that lady.’
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And John Tiplady, a postman who many years later became chairman of the Finchley Association, went along with his wife, who said she would never vote for a woman.
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There were some, particularly women, who stuck by that view. Many, however, were won over. As Mrs Thatcher rather flirtatiously wrote to Donald Kaberry afterwards, ‘… I wore the outfit you said I was to wear the night I was finally selected,’
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the ‘black coat dress with brown trim’ and small black hat
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which she had been wearing when she called on him in April. John Tiplady noted her ‘striking appearance’ which he contrasted favourably with that of her rival, Thomas Langton, a local man and holder of the
Military Cross, whom he remembered as a ‘one-legged brigadier’. A director of the Gestetner copying company whispered to Tiplady, ‘We’re looking at a future Prime Minister of England.’
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Derek Phillips thought she looked ‘very smart’, and was ‘very much a true Conservative’. She seemed to have the ‘more modern outlook’ that they were looking for.
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The absence of Mrs Thatcher’s husband, still on business in Africa, made a notable contrast with the presence of the wives of the three men, but not one that necessarily harmed Margaret. There was something exciting about this good-looking, well-dressed thirty-two-year-old woman all alone and speaking with such force. In the first round, she came top, with Langton only one vote behind her. In the play-off between the two of them, she won by forty-six votes to forty-three. That, at least, was declared result. But Bertie Blatch told his son Haden that night: ‘She didn’t actually win. The man did, but I thought, “He’s got a silver spoon in his mouth. He’ll get another seat. So I ‘lost’ two of his votes and gave them to her.’
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So Mrs Thatcher probably (unknowingly) won her way to Parliament through fraud. The absent, uncontactable Denis learnt of her victory by chance: ‘I’d had a lot to drink and I staggered aboard the plane. I had to change in Kano in Nigeria and on the seat was the
Evening Standard
of the night before. I … turned over a couple of pages and there was this tiny little paragraph announcing that Margaret Thatcher had been adopted as Conservative candidate for Finchley. I’ve always said that it was bloody lucky that I was away because it was a close-run thing and if they’d taken one look at me they would have said, “We don’t want this pair.” ’
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The
Standard
headline which Denis saw said ‘Tories Choose Beauty’.
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It was customary for the association’s executive to endorse the chosen candidate unanimously, but in Mrs Thatcher’s case it did not. A few, unreconciled to the idea of a woman, held out against her. The deputy area agent, Miss Harris, who had earlier predicted that a woman would not be selected, reported Mrs Thatcher’s victory to Central Office and added that ‘Unfortunately there were a handful who refused to give a unanimous vote at the end.’
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This opposition, though now tiny, survived even Mrs Thatcher’s triumphant adoption meeting on 31 July. A knot of five, whom Lady Thatcher was to describe as ‘one woman and her little coterie’,
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refused to vote for her adoption.
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In her letter to Kaberry, Mrs Thatcher wrote: ‘I am learning the hard way that an anti-woman prejudice among certain Association members can persist after a successful adoption meeting.’
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The adoption meeting was Mrs Thatcher’s first chance to present herself, via the press, to the voters of Finchley. She more than succeeded. ‘The Conservatives of Finchley and Friern Barnet’, declared the
Finchley Press
, which, being owned by the Conservative chairman, Bertie Blatch, knew
which side its bread was buttered, ‘have armed themselves with a new weapon – a clever woman.’ ‘Clad in restrained black and gold and with a small black hat’ (the same outfit as at the selection?), the new candidate had given a ‘clear-cut appraisal of the Middle East situation, weighed up Russia’s propagandist moves with the skill of a housewife measuring the ingredients in a familiar recipe, pinpointed Nasser as the fly in the mixing bowl … no one could accuse her of throwing her womanhood at the audience.’ The paper said, erroneously, but capturing the prevailing mood, that ‘If any had come to oppose – they went away converted.’
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The
Finchley Times
reported Mrs Thatcher’s attack on the ‘despotism’ of the trade unions: ‘A man’, she said, ‘should have the right
Not
to strike if he does not wish to. We must regulate trade unions and protect the individual worker.’
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The paper carried more explanation of her position on the Middle East: ‘In the Iraki [sic] revolt the people who were brutally murdered were Arabs. In any discussion on the Middle East we must take into consideration the State of Israel, because we were mainly responsible for its existence.’
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The reason that the Middle East bulked larger in Finchley than in most British electoral contests was that the constituency had a substantial Jewish vote. At the time of Mrs Thatcher’s selection, the Liberals had benefited from a row about attempts to block the admission of Jews to Finchley Golf Club, which insisted on prospective members stating their religious affiliation. This was thought to reflect badly on some Conservatives. And there was some anti-Semitic feeling in the association at the time. The outgoing MP, Sir John Crowder, is supposed to have complained that Conservative Central Office was trying to impose a choice on the constituency between ‘a bloody Jew and a bloody woman’.
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According to John Tiplady, the meeting which selected Margaret Thatcher was held on a Friday night so that orthodox Jews would be unable to attend.
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This is not in fact the case – the meeting took place on a Monday – but Tiplady remembered it thus, suggesting that some sort of ill feeling did, indeed, exist. Not long after she had been adopted, Mrs Thatcher sought to mend the fences. Writing to Central Office on 17 September 1958, she discussed the problem: