Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography (51 page)

It did not take long for the first dirty-tricks story of the campaign to break. On 28 November 1974 the newspapers were full of an interview which Mrs Thatcher had given on 18 September, before the general election and before she was a candidate for the leadership (a fact which the reports did not make clear), to an obscure magazine called
Pre-Retirement Choice
. Because of the long lead times of magazines in those days, the interview (or rather the first half of it – the second half appeared the following month) was published on 27 November. The article discussed how Mrs Thatcher was planning for her retirement – an odd topic in the light of subsequent events and the fact that she was not yet – when she gave the interview – forty-nine years old: the peg was that Denis was approaching sixty. It gave her the chance to talk about the effects of inflation on housekeeping. ‘I, for the first time in my life,’ she said, ‘have started steadily buying things like tinned food,’ and also things that will be needed in ten years’ time, like sheets and towels. Following her mother’s wartime example, she went on, she was collecting ‘the expensive proteins: ham, tongue, salmon, mackerel, sardines. They will last for years,’ and she explained that the ‘sugar shortage will eventually work through to tinned fruit’. She noted that honey which was 30 pence the previous year now cost 40 pence: ‘It’s interesting to mark the prices on the jars as you buy it and you can see how the prices go up.’ She expected inflation to persist,
she said, and so this policy would continue to make sense: ‘£2,000 a year might not be worth much, but a tin of ham is still a tin of ham.’ Hoarding ‘huge amounts’ was wrong, but ‘being prudent’ was right.

The Heath team, probably through the agency of Peter Walker, seized on the story and drew it to the media’s attention. Mrs Thatcher was accused of the unpatriotic vice of ‘hoarding’ (a resonant word because of the importance of the question during the war), and the attacks came thick and fast. An anonymous caller rang a phone-in on LBC radio to say that Mrs Thatcher had been spotted buying sugar in bulk in the Finchley High Road, though there was, in fact, no grocer there. Lord Redmayne, chairman of Harrods and a former Conservative chief whip, appeared on television to denounce her (‘I bet he “hoards” wine in his cellar,’ whispered one of her team). For a short time, it looked as though her whole campaign could be blown off course: ‘Margaret Thatcher gave an interview to a magazine saying she laid in stocks of food,’ wrote Neave, ‘… as a hedge against inflation. This has been written up as a “hoarding” in a destructive way especially by the
Daily Telegraph
. She has only a shelf of this it seems but it was very silly of her to talk to the press at this time. Feel disillusioned but must not take it too seriously.’
⁵⁰
It was not until 3 December that Neave learnt that the interview had been given nearly three months previously and that the story was a plant by the Heathites.

Mrs Thatcher was extremely upset by the hoarding story. It brought back memories of her ordeal over school milk and it emphasized once again how women politicians were attacked more personally than male ones. It showed her ‘the blackness of the official Tory Party’.
⁵¹
Precisely because she took an offence like hoarding much more seriously than would most men, she was mortified to be accused of it. She quickly rallied, however, saying, ‘They [the press] are never going to do to me what they’ve just done to Keith.’
⁵²
So she set about what in the next generation would become known as rapid rebuttal. She told Radio 1: ‘Well, you call it stockpiling, but I call it being a prudent housewife.’
⁵³
She invited the press in to look at her larder in Flood Street. The
Daily Express
printed a full inventory, worth quoting to illustrate the mores of a middle-class housewife of that time. Mrs Thatcher’s larder contained:

Eight pounds of granulated sugar,

One pound of icing sugar (‘for Christmas’),

Six jars of jam,

Six jars of marmalade,

Six jars of honey,

Six tins of salmon (‘to make salmon mousse’),

Four 1lb cans of corned beef,

Four 1lb cans of ham,

Two 1lb cans of tongue,

One tin of mackerel,

Four tins of sardines,

Two 1lb jars of Bovril,

Twenty tins of various fruits,
*

‘One or two’ tins of vegetables, ‘but we don’t really like them from a tin’.
⁵⁴

The domestic setting gave Mrs Thatcher the chance to impress the public with the extent to which she differed from the old Tory establishment. Neave felt reassured: ‘Many housewives think she is taking a sensible precaution.’
⁵⁵
When Denis Healey shouted a jibe about hoarding at her across the floor of the House of Commons during the debate on the Finance Bill, Mrs Thatcher was ready with her equally cheap but effective retort, referring to his comfortable properties: ‘I am not as successful as the Chancellor at hoarding houses.’
⁵⁶
Her ‘housewife’ economics had been used against her, but she had turned the attack to her advantage.

Meanwhile, Du Cann’s indecision continued. Both at the time and in later years, Du Cann would cite his wife’s reluctance and his position as chairman of the 1922 Committee as reasons why he did not stand. ‘I never thought I should challenge, because I was the umpire,’ he recalled. But if these were the real reasons, it is hard to see why the matter took so long to resolve, since they already existed before the contest began. It seems more likely that Du Cann was trying to work out whether the trouble at Keyser Ullmann would be too great for him to stand, and this was obviously not something he could discuss with others (at this time of extreme financial difficulties, most City institutions were suffering distress, so the exact degree of danger was hard to determine). On 6 December, Neave ‘saw Margaret and arranged to have another talk on Wednesday. I shall back her if Edward Du Cann does not stand. The Party is depressed and leaderless.’
⁵⁷
But less than a week later, when Neave had his further chat with Mrs Thatcher, ‘She made it clear that if Edward Du Cann were to stand she would drop out. Much depends upon the form of election system which will be published next week.’
⁵⁸

Home’s committee suggested two significant rule changes. Both, as it
turned out, were to have notable effects on Mrs Thatcher’s later career. The first was that it should be possible to challenge a sitting leader once a year. The second was that, to win on the first ballot, the leading candidate needed not an absolute majority plus a margin of 15 per cent over his nearest rival (as was provided for in the 1965 rules), but only a 15 per cent margin over his nearest rival, with that percentage being calculated as one of all those eligible to vote. In short, the barrier any challenger to Heath needed to jump had been lowered. This was ‘Alec’s revenge’. The committee’s recommendations could not be voted on and implemented until the new year, so the exact date of the contest remained uncertain. On 19 December, Nigel Fisher organized a meeting of Du Cann supporters in which all present, including Neave, signed a letter urging him to stand. ‘I said’, recorded Neave, ‘that if Du Cann did not stand … we should all support Margaret but there is no unanimity. She has less chance at present. Heath’s stock is rising again.’
⁵⁹

On Christmas Day itself, Neave was fretting: ‘Not too happy about E. Du Cann since his bank, Keyser Ullmann, is clearly in difficulties. I plan to ring him in a week’s time to discover whether he has decided to stand. If not, we must back Margaret.’
⁶⁰
Three days later, he wrote to Mrs Thatcher suggesting a meeting in the New Year. Well before this took place, though, Du Cann himself had seen her. As he remembered the meeting, she came to his house accompanied by Denis. They sat on the sofa together, so that ‘It was like interviewing a housekeeper and her husband.’
⁶¹
She had come to the meeting saying that she would back Du Cann as the leadership candidate if he would make her his shadow chancellor, but he told her that he would not stand. This account is probably not completely accurate. Mrs Thatcher, in her memoirs, considered that the conversation with Du Cann showed him ‘undecided’.
⁶²
On 5 January 1975, Neave and Du Cann talked on the telephone for forty minutes. Neave records Du Cann as saying that:

He thought her naïve but admired her character. He still had not made up his mind whether to stand. He thought we should organise a ‘head count’ as soon as possible so that we knew what the probable figures were … I said it was difficult to commit myself entirely to Margaret and he said I must do what was right for the country! But this does not help. Until we know how many will back Margaret Thatcher I do not think any decisions will be made.

It was time for lunch with Mrs Thatcher. The meeting took place on 9 January. Neave noted it in some detail:

drove to 19 Flood Street where we [Neave went with his wife Diana] lunched alone with Margaret Thatcher. A very nice house, a bit too tidy, and everything
wrapped in cellophane. However M looked well, rather fatter and in good form. We discussed Historic Houses [their tax exemption was being debated] …

We then got on to the leadership. She said G. Howe and one or two other Shadow Cabinet members supported her. A change was essential. No real talks on policy and when in office it had never been a ‘real Cabinet’. Ted never confided in anyone. She agreed that a headcounting must come first and that it was possible that she and E. Du Cann might get the same type of support. There was so far no campaign structure. I said this was not possible until a provisional assessment of the figures could be made. She had heard from the press that E. Heath would get 120. (He would have to get 159 to win on the first ballot.) I said 70 or 80 was more like it. The numbers for E. Du Cann and her could be close in which case they would have to settle whether both should stand. I find it difficult because having promised her support, I have also signed the letter to E Du Cann but we do not yet know if he will stand. We also discussed whether W. Whitelaw who is ambitious would stand. I did not fancy his chances but it was possible that Central Office would influence MPs on his behalf through their constituency associations.
⁶³

Three days later, Du Cann was still dithering. At his flat, Neave ‘found a private note from Nigel Fisher saying Edward was still undecided. His wife did not want to give up their beautiful house in Somerset which they could not afford without the Bank.’
⁶⁴
The next day, Neave rang Mrs Thatcher and told her he would give her a definite view of how to proceed by Thursday 16 January. On the Tuesday, he at last got a decision out of Du Cann: ‘Du Cann told me he would definitely not stand: he could not “let down” his wife.’
⁶⁵
The following evening, during a division on the committee stage of the Finance Bill, on which Mrs Thatcher was leading for the Conservatives, Neave ‘agreed with Nigel Fisher that I should chair a new group to support Margaret Thatcher’.
⁶⁶

A meeting was held in Interview Room J to discuss aspects of organization, but even at this late stage ‘Several “anti-women” voices’ were raised. ‘Afterwards I spoke to Fergus Montgomery who has been running Margaret Thatcher’s “organisation” (which hardly exists) and arranged with W. Shelton
*
to hold a meeting to discuss “identification” of her supporters on Monday at 9 p.m.’
⁶⁷
The next day, 16 January, the 1922 Committee approved the Home committee’s recommended change of rules for the leadership elections.

A further complication entered Neave’s calculations: ‘Having told me that he would not stand, Hugh Fraser has now changed his mind. He would certainly take votes off Margaret and Heath but what would it avail?’
⁶⁸
Fraser, a charming, romantic man, and a long-standing critic of Heath, had been tempted to throw his hat in the ring by various favourable mentions in the press. His wife, Lady Antonia, described by Neave as ‘beautiful, arrogant like Lady Glencora Palliser [heroine of Anthony Trollope’s Palliser sequence of novels, which, at that time, was a hugely successful BBC television serialization with Susan Hampshire as Lady Glencora]’, recorded in her own diary at this time her husband’s ‘argument for’ standing: ‘to call public attention to his continued existence in the world of politics. This needs not many votes but some. Programme: to call attention to the continued existence of another kind of Toryism, radical, right, patriotic, non-Socialist. Under Heath Toryism becoming extinct as did Liberals.’
⁶⁹
Publicity made Hugh Fraser feel optimistic. ‘Thinks he may get as many as 50 votes,’ Lady Antonia wrote on 19 January. ‘I think 35.’ Two days later she recorded: ‘Dinner with Hugh at the H of C … Norman St. J S [St John-Stevas]
*
(camply): “I’m voting for Hugh so that you can grace No. 10.” ’
^†

The Fraser intervention was not considered very serious, and Neave continued with his plans. On Sunday 19 January he spoke to Mrs Thatcher on the telephone and told her the names of the people in the group which had been backing Du Cann: ‘She said I should consult Keith Joseph who would back her. This means that supporters of Joseph, Thatcher and Du Cann are now united. I told her to forget about it [that is, not worry about the leadership campaign] and stick to the Finance Bill.’
⁷⁰
The following evening Neave and Shelton met to seal the pact and record the extent of her support. ‘So the balloon has gone up,’ wrote Neave. ‘The Campaign group is formed of people of all shades of thought in the party.’
⁷¹

Neave had not been exaggerating when he said that Mrs Thatcher’s campaign team hardly existed. Before the Neave alliance, her only two known
lieutenants had been William Shelton and Fergus Montgomery, neither of whom stood high in parliamentary seniority or reputation. Shelton was considered a lightweight and, by some, ‘fond of the bottle’,
⁷²
and Montgomery, in an age when these things mattered much more than today, was thought effeminate. He had a ‘mincing walk’,
⁷³
and looked like ‘a pantomime drag queen’.
⁷⁴
Montgomery himself was engagingly self-critical about his efforts – ‘It was just Bill Shelton and me, and we were useless’
⁷⁵
– and, in the climactic days of the campaign, he went off on a long-planned parliamentary jaunt to South Africa. The third man helping Mrs Thatcher from the start was not in the Commons at all – Gordon Reece. Reece believed that the MP who was most important in winning support for Mrs Thatcher was Peter Morrison: ‘It was he and he alone who persuaded a significant section of the knights of the shires that she was an acceptable alternative to Ted Heath.’
⁷⁶
Morrison was undoubtedly important. It is unlikely, though, that someone who had entered the House of Commons only in February of that year could have carried enough weight.