Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography (31 page)

Conservatives had not heard this sort of message for many years, and it went down well.

On Tuesday the second ballot took place. Again I waited nervously in Airey’s room. And again it was Airey who came to give me the news. He smiled and said: ‘You are now Leader of the Opposition.’ I had obtained
146 votes to Willie’s seventy-nine. The other candidates were out of the picture.
*

I now had to hurry down to the Grand Committee Room, off Westminster Hall, where the press were waiting. I told them: ‘To me it is like a dream that the next name in the lists after Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath, is Margaret Thatcher. Each has brought his own style of leadership and stamp of greatness to his task. I shall take on the work with humility and dedication.’

Then it was off for the Leader’s traditional first visit to Conservative Central Office. On entering, I could not help remembering how hard some of the people there had worked to stop my becoming Leader.

Then I was driven back to Bill Shelton’s house in Pimlico for a celebration with my friends. Denis was there. I had tried to telephone the news through to him myself, but somehow the Press Association beat me to it. Mark learned the news while he was at work as a trainee accountant. As for Carol, she could not be disturbed until she had finished the solicitors’ exam she was taking that afternoon.

Only much later that night, after I had returned from dinner with the Chief Whip, Humphrey Atkins, could all of the family celebrate the good news. It was wonderful to be together. I suspect that they knew, as I did, that from this moment on our lives would never be quite the same again.

Nor would the Conservative Party.

Leader of the Opposition February 1975–March 1977

M
Y FIRST TASK
was to compose the Shadow Cabinet. I met Humphrey Atkins, the Chief Whip, in the Leader of the Opposition’s room in the House of Commons where we had an excellent dinner prepared by his wife Maggie. Humphrey Atkins had, of course, been Ted’s appointment, and occupying the position he did had not declared his support for one side or the other in the leadership contest. But he was amiable and amenable and, as Chief Whip, was possessed of the unique fund of knowledge and gossip so essential when making high political appointments. I told Humphrey that although there were some people, like Keith Joseph and Airey Neave, to whom I felt a special obligation, I did not want to make a clean sweep of the existing team. After the bitterness of the contest with Ted there had to be sufficient continuity to keep the Party together.

The more we talked, however, the clearer it became to both of us that all the other dispositions depended upon Ted. If he wished to serve under my leadership – and I had publicly committed myself to offering him the opportunity during the leadership campaign – he might decide that he wanted one of the three main Shadow posts, or possibly a post without portfolio. I privately hoped that he would not take up my offer at all. Although none of us knew how enduring his sense of injury would be, it was already hard to imagine Ted behaving like Alec Douglas-Home and fitting in as a loyal and distinguished member of his successor’s team. In any case, the newspapers were saying that Ted had no intention of serving. But I had to know for myself. Having sounded Ted out and received the impression that the speculation about his intentions was
accurate, Humphrey reported back to me. But I had said I would make the offer, and the following morning I was driven to Ted’s house in Wilton Street to do it in person.

Tim Kitson, Ted’s PPS, showed me into the downstairs study. Ted was sitting at his desk. He did not get up; and I sat down without waiting to be asked. There was no point in pleasantries. I could guess what he thought about recent events and about me. Without offering a specific post, I asked him whether he would join the Shadow Cabinet. He said no, he would stay on the backbenches. The interview was effectively at an end. I knew that it must be painful and probably humiliating for him. But I also knew that if I walked out of Wilton Street past the assembled press after just a few minutes, the lunchtime news would be dominated by stories of snubs and splits. So I spun things out a little by asking his views about Labour’s promised referendum on Britain’s continuing membership of the European Economic Community and, in particular, whether he would lead the Conservative campaign. Again, he said no. I had done all I decently could to keep Ted within the fold and to ensure the meeting did not end too abruptly. But only five minutes or so had elapsed when I left Ted’s study. So Tim Kitson (who was equally aware of the risk of bad publicity) and I talked inconsequentially for another quarter of an hour to fill out the time before I left the house. Respecting, as I thought, Ted’s confidence, I did not even tell Airey Neave, who was setting up my office, the details of what had transpired. I made it public later only in order to set the record straight. I returned to the House of Commons and told Humphrey Atkins that Ted would indeed not be in the Shadow Cabinet.

Next, Robert Carr, who had been acting Leader of the Party during the leadership campaign, wanted to see me. He had, of course, been close to Ted and I could well understand if he did not relish the prospect of serving under me. In fact, when I saw him he made it quite clear that the only post he would accept was that of Shadow Foreign Secretary. I said that I could not promise him that. Not only was I unwilling to have my hands tied before I had properly considered the shape of the team as a whole: I was not convinced that Robert Carr would have a place in it.

By contrast, Willie Whitelaw definitely had. He had demonstrated his popularity in the leadership election. He was immensely experienced and his presence would be a reassuring guarantee to many on the backbenches that evolution rather than revolution was the order of the day. Perhaps both of us already sensed that we could form a strong political
partnership, our strengths and weaknesses complementing one another’s. Although I could not as yet offer him a particular portfolio, I asked Willie to be Deputy Leader of the Party, and he accepted. But his loyalty was not contingent on that; he was loyal from the first.

That evening I chaired the Shadow Cabinet for the first time. The meeting had a slightly unreal atmosphere since none of those present had yet been formally reappointed, and some would not be. Quintin Hailsham congratulated me on the Shadow Cabinet’s behalf and pledged their loyalty and co-operation. I felt that he at least probably meant it. I said that Willie had agreed to be Deputy Leader and that Ted had turned down my offer of a place in the Shadow Cabinet. Willie then said that he had accepted the Deputy Leadership at once and looked forward to serving in this capacity. The formalities thus indicated a kind of armed truce between the competing views and personalities.

The following evening, I made my first appearance as Leader at the 1922 Committee meeting. My relations with the wider Parliamentary Party were much easier than with the Shadow Cabinet. As I entered, everyone rose to their feet. Edward du Cann presented me with an unsigned Valentine card (a day early) which would join the other Valentines and roses that accumulated at Flood Street.

In the next few days my time was taken up in meeting journalists, discussing arrangements for my office and fulfilling long-standing constituency engagements. There were few opportunities to sit down with Humphrey and Willie to discuss Shadow Cabinet membership. In any case, I wanted the weekend to make my final decisions. But the delay encouraged speculation. According to the press a battle was under way to prevent Keith Joseph becoming Shadow Chancellor. In fact, he did not ask for the position nor did I offer it.

Willie was the first to come in. I gave him a roving brief which included the issue of devolution – which already spelt political difficulties that he, as both a former Chief Whip and a Scot representing an English seat, might be able to tackle. Then I saw Keith Joseph, whom I asked to continue with his Shadow Cabinet responsibility for policy and research. In a sense, Willie and Keith were the two key figures, one providing the political brawn and the other the policy-making brains of the team. I also felt that Keith must continue his intellectual crusade from the Centre for Policy Studies for wider understanding and acceptance of free enterprise economics. I was under no illusion that my victory in the leadership election represented a wholesale conversion.

My next visitor was Reggie Maudling. I suspect that, although he had made it clear publicly that he was willing to serve, he was as surprised as the press when I made him Shadow Foreign Secretary. Though widely praised at the time, this was not a good appointment.

Still less of a soulmate was Ian Gilmour. He had been a strong partisan of Ted, and he lacked the support or standing which might have made him politically costly to dispense with. But I valued his intelligence. I felt that he could make a useful contribution as long as he was kept out of an economic post, to which neither his training nor his aptitudes suited him. I asked him to be Shadow Home Secretary.

Michael Heseltine, who now came in to see me, had a much more flamboyant personality than Ian’s, although they shared many of the same views. I asked him to stay on as Shadow Industry Secretary. It was a portfolio which gave full scope to his talent for Opposition, since it fell to him to fight the Labour Government’s main nationalization proposals. What I did not fully grasp at this time was how ideologically committed he was to an interventionist approach in industry which I could not accept.

I asked Peter Carrington to stay on as Leader of the House of Lords. Again, I had no illusions about Peter’s position in the Tory Party’s political spectrum: he was not of my way of thinking. He had, of course, been in Ted’s inner circle making the political decisions about the miners’ strike and the February 1974 election. But since we lost office he had proved an extremely effective Opposition Leader in the Upper House, and as a former Defence Minister and an international businessman he had wide experience of foreign affairs. Admittedly, he was likely in Shadow Cabinet to be on the opposite side to me on economic policy. But he never allowed economic disagreements to get in the way of his more general responsibilities. He brought style, experience, wit and – politically incorrect as the thought may be – a touch of class.

Geoffrey Howe had his own droll wit. But in most other ways he was a very different politician from my other appointments that day. I would in any case have felt obliged to give Geoffrey a Shadow Cabinet post, simply because he was a candidate against me and I wished to unify the Party as much as possible. But it was a calculated gamble to make him Shadow Chancellor. Geoffrey was to have a difficult time both trying to resolve our divisions on economic policy and in defending our case in the House. I would be put under a good deal of pressure to remove him and find someone better able to take on the Chancellor, Denis Healey. But I knew
that Geoffrey’s difficulties, like mine, were more the result of circumstances than lack of native talent. By the time our period in Opposition was approaching its end he had become indispensable.

After careful thought I decided to keep Jim Prior as Shadow Employment Secretary. This was rightly taken as a signal that I had no immediate plans for a fundamental reform of trade union law. It was Jim’s strong conviction that our aim should be to establish both that we accepted the existing trade union law, with perhaps a few alterations, and that we saw the union leaders as people with whom we could deal. Such an approach made more sense at the beginning of the period in Opposition than at the end of it.

Airey Neave had already privately told me that the only portfolio he wanted was that of Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary. His intelligence contacts, proven physical courage and shrewdness amply qualified him for this testing and largely thankless task. The other appointments were less strategically crucial. Two offers of Shadow Cabinet posts were turned down – one to John Biffen, who would in fact join later, and the other to Edward du Cann, whose early campaign team had provided the nucleus of mine. Edward stayed on as Chairman of the 1922 Committee, which was probably far more useful to me.

The next day (Tuesday) I had some less pleasant business to transact. At 10.30 Peter Walker came in. There was no personal warmth between us. He had been one of the most effective members of Ted’s inner circle, and he opposed with vigour and eloquence the approach which Keith and I were committed to adopt. He clearly had to go.

I confirmed in a discussion with Geoffrey Rippon, who now came into my room, that he did not wish to serve: that suited us both. I then saw Nicholas Scott, who had shadowed Housing. He too was on the left of the Party. The conversation was made slightly easier by the fact that I had absorbed the Housing portfolio into the wider Environment one. His job had been shot from under him.

I left to last the interview with Robert Carr. I told him that I had given the Shadow Foreign Secretary post to Reggie Maudling, which he presumably knew already. Perhaps he had just bid too high, or perhaps he might have been persuaded to stay in another capacity. But I was not keen to have another strong opponent in any position on the team.

The published Shadow Cabinet list (to which Peter Thorneycroft as Party Chairman and Angus Maude as Chairman of the Conservative Research Department would later be added) was rightly seen as a
compromise. As such, it annoyed the left of the Party who disliked my dropping of Robert Carr, Peter Walker and Nicholas Scott: it also disappointed the right who worried about Reggie Maudling’s return, the fact that Geoffrey and not Keith was Shadow Chancellor and the lack of any new right-wing faces from the backbenches. In fact, given the fragility as yet of my position and the need to express a balance of opinion in the Shadow Cabinet to bring the Party together, it was a relatively successful operation. It created a Treasury team that shared my and Keith’s views on the free market economy, shifted the balance of opinion within the Shadow Cabinet as a whole somewhat in my direction and yet gave grounds for loyalty to those I had retained from Ted’s regime. I felt I could expect support (within limits) from such a team, but I knew I could not assume agreement – even on basic principles.