Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Margaret Thatcher A Portrait of the Iron Lady

John Blundell

Algora Publishing New York

© 2008 by Algora Publishing. All Rights Reserved www.algora.com No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976) may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data — Blundell, John, 1952Margaret Thatcher : A portrait of the iron lady/ John Blundell. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-87586-630-7 (trade paper: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-87586631-4 (case laminate: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-87586-632-1 (ebook) 1. Thatcher, Margaret. 2. Prime ministers—Great Britain—Biography. 3. Women prime ministers—Great Britain—Biography. 4. Great Britain—Politics and government—1979-1997. 5. Conservative Party (Great Britain)—Biography. I. Title. DA591.T47B58 2008 941.085’8092—dc22 [B] 2008036677

Front Cover: 1983- London, England- The Rt. Honorable Margaret Thatcher is the Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Conservative Member of Parliament for Finchley. © Bettmann/CORBIS

Printed in the United States

John Blundell has been one of the most effective champions of the freeenterprise economic model which has delivered progress and prosperity around the world. Therefore he is very well placed to explain to Americans the beliefs and principles which underpinned what became known as “Thatcherism.” — Lady Thatcher, Summer 2008

List of Acronyms ARP ASI BA BAA BBC BIS BOAC BP BSE C. of E. CAP CBE CBI CCO CFSP CIA CPC CPS CUNY ECB EDA EEC ERM ESU EU FCS FSB GCSE GDP HM HMS IEA IMF IRA IVP JFK LSE LUCA MIT MORI MP NATO NCB NFSE

Air Raid Precaution Adam Smith Institute British Airways British Airports Authority British Broadcasting Corporation Bank for International Settlements British Overseas Airways Corporation British Petroleum Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Church of England Common Agricultural Policy Commander of the Order of the British Empire Confederation of British Industry Conservative Central Office Common Foreign and Security Policy Central Intelligence Agency Conservative Political Centre Centre for Policy Studies City University of New York European Central Bank European Defense Agency European Economic Community Exchange Rate Mechanism English Speaking Union European Union Federation of Conservative Students Federation of Small Business General Certificate of Secondary Education Gross Domestic Product Her Majesty Her Majesty’s Ship Institute of Economic Affairs International Monetary Fund Irish Republican Army International Visitor Program John F. Kennedy Airport London School of Economics London University Conservative Association Massachusetts Institute of Technology Market and Opinion Research International Member of Parliament North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Coal Board National Federation of Self-Employed (Later FSB)

NHS NI NUM OECD OM OUCA OUGCA PBS PM POW PPS QC RAF RPM SAS SAU SBS SDI SUNY THF TUC UCS USAF USE USSR VAT

National Health Service National Insurance National Union of Mineworkers Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Order of Merit Oxford University Conservative Association Oxford University Graduate Conservative Association Public Broadcasting Service Prime Minister Prisoner of War Parliamentary Private Secretary Queen’s Counsel Royal Air Force Retail Price Maintenance Special Air Service Social Affairs Unit Special Boat Service Strategic Defense Initiative State University of New York The Heritage Foundation Trades Union Congress Upper Clyde Shipbuilders United States Air Force “United States of Europe” Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Value Added Tax

Acknowledgements This is not a work of scholarship. Rather it is a very personal interpretation of a very special life. The book was inspired by the enthusiastic reactions to speeches I have given about Lady Thatcher to The Heritage Foundation in Colorado Springs and in Washington DC as well as to the Texas Public Policy Foundation in Dallas. I thank Bridgett Wagner, Dr. Ed Feulner and Brooke Rollins for hosting me. The buzz I got from those events is still with me. From the start this book has been all about explaining the Thatcher phenomenon to people overseas, especially in the USA where she is so admired. The only piece of remotely “original” research appears in Chapter 5 where I give much more detail on, and far more weight to, Margaret Thatcher’s 1967 and 1969 visits to the United States than any previous biographer or in my case hagiographer. I thank Lord Hunt of the Wirral, Chairman of the English Speaking Union, and US Ambassador Robert Tuttle for their help in this regard. For a range of typing, editing, fact-checking, research and other help I thank in alphabetical order: Clare Batty, Christine Blundell, William Culleton III, Anthony Haynes, Rebekah Nordeck, Lisa Schwartz, and Robin Sillars. The usual disclaimer applies.

For all those who believed in free markets and private property rights under the rule of law before 1975. There were not many of us and we know who we are.

Protocol Lady Thatcher has had many names, titles and honors. For the sake of simplicity I have adopted the following protocol: As a young girl — Margaret As a college student and young professional — Miss Margaret Roberts As a young wife in the 1950s — Mrs. Denis Thatcher As an MP — Mrs. Margaret Thatcher MP In her many jobs — the relevant title In “retirement” — Lady Thatcher Should you ever have the honor of meeting her, I suggest you simply address her as “Prime Minister” or “Lady Thatcher.”

Table of Contents Preface

1

Introduction

11

1. Childhood

17

2. University

25

3. Launching

35

4. Elected

45

5. Opposition I

53

6. Education Secretary

63

7. Reflections

71

8. Leader

77

9. Opposition II

83

10. Power

89

11. Liberating the Economy

93

12. Privatizing the Commanding Heights

99

13. Selling Off Public Housing

107

14. Going to War

113

15. Beating the Miners

121

16. Reforming the Unions

127

17. Battling the IRA

131 xv

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

18. Befriending America

137

19. Kicking Down the Wall

141

20. Dealing with Brussels

147

21. Resignation

155

22. Retirement

165

23. Family Denis Carol Mark 24. Men Alf Keith Ronald Alfred Alan Ralph 25. Her World

173 173 177 178 181 181 182 184 186 187 189 191

26. Ten Lessons

197

Postscript: What Remains to be Done

207

Further Reading

211

xvi

Preface I have met Lady Thatcher on many occasions; indeed I have met her in every job she has held from Education Secretary (1970–74); Shadow Environment Secretary (1974); deputy Chancellor of the Exchequer (1974–75); Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition (1975–79); Prime Minister (1979–90) to her post-Prime Ministerial life (1990 to date). On every occasion she has impressed me with her insights and intellect. Of the many leading figures I have met around the world she is joint number one with Milton Friedman and F. A. Hayek, both Nobel Laureates. While faith, family and country have dominated her life, she retains an interest in science (her early training), reads widely, enjoys musical outings and as I write is even pictured in the Sports Section of my newspaper watching tennis at Wimbledon. In her youth she was a great singer, piano player, award winning poetry reciter,1 walker, amateur actress and debater. Ballroom dancing was another passion as is music, the opera and the arts. She is an immensely fascinating and entertaining person, really terrific company. Her interest in politics is different from 99% of other politicians I have met. Like President Reagan she honestly cared about her fellow 1 Rupert Brooke’s “These I have loved” was a lifelong favorite.

1

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

men and women and was deeply passionate about making the world a better place. As Prime Minister she was a problem solver bringing her determination, intelligence and training in science and law to bear. And you have to be nimble when you are with her; or maybe alert is a better word. She could hack through mumbo-jumbo with a sharp scythe — take you off at your knees rather than your ankles. She could get right to the heart of any issue and shine light on it faster than anyone I have ever met except maybe Milton Friedman (F. A. Hayek being less combative and more reflective). Her range of policy experience was huge by the time she became Prime Minister: after a brief spell as anything but an ordinary backbench1 MP2 she had had a junior ministerial post; six shadow3 posts, three in the Shadow Cabinet; nearly four years in Cabinet as Secretary of Education; brief spells in two more senior Shadow Cabinet slots and four years as Leader of the Opposition. She was twenty years in the making. My first recollection of her is as Secretary for Education and Science. I was Chairman of the Conservative Association at the London School of Economics (LSE) at the time followed by another year as Chairman of the London University Conservative Association (LUCA) which acted as London Region of the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS). This meant I covered lots of polytechnics and other universities as well as London University. We used to go as delegates from FCS to visit her and tell her what was on our minds and how things were on campus. I think we used to prepare at the rate of one day for every 15 minutes in her presence. She was always master of her ground while being ruthlessly probing and terrifyingly insightful on anything new we might have to say. And she was like that with everyone. My predecessor as Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Ralph Harris (later Lord Harris of High Cross) often told me about also going to see her as Education Secretary in the early 1970s 1 Backbench as opposed to frontbench, i.e., not part of the leadership. 2 MP stands for Member of Parliament. 3 In the British system every government minister is shadowed by a member of the official opposition party.

2

Preface

as he and colleagues were attempting to establish the University of Buckingham, the UK’s first private college. Not surprisingly it is currently rated number one on the National Student Satisfaction survey and has been for some time. They arrived and she was not there, having been called to an emergency Cabinet meeting over the Leila Khalid matter — whether or not this captured terrorist should be returned. Ralph and chums sat there while junior ministers prevaricated — umm’ed and ah’d — about this curious new idea. “Oh, you can’t expect help from us,” they finally blurted out as if this was bound to disappoint the Buckingham delegation. Before they could respond, in walked Education Secretary Thatcher direct from Cabinet. Without pause she perched on the corner of a settee and launched into an exact analysis of the delegation’s thinking: “Now, you certainly do not want and do not expect any ‘help’ from my Department,” she opened. From the way she said ‘help’ they knew she meant ‘hindrance.’ “The best we can do for you is to keep out of your way. “Let me know if my Department throws up obstacles to your progress and I will deal with them,” she concluded.

She knew exactly what they wanted to hear. Get the government out of the way! This was her great knack, her great ability to get right to the heart of the matter. My year as regional chairman of the FCS finished with a wonderful dinner in the House of Lords sponsored1 by the masterful historian Lord Blake. It was March of 1974 so just days after Mr. Heath’s first defeat of that year. I had invited her to address us as Education Secretary but she appeared as Shadow Environment Secretary. The evening stands out in my memory for three reasons. Everything had been meticulously planned and at the appropriate moment the head table of eight trooped in. Some 200 people were standing out there and staring at me as I thought to myself, “We’ve 1 “Sponsored” in this case does not mean he paid for it but rather that he booked the room — which was very generous indeed as he would have been severely limited to two or three events a year at most.

3

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

forgotten something here. Oops, something is wrong. Why is everyone standing up? Why aren’t they sitting down?” Just as I was about to panic Mrs. Thatcher’s left foot kicked my right ankle: “Grace, you fool,” she hissed. Oh yes! “Benedictus benedicat.” We sat down. Phew! Later that evening she commented on the supply of wine to the top table. I explained that it was my job as retiring Chairman to handle that. “Oh no,” she said. “I can’t have a young man like you buying my drinks.” She stuck her hand in her purse and passed me some folded money. It was just the right amount. My speech a few minutes later was truly awful and totally inappropriate as I basically did nothing but crack a few jokes at her expense. She was very gracious on the night — but see below. Later that year, with Mrs. Thatcher still as Shadow Environment Secretary, I was involved in welcoming her to a north London constituency. This time however it was out in public as it was election time and she was pushing the agenda discussed below. She was just superb. She knocked us all dead. She took over. She was the queen, lower case “q.” It was uncanny, unreal almost. Wherever we took her, she charmed everybody; philosophically and photogenically perfect opportunities dropped in our lap. That was the afternoon I glimpsed the political future and what we might expect. Only months later we were both running for high office. I was running to be the first Conservative elected onto the Board of the LSE student union for something like 15 years since John Moore1 (later to serve Prime Minister Thatcher in Cabinet)2 had been president in say 1960. She was running (see below) to be leader of the Tory Party. I got elected to my sordid little union job looking after the student bar known as The Three Tuns just a week or two ahead of her. 1 Now Lord Moore of Lower Marsh. 2 He served Prime Minister Thatcher in Cabinet as Transport Secretary and later Health and Social Security Secretary. On gaining the latter he purchased 100 copies of the famous US analysis of welfare, “Losing Ground,” by Charles Murray, and ordered all his top officials to read it and write a paper on how its insights might influence UK policy.

4

Preface

This led the then Tory leader, Edward Heath, to send me a letter of congratulation. The letter was intercepted by the left at the LSE and leaked to the press. When eventually a full report appeared in The Daily Telegraph it concluded with words to the effect that (unfortunately for Mr. Heath) Mr. Blundell was already working hard for Mrs. Thatcher. The day she became leader of the Conservative Party I introduced a motion of congratulation in the LSE student union — of course it was defeated. When she was Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition I met her several times on various issues. The first time was when, soon after she became Leader, she inherited from Ted Heath the task of addressing the LUCA annual dinner for the second year running. She glanced to her right, down the top table, spotted me and started her speech by saying she hoped this was the London University Conservative Association and not the London University Comedians’ Association! Ouch! Squashed! We often went to see her prior to 1979. I report below on her response to my idea that we give all public housing units away to sitting tenants. At that same dinner one of my chums (let’s call him Peter — he ended up in Cabinet) said that she was putting too much emphasis on economic freedom and not enough on personal or social freedom. “Take cannabis,” he said. “It’s freely available, so why not recognize reality and legalize it?” He added, “My friend knows exactly where to get it!” “Peter,” she said, “my detective is sitting outside. I want you to call him in now and give him details of your friend!” Well, he ducked and dived, wriggled and weaved, and she let him off the hook. We had other memorable moments. Later, when Michael Forsyth was national Chairman of FCS, I was his national Vice Chairman responsible for publicity. Mrs. Thatcher’s approaching birthday seemed to me to be a wonderful opportunity for us. About a week before the big day we started brainstorming in a pub called The Marquis of Granby, just off Smith Square and around the corner from Conservative Central Office. What could we or should we do? Eventually we settled on the idea of turning up at her Flood Street, 5

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Chelsea home with a very, very large bouquet of red roses at about 7:30 a.m. Michael would present it to her against a backdrop of enthusiastic young London students that I would recruit. Everything was quickly arranged and the media alerted. On the morning of the big day I first picked up Michael in Hugh Street in central Westminster and then this huge display of red roses from a famous florist in Berkeley Square. The arrangement could barely fit in the taxi and we lost several heads en route. When we pulled up there was a massive bank of cameras and a solitary policeman but not one student. “Wait here,” I sternly told Forsyth as I was in a bit of a panic. I jumped out, scanned the street again and finally walked up to the policeman. “I wonder if you have seen any students?” I asked nervously. “Oh, yes, sir,” he replied, “Mrs. Thatcher saw them standing out here twenty minutes ago and invited them all into her home for a cup of tea!” “Should I say you are ready, sir?” he finished. The students duly emerged and formed a backdrop. Mrs. Thatcher appeared; Michael presented the roses and the pictures went out all over the world. I believe he has given her roses for every birthday since then. On the day of the general election that propelled her into 10 Downing Street the swing to the Conservative Party was such that a tour of London seats was arranged, not safe or even Labour marginal seats but that middle level of reasonably safe Labour constituencies. I was helping (in a private capacity) the Conservative candidate in West Norwood where I was at the time a councilman on Lambeth Borough Council. At some point that afternoon of May 3 she burst into our HQ at 495 Norwood Road, London SE27 with her entourage. She was radiant and she clearly knew she was going to win — but she did not win that particular seat. It was a long reach. I have three major personal memories of her as Prime Minister; only three because I worked in California and Virginia from April 1982 to January 1993.

6

Preface

The first was in January 1982. I was at the time Press, Parliamentary and Research Officer of the National Federation of Self-Employed (NFSE, which today goes by Federation of Small Business or FSB). Our new Chairman was David Dexter, an accountant who hailed from the Prime Minister’s own county of Lincolnshire. David persuaded her to come to lunch and to address his National Council in a private 2nd floor room at the Imperial Hotel, Russell Square, a major Bloomsbury venue say one mile from Downing Street. Unfortunately her only son, Mark, was missing in the Sahara at the time on a car rally and he had been missing for several days.1 The stress had been increased by reports that he had been found — only for such news to be later proved false.2 Mr. Dexter’s speech of welcome for the event had been press released some days earlier. The result was about 200 pressmen and dozens of cameras outside the hotel. Her staff and security formed a protective wedge and she had only a few feet to walk to me. As she did so voices were calling out for news of Mark. Against instructions she broke step and tried to answer saying something such as “there’s no news and I’m very worried.” I think this was the fifth day of Mark’s six days missing. At this point she was clearly breaking down and two large men, one on each side, picked her up by the elbows and came directly toward me very quickly. I led them to my left, their right, out of the lobby and into an empty function room. We quickly sat her down at some random table and her staff stood in a line blocking the view from a window to the outside courtyard. “What would you like, Prime Minister?” I asked. “Black coffee, please,” she replied. As The Daily Telegraph reported on its front page the next day — every paper had it on page one — “Next a young man [me] burst from the room, collared a waiter and said ‘Get me a black coffee and make it quick.’” Stories that she sobbed in public for 30 seconds or more are complete and utter nonsense. She quickly composed herself and went on to ace the meeting. The hotel staff (mostly new immigrants) presented her with a huge bouquet and David Dexter told her that to mark her visit the Federa1 He was found safe and sound after six days. 2 The local army was totally chaotic.

7

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

tion was sending a substantial check to the charity recommended by her office. Living just outside Washington DC I had the opportunity in 1987 to hear her address The Heritage Foundation (THF). By this time she was clearly getting a little antsy about people (all men) claiming credit for “Thatcherism.” This was the cue for her famous line: “But remember while the cocks may crow, it’s the hen that lays the egg.” That was the evening President Reagan sat down next to Joe Coors and said “Oh good, it must be ‘Miller Time’!” Three years later I was invited to a party at London’s Reform Club for the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Social Affairs Unit (SAU). I turned up on time. As I walked up the steps in a business suit I realized that Sir Antony Jay, co-author of the famous British TV series Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, was next to me in black tie. We fell into conversation and entered the event. An hour later we joined up again as the Prime Minister was working the room. She turned from the group next to us and spotted Tony in his tuxedo — the only one in the whole room. “Ah, Tony,” she said, “you must be going to somewhere important later?” “No, Prime Minister,” he replied contritely. “I misread the invitation!” So I heard the author of Yes, Prime Minister say, “No, Prime Minister” to the then Prime Minister. In fact, a few weeks later she was no longer Prime Minister. When I became Director General of the IEA I found we had already published a collection of speeches, by my predecessor Lord Harris, under the title of No, Minister. So when he turned seventy and I published the best of his articles, I had no hesitation in calling them No, Prime Minister. As I recount below, she has never retired and to this day in her eighties keeps a very busy diary. I see her often and she keeps a keen interest in all that is going on as we will read below. Some years ago I was at a round-table of forty people with Lady Thatcher. After dinner we enjoyed remarks from a distinguished guest. Then came questions. Most present were fairly senior types from the 8

Preface

media, the civil service, industry and politics. At 45, I was pretty young, but there was one man even younger, a 31-one-year-old representing his boss. To tell the truth, this young man was actually the leading expert in the room on our topic for the night. Into the vacuum of space and time immediately following the guest’s remarks the young man proffered an interesting question. The problem was that nobody could hear what he was saying. “Speak up, young man,” commanded Lady Thatcher. He tried again but clearly did not measure up. “SPEAK UP, YOUNG MAN!” she commanded again. He started a third time. Still no good. She glared down the table. “Young man,” she said, “Stand up and throw your voice. We want to hear what you have to say.” Turning bright red, he stood; he threw; they listened and at the end they (the men) all applauded. I was hosting a dinner once for a famous politician from overseas. Lady Thatcher’s office asked if she and Sir Denis could attend and I replied yes. On the night, Sir Denis failed to show and I faced having an empty chair at dinner. I quickly recruited a Tory MP friend who is a generation younger than Lady Thatcher; tall, straight and, my wife tells me, handsome in a battered kind of way. We sat down to dinner. I tapped on a glass to get attention and made a few announcements. I concluded by saying that Sir Denis’s place had been taken for the night by Mr. X MP. “Really,” said Lady Thatcher in a very arch voice. “Nobody told me!” The whole room erupted and just roared with laughter. She has a great sense of comic timing — she does not only tell jokes when they are scripted by her speech writers; but then she does not need to. A great personal joy for me over the past 15 years has been organizing significant birthday parties for the late Dr. Arthur Seldon CBE and Lord (Ralph) Harris of High Cross, who were the IEA’s editorial and general directors. At Ralph’s 80th in December 2005, I sat Lady Thatcher to his right — where else? Come the moment when gifts were present9

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

ed, my Executive Assistant Clare was in charge. One of the gifts was a brand new laptop computer. Unfortunately the gift wrap was too tight for Ralph. Before he knew what was happening, Lady Thatcher yanked it out of his hands, paper flew in all directions and she handed it back. As the Financial Times diary column put it the next day, “Fortunately the computer survived!” On becoming Director General of the IEA, reportedly her favorite think tank, on January 1, 1993, I found the following in the archive. The then IEA Editorial Director Arthur Seldon CBE had written on October 24, 1969 to a rising Tory MP, Geoffrey Howe, as follows: “May we hope for better things from Margaret?” Geoffrey Howe replied: “I am not at all sure about Margaret. Many of her economic prejudices are certainly sound. But she is inclined to be rather too dogmatic for my liking on sensitive issues like education and might actually retard the case by over-simplification. We should certainly be able to hope for something better from her — but I suspect that she will need to be exposed to the humanizing side of your character as much as to the pure welfare market-monger. There is much scope for her to be influenced between triumph and disaster.” Fortunately it was the former.

10

Introduction “Now is the Winter of our Discontent.” —Richard III, William Shakespeare

It was called the “Winter of Discontent,” the United Kingdom’s winter of 1978–1979. The Labour Government, under Prime Minister James Callaghan, struggled desperately to hold onto power, helped by opportunistic Liberals, Ulster Unionists, and Scottish Nationalists — depending on the issue of the moment. Successive British governments, both left and right, had not only failed to bring the labor unions under the rule of law but also given the country dire levels of currency inflation leading (with one exception of 8.3%) to annual double-digit price increases1. Decades of abject policy failure culminated in three months of anarchy. It started on January 3, 1979 and ended on March 28, 1979 when Her Majesty’s Government lost a no-confidence motion by just one vote, thus precipitating a General Election.2 1 In the six years from 1974 through 1979, annual price increases were 16.0%, 24.2%, 16.5%, 15.8%, 8.3% and 13.4% so what you could buy for £100 in 1974 cost £240 in 1979. 2 Minority governments may lose many day-to-day votes and still press on governing but not a vote of “no confidence” which necessitates a visit by the Prime Minister to Buckingham Palace to ask Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to dissolve Parliament and call a General Election. This happened on only one other

11

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

The list of industrial atrocities committed during those three months still influences British politics today nearly three decades later. Such atrocities included the disruption of gas supplies and the closure of gas stations; the picketing of major ports, oil refineries and manufacturers of “essentials” resulting in the laying off of over 1 million workers; strikes by ambulance drivers including refusal to attend 911 calls; strikes by hospital support staff; strikes by trash collectors and even an unofficial strike by grave diggers. Reports of food shortages around the country began to appear as distribution channels were disrupted. The British polity was seared by a series of iconic images such as closed gas stations; picket lines; hospital support staff — not doctors — deciding which patients should be treated and which turned away without treatment and “if people died, so be it” as one union man said. At one point British Rail issued a five-word press notice: “There are no trains today.” Full (rather than empty!) coffins piled up in specially hired empty factories amid speculation by senior medical officers for health that they would soon have to be dumped out at sea; and the ubiquitous giant mountains of waste piled to the sky on street corners and in parks and squares that became nothing but a rat-fest. It was grim! Very grim indeed! What had the country come to when pregnant women were denied medicals, disabled people’s homes were blockaded and trolleys carrying meals for old people were smashed to pieces? And at the General Election on May 3, exactly four months after it had all started, the electorate took its revenge with a swing from Labour to Conservative of 5.2%, the biggest since 1945. Early the very next day, May 4, as Labour bled red and the Conservatives gained + 62 net seats, this swing propelled Conservative Party Leader Mrs. Margaret Thatcher MP from her constituency of Finchley in north London to her Party headquarters (Conservative Central Office) at 32 Smith Square in the heart of Westminster. Following speeches, kisses (or rather just one kiss for her staunch ally Russell Lewis) and toasts, she was that afternoon driven to Buckingham Palace occasion in the 20th century, namely 1924, when the first Labour government (a minority one) had also fallen. On that occasion Ramsay MacDonald asked the King to dissolve Parliament. Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin won the ensuing General Election.

12

Introduction

where the head of state Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II graciously invited her to form a new government.1 And from there she was driven to No 10 Downing Street with a good workable majority of 43 to become her nation’s first (and still only) woman Prime Minister2 and only the fourth elected lady leader of a country in recent world history following Sirimavo Bandaranaike (Sri Lanka) 1960–1965; 1970–1977; 1994–2000; Indira Gandhi (India) 1966–1977; 1980–1984; and Golda Meir (Israel) 1969–1974. She was also the first woman in British political life to hold any of the four top jobs, namely Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister. She was Prime Minister for 11 ½ years from that spring day in 1979 until November 28, 1990 when John Major followed her for 6 ½ years until he went down to a record defeat on May Day 1997 to Tony Blair, a Conservative majority of +21 becoming a New Labour majority of +177. See Appendix II for British General Elections 1945–2005. Given no clearly defining Major philosophy or goal (he was very much the quiet middle-manager type), the Thatcher era can be fairly said to extend the full 18 years from 1979 to 1997. At the start of that period the French Ambassador had said that Britain was suffering from “degringolade” or falling down sickness; the West German Ambassador had said Britain had “the economy of East Germany”; and of the 22 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Britain ranked 19th. Britain was the “sick man of Europe.” She was in the last chance saloon. The situation was so desperate that “serious” commentators opined that Germany and Japan had been “lucky” to have had the American USAF by day and the British RAF by night blow up its old factories, thus help1 Margaret Thatcher was Her Majesty the Queen’s 9th Prime Minister following Messrs. Attlee, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson, Heath, and Callaghan. 2 As Prime Minister she was not head of state. In corporate terms Her Majesty the Queen is CEO and the Prime Minister is COO. In day-to-day terms Prime Minister Thatcher “ran the country” but she was never head of state. This only ever irked her when, say, ten years later (as a senior world leader of vast experience and with a track record second to none) protocol at various international meetings put her behind many insignificant, long-forgotten figures who were or had been heads of state. To be, with President Reagan, one of the two leaders of the free world, yet have to stand well down the receiving line must have been truly galling.

13

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

ing them to build new ones while Britain struggled with old capital.1 Inflation was rampant, the unions were out of control (“running the country” even) and the nationalized industries were under performing, unaccountable, and gobbling up billions in subsidies. Even the French GDP was streets ahead of the British. Radical policy solutions were pooh-poohed. The British (in particular the English majority) play cricket and it was simply assumed just like baseball that you had your turn at bat and then the others had their turn. So it was a waste of time to do anything radical as the other side would only get back in next time and undo everything. What was needed, it was believed, was stability not change. So the Brits were told by all sides. And they believed it. But 18 years later Britain had jumped from 19th to 2nd place on the OECD ladder. It had become a nation of entrepreneurs with self-employment doubling from 7% to 14% of the workforce. As Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson (later Lord Lawson) was to remark, the British venture capital industry hardly existed at all in 1979 but a mere six years later was twice the size of “its counterparts in the rest of the European Community taken together.” The socio-economic group we call “the middle class” had leapt from 33% to 50% of the population. Home ownership (as opposed to private renting or public housing) had also leapt from 53% to 71%2. Ownership of shares by individuals had gone from 7% to 23% and astonishingly among trade union members from 6% to 29% — in other words from below the national average to well above! Finally the percentage of the work force belonging to a trade union had dropped from just over 50% to 18% and days lost to strikes from 29.5m to 0.5m,3 and as we will see tax rates were slashed. 1 In the late seventies Economics Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek commented to the author, “I do not think the solution to Britain’s problems is to blow up all its capital!” He found the idea so preposterous as to be laughable. 2 Such a high percentage of home ownership has obvious positive benefits. However, it does detract from labor mobility. The UK surely does not have the vibrant private rental sector one sees in the United States. 3 All figures in this paragraph are from a speech to the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) by Sir Robert Worcester of Market and Opinion Research International (MORI) in 1998. Sir Robert, while born in Missouri, was raised in Kansas. To meet him is to understand why Missouri is known as the “show me” state.

14

Introduction

The transformation was stunning on many fronts. Pre-Thatcher a sclerotic union dominated economy was typified by surly service, poor products and a craven business class. Post-Thatcher even the institutionally left leaning British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has had to extend its coverage of the private business sector quite considerably such is the interest in capitalism by employees, entrepreneurs and shareholders. And both service and product quality have been improved many times over. The choice and level of quality and service that had so stunned me on my first visit to the US in 1974 was becoming commonplace in the UK of 1997. This book is my personal portrait of Margaret Thatcher, the woman who was the pivotal point of the rescue of a country, the woman who woke up her nation and made it once again a world leader and player. It is not only the story of her life but also an examination of the ideas, interests, and circumstances surrounding key events. After all she did not operate in a vacuum.

15

1. Childhood “No woman in my time will be Prime Minister — or Chancellor or Foreign Secretary — not the top jobs. Anyway I wouldn’t want to be Prime Minister. You have to give yourself 100%.”

Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on October 13, 1925 under the sign of Libra (the scale) and above her parents’ grocery store on North Parade, Grantham, in the United Kingdom’s east coast county of Lincolnshire. Her home had no bath and no running hot water. Grantham was a moderately important regional “market” town which owed a lot to being on the Great North Road, a major transport artery. It was also connected by water canal and railroad. Prior to Margaret its most famous former resident was the scientist Sir Isaac Newton. In Margaret’s youth the population was circa 30,000 and while it had wealthy prosperous areas it also had meaner, rougher neighborhoods, including one right behind the shop where she was born and raised. Like her predecessor Edward Heath and her next four successors as Conservative Party leaders (John Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, and Michael Howard — but not the current leader David Cameron) Margaret came from what is often patronizingly called “humble”1 stock but what was in effect the hard working, self-employed backbone of Britain who were pulling themselves and their families up the 1 “Modest” is perhaps a better word but “humble” is more in use.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

economic and social ladders on their own initiative and had truly great hopes for their children. Self employment is written all over Margaret’s family tree. Her grocery-store entrepreneur father, Alfred Roberts, had four generations of nearby Northamptonshire shoemakers as his ancestors while her mother, Beatrice Stephenson, had had her own small business. Margaret and older sister Muriel (born 1921) grew up in the apartment over the shop. Those eighteen years (until she left for Oxford University) of close exposure to and involvement in the daily routine and the problem-solving and decision-making that come with running your own business were to form a major building block of both her political philosophy and her approach to life and work. Her hometown of Grantham is often called “provincial” in a condescending way, implying a restricted outlook and a lack of big city smarts, polish and refinement.1 If such narrowness was indeed a danger then it was surely nullified ten times over by Margaret’s father. Alf Roberts was arguably the single greatest influence on Margaret, beating out her political mentor Keith Joseph, her husband Denis Thatcher, and her great friend Ronald Reagan by a country mile. He towers over her early life both physically (at over six feet tall) and intellectually, as reportedly the best-read man in the area, Margaret bringing home lots of books every week for him from the local public library. Alf left school at twelve or thirteen (reports disagree) and gravitated immediately to food distribution and retailing, starting as an assistant in the “tuck shop”2 at a prominent “public”3 school. Margaret 1 The phrase “provincial grammar school girl” has four words of which three were put downs in her youth. In Margaret’s time every child in the nation took an exam at the end of 5th grade called the “11+.” If you passed, you went to the local grammar school and probably stayed until you were 16 or 18; if you failed, you went to the local “secondary modern” and left at, say, 14. However, see the story of her adviser Sir Alan Walters in Chapter 24. There was more fluidity between the two systems than critics credit. 2 A “tuck” shop is found in nearly every UK boarding school. It is the place where students spend their allowance or pocket money on items to supplement their school diet. A carpenter at the same school was the father of Eric Heffer, a major leftist leader in Parliament. Margaret was much later to use this fact to devastating effect in a parliamentary debate as a carpenter would have been socially and economically well above a tuck shop assistant. 3 British “public schools” are in fact private. They are called “public” because they are in a very real sense open to any member of the public to apply who can pay the fees, just as a public house or pub is open to anyone who can pay the price

18

1. Childhood

grew up in a home that was far from wealthy but Alf and her mother do seem to have built a sound business mostly immune from economic downturns. It was of course a different era with none of the appliances we take for granted, no television at all, and a wireless (radio) only when Margaret was about to turn into her teens. Even then there were only three stations. Reading and sustained adult conversation around the dinner table were the order of the day. The Roberts were serious, very serious Methodists. Alf was a lay preacher of renown and Sundays meant no newspaper, church three times and Margaret playing the piano in Sunday school. Even she balked at the fourth service in the evening after doing morning service and two Sunday schools! Alf also found time to be a councilman, Alderman,1 Mayor (often accompanied by Margaret), Magistrate, and prominent Rotarian. And during World War II he was an Air Raid Precaution Warden (ARP) as German bombers pounded Margaret’s hometown, aiming for its munitions factory and killing scores of civilians. In his 2008 memoir From House to House, former Conservative MP Sir David Mitchell tells the story of a constituent who had been an air force pilot in World War II. He had been shot down over the English Channel and rescued by the Air Sea Rescue. Badly injured, he was first been treated in the south of England and then sent to the north east for specialist treatment in Newcastle. The train is very slow and makes many stops. It gets to Grantham and the passengers are told that a heavy ongoing bombing raid will prevent the train from advancing. The injured pilot beds down on the ticket room floor but is soon roused by ARP Warden Roberts, who insists on taking the man home and giving him a good bed for the night. Next morning a young girl called Margaret makes him breakfast before leaving for school. Methodism was often a rich breeding ground for socialism and pacifism but not for Alf and his little Margaret. While he was nominally a member of the Liberal Party, the traditional 19th century advocates of of a pint. “Private” education would be understood to mean the hiring of private tutors. 1 Aldermen no longer exist in British politics. They were in effect senior greybeards elected by the directly elected councilmen.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

free trade and free markets, he ran as an independent or rate-payer’s (i.e. tax-payer’s) candidate and was through and through a conservative. The cornerstone of his philosophy was individual responsibility and a favorite book was John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. Deeply patriotic he had on six occasions, possibly more, tried to volunteer during World War I — a war which took the life of his younger brother — only to be turned down for medical reasons. So it was total immersion in public affairs from the day she was born for this bright little girl Margaret. And apparently she lapped it up, loved every minute of it and at an age when other little girls might have been home with Mom, Margaret would be out with Dad attending a University outreach lecture or getting books from the library or struggling with quite difficult philosophy texts. And it was not all theory. With the entry of America into World War II came the USAF to the great flat areas of Margaret’s south east Lincolnshire. It was so flat that airfield construction was very easy and it was near the east coast and therefore closer to Germany than most other parts of the UK. This raised important dinner time discussion issues in the Roberts household. Sundays were sacrosanct but the pilots and crew deserved their R&R. A compromise solution was reached: the movie theater could open but not the parks. Why this distinction? Men in parks would disturb the peace of the Sabbath — men watching movies inside would not! Margaret’s mother Beatrice was more practical. From her Margaret learned how to run a household and above all how to organize her time. If Alf gave her the foundations of her later philosophy, it was Beatrice who gave her the personal time-management tools that made her so effective and so hard to keep up with. From both she learned to be careful with every penny, to waste nothing, to live within your means, and to save. Beatrice was born and bred in Grantham. Her father was the cloakroom attendant at the railroad station and her mother a farm girl turned factory worker. Beatrice was a seamstress or dressmaker apparently with her own micro-business when she married Alf at the age of 28 and had Muriel and Margaret when she was 33 and 37.

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1. Childhood

She was an ardent Methodist (just as well!) and a great saver. She furnished the house with good quality dark mahogany items purchased at sales.1 Beatrice made most of Muriel and Margaret’s clothes buying top quality fabrics again at sales times; tacking cottons were re-used! She was, according to Margaret, an excellent, well-organized cook. She played the piano and sang contralto to Alf’s alto. Margaret too learned to play quite well but growing amounts of schoolwork led her to stop in her mid-teens when she had to cram years of Latin into a few months. Beatrice also took the girls on holiday every summer. As shop keepers Mom and Pop Roberts could never vacation together. Beatrice lived just long enough to see Margaret enter Parliament but died in 1960. Of her mother Margaret has written: “She had been a great rock of family stability. She managed the household, stepped in to run the shop when necessary, entertained, supported my father in his public life and as Mayoress, did a great deal of voluntary social work for the church, displayed a series of practical domestic talents such as dressmaking and was never heard to complain.”

And: “Although in later years I would speak more readily of my father’s political influence on me, it was from my mother that I inherited the ability to organize and combine so many different duties of an active life.”

Margaret was something of a precocious child. She could read before starting grade school and was quickly bumped up a year, meaning she would eventually be eligible to go up to university at age 17 and not the more usual 18 or 19. She had learned to play piano and recite poetry aloud to audiences (winning prizes since she was 10), which was surely good grounding for later public speaking. When a teacher implied that Margaret had been “lucky” to win the recital prize, the 10-year-old gave her a lecture on the value of hard work and preparation. And she claims that it was the twin combination of the works of Rudyard Kipling and the products of Hollywood shown at her local movie theater that opened her mind to the wider world. That great classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, starring James Stewart, was a big hit with young Margaret. It is easy to imagine her empathizing with the 1 Margaret inherited this passion for dark mahogany, which led her to build a small collection of silver as “it looks so good in such a setting,” she says.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

young politician (Jefferson Smith played by Stewart) chosen to fulfill the unexpired term of a deceased Senator. Once in DC, Smith butts heads with the corrupt political machine, refuses to give up his principles and is framed. Needless to say the movie has a happy ending, was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and regularly appears in lists of Top 100 movies ever made. However it is doubtful that she ever saw Ronald Reagan in a movie, at least during her youth. After Kipling another great favorite (introduced to her by Alf of course) was Walt Whitman whose views were broadly liberal in the classical European sense. He was a staunch opponent of tariffs which he regarded as “malevolent” and “flying in the face of American ideals.” Tariffs make the rich richer and the poor poorer he observed. “I hate it root and branch.” He wanted free trade to knock down “barriers between peoples” remarking that “I want to see the countries all wide open.” And that “it takes struggles in life to make strength. It takes fight for principles to make fortitude. It takes crises to give courage. And it takes singleness of purpose to reach an objective.” Heady stuff and just the sort of rhetoric she would later adopt and for which she would become world famous. And walking — she seems to have walked everywhere, with or without Pop Roberts. She would walk a mile to school, a mile back for lunch (cheaper that way); a mile back to school and a mile back home. Long walks in the countryside around Grantham were a big part of her life and she has clear, strong memories of walking by the dole queues of the depression years. As well as piano, poetry recitals, movies and the company of her pal Margaret Goodrich she enjoyed board games but reports on her athletic skills are mixed ranging from her own selfdeprecating remarks to one account of her fine play as a field hockey center half.1 Whichever, sport was never really that big in her life, not even with sport-aholic husband Denis later in life. 1 In late 2007 her grandson, Michael Thatcher, helped his high school in Dallas, TX win the state championship. This led to the following quote in the press from former Tory Sports Minister, Iain Sproat: “At school Margaret was the youngest on the (field) hockey team. She played at centre-half and rose to be captain. Her image of being anti-sport stems from her aversion to her husband’s favorite game, golf. She did enjoy skiing — it was the only time she wore trousers.” To be more accurate she also wore trousers when visiting oil rigs or being taught how to drive a tank.

22

1. Childhood

Above all however the Roberts household was one where you all worked hard and never wasted a second. And this was to pay off handsomely as Margaret approached university years. Early on in grade school Miss Harding’s history lessons — probably the closest the curriculum ever got to actual politics — had inspired Margaret but she eventually decided that Miss Kay’s chemistry classes were showing her a vision of a future in which she could play a big part. Alf and Margaret set their sights on Somerville College, Oxford. But there were two problems to overcome. The first was Margaret’s lack of Latin, a prerequisite even for chemistry and not taught at her school. Alf raided his savings to pay for a tutor and eight weeks later she was at what Brits call ‘O’ level standard.1 This normally takes say several hundred hours of classroom tuition and homework and even though she was now maturing intellectually and had a private tutor it was still quite a remarkable feat. The other problem was more subtle. For decades grammar school students aspiring to “Oxbridge” (“Ox” from Oxford and “bridge” from Cambridge) faced a strategic dilemma: to apply in “12th Grade” or to return to school for what is effectively “13th Grade?”2 Margaret opted for the former while her teachers, including headmistress Dorothy Gilles, typically wanted her to do the latter. At first it looked as if the teachers were right. The very young Margaret — remember, she was already a year ahead — was rejected. She failed to win her scholarship and she entered “13th Grade” to try again. She became Joint Head Girl of School but two weeks later a telegram arrived — somebody had dropped out of Somerville, and Margaret was on her way.

1 “O” levels (now called GCSEs) are taken at about age 16. 2 In the British system the “12th Grade” was called “the Upper 6th” and the “13th Grade” was called “third year Sixth Form.”

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2. University “I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.”

So in early October 1943, right about her 18th birthday, Miss Margaret Roberts arrived at Oxford to study Chemistry. It was war-time: blackouts, nights on fire-watch, rationing, queues and no sugar in your tea were the order of the day. I asked her just over 60 years later “are you more proud of being the first lady Prime Minister or the first scientist Prime Minister?” “Oh, scientist, definitely scientist,” she replied instantly and typically without a doubt. There had been a lot more it turned out to her desire to get into Oxford in 1943 rather than 1944 (as proposed by her teachers) than had originally met the eye. Most British degrees take three years as opposed to four in the United States. This is because British children spend 14 years in grade school not 12 — they go from age 5 to 18 as opposed to say 6 to 17. Chemistry at Oxford was an exception — it was a four year degree with the final year being devoted full time to a major piece of original research. And you graduated with both a Bachelors and a Master’s degree. However, starting in 1944, the growing flow of mature often married ex-servicemen anxious to make up time and get on with 25

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

their lives led to the temporary introduction of two year degrees. This is not what Miss Roberts wanted and she escaped it by the skin of her teeth. Her college Somerville had been set up as a Hall in 1879 and was one of the first for women, but had not become a full college of the university until 1920. Led by Dame Janet Vaughan1 its students faced no religious tests or obligations unlike its contemporaneous and deeply Anglican (i.e., Episcopalian) Lady Margaret Hall. Somerville turns out to have been a kindergarten for female politicians including Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Shirley Summerskill MP (daughter of Dr. Edith Summerskill MP) and one time Labour Party leadership hopeful Mrs. Shirley Williams MP later Lady Williams of Crosby and from 1988 to 2000 a Professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Novelists Vera Brittain (mother of Shirley Williams), Iris Murdoch, and Dorothy Sayers are also alumnae. Dame Janet Vaughan was a socialist and did not hide her views. She viewed Miss Margaret Roberts as a cuckoo in her college nest and in the four years their lives crossed Janet never once invited Margaret to the many social events she hosted. Miss Roberts initially found Oxford to be “cold and strangely forbidding” and in her memoirs she adds: “I arrived, rather homesick and apprehensive…” However, she joined the Oxford Bach Choir, a Methodist Study Group and of course the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA). In the Choir she sang first alto and it was by odd coincidence led by Thomas Armstrong father of Sir Robert Armstrong who was to become Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet Secretary in the eighties. She was assigned to Somerville’s most famous (until Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher got into her stride) alumna and teacher, namely Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin (1910-1994).2 Then only 33, Hodgkin went on to win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry two decades later in 1964 and was awarded the second ever Order of Merit (OM) to a lady by Her 1 (1899–1993) Vaughan was the famous clinical pathologist who worked at Harvard in the 1930s on pernicious anemia. 2 Hodgkin as in the left-leaning Thomas Hodgkin she had married in the late 1930s. She was the third woman to get the Nobel in Chemistry, after Marie Curie in 1911 and her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie in 1935.

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2. University

Majesty the Queen in 1965. The Nobel, according to the citation, was or “her determination by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances.” She was later honored with her own stamp by the British postal service and the picture on that stamp shows her just as Miss Roberts would have known her. The OM for Hodgkin was the first awarded to a lady since that given to Florence Nightingale in 1907. Lady Thatcher herself was admitted to the Order of Merit in 1990 as the fifth female OM1. In the Thatcher memoirs Hodgkin is described as an “ever-helpful tutor” who got her some modest college grants to see her through. She adds that Hodgkin was “a brilliant scientist and gifted teacher.” John Campbell, one of Thatcher’s many biographers, quotes Hodgkin on Thatcher as follows: “I came to rate her as good. One could always rely on her producing a sensible, well-read essay and yet there was something that some people had that she hadn’t quite got… She was not absolutely devoted to it (chemistry).” But as Campbell asks: “Why should she be? She had no intention of becoming a chemist except in the short term.” Her fourth-year dissertation reports another biographer Hugo Young was effectively to be Hodgkin’s research assistant. Working with a German refugee scientist she pushed forward on a new scientific frontier suggested by Hodgkin’s own work. They failed but she nevertheless got her degree and the chemistry puzzle they worked on was not cracked until 1980. There were a few girls studying at Oxford from “northern” grammar schools but female students were mostly public (i.e., private) school girls with the resources to exploit all Oxford had to offer. That required money, and Miss Roberts just did not have it. She took her time — after all, she had four years. In between long walks, the choir, OUCA and finding a comfortable place of worship

1 Between Dorothy Hodgkin and Margaret Thatcher were historian Cicely Veronica Wedgwood in 1969 and hospice movement founder Dame Cicely Sanders in 1989. After Margaret came the opera singer Dame Joan Sutherland in 1991, ballerina Dame Ninette de Valois in 1992, and former Commons Speaker, Betty Boothroyd in 2005. There is an interesting philosophical connection between Wedgwood and Thatcher as the former attended the first ever meeting in 1947 of the Mont Pelerin Society (a group of classical liberal scholars) many of whom such as Friedman and Hayek were to influence the latter.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

(the Wesley Memorial Church) there were lectures and, as a budding chemist, long afternoons in the laboratories. The famous Oxford Union debating society, where so many politicians have and still do cut their teeth, did not admit women as members until the sixties but Miss Roberts would attend as a silent auditor and observe from the gallery and take it all in. Starved of a possible debating career in the Union, she threw herself into OUCA and by her 4th and final year (1946-1947) she became its second ever lady President.1 She led resurgence in OUCA during the fall of 1946 as membership passed 1,000 for the first time in two decades. Margaret Roberts found Oxford overwhelmingly left wing although less fractious than the 1930s. The war of course put quite a damper on party political activity. The overwhelming orthodoxy was an overarching role for big centralized government. Interestingly, while she never hid her political views and would knock on any door, she seems to have kept such ideas to herself at church and within the Choir. Of course she was known to be a Conservative as she rose through the ranks of OUCA. Her generation was deeply grateful for the chance to study at Oxford University and above all at a time of world war they realized the debt they had to those who served while they merely studied. As an expression of her own indebtedness she volunteered two nights every week to serve meals to USAF personnel from the nearby Upper Heyford base in a forces canteen. One long term lesson she learned at Somerville was the importance of small units. While chemistry labs might need to be organized at the university level there was a lot to be said for living in small colleges; an early insight into the principle of subsidiarity, one might argue! Oxford was important to Margaret Roberts in many ways. No other university has come close to its domination of recent British politics. Indeed 25 British Prime Ministers have graduated there and Prime Ministers Attlee (’45–’51), Eden (’55–’57), Macmillan (’57–’63), Douglas-Home (’63–’64), Wilson (’64–’70 and ’74–’76), Heath (’70–’74), 1 The first was Rachel Willink just a few terms earlier — she was the daughter of Henry Willink, Churchill’s Minister of Health. Margaret Roberts was therefore the first Lady President without high “connections.”

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2. University

Thatcher (’79–’90), and Blair (’97–2007) have served Her Majesty the Queen (and her father before her) as Prime Minister for all but fourteen years since the 1945 General Election and all are Oxonians.1 Her time at Oxford can be split in two on several fronts. For her first two years she lived in college; for her last two she moved out into private rented accommodation or what the British call “digs.”2 For her first two years there were more women than usual; the men were at war and those left behind were either older, infirm, or very young and waiting for the draft. In her final two years, large numbers of veterans returned or entered and this changed the whole atmosphere and added a lot in her view. While she studied chemistry, politics was clearly her first love and destiny. It was there at Oxford that she first got to know many whose paths would become entwined with her own including Edward Boyle who was later a Conservative MP and education minister; William Rees-Mogg later Editor of The Times, member of the House of Lords, and one of the cleverest and most thoughtful men of his era; Robin Day3 a Liberal who was later to be a member of her law chambers and who went on to pioneer a particularly rude and combative form of TV interviewing. Other notable contemporaries were Tony Benn, then the Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, socialist son of Lord Stansgate and father of Hilary Benn who currently serves as a Labour minister; Kenneth Harris, who was to become a prominent political journalist and write a biography of her called simply Thatcher; and Anthony Crosland,4 who was to pen The Future of Socialism, was a Labour modernizer of his day and later, like her, Secretary of Education ’65–’67. He was famously to say, “If there is one thing I will do I will smash every ******* grammar school in the country,” and much of her time as Education Secretary was spent undoing his policies. Kenneth Tynan, the controversial 1 Their colleges were respectively University, Christ Church, Balliol, Christ Church, Jesus, Balliol, Somerville, and St. Johns. Their majors were Law; Oriental Languages; History (did not graduate because of WWI); Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE); PPE; Chemistry; and Law. 2 “Digs” is an abbreviation of “Diggings” and to be in “Digs” is to share various facilities and to have certain meals provided by the landlady. 3 It is not clear if they actually overlapped. 4 Crosland married Susan Catling of Baltimore, MD in 1964. As Foreign Secretary in 1976 he took Henry Kissinger to watch Grimsby play a soccer game against Gillingham in Blundell Park, Grimsby.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

yet influential British theatre critic and writer who died in 1980 was a contemporary. as was Ludovic Kennedy, the journalist (including for Newsweek), author and broadcaster and Liberal candidate for Rochdale in 1958. As President of OUCA, she rubbed shoulders with many Conservative Party leaders and she was to meet so many talented young people between say 1943 (going up) and 1953 (birth of her twins) that by the 1970s to watch the evening TV news was to catch up on what your old “chums” were up to. But there were other influences at Oxford as she continued to read widely most notably C.S. Lewis’s (Screwtape Letters (1942) and Abolition of Man (1943)); F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1944); Colm Brogan’s Who Are ‘The People’ (1943) and Our New Masters (1947); Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940) and Karl Popper’s The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945). Midway through her four years at Oxford came the 1945 General Election that was to see the victorious war leader Winston Churchill trounced by the socialist Clem Attlee. She was extremely active both for Quentin Hogg in Oxford and, when term ended and she went down, for Squadron Leader Worth back home in Grantham, for whom she was a “warm-up” speaker aged all of 19 years and 9 months. The Sleaford Gazette of June 29 described her as “very youthful” and her opening words were, “I speak as a very young Tory”; but then she used that to her advantage as it was her generation which would “bear the brunt” of much needed changes she claimed. However the national mood was strongly in favor of governmentsponsored safety nets. A generation earlier, the returning troops of World War I had been promised “a land fit for heroes” and had walked slap bang into the UK’s depressed 1920s. This time they were “not to be cheated.” The cry went up: “As in war, so in peace,” namely the government would own, control, and direct pretty much everything. After all, it had worked in war hadn’t it — when we all set aside personal ambitions and pulled together! If it worked in war then surely it would work in peace and in any case, while Churchill had been running the war and going overseas, hadn’t nice Mr. Attlee been running the coun-

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2. University

try? And Churchill did not help his cause by insisting that the socialists would need a “Gestapo” of their own to implement their policies. Those were the glory years of collectivism with the nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy, the expansion of welfarism, and the establishment of a nationalized health industry spun as the National Health Service (NHS) and soon to replace the Church of England in the British psyche. Even in 1988 Prime Minister Thatcher was forced to say “the NHS is safe in our hands”; such is its hold on the British people. With Churchill out and her exams behind her, Margaret Roberts started her final year at Oxford by going as an OUCA representative to her first Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, a loud, jolly, Coney Island kind of resort town of Victorian origin on the coast of Lancashire in northwest England where the staple diet is fish and chips with mushy peas.1 For many decades the UK’s three main parties have held their annual conventions over a three week season stretching from late September through mid October — it comes at the end of the summer recess and before Her Majesty the Queen opens the new Parliament. Such japes always seem to take place at seaside resorts and for decades the Conservative and Labour parties went turn and turn about between the north’s Blackpool and the south’s Brighton with the southwest’s tonier Bournemouth, Yorkshire’s even tonier Harrogate and a rejuvenated Manchester getting into the lineup in recent times. Margaret Roberts was thrilled to be around so many — hundreds if not thousands — fellow Conservatives but the lack of clearly articulated opposition to the evils of socialism and its first cousin communism left her despondent. To her the whole meeting had an air of the inevitability of socialism and a clear sense that conservatives had to learn how to accommodate rather than confront such arrant nonsense. This unease was further reinforced in May 1947 as she prepared to leave Oxford and her party published its Industrial Charter, a dog’s breakfast of socialism and corporatism with a few odd bones for the free marketeers. Churchill was reportedly not at all happy with it. Little did the authors realize what was to come! 1 Mushy peas are peas that have been mushed to the extent they are easy to smear all over every forkful of your meal. Not to be confused with guacamole.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Two dates are etched deeply in her memory from those last years at Oxford: August 6, 1945 and March 5, 1946. As a scientist, albeit in training, she had a fair understanding of the science behind the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. She read all she could find for a year or more on the effects of the bombing but fully bought into the American explanation that the bombing helped to bring the war to an end. Just seven months later, in March 1946, her spirits were tremendously boosted by Winston Churchill’s speech in Fulton, Missouri to Westminster College. This was the kind of clear anti-communist message she longed to hear. It contained two main themes. The first was a dire warning about communism. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. “In a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization.”

The second was a powerful exposition of the history and special ties which bind the US and the UK so firmly together in “The Special Relationship.” “If the population of the English-speaking Commonwealth be added to that of the United States, with all that such cooperation implies in the air, on the sea, all over the globe, and in science and in industry, and in moral force, there will be no quivering, precarious balance of power to offer its temptation to ambition or adventure. On the contrary there will be an overwhelming assurance of security. “If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength, seeking no one’s land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control upon the thoughts

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of men, if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own in fraternal association, the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.”

Having earned a degree, with high marks, while pursuing outside interests as well, Alf’s daughter was well launched on a career and into society. How far could she go?

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3. Launching “Pennies don’t fall from heaven. They have to be earned on earth.”

Between the summer of 1947 and the fall of 1959 Margaret Roberts/Thatcher was characteristically busy. Inter alia, she started her career as a research chemist; twice fought a Labour held parliamentary seat; married Denis Thatcher; and had twins Mark and Carol. She also switched to the law, qualifying as a tax barrister; wrote and spoke often in the Conservative interest; got rejected for several safe seats; was finally adopted for a safe seat and got elected to Parliament with a huge majority. Following several months of job interviews the young Margaret Roberts opted for a firm called BX Plastics based in Manningtree, Essex which lies east of London and north of the Thames Estuary. Living in the lovely town of Colchester, she bused to work with colleagues and quickly joined the local Conservative Party, reveling in its policy discussion groups. She eschewed the Young Conservatives which was a glorified marriage bureau at the time and instead focused on the ’39– ’45 Group which was an older and more serious group of thinkers of the war generation. They would have been in their mid to late twenties making her by far the youngest member.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

In the fall of 1948 the Conservative Party’s annual conference was scheduled for the Welsh seaside resort of Llandudno and she arranged to attend representing the Oxford University Graduate Conservative Association.1 She was days short of turning 23, she had no private income and she was not on her party’s list of approved candidates yet she so impressed officials of the Dartford, Kent constituency that they asked her to apply to be their candidate. While Kent lies east of London and south of the Thames Estuary and is often called “the garden of England,” it also has its rougher industrial areas of which Dartford was one and Labour held it with a huge majority of 20,000. The Tory Party ranked Dartford as “a most hostile part of the county.” After three rounds of interviews Margaret Roberts emerged as the candidate on January 31, 1949 aged 23! She has since speculated that the size of the Labour majority helped in her selection. Because the local Tories were never ever going to win such a seat they had nothing to lose — what the heck they thought, let’s have some fun with this incredibly dynamic, energetic woman who is so young and beautiful we might get a little national publicity. February 1949 was a trebly important month. First, she managed to persuade her party’s HQ, Conservative Central Office, to put her on the approved list of candidates post ante. Second, she got the support of the whole of the constituency membership (all 100%, rather than just its officers) at her formal adoption meeting. Third, at a celebratory dinner for senior constituency officers that very night, she met businessman Denis Thatcher who had been at her adoption meeting and very much liked what he’d seen and heard. Later that evening he drove her into central London, dropping her off at Liverpool Street Station for a late train back to Essex. Margaret Roberts quickly realized that the Essex to Kent journey through two separate central London stations made for an impossible schedule and she quickly resigned from BX Plastics, joined J Lyons in central London as a research chemist, and took up lodgings or “digs” in her constituency of Dartford. Within a year the 1950 General Election 1 This was a bit of a backdoor way in. If she had tried to go as one of, say, six representing Colchester, she would have been way down the list.

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was underway and she attended to paperwork in the mornings, canvassed on the doorstep in the afternoons, and spoke at meeting after meeting every night. Sir David Mitchell recounts that he was one of Margaret Roberts’ warm-up speakers. At the end of the evening Denis took David for a drink and commented: “If you can hear the woman you love making the same speech twenty-one times and you still love her, it’s going to be all right!” This was nearly ten years before TV was to impact elections at all and it was very hard physical work. It was utterly exhausting even for a fit 24-year-old but she gained first national and then international exposure of a very flattering nature. She was the youngest woman running for Parliament; she was close to London and the media; she was very attractive, single, literate and, my word, was she articulate. Labour’s gigantic majority in Parliament was cut from 146 to 5; Margaret Roberts had made a swingeing cut in the socialist majority in Dartford from around 20,000 to around 14,000; and Denis (ten years her senior and already divorced — but see later) had proposed and — after serious thought — she had accepted. She had also made a great impression on her party’s regional agent Beryl Cook. The Daily Telegraph, a leading British newspaper, recently revealed that it had discovered a memo in the Conservative Party archive at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in which Cook writes of Margaret Roberts: “Every meeting she has had has been packed and people turned away. When the hall was next door to a cinema the manager rushed out — he thought there was a fire because so many people were leaving, but they were the people who could not get into the meeting. She excels at questions and always gives a straight and convincing answer. She is never heckled; they have too much respect for her. When the meeting ends people crowd round her — generally Socialists — to ask more questions, really genuine ones. Miss Roberts has visited and spoken to the workers in very many factories. The Socialists were very annoyed about this until they learned that the same facilities were open to them but never asked for. They had the grace to acknowledge that she got there first.” The same archive reports The Daily Telegraph contains another memo dated two years later in which John Hare, Conservative Party Vice 37

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Chairman, in charge of Parliamentary candidates, writes: “She is a remarkable young woman who is not to be deterred from pursuing a political career in spite of her recent marriage and the possibility of producing and bringing up a family. Miss Beryl Cook describes her as the best woman candidate she has ever known. I would also agree, as in our short interview she struck me as being a woman of immense personality and charm with a brain quite clearly above the average. I did my best to warn her of the horrors of life in the House of Commons especially in so far as this life affects the home. Nothing I said deterred her.” With a majority of only five, Labour and everybody else in the country knew another General Election was not far off — months, not years. Margaret Roberts was quickly readopted by her friends in Dartford. Having done so well in 1950, she might have been tempted to look for a better (even a winnable) seat elsewhere1 but there is no evidence of anything but 100% loyalty to the folks in Dartford who had had the courage to select her in the first place. She did however obtain her first car, a Ford Prefect, and she moved out of the constituency to a small apartment in St. George’s Square Mews, Pimlico, an interesting, slightly Bohemian part of London on the better side of the River Thames between Westminster to the north, Chelsea to the west and Victoria and Belgravia to the north west. It was not far from Denis’s apartment and, given that her weekends were taken up with politics and his with refereeing rugby union football games, their ongoing romance was very much a mid-week affair. Coincidentally (or was it?) she moved into the Pimlico district just as Ealing Studios, then a top UK film maker, was marketing Passport to Pimlico starring Margaret Rutherford and Stanley Holloway. Passport to Pimlico is a classic British movie whose message must have appealed to the young politician. In a nutshell the residents of Pimlico become sick and tired of petty bureaucracy and post-war rationing (which actually exceeded that of the war and did not disappear until the mid 1950s). Discovering an old treaty they secede from the UK and become a micronation — if you are not a resident then you need a passport to enter, hence the movie’s title. 1 Unlike the US, British political candidates are completely free to apply for their party’s nomination anywhere in the country. No local ties, family, or interests are needed though they might help at the margin. One even gets Scots representing English seats.

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Some of the scenes were particularly on target politically. This was the era of the Berlin Blockade and the subsequent year long airlift after President Truman had told General Lucius Clay not to charge down the autobahn with his tanks as that might lead to yet another war. Scenes in the movie of the free residents of Pimlico cut off by the UK government were redolent of the Blockade. The General Election did indeed follow quickly on October 25 in the fall of 1951. Margaret Roberts, turning 26 just twelve days before, slashed another good chunk off of her opponent’s majority getting it down to just over 12,000 on an 85% turnout. The Conservatives won with a workable majority of seventeen and Winston was back in No. 10 Downing Street.1 Margaret Roberts and Denis Thatcher now chose December 13, 1951 to be married in Wesley’s Chapel2 on City Road in London. She had become great friends with a remarkable character called Sir Alfred Bossom, Conservative MP for Maidstone, Kent from 1931 to 1959. They had met soon after her 1949 adoption, I suspect, on August 12, 1949 at Dartford Football Ground where he chaired a county-wide Conservative Party Rally and she warmed up the audience for a major speech by Anthony Eden. Bossom, an architect, had moved to the US in 1903 to build skyscrapers and marry Emily Bayne from New York City in 1910. After working for Carnegie Steel in Pittsburgh on social housing for workers, Bossom moved to Dallas, where he worked on many buildings including the Adolphus Hotel for Adolphus Busch, founder of Anheuser-Busch. After making his fortune Bossom returned to England and entered politics. He was made a Baronet in 1953 and a life member3 of the House of Lords in 1960. 1 Downing Street has been the official London residence of over 50 British Prime Ministers going back over 250 years. Next door is 11 Downing Street, home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, followed by 12 Downing Street, home of the Chief Whip. In the US the Chancellor of the Exchequer is called the Treasury Secretary. 2 Wesley’s Chapel was built by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Designed by George Dance Junior and opened in 1778, it became Wesley’s London base. 3 A life member of the House of Lords is distinct from a hereditary member. The former is for life only while the latter passes on down the generations. A baronet abbreviated to Bt. is a hereditary title. Denis Thatcher was Sir Denis Thatcher

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Bossom had become a great drinking pal of Churchill’s who would famously end serious meetings of, say, the Cabinet by announcing he was “off to Bossom’s.” However, it is said that on first hearing the name Bossom, after the ‘31 General Election, Winston said “Bossom? Bossom? Neither one thing nor the other,” that is, not bosom or bottom but Bossom! Bossom’s importance to Miss Roberts and Mr. Thatcher was that on their big day he turned over to them his London home at the prestigious address of No. 5 Carlton Gardens. It was from No. 5 that Margaret left to get married; it was at No. 5 that they held their reception; and it was in his home at No. 5 that Bossom led the toast to the happiness of the newly-weds. Father Alf Roberts was of course present and must have delighted in the event and seeing his younger daughter so well set. But Bossom was clearly the leader that day. He left the House of Commons as Margaret Thatcher entered and after four years in the Lords died in the early fall of 1964. An annual lecture in his memory still runs under the direction of the Faculty of Building of the Royal Institute of British Architects.1 Following a honeymoon in Madeira, the new Mrs. Thatcher settled down to enjoy a fairly affluent lifestyle. Denis was doing well, war time restrictions were coming off, her party was in power and she had a lovely apartment in a fashionable district. But to Mrs. Thatcher idleness is a sin and she was soon studying hard to become a barrister, half thinking she could combine her chemistry with the law and take a run at the patent bar. She had always been interested in the law since Alf’s days as a magistrate and lunches with visiting legal officials. In early 1953 she discovered she was pregnant and to her great surprise twins Mark and Carol were duly delivered by caesarean operation on Saturday, August 15 a few weeks early while Denis, in all innocence of what was happening, watched England play day one of a key interBt. so his title passed to his son Mark and will one day pass to his son Michael in Dallas. 1 Bossom was very active in the 1920s building New York’s Seaboard National Bank for his father-in-law Samuel G. Bayne, the bank’s president, and in Texas building the following: (in Dallas) American Exchange National Bank, MagnoliaMobil Petroleum Building, Maple Terrace Apartments, (in Houston) Petroleum Building (in Galveston), the United States National Bank. He also renovated Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York.

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national cricket match versus Australia at a ground called The Oval in South London. Four days later on Wednesday August 19 England won and a trophy called the Ashes1 came back home after nearly 20 years. To non-cricket players this might sound trivial but to sporting Englishmen such as Denis it was huge: a son and a daughter and the Ashes in the space of just a few days. What could possibly top that? Sitting impatiently in hospital waiting to be released (in the 1950s moms and babies often stayed in the hospital for 2 even 3 weeks) she set herself the goal of passing the bar exams just four months later. Before she could change her mind she signed the paperwork and sent it off with her check. Back home she organized life with a nanny and hit the law books duly passing in December and joining Chambers2 as a pupil.3 She was over the next two years to spend time in four different sets of Chambers sampling different areas of law before rejecting patents (too little work) and selecting the tax bar (no shortage there!). But attorney Thatcher was no narrow technician. She delved into the philosophy of law and discovered A.V. Dicey’s The Law of the Constitution which stressed the importance of the rule of law and warned against attacks upon it. Her deep study of Dicey is probably responsible for her view that the rule of law is far more important for liberty than any system of one man one vote. She also returned to Hayek with his Constitution of Liberty in 1960 and later his three-volume Law, Legislation, and Liberty which came out between 1973 and 1979. The former contains as an appendix Hayek’s famous essay, Why I Am Not a Conservative. Despite this, the Constitution of Liberty is the book she famously smashed down on a table at a meeting of some of her rather pink (socialist) policy advisers while leader of HM Opposition (1975–1979) and declared stoutly: “This is what we believe in!”

1 The Ashes is the name given to a series of games of cricket played by England and Australia since 1882. When Australia beat England for the very first time, a small cricket item was cremated and the ashes put in a terracotta urn. The US has played Canada at cricket since 1844. 2 Chambers are groups of barristers and barristers are attorneys who are allowed to plead in court and undertake public trials, as opposed to solicitors who prepare the cases for the barristers. 3 Pupils are trainee barristers.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

As a new mom she deliberately chose not to be a candidate at the May 25, 1955 General Election which saw the Conservative majority soar to a very comfortable 54 — a mandate for new Conservative Prime Minister Anthony Eden. However, much as she was in demand as a speaker, she felt very much out of the real action and she fretted; it did not sit easy with her. The ensuing Suez debacle in 1956 engraved itself on her political consciousness. It was a major embarrassment for her country, her government, and her party and it quickly led to the departure of her leader Anthony Eden and his replacement by Harold Macmillan who shared with Churchill the great distinction of having an American mother.1 She tells in Volume I of her memoirs of how Suez taught her four key lessons: 1) Don’t go to war unless you are “determined and able to finish it”; 2) Don’t find yourself on the opposite side to the United States “in all major international crises affecting British interests”; 3) Make sure all you do is “in accord with international law”; and 4) “he who hesitates is lost.” Such lessons sure stood her in good stead 25+ years later when she took on the Argentineans over the Falkland Islands 8,000 miles from home and practically in the enemies’ backyard. They also come in handy when she advised President George W. Bush over the first Gulf War: “This is no time to go wobbly, George!” Another General Election beckoned by May 1960 at the very latest with either the spring or fall of 1959 likely as those last months of any government are mostly wasted times with the inevitable election looming and the Prime Minister’s room to move shrinking.2 1 Churchill’s mother was Jennie Jerome of Brooklyn whose father Leonard Jerome edited the New York Times. In Churchill’s American Heritage, by his grandson Winston S. Churchill, the latter speculates that Churchill’s extended tree included three Pilgrims, three Presidents, an astronaut and an Iroquois Indian woman. Macmillan’s mother was Helen (Nellie) Artie Tarleton of Spencer, IN. 2 Under the largely unwritten British constitution (some of it is written down but not in one place or uniform manner and in any case is being quickly taken over by the European Union based in Brussels), no Parliament may exceed five years. At any time the Prime Minister can go to Her Majesty the Queen and ask for Parliament to be dissolved and a general election called. This is a very powerful and useful weapon for any sitting Prime Minister as he or she can chose a date that suits his or her Party. Indeed it is said that some past Prime Ministers have not been beyond pump priming the economy a little so that it might boom at just the right moment.

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Having fought so well in 1950 and 1951 and having made such an impression on party bosses Mrs. Denis Thatcher was now entitled to consider only safe seats in or close to London. She relayed this information to Conservative Central Office (CCO) near Parliament where the Chief Agent for London was only too happy to try to assist this rising star. CCO staff can play a major role in helping or hindering a career. But all was not plain sailing, as time and again in places such as Orpington and Maidstone and Beckenham and Hemel Hempstead she would reach the final three or four out of, say, 150 to 250 applicants, deliver a great speech only to be sandbagged at Q&A by hostile (usually female) questioners asking how could such a young mother with two young children possibly take on the terribly onerous job of being an MP. And even if she did take it on and win, wouldn’t her kids suffer? Her defense was that she had the support of her (reasonably wellheeled) husband and a first class nanny and that she had managed to organize her life as a barrister-mom, and so she felt confident she could play the MP-mom gig. And it was the women, not the men, who were the more openly hostile. In July 1958 she put her name forward for Finchley, in north London, where the sitting MP, Sir John Crowder, was retiring. She took advice on what to wear and researched the area and local issues well. Her speech was honed to perfection and by now her public speaking confidence was such that she could and did perform without a single note. Again it looked to be a rerun of the last four years of such experiences. She made the final four with three men all accompanied by well-groomed stay-at-home wives, all in their 40s and all public school (i.e., privately) educated. Denis was off on his annual month-long sales trip to Africa and had no idea of what she was up to. She was alone but this time, despite the same barrage of personal questions, she squeaked through, coming top on the first ballot 36 to 35 and top again on the second ballot 46 to 43. Today female candidates are much encouraged and it is hard to conceive of the depth of opposition she faced and the sheer guts and tenacity needed to win through. A rump of half-a-dozen disillusioned (mostly female) activists continued to try to make life difficult and when she was later presented to the full membership, while nobody voted against her, the traditional 43

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

“unanimous” was in fact only an “overwhelming.” Days later Denis learned of her adoption as he changed planes in Nigeria and picked up a discarded copy of the London paper called the Evening Standard. The election rolled around 14 months later and on the October 8, 1959 Margaret Thatcher duly became MP for Finchley with a majority up by 3,500 to 16,260. She was just 5 days short of turning 34, the twins had just turned 6 — she was on her way. The only question was how far she would go.

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4. Elected “If you set out to be liked you would be prepared to compromise on anything at anytime, and you would achieve nothing.” Early on as an MP: “Of course you have doubts but I have not just come to this out of the blue.”

New Members of the House of Commons face interesting decisions regarding domestic arrangements. Those with seats well away from the capital mostly maintain the principal home in or very near to the constituency with some small utility apartment in Westminster or neighboring Pimlico or Lambeth. Those with London, especially central London seats, are not forced to maintain two homes and again tend to live in or very near to the constituency. Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher decided otherwise. While Finchley was well up in north London, they purchased a large home with a garden well south of London, near Farnborough in his home county of Kent. This was their sole residence and regardless of the lateness of the night Mrs. Thatcher always drove home. To her, breakfast was a key meal of the day when all four Thatchers could be together, whatever the day might hold. There was a three-line whip1 for breakfast! 1 In Parliament a three-line whip is something you disobey at your peril. Each week the Whips Office sends around a timetable of business for the coming week. Anything underlined three times is obligatory.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Following the school run (Mark and Carol were soon to go to boarding schools) Mrs. Thatcher would attend to correspondence, paperwork, and speech writing before the then 45 minute (today more like a good hour) ride to Westminster for lunch, say, and prayers at the start of business at 2:30 p.m.1 Church attendance featured every Sunday. Denis was a member of the Church of England (C. of E. or Episcopalian in the US) and the Thatchers had no wish to confuse the twins by observing different forms of worship. Fortunately the local C. of E. establishment was Low Church, not High, and therefore acceptable to Methodist Margaret. To this day she worships within the C. of E. but not as often as she would prefer as she does not like to drag her permanent security detail away from their families on the Day of Rest. The induction of Mrs. Margaret Thatcher MP into the procedures and highways and byways of the House of Commons was greatly helped by meetings of the 1922 Committee2, the Whips Office3, the advice of more senior members, and the pairing system4 where she was lucky to find a socialist acquaintance from her Dartford days who was now a northern Labour MP and happy to be her “pair”5. There was and is no substitute for hours spent on the green benches6 lapping up the procedures, points of order and style of speaking and debate and she dutifully put in those hours until she was confident she knew the ropes. However “the atmosphere was like a men’s club,” commented a 1 Proceedings in Parliament used to start every day at 2:30 p.m. with prayers and often go on into the evening. In recent years the hours have become more “family friendly.” In other words Margaret’s family breakfasts would be close run things today, if not impossible. An MP with a young family today would be more likely to be home for an early evening supper than for breakfast. 2 The 1922 Committee was formed in 1923 but takes its name from the 1922 General Election. It is made up of all Conservative backbenchers but frontbenchers may attend also. 3 The Whips Office is far more important in UK politics because MPs vote nearly always on party lines as dictated by the Chief Whip who sits in Cabinet. Free votes are rare as is rebellion against the Whip. 4 The pairing system allows you to have a buddy in the other main party with whom you agree not to vote at certain times, thus freeing up your diary. 5 A “pair” occurs when two MPs of opposing parties agree that both will not vote at certain times. Because they both abstain, the majority of the government of the day is not impacted. 6 The benches in the lower house or Commons are green while those in the upper house or Lords are red.

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female colleague. British MPs do not have assigned seats in the chamber. Indeed when more than half of the 600+ members turn up then the surplus has to stand or sit on the floor or steps as indeed they do. She staked out a spot for herself four rows back (as is only right for a backbencher1) and below or south of the central gangway. It was to this very spot that she returned 31 years later to see out her last months in the Commons before entering the Lords. Soon after Parliament convened on October 20, 1959 it was time for the annual ballot to select which backbenchers would be given Parliamentary time to introduce their very own Private Members’ Bills2. Along with 309 colleagues, she duly put forward her name and was totally astounded to come third. She’d never won a raffle in her life and now here she was in a prime position to legislate. To get your own Bill turned into an Act you need three things: first the sheer luck to come in the top few slots — only the top two or three stand any real chance; second the support of the Government or at least no active opposition from it; and third no serious opposition from a pressure group or some such that will lead to an opposing MP talking out your Bill.3 First of all she considered selecting a certain technical legal matter to remedy but even to her, a lawyer, it was too boring and her heart was not in it. Second she considered a Bill to outlaw the union closed shop4 but the Whips Office felt this was far too controversial. It would have to wait! Finally she settled on a civil liberties come first amendment issue that had been briefly mentioned in her Party’s Manifesto and that might enjoy widespread cross-party support. And she could get interested in it and passionate about it. So what was the issue? The British press had long enjoyed the statutory right to attend meetings of local town and city councils and to report on proceed1 MPs are either frontbenchers as in they speak from the front row officially for their party — this includes Ministers and Shadow Ministers — or they have no such responsibility and therefore are backbenchers. 2 A Private Member’s Bill is a proposed law introduced by a member of parliament, whether from the government or the opposition side. In Westminster the overwhelming majority of bills introduced are proposed by the Cabinet. 3“Talking out a Bill” happens when an MP opposed to it simply talks so long there is not time for a vote. 4 A closed shop is a situation in which only union members may work at a particular place.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

ings. This right however did not extend to committees and even the full council could bar the press by declaring itself to be a “committee of the whole council.” The result was that many billions of dollars of taxpayers’ monies were being spent in secret. It was all a very cozy arrangement between the councilmen and their paid officials but it was an outrage and Mrs. Margaret Thatcher MP was outraged. When the Government approves of the choice of such a Bill then the path forward suddenly clears. A former Attorney General comes forward to help on drafting and a junior Minister from the relevant department is magically at your elbow and this is how she came to meet her greatest ally Sir Keith Joseph Bt. She became so close to Keith that she dedicated one of her two volumes of memoirs to him; the other volume was dedicated to Denis, her family and all who worked for her while Prime Minister. The whole experience was also for her an introduction into the economics of politics or what is now called Public Choice theory1 or the Virginia School of Political Economy as pioneered by James Buchanan (Nobel Prize 1986) and Gordon Tullock of northern Virginia’s George Mason University. On both sides of the Thatcher Bill groups sprang up, the newspaper editors and journalists to support it and the local authority councilmen and their officers to oppose it. Private Members’ Bills were debated on Fridays. Most members tried to get away back to their constituencies on Thursday evenings so the Commons was often empty. She knew this from observation and to counter it she wrote personal handwritten letters to all 250 Conservative backbenchers asking them to attend. Now she faced another decision. She had yet to make her first or maiden speech in Parliament. This normally runs to 15 minutes, starts with at least five minutes on the marvels of your predecessor who is clearly second only to the Pope, goes on to a five-minute segment on your new constituency which makes the Garden of Eden sound like a slum, and finishes with five minutes on something non-controversial. She had thought of speaking on some of the technical monetary issues raised by Lord Radcliffe in his recently published Report on the 1 Public Choice theory is the use of economics to study the actions of voters, politicians and bureaucrats as self-interested maximizing agents.

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Working of the Monetary System,1 but she could not prepare her Bill and at the same time draft the 30-minute speech that would be needed to introduce it, so that, uniquely (as far as I can discover), her maiden speech was one introducing a Bill. On the big day the turnout was about 200, huge for a Friday — her letters had paid off splendidly. All three female members of the government showed solidarity by their presence and after a speech given without any notes her bill advanced by 152 to 39. Opposition spokesmen said her speech was clearly of frontbench (as opposed to backbench) quality and the press hailed it as the best maiden speech by any of the new intake of 1959.2 The Bill duly became an Act of Parliament and thus the law of the land, though not without some epic fights as it went through all its stages — quite an education for a brand new MP. Despite this early success, she often felt out of step with “modern” Conservative thinking. To her there was too much appeasing of special interests such as the unions and too great a propensity to rush after the latest leftist fad. On the other hand, socialism and communism were not being vehemently countered with free-market arguments; traditional Tory values were being ignored. All this boiled over in her one and only revolt against the Whip in 33 years as an MP. She spoke and voted in favor of the caning and birching of violent young offenders. Some 68 colleagues joined her and it was the biggest revolt of this whole period of Conservative Party rule namely 1951–1964. She felt it would harm her chances of advancement, but willing and able women were in short supply among Conservative backbench MPs and the Government could not be seen to be reducing their numbers in the ranks of Ministers. So when one of only three wanted to leave government, a door opened and in the fall of 1961, just shy of 36, she became the junior Minister for Pensions and National Insurance (NI)3 responsible to Cabinet Minister John Boyd-Carpenter. He kindly met her at the front door on her first day — she was so touched by this

1 She had a deep interest in monetary policy as early as 1959. 2 A very high number of new MPs were elected in 1959, so this was significant praise. 3 National Insurance is the UK’s social security.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

gesture that she made sure she always did the same later as Education Secretary. The Ministry for Pensions and National Insurance no longer exists. It was a case of over promising, based on an optimistic scenario and implying, as the United States Social Security program does, that taxpayers’ pension contributions are linked to their pension entitlements. In all fairness, at the outset Lord Beveridge had suggested a 20-year wait to allow funds to build up, but once the plan caught the public’s fancy it became difficult not to introduce the benefits immediately, thus making the plan even more unsound. Today pensions are with the Department of Work and Pensions and NI is with HM Revenue and Customs. Back in 1961 the system’s flaws were apparent, and the analytical tax-lawyer mind brought by Mrs. Margaret Thatcher MP was just right for handling them. She relished the grind of mastering all aspects of the complex problem and then mastering her socialist opponents, for whom this was absolutely meat and potatoes — if not milk and honey. Over the next three years she served three different Ministers, as first Macmillan and then Sir Alec Douglas-Home shuffled the deck chairs on the sinking Conservative liner. In early 1963 President Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain’s proposed entry into the Common Market (later renamed the EEC or European Economic Community and then the EU or European Union). To Mrs. Margaret Thatcher MP, and many on the right, this was not much more than a vague irritant compounded by the ethnicity and attitude of the man saying “non.” After all, the Brits had their special relationship with the United States and with their Commonwealth of some 50 countries including Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, and so on. This French rejection was nothing but a minor trade matter. A year after Douglas-Home became Prime Minister, he lost the fall 1964 General Election and socialist Harold Wilson moved into 10 Downing Street with a majority of four. Two days after her 39th birthday she held her own seat in Finchley, albeit with a majority cut to

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some 9,000 by a determined young Liberal named John Pardoe (later MP for North Cornwall, 1966 to 1979). It was almost a miraculous result for several reasons. First, the suddenly cheeky and irreverent British press had savaged the old patrician Douglas-Home who had had to resign from the Lords and win a seat back in the Commons in order to lead. Second, Douglas-Home had campaigned on his own turf, namely international issues, pretty much ignoring the so-called bread and butter matters that interest the electorate. Third, the Conservatives had alienated the small business vote by abolishing Retail Price Maintenance (RPM) in the immediate run up to the election.1 This move by Edward (Ted) Heath (President of the Board of Trade) was warmly supported by his colleague Margaret Thatcher, but small business proprietors, a natural conservative constituency, stayed home at best. Based on an IEA report by Professor Basil Yamey of the LSE, Heath had stopped the practice of having manufacturers stamp the prices of products on the packaging. Under that system there was no shopping around. If a new Beatles record album was 19 shillings and 6 pence in a local shop, well, it was 19 shillings and 6 pence in every shop in the land. Consumers saw this as a rip off because it prevented retailers from offering discounts; in other words, it prevented retailers from competing on the basis of price cuts. This practice was ended (which by the way allowed for the creation of the supermarket, which did not then exist in the UK, and for Richard Branson to start Virgin) but it cost the Conservatives dearly and at 39 she was to spend the first half of her next decade in opposition.

1 The Conservative Party was also tired after thirteen years in power; muddled over economic policy; tainted by scandal; annoyed with the French veto. And the socialists could always outbid them on the public spending front.

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5. Opposition I “I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.”

The closeness of the 1964 result meant a second General Election as in ’50/’51 would come sooner rather than later. The Conservatives moved rapidly to dump Douglas-Home and elect a new leader;1 Ted Heath quickly trounced all before him. Margaret Thatcher at first had wanted to support her north London constituency neighbor Reginald Maudling (Barnet) but had been convinced by her now close friend Sir Keith Joseph that Ted was the better candidate. Starting as Shadow Minister for Pensions, over a six-year period she mastered five new and different Shadow briefs: Shadow Minister for Housing and Land; Shadow Minister for Tax; Shadow Minister for Fuel; Shadow Minister for Transport; and Shadow Minister for Education. These last three were in the Shadow Cabinet. Harold Wilson duly asked Her Majesty the Queen to dissolve Parliament and in March 1966 came back with a majority of +97. Margaret Thatcher MP increased her own majority to 9,500 over Labour, with Liberals now in third. 1 Previously leaders had “emerged” through consultation. Now each MP was to have a vote.

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On the personal front the Thatchers sold their home in Farnborough and rented a 7th floor apartment at Westminster Gardens on Marsham Street, close to Parliament and “within the bell.”1 They also purchased a big eight-bed “pile” at Lamberhurst, near Tunbridge Wells, on which they personally did a great deal of painting and decorating. However, with the children now in their teens and many of their boarding school chums living in London, Lamberhurst was underused. It was sold in 1972 and the funds released went in part to purchase the Flood Street, Chelsea home where the Thatchers lived from 1972 up to the move to No. 10 Downing Street in 1979. Work in the Shadow Cabinet was a big disappointment. There were so many philosophical differences between its members that any serious discussion of principle would inevitably lead to cracks and divisions. She felt she was there as “the statutory woman” who was not expected to say much at all. The swinging ’60s saw a tsunami of social legislation hit Westminster, often with parties allowing a free vote.2 For the record, she voted to decriminalize homosexual conduct in private between consenting adults over 21; to allow abortion if the health of the child or mother could be compromised; against making divorce easier; and against a bill to abolish the death penalty for murder. What a curious mix! For a conviction politician she seems to have taken an extraordinarily pragmatic case-by-case view of matters. The highlights of the late sixties were her first visits to the United States. Her love affair with America — as already noted — had begun in Grantham and blossomed during World War II. It fully matured however with two long coast to coast tours in early 1967 and early 1969, the first run by the US Government’s International Visitor Program (IVP) and the second by the English Speaking Union (ESU). These days trans-Atlantic flights are cheap thanks to deregulation and people think nothing of a quick trip to the United States. In the 1960s such fares were very expensive — say $10,000 (economy) inflation adjusted to today. One consequence was that people tended to go 1 “Within the bell” means close enough to Parliament to be able to get there and vote before the lobbies close. Nowadays MPs carry pagers but in the 1970s being within the bell meant Margaret could go home in the evenings. 2 Free vote means no Whip, so MPs can vote according to their conscience.

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for much longer trips than now. Her first with the IVP was to last 6 weeks and her second with the ESU some 29/30 days. Margaret Thatcher MP had been talent spotted by William J Galloway, 1st Secretary at the US Embassy in London. One of his big jobs was monitoring the Conservative Party. Galloway wrote of her that she has a “very strong will” and “high standards of ethics and morals” with “tremendous self-confidence” he commented. He noted that “she didn’t hesitate to express her views” and that she was “a politician who was not seeking support for her own personal advancement.” Overall he felt she was “the outstanding lady in the House of Commons at that time.” Note the “the”! The US Embassy had 30 invites to issue to Brits in 1967 and allocated them to 11 Parliamentarians; 2 Government Affairs; 5 Information; 5 Cultural Affairs; 4 Education; 2 Labour; and 1 Community Affairs. People chosen were totally free to devise their itinerary with a program officer and were paid a per diem of $25 or $30 for VIPs. To adjust those for inflation, add a zero! Of the other ten Parliamentarians selected in 1967, three were to serve Margaret in Cabinet, namely Patrick Jenkin, John McGregor and Francis Pym. Extensive research on her trip by Giles Scott-Smith concludes that the American officials making her appointments were selling her “as a possible future PM” and nobody “raised any questions about that description” although it was twelve years to come and she had yet to be so branded in the UK. She landed in Washington DC on Monday, February 20 and spent two days finalizing her itinerary. Over the next week, through Thursday, March 2, she met a score or more of top DC officials from Senator Margaret Chase Smith1 through every conceivable economics/tax agency to the Departments of State and Defense. On Friday, March 3, she visited a Du Pont facility in Wilmington — an odd choice until one realizes that Denis was accompanying her, at his own expense. 1 Margaret Chase Smith was in 1948 the first lady elected to the Senate in her own right. Two previous female Senators were appointed although one (Hattie Carraway of Arkansas) was subsequently elected. She was also the first lady to be nominated for the US Presidency by one of the major parties when she came second to Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention.

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After a very short break (maybe only one night) with friends in Delray Beach, Florida, Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher continued to Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Omaha, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Albany. After visiting with other friends in New Jersey and attending a performance of “Il Travatore” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, she flew out on Thursday, March 30. Reports of her many daily appointments contrast her forthright views on pretty much any and every topic with her charm. Meetings routinely ran on well past their scheduled close. It is also noteworthy that other than fleeting visits to friends in Florida and New Jersey she did no sightseeing at all. Possibly she felt the few days devoted to Denis’s interests had to count against any R&R. In 1987 Galloway wrote to Prime Minister Thatcher to congratulate her on her third victory. In her reply she referred to the 1967 visit and wrote “I have been eternally grateful for the wonderful experience it gave me.” She had been back in the UK from her State Department International Visitor Program visit for only a few weeks when on July 14 Sir John Slessor of the English Speaking Union (ESU) wrote to her saying that following her “recent highly successful visit” to the US the ESU was “most anxious” to have her speak to its branches there. How the ESU knew of her visit and how its officers could call it “highly successful” is not explained. At first it was suggested she go for March of 1968 but Edward Heath refused her permission to be away for such an extended period. She thought his permission was a formality but he argued that a number of matters needing her attention might possibly come up at that time. Indeed, she had already been gone for six weeks in term time. Next, the summer was discussed but it was noted that “she never lets anything interfere with her children’s summer holidays,” so the third week of September would be the earliest she could start. Heath again intervened. He wanted her at the Tory Party Conference ending October 12. The idea of mid-October to mid-November was rapidly rejected by Frances L. McPheeters, Director of the Speakers Department at the ESU’s US National Headquarters in New York. A tour at this time 56

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would straddle the November 5 Presidential election of Nixon versus Humphrey. There was a policy of discouraging speakers at such times and they felt so strongly about getting Mrs. Thatcher that it would be “a waste and a pity” if that was the only time she could find. Finally focus moved to early 1969. The ESU ruled out May because “it is begining (sic) to be very hot in the southern states, children are finishing school and people are thinking more about summer vacations than Anglo-American relations,” wrote McPheeters to Thatcher. April was difficult — indeed impossible — for Mrs. Thatcher as the twins would be home for the spring break. With McPheeters reporting “unusual interest in your coming,” they settled on March 1969 and Heath gave full permission in writing. To help sell her to the US Branches, Katharine Winn at the ESU’s London offices requested “chatty and personal biographical notes” — something more interesting than the Conservative Party supplied as “the Americans…. like everything of this kind to have the ‘personal angle.’” After a lot of “bullying” by ESU London staff she personally dropped off at its West End offices several sheets of House of Commons stationery on which she had scribbled the following profile of herself: Margaret Thatcher has had three separate careers in addition to being a housewife with a family. She was first trained as a Scientist, taking degrees in Chemistry at Oxford University; for a time she did Scientific Research. She then turned her attention to Law, qualified as a barrister and practiced for 7 years, specializing in taxation matters. She became a Member of Parliament in 1959 for a North London constituency. She maintains that her two earlier careers have been a great help in her political life. There are far too few people in politics, she says, who are trained Scientists, although this is an age of rapid scientific development, and Law is an excellent training for anyone who has the responsibility for law-making through the legislature. During the ten years she has been in Politics she has made rapid progress up the promotion ladder. After two years she was made an Under-Secretary to the Department of Social Security, an appointment which she held for three years. When the Conservative Government lost the election in 1964 she became active on Opposition, and was appointed their official spokesperson for several different Departments, first Housing; second Treasury; third Fuel and Power and now Transport. When the Conservative Party wins an election, she will almost certainly be one of its leading Ministers. At present she is the only woman in the

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Edward Heath Shadow Cabinet. With this record and background, she does a lot of speaking and lecturing, and a good deal of broadcasting. She has visited West Africa, many countries in Europe, the Middle East, and in 1967, spent six weeks on a coast to coast tour of the United States which she enjoyed enormously. In private life, she married in 1951, an industrialist, Mr. Denis Thatcher, who is a Director of Chemical and Oil Companies. Boy–Girl twins Mark and Carol were born in 1953, and are now at boarding school. Carol has already visited the United States, as one of her school friends lives near Washington, but is educated in England. Mrs. Thatcher has a flat in London, just five minutes away from Parliament, and half an hour by car from her constituency, and a country house in Kent, 45 miles out of London. She is very practical in Household matters and has done a good deal of the interior decoration of the house herself. She says that if you work with your brain most of the time, it is particularly satisfying to do something with your hands. She enjoys cooking and likes to collect international recipes wherever she goes. She loves music, and insists on going to Opera or to concerts from time to time. She also likes art and would not wittingly walk past an Art Gallery without going inside to look at the paintings. The final vital statistic — born in October 1925, struggles to look a bit younger but enjoys every moment of her crowded life.

It is very interesting to see how she saw herself at the time. ESU staff in both London and New York peppered their US contacts with extraordinarily enthusiastic letters about this “extremely pretty and attractive… up and coming Cabinet Minister” who is “a very good advertisement” for the UK and “one of our very bright girls in Parliament.” She is also promoted as a “first-class speaker.” Unlike her earlier trip however she was never touted as possibly the first female PM. Reaction from the Branches was quick and positive and there were soon worries she would be over-worked as she could give them “only” 29 days. Mrs. Thatcher offered four speeches as follows: ŪŪ “The Challenge to Democracy” ŪŪ “Preparing for the Future — Britain and America” ŪŪ “Race Relations — Problems in the British Commonwealth” ŪŪ “The Final Political Problem — Freedom versus Communism.” Here is how she described the first two to the ESU: 58

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Under the title “Challenge to Democracy” she says: “This is a discussion of the present discontent and shortcomings in our Society, and an attempt to analyze some of the causes. Why, when material prosperity and Education has reached a higher standard than ever before, are we experiencing more violence, less tolerance, more protest, less faith and more doubts about the future of our democratic system? The lecture concludes that there is much to be optimistic about, and re-affirms our ability to overcome these problems.” Under the title “Preparing for the future: Britain and America” she says: “This talk explains the special relationship between our two countries in the past and its relevance to the future. It discusses the tendency towards nationalism and separatism in the nations of the world, and its significance in the coming years. Bearing in mind the inability of each nation to impress its theories on others, each pursues its own ends. What can we do as nations to solve these problems?” Her outward flight on March 1 from London Heathrow to JFK was booked “economy” on BOAC1 and a £5 10 shillings insurance policy was purchased. In those less stressful days she was asked to report to Victoria Station in central London only 90 minutes before take off at Heathrow! She complained repeatedly to the organizers of her trip that they tended to call her The Honorable Mrs. Denis Thatcher MP when she was not entitled to “The Honorable” and much preferred Mrs. Margaret Thatcher MP “although she is not a widow.” Then there was the question of money, ready cash. In the late sixties British travelers were still restricted to a £50 currency allowance. The ESU wrote to her Bank Manager, Mr. B. C. Hewett at The Midland Bank, 145 Sloane Street, London asking for more than this. He replied saying he could not do this automatically and needed Bank of England permission. She has to fill in Section 3 of Form T! Just days before she left the UK, her secretary called the ESU asking whether all of the $15 per diem allowance could be advanced on landing at JFK. While she was described as “not in the least grasping,” she had had occasional bad experiences on her 1967 trip on the money, 1 BOAC was the nationalized airline British Overseas Airways Corporation, long since privatized as British Airways or BA.

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transport and hotel front. Given she could take so little sterling, she wanted a wad of dollars to hand. The ESU ladies quickly assured her office that she would be very well looked after. Having said that, Mrs. Thatcher was also told that if McPheeters failed to meet her at JFK, then she was to take the airport bus into central Manhattan and then find the Cosmopolitan Club, 122 East 66th Street. Oh — and to help, a New York City map would be in with her plane tickets. On other matters, the ESU was more thoughtful. Ladies on such long tours with multiple one-night stops and many different types of functions faced particular wardrobe issues. The ladies at ESU London suggested Mrs. Margaret Thatcher talk to Mrs. Kathleen Wareham of Three Corners, Forest Ridge, Keston, Kent who had just done a long tour of the United States. Mrs. Wareham had lectured in the Southern states on such topics as “Fleet Street and Newspapers,” “People and Places,” and “Britain in the Reign of Elizabeth II.” And knowing of her love of art, they pointed her toward an important collection she might visit near the Cosmopolitan Club. Her itinerary, still marked Mrs. Denis Thatcher MP, started on March 1 in New York City and after a speech at SUNY New Paltz moved west to St. Louis and Kansas City, then to San Francisco, and Los Angeles where she was to address the World Affairs Council. Back east she moved on to Orlando, Palm Beach, Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville, Indianapolis, Washington DC, Baltimore and finally Philadelphia on March 29. Rave reviews soon started flooding in to ESU in NYC and London and from there to her House of Commons office. “Her opening meeting in New York had been a great success,” her secretary Miss D Powell was told in a March 13 letter from the ESU. From Florida Mary R. Taggart, Branch Secretary of the Central Florida ESU in Winter Park, reported back to Frances L. McPheeters in the NYC ESU office: “She came, She saw, She conquered! Which of course can mean only one person — the stunning Mrs. Denis Thatcher, who you so kindly arranged for us to have as our speaker for the Annual Luncheon of the Central Florida Branch, on March 14.

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There were 150 members and guests present and each and every one was charmed not only by the speaker’s good looks but her very brilliant talk…our grateful thanks for your help in making this the outstanding program of the year.”

McPheeters also heard from James (Jim) H. Parker III in Kansas City. “Mrs. Thatcher is charming and her talk was tops. Don’t know if we’ve had anyone ‘go over’ better!” And while the audience in Nashville was described as small (but see below), the publicity was eye-popping. It was a triumphant march and she flew back just as the twins got out of school. Two months later Sir John Benn of the ESU hosted a lunch for her to report back. The lunch invite describes her tour as “highly successful.” Here is the ESU minute of her remarks at that lunch: New York: First engagement was a Ladies Luncheon, unconnected with the ESU. Next day spoke to New York State University at New Paltz. It was badly organized but gave her an opportunity to see something of the Student problem. In the US state universities have no power to refuse students. They have colossal funds, and enormous numbers of students, and there is little to no contact between them and their teachers. St Louis: In addition to speaking, Mrs. Thatcher had to answer questions for 1 hr and 10 minutes. She was told afterwards that in their experience it was rare to find a good woman speaker. Kansas City: Rather a similar branch. Very English. San Francisco: Excellent hospitality. Attended private Dinner parties, which developed into one woman Brains Trusts. More interesting audience with a wider age range. Some English Brains Drains! Was shown transit system. Los Angeles: Spoke for the World Affairs Council, arranged by BIS, audience included members of the Diplomatic Corps, Business men etc. Went very well. Winter Park: Audience consisted largely of retired professional people; delightful to talk to but elderly. Palm Beach: Very monied! Full meeting. Was told that they did not have enough MPs as speakers. Hectic weekend including TV appearances etc. Atlanta: Spoke to a Business Men’s Luncheon, and found the audience was not well informed on World Affairs. It was useful to

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talk to them and Mrs. Thatcher thought they had great potential. Good Mayor. No problem with colored people. Excellent ESU meeting. Televised live. Birmingham: Very good people at the top. Nashville: The nicest branch of all! The members had their feet on the ground, and had more distant objectives in view than just parochial ones. Good questions and contacts with Universities. Indianapolis: Not a very thriving branch. Washington: Appeared on TV as well as speaking to the branch. Baltimore: Elderly. Philadelphia: Not particularly interesting. GENERAL COMMENTS: Felt that the British still have much to offer the Americans, in the way of know-how and diplomacy and that each Nation is complementary to the other. Many questions were asked about Students in the UK. From the woman’s point of view she should take a large supply of Cocktail and Evening Dresses. Could do with some more rest periods.

A little over a year later Margaret Thatcher was in Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and Science, and McPheeters in NYC (ESU) wrote a congratulatory note to Winn in London (ESU). These two back-to-back extended trips to the United States totaling 10+ weeks were clearly extraordinarily important in her personal and political development. The investment by the State Department and the ESU was to pay handsome dividends. She later wrote, “The excitement I felt has never really subsided.” She also went to the USSR and had a very different experience and set of reactions! On June 18, 1970, Ted Heath defeated Harold Wilson and quickly moved into Downing Street with a majority of +31. The next day he invited Margaret Thatcher to join his Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and Science. She accepted. She was 44 and in the Cabinet.

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6. Education Secretary “It sometimes strikes me that more people are interested in education for reasons of egalitarianism than for reasons of education.” “Let our children grow tall, and some taller than others and they often have it in them to do so.”

For nearly four years she served in the government of Edward (Ted) Heath as Secretary of State for Education and Science. She was only the second woman to serve in a Conservative Cabinet, the first being Florence Horsburgh, Churchill’s Education Minister 1951 to 1954. We start first with her life as Education Secretary then examine her role as Cabinet Member.1 Cabinet colleague Jim Prior reports that Ted Heath called him before her appointment and said “I’ve been discussing who we might need as our statutory woman.” She entered a department wedded to central planning and the idea that nanny or “the man in Whitehall” knows best. Coupled with this was the ideological rift on education within her own party. On the left of the Conservative Party there were many who favored the abandon1 British Cabinet Members are answerable to Parliament and therefore must be members of either the House of Commons (lower house) or House of Lords (upper house). Most are members of the former. When a Prime Minister wishes to appoint an outsider (a very rare circumstance), then the person in question is either made a member of the Lords very quickly or a by-election has to be equally quickly arranged in a safe seat (by making the incumbent a Lord).

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ment of selectivity and its replacement with comprehensive education for all, while on the right the authors of the Black Papers1 championed choice and vouchers. She instinctively and intellectually sided with the latter while the political reality of the day rested with the former. While her civil servants were “professional,” the ethos of the world of education was overwhelmingly socialist in the sense that it was driven by notions of “equality,” like most of America’s public school system. Even as the foundations of the Berlin Wall were being chipped away, the long serving careerist officials of both her Department and the teachers’ unions were inordinately friendly toward each other; and her brisk action woman do-it-today-not-tomorrow style grated. Arguably her finest moment as Education Secretary came in her first month, indeed within just twelve days of the election and eight days of entering her department. She had inherited two socialist policy circulars to the local authorities which run education on a day-to-day basis in the UK. One circular demanded that all such authorities submit to the Department plans for going totally comprehensive. The second said that authorities which refused to submit such a plan would be deprived of capital funding. The withdrawal of these circulars had been a clear manifesto commitment and on her eighth day on the job they were withdrawn; they were replaced by a new circular stressing local needs, the wise use of resources and a presumption against upheaval. While she saved many grammar schools, not even her focus and determination could turn back the tide of comprehensivization that was then sweeping the country. Her detractors revel in pointing out that she killed more grammar schools than any other Education Secretary. The truth of the matter is that she landed in that job just as the wave was cresting and without her presence many more such good schools would have been closed. In Birmingham alone, which moved from Conservative control to Labour in 1972, she rejected over half its plans and saved eighteen grammar schools. Her most notorious policy however was to withdraw “free” school milk for 7- to 11-year-olds and to increase school meal charges. The 1 British governments consult through Green Papers and set out policy in White Papers. In the late sixties and early seventies a group of British education policy experts with a passion for reform as well as a sense of humor published the Black Papers.

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former led to the often heard chant by marching demonstrators: “Mrs. Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.” And it earned her the title of most hated woman in Britain from a tabloid newspaper called The Sun, or as daughter Carol said, “When I was at university, my mother was public enemy #1.” She also moved forward suggestions to reform campus student unions. They were closed shops. You had to join; otherwise your degree would not be conferred on you at graduation.1 And few students realized what was going on. Britain had no private universities then.2 If you were accepted to a university then (unless you were quite well off) all your fees were automatically paid by your local education authority direct to the university, including the union dues. The unions then used such funds, quite large amounts, not only for the social enhancement of the university — athletic clubs and societies and so on — but also to support other social causes, in one case paying to replace free school milk at primary schools adjoining a campus.3 She proposed to take the funds going directly from the authorities to the unions en bloc and instead give such monies to the students themselves individually who could then shop around between the various activities on offer. It was a step too far.

1 The late Lord Harris of High Cross used to tell the story of how he and his daughter Angela managed not to pay student union dues at the University of Bradford until, with only days to go before graduation, she was told her qualification would not be conferred unless she paid the union. 2 In 1976 the University of Buckingham was established as a private institution. The socialist government of the day refused to let it be called the University of Buckingham and award traditional “degrees” so it was “University College at Buckingham” and awarded a License. It was only when Margaret Thatcher MP became Prime Minister that it was given a Royal Charter and could then use those previously banned words. Even then the relevant education minister (Rt. Hon. Dr. Sir Rhodes Boyson MP) told the author that Departmental officials were so hostile to a private university that all correspondence from Buckingham was hand delivered by messenger to him at home: “If they’d sent it to the Department it would have been ‘lost’!” In “retirement” Margaret became Chancellor of Buckingham, as usual taking her duties very seriously indeed. 3 This was the University of Sussex, south of London, near Brighton. A second-year law student named Tony Baldry successfully sued the local Student Union President on the grounds that such payments were ultra vires, i.e., outside the scope for which funds could be used. He won and Baldry versus Feintuck was a landmark case. Baldry later worked for Margaret Thatcher and became an MP and junior Minister.

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She came out of her 3+ years at Education with three advantages: she now knew firsthand how government at the highest levels worked or often did not work; she had become a top class performer at the Dispatch Box1 in the Commons; and she had had much firsthand experience countering the strong views of the left over issues from “free” school milk, grammar schools, and her ideas on defunding their student unions. However as the Heath government of 1970 to 1974 ground along, she and her Education Department began to pale against bigger broader issues. If her time at Education can be described as an undergraduate course in applied politics then her time in Cabinet was her master’s and her PhD. The Conservative Party Manifesto of 1970 was of a populist right wing free-market nature, stressing “the security and independence of personal ownership”; “greater freedom of opportunity”; “greater freedom of choice” and “greater freedom of regulation and freedom from interference.” Specific promises included the reduction and reform of taxes; incentives for saving; cutting public expenditures; an end to nationalization; and creating a better climate for free enterprise. By the spring of 1972 it lay in tatters, and from then right up to his defeat in February 1974 Heath (and his Cabinet) went in a totally opposite direction. To begin with, all looked fine. Spending cuts were implemented; moves to control the unions began and income tax and corporation tax were cut. The first sign of what became known as U-turns came with the bailing out of Rolls Royce in early 1971 which went directly against the policy of no “lame ducks.” In early 1972, however, the combination of a major strike at a northern bankrupt ship-building firm called Upper Clyde Shipbuild1 Backbench MPs called on to address Parliament by the Speaker do so by simply standing up in their seats. Ministers and Shadow Ministers however move to one of two wooden boxes which can be used as lecterns on which they spread out papers and files. The boxes contain bibles used to swear in new members. The two current boxes were gifts of the Government of New Zealand when Parliament was rebuilt after being hit by a German incendiary bomb in World War II.

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ers (UCS) plus an industrial dispute with the coal miners plus unemployment topping one million led to a full scale retreat, rout, or even flight. Out went any idea of relying on the self-correcting mechanisms of the market economy. In came the inflation of the currency, massive daily intervention in all aspects of the economy, a statutory pricesand-incomes policy of the sort President Nixon was also introducing, and tripartite talks with the unions (TUC)1 and big business (CBI).2 A new breed of corporatist socialism was the order of the day and by 1973 Heath was lashing out against a company called Lonhro as “the unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism.” Unfortunately for Prime Minister Heath, matters went from bad to worse. His industrial relations strategy collapsed, inflation3 and interest rates soared, a three-day working week was instituted to save energy4 and another major confrontation with the heavily left-leaning National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) was bearing down. Indeed the far left in the unions, knowing full well they were completely unelectable at the ballot box, were clearly trying to protect their interests by other means. The burning question of the day on all lips and minds was “who rules: the miners or the government?” Prime Minister Heath dithered, clearly not wanting an election. Had he gone for early February he might well have won but instead he opted for February 28, 1974, and bad news piled up. In the end Heath won the popular vote by over two hundred thousand5 but came second in seats to Harold Wilson’s Labour, 297 to 301. After a weekend of failed talks with smaller parties, Heath resigned and Wilson once again had the keys to No. 10 Downing Street.6 1 TUC Trades Union Congress the UK’s AFL-CIO. 2 The CBI is the Confederation of British Industry the UK’s NAM. 3 Inflation was soon to hit close to 30%, so if you did not double your salary every 28 months you fell behind. The highest annual rate hit was 24.2% in 1975 but one annualized monthly rate hit 29.8%. 4 Interestingly industrial output did not drop much (if at all) and certainly not the 40% one might expect showing just how much over manning existed then. 5 In the UK you can win the popular vote but still lose on seats won, just as US presidential candidate Al Gore officially won half a million more votes than George W. Bush in 2000 but garnered fewer Electoral College votes. 6 There are no real keys to No. 10 and it does not have a key hole. Instead the entrance is manned 24 hours a day. Also the Wilsons did not move back into the apart-

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What of Margaret Thatcher throughout these tumultuous months? By her own accounts she played little if any role at all. She and her chum Sir Keith Joseph were the chief free market economic liberals in the Cabinet but Heath kept them in big-spending departments and outside his economic policy inner circle. Then they were joined by a third such economic liberal, Geoffrey Howe QC,1 but he was put in charge of implementing the single most anti-market of all of Heath’s policies, namely that on controlling prices and incomes.2 Such policies may be motivated by a desire to limit inflation, but without freely moving prices, markets are busted instruments. Margaret Thatcher was still very much the statutory woman, and the great misogynist Heath had her parked at the end of the long Cabinet table — just where he could not see her.3 At times she thought of resigning but realized that such a gesture would have been utterly futile. And we have to recall that Heath had unexpectedly beaten Wilson in 1970. Heath was the leader of her party and Prime Minister of her country. Loyalty runs deep in Margaret’s veins and she was a team player while privately harboring serious doubts on virtually every single one of the main economic policy issues. This was after all a woman who had nearly made her maiden speech in 1959 on monetary policy. Throughout, she kept lines open to the economic liberals in her own parliamentary party such as John Biffen MP, Jock Bruce-Gardyne MP, Rt. Hon4 Enoch Powell MP, and Nicholas Ridley MP who had resigned as a Heath minister over statutory price and incomes controls. She also followed with interest a lively moment when Britain’s “Milton Friedment atop of No. 10 (which Mrs. Mary Wilson had so disliked) from 1964–1970. Instead they remained at their home in 5 Lord North Street and Harold commuted the few hundred yards. 1 QC stands for Queen’s Counsel, meaning he was not just a barrister appearing in court to plead cases but rather a very senior one. 2 It was as if Heath was deliberately putting the free marketers into jobs they would find unacceptable. 3 The size of the Cabinet varies but is usually in the low twenties. The Prime Minister chairs it not from an end but rather from half way down one side. This inevitably means that those to the far left or right on that side can be easily ignored. 4 Senior members of Parliament are made members of Her Majesty’s Most Honorable Privy Council and thereafter enjoy the title Right Honorable, which is shortened to Rt. Hon.

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man,” Professor Alan Walters (later to be her personal economic advisor for two spells), clashed with his boss Prime Minister Heath over loose monetary policy. Walters predicted it would lead to inflation and he was asked to leave; but he was right and Heath was wrong. As the government’s economic policy unraveled, so Britain moved closer to and finally joined the European Economic Community (EEC), or Common Market, as it was called. She and 99% of other economic liberals were very much in favor of this move. The arguments presented were purely ones of free market economics: it was all about the free movement of goods, labor and capital. Political ramifications were downplayed, with the points being made that the UK was not giving up any sovereignty, the courts would not be affected and British law would prevail as always. If you favored a market economy, it was hard to be against the Common Market.1 However Heath’s own advisers2 had predicted trouble, and Heath has since been accused of knowingly and willingly tying Britain’s hands by signing over important economic decisions to an unelected group of bureaucrats overseas in Brussels.3 In retrospect, her first taste of Cabinet government can be summed up as a long lesson in how not to govern. How well would she learn it?

1 Conservative MP Rt. Hon. Enoch Powell warned of the changes as did journalist Russell Lewis in Rome or Brussels?, published by the IEA in 1971, in which he argued that Brussels was dominated by an interventionist spirit. 2 Under the 30-year rule, official documents of the era have been released in recent years and show a clear pattern of deception. 3 In 1972 Heath told the British that joining the Common Market would not erode national sovereignty and that worries about losing independence were completely unjustified. We now know Heath’s top constitutional advisers were warning him that signing the Treaty of Rome meant a serious surrender of sovereignty.

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7. Reflections “My politics are based ... on things I and millions like me were brought up with. An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.”

With no overall majority Harold Wilson was bound to go back to the country very soon to ask for a clear mandate and working majority. In the meantime Ted Heath promoted Margaret Thatcher to Shadow Environment1 Secretary, and she reveled in mastering a raft of housing and local taxation issues. On the housing front inflation, high interest rates, planning costs and delays, the “green belt”2 policy and other impediments were making the dream of home ownership more and more distant for many and suddenly an issue again to the forefront of British politics. On local taxation, called rates, there was annual pressure from the media for reform. Every outlet carried endless stories about the unfairness of a property-value based system which charged a widow us-

1 This was a new department created during Heath’s premiership by amalgamating the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Department of Transport. While some “green” issues came under its umbrella it was mostly concerned with housing, local government and zoning. 2 “Green Belt” is the concept of declaring thousands of square miles of land around cities unavailable for development.

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ing tiny amounts of local services exactly the same as, say, a family of five consuming far more. See Chapter 21. In the end she went into the fall 1974 general election as Shadow Environment Secretary on four related platforms: to give those living in public housing the right to buy their own homes with a one-third discount off fair market value; to help first time buyers on the mortgage deposit front; to cap mortgage interest rates at 9½% by means of tax relief to the lenders rather than subsidies; and to abolish the current local tax system of rates and replace it with a new, yet to be devised, fairer system. While she was having a very good summer that raised her profile and standing in her party and around the country, deeper waters were being explored elsewhere. She had from her earliest days in politics felt that her party was too slow to criticize the left and too quick to embrace socialist fads. It was also too quick to shoot its messengers and too slow to examine the content and real detail of the message. And it never seemed able to give the electorate an internally consistent message based on principle. She had never felt totally comfortable in her home in the Conservative Party. While she had rebelled but once and never dreamt of leaving, she was never entirely happy. Her close friend Keith Joseph was in the Shadow Cabinet with her but had no departmental portfolio; rather he had a wide brief to reexamine policy. Soon after the February 1974 general election he received Heath’s permission to establish a new body called the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) to help him in this endeavor. Heath’s own economic advisor Adam Ridley1 sat on the board and Keith Joseph invited Thatcher to become his Vice-Chairman, which she gladly accepted. In addition to these three an unlikely cast of characters was assembled. Chief Guru was Joseph’s fellow Jew, the former journalist and communist machine gunner in the Spanish Civil War, Alfred Sherman.2 Chief fundraiser was Nigel Vinson, a successful businessman “on loan” from the Board of Trustees of the free market IEA. Chief Administrator (then 1 He was later a key advisor to Sir Geoffrey Howe over the suspension of exchange controls, and he was a second cousin to Nicholas Ridley MP. 2 Alfred was later famously to declare “I invented Margaret Thatcher.”

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7. Reflections

and later for many years) was another ex-journalist Gerry Frost, whose sense of humor and orderliness kept the place running. Finally there was a somewhat mysterious, rich, fashionable and iconoclastic character named Martin Bendelow, who wore many hats. The source of his wealth became apparent when he was jailed for cocaine trafficking. The CPS was not a think-tank as such, not like the IEA which had been pumping out free market studies for two decades by then. And it was not a do-tank, concerned with policy dots and commas. It was primarily a talking shop where journalists, academics and Conservative politicians were pushed into thinking the unthinkable by Joseph, Sherman and Frost. Its other role was to act as a high level secretariat for Joseph as he began a series of major public lectures around the UK, challenging virtually every populist policy tenet of the past three decades and lumping them all together as “socialist,” regardless of who had been in power at the time. Margaret Thatcher became increasingly involved with the CPS and its mission and this challenged her to read and think more widely than past years as Education Secretary had allowed. She also began to immerse herself in the writings of and lunches at the IEA on the corner of Lord North Street (named after the unfortunate British Prime Minister who lost the American colonies) and Great Peter Street. Surrounded by people who had been preaching a consistent free-market approach for years, people such as its Directors Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon and many academics and intellectuals, she began a thorough wide-ranging period of reflection on what she wanted to achieve and how she was going to achieve it with Keith Joseph — preferably with him as Conservative leader and Prime Minister, not Ted Heath. Meanwhile another General Election threw her to the front on the housing and local taxation issues but as expected Harold Wilson got a somewhat clearer mandate leading the Conservatives by 319 to 277. With other parties in the picture this meant an overall majority of just three. In practical terms this meant the government would be walking on eggshells, wheeling and dealing on many fronts to keep a day-to-day majority. For the Conservatives, it meant Ted Heath had lost three out of four general elections, once in 1966 and twice in 1974. 73

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

If he had been a likeable, affable, pleasant man then the Conservative Party might have overlooked 1966 (he’d only just become leader then) and counted 1974 as one giant election — and hadn’t he won the most votes in February 1974? His few friends said he was really “1 and 1” or even “2 and 1,” not “1 and 3.” But Heath was a surly, bitter bruiser, perceived as self-important and needlessly offensive.1 Even his great friend and Cabinet colleague Jim Prior described Heath as “unapproachable” and “given to rudeness” showing “boredom quickly if he finds people uninteresting”. The Tories wanted and needed new leadership and the consensus was that it was a two horse race between Keith Joseph and William (Willie) Whitelaw, the former of the new right and the latter of the old Heathite left, with Robert Carr a third possible. But as the BBC election night coverage ended in the dawn light of October 10, 1974, Bob McKenzie, a Canadian-born political scientist and psephologist tossed another name into the pot — namely that of Margaret Thatcher.2 Despite the plug Margaret Thatcher received from Bob and the favorable coverage she had been receiving in The Spectator from Patrick Cosgrave, the odds were stacked against her, as shown below: William Whitelaw

5-4

Robert Carr

7-4

Keith Joseph

7-2

Peter Walker

10-1

Jim Prior

10-1

Margaret Thatcher

50-1

1 In 1994 the author hosted a lunch party for over 50 opinion leaders at the IEA in Westminster to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Heath introducing legislation in the House of Commons to abolish resale or retail price maintenance. His 15-minute speech (given without notes) was utterly brilliant although he made one significant error when he claimed that records (like books and certain medicines) had been exempted. Not true! This speech came between the publication of Margaret’s two volumes of memoirs (1993 and 1995) and their publication was clearly irking Heath. I jotted down the last lines of his speech as follows: “I, of course, have been far too busy advising world leaders to engage in something as comparatively trivial as writing memoirs.” 2 McKenzie was an LSE graduate and taught at the school from 1949 to his death in 1981. He was a household name in the UK for the “swingometer” he used on BBC television to translate percentage swings into actual numbers of seats. He also chaired the discussion sections of each episode of Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose.

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7. Reflections

It wasn’t looking good for her. Fifty-to-one in a six-horse race are very long odds.

75



8. Leader “In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”

Within days of the fall 1974 general election Joseph’s chances of ever leading the Conservative party had fallen to zero. Just over a week after the ballot boxes closed he spoke in Birmingham on how socialism undermined the family, fed permissiveness and subverted morals. He was trying to do for social affairs what he had been doing so well for economic affairs. And this was hardly new or even seriously contestable material. Unfortunately for Keith it contained a passage about the balance of the UK’s population being threatened by the large and rising numbers of children being born to young unmarried mothers in the lower classes (classes 4 and 5), the least able to raise kids. The solution, he said, was to put them on the pill.1 The leftist chattering-classes exploded instantly in righteous indignation. Obscure bishops, pop performers, polytechnic lecturers and two bit novelists queued up to denounce “the mad monk” as a eugenicist. It made Margaret Thatcher’s own experience as the infamous “milk 1 Hence the student song: “If you’re Classes 4 or 5 take the pill, If you’re Classes 4 or 5 take the pill, If you’re Classes 4 or 5 you’ve no right to be alive, If you’re Classes 4 or 5 take the pill,” to the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands.”

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

snatcher” look tame in comparison as Joseph was pilloried and found his home and wife besieged by antagonistic journalists for weeks. Heath meanwhile was doing everything he could to delay the inevitable (namely a new election for party leader), while for once reaching out to Conservative MPs, the constituency which would soon decide his fate and quite possibly elect his successor. A reshuffle in early November played very much to her talents as a tax barrister and detail maven, for she was made deputy Shadow Chancellor1 in charge of opposing the upcoming Finance Bills. Within days, not weeks, this gave her ample opportunity to shine in the Commons before the very men (mostly) and women who would soon be voting either to reaffirm Heath or to go for an alternative. She was absolutely brilliant, not only in command of a major quite technical brief but also in control of the most severely critical debating chamber in the world bashing up senior leftists seemingly at will and bringing her own side to their feet cheering like they had not done for over a year. What a breath of fresh air! As November dragged on it became clearer by the day that a new election would take place for the Conservative Party leader. Only the details had to be ironed out. On Thursday, November 21, Keith Joseph broke the news to Margaret Thatcher that he would not stand. The vicious reaction to the Birmingham speech had broken the nerve of this unfailingly polite and scholarly man. “I would not get the answers right often enough,” he lamented to his PPS David Mitchell MP. Mrs. Thatcher’s immediate response was that somebody had to stand both against Heath and as standard bearer for a new conservatism, and that if Keith Joseph was not willing then she surely was. She proclaimed: “Somebody representing our point of view has to stand, so I will stand.” And later: “We have to rethink everything!”

1 The Shadow Chancellor was Robert Carr; he reportedly welcomed the idea of help from Margaret Thatcher despite his being firmly in the Heath leftist ideological camp. He had been Employment Secretary and Home Secretary in the Heath government.

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8. Leader

On Monday, November 25 (after discussing it all with Denis over the weekend)1 she saw Heath and broke the news. He reportedly glared, turned his back on her, and mumbled: “If you must”, Some reports have him predicting “you’ll lose!” To her it was both futile and arrogant to deny past failures. Her party had lost four of the last five elections because many people felt that too many Conservatives had effectively become socialists. Her leadership would stand for individual responsibility, law and order, private property, choice, thrift and decentralization. She was just 49 and it was as if her whole life had been building up to this very moment. Immediately she declared her candidacy however her enemies went to work. Months earlier she had given an interview to a magazine for retirees many of whom were on fixed incomes and were being ravaged by 20% inflation2, soon to be all but 30%!3 In the interview she had mildly suggested that if you saw two or three cans of something you use regularly at a low sale price then buy them all, use one now and save a couple for the next time because they will have surely gone up in price. The “hoarding” scandal erupted around her but she weathered it more than gamely and in the end her down to earth housewife’s insights probably did her more good than harm. And the contrast between the way she handled the pressure and the way Keith had handled his difficulty only weeks earlier was truly stark and duly noted by fellow MPs. Next came the issue of the rules for the election. Former Prime Minister Douglas-Home had been asked to look at the rules (used only once before for Ted’s own election nearly a decade earlier) and had come forward with the following: ŪŪ There would be an annual election for leader. ŪŪ The franchise was limited to Conservative MPs. ŪŪ Any member of the Parliamentary Party wanting to stand needed only a proposer and a seconder. 1 He thought she was mad to try and would lose, but he stood ready as ever to support her: “You must be out of your mind. You haven’t got a hope.” 2 At 20% inflation prices double every 3½ years. 3 At 30% inflation prices double every 2⅓ years.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

ŪŪ To win on the first ballot you needed 50% of all eligible to vote and you needed to have a margin of victory of 15% of those entitled to vote over your nearest rival. ŪŪ If nobody won on the first ballot, then at a second ballot one week later (at which new candidates could enter) only 50% of all eligible to vote +1 was needed to win; and ŪŪ If still nobody had won, then the top three would go forward to a third ballot at which MPs would have a first choice and second choice vote.1 The third and final relevant issue was the matter of Edward “The Duke” du Cann,2 the powerful and newly re-elected Chair of the 1922 Committee and arch Heath critic. Would he run? If yes, what would she do? If both ran they would split both anti-Heath feelings and the “right” vote. Christmas beckoned with no decision and it was not until Wednesday January 15, 1975 that du Cann declared he would not run. This opened up a clear path. A team of supporters quickly formed around her. As soon as du Cann was out of the running, his chief aide Airey Neave MP moved to her camp as campaign head. Neave was a remarkable character, having escaped from Colditz Castle, a top, supposedly escape-proof German prisoner of war camp in World War II, and returned to the UK via Switzerland, France, Spain and Gibraltar. Once home he became an intelligence agent at MI9 whose sole job was to build underground lines of safe homes on the European continent so that others might emulate his feat.3 His chief lieutenant was the American educated William (or Bill) Shelton, MP for Streatham in south London.4 They were joined by TV producer Gordon Reece, Angus Maude MP (who with Neave had been cruelly mistreated by Heath years earlier) and journalists such as 1 Given 276 MPs this meant that to win on the first ballot Mr. Heath had to have a minimum of 138 and be 42 ahead. On the second ballot only 140 would be needed. 2 “The Duke” had been a Director (even Chairman) of Lonrho a year earlier when Heath had held it up for general ridicule. Heath had also sacked Du Cann as Party Chairman in 1967, so there were scores to settle. 3 Neave later served at Nuremberg with the International Military Tribunal. He too had suffered at Heath’s hands and also had a major score to settle. 4 Shelton’s classmate and close friend at Tabor Academy in Marion, Massachusetts was Ed Clark who ran for President of the US in 1980 on the Libertarian Party platform.

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8. Leader

The Daily Telegraph parliamentary sketch writers1 John O’Sullivan and Frank Johnson (who wrote “the Tories need more men like her”) and the blind editorialist T. E. “Peter” Utley, who oddly enough had applied to be MP for Finchley back in the late 1950s. Wisely, Neave told Thatcher that she ought to focus on the Finance Bill and do her utmost to shine, both at its Committee Stage2 and when it came back to the House of Commons. After all, many of the people observing her were her constituents for this election, at least. Neave and Shelton were relentless, going over lists of names constantly and not checking off somebody as a definite supporter until they had several clear pieces of evidence from different sources. By contrast Heath’s team was much more relaxed and outwardly confident, boasting that they would win on the very first ballot. Matters were further complicated when a true backbencher and total no-hoper, Hugh Fraser,3 entered the fray. On Tuesday, February 4, 1975 Margaret Thatcher spent the day battling socialism in the Committee Room of the Finance Bill while her colleagues voted on her future close by. In the late afternoon Neave brought her the news: Mrs. Margaret Thatcher

130

Mr. Edward Heath

119

Mr. Hugh Fraser

16

Abstentions

11

Total

276

Within hours Heath and Fraser announced they would stand down and four new candidates suddenly threw their hats into the ring4 namely arch-Heathite William Whitelaw, Heath’s Common Market negotiator Jim Prior, Heath’s Transport Minister John Peyton and Thatcher’s fellow free-market advocate Geoffrey Howe. This last name must have 1 Sketch writers do not exist on US newspapers. They sit high above the UK’s House of Commons and daily write satirical, often very funny, columns about the goings on before them. 2 The Committee Stage of a bill is when the real nitty gritty detail is discussed. 3 Brother of Lord Lovat (war hero) and husband of Antonia Fraser (author). 4 The second round was known as “the coward’s round” because brave people do not have to wait and see how the first round went.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

both rocked and disappointed her. Surely Geoffrey had been on her side in the first ballot and was he now about to split the free-market right thus depriving her of victory possibly? She need not have worried.1 Her courage in taking on and seeing off Heath, her base of 130 votes and her rolling, well-managed bandwagon swept all before and a week later the figures were: Mrs. Margaret Thatcher

146

Mr. William Whitelaw

79

Sir Geoffrey Howe

19

Mr. James Prior

19

Mr. John Peyton

11

Abstentions

2

Total

276

What had she gotten into?

1 Howe’s intervention did come close to sending the whole process into a 3rd round as he took 19 votes and Margaret Thatcher was only 6 over the winning line of 140. Had a 3rd round proved necessary, however, there would have been only one candidate, Margaret Thatcher!

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9. Opposition II “What Britain needs is an Iron Lady.” “I usually think that epithets signify more about the author than about the subject.”

There was huge interest in the novelty of a woman who could — given the Government’s tiny majority — very rapidly become Prime Minister and the first female leader of the western world. Everywhere she went the police miscalculated the expected size of the crowds that would turn out by a factor of ten. As soon as word of her presence spread, people flooded out to see her out of interest and curiosity. And foreign leaders such as Henry Kissinger and Pierre Trudeau stopped by to check her out and to have their photos taken with this attractive vivacious 49 year old. Her first job was to appoint a Shadow Cabinet. In some quarters it was assumed she would purge the Heathites and appoint members of the “Goldwater tendency,”1 as some of her enemies called it. Rightly or wrongly she did just the opposite. First she asked Heath for his help, offering him a senior job. He turned her down flat and spent the rest of his life resisting her inexorable rise. It has been called the “longest sulk in history.” Second, she appointed a Shadow Cabinet to unite her deep1 As in Senator Barry Goldwater, who ran for US President in 1964 on a free-market platform.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

ly divided troops. Whitelaw, who had been runner-up to her on the second round, was made deputy leader. A whole raft of ardent Heath henchmen was given top jobs.1 From her own philosophical perspective, however, Sir Geoffrey Howe became Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and Sir Keith Joseph had overall policy coordination while three no-nonsense greybeards were moved into key jobs: Lord Peter Thorneycroft2 as Party Chairman, Airey Neave MP as head of her personal office as well as Northern Ireland spokesman, and Angus Maude MP as overseer of the Conservative Research Department. It was more of a peace offering than the Heathites had dreamed possible. Indeed one wonders how many of these men present at her first Shadow Cabinet meetings had voted for themselves or other men and not for her. She readily and openly admitted that as a woman her voice could at times be a problem in the rowdiness of the House of Commons. Any attempt on her part to overcome vicious leftist barracking, often alcohol fuelled and of a deeply offensive sexist nature, pressed her voice up an octave and into screeching territory. She obtained serious professional help on a whole range of issues from tone and timbre to wardrobe colors and eye contact. Actor Sir Laurence Olivier was very helpful. When Jim Prior commented on her new deep, sexy voice, she replied: “What makes you think I wasn’t sexy before?” The Labour Party in the House of Commons was indeed very well organized, ferocious and deeply patronizing in its attempts to undermine her, and as she addressed them across the Chamber she knew that many at her back were just waiting for her to fall. In addition to Olivier, TV media expert Gordon Reece transformed how the TV media networks were approached. Instead of the media having to take whatever bones got chucked its way, now everything was carefully planned and choreographed to suit the news schedule.

1 Reginald Maudling: Shadow Foreign Secretary; Ian Gilmour: Shadow Home Secretary; Michael Heseltine: Shadow Industry Secretary; Jim Prior: Shadow Employment Secretary to name but four. 2 She always admired Thorneycroft for his 1958 resignation as Chancellor along with junior Treasury ministers Nigel Birch and Enoch Powell over what they felt to be an unwarranted and unjustifiable increase in public expenditure. Macmillan dismissed this incident as “a little local difficulty” and this phrase is often used today to insinuate the very opposite.

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9. Opposition II

One immediate result was that her Fall 1975 speech to her Party Conference, her first as Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, was a rollicking foot-stomping success as she attacked socialism as the arch enemy of freedom and presented a principled conservatism rooted in private property, markets, liberty, smaller government, choice, and the rule of law. The 3,000 or so constituency delegates loved it — what a change after decades of lukewarm government paternalism, easily labeled socialism, dressed up as middle-of-the road conservatism. Margaret Thatcher had three problems with the middle of the road. First, you get run over by traffic from both sides. Second, as the Labour Party moved to the left, so the middle moved with it. Third, Labour tended to introduce new entitlements which were hard to unpick, so there was a ratchet moving the political scenery ever closer to the left ever closer to her much hated Moscow and ever further from her much loved USA. There was much to keep Opposition Leader Thatcher busy over the next four years. Her mail box was huge, her diary was full, her Cabinet needed constant attention and steering, she had to perform in Parliament and there was a lot of thinking and evangelizing to be done both inside and outside her party. And all the time she had to be ready for a snap general election as the socialists’ overall majority finally disappeared in November 1976. The big issue was the economy: how to heal the sick man of Europe. To her it was not brain surgery. If you lived within your means (as in taxes not to exceed expenditures); if you brought borrowing down and paid off debt; if unions were brought under the rule of the law; and if monetary expansion could be stopped thus halting overall increases in the price level, then all would be well. Oh, and no more bailing out lame duck industries. Within all of that the two big issues were the unions and inflation. The 1970-1974 Conservative government had tried and failed to deal with the unions and had indeed been brought down by one union namely the NUM. How would things be different now? Inflation was just as tricky. It is almost comical now to look back and read the many explanations proffered at the time for rapidly rising prices from unions and wages to the weather and the Arabs. Fortunately the IEA had been bringing Chicago School Nobel-winning (1976) 85

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

economist Milton Friedman to London regularly as well as publishing and widely distributing his tracts.1 It was from Friedman that the British intellectual classes learnt that inflation is always and everywhere a disease of money. Print extra money now and in about 18 months prices would go up. There was even an equation for it all, first written out by Chicago’s Irving Fisher but later popularized by Milton Friedman. The equation reads: MV = PT The amount of money around (M) multiplied by its velocity of circulation (V) equals the price level (P) multiplied by the number of transactions (T) in the economy.2 This appealed to Thatcher’s scientific brain and, what is more, there was data and the data fitted like a glove. A money supply increase now equalled inflation in 18 months’ time. It was the economic equivalent of E=mc2 and she was enraptured. While she had no problem with monetary theory, most of her Cabinet was intellectually committed to Keynes and bitter debates raged in the press, in the universities and in and around Westminster. And politically, monetarism (with its 18 month lag) meant that the high inflation of the first year and a half of Labour was all down to her own party. However the economy was in such seemingly irreversible decline that the Opposition was batting on a very good wicket to use a well recognized cricket allusion. If daily strikes, loony tune union leaders, crippling taxation, record inflation, a crumbling currency, the need to borrow £2.5 billion from the IMF, and interest rates in their teens were not enough then add trouble with Iceland, Rhodesia and Northern Ireland, a Prime Minister (Wilson) drinking a bottle of brandy a day and convinced the secret service was plotting to kill him, and far left wing leaders such as Tony Benn demanding Britain become a siege economy, namely one that is a) totally self sufficient, and b) totally under state control. 1 See Friedman’s Inflation and Unemployment; From Galbraith to Economic Freedom; Unemployment Versus Inflation?: An Evaluation of the Phillips Curve; Monetary Correction: A Proposal for Escalator Clauses to Reduce the Costs of Ending Inflation. 2 In the ’80s the author visited Dr. Friedman at his San Francisco apartment. Chatting with the doorman, I pointed to the white Cadillac at the garage entrance bearing the license plate MV PT. “Belong to the Friedmans?” I asked. “How did you guess?” he asked, completely mystified.

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9. Opposition II

It is hard for Brits to recall today not only the dire state of the economy but also the reason why Benn and others were called “the loony Left.” There was “Red” Ted Knight and “Red” Ken Livingstone, both so very prominent in local government in London at that time. Abolishing the Monarchy and nationalizing all undertakers (after all if profit is evil then profit from death must be doubly so!) are typical of the ideas they pedaled. Rates, as in local property taxes, in Red Ted’s borough of Lambeth were going up 30% to 40% each year. Prime Minister Wilson won the 1975 Referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Economic Community 67% to 33% on a turnout of 65% with Thatcher’s support. However by the following year he was a broken man and made way for James Callaghan a.k.a. Smiling Jim. While Wilson had been on the verge of a breakdown he had been for Opposition Leader Thatcher a tough foe at the Dispatch Box given his huge experience. Callaghan was a different matter despite his utterly patronizing attitude toward her and she grew in confidence as her performances soared. As 1977 and 1978 ticked by her big chance got closer by the day. Her close friend and adviser, Ralph Harris wrote: “Cheer up: things are getting worse!”

87

10. Power “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony Where there is error, may we bring truth Where there is doubt, may we bring faith Where there is despair, may we bring hope.1” “Give me six strong men and true, and I will get through… very rarely did I have as many as six.”

British General Elections are called by or forced on Prime Ministers at very short notice. Callaghan had lost a vote of confidence 311-310 on Wednesday March 28 and an election could have been held as early as Thursday, April 26. However he successfully argued for Thursday2 May 3 as the Government needed a few days to tidy up business. Two days later, on March 30 during this period of phony war between the parties as they geared up for the real thing, Margaret Thatcher lost her 1 These words of St. Francis of Assisi were quoted by the new Prime Minister on entering 10 Downing Street. They were chosen for her by a speech writer called Ronnie Millar and all one can say is that they are not really appropriate or remotely Thatcherite. However, they did get air time! It has since been claimed that while she was told they were the words of St. Francis they were in fact some more modern anonymous verse. 2 British General elections are traditionally held on Thursdays but there is nothing to stop other days being selected. In 1931 the General Election was a Tuesday and in 1918 it was a Saturday.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

great friend and ally Airey Neave. About 3pm that afternoon he got into his car at Westminster in the deep underground car park beneath the grounds west of Big Ben. As he drove up the steep incline of the exit a mercury-tilt based bomb exploded underneath his auto and blew off both his legs. Airey Neave, wartime escapee hero and Thatcher’s right hand, was dead an hour later in nearby Westminster Hospital. Responsibility for his murder was claimed by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a splinter from the Irish Republican Army (IRA). As with so many such killings, theories galore surfaced over the years as to the exact who and why. The immediate explanation was that this ex-intelligence officer was slated to get the job of Northern Ireland Secretary and the IRA and INLA feared he might be a great deal more effective than his socialist predecessors. Other theories to emerge regarding who was to blame were one that the Brits own intelligence services had done it because they feared a massive shake up once Neave was in the Cabinet, and two that the CIA had done it to promote American policy of a united Ireland. Not for the last time was she to be robbed of close friends by murdering Irish terrorists. She led tributes to him saying “he was one of freedom’s warriors. Courageous, staunch, true. He lived for his beliefs and now he has died for them.” The Winter of Discontent gave her the chance to firm up, to dry out what had been a very wet, soggy, pusillanimous draft manifesto1. The main planks were tax cuts and restoring law and order but there were significant pledges on the union front namely to make secondary picketing illegal, to review the legal immunities enjoyed by trade unions and to guarantee that individual workers could go about their daily routines free of bullying intimidation. Overall it was summarized as follows: 1. To restore the health of our economy and social life, by controlling inflation and striking a fair balance between the rights and duties of the trade union movement. 2. To restore incentives so that hard work pays, success is rewarded and genuine new jobs are created in an expanding economy. 3. To uphold Parliament and the rule of law. 1 In British politics, “wets” are to the left and “drys” are to the right. The distinction or rather usage goes back to a 1952 speech on prohibition by Mississippi lawmaker Noah S “Soggy” Sweat Junior.

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10. Power

4. To support family life, by helping people to become homeowners, raising the standards of their children’s education, and concentrating welfare services on the effective support of the old, the sick, the disabled and those who are in real need. 5. To strengthen Britain’s defenses and work with our allies to protect our interests in an increasingly threatening world. However her rhetoric on the road, at rally after rally, was much more forthright and full of references to choice, freedom and liberty and much more damning on the union question than her colleagues back at Party HQ wanted. But they were stuck back in the “village” of Westminster which has but one industry (politics) while she was out and about in the country meeting real voters and feeling them respond positively to her message of hope and change. However, the division between her message and the vision of party bureaucrats (too many still in place from Heath’s era) became ridiculously stark when they suggested that Heath should do a Conservative Party Political Broadcast.1 To her Heath’s vision was as bad for the country as the socialists’ and her Party Chairman received a good dressing down. With Easter intervening it was, even by British standards, a short campaign. She crisscrossed England, Wales, and Scotland and her travel schedule was often leaked so as her Battle Bus drove from town to town hundreds of well wishers lined the road with a wave, a message or a bouquet. She had little time for the professional pollsters who were capable of showing her 20 points ahead one day and 1 point behind the next. On election eve her HQ staff informed her that the numbers looked so good that a hastily arranged tour of Labour-held seats with quite good majorities had been put together. While the idea of unseating the likes of John Fraser MP in Lambeth’s West Norwood — one of her stops — proved too ambitious, she won handily with a majority of 43 over all others: Votes

Seats

Compared to Oct ’74

CON

13.7m

339

+62*

LAB

11.5m

269

-50

LIB

4.3m

11

-2

OTHER

1.7m

16

-10**

1 Party political broadcasts are “free” three-, four- or five-minute slots on each of the five terrestrial TV channels. In the United Kingdom, paid political advertising on television or radio is illegal, but parties are instead allowed free broadcasts. Minor parties have to run a substantial number of candidates before they qualify.

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Both the swing (5.2%) between the two main parties and the margin (2.2 million) were the biggest since Attlee’s historic victory in 1945. And Margaret Thatcher had discovered Reagan Democrats well ahead of the President as the biggest swing to her had come from blue collar skilled workers and fully 33% of that had come during the campaign as she banged on about the unions.1 Number 10 Downing Street was to be her home for the next 11 years, 6 months and 24 days. Would she, could she, deliver?

1* She lost only one seat, namely Glasgow, Cathcart, held by her great ally Teddy Taylor. But he was soon back in Parliament in 1980 as the Member for Southend East following the death of Sir Stephen McAdden. ** “Other” parties such as those in Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to be very regional whereas the Liberal Party of 1979 did fight nationwide, coming mostly 3rd. Hence its 4.3m voters gained it a mere 11 seats whereas the more concentrated 1.7m votes garnered 16 seats.

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11. Liberating the Economy “To those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have one thing to say. You turn, if you want to; the lady’s not for turning.”

From being a dominant trading nation Britain’s presence on world markets had shriveled. The UK accounted for 20 per cent of world trade in manufactures in 1955 but only 10 per cent by 1979. It had exported 33 percent of the world’s cars in 1955. That was down to 3 per cent by 1979. Under the socialism of both parties the British economy was atrophying. One of the earliest and most bold reforms was to break free of the Exchange Controls. (These were the controls on the amount of sterling one could take abroad that had been introduced at the start of World War II.) In late October 1979, Prime Minister Thatcher’s Chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe suspended exchange controls. It was a brilliant move. Primary legislation was needed formally to abolish the exchange controls, but someone1 had spotted that to “suspend” the exchange controls legislation was not required; and the effect was the same. Brits could now move around freely — they no longer needed to go to their banks weeks ahead of time, passport in hand, to beg for foreign 1 Robert W. Miller and John B. Wood in a 1978 IEA monograph, Exchange Controls for Ever?

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currency — the tiny amount released being duly noted in said paperwork. And 900 bureaucrats in the Bank of England could now be redeployed. A striking aspect of this significant relaxation was that outside the Prime Minister and the Treasury ministers nobody was consulted, so no opposition could muster. It was liberating. The general view was that if Prime Minister Thatcher had done nothing else over the term of her Parliament it would be voted a success just because of this one reform. In later chapters we will read of denationalization, contracting out, sale of public housing, the defeat of the miners’ union, the reform of the unions and Thatcher’s attitude towards the EU — all very important. But this chapter will focus on the broader economic philosophy and thinking, the principles which guided her, and we will examine the relentless way she set about selling her economic vision in speech after speech, interview after interview. Flanked by Geoffrey Howe and Keith Joseph, her entry into 10 Downing Street marked the repudiation of Keynes and the post-war Butskellite consensus. All three had read Hayek and Friedman and knew their brief backward and forward. The UK abandoned all price controls. Dividend controls were scrapped. Limits on hire purchase were abandoned. Office Development Permits ceased. So did Industrial Development Certificates. This altered the entire spirit of the Government. Centralized pay controls ended. To replace the areas of economic dereliction created by the planning authorities, Mrs. Thatcher authorized 21 “Enterprise Zones.” The one in London, The Isle of Dogs, evolved into one of the greatest commercial regeneration areas ever experienced. Several square miles of London’s docklands, to the east of the City (i.e., the financial district), awoke from the torpor of municipal squalor and emerged as an entirely new and vibrant part of London. It was plain to any observer that these bleak derelict acres were not caused by the depredations of “capitalism” but rather the mortmain of local authority sloth. No government spending was needed. They only had to remove the cobwebs of bureaucracy. The first budget of June 1979 set the tone: interest rates and monetary policy to control inflation; and tax spending rather than income. 94

11. Liberating the Economy

“Pay as you spend is better than pay as you earn,” said Chancellor Howe again and again. He (not Prime Minister Thatcher) also famously coined the phrase, “there is no alternative” or TINA, as the Thatcherites were to say. However, it was the budget of 1981 that really turned matters around and set the basis for 25 years of growth. In the face of tough times every previous government for decades had caved in, reflated and gone for wage and price controls. Prime Minister Thatcher knew better and pressed ahead to defeat inflation and restore fiscal responsibility. She, and her Chancellor, saw inflation was a disease of money supply and not the result of particular prices rising. Prices are always moving relative to each other but inflation is the dilution of the currency by the state. This was contrary to the established consensus. 364 British economists went berserk and signed the following letter to the Times: We, who are all present or retired members of the economics staffs of British universities, are convinced that: ŪŪ there is no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence for the Government’s belief that by deflating demand they will bring inflation permanently under control and thereby induce an automatic recovery in output and employment; ŪŪ present politics will deepen the depression, erode the industrial base of our economy and threaten its social and political stability; ŪŪ there are alternative policies; and ŪŪ the time has come to reject monetarist policies and consider urgently which alternative offers the best hope of sustained recovery.

The Thatcher government replied: The Government has read with interest the four points to which these 364 economists subscribe. The Government, however, agree [sic] with the substantial school of economists which do [sic] believe that there is a strong connection between monetary growth and the rate of inflation, and has itself set out its thinking on this in evidence to the Treasury Select Committee. So far as output and employment are concerned, the Government’s supply side policies have been designed with the objective of raising both output and employment specifically in mind. Such policies are directed in particular to fostering the more effective working of market forces and the restoration of incentive [sic]. But experi-

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ence has shown that injections of monetary demand can at best have limited effect, and are ultimately counter-productive. For these reasons, the Government totally disagrees with the assertion that present policies will deepen the depression and weaken the UK’s industrial base. Countries pursuing policies broadly of the kind being implemented here are those with the strongest industrial base. It is conspicuous that although the 364 economists assert that there are alternative policies, they are unable to specify any such agreed alternatives.

It is hard to recall how tough this battle was. Michael Foot — the then Labour Party Leader — challenged the Prime Minister across the Dispatch Box in Parliament. Could she name two economists who agreed with her? Two as opposed to 364! “Yes,” she fired back: “Alan Walters and Patrick Minford.” “A good job he did not ask for three,” she said in the car back to Number 10 (perhaps a little unfairly). One unknown Tory MP Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler went from obscurity to total obscurity by crossing the floor to join the newly formed Social Democratic Party or SDP. He lost his seat at the next election and has since failed to be re-elected. It wasn’t just holding her nerve in 1981 but also the ongoing rhetorical artillery barrage. She and (as her cabinet improved over the years) a growing percentage of her senior colleagues in the parliamentary party and the party at large were unashamedly pro free-market and pro tax cuts, the dynamic of both ever improving the private sector. It was the transformation of attitudes that to this day really made the difference. It may be that this shift in perception is Mrs. Thatcher’s greatest triumph. New horizons opened up as the thickets of controls were abolished. The future, which had seemed to be Socialist planning, suddenly became free market. In the beginning of her Premiership her opponents were vehement in their hostility to economic freedoms. By the end of the 1990s they were emulating her. The top tax rates had been brought down from 83% on earned income and 98% on so-called “unearned” to 60% and then 40%, still high 96

11. Liberating the Economy

but a huge drop. Even leftists of all parties today acknowledge the need for a vibrant private sector and low taxes to encourage it. The idea that the man in Whitehall really knows best was finally put to rest and buried with the brilliant comedy series “Yes, Minister” followed by “Yes, Prime Minister.” The twin star of the series was a ubiquitous civil servant called Sir Humphrey Appleby. The British public laughed at his every line but deep inside they knew he was real and they learnt a lot. (Indeed years later it came out that the writers Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn had interviewed a number of top civil servants and advisers and that many of the TV farces were based on reality.) Jay had also studied “the economics of politics” as pioneered by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock of George Mason University in northern Virginia. Jay in particular to this day acknowledges this influence on his scripts. I once heard him say to a cheeky interlocutor: “I learnt my public choice economics from James Buchanan via the IEA.” The whole balance of society shifted. Young economists in training in the sixties salivated at the idea of being a trainee at the regional electricity board, in other words a safe job in a nationalized industry. But by the eighties it was off to the City and a job in the private sector. By a subtle process the brightest and best no longer sought sinecures in the armpit of the state but fortunes in the markets. Interestingly the Thatcher era marked a clear break in the type of person to lead the party and their economic background as this chart shows: Leader Churchill Eden Macmillan Douglas Home Heath Thatcher Major Hague Duncan Smith

Father Lord Baronet Publisher Lord Small business Small business Small business1 Small business2 Small business3 97

Education Independent Independent Independent Independent State Grammar State Girls School State Grammar State Comprehensive State School

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Howard Cameron 1 — Failed

Small business Small business2

2 — Small to medium

State Grammar Independent

3 — Not clear

After a false start under Heath a commitment to free enterprise came to dominate Margaret Thatcher’s party. Whether this will continue under the more patrician Cameron is not clear but it will be very hard to displace. The party of Butskellism became the party of Thatcherism. Save for the transformation of western Germany post-World War II, when the US reversed policy and set about rebuilding its economy with the Marshall Plan, no European nation had experienced such a reversal and revival of fortunes. Britain ceased to be embarrassed by itself and came alive again. The State was no longer commanding and coercing. Her citizens were free to follow the price signals of the market. It was the confidence that the country could thrive that primarily explains Mrs. Margaret Thatcher’s three consecutive electoral victories.

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12. Privatizing the Commanding Heights “The lesson has been that when you nationalise an industry not only do you pay a higher price for its product, but you pay twice to meet the ever increasing deficits of the capital investment.” “Labour believes in turning workers against owners; we believe in turning workers into owners.”

When Margaret Thatcher came to power the commanding heights of the economy were in state hands, badly run and losing money; local communities were fiefdoms of municipal socialism that kept the streets dirty and the trash left to rot; and a third of the population was in public housing not even able to choose the color of the paint on their government issued metal front doors. Privatization was to change all that. It was to have three main prongs. First came the “Right to Buy” scheme which gave sitting tenants in public housing a statutory right to purchase at a discount linked to the number of years spent paying rent — this is discussed in detail in Chapter 13, Selling Off Public Housing. Second there was the “Contracting out” of public services such as trash removal to private firms. Third was the “denationalization” of major companies moving them from public to private ownership. The rubric of privatization covered all three moves.

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Not all of the Prime Minister’s Tory followers were necessarily in favor of such policies. Some Tory local government leaders were almost as wedded to having a large stock of public housing as their socialist counterparts were. John Major (Prime Minister Thatcher’s successor — see Chapter 21) was judged by local government officers to have been the “best” Housing Committee Member (1968–1971) in the history of Lambeth Borough Council meaning he vastly increased people’s dependency on the state.1 And contracting out could be a two-edged sword. Yes it meant better services at lower cost but did the savings go to tax cuts or to yet more state provision of services? Finally there was a strong anti-denationalization thread. The argument went as follows: “If we denationalize then the other lot, i.e., the socialists, will only renationalize it when they get back in next time or the time after and that is very unsettling for the management — what management needs is stability to build world class organizations.” There was some truth to this argument. Steel had been nationalized in the ’40s, denationalized in the ’50s and renationalized in the ’60s. This must have been unsettling. It was IEA author Russell Lewis — the man Margaret Thatcher kissed on election night 1979 — who solved this dilemma. He pointed out in Goodbye to Nationalisation (1971) that steel in the past had been sold back to a small group of people. Instead, he asked, what if steel had been sold to hundreds of thousands of small owners, just as happened with Fiat in Italy and with Volkswagen in Germany? Surely it would be very difficult to renationalize a widely-held business. While the “Right to Buy” was quickly enacted and went off with a bang, “contracting out” and “denationalization” got off to slow but steady starts before moving up the gears as the ’80s unfolded. The intellectual case for “contracting out” came from an American MIT-trained engineer turned policy wonk, Bob Poole, head of the Reason Foundation in Santa Barbara and author of a little book called Cutting Back City Hall. In this book he explained how all you needed to 1 He was a Committee member ’68–’69, Vice Chairman ’69–’70, and Chairman ’70–’71. Comparing his three years with the three socialist preceding years, new families housed in socialist projects jumped 66% and new construction of such project housing went up 130%.

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run a city was a CEO, a lawyer to review contracts and a secretary. Everything — literally everything — could be outsourced and he littered his book with examples and figures. For everything a city might want to do Poole found examples of private provision, usually at half the cost and sometimes at one third. The author imported and sold quantities of this book, including one to Westminster City Councilman Michael Forsyth.1 Forsyth proceeded to write three short monographs on “contracting out,” two for the Conservative Political Centre (CPC) and one for the newly formed Adam Smith Institute (ASI). To this day ASI says this pamphlet is its best seller of all time at 20,000+ copies. These monographs translated Poole’s work into an English context and, led by the Westminster City Council, “contracting out” spread like a contagious disease throughout the country. The Audit Commission, the local city public accounts watchdog, claimed councils saved 17 per cent on contracts by merely rehearsing the idea — their staff teams reformed their ways. Yet it was still worth doing as the savings achieved averaged 22 per cent when roles were sub-contracted out to competing commercial enterprises. Professor Steve Savas, of Baruch College/CUNY, who has studied the results of contracting out, offers what he terms “Savas’ Law” — that contracting out any service, at any time, and any place, will save between 20 per cent and 40 per cent. Today the annual value of such contracts is estimated at £28 billion or $56 billion and a whole new industry has been established. Examples of “contracting out” are not limited to street cleaning and trash collecting but include road maintenance and a myriad of other services. Funnily enough many such firms are run by former local government officers who jumped ship from the public sector to the private sector and bid and won many early contracts knowing full well where the savings could be made. A prime example is Capita. Capita started out as a two-man operation in 1984 based at the Chartered Institute of Public Financing and Accountancy. By 1992 with “contracting out” in full swing it was operating 15 different sites. 1 Michael Forsyth, after serving as a Councilman for Westminster City Council, became MP for Stirling 1983–1997. He served as Secretary of State for Scotland 1995–1997. He was elevated to the House of Lords in 1999 as Lord Forsyth of Drumlean.

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Today it offers back office administration, human resources, treasury and financial services, information technology and software services, strategic support and more and has a turnover of $3.5 billion and a staff of 27,000 at 250 sites all over the UK, the Channel Islands, Ireland and India. While “contracting out” was an imported idea, denationalization was very much a domestic one which has now been exported to many parts of the world from Argentina to Australia and from Brazil to Bahrain. Indeed British expertise in this area is so high that whole firms of consultants go all over the world selling anything from pension provision to software solutions and human resources to financial services. Denationalization had flickered in the ’70s. Mr. Heath had sold off the travel agency Thomas Cook, and four public houses (i.e., pubs) in Carlisle!1 More seriously, at the time of grave financial crisis in 1977 Callaghan had sold off a chunk of British Petroleum (BP). But there had been no concerted campaign to get these loss-making behemoths out of the public sector and into private hands. It was not just a matter of stemming the red ink of subsidies, it was also a matter of exposing them to competition and the real world and developing wider public ownership of shares. The socialist claim was that primary industries and services owned exclusively by the state would serve the broader public interests far better than the “chaos” of the market. The claim seemed enhanced by the war effort where the government had commandeered resources to one end, necessarily placing the interests of all ahead of the interests of the few. Yet nationalization was an economic disaster, leading to poor business performance and an ongoing drain on the Exchequer. The total cost of capital write-offs and grants since World War II was given as £40,000 million expressed in 1982 prices. The rate of return on all the state’s ventures, large or small, never exceeded zero.

1 The story goes that these four pubs were the only ones in a neighbourhood where munitions workers lived. During World War I the government took them over so as to monitor and control the consumption of alcohol by these key workers.

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The big difference between the early 1970s and early 1980s was that the intellectual groundwork had been much better done by people who really believed in it and there was much greater political will. A key strategy was to involve the workers in every case by using a variety of tactics: offers of free shares; matching programs — buy one, get one free; programs that reserved a certain percent of the float for staff and pensioners; discounts; incentives to keep shares long term; and no limits on the number of preferential shares that could be bought — once only, in that case. These ideas neutralized or converted opposition within the state’s industries. Everyone’s self interest became engaged in the success. Individuals no longer acted as sullen trade unionists but as active investors. The inventory of nationalized bodies that were brought to the market is formidable. In The View From Number 11, former Chancellor Nigel Lawson sets out a decade of sales. Nine have names starting or incorporating “British” or “Brit,” as in: 1. British Petroleum 2. British Aerospace 3. Britoil 4. Associated British Port Holding 5. British Telecommunications 6. British Shipbuilders and Naval Docklands 7. British Gas 8. British Airways and 9. British Steel Then there were eleven electricity companies and eleven water companies. Finally there were seven others for a total of 38: 1. Cable and Wireless 2. Amersham International 3. National Freight Corporation 4. Enterprise Oil 5. Jaguar 6. Rolls Royce and 7. National Power 103

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Every single one of these companies was transformed. In some cases astonishing levels of over-manning were revealed as in National Power which pre-privatization employed 17,200 staff in 1990; by 1995 after privatization it employed a mere 5,100. And even today, as the pioneers of this great movement all bask or doze on the red leather benches of the House of Lords, privatization continues around the world and even under New Labour, albeit at a much slower pace. As former Prime Minister Blair himself once said “What matters is what works.” Initially it took real courage on the part of Prime Minister Thatcher and her ministers to force these rusting hulks out into the market. The sheer burden of losses made it imperative to reform them and make them commercially viable. Yet such was the success of the policy senior management of state corporations started to lobby ferociously to be the next in line for liberalization. Key to understanding what went on under her leadership was not just the movement from the public to the private sphere but also the gradual removal of statutory monopoly laws. These big companies were slothful because it was illegal to compete against them! Now in the private sector with their monopoly status going or gone they had to wake up or wash out. It is possible to criticize the wave of privatization as failing to break up monopoly status enough — BAA plc still owns all of the major UK airports as its public ancestor British Airports Authority did. These flotations had to appeal to the stock market. Captive markets were a guarantee of revenue — and dividends. To monitor and police these newly created companies a new profession arose of “regulators” who could intervene to open markets up. A further key to understanding is that when they were “public” nobody really owned them and they were effectively private secret fiefdoms captured by the employees and managers. Once private they were very much owned by the people and open to constant monitoring. Elsewhere the author has summed up the benefits of this program as follows:

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ŪŪ Lower prices: Competition and the rooting out of bureaucratic practices inevitably lead to lower prices. Domestic gas consumers have, for example, seen their bills cut by £1 billion since competition was introduced. ŪŪ Better quality: Anybody using a British phone today knows the connection is faster, clearer and more reliable — as well as being cheaper. ŪŪ More choice: The UK is now the only country in the world where even the smallest household consumer can choose between competing natural gas and electricity suppliers. ŪŪ Less corruption: 20 years ago there was a three month waiting list for a new phone and a £50 bribe (£200 or $400 at today’s price levels) was needed to get to the top of the list — today, you choose the time when they come to serve you. ŪŪ More investment: once privatized a long term view could be taken rather than the annual trip to see the Minister. Telecommunications in particular have benefited. ŪŪ More innovation: Brits used to have two choices of phones: white or black. ŪŪ Now whole shops stocking an incredible variety of equipment are a common sight. ŪŪ Better management: The electricity generators have halved their costs since privatization. There has been a real influx of private sector management. ŪŪ More openness: Accounts are published, journalists can investigate, MPs get their questions answered and all Brits have a far greater knowledge of what is actually happening. ŪŪ Better measures: The privatized companies are now judged by the market and the managers are free to set goals. In the past they were judged and manipulated by politicians and the managers often found themselves set political goals such as creating jobs in a marginal area. ŪŪ Fewer strikes: These industries (particularly coal, electricity and railways) were very vulnerable to strikes which have now all but disappeared. Indeed 80% of all days lost to strikes in the UK today occur in the Post Office which was not privatized! By 1990 British industry had changed beyond all recognition.

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Privatization was dismissed by its critics as “selling off the family silver” but it solved many problems and it created a body of expertise that became attractive around the planet. British companies were attributed with an acumen and competence that could be applied on every continent. The British auction of its otherwise unrewarding industries was a true alchemy. Liabilities became assets. Before these adventures under her leadership the world had only experienced the slow accretion of industries into state ownership. The British processes excited policy makers in every nation. Some argued on the grounds of liberal competitive capitalism. Others saw it as a hitherto unnoticed source of revenue. Whatever explanation one chooses, it succeeded in producing the desired results.

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13. Selling Off Public Housing “People will not value them (their homes) unless they pay at least something.”

— comment from Margaret Thatcher to the author

When Prime Minister Thatcher’s father Alf was a young man, the norm in Britain was to rent one’s home privately. About 90% of the population did so; the rest owned their home or were in social housing of one sort or another. Over the next few decades that was all to change. Firstly the socialists realized that having large numbers living in public housing (or council housing as Brits call it) was a good vote-winner. As the prominent socialist and later Cabinet Minister Herbert Morrison put it so neatly, they would “build the Tories out of London.” So the percentage living in public housing began to rise from close to zero in 1900 to over 30% by the 1970s. This was almost pure patronage for the Labour Party. Local elections were as crude as the slogan, “Vote Labour and we’ll get you a council house.” The Conservatives had nothing to say other than to agree the gaunt municipal housing estates were the future. Secondly the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restriction Act 1915 had brought in as a temporary war time measure a means for central government to control rents and protect tenancies. This depressed the 107

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rented sector hugely from 90% of the population privately renting in 1915 to 10% by the 1980s. Only a foolish owner would rent a property as the tenants had far greater rights. Thirdly over time tax relief was given on mortgages for house purchases making that option much more advantageous. This lead to a flood of people buying homes and private ownership duly rose by over 10 million units between 1914 and 1981. The overall impact of these three moves was as follows: Private Rental

Privately Owned

Public

1914

90%

9%

1%

1979

10%

53%

37%

Local authorities in the UK had always had the ‘right to sell’ — after all it was their property and they were free to dispose of it. And in the early days of public housing there was a sense that tenants were being given a hand up, not a handout, and that they would at some point purchase these homes. Politicians of all parties however were reluctant to sell, seeing the gift of an apartment or house to a voter (plus partner) as a valuable piece of political candy. After World War II, however, there were rumblings in some of the more intellectual corners of the Conservative Party about the size of the public sector. In a wealthy country, did a third of the people need to live in public housing supported by the taxpayer? And of course people’s fortunes changed over time. The tabloid press loved to regale Brits with photos of successful men driving topof-the-range Jaguars but living in council houses. This made no sense and was indeed offensive to those in real need. At the local level Tories began to experiment with schemes to encourage the purchase of homes by their tenants. The most successful before Prime Minister Thatcher got to work were those in Birmingham and Greater London. They allowed tenants to buy (in the case of Birmingham at a discount), which proved successful among middle class voters who could afford the extra repayments. Despite these schemes 108

13. Selling Off Public Housing

being in operation for only a year before the Labour government of the time closed them down, they succeeded (along with other schemes in Liverpool and other cities) in doubling the amount of public housing sold from 4,867 units in 1967 to 9,979 units in 1968. From a purely financial point of view selling was a no-brainer; even giving the properties away was a good idea at the time. Let me explain. Authorities faced one income stream but three expenditure flows. On the income side they got the rent, but many tenants were on housing benefit so the net rent was a lot lower than the gross. On the expenditure side there was administration, plus repairs, plus the interest on the money borrowed to build the houses or apartments in the first place. In many places the administration and repairs would cost more than the net rent, so you would literally be better off to say to the Director of Legal Services in a city, “please mail every single property deed to the sitting tenants for free today.” I pointed this out to her as Leader of the Opposition in 1978, to which she replied: “People will not value them unless they pay at least something.” As noted earlier she had in fact championed sales with a one third discount off the fair market value of the property in the October 1974 election. But she was slightly reluctant, as were many Tories, to embrace this idea fully. After all, many of their natural supporters had scrimped and saved for a deposit and to qualify for a mortgage. How would they react if people round the corner suddenly got a third or even more off their home? A significant number of Labour Party MPs and officials however thought the right to buy would be “lethal” in many areas, lethal as in deadly to their electoral chances. Two unlikely allies came to her side on this issue. They were Peter Walker and Michael Heseltine, both senior MPs in her party, both highly successful in business and both well to the Left. Walker in particular pushed hard for very radical action to get lots of housing out of state hands and into private ones. This proved to be a real lesson in political entrepreneurship. It applied each family’s self interest towards 109

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electoral success. It remains to be seen if similar opportunities can be created out of the remaining state controlled National Health Service and city hall run schools. Their enthusiasm overcame her reservations and the 1979 manifesto read: “Our discounts will range from 33 per cent after three years, rising with length of tenancy to a maximum of 50 per cent after twenty years. We shall also ensure that 100 per cent mortgages are available for the purchase of council and New Town1 houses. We shall introduce a right for these tenants to obtain limited term options on their homes so that they know in advance the price at which they can buy, while they save the money to do so.” In her memoirs she praises “the ever ingenious Peter Walker.” While in her 1980 speech to her Party Conference in Brighton she said, “Michael Heseltine has given to millions — yes, millions — of council tenants the right to buy their own homes.” Heseltine described the whole process as “epoch making.” He added that “it was the deal of a lifetime” for those who exercised their Right to Buy. It all amounted to “a quiet revolution,” the “breakup” of the “monolithic local authority (housing) estates” and the creation of “a less polarized society.” She also commented: “It was Anthony Eden who chose for us the goal of ‘a property-owning democracy.’ But for all the time that I have been in public affairs that has been beyond the reach of so many who were denied the right to the most basic ownership of all, the homes in which they live. They wanted to buy. Many could afford to buy. But they happened to live under the jurisdiction of a socialist council, which would not sell and did not believe in the independence that comes with ownership.” In his memoirs Michael Heseltine recalls that getting the “Right to Buy” through Parliament was delegated to John Stanley MP. Stanley hired “the sharpest barrister they could and briefed him as though he had been retained by an extreme left-wing council with infinite resources and with an absolute determination to break our proposed legislation. His job was to tell us if and how he could do it.” The bar-

1 A New Town is a government-planned settlement with a mix of council owned and privately owned properties. Twenty-one were built between 1946 and 1970.

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rister did find a way to defeat the legislation in the courts and promptly showed the Tories how to close it. The “Right to Buy” legislation included the right of the minister to intervene if a local council refused to sell and as predicted many Labour councils challenged the policy. For example in Lambeth, south London, the author witnessed its Council Leader “Red” Ted Knight instructing officers not to sell. When they were forced to implement the legislation they did so very grudgingly warning tenants of the “dangers of home ownership” versus “the safety of being a council tenant.” Such was the interest in the “Right to Buy” that hundreds of tenants turned up at briefing meetings organized by the Conservative Opposition group on Lambeth Council to learn how to fill in the paperwork. Michael Havers, the Attorney General, advised Heseltine and Stanley not to use the powers of ministerial intervention until there was a case that could definitely be won. The evidence against Norwich Local Authority gave them “an overwhelming chance of success.” Heseltine said “We had been right to wait. When we finally went to court, we won hands down, although we had to fight the matter through to the Court of Appeal.” There was an enormous pent up demand for home ownership in the public sector and people who had been paying rent for ten or twenty or more years were battering down the door to get these half price homes. Once converted Prime Minister Thatcher went for the “Right to Buy” with a vengeance, appearing at milestone sales for photo opportunities regularly. And the policy was a stunning success. The Labour Party, nationally and in every local authority, was wrong-footed by this policy. It appeared to be arguing that tenants lacked the competence to become owners or that in some elusive sense the sold house would cease to be part of the housing stock. Tory canvassing teams, used to being unwelcome on council estates, found themselves acclaimed as the natural ally of every family and VOTE CONSERVATIVE posters began to appear in many front windows. The resentment Prime Minister Thatcher feared never emerged as homeowners saw that this was essentially a rent to mortgage

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scheme, namely that many years, even decades, of paying rent deserved recognition. Whole estates were transformed as suddenly people could fix their own problems, paint their own homes and replace government issue doors and windows with their own and so on. The author used to take visitors from overseas to see such estates and would point to a row of ten such homes. Say six had been privatized and four not. I’d ask my guests to pick the private six and they did so unfailingly. It was an utter transformation of the sector. Some three million housing units have moved from public to private hands since 1979, changing the balance of ownership. For the first time in generations people reliant on the state to control and regulate their homes had the freedom to make their own decisions. They could paint the walls without filling in a form and repair a leaking roof without the council having to do it for them. Legions of families for the first time were experiencing the freedom of home ownership, all thanks to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the ‘Right to Buy’. As tenants of a local authority their relationship had been too often servile — serf like. Ownership invested them with a dignity never experienced before. It is not possible to calibrate such a quality but it was easy to see the prices of these liberated homes rise in value. Families were surprised they had gained a capital asset. Going back to the chart at the start of this chapter and updating to 1997 we see: Private Rental

Privately Owned

Public

1914

90%

9%

1%

1979

10%

53%

37%

1997

12%

71%

17%

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14. Going to War “Just suppose Alaska was invaded ...” — Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to President Ronald Reagan

“Come what may, we cope.”

Americans have struggled for two plus decades to understand the Falkland Islands War. To Brits it was very simple and straightforward. Starting with India after World War II, the British Empire had been transformed into a Commonwealth of Nations, with HM Queen Elizabeth II as nominal head of state in such countries. In practical terms they were fully independent. With a few exceptions they had mostly become dictatorships, dependent on aid which was used to politicize societies as it was spent on arms or deposited in secret Swiss Bank accounts. Many of the leaders squandered their British inheritance of good laws, sound money and so on. Decolonization in fact proved brutal and degrading for many. On the other side there were a certain few far flung enclaves that were desperate to stay British — and indeed they were often more British than the British. Such a list would start with the Falkland Islands and would include Gibraltar, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Ascension, Saint Helena, Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia, the South Sandwich Islands and the 113

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Turks and Caicos Islands. Some were territorial anomalies; others were thriving communities. The eleven weeks of the war became the most vivid period in her memory of the eleven years plus in Downing Street. They transformed Prime Minister Thatcher’s standing in her own nation and made her into a world figure. Her political stature, after victory in the South Atlantic, was enhanced. I think she too saw with greater clarity the fidelity of many of her colleagues — or rather the infidelity and weakness of too many. It is doubtful any of her Cabinet would have fought the conflict at all. Her staunch resolve made her quite a hero to some. From the start the war was not so much about territory and citizens — important though they were — but rather, as she put it, that: “The aggressors should never succeed and that international law should prevail over the use of force.” Americans mostly do not realize that the British had been in the Falkland Islands since 1690; that the Islanders were entirely British. It might be only 300 miles off of the Argentinean coast but there had never been an Argentine population. The islanders were unanimous — they simply wanted the status quo, namely to remain loyal subjects of HM The Queen. When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister she inherited a proposal by the Foreign Office to lease-back the Falklands under which the UK would give the Islands to Argentina but immediately lease-back the running of the country. The islanders did not want it (indeed, when the prospect was raised with them it was met with protests in the streets proclaiming “Keep The Falkland Islands British”) and neither did the Prime Minister, nor the House of Commons, nor her junior minister at the Foreign Office responsible for the issue, Nick Ridley MP.1 The Argentinean invasion on Friday, April 2, 1982 was a complete surprise to Britain. Hardly anybody seriously thought the Argentineans would invade and once they did the dominant view of officials in the Foreign Office and Defense Department was that they could not be 1 The Rt. Hon Nicholas Ridley was MP for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (1959-1992). Under Prime Minister Thatcher he was Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1979–81). He resigned from his Cabinet post as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 1990 over an off-message interview in the Spectator magazine that criticized the plans for an all-EU currency.

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recovered. Prime Minister Thatcher was first alerted on Wednesday March 31 in the evening. She quickly convened a meeting of the relevant Foreign Office and Defense ministers and officials. Bluntly she asked the Chief of the Naval Staff, First Sea Lord Sir Henry Leach, “What can you do?” He differed from many of his colleagues and told her a task force lead by two aircraft carriers could be ready in 48 hours. She told him to get cracking but not to sail before she had the Cabinet on side. There were doubts as to the efficacy of a military solution — in the Foreign Office, where some members favor diplomacy to the point of appeasement, in the Ministry of Defense, and also at the US State Department. For example, Jeane Kirkpatrick, US Ambassador to the UN, went to a gala event in her honor hosted by Argentina’s Ambassador to the US on the evening of the day of the invasion. She was later asked how the US would have felt if the British Ambassador to the UN had, say, gone to dinner at the Iranian Embassy on the very evening that the US hostages were taken in Tehran. Over the next eleven weeks Kirkpatrick continued to fail to demonstrate the sort of support London felt it had a right to expect. But the British public, the House of Commons, Caspar Weinberger and Ronald Reagan stood firm with her. That Saturday the House of Commons met in an emergency session with every word broadcast live to the nation. Prime Minister Thatcher came through very well and got the support she wanted. Her Defense Secretary John Nott and Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington were severely bruised for not stopping the invasion in the first place. The great Parliamentarian Enoch Powell famously referred to her “soubriquet as the ‘Iron Lady’” and stated that “in the next week or two this House, the Nation and the Right Hon. Lady herself will learn of what metal she is made.” Even the Labour Party was on her side because it viewed Argentinean leader General Galtieri to be a fascist dictator. Parliament met on a Saturday (April 3, 1982) for the first time since the Suez crisis. Calls for heads to roll became incessant and she accepted the resignations of Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington1 and two of his junior 1 Lord (Peter) Carrington served as Prime Minister Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary from 1979 to 1982 when he resigned over the Falklands War. He was Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988 and is currently the longest serving member of the House of Lords.

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ministers, Richard Luce1 and Humphrey Atkins.2 Carrington was quickly replaced with Francis Pym but John Nott was not allowed to go — stick to it through to victory, she told him. The Task Force headed out on Monday, April 5, to the astonishment of leftist intellectuals and the Russian Communist Party. By the time the last ship left there were over 25,000 men on board over 100 vessels. The departure of the task force was watched by every Brit. The television and radio news bulletins were extended. Newspaper sales doubled. The nation surprised itself, seeing that its military could mount a force so quickly and that the political leaders were not dithering. A “War Cabinet” was established consisting of a handful of men and Prime Minister Thatcher. It met daily, often more than once a day. As the Task Force sailed 8,000 miles, the Prime Minister threw herself into diplomacy, exploring options from trade blocks to banning arms sales and from bank boycotts to prohibiting all imports by the United States and the European Community. Different countries reacted differently: Ireland, Japan and Italy were negative while France, West Germany, Canada and New Zealand were very positive, as was Chile, of course. New Zealand offered its ships and Chile gave signals intelligence. The Soviet Union and its allies were very vocal supporters of Argentina. While Al Haig3 flew back and forth on ineffective missions between Washington DC, Buenos Aires and London, Prime Minister Thatcher began to focus on war. An earlier Military Exclusion Zone4 was now replaced with a Total Exclusion Zone so that aircraft as well as ships were banned from the 1 Luce later became Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham and then Governor of Gibraltar. 2 Because Lord Carrington sat in the Lords he needed somebody to speak on Foreign Affairs in the Commons. That somebody was Humphrey Atkins MP, who did so as Lord Privy Seal. 3 Alexander Haig, President Reagan’s Secretary of State. A military hawk, his tenure as Secretary of State was characterized by clashes with the more moderate Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger. Haig resigned abruptly in July 1982. 4 A military exclusion zone is an area in the immediate vicinity of a military action established by a country to prevent the unauthorized entry of civilian personnel/ equipment for their own safety or to protect natural assets already in place in the zone. It is also established to prevent an enemy from acquiring any material which could help them.

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200-mile radius and it became a top priority to block Argentina’s use of the Port Stanley Airfield. However, as the British painlessly took the outlying islands of South Georgia and got daily nearer to the main target, so knees began to tremble at all the usual places, from the UN and the US State Department to the Labour Party and the British Foreign Office. “Diplomacy” finally came to an end on April 29. However far Al Haig and Francis Pym bent over, they met with nothing but Argentinean intransigence. As President Reagan wrote to Prime Minister Thatcher at the end of the month: “We will leave no doubt that Her Majesty’s Government worked with us in good faith and was left with no choice but to proceed with military action based on the right of self defense.” It was a scrappy war. In late April, I was visiting New York University, where I made a $100 bet with a professor of economics. He said we Brits might win, but the cost in lives would be thousands. I said we would win and casualties would not exceed 250. Technically I lost the bet as British casualties totaled 255 — but I was more right than wrong. An early action was the bombing of the runway at Port Stanley by a force of all but mothballed Vulcan Bombers that set off from Ascension Island 3,886 miles away. It was the longest such raid ever made at the time and as such the bombers needed refueling in mid air on no less than five occasions. At sea Prime Minister Thatcher’s advisers told her that the two main threats were the Argentinian aircraft carrier 25 de Mayo and a cruiser Belgrano, with accompanying destroyers which were close to the Total Exclusion Zone and very well supplied with missiles — well over 300. It was clear that both the 25 de Mayo and the Belgrano group were serious threats, and rules of engagement were issued to British submarines. Within hours the Belgrano was sunk with the loss of 321 lives and it has since become a talisman for the left who have used it to question the ethics guiding how Prime Minister Thatcher fought the war. The 25 de Mayo hightailed it to port and was never seen or heard of again. The BBC and the Irish used the sinking of the Belgrano to cause mischief while the French and the West Germans wavered in their support.

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Not everything went smoothly. An Exocet missile supplied by the French took out HMS Sheffield with the loss of 20 men and a Harrier jet aircraft went down. As such casualties were reported, the British military leaders feared she would waver and pull back, but she never flinched. By now the SAS1 and the SBS2 had arrived on the scene — I believe they had long been there supplying intelligence but now they began to strike. On May 14 as British air supremacy began so the SAS folk took out all eleven of the Argentinean aircraft at an airstrip called Pebble Island. The “Argies” crumbled. It is apt to register that the Argentinian soldiers were all conscripts while the British troops were all volunteers. The nature of their morale was entirely different. Milton Friedman, father of the all-volunteer army in the US, was smiling. On May 21 the first British troops landed at Port San Carlos with no loss but as daylight came three British ships, HMS Ardent (lost), HMS Argonaut, and HMS Brilliant (heavily damaged) were hit and two British helicopters taken out with nine Argentinean fighters destroyed too. But 5,000 men had been landed. And so it went: May 23: HMS Antelope sunk; 17 Argentinean aircraft destroyed May 25: HMS Coventry sunk May 28: 2nd Parachute Regiment lead by Colonel H Jones takes Darwin at Goose Green. Jones posthumously receives the UK’s highest medal the Victoria Cross for leading his men across acres of exposed ground against well armed and dug in Argentineans. The result was: British dead 17 Argentinean dead 55 Argentinean surrendered 1,050. While the war continued on land, in the air, and at sea, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan met at the G7 Summit at Versailles, in France. Prime Minister Thatcher thanked 1 SAS stands for the British Army’s Special Air Service Regiment which is ranked by many as the very best Special Forces unit in the world. Its motto is “Who Dares Wins.” 2 SBS stands for the British Navy’s Special Boat Service which specializes in water borne operations.

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President Reagan for the US help she requested in caring for the thousands of Argentinean troops that were surrendering. As the final assault on the hills surrounding Port Stanley began, Britain suffered its worst day of the war. HMS Plymouth was hit and the landing crafts Sir Galahad and Sir Tristan were respectively sunk and badly hit. Fifty men died and another fifty five were wounded. But the end was coming quickly. While June 12 saw HMS Glamorgan hit by an Exocet as it was bombarding the Argentinean positions in Port Stanley, it also saw the first of the mounts and ridges behind the capital taken in fierce night fire-fights. The Argentineans were soon seen en masse throwing down their arms and walking back into Port Stanley. Thirty-two British troops died as did scores of Argentineans. On June 14 Commander Mario Menendez and his 9,800 strong force surrendered. “We have ceased to be a nation in retreat,” said the Prime Minister. How right she was. The psychological significance of the Falklands War was transforming. From our distance in time it can seem as a silly little duel over remote Magellanic Rocks. Yet in 1982 it redrew the UK political landscape. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s stock rose to near that of Churchill. It was felt that she had the tenacity to win, which most politicians had lacked. Before the Falklands War people suspected she was something special; once victory had been achieved, they knew she was very special indeed. While her self confidence was boosted she did not become arrogant — more a Joan of Arc than a Boudicca.

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15. Beating the Miners “We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands and now we have to fight the enemy within, which is much more difficult but just as dangerous.” “These few men are the wreckers in our midst.”

Arthur Scargill’s flying pickets, supported by most of organized Labour, had twice defeated Ted Heath (see Chapter 6) and they held a special place in the political landscape. They had an aura of invincibility. They could bring down a government, and indeed they had done so only a decade earlier. Prime Minister Thatcher’s massive 1983 victory (144 majority) outraged the Left, in particular Arthur Scargill, the Marxist leader of the NUM who was soon talking about not needing to wait until the next election to get rid of her. I think it possible that her defeat of General Galtieri emboldened her to take on the mineworkers with a robustness she may otherwise not have shown. As early as September 1981 Energy Secretary Nigel Lawson — a brilliant man — quietly began building up what became massive coal stocks, not at the pit heads but rather at the power stations. Then in the fall of 1983 two key moves were made. Peter Walker became Energy Secretary and Ian MacGregor1, who spent most of his working life in the US, became Chairman of the National Coal Board. 1 Ian MacGregor was born in Scotland but had immigrated to the USA. In 1976 the then Labour government had brought him back to try to sort out a nationalized

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During the winter of ’83/’84 tensions rose as MacGregor made plans to close uneconomical pits, make thousands of workers redundant and cut production. The strike began on March 12, 1983 over the closure plans for one particular colliery. But it was not a nationwide strike. It was limited to regions where the hard left had the numbers. No national ballot was held as Scargill was not sure he would win and support from other unions was close to non-existent. Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock was to regret bitterly that he did not condemn the failure to ballot. Also Mr. Scargill’s timing was inept. March was just when demand for heating became less. Crucially the police who were involved very cleverly used a common law right to disperse flying pickets before they even reached their destination claiming that they were clearly intending to break the public peace. Prime Minister Thatcher followed every detail, particularly the levels of coal stocks at power plants and in other key areas. In late May — nearly three months in — things began to turn ugly as the NUM began assembling very large numbers of pickets at one particular spot and at very short notice. Tuesday May 29 for example saw 5,000 pickets battle 4,200 police in riot gear at Orgreave Coke Works — 69 people (41 police and 28 picketers) were injured. “The rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob,” proclaimed Prime Minister Thatcher. Could she have been clearer? The Prime Minister emboldened her wobbly Home Secretary Leon Brittan to back the police emphatically. They formed the impression they were on the side of virtue and fairness. Edward Heath had never achieved this in 1974 when the posture of the Government and the NCB was to appease. The summer saw sporadic violence and much to-ing and fro-ing between all parties. Some economically viable pits filled with water as the miners who maintained them were on strike. This lead to more pit closures than had originally been planned due to the health and safety concerns in these mines and the prohibitive cost of getting them back to a workable standard. The miners were shooting themselves in the foot. vehicle manufacturer.

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A major element became the war between the striking miners and the working miners. Those who chose not to participate in the illegal strike found themselves and their wives and children subject to abuse, attacks and arson. The courts began to have an effect too with two Yorkshire miners bringing a civil case against Scargill and the NUM, resulting in several hundred thousand dollar fines for the latter. Scargill faced huge embarrassment when the press revealed that President Gaddafi and Soviet President Gorbachev were sending large sums of money to the NUM. Surely treason was in the air. As fall went on, the NCB mailed all miners, saying that everyone at work from Monday, November 19 on would get a very generous Christmas bonus. Thousands took up the offer and week by week more returned to work. But violence continued. In late November one working miner was beaten in his own home — nineteen of his former colleagues were arrested. In another case a miner using a taxi to get to work saw his driver killed when a three-foot concrete post hurled from a motorway bridge impaled him. Two miners got life sentences for that. By early January 75,000 miners were at work with more returning daily — the now ten-month illegal action was crumbling. And by February 27 — after 50 weeks — the numbers at work exceeded those not at work and on March 3 — just nine days short of a year — the NUM voted for a return to work. The most violent, left-wing and militant of all Britain’s unions, the union that had brought down the previous Conservative government, had found in Prime Minister Thatcher an unbending will to stop what she called “the fascist left” dead in their tracks. She destroyed the myth that you needed the unions on your side to win power and in doing so she encouraged moderate trade unionists everywhere to reclaim their unions. Typically she held a party at 10 Downing Street for the leaders of the miners who refused to strike. As for Scargill he remained as leader of the NUM until 2000. In 1996 he left the Labour Party after it aban-

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doned Clause IV1 in its quest to become electable; it also embraced Margaret Thatcher’s economic reforms including privatization and the reforms that had finally brought the unions under the rule of law. Scargill saw New Labour as “a willing handmaiden to multinational corporations and bodies like the International Monetary Fund which preside over global poverty, illiteracy, disease, war and pollution.” In 1996, after abandoning the Labour Party, Scargill founded the Socialist Labour Party, which despite having only 2,958 individual members has still managed to have several internal wars between the membership resulting in some factions being expelled by Scargill. Their impact on the 2005 election was negligible, getting only 0.07% of the popular vote. To put that in context a local party called the Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern got 0.07% of the popular vote despite standing in only one constituency with one policy, to save the local hospital. Socialist Labour Party policies include an aim to “abolish Capitalism” and “to taking all the industries and services privatized in the past 26 years back into public ownership.” And at the same time a policy of nationalizing “Britain’s banks, which recorded over £20 billion profits in 2000, the major oil companies, along with the major insurance companies and other industries.” With these types of policies it is no surprise they do so badly in elections as they are clearly completely out of touch with public opinion and some would say reality. From being a menace and a threat who intimidated the nation Arthur Scargill was reduced to being an object of derision. Prime Minister Thatcher had illustrated once again her Iron Lady credentials. The fall of Scargill from a serious threat to UK industry to a footnote in British politics was documented recently by the Conservative MP and former leader, William Hague, when Scargill on a TV panel with Hague called for re-nationalization in 2004: “What was striking was the reaction of the audience: while a preMargaret Thatcher audience would have trembled before him, a post-Margaret Thatcher audience simply laughs — treating his comments as a trip down memory lane, an entertaining show put on by an affable and now harmless museum piece.” 1 This was the clause in its constitution which committed it to public ownership (i.e., government ownership) of most of the business sector.

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The miners’ strike was not a minor industrial dispute. It was nearer to being an insurrection. It was crushed and even former close allies of Ted Heath such as Jim Prior had to give the Prime Minister fulsome credit when comparing her leadership to that of a decade earlier. Without Prime Minister Thatcher, the UK could still be in the grip of unions holding government and industry to ransom whenever they chose. Throughout, she saw things with great clarity. She denounced the violent picketing as “intimidation” and proclaimed it to be “unlawful assembly.” She insisted that “violence must not be seen to pay.” The UK economy is in a far better state thanks to Prime Minister Thatcher’s victory over the NUM. It was yet more evidence of a new brand of leadership.

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16. Reforming the Unions “Laws giving protective immunity to the trade unions at the turn of the century were now abused to protect restrictive practices and over manning, to underpin strikes and to coerce workers into joining unions and participation in industrial action against their better judgment.”

It is now a generation since the National Union of Mineworkers brought down a government. You have to be at least in your mid forties to recall the British three day week, the endless strikes, the ignorance and arrogance of the far left Union leaders, the coercion of decent people and the endless meetings of union leaders, bosses and the PM over beer and sandwiches at Number 10. The whole culture was one of getting ahead by brute force rather than better serving your customer. British trade unions were exempted from the Law of Tort. They were immune from the restraints of law. Prime Minister Thatcher, strengthened by the winter of discontent, wanted to make three immediate changes. First she wanted to tackle the practice of picketing, limiting it just to the place of work directly involved. In other words secondary picketing at say an upstream supplier would become illegal. Second, Labour had strengthened the rights of unions to impose closed shops — to make union membership obligatory. She proposed 127

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to weaken those arrangements and to give more power and rights to individual workers. Third, she proposed wider use of secret and postal ballots for all major union decisions to halt the pressure brought to bear when all that is needed is a show of hands. All such proposals were greeted with outright hostility by the Labour Party and the TUC. Prime Minister Thatcher went over their heads to the British public and the ordinary members of the unions. She explained that strikes affected union members just as much as the rest of us. And she used simple examples to show how the kind of economic thinking represented by the TUC would keep Britain on the road to ruin. Her strategy was to break down the closed shop and bring real democracy to these institutions so that ordinary members could regain control. She was also helped in this as the British economy moved out of iron, coal and steel and towards services. That trend plus privatization meant that union membership was inexorably evaporating. Time and time again Prime Minister Thatcher banged on about the damage unions were doing to the living standards of ordinary people, how they cost jobs and lost orders that could never be replaced. She also grasped and understood the link between the giant monopoly nationalized industries and union power. Break those monopolies and you have gone a long way to bringing unions under control. Her attempts to act quickly were badly hampered by a leftover Heath acolyte named James Prior, whose instinct was always to yield to union demands. He was the sort of man F.A. Hayek was thinking of when he dedicated The Road to Serfdom “To the Socialists of all Parties.” In the September of 1981 reshuffle she moved him to become Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and appointed as Secretary of State for Employment the much sounder, more robust, Norman Tebbit. Norman worked well with his Prime Minister. They had a natural rapport. He introduced regular ballots in closed shops to test ongoing support; increased the compensation for people damaged in a closed shop; made union labor only contracts illegal; strengthened employers rights to sack strikers; restricted what could be classed as a lawful dispute; and removed the unlimited immunity from actions for damages 128

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that so favored the unions, thus opening up the possibility that their funds, their war chest, could be vulnerable if sued. Further Acts in 1984 and 1988 and 1990 continued to strengthen the rights of the individual workers and to whittle away at trade union powers in particular the closed shop. The overall result was the total transformation of the UK labor market. As noted before union membership dropped from 51% in 1979 to 18% in 1997 while ownership of shares by trade unionists (often in the business for which they worked) rocketed up from 6% in 1979 to 29% in 1997. What a transformation. As well as the epic battle with the miners described in the previous chapter there was also the issue of the print workers and the introduction of new technology — Prime Minister Thatcher was not so involved as the print workers were in the private sector whereas the miners were in a nationalized industry. It all started with a nice man called Eddie Shah in Warrington, North West England, who was the first entrepreneur to make use of Thatcherite reforms as he founded a high tech newspaper called Today. He stood up to very violent picketing and even death threats. However trouble rapidly moved south to London and that great entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch. He moved production from Fleet Street to Wapping and in doing so broke the power of the print workers. He used every one of her reforms and after a year of nightly battles between police and pickets Rupert prevailed. The British trade unions were more than “combinations in restraint of trade.” They were also the pay-masters of the Labour Party. They were its major source of income and through the bloc votes mechanism at Labour Party conferences could make policy. For example, at the 1987 Conference in Blackpool the unions exercised a vote of 5,792,000 — swamping the votes of the constituency parties with a mere 617,000 votes. In bringing trade unions back within the Rule of Law she also altered much of the texture of her opponent’s Party. It is reasonable to argue the rise of Mr. Blair would not have been possible but for her transformation of this lawless rogue element in British public life. All of British commerce prospered under these newly equitable laws. The flexibility of UK employment contracts has been a defining 129

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feature of the sudden surge in British industrial vitality. This remains in contrast to the constricted nature of French or German employment policies.

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17. Battling the I.R.A. “All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.” “They [the IRA] should be wiped off the civilised world.”

The IRA terrorists ran their bombing campaign from 1969 to July 2005, finally decommissioning all of their weapons in September 2005. In Northern Ireland (or Ulster) alone over 3,524 people were killed or rather murdered during the “Troubles.” A further 10,000 were injured. Some lost limbs while others had lesser wounds. It is not possible to count the psychological injury to the relatives and families more widely. Very few in Northern Ireland, Protestant or Catholic, remained untouched by the bloodshed during Prime Minister Thatcher’s time in office. As we read in Chapter 10 Airey Neave, her right hand man, a trusted confidante and Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had been killed by an IRA bomb on March 30, 1979 on the ramp leading out of the underground parking lot at the Palace of Westminster. Indeed one of her first duties as Prime Minister was to give the memorial service address for him. After his death she said “I felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut.” Today there are some trash cans back on the streets of London; windows in pubs are long free of anti glass shrapnel tape; and a bag left 131

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in a public corner is not immediately a cause to clear everyone out. In central London at least that was not the case for large parts of the ’70s, ’80s and even early ’90s. It is easy to forget. A major reason we can live more easily — and even see former members of the IRA’s ruling army council such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness tucking into their eggs and bacon at the Tevere café1 on the corner of Great Peter Street and Marsham Street in the heart of Westminster — is because of Prime Minister Thatcher’s tenacity and courage in facing down the IRA. What was the issue? The IRA is the Catholic paramilitary terrorist group that through violent means wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland as supposed to remaining part of the UK, which is what most of the Protestant majority want. Prime Minister Thatcher refused to compromise to the demands of terrorists, seeing the people of Northern Ireland’s right to self determination as paramount and that any change to the status of Northern Ireland would be achieved by political means, not violence. Even many friends of Britain, Americans included, are unaware that the island of Ireland has two divergent peoples. Ulster, or Northern Ireland, is often caricatured as an English colony. This is false. If anything the Ulster Protestants are Scots not English. Mrs. Thatcher had barely gotten the Prime Ministerial seat warm when on August Bank Holiday Monday (August 27) the IRA murdered Lord Mountbatten (the Queen’s cousin) and three others: the Dowager Baroness Brabourne, the Hon. Nicholas Knatchbull and crew member Paul Maxwell. Four others were injured as a bomb blew apart Mountbatten’s boat off the Irish coast. The very same day eighteen soldiers were killed at Warren Point in a two bomb pincer movement. The first bomb was set off by remote control and then, when more troops moved in to tend to the wounded, the second bomb was exploded. Prime Minister Thatcher’s reaction was threefold. First, she wrote a personal note to all the families involved. Second, she flew less than 48 hours later unannounced and wearing a flak jacket to the hotbed of “bandit country” in South Armagh, also visiting the hospital where the 1 Recently converted into a branch of Pret A Manger.

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injured were being treated, dropping in on local politicians and having lunch with the Army’s 3 Brigade. She finally visited the Royal Ulster Constabulary; some of the officers she met that day would not see out the end of her premiership. And third, she gave impetus to talks back in Whitehall on how to improve intelligence and pledged to tackle Irish Prime Minister Jack Lynch on cross border issues. She did in fact confront Lynch within days, but he stonewalled her and gave no cooperation at all to hunt down these murderers. However a pattern was clearly emerging: she would support the people of Ulster with frequent visits and she would use every opportunity to dry up the IRA’s sources of funding that came from misguided Irish-Americans. To that end President Reagan was totally on her side and he made repeated efforts to help, efforts that began to have an effect. Colonel Gaddafi of Libya was another major source of help to the IRA. I wonder if that crossed Prime Minister Thatcher’s mind in 1986 when she gave President Reagan permission to bomb Libya from UK bases! The IRA clearly didn’t like this and by 1981 had decided to try to kill her. But all along Prime Minister Thatcher and a succession of Northern Ireland Secretaries Humphrey Atkins, James Prior, Douglas Hurd, Tom King and Peter Brooke struggled with the dilemma of a mainly Protestant majority wishing to remain part of the UK and a mainly Catholic minority wishing to be part of Eire. And while she felt a great deal more at home with the Unionists she had sympathy for the Catholic minority which had clearly suffered great prejudice for a long time and in all kinds of ways. Her sympathy was to be sorely tested when convicted IRA terrorists went on a “dirty protest” the details of which I leave to your imagination and followed it up with a “hunger strike.” Surely that should be a “food strike”! The issue in question was very simple. Terrorists wanted to be treated as political prisoners rather than as every day criminals. Prime Minister Thatcher would have none of it. She was in charge of the prisons not the terrorists. As an early striker lost consciousness the protest was called off only to restart soon and this time led by Bobby Sands who had been 133

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elected to Parliament as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone at a byelection caused by the death of Frank Maguire. He was all but an MP — as a prisoner of course he could not attend Parliament and be sworn in, not that he would have taken the Loyalty Oath to HM The Queen anyway. It may seem bizarre that a convicted criminal could stand for election, but until 1981 there was no law preventing a criminal in prison from standing in an election. However it was against the law to take up political office as a convict so if Sands had survived he would not have been able to sit as an MP. He started his “hunger strike” on March 1, 1981 and died on May 5, 1981. From that day on Prime Minister Thatcher became the IRA’s number one target. The greatest test of her courage and conviction when dealing with the IRA came in October 1984 when she was staying in the Grand Hotel in Brighton for her Party’s annual conference. She was up at 2:54 a.m. working on her big speech with her staff when a huge bomb on a long delay timer went off inside the hotel. The explosion missed her but destroyed her bathroom. It was very close. While she was unhurt, five people died, Anthony Berry (MP for Enfield South), Roberta Wakeham (wife of the then Government chief whip John, now Lord, Wakeham), Eric Taylor (chairman of the North-West Area Conservative Association), Muriel Maclean (wife of Scottish Conservative Chairman Sir Donald Maclean) and Jeanne Shattock (wife of the president of the South-West Conservative Association) and many more were injured. The most striking image of the night was the sight of Norman Tebbit being dug out of the ruins of the Grand Hotel alive. It took two hours to free him and despite his injuries he made enough of a recovery to lead a normal life; his wife (Margaret Tebbit) was not so fortunate. Today it is reported that she is confined to a wheelchair, requires two full time nurses to care for her and can hardly even hold a cup of tea. After the bomb Prime Minister Thatcher and all her party were promptly evacuated to the local Police Station and later to a nearby Police College. No running back to Downing Street for her. By 6:30 a.m. she knew the full extent of the damage and deaths but determined to press on with the day’s business including her speech. To do otherwise was to cave in to the enemy. The speech was hastily 134

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rewritten to exclude inappropriate Labour Party bashing and a branch of the local department store (Marks and Spencer) opened early so that her Party bigwigs, many of whom had exited in night clothes, could be smartly turned out. The speech was a huge success as she declared “all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail.” Throughout the 1980s (and earlier in the 1970s) London and close cities in particular took the brunt of the IRA terrorist campaign: Five were injured at the Princess Louise Regiment Territorial Army Centre; two killed and 39 injured at Ebury Bridge Road; one killed at an Oxford Street burger bar; four killed and 28 injured in Hyde Park; seven killed and 31 injured in Regent’s Park; three killed at the Royal Artillery Barracks; six killed and 91 injured outside Harrods; 11 killed and 21 injured at the Royal Marines School of Music; and so on. And it was not limited to London. Twenty one were killed and 182 injured in just one evening in Birmingham. Throughout her whole eleven years Prime Minister Thatcher was absolutely forthright in her commitment to the Union and to the wishes of the majority of its residents. Terrorism became self defeating because each such act only strengthened her determination. The confidence of the people and the will of the government were never in doubt even as misguided Americans sent from $160,000 to $800,000 per annum via Noraid1 to fund terror, even as misguided politicians south of the border refused to help on the most basic of issues and even as the Labour Party refused to support the Prevention of Terrorism Act. On November 15, 1985 Prime Minister Thatcher and her opposite number in Ireland, Garret Fitzgerald, signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement which essentially created a joint office to run regular conferences between both governments on the relevant legal/security/political issues without any surrender of sovereignty. Hard core Unionists were outraged and labeled Prime Minister Thatcher a Jezebel2 despite the fact that the agreement assured every-

1 Noraid is an American charity founded at the start of “the troubles” in 1969. There have been claims that money raised by Noraid is used to fund the IRA. 2 Jezebel is a term used to describe a woman who is considered wicked, based on the story of Jezebel in Kings I of the Old Testament.

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one that Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK as long as the majority of its people so wished. Republicans hated it. The IRA hated it. Unionists hated it. Her close friend and former PPS Ian Gow (later to be murdered by the IRA) resigned over it. However it can be seen as a stepping stone en route to the Good Friday Agreement of April 10, 1998 and the St Andrews Agreement of October 13, 2006 which lead to power sharing in a devolved Assembly at Stormont today. For someone so deeply attached personally, philosophically, politically and religiously to the Unionist cause, it was a remarkable achievement for Prime Minister Thatcher. Despite that, she often admits that the murders of her three Tory colleagues Anthony Berry, Ian Gow and Airey Neave always stir in her memories when Northern Ireland is the topic of conversation.

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18. Befriending America “Europe was created by history, America was created by philosophy.” “I could always count on her wise counsel, her firm support and her loyal friendship.” — Ronald Reagan

Prime Minister Thatcher’s view of the United States was shaped positively from her love of certain American movies through the writing of Walt Whitman to Churchill’s speech at Fulton, Missouri in 1946 to her 1967 coast-to-coast six week tour and the four week lecture tour in 1969 for the ESU. She had met many US servicemen back home in Lincolnshire and during the term she volunteered in Oxford two nights every week to serve meals to USAF personnel from the nearby Upper Heyford base in an air force canteen. Her admiration for America (juxtaposed with her hatred of communism) was exposed time and again as Prime Minister — and she served from roughly halfway through President Carter’s administration, right through President Reagan’s two terms and up to half way through President George H. W. Bush’s only term. She was not by accident the first European (indeed first major head of government) to visit President Reagan. Before going on that trip in early 1981 she said: 137

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“My own political convictions are founded in a love of freedom, that rejection of tyranny and repression, which inspired the Pilgrim Fathers and those who followed them to America.”

Of course she hailed from Lincolnshire on the east coast of the UK and it was from that county along with Norfolk and Suffolk that so many migrated to New England in the 17th century while those from the UK’s West Country headed to the Chesapeake, those from the Midlands and Wales to the Delaware Valley and later the Scots and Scots Irish who made for the Appalachian Frontier.1 Boston is of course named after Boston, Lincolnshire. She had first gotten a very positive impression of Ronald Reagan from Denis who had heard the future president address the UK’s Institute of Directors2 in 1969. Reagan then twice visited her as Opposition Leader in the late ’70s and they hit it off famously from day one with their shared passion for low taxes and strong defense and their shared hatred for communism. Both those meetings ran over time considerably. As Opposition leader she twice visited the United States and on both occasions she met with the then President, possibly an unprecedented degree of access. On her first visit in September 1975 she was heavily criticized back in the UK for disparaging remarks about the British economy but she fought back saying she was “not knocking Britain; I’m knocking socialism.” She met many senior members of the US government and was very impressed by Treasury Secretary William (Bill) Simon who had just torn up Richard Nixon’s price and wage controls. She found President Gerald Ford to be a “large and friendly man” and thought him to be a “reassuring and steady figure who helped America heal the self-inflicted wounds of Watergate.” On her second visit she met for 45 minutes with President Jimmy Carter and she lectured him sternly on developing a more robust foreign policy; Carter later complained that he had struggled to get a word in edgeways.  As Prime Minister she was back six weeks after the seizure of fifty US diplomats in Tehran. She was a huge hit in lecturing America: “At 1 See Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer. 2 The Institute of Directors is dedicated to professional standards and aims to represent the view of business by promoting a healthy business environment. It has no party political affiliation.

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times like these you are entitled to look to your friends for support. We are your friends, we do support you. Let there be no doubt about that.” With President Reagan in the White House for eight years — and Prime Minister Thatcher in 10 Downing Street throughout — an extraordinarily close friendship developed. An adviser, Ronnie Millar, once said of her: “She loved America ... and America loved her back.” From the moment she set foot on American soil he claimed there was a new spring in her step and she lost ten years. She is not alone in such a physical reaction to the land of the free and the home of the brave. Through repeated visits to each other’s countries and meetings such as those of the G7 they became a formidable double act. He was her kind of man and she was his kind of woman. Only one event threatened to disrupt their ever closer relationship. In October 1983 US forces invaded Grenada to rescue 1,000 US citizens after a leftist government had been toppled by an even more pro-Cuba pro-Nicaragua gang of thugs. The problem for Prime Minister Thatcher was that Grenada was (and still is) a member of the British Commonwealth and HM Queen Elizabeth II was (and still is) its head of state. Ron (as she called him) forgot to inform Prime Minister Thatcher of his plans let alone consult or ask her permission! Indeed his staff told her staff lies about the American fleet’s intentions; later it was said this was for security reasons as they feared for leaks. When Ron finally called Prime Minister Thatcher — as an afterthought almost — she was incandescent with rage. Close staff reported they never saw her so angry! Whether there was a genuine fear of leaks or whether they just assumed she was on their side or whether they just did not realize that HM Queen Elizabeth II was head of state is not at all clear. America struggled to understand Prime Minister Thatcher’s fury. After all hadn’t the US supported her over the Falklands? To her, though, it was simple: Grenada was part of the British Commonwealth; Britain is the United States’ greatest ally; and she was personally close to the President. On all three counts she should have been consulted and would probably, almost certainly, have supported American efforts with nearby Royal Navy assets. 139

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The next great test of the Thatcher/Reagan double act came in 1986 after a series of Libyan terrorist attacks on US servicemen and civilians, President Reagan decided to bomb Tripoli and wanted to do so using USAF F-111s stationed in the UK. Prime Minister Thatcher agreed somewhat reluctantly but the more her own officials in the Foreign Office (“the traitors” as she called them) railed against the Reagan idea the more she hardened her support. Her own Cabinet was not too happy either. While many were pro-American several fumed about the lack of full consultation. However her Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham (formerly Quentin Hogg for whom Margaret Roberts had campaigned in Oxford in 1945) stood by her firmly. Interestingly (like Churchill and Macmillan) he too had an American mother Elizabeth Marjoribanks, the daughter of a Judge from Nashville, Tennessee. But this was a storm in a teacup and barely worth a mention when compared to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism.

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19. Kicking Down the Wall “I stand before you tonight in my, yes, red chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up, my hair gently waved. The Iron Lady of the Western World! Me? A cold war warrior? Well, yes — if that is how they wish to interpret my defence of values and freedoms fundamental to our way of life.” “My job is to stop Britain going red.” “At one end of the spectrum are the terrorist gangs within our borders, and the terrorist states which finance and arm them. At the other are the hard left operating inside our system, conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break, defy and subvert the law.” “We believe in the democratic way of life. If we serve the idea faithfully, with tenacity of purpose, we have nothing to fear from Russian Communism.” (1950)

Prime Minister Thatcher never passed through a left-leaning phase as a young person. As we read in Chapter 2, before the age of 20 she was a warm up speaker for the Conservatives in the 1945 General Election. And what she saw of communism during a 1969 trip to the Soviet Union did nothing to impress her, rather the reverse, whereas two trips to the prosperous and free-wheeling US left her enthralled. Indeed, like President Reagan she was never seduced by communism and as early as 1950 (see quote above) she told her audience that “if we stick to our democratic principles then we have nothing to fear.” 141

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This was a time when her fellow citizens were being trained to squat under their desks if and when the Russian bombs fell. And she was deeply influenced by the likes of dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn and academic Bob Conquest. On gaining power in 1979, Prime Minister Thatcher inherited a defense posture that had been gravely weakened by five successive cuts in spending. It reduced new modern equipment and kept the forces’ pay levels beneath those of the civilian population. The British military services were demoralized. There was also the very evident contrast with the British presence in Western Germany, meant to deter the Red Army, living in straitened circumstances amongst the affluent Germans. The “Iron Lady” sobriquet had come on January 31, 1976, when she spoke at Kensington Town Hall. To the Leader of the Opposition the overarching role of any government is to protect its people. She questioned whether the current government was doing that as it seemed to be cutting back on defense just as threats were rising to new heights. She reported that military sources had told her that the “balance” was shifting in favor of Russia and her allies. She accused the Labour Party of just not listening; they were blind to the fact that Russian weapons could be pointed at the UK! She wondered if “some people in the Labour Party think we are on the same side as the Russians?” According to her, the Soviets were not in the business of self-defense. Their leaders were out to build “the foremost naval and military power in the world.” She spoke as someone who faced what seemed to be an implacable and rapidly-arming enemy. She relentlessly offered the opinion that a huge land mass like Russia really did not need to build the world’s biggest navy. She turned her fire on the old men in the politburo: “They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.” Of course, she did have the guns of Washington to back her up. She then elaborated her view that Russia’s “utterly lame” economic performance and its “brutalization” of its subject peoples had seemed to nourish military priorities for the Soviet leadership. 142

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She cited figures demonstrating that the USSR was outspending the US and by how much, and she warned that there were some indications the USSR had overtaken the US in military might. To her, “the United States is still the prime champion of freedom” and it was to the US and NATO she now looked. In particular she sympathized with a post-Vietnam America (also in an election year) and called on NATO allies to do more. A Conservative government led by a Prime Minister called Thatcher would play a “special role,” she promised. There came a time when her view of the Red Army appeared to be inflated, but even in the early ’80s it was good politics to be emphatic about the Soviet Union. She continued to compare the UK’s levels of defense spending with other NATO countries in very critical terms. Many felt that the UK’s lack of financial power was caused by socialism. As she wound down, she said: “But let us be clear about one thing. “This is not a moment when anyone with the interests of this country at heart should be talking about cutting our defenses. “It is a time when we urgently need to strengthen our defenses. “Of course this places a burden on us. But it is one that we must be willing to bear if we want our freedom to survive.”

She went on: “Throughout our history, we have carried the torch for freedom. Now, as I travel the world, I find people asking again and again, ‘What has happened to Britain?’ They want to know why we are hiding our heads in the sand, why with all our experience, we are not giving a lead.”

Her core message remained that she believed in a foreign policy based on a close understanding with the United States. She argued it was an affinity between the Anglo-Saxon nations as well as the formal alliance of NATO. The moment had come for her party to sound a warning — the UK/ US were at a historical crossroads. She ended pleading: “Let’s ensure that our children will have cause to rejoice that we did not forsake their freedom.”

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The Iron Lady tag was meant to be offensive and to denigrate her. Brilliantly she embraced it and being a woman as well the two created huge overseas interest when the leader of the Opposition would normally get a thin press. It is apt to be reminded the British armed forces were engaged throughout her leadership in a low level civil war in Northern Ireland. It was primarily the Army that was deployed. The “Troubles” in Northern Ireland meant British soldiers were trained in danger and combat and, a little curiously, would return to German postings for rest and recreation. Margaret Thatcher was not alone in describing the USSR as an economic failure and in believing it had to collapse one day. Many economists associated with the IEA had long voiced serious worries about waste and environmental degradation. Indeed the Institute’s editorial director Dr. Arthur Seldon CBE wrote in the Times on the August 6, 1980: “China will go capitalist. Soviet Russia will not survive the century. Labour as we know it will never rule again.” To Mrs. Margaret Thatcher MP, it was never a question of “if” the Soviet Union would collapse but rather “when.” Guided by her Cabinet colleague Peter Walker, she met future Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the funeral of Yuri Andropov and quickly invited him to London. After long discussions at her official country weekend home, Chequers, she famously declared to John Cole of the BBC, “I am cautiously optimistic. I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together.” With the death of Chernenko in 1985 and Gorbachev’s rise to the leadership she found herself in a very special situation, enjoying a deep friendship with the US President 3,000 miles to the west and a growing acquaintance with the President of the USSR 1,500 miles to the east. Shades of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, some said. Prime Minister Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, however, felt that their chief rival was still strong enough to be a problem, containment policies notwithstanding. Both employed rhetoric to build support for stronger measures, as when Reagan visited the UK in 1982 and proclaimed to its politicians: 144

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“Sir Winston Churchill refused to accept the inevitability of war or even that it was imminent. He said, ‘I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we have to consider here today while time remains is the permanent prevention of war and the establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy as rapidly as possible in all countries.’”

Other American presidents had talked about the ideas of freedom but Ronald Reagan’s own use of these attractive notions was much more assertive. To President Ronald Reagan, the mission was “to preserve freedom as well as peace.” It would not be easy and he sensed we were all at “a turning point.” He asserted that the Soviet Union was running against “the tide of history.” It was due for major economic dislocations and urgently needed to expand civil liberties. President Reagan warmed to his theme, ridiculing the USSR’s failures in the past two decades: for example 20% of its citizens worked on the land yet they could not feed the country. Private plots amounted to only 3% of arable land yet produced nearly 25% of agricultural output. Ronald Reagan then added: “The decay of the Soviet experiment should come as no surprise to us. Wherever the comparisons have been made between free and closed societies — West Germany and East Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and Vietnam — it is the democratic countries that are prosperous and responsive to the needs of their people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our time is this: Of all the millions of refugees we’ve seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward the Communist world. Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving.”

He went on with greater emphasis: “In the Communist world as well, man’s instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination surfaces again and again. To be sure, there are grim reminders of how brutally the police state attempts to snuff out this quest for self-rule — 1953 in East Germany, 1956 in Hungary, 1968 in Czechoslovakia, 1981 in Poland. But the struggle continues in Poland.”

He concluded his tour de force:

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“Well, the task I’ve set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best — a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.”

This line of thinking had the power to sway even some in the Soviet Union, as well as garnering tremendous public support at home. Prime Minister Thatcher was President Ronald Reagan’s most ardent cheerleader and kept up the pressure on Gorbachev. The President escalated the cost of the arms race, betting the US could afford to spend more than the Soviet Union. He increased the technology stakes through SDI or the so-called Star Wars program. The advanced technical ingenuity claimed by the US space industries added a further strain to the Russian military systems. The Soviet economy was stalling under the pressures of the arms race. Rarely can two national leaders such as Reagan and Thatcher have shared so closely their instincts and found their interests so much in line. The Prime Minister freely shared all she had on Gorbachev and his problems with the President. And neither of them missed a chance to take center stage, as Reagan did with his famous Berlin speech line: “Tear down this wall.” As the economist and pro-American Czech President Dr. Vaclav Klaus puts it, “Reagan’s truth telling — together with the examples of Mrs. Thatcher’s economic success and Pope John Paul’s moral strength — gave millions of people courage to rise up when the opportunity came.”

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20. Dealing with Brussels “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.” “Laissez-faire! Laissez-faire! Don’t go French on me!”

From an American point of view the European Union (EU) can be difficult to understand. Many vaguely think of it as a bit like the US — a number of nations coming together to form the United States of Europe or the USE. Before turning to Prime Minister Thatcher and the EU, let’s take time to understand just what the latter, in the view of the author, really is.1 On May 1, 2004 ten new countries2 with a combined population of 74 million became members of the European Union, bringing the total EU population to 454 million. This meant that the EU had a population more than 50 per cent larger than that of the United States. And when Romania and Bulgaria joined on January 1, 2007, another 30 million took that to 484 million. 1 Based on a speech given by the author at The Heritage Foundation, Washington DC, on September 28, 2006. 2 The new members are Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta.

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It is envisaged that further nations will join. Serbia is a prime candidate as are all the other former Yugoslav republics. Turkey too is enthusiastic to accede to the EU. This would give the EU a border with Syria and Iraq. Many experts think empires reach the point of collapse at the zenith of their expansion. The EU now stretches from the Latvia–Russia border in the east to Galway Bay on the west coast of Ireland, and from the Arctic wastes of Finland and Sweden in the north to Cyprus in the south. The question needs to be addressed: Is the EU America’s friend or foe? The EU sees the two as co-equals and, as are all sovereign nations to some extent, rivals. Without US support, it is doubtful whether the project of European political integration could have gotten off the ground or developed in the way that it has. But from the very beginning the US gave its unconditional backing. During the 1970s, the success of the project was judged to be sufficiently important to US interests for the CIA to funnel millions of dollars into the European movement. The United States has also tolerated the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP),1 which some have called the most inefficient system of agricultural support ever devised. Why? At one level it is taken for granted that the emerging European Union would share America’s core values. Do American policymakers believe that the process of European political integration leads to the creation of a democratic, market-based Atlantic ally — an ally with whom a heavy burden of economic and security responsibilities might be shared? Or do they also see the EU as a rival? The reality is that since this hugely ambitious project has taken shape, policy differences between the EU and the United States have both multiplied and deepened. Recent differences between the EU and the US include those over Iraq, Palestine, Iran, ballistic missile defense, the international criminal court, genetically modified crops, the Kyoto Accord, farm support, China, Taiwan, Cuba, and the death penalty as well as a whole raft of trade issues. Indeed, while it is possible to name 1 Despite worldwide criticism of the Common Agricultural Policy, spending on the CAP increased by 11.2 per cent in 2005.

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individual European political leaders who genuinely like and admire America, it is difficult to think of a single major issue where the views of the US and the EU are identical. So one is bound to ask: If it is truly the case that the EU and America share common political values, why do they disagree so often? The one statement that you would not have heard from a spokesman for the EU Commission in Brussels is: “We applaud American leadership, and we will back the US all the way.” Indeed, we have now reached the point where EU policy gives every impression of having been defined in opposition to US policy. The differences which have been alluded to arise from the very nature of the European project and the ideas on which it is based. Those ideas are not the inevitable consequence of political integration but rather the foundation on which it has been constructed. In addition to hostility to the nation state, those ideas are characterized by a desire to manage economic and political life in such a way as to create consensus and to exclude or marginalize those whose behavior or views are judged to be out of step. They are also characterized by a preference for group rights over individual rights and an innate dislike and fear of robust or “unmanaged” competition in both the political and economic spheres. It is worth pausing to describe in concrete terms just how much progress has been achieved towards “ever-closer union” — the goal established in the treaty of Rome in 1957 which laid the foundations of the present European project. The EU now has its own parliament, executive, supreme court, currency, prosecutor, army (of a sort), anthem, and emblem. It has the defining features of a new nation. The attempt to adopt a European Constitution has been stalled since 2004 when the French and Dutch rejected the proposed text in referenda1. But after the attempt to bring in the constitution by the 1 Polling data has consistently shown that, given the opportunity, the British electorate would vote against the adoption of the Constitution by a substantial majority, but plans to hold a referendum in the UK were abandoned following the rejection of the document by the French and Dutch electorates. The Irish voted “no” but will probably be forced to vote again and again until they “get it right.” And the Czech President has indicated a high level of dissent.

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front door failed considerable success is being achieved as the result of attempts to introduce it through the back door, even though such methods are of questionable legality. Among those attributes of a modern state that are to be added to the European design are full legal personality (which will enable the EU to sign treaties and to participate in international organizations as a single entity), a president, and a foreign minister. In a move that must make Lady Thatcher squirm, the EU has purchased the entire office block (32 Smith Square) from which she won all three of her general elections. In addition there is to be an extension of qualified majority voting in the European Council which will end the national veto in a number of areas including justice and criminal affairs. One consequence will be that the protection enjoyed by British subjects for centuries as a result of habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence may disappear. As Simon Heffer wrote in The Daily Telegraph on September 20, 2006: If we surrender our veto on these matters, EU-set penalties could be imposed on British subjects in Britain, and for breaches of laws that are not crimes or punishable in Britain. Equally, according to some legal opinion, matters that are criminal offences in Britain could be decriminalized by a decision of the EU without any recourse to the will of the British people. The other horror is that, as EU competence increases, so the ability of member states to propose their own laws for their own people shrinks until it is extinguished. That is the ultimate goal of the ever-closer union: but it entails a stark and anti-democratic removal of sovereignty from this area which impacts directly on our most basic freedoms and liberties.

Now all of this might strike you as being purely Europe’s affair. But the principle that US interests are most likely to be served by the extension of democracy wherever possible has been one of the foundations of US foreign policy. In the post-Second World War era this policy was triumphantly vindicated in the case of Western Europe where warshattered nations were restored to democracy. But the supranational institutions of the new top-down Europe (to which the once independent European states have ceded sovereignty) are remarkably undemocratic. In the judgment of a former EU Commissioner, it is clear that if EU applied to itself the criteria that it re150

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cently applied to all new members, it could not be admitted to the EU because it is insufficiently democratic. The political nature of the EU — which was sold to the British public as a strictly limited commercial undertaking — raises important questions about the long-term stability of this new entity, as well as about the future relations between the EU and the United States. In the list of EU attributes which was rehearsed a moment ago, something was missing. In its top-down way Europe may have created many of the attributes of a state but there is, of course, no such thing as a European people or European nation. Or indeed a common language (there are at least 20 different national languages, of which English is the most widely spoken). It is consequently difficult to envision how such a thing as European public opinion can evolve, or a European public space, or a European demos. And if people do not feel common bonds of allegiance and obligation, and if this problem is compounded by the lack of a common language in which political discourse can take place, there is the ever-present danger that they will not accept majority decisions. The US also has ample grounds for disappointment with EU policies on the economy and trade. An outward looking EU that embraced open markets and free trade would serve US interests. It would also serve the interests of Europeans in their role as consumers, as they would achieve much lower prices if they dropped out of the CAP. The EU seems more concerned with people’s rights as workers than as consumers, and it has provided an economy that aims to provide stability and security even at the cost of low growth, rigid labor markets, increasingly intrusive regulation, high taxes, and a high level of trade protection in some sectors. In addition, for years the euro-zone underperformed vis-à-vis the US, supporting those who doubt that effective monetary policy can be set over such a disparate area. Enormous disparities in economic, technological and military power stand in the way of the creation of a unitary European state as a countervailing force to the United States. None of this augurs well for those who hope that Europe could stand as an equal to the United States.

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British doubts about integration and how it will impact the special relationship with the US extend to the military sphere in particular. As IEA author Richard North has written in The Business (May 28/29, 2006): “Britain’s war-making capabilities will progressively be defined by what its ‘partners’ will permit, evident in the first Gulf War, when Belgium refused to supply the UK with artillery shells because it (Belgium) disapproved of its actions, i.e., the UK’s support of the US.” Another consequence will be that, even if the UK is able to defy the constraints imposed by the Common European Foreign and Security Policy in order to join its traditional American partner on some hightech battlefield of the future — a very big “if” indeed — its weapons may be incompatible with those of the US. As a result the practical value of British military assistance will be greatly reduced. But having endorsed the project for half a century, many Americans seem reluctant to withdraw their support or even to recognize the nature of the Europe which they have helped to create. Some evidently believe that the process of European integration is so well established that any reappraisal of US policy towards the EU would produce more problems than it would solve. While America begins to ponder the wisdom of its support for the EU, the choices facing Britain are more urgent and acute. For decades it was possible for many to believe that, as long as the country positioned itself more or less mid-way between Europe and America in terms of public philosophy and economic outlook, minor adjustments could be made according to circumstance and all would be well. But the lesson ought to be clear. The more Britain is absorbed into the European project, the more it will distance itself not only from its most powerful and most constant ally, the United States, but also from self-government. Margaret Thatcher’s view of the EU has gone through three distinct phases. To begin with she, like 99.9% of Conservatives, thought of the European project merely in terms of free movement of labor, capital and goods. It was to be welcomed, and the arguments of Enoch Powell and Russell Lewis were difficult and fell on deaf ears. Essentially they argued that even in the early years the EU, sold as an economic entity, was already overstepping its mark. Russell Lewis clearly outlined this

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in his Hobart Paperback for the IEA entitled Rome or Brussels…? By 1971 he saw that: A recent document … published with the authority of the Commission is described in its introduction as “not … formal proposals but as a substantial contribution to a wide ranging discussion of social policy.” Yet it seems to go gratuitously far in its assumptions on what the peoples of the countries in the EEC1… may want. It says ‘the major aims of society’ are ‘full and better employment’, ‘greater social justice’, ‘better quality of living’. There is no mention of the objectives to which these might be regarded as subsidiary or as means to a larger end: the independence, freedom of personal choice and opportunities for self-help.”

These days it is clear which way the EU went, namely down the road of illiberal tendencies first observed by the IEA in the early 1970s. And Labour was against it so that was another good reason for Margaret Thatcher to be for it. But as the EU went from a loose trading model toward federalism she became increasingly uneasy. Mrs. Thatcher’s second phase (essentially much of the ’70s and ’80s) was one of compromise at home and combat overseas. As leader she had to hold together a Party increasingly divided on the European issue. As it became clear that the project was rotten to its very core so more Conservative MPs joined the Euroskeptic circles. She held her party together on the issue much more effectively than any of her now five successors as Tory leader. She was combative when across the English Channel be it at Brussels or Fontainebleau or Strasbourg. And for example she won a huge rebate. The rebate was a payment to the UK in order to compensate for a massive shortfall between what the UK put into the EU pot and what it got out. This was totally fair as she said she was not asking for any more money from the EU but simply: “What we are asking is for a very large amount of our own money back.” This is often misquoted as, “I want my money back.” Once relieved of the need to generate Party loyalty she moved into a third highly critical phase as it became clearer and clearer what an ugly, corrupt and deeply corrupting monster was growing in Brussels. She wrote: “That such an unnecessary and irrational superstate was ever embarked on will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era. And that Britain, with traditional 1 The EEC (European Economic Community) is the former name of the EU.

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strengths and global destiny, should ever have become part of it will appear a political error of the first magnitude.”

By 2002 she was openly asking the applicant countries not to join and declared that the UK needed either to renegotiate its terms of membership or simply withdraw. The EU does pose a real challenge today for her Party. Labour while once opposed to this “free-market” Common Market now embraces it warmly and the Liberal Democrats were always on the side of the EU. There are a handful of Labour and Liberal Democrats with EU concerns, but not many. The Tory Party however is different. As the “free market” Common Market metamorphosed into the institutions described above so more and more Tories began to move against it. Polls suggest 63% of grass root Tory Party members and a majority of Tory MPs are Eurosceptic. With 56% of the public wanting nothing but a European common market one wonders: ŪŪ When will her party split in two? ŪŪ How long can the UK stay in the EU if so many are against it? and ŪŪ Will UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) gain enough support in Tory marginal seats to deny her party any real chance of power? What will become of her legacy?

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21. Resignation “If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.” “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”

To most Americans the sudden departure of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in late 1990 was and still is a matter of great puzzlement. She was never defeated at the polls; she was 3 and 0 in General Election victories1; and, post-Reagan, she was an even more senior, dominant world leader. And she never lost a vote of confidence in the House of Commons. “Have the Brits gone mad?” many Americans asked me. There had been murmurs of disquiet starting soon after her third victory in 1987: “Just how long is she going to go on?” people asked. After nearly a decade in office and well over a decade as Party Leader, there were many who owed their entire career to her, but equally many who felt overlooked, under promoted or even unfairly dumped. They flinched when she proclaimed in 1989 that she was “fit for 10 more years,” although many close to her thought she would win a fourth general election and then retire. 1 While she had won UK General Elections in 1979, 1983 and 1987 and European Elections in 1979 and 1984, she had just lost her first nationwide vote in June 1989 for the latter.

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It is said she never promoted an MP with a beard — there were three, and she supposedly did not trust any man with a beard. It was also said that she did not promote the brilliant Jonathan Aitken MP because he had once broken off a romance with her daughter: “He made Carol cry!” It was also claimed no man with a bow tie could expect promotion. If a week is a long time in politics (as Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said), then fifteen years as leader and eleven as Prime Minister must seem like eons. There was ample of time for the numbers of the disaffected, disappointed and disreputable to grow. Her critics say the decline started as early as 1985 with the so-called Westland affair, when Michael Heseltine favored a European rescue and Leon Brittan favored the US firm Sikorsky. Critics trace that one incident through her increasingly presidential style, her Bruges speech, the loss of Howe and then Lawson, the poll tax, bad by-election results to Sir Anthony Meyer. In 1989, Sir Anthony Meyer MP, a complete unknown, ran against her for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Meyer was the antithesis of Thatcher. Eton educated, with a hereditary title and inherited wealth, he’d spent years in the Foreign Office in the days when it was leaking secrets to Moscow. His career had peaked in the early 1970s when he had been a Parliamentary Private Secretary1 (PPS) at a minor department. Later he would chair all manner of groups campaigning to abridge British sovereignty by joining the EU; the French rewarded him with a medal. There was never a chance he could win but the very fact that anyone ran against her signaled there was a chink in her armor. Meyer was resoundingly humiliated on December 5.

1 A PPS acts as a minister’s eyes and ears in Parliament, making sure the minister is kept well informed of backbench opinion on his or her performance. PPSs are expected to vote with the government and to keep a low profile in the House. An appointment as a PPS is seen as the first rung on the ladder towards ministerial office. A PPS cannot, for example, be a member of a select committee or table an amendment to a Government Bill. The young Mrs. Thatcher MP herself jumped this bottom rung.

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Margaret Thatcher

314

Anthony Meyer

33

*

24

Spoiled

Abstentions

3

Total Electorate

374

Majority

281

* A spoiled vote is one that is not filled in correctly or one on which, say, the voter has written a message or inserted another name.

Meyer’s own parliamentary constituency then voted 2 to 1 to deselect him on the grounds of “treachery,” and press reports emerged that for 26 years he had been having an affair with black model and blues singer Simone Washington (who had kept a diary of their antics). He became a lecturer on EU matters, defected to the Liberal Democrats, and died in obscurity on Christmas Eve 2004. But the fact remained that votes for him plus abstentions plus spoiled amounted to 60. The next year, 1990, was a terrible one for Prime Minister Thatcher and indeed it was to be her last in 10 Downing Street. Two issues dominated and divided her cabinet and her party, one very publicly and one more privately. As noted in Chapter 7, the British system of local taxation was based on property values so that a retired widow with an empty nest, using next to no local services, could be paying the same amount as a family of five consuming vast amounts of public goods and services such as schools, parks, swimming pools and libraries. Every year the press would feature stories of grotesque unfairness and ever since her brief spell as Shadow Environment Secretary in 1974 Prime Minister Thatcher had been wanting to reform the whole system. The result was the Community Charge1 which was quickly dubbed the ‘Poll Tax’ and, sensing trouble, every leftist group in the country jumped on the anti bandwagon. Nigel Lawson was to brand this “the most disastrous single decision” she ever made. Civil unrest ensued culminating in a riot in central London where 70,000 people marched on Westminster and a group of 3,000 to 3,500 turned violent. Over 100 people were injured and over 400 people ar1 The Community Charge was a fixed payment paid by all adults to their local authorities. It replaced the rates system which was paid by all residential property owners based on the value of their home rather than the number occupying it.

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rested on that day alone and the damage costs exceeded $800,000. It was clear that such civil unrest was affecting Prime Minister Thatcher’s standing in the party and in the polls, which showed the following data: Labour

56%

Conservatives

32%

Liberal Democrats

6%

Other

6%

Labour Lead over Conservatives

+24%

Given that the most likely date for the next general election was only 18 months away, Tory MPs with marginal seats were getting worried and nothing does more to bend the spine of an MP than the thought of losing his or her seat. Even Tories with safe seats trembled at such a Labour lead. There was a host of other minor problems such as a new burst of price increases, high interest rates, riots in a prison in the northern city of Manchester, a BSE1 scare and a continental beef ban, but the real clincher was the European Union, the issue which still splits the Conservative Party in two to this day. On October 31, in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Thatcher launched a vigorous attack on Jacques Delors, head of the European Commission and his federalist, centrist, top-down vision of a European superstate. Her answer for Delors (echoing de Gaulle’s “non” in 1967) was “No! No! No!” This was too much for her Deputy Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Howe, who had been her first brilliant Chancellor. He resigned the very next day, writing: “I do so [resign] with very great regret. Almost sixteen years have passed since you asked me to serve as Shadow Chancellor. Since then we have done so much together, against the odds, to rebuild the economic and political strength of our nation. Your own strong leadership has been of crucial importance in making this possible. It has been a privilege and an honour for me to have contributed to that success.

1 Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease) is an infectious degenerative brain disease occurring in cattle. It can be transferred to humans.

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“Our work has been based on common values and shared beliefs— for economic and personal freedom, for a responsible society and for greater British influence in the world. Although our principles have been sorely tested by opponents of the Government at different times over the last eleven years, I have always tried as best as I can to uphold and advance those principles in a way that united our Party and served the best interests of Britain.”

The Prime Minister replied: “Thank you for your letter telling me of your decision to leave the Government and the reasons for it. As I told you when you came to see me earlier this evening, I very much regret your decision, coming unexpectedly after we have worked together for so long. I shall for ever be grateful for your distinguished service and your sturdy and unflinching support in difficult times. “Your contribution to the philosophy of modern Conservatism and to the policies which we brought to Government in 1979 was great indeed. It helped to ensure that we came to office with a clear and radical programme for changing Britain and reversing the decline of the Labour years. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, you took the main burden of implementing our economic policies: and you did so with courage and fortitude in the face of many attempts to push us off course. The foundations of Britain’s economic success in the 1980s were laid in those earlier years, and in particular by the budget of 1981.”

Part of the British political tradition is that very soon after such senior resignations the person involved, now free from the collective restraints of cabinet government, makes a speech from his new seat on the backbenches. Howe did not avail himself of this as he had lost his voice. Twelve days went by; then, speaking at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in the City of London, Prime Minister Thatcher used the following cricket-based metaphor: “I am still at the crease [home plate], though the bowling [pitching] has been pretty hostile of late. And in case anyone doubted it, can I assure you there will be no ducking the bouncers [bean balls, or balls pitched at a batter’s head], no stonewalling, no playing for time. The bowling’s [pitching’s] going to get hit all round the ground [ball park]. That is my style.”

Cleverly, Howe replied the very next day to a jam-packed House of Commons and responded to her metaphor as follows: “It is rather like sending your opening batsman [batter] to the crease [home plate] only for them to find the moment the first ball is bowled [pitched], that their bat had been broken before the game by the team captain.”

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The timing could hardly have been worse. A month later and the annual window of opportunity to challenge her leadership would have passed and she would have had 11 months to recover. It was not to be. Prominent leftist Michael Heseltine (who had left her government in typically flamboyant style over the Westland Affair1 in 1986) rapidly moved to challenge her. Unlike the nondescript Meyer, Heseltine or “Hezza” was a major hitter having served in her Cabinet as Secretary of State for the Environment from 1979 to 1983 and as Secretary of State for Defense from 1983 to 1986. With his shock of brushed back long blond hair he was known as Tarzan. He was a big man in the jungle of politics. He was experienced; he was wealthy having founded and built up Haymarket, a major publishing company; he was also ambitious, photogenic and a rallying point for the Left, the dumped, the overlooked and the cowardly. This was serious stuff even if he was a complete corporatist and not the sharpest blade in the kitchen2. Because of the nature of the contest it was also feared that supporters of the other candidates would help Hezza to wound the Prime Minister mortally thus preparing the way for their man in the “coward’s round.3” There had also been that very significant rule change regarding the margin needed for victory on the first round; it had been changed from 15% of those voting to 15% of those entitled to vote. This is crucial in understanding what happened to Prime Minister Thatcher. Take an easy example of 400 MPs. In a two-horse race, 201 is a simple majority but if, say, twenty people abstained or spoiled their ballots then according to the 1965 rules the margin had to be 15% of 380, whereas in 1990 it had to be 15% of 400 — 57 versus 60. This is a small change but it led to momentous events.

1 Westland was a British Helicopter firm that was going bust. While Thatcher wanted the American firm Sikorski Fiat to take over the company, Heseltine (at the time the Defense Minister) preferred a European consortium’s rescue package, despite the shareholders preferring the Sikorski deal. 2 Years later the author asked him, “What are you doing these days?” “Writing a biography,” he replied. “Whose?” I asked, totally intrigued. “My own!” he said. “But isn’t that an autobiography?” I said. 3 See previous explanation in Chapter 8.

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As before, more candidates could enter the second round the following week when only an absolute majority would be needed. If the second round failed to produce a winner the top two would go to a third round. The Thatcher leadership team consisted of George Younger (MP for Ayr), who she knew was “heavily involved in his business affairs” as he had left his ministerial post to become Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland; Peter Morrison (MP for Chester) and Michael Neubert (MP for Romford) neither of whom had ever gotten very far at all. It would be kind to call them lackadaisical1; “bungling, naive, idle and inept” would be more accurate as one MP who was there put it to me recently. They assured her that everything was going well, that they had 220 plus votes in the bag with a count of about 110 for Heseltine and some 40 plus yet undecided. However there was none of the hard edge that Airey Neave and Bill Shelton had brought to her 1975 campaign against Heath and she privately worried that Morrison and Neubert believed everything the electorate of MPs said. After all they claim to be the “most sophisticated electorate in the world,” sophisticated as in devious! On the big day, Tuesday, November 20, 1990, Prime Minister Thatcher was sufficiently confident of victory that she plus Morrison plus Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd MP were all at the Fontainebleau Summit, France rather than back at home campaigning2. And a fourth member of her camp John Major MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, declined to cancel a minor dental operation and work the tea rooms and bars on her behalf. He said that to do so would send a sign of weakness, a signal that he was worried about her losing. While all of them (as far as we know) voted by proxy, (Major states his PPS Graham Bright MP was his proxy), a final push may have secured the four votes needed for an outright win for Prime Minister Thatcher. Major was the ultimate beneficiary of her defeat. The result of the first ballot was: 1 The late Alan Clark MP once claimed he had gone to visit Morrison at his office only to find him fast asleep. On waking Morrison quickly claimed that he had more than enough pledges. 2 “Prime Minister, if you haven’t won then there are a lot of Tory MPs who are lying,” said Morrison.

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Margaret Thatcher

204

Michael Heseltine

152

Abstentions/spoiled

16

Total Electorate

*

372

Majority

52

* Note that the total electorate had fallen since Meyer’s challenge as the Conservative Party had lost Mid Staffordshire to Labour and Eastbourne to the Liberal Democrats.

So it was a very clear victory and in 1965 she would have won but under the revised rules she failed by four votes. Two MPs switching from Heseltine would have made the majority 56 and she would have hit the required level. So the contest moved to Round Two with Prime Minister Thatcher declaring “I fight on; I fight to win.” She also commented: “It would be so terrible if Michael won… he would undo everything I fought for.” Before returning to London she had Round Two support from Douglas Hurd MP and John Major MP, respectively her Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer. And others such as Cecil Parkinson MP, Kenneth Baker MP, Norman Tebbit MP, John Wakeham MP and Nicholas Ridley MP declared for her. But as that Wednesday wore on a drama worthy of Shakespeare began to unfold. Guided by Peter Morrison who for some reason was not sacked for failing on the first round (although George Younger was replaced by John Wakeham and Neubert simply disappeared) she began a long series of one on one meetings with each of her cabinet members. Other than Ken Clarke, one by one they pledged their support1 and one by one they said she would lose. Their line was “Don’t risk eleven years of hard work being undone by Heseltine — make sure a safe pair of hands such as John Major takes over.” News spread around the tiny village of Westminster and Thatcher loyalists in the junior ranks such as Michael Forsyth MP, Michael Portillo MP and Michael Fallon MP rushed to Number 10 to tell her to stand firm. They were soon joined by others such as Norman Tebbit 1 Whether all were 100% firm in their support is doubtful given the natural instinct of many politicians.

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MP, Chris Chope MP, John Townend MP, George Gardiner MP and Edward Leigh MP. Meanwhile Robert Dunn MP and David Davis MP were collecting the signatures of MPs for a letter they soon hand delivered to Number 10 asking her to fight on. Davis in particular warned her that her support was not crumbling. The oft heard line “Oh, I voted for her out of loyalty and now I will have to vote for what’s best for the party/ country/ constituency” was a complete Heseltine ruse and not to be believed at all. “The only people peddling that line were the people who had voted for Heseltine” observed Davis! The next day, battered and bruised by this chorus of naysayers, she withdrew. “Don’t go on, love,” had been the advice of her ever loyal Denis. The second round took place on Tuesday, November 27, and the result was: John Major

185

Michael Heseltine

131

Douglas Hurd

56

Majority

54

Turnout

372

Technically Major (“the best of a very poor bunch” she reportedly said) was just short on both conditions for winning (as he did not get an absolute majority or a 15% majority over his nearest rival) but Heseltine and Hurd withdrew making a third ballot unnecessary. John Major was declared leader of the Conservative Party by 1922 Committee Chairman Cranley Onslow MP with nineteen less votes than Prime Minister Thatcher had garnered! And he satisfied neither of the conditions needed to win! Bizarre. Many felt that a Prime Minister should be forced out of office only by either Parliament (vote of confidence) or a General Election. As she left Number 10 for the last time as Prime Minister she said: “We’re leaving Downing Street for the last time after eleven-and-ahalf wonderful years and we’re happy to leave the UK in a very much better state than when we came here.” A major chapter of British history had ended. 163

22. Retirement “I had the marvellous privilege of being there for 11½, nearly 12 years. That’s nearly half as long again as any American president can be president of the United States.”

The idea of Mrs. Thatcher actually retiring is laughable to those who know her. Even today 6 years after being told by her doctors to slow down and take it easy she has a busy diary and even complained to me in my role as Director General of the IEA recently “you don’t invite me here often enough!” Yes, Prime Minister1. Sixteen months after leaving Downing Street she would step down as MP for Finchley at the April ’92 General Election. Labour leader Neil Kinnock greeted this news in his usual fashion as follows: this is “one of her wiser judgments” as “she does not want to face losing her seat or at best going on the opposition benches.” For a man who never held office in government and ended up in the House of Lords despite being a critic of the Upper House, this was rich indeed. Mrs. Thatcher expressed a desire to stay in politics — however, as a member of the House of Lords, which was pretty much her prerogative as a former Prime Minister. The only post-war Prime Ministers not to have taken a 1 In the UK former Prime Ministers are normally referred to as Mr. X or Sir Y or Lord Z. Margaret Thatcher is unique in that many people still address her as “Prime Minister.”

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peerage are Winston Churchill, Edward Heath and John Major — they all took knighthoods, however. Back in her former spot on the backbenches she made few interventions in her remaining months in the Commons. She was no Ted Heath, but always declared her support for her successor. As a former Prime Minister she needed security and support and was much helped in this by Lord McAlpine, setting up offices on Great College Street literally yards away from Parliament. She entered the House of Lords in June 1992 as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven which, as a district, includes the town of Grantham where she was born and raised. Over the next decades her achievements included: ŪŪ two huge best selling volumes of memoirs The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path To Power (1995); ŪŪ Statecraft (2002), a book of reflections on international affairs; ŪŪ many major worldwide lecture tours particularly to the US and Japan; ŪŪ the creation of a free enterprise Chair in her name at Cambridge University (a big mistake) along with the deposit of her papers at Churchill College, Cambridge; ŪŪ the establishment of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation to which all her speaker fees went and which eventually paid for the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation (THF) in Washington DC1; and ŪŪ many potent interventions in public debate. She followed matters in Serbia and Bosnia very carefully. To her it was a “killing field the like of which I thought we would never see in Europe again.” A rumor even swept Westminster that on bumping into the Foreign Secretary (Secretary of State) Douglas Hurd she’d admonished him thus: “Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger.” She became the 21st overall and first ever lady chancellor of southern Virginia’s College of William and Mary from 1993 to 2000. On re1 She gave $3 million, as long as they matched it two-for-one for a total of $9 million. Good leverage. In return she was named Patron of THF — on walking by the vast suite which is the office of the President of THF, she glanced inside and asked “Oh! Is this the Patron’s office?”

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tirement, the President of William and Mary Timothy J. Sullivan said: “Lady Thatcher, we will never forget the vital lessons that you have taught, or cease to feel the powerful inspiration that you have given in the cause of liberal learning, in the service of freedom and in the rich and noble history of English-speaking peoples. You have captured our hearts, strengthened our resolve and changed our lives — and as a consequence we will never be the same.” She also performed brilliantly from 1993 to 1998 as Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, the UK’s first private university, which she had helped gain full status back in 1983 (see Chapter 6). Buckingham prides itself on its small classes. It has no major amphitheatre. Therefore every graduation ceremony takes place in its local church and batches of students are wheeled in over a two day period. Every single one of them for six years received their diploma from Lady Thatcher and had their photo taken with her. It was an arduous task accomplished with great grace and savoir-faire (with Denis, in layers of golfing clothes to ward off the cold, sitting uncomplaining in the front row of seats). The one time I congratulated him on his stoicism, he replied “Oh no! Margaret deserves all the credit.” I am not sure if he heard me correctly. Buckingham attracts many overseas students and I always chuckled as some foreign twenty-one year-old boy or girl would bow or curtsey, thinking Lady Thatcher was HM Queen Elizabeth and this was the thing to do. Lady Thatcher would always smile graciously — with a slight laugh about her mouth — and help the miscreant to his or her feet. She was by then utterly brilliant at such matters, an absolute master. On several occasions she visited with or came to the defense of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet. To her Pinochet had been a key ally in the Falklands War. To her it was simple. “I can say that without President Pinochet’s considerable practical help in 1982, many more of our servicemen would have lost their lives in the South Atlantic. The country thus owes him a great debt.” The 2001 General Election saw her on the campaign trail for the then Tory leader William Hague and for once she spontaneously displayed a jokey sense of humor, saying at the Plymouth rally, “It’s wonderful to be here this evening, campaigning for a Conservative victory, 167

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in this enterprising port of Plymouth. I was told beforehand my arrival was unscheduled, but on the way here I passed a local cinema and it turns out you were expecting me after all. The billboard reads The Mummy Returns.” And people say she has no sense of humor! However, the spring of 2002 brought a less encouraging announcement. Her office issued the following statement: “Over recent months, Lady Thatcher [at age 76] has suffered a number of small strokes. After thorough investigation involving a number of tests, her doctors have told her that these can neither be predicted nor prevented. They have therefore told her to cut back her program at once and in particular to avoid the undue strains that public speaking places on her. With great regret she has decided to abide by this advice and to cancel all her speaking engagements.” They added that she would have to rest and take it easy and that she would never speak in public again. There is a sense in which she does not have to speak. Her personality is a presence in British politics. A silence — a refusal to endorse — can be as loud as praise. While it’s true that she has never since given a major public speech I witnessed her within months of these small strokes give a rousing four to five minute speech at a House of Lords reception for the Mont Pelerin Society 2002 London General Meeting. And at the opening of the foundation which houses her papers at Cambridge University she also spoke for several minutes. She could not be stopped. She remains robust in discussion. At a reception for the Czech President Dr. Vaclav Klaus at the IEA on May 10, 2006, a 50-somethingyear-old man approached her and gave her a big hardback book he’d written on the problems of the welfare state — he’d even inscribed it to her lavishly. It was a serious piece of scholarship, a large well-produced volume.1 Lady Thatcher: What’s this about? Author: It’s about the problems of the welfare system and how we got where we are. Lady Thatcher: What’s the solution? Author: I don’t have one. That’s another book for someone else to write. 1 The Welfare State We’re In, by James Bartholomew.

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Lady Thatcher: (hitting the author vigorously on his left arm with the large book.) Don’t bring me problems, young man, bring me solutions!

If he had not inscribed the book to her, I believe she would have handed it back. She also continued to oppose the ever-encroaching European Union from the House of Lords stating in a passionate speech in 1993: “This Conservative government, like its predecessors, should have as its main priority the maintenance of our constitutional freedoms, our democratic institutions, and the accountability of Parliament to the people. Because I believe in these principles so deeply I cannot support the ratification of the Maastricht treaty, and I welcome sterling’s departure from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The ERM and Maastricht are inextricably linked. The first is a prerequisite to the fulfilment of the second. We found the confines of the first unbearable; the strait-jacket of the second would be ruinous. Thanks to the decision to float the pound, we now have a chance to follow an economic policy that puts British needs first. Like the Maastricht treaty, the ERM in no way represents what is best for British interests.”

In 2004, she made the solemn journey to the US for the funeral of her international ally and long time friend Ronald Reagan. In order not to upset the doctors, who as noted earlier had banned her from public speaking in 2002, she pre-recorded her eulogy to the late President and it was played on large screens to the assembled crowds. (See extracts from her eulogy below in Chapter 24.) She turned 80 on October 13, 2005, and celebrated with a huge party at Hyde Park’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel. She was a few minutes late because President Bush II phoned just as she was about to leave her Chester Square home. As she entered the hall, the applause from the assembled guests was led by former MP Michael Portillo and this author — neither of us happened to have a drink in hand and we were therefore free to clap — and clap loudly and holler “bravo.” At every turn there where household names from every walk of life including: TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber, actress Joan Collins and the then Prime Minister Tony Blair. Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh attended. Her nemesis Geoffrey Howe, now Lord Howe of Aberavon, commented: “Her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did 169

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eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible.” This may be her greatest praise. The Labour Party remains convinced that the state should provide schooling and health care but it has abandoned all regard for nationalization or price controls. Lady Thatcher has rendered those aspects of socialism mere archaeology. In April 2006 she flew to the States for the funeral of US Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who had so staunchly supported her during the Falklands War and had helped to persuade the administration to come down in her favor. In September of the same year she visited Washington DC for the official memorial service marking the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The death of her great University of Chicago mentor, Milton Friedman, in November 2006 led her to say the following: “Milton Friedman revived the economics of liberty when it had been all but forgotten. He was an intellectual freedom fighter. Never was there a less dismal practitioner of a dismal science. I shall greatly miss my old friend’s lucid wisdom and mordant humour.”

Asked on TV in late 2005 what her mom did for fun now, daughter Carol replied: “Not a lot. She’s not very well. She’s got to a ripe old age really and if you hold down that sort of job for eleven and a half years something’s going to blow a gasket on you, isn’t it?”

But despite this Lady Thatcher continues to remain active in British politics, indeed the politics of Thatcherism have never gone away and their influence can be seen on all of the parties in the UK. This was perhaps best shown by the turnout in 2007 for the unveiling of her statue in the Members’ Lobby in the House of Commons where members from all sides of both Houses, right across the political spectrum, turned out to see the unveiling. Lady Thatcher herself said of the bronze statue, standing 7’ 4” atop a 3’ plinth, that she “might have preferred iron, but bronze will do,” adding that it was “an honor” as all other statues of Prime Ministers in the Members’ lobby have been erected posthumously. One MP joked to the author: “The statue is nearly as intimidating as Margaret herself.”

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Come the day she passes on, she will receive the ultimate honor of a State funeral, something normally reserved for senior members of the royal family. Such an accolade will put her right up there with Churchill, Nelson, Wellington, Palmerston, Gladstone and Darwin.

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23. Family “They are taking it all in their stride. Whatever comes, they take it.”

Denis “I couldn’t have done it without Denis.”

It is hard to overestimate the support of Denis. As Lady Thatcher said upon his death in 2003, aged 88: “Being PM is a lonely job. In a sense, it ought to be — you cannot lead from a crowd. But with Denis there, I was never alone. What a man. What a husband. What a friend.”

His secret was twofold: first he did not let being her consort dominate his life — he kept his own interests and his own schedule to some extent; second, he kept his mouth shut. His motto was “always present, never there.” He called journalists “reptiles” and he never gave an interview. However, his patience could be tested; he once terminated a late night press briefing with two loud words from the back of the room: “Margaret — BED!” He loved quoting Mark Twain: “Better keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.”

In that line the following conversation with the Duchess of York (the former wife of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, who is the second son of HRH Queen Elizabeth II and fourth in the line of succession to 173

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the throne after Charles, William and Harry. His daughters Beatrice and Eugenie are fifth and sixth in line) was once reported: Duchess of York: Oh, Denis, I do get awful press, don’t I? Denis: Yes, ma’am. Has it occurred to you to keep your mouth shut?

His grandfather ran a successful business in New Zealand making weed killer to keep train lines free of such impediments and his father moved to England as a young man to establish a parent company called Atlas Preservatives. Born in 1915 in Lewisham, South London, Denis was educated at boarding school, finishing at the world famous Mill Hill Sixth Form College1. He joined Atlas Preservatives in 1933 straight from school. It was then involved in many kinds of liquids and chemical production and he started at the bottom. During World War II, he served in the Territorial Army (the reserves) rising to the rank of Major and being awarded an MBE. Poor eyesight limited him to general staff duties. In 1941 he met a Margaret Kempson at an officers’ tea dance and they married in 1942 but because of the war they never set up a home together as Denis was very quickly posted abroad. She moved on and they soon divorced, the marriage over so quickly that if Denis had been a Catholic he could have asked for an annulment. Denis never talked of her publicly and only broke his silence to his daughter Carol. It is often said that there was a striking physical resemblance between the two Mrs. Margaret Thatchers. The daughter of a Hertfordshire jeweler called Leonard Kempson, on divorce the first Margaret immediately married Sir Howard Hickman Bt. Denis sold the family business to Castrol in the mid 1950s for a sum that in today’s world would be many millions. It was in turn bought by Burmah Oil Company of which he became Divisional Director of Control and Planning, retiring in 1975, the same year his wife became leader of her Party. He was an immensely popular man, a real character and a real gentleman. He became famous for his games of golf with close friend Bill Deedes, a former MP, former Cabinet Minister and former editor of The 1 Sixth form equals 11th and 12th grade.

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Daily Telegraph. He was also known for his thirst quenching large gin and tonics. And if there was no tonic, so what? The British satirical magazine Private Eye started a fortnightly (every two weeks) letter from Denis to Bill entitled “Dear Bill” all about life behind the scenes at Number 10 and the Prime Minister’s weekend residence Chequers. Written by Richard Ingrams and John Wells this was turned into a stage play with Wells himself playing Denis and the actress Angela Thorne1, the author’s then next door neighbor, playing Margaret. I have vivid memories of trying to work in my conservatory as my neighbor practiced her lines outside in her garden. She worked hard on one single word namely “Denis” because that was her first word and it was meant to be delivered with a certain authority. “Dear Bill” was a huge hit although Angela told me she would get very nervous as John Wells would insert extemporaneous material from that day’s papers at every performance to which she had to react without notice or warning. At the height of the success of the play the Prime Minister and Mr. Thatcher agreed to attend a performance. In those days British theatres were not allowed to open on Sundays. However they could open for a charity performance which they duly did one Sunday with the Thatchers traveling all of 300 yards from Downing Street to the Whitehall Theatre. It takes a certain sang froid or pretty cool attitude to agree to give up an evening to see yourself and your husband/wife mercilessly parodied on stage with several hundred people laughing at it. The plot centers around Denis’s desire for a stiff drink. Denis goes to Chequers (the Prime Minister’s country retreat) and invites some of his drinking buddies for a weekend while the Prime Minister is away at a European Summit. His joy of having the place to himself is short lived as the Summit, on short notice, is switched to Chequers and as a result the drinks cabinet is locked. The play follows Denis’s quest for the key to the cabinet and the lengths he will go to in order to get it. The play also pokes fun at some of the Thatcher’s closest allies: Major2: ‘Having as our objective the immediate limiting of the money supply, as envisaged by Professor Milton Schulman.’ 1 Her son is Rupert Penry-Jones, an accomplished actor in the UK. 2 Not John Major, then unknown, but a character referred to as the Major, one of Denis’s friends.

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Maggie: Friedman. Major: What has he got to do with it? Denis: In practice very little. Margaret’s taken rather a shine to him though, and vice versa. I’m told he has already bankrupted the economies of Chile and Israel, but quite an agreeable little man with gold-rimmed spectacles, albeit a rather talkative wife. Milton Schulman on the other hand is some sort of Canadian extap-dancer. I agree that might seem more than average qualifications for determining the country’s economic future...

And the Cabinet: Schubert: Ah, Prime Minister! Strange advisors you have... Maggie: Mayor1? Schubert: Beer belly, broken veins, bloodshot eyes mit big bags. Maggie: Willie Whitelaw? Jim Prior? It could be practically any member of my Cabinet from the description. Schubert: He talked at first good common sense. Maggie: Ah, that does rather narrow the field.

But the play and the letters made Denis into a major celebrity in his own right and his one-liners often made the news. Asked about his wife being ill and stopping public speaking: “She’ll be all right as long as she listens to us. She’s been told twice, so this is her last chance.” On marriage: “For 40 years I have been married to one of the greatest women the world has ever produced. All I could produce, small as it may be, was love and loyalty.” Warning people about gifts of heavy statues: “When I was at Burmah Oil, the Government of Burma gave us two ten-ton statues. I’d much prefer a fountain pen, myself.” After a particularly nasty BBC TV interview of the Prime Minister: “She was stitched up by bloody BBC poofs2 and trots.3“ In 1991, Denis was made a Baronet, becoming Sir Denis Thatcher 1st Baronet Thatcher of Scotney in the County of Kent. This meant that his wife Margaret became Lady Thatcher while still an MP in the Com1 “Major” said with a German accent. 2 Gays. 3 Trotsky-ites, adherents of Trotskyism, a theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky, and the people most likely to read Socialist Worker.

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mons. She, of course, became Lady Thatcher in her own right when moving to the House of Lords in 1992. It also meant that son Mark became Sir Mark Thatcher 2nd Baronet on the passing of Denis in 2003. And his American son will one day become the 3rd Baronet. Carol “I was not nearly as newsworthy as Mark.” If the parents had a favorite among their children, then it is almost certain that Carol was her dad’s and Mark was very much his mom’s. Educated at St Paul’s boarding school for girls, Carol read law (in the early 1970s) at University College, London, a top establishment. Education Secretary Thatcher was worried that some violent leftist nutcase students might target her daughter. She telephoned Conservative student leaders such as myself in London asking that we all be alert to any danger to her daughter. However Carol kept her head down and remained pretty anonymous. She certainly never attended a student Conservative meeting. A career in journalism followed as did her diary of the 1983 General Election (Diary of an Election: with Margaret Thatcher on the Campaign Trail, 1983) and a wonderful biography of Denis. (Below the Parapet: the Biography of Denis Thatcher, 1996). Being a journalist and daughter of the Prime Minister was however a bit of a two edged sword. Yes it meant she had access but it also cut the number of places where she could work. And she always — in her younger years — felt in the shadow of Mark. She has never married and recently described herself as a “roaming singleton” and “past my sell-by date for that sort of thing.” There has, however been a string of relationships, including as already noted a well-publicized romance with Jonathan Aitken1 in the 1970s. Carol clearly inherited Denis’s plain speaking. In 1991 she refused to pay the Community Charge or “poll tax” and when asked by journalists what her mother would think of this she replied, “Mom won’t give a ----.” 1 Jonathan Aitken was a Conservative MP who reportedly was denied a Cabinet post by Margaret as he “made Carol cry.” He was later charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice and was jailed in 1999 for several years.

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From being a minor celebrity she leapt to prominence in late 2005 when she won the British reality TV series, “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.” She started the two-week-long jungle stay as the bookie’s rank 33 to 1 outsider but as the program developed she gathered momentum and saw off a lot of more famous TV stars, pop stars and comedians as “her unflinching honesty, ready humor and doughty toughness rapidly endeared her to the eight million viewers and helped her to outmaneuver better known personalities.” Chip off the old block? When asked if she had called Lady Thatcher with news of her victory, Carol replied: “I don’t know her number.” Mark “Mark has one topic of conversation — himself.” (Anon.) “…a kind of low-order pantomime rent-a-spiv.” (Sunday Telegraph) “Carol never had a good word to say about Mark.” (Jonathan Aitken) It would be kind to say Mark struggled at Harrow, the top public school. He cleverly eschewed higher education and entered accountancy only to leave after failing the exam three times. A life of scrapes, problematic business deals and a role in a failed African coup unfolded as he became famous for arrogance, boorishness and infidelity. He first came to national prominence in January of 1982 as retold in the Preface when competing with a very pretty French lady co-driver (Charlotte Verney) in the Paris to Dakar automobile rally. They went missing for six days in the Sahara Desert. Denis flew out to join the search and Mark was eventually spotted from the air 30 miles off course. When the rescue mission ended, Mark’s response on seeing Denis was, “Hello, Dad, what are you doing here?” Denis was not amused. Mark Thatcher Racing was wound up and several more failed career attempts followed. In 1985 allegations were made (which he has always denied) that he received a substantial commission on the $40 billion Saudi Al Yamamah arms deal signed by his mother.

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In 1987 he married the car dealership heiress Diane Burgdorf in Dallas, Texas, where he was representing the Lotus car company. They had two children, Michael (born 1989) and Amanda Margaret (born 1993). Michael will one day be the 3rd Thatcher Baronet. They moved to the Republic of South Africa (RSA) in 1995 “because of allegations against Mark Thatcher of racketeering that resulted in an $8 million civil action.” He was finally arrested August 25, 2004 in Constantia, a very rich suburb of Cape Town. He was charged with contravening two sections of the RSA’s Foreign Military Assistance Act. Specifically he was thought to have funded the purchase of a helicopter to be used in a military coup in Equatorial Guinea. He was bailed and put under house arrest while his wife and children returned home to Highland Park, an equally rich suburb of Dallas, Texas. Mark eventually made a deal, paid a fine of $500,000 and received a four-year suspended sentence. By this time Mark Thatcher’s dealings had become so newsworthy that Mark Hollingsworth and Paul Halloran, two investigative journalists from the UK, decided to catalogue all of his business deals and attempts at a career. The result was a 391 page book outlining every episode from the arms deals in the Middle East to construction contracts in the Gulf to the coup in Equatorial Guinea. After his arrest in South Africa and now armed with a criminal record, he was refused entry back to the US and went home to mom in London. Divorce soon followed and Lady Thatcher (Diane, not Margaret) gave some interesting insights to British press: ŪŪ Mark has a short attention span and does not “think straight”; ŪŪ Despite all the scandals he is still his mom’s “blue-eyed boy”; ŪŪ “I want closure with Mark Thatcher, and to show him Christian humility does not include being his personal doormat”; ŪŪ “If I was struggling with bags at an airport, he’d look back at me impatiently”; ŪŪ “At dinner parties he would be rude to me in front of other people as though he was trying to show who was boss”; ŪŪ Mark called his mother “Prime Minister” even in private;

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ŪŪ When Mark and Diane visited and stayed at 10 Downing Street in 1987, his mom “hand washed all of Mark’s shirts, pressed them and folded them neatly in little plastic bags for traveling”; ŪŪ “Mark used to refer to moments like that as ‘little spurts of mothering’; and finally ŪŪ “I don’t think Mark ever left his mum. Her opinion matters more than mine and he enjoyed her company more that mine.” One wonders how Baroness (Margaret) Thatcher got on with her forthright now ex-daughter in law Lady (Diane) Thatcher. After all, the latter hired a private detective to uncover one of Mark’s extramarital affairs and another time did the job herself, secretly tailing him to a hotel in Santa Monica, California and confronting him and his latest lover. Sounds to me like the two Lady Thatchers have a lot in common! There is in fact now a third Lady Thatcher as in late March 2008 Sir Mark married Sarah Russell, sister of Viscountess Rothermere, eleven months after divorcing his first wife. A week earlier the government of Equatorial Guinea had issued an international warrant for Mark’s arrest.

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Other than Denis three men dominated Margaret Thatcher’s life and three others deserve a gold-plated mention too. The three who dominated are her father Alf Roberts, her great domestic ally Sir Keith Joseph Bt. and her great overseas ally President Ronald Reagan. The three who deserve the gold-plated mention are Sir Alfred Sherman, Sir Alan Walters and Lord (Ralph) Harris of High Cross. Alf “My father was a Rotarian. The Rotary motto ‘Service above Self’ was engraved on his heart.” “I am sure that he never imagined that I would eventually become Prime Minister. He would have wanted these things for me because politics was so much a part of his life and because I was so much his daughter.”

Alf (as we saw in earlier chapters) was extraordinarily important. He was the foundation on which she built: “I owe almost everything to my father” she once said. He was the one who taught her the importance of integrity. “He taught me that you first sort out what you believe in. You then apply it. You don’t compromise on the things that matter.” 181

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Daily through his work in the shop he showed her by example how important the customer was in a market economy. While she later credited F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman and Lord (Ralph) Harris for her economic theory, she sure learned a great deal in her dad’s small business. Alf taught her tenacity too. It was not good enough just to start something. You had to stick at it and see it through to the end. You worked hard; you were self-reliant; you saved; you did your duty wherever it may lie; and you acted on principle. In 1982 she said: “Some say I preach merely the homilies of housekeeping or the parables of the parlor. But I do not repent. Those parables would have saved many a financier from failure and many a country from crisis.”

And indeed many of those homilies or parables came from Alf as they ate breakfast, lunch, high tea and supper together above the shop every single day. Keith “I could not have become Leader of the Opposition, or achieve what I did as Prime Minister, without Keith.”

Thatcher’s career was deeply entwined with that of Sir Keith Joseph Bt. They came together over her Private Member’s Bill; they suffered in Cabinet together from 1970 to 1974; he asked her to help set up the Centre for Policy Studies; she wanted him to run against Heath, and when that was not possible, he supported her. And he then served in her cabinet as Secretary of State for Industry from 1979 to 1981 and as Secretary of State for Education and Science from 1981 to 1986. Keith had grown up in comfort as father, Sir Samuel Joseph, a baronet, headed the family firm, Bovis, one of the biggest construction companies in the country. His father also served for a time as the Lord Mayor of London. Joseph was undoubtedly Margaret Thatcher’s closest political friend and ally. But he was by no means an easy man and in dealing with him you always felt on tenterhooks. In 1975 he famously said “it was only in April 1974 that I was converted to Conservatism. I had thought I was a Conservative but I now see that I was not really one at all.” 182

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His Damascene moment led him to set up the Centre for Policy Studies in which Mrs. Thatcher cooperated fully. Its mission was to develop a new free-market conservatism. As she noted: “Keith had gone into politics for the same reason as many on the left had done — he wanted to improve the lot of ordinary people, particularly those he saw living in deprived, stunted, unfulfilled lives. Many jokes would be made … about the way in which he changed his mind and reversed policies on matters ranging from housing to social benefits. But the common thread was the relentless search for the right answer to the practical problems of human suffering.” Joseph turned out to be a very timid member of Prime Minister Thatcher’s Cabinet and it is hard to credit him with any of the great reforms of the 1980s. Not one. But in the 1970s he was extraordinarily courageous in taking his and her new brand of conservatism on to campus. Given the nickname “The Mad Monk,” he visited virtually every university in the UK preaching the gospel of the free market, attracting crowds of many hundreds and almost as many eggs and vegetables. There was a famous photo of him walking along a college corridor, surrounded by police officers, reading a copy of the newspaper Socialist Worker. His suit was splattered with eggs that were literally running down his body. A clever Conservative Central Office publicist had a poster made up using this photo and captioned it: “He reads Socialist Worker — Trots throw eggs.” It was a very powerful and effective statement on many levels. Lady Thatcher summed Keith up as follows: “Keith Joseph had the charm of a hundred paradoxes. He was a modest man; but, unlike so many modest men, he had really nothing to be modest about. He was (that overworked, but in this case appropriate word) “brilliant”; yet he never indulged in intellectual virtuosity. He was brave; yet by nature he was timid.”

She later added: “We were seeking to re-establish an understanding of the fundamental truths which had made Western life, British life, and the life of the English-speaking peoples what they were. This was the foundation of our Conservative revolution. It remains the foundation for any successful Conservative programme of government.”

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Ronald “One of the greatest men of our time.” He won the Cold War “without firing a shot…not without a little help from his friends.”

And then there was Ronald Reagan, “one of the greatest men of our time.” It is said that they spent more time together than any other post World War II US and UK leaders except possibly Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, but the quality of the time is as important if not more so than the quantity and there was a rare magic to the ThatcherReagan relationship. It was based on many things but above all it was a common understanding of the “evil empire” and a common belief in the free-market economy. They knew in their hearts that the former was doomed and that the latter was the only road ahead. They became so close that the very last thing President Reagan did as President, his last official act, was to write a letter of thanks to Prime Minister Thatcher on January 11, 1989. And early in their relationship he said that their friendship made the “special relationship stronger than ever.” It is also claimed he made her feel very feminine. They first met in 19751 at the House of Commons and then again in 1978 but she had had her eye on him since the late 1960s when Denis returned to their home “full of praise” for a speech Reagan had just given at the Institute of Directors2. And on Reagan being elected as the US President she sent him a letter of congratulations saying: “May I send you my warmest congratulations, and those of my colleagues in the British Government, on your victory in the presidential election? Remembering our meeting in London in 1978, I look forward to working closely with you and with your colleagues in your new Administration. You will be assuming the presidency at a time when the close friendship between our two countries can. I believe, play a crucial role in strengthening cooperation within the alliance. I look forward to an early opportunity of discussing with you the urgent problems which we all face. I hope you already know that you will receive the warmest welcome from both the Government and the people of this country when you can find an opportunity to visit Britain, which I hope will be soon.” 1 At the suggestion of Justin Dart (as in Walgreens). 2 Margaret was so struck by Denis’s enthusiasm that she obtained a copy of Reagan’s speech. Both meetings went superbly well and they were the foundation of a very special meeting of minds and close relationship.

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The strength of the relationship was first tested in 1982 when the President supported the Prime Minister on the Falklands War. Against great opposition at home, he imposed economic sanctions on Argentina and his administration provided missiles, aircraft fuel, military equipment, and intelligence information to the British government. The US invasion of the former British colony of Grenada (he did not warn her) strained matters but she was soon risking the anger of the far Left, and the IRA, by letting him use US bases in England to bomb Libya. For President Reagan’s funeral on June 11, 2004 at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, in order for Lady Thatcher to pay tribute and stick to doctors’ orders, she pre-recorded her tribute. It starts as follows: “We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend.”

She noted how “cheerful” and “invigorating” it had been to be with him. But his task had been “daunting” as his goal had been “to mend…. Communism.” She remarked on his “lightness of spirit” and the purpose of his humor. He had also had a grace of a deeper kind and he had inspired America to rediscover its belief in freedom. Under his leadership a moribund economy became one of opportunity and growth. Whereas others had looked for accommodation with the USSR, “he won the Cold War.” “Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles — and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively. When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do.” She noted that, like her, his speech writers knew what to say and what to omit. “His resolve was firm and unyielding…Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth.” Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform.

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While denouncing the “evil” empire, he wished men of goodwill might emerge. And when one did emerge Ron stepped forward and shook his hand. “Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity — and nothing was more American.” Ron and the American people “loved America and what it stands for — freedom and opportunity for ordinary people.” “He was able to say ‘God Bless America’ with equal fervor in public and in private.” She went on: “With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today the world — in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself — the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer “God Bless America”.”

She finished the taped speech: “For the final years of his life, Ronnie’s mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again — more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven’s morning broke, I like to think — in the words of Bunyan — that ‘all the trumpets sounded on the other side.’ We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God’s children.”

Alfred “97% of what he wrote was beyond the pale, 3% was pure gold.”

Alfred (later Sir Alfred) Sherman was as unlikely a person to advise a future Conservative leader as ever lived. He grew up with rickets, in grinding poverty, and then became a communist machine gunner for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. He served in the British Army in World War II and then enrolled at the London School of Economics. He was expelled from the Communist Party for “Titoist1 deviationism” and through a career as a journalist moved to a free-market position, 1 Tito was the first Prime Minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 1945–53 and its second President 1953–80. He was best known for organizing the anti-fascist resistance movement and fighting Soviet influence.

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becoming one of the co-founders of the Centre for Policy Studies with Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher. He wrote many of Keith’s speeches and did much to stimulate Margaret Thatcher’s thinking. Keith described him as the “hair shirt” of the Conservative Party while he (Sherman) claims that he “invented Margaret Thatcher” and without him “Mr. Heath would still be leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition.” He was an utterly irascible man — very difficult indeed and by 1984 he was sacked. British politics is mostly inhabited by the smooth and the mannerly. Sir Alfred was a welcome exception. Mrs. Thatcher admired him and it was said that while 97% of what he wrote was beyond the pale 3% was pure gold. When asked in 1987 if Sherman still had the Prime Minister’s ear the then Conservative Party Chairman Norman Tebbit replied, “Not if she sees him coming he doesn’t.” He was brilliant but difficult. Alfred Sherman was probably of greater influence in the Opposition years but he acted as a sort of conscience for her when she was Prime Minister. Courtiers flatter. Alfred Sherman only ever upbraided. Sherman also hosted a curious weekly breakfast conspiracy with Enoch Powell and Keith Joseph in a humble café near Victoria Station. As Powell sat then as an Ulster Unionist, not as a Tory, this was an oddity. Mr. Powell would be invited to concur with the Sherman thesis that the Conservatives were being over cautious or over timid. He did so invariably. All of this was designed to bolster Keith’s will and it probably did embolden him to encourage Prime Minister Thatcher on the major privatizations. Keith Joseph always said he left politically chastened by the logic and with mild indigestion from the greasy food even though all he ate was a piece of toast. Alan “You know what you can do best, and you know what needs doing.”

Sir Alan Walters was throughout the Thatcher era one of her most trusted and senior advisers. Alan served as her personal economic adviser from 1981–1984 and again in 1989, but remained a ‘friend of the family’ throughout her time as Prime Minister. This was a rather bold move by her, to bring back in an official role a person that the last Tory 187

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Prime Minister Ted Heath had fired after daring to contradict the advice of Heath’s other advisors over the rapid expansion of the money supply. At first Alan had doubts about Prime Minister Thatcher. She used the same rhetoric as Heath did in the early days and Alan was worried that the results would be the same. But his mind was soon changed; simply by speaking to her he saw her conviction and her willingness to do what was right which shone through in her actions, such as suspending and later abolishing exchange rate controls. It was the intercession of Keith and Alfred that brought Alan back to Downing Street after his bad experiences with Heath. The high esteem in which Alan was held by Prime Minister Thatcher is clearly evidenced when he asked her for his terms of reference. She simply replied: “You know what you can do best, and you know what needs doing.” Undoubtedly what Alan is most remembered for publicly these days (despite his part in the 1981 Budget) is for the bust up he and Prime Minister Thatcher had with Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson. Both Howe and Lawson pressured her to take the UK into the ERM. In fact it was only thanks to Alan’s sound economic advice that she managed to hold off the onslaught of Europhile guff from two of her leading ministers for so long. However the battle over the ERM was not without its casualties. It caused the resignation of both Lawson and Alan. Lawson was convinced that Alan was undermining his position as Chancellor. This of course was not true at all, but the row continued leading Prime Minister Thatcher to state publicly “Advisors advise, Ministers decide.” This was not enough for Lawson who offered Mrs. Thatcher an ultimatum, he goes or I go. She made it clear to Lawson that Alan was no threat and that he would stay, so Lawson promptly resigned. Alan then in the same afternoon also resigned as he felt the government “needed a clean slate” in order to go on governing effectively. Despite Alan’s resignation even after she asked him to stay on, she was still fond of him. Alan was in many ways the most important advisor she had in Downing Street. While ministers would tell her what was popular Alan would simply tell her what was right. Without his advice it is doubtful whether the UK would have the strong economy it enjoys today. 188

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Alan was a remarkable man. His Dad was an active communist. Alan failed the British 11+ exam, the dividing line between a white collar career and a blue collar one, but a teacher in his secondary modern school saw real talent and encouraged him. About the age he should have been leaving school (say, 14) Alan’s brother was drafted. He went to his boss and begged him to employ their long-term unemployed communist dad so Alan could stay on at school and matriculate. The boss agreed, the dad was hired and Alan got his diploma. After two years in the military, at the end of World War II, Alan went back to his mentor. “I think I want to become a teacher,” he said. “Do you know anything about anything?” his former teacher replied. “No — everything I knew has been drilled out of me,” came the reply. “Well, in that case you had better study economics as it starts from the basis of no prior knowledge,” was the answer. Alan enrolled locally to do an external degree from London University and became the first external student ever (and possibly since) to garner the highest grades of all the students. It was the first time any external student had topped all the internal ones. There was a natural affinity between Alan and the Prime Minister. Both came from modest backgrounds in the deeply provincial East Midlands. Both were natural fighters. Ralph “It is primarily your foundation work which enabled us to rebuild the philosophy upon which our Party succeeded.” —Margaret Thatcher to Lord Harris.

Finally, but perhaps most fundamentally, there was Ralph Harris, Lord Harris of High Cross. Ralph came from a modest working class home in Tottenham, North London. He studied economics at Cambridge immediately post World War II but fell under the spell of Dennis Robertson and Stanley Dennison both free-market men rather than Joan Robinson and the Keynesians. He then worked for the Conservative Party, lectured at St. Andrews University and wrote leaders for the Glasgow Herald before heading south back to London. In January 1957, hired by Antony Fisher, he became the first, albeit part time, employee of the newly created Institute of Economic Affairs. 189

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Twenty two years later Mrs. Thatcher entered Downing Street. She had a long list of urgent tasks ahead of her. One of the first was to write to Fisher saying that the IEA had “created the climate of opinion which made our victory possible.” Another was to ask that Ralph be made a member of the House of Lords as soon as possible. She later had her PPS sound out Ralph on becoming a Minister but he refused and sat resolutely as a crossbencher as in an independent. Indeed, starting in 1955 the IEA had long made the case for free market, private property and the rule of law. At first they — the authors and staff — were outcasts but gradually they attracted a following and by the mid 1970s they were clearly impacting opinion. That was all public. What was not so public was that between 1974 and 1979 Margaret Thatcher attended many IEA events and read its monographs. Ralph in turn helped her with speeches and the CPS with its development. Ralph Harris had a charm and geniality that beguiled her. He was amusing and not in awe of her. He made classical liberal economic ideas fun as well as simple. As Lady Thatcher she later commented on the PBS series Commanding Heights “It is primarily your foundation work which enabled us to rebuild the philosophy upon which our Party succeeded.” And later the authors recount her closing words thus: “At the top of the stairs, she stopped to reflect on the morning’s discussion. The Thatcherite revolution itself was unexpected. Who in the 1970s would have anticipated the degree of change? ‘It started with Sir Keith and me, with the Centre for Policy Studies, and Lord Harris, at the Institute for Economic Affairs. Yes, it started with ideas, with beliefs.’ She paused. ‘That’s it. You must start with beliefs. Yes, always with beliefs.’ ” There were many other important men in her life — she only ever promoted one woman to Cabinet, Baroness Young1 — but these six were pivotal: Alf, Keith, Ronald, Alfred, Alan and Ralph.

1 Baroness Young served Margaret not as head of any great department but from 1981–1983 as Leader of the House of Lords.

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25. Her World “As more power is taken away from the people, so there is less responsibility for us to assume” “We must have an ideology. The other side have got an ideology, we must have one too.”

She was the first woman leader of a major Western political party; she was the only person in the 20th century to win three successive British general elections; she was the longest serving Prime Minister of that century; she was voted the 16th greatest Briton ever by the left-leaning BBC; and historian Francis Beckett ranks her number one1 “best Prime Minister” of the 20 who served in the 20th century! And in 2005 senior British commentator Charles Moore dubbed her (with no offence to HM the Queen) “the greatest living Englishwoman.” So what did she stand for? Above all she was a conviction politician. As the leftist Tony Benn said on her 80th birthday: 1 The full list goes as follows: 1st Margaret Thatcher, 2nd Clement Attlee, 3rd Edward Heath, 4th Sir Winston Churchill, 5th Harold Macmillan, 6th Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, 7th Lord Salisbury, 8th Herbert Asquith, 9th David Lloyd George, 10th Stanley Baldwin, 11th Harold Wilson, 12th Tony Blair, 13th James Callaghan, 14th Arthur Balfour, 15th Andrew Bonar Law, 16th Ramsay MacDonald, 17th Sir Alec Douglas-Home, 18th John Major, 19th Sir Anthony Eden, 20th Neville Chamberlain.

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“Mrs. Thatcher said what she meant and meant what she said. And did it. … she did not do anything by deception. Everyone knew what she wanted to do.” “Whether before Cabinet or the more effective smaller meetings, Margaret, who appeared to only need four hours sleep a night, always did her homework on the subjects for discussion, almost as though she was about to sit an exam” wrote her Chancellor Nigel Lawson. Every Prime Minister has their style of working. It is said her successor John Major consulted everyone much that so very little got decided. The British Cabinet is 22 or more individuals. This can become ponderous. Prime Minister Thatcher preferred small meetings of often no more than three or four individuals. These were usually the Secretary of State involved in any topic, the junior minister plus a senior civil servant. The memoirs of her contemporaries map many different characteristics. She could be kind. She could be impatient. She could be imperious. She could be sympathetic. It is possible to discern how her demeanor evolved over time. As Leader of the Party in 1975 she shared everyone’s surprise at her new role. As Prime Minister in 1979 she was slightly in awe at her own office. It was wry that she would often refer to “The Government” as her enemy. She meant the strange combination of muddling and complacency that is the British state. Prime Ministers conventionally defend the Government. She was no ordinary Prime Minister. After the striking victory in the Falklands War followed by the crushing of the miners’ strike, she was plainly in her stride, confident of her own abilities and her own instincts. “I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but it should get you pretty near,” she remarked. That is her authentic voice. “What Britain needs is an Iron Lady,” she once said. That is what it got. She was often abrupt with the leftist intellectuals of the media: “I have no hang ups about my background, like you intellectual commentators in the South East. When you are actually doing things

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25. Her World

you do not have time for hang ups. Pennies do not fall from heaven. They have to be earned on earth.” These were characteristic sentiments. They were not the voice of any speechwriter: “My politics are based….on things I and millions like me were brought up with. An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay; live within your means; put a nest egg by for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.” Also, “It is passionately interesting for me that the things I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe won the election.” Her intuition and her sentiments proved she was nearer to the people than all her rivals. These were homilies that sometimes invited scoffs from her opponents or from her more snobbish Tory colleagues. There was a deep practical streak to her. “Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.” Not only would such sentiments invite the mockery of her metropolitan opponents, they would equally resonate with the electorate. Margaret Thatcher spoke truths. They were simple truths but they were of a nature of plain-speaking not heard on Prime Ministerial lips before. “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he had had only good intentions. He had money as well.” The startling verity was a jolt to those who wanted the great abstraction “Society” to solve problems. She famously remarked: “There is no such thing as Society. There are individual men and women and there are families.” This blunt sentiment enraged her enemies. The idea of individual responsibility seemed to conflict with their sense that it was through the aggregate power of the people, in other words the state, nationally or locally, that most matters should be administered. She could be wonderfully caustic. On learning from a majority of her Cabinet that she should not continue as Prime Minister: “Treachery with a smiling face.” 193

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

“Power is like being a lady…if you have to tell people you are…, you are not.” Of Sir Ian later Lord Gilmour of Craigmillar and a noted “Wet”: “Once on the backbenches he was as loyal as he had been in government.” Of her predecessor as Tory Leader: “I’ll always be fond of dear old Ted, but there is no sympathy in politics.” She was good at amusing put downs. Of Neil Kinnock, the Labour Leader, she remarked: “As Opposition Leader he was out of his depth. As Prime Minister he would have been sunk.” Although all politicians have to compromise her instinct was to remain tenacious. “There are still people in my Party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors. I mean it.” She clearly had memories of the seventies. “To cure the British disease with socialism was trying to cure leukemia with leeches,” she declaimed. She could appear more like Adam Smith than Smith himself, as in: “There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.” A repeated theme was her distrust of “wobblers” as she once described an unsure George H. W. Bush. She was exasperated by temporizing moderation: “Almost all the policies hawked about by “practical” men on “pragmatic” grounds turned out in the end to be highly impractical. Yet this fact never seemed to dent their enthusiasm.” Margaret Thatcher was dismissive of the middling consensus that she thought had impoverished Britain: “No theory of Government was ever given a faster test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than ‘democratic socialism’ received in the United Kingdom. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect.” It was only a person brought up in the austerity and rationing of her early life under a Labour Government and then had been a minister in Edward Heath’s frightened and intimidated period in office that could be so impatient with the dithering or timid in power.

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25. Her World

One remark that will probably always be linked to her is her phrase at a Party Conference when the opinion polls were adverse and every commentator anticipated a return to reflation, in other words reverse her policies and accomplish a U-turn. “U turn if you want to: the Lady’s not for Turning.” It was a simple little quip but it signalled her determination to liberalize the economy and not revert to the flawed policies she inherited. She expressed it with a vivid metaphor: “In the fine print of policy, and especially in Government, the Tory Party merely pitched camp in the long march to the Left.” Although wounded by her loss of the Leadership and her Premiership, Prime Minister Thatcher sustained a sense of immense good fortune: “I had the marvelous privilege of being there for eleven and a half, nearly twelve years. That is half as long again as any President of the United States.” As she remarked to her daughter, “Carol, I think my place in history is assured.”

195

26. Ten Lessons “We must never be prepared simply to accept the “received wisdom” of those who claim to be wiser. Every one of us can make a difference. And by returning to our basic principles and beliefs, we can find new ways to revivify our policies and to forge a brighter future for ourselves and for our children.”

Lady Thatcher’s legacy is far reaching. She was the longest serving Prime Minister of the 20th century and so had 11½ years to get the job done. But what a job: ŪŪ She took on the whole union movement, brought it back under the rule of law and gave it back to its members; ŪŪ She transformed the nation’s view of the benefits of a market economy; ŪŪ She privatized the commanding heights of the economy thus transforming their fortunes and starting a worldwide movement; ŪŪ She taught us the need for monetary continence if we wish to enjoy low inflation; ŪŪ She enfranchised millions of former local authority serfs through the right to buy public housing; ŪŪ She made Brits walk tall again with a principled, firm and robust approach to foreign relations;

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ŪŪ She started the process which has now led to peace in Northern Ireland; ŪŪ She helped Ronald Reagan tear down that wall without a shot and destroy the evil empire; ŪŪ And she ensured that all future British governments have to be much friendlier to laissez-faire capitalism than had been the case prior to 1979. Today, three decades after she came to power and two decades after she left, it is interesting to speculate. What will the next Mrs. or Mr. Thatcher have to do to rival her record? How about this list: ŪŪ Deregulate and stop the tsunami of new legislation; ŪŪ Renegotiate with the EU; ŪŪ Bring crime down; ŪŪ Reform the National Health Service; ŪŪ Increase educational standards; ŪŪ Reduce welfare rolls; ŪŪ Simplify and reduce taxation; and ŪŪ Balance the books. A future Prime Minister who did that would deserve to have Margaret Thatcher’s reputation. So let me try to summarize ten key strategic lessons I have identified from Margaret Thatcher: (1) Above all Margaret Thatcher had a very strong personal political and moral compass. She could turn to a room full of powerful men and in effect simply say “I know this is right; you know this is right; the only question is how we do it.” It wasn’t the bossiness of the cartoons so much as total conviction. And it built teamwork. If the chief has a set of clear, well articulated, consistent principles then all the little Indians know exactly what to do…. if they want to stay in the wigwam. And as she once said “disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, selfesteem, and personal satisfaction.” An early example came in April 1980 just a year after she entered Downing Street. A group of six Iranian ter198

26. Ten Lessons

rorists stormed the Iranian Embassy in central London and a siege ensued with 26 hostages. The terrorists demanded the release of political prisoners in Iran; Prime Minister Thatcher demanded the defeat of the terrorists and brought in the crack special forces men from the Special Air Service (SAS). The whole affair dragged on for nearly a week when the terrorists suddenly shot a hostage and threw the body out of the front door. “Go in” commanded the Prime Minister and on prime time TV the nation watched live as the men of the SAS abseiled down to the windows on the front of the building, chucking percussion grenades in ahead of them. The result was that five out of six terrorists were killed and 19 out of 20 hostages saved; there were no police or SAS officer casualties. (2) She was able to cut through the guff, the nonsense, the fancy embellishments and get right to the heart of the matter, simplify it and communicate it. As books about her are coming out one thing is common to all of them namely this ability of hers to simplify and communicate clearly and with conviction. I always think of her and Newt Gingrich together in one sense namely they neither of them were “At this moment in time” types but rather “now” types. Good short Anglo Saxon words or as Margaret Thatcher once said to my friend Simon Jenkins: “Laissez Faire? Laissez Faire? Don’t go French on me!” She is a very clever person — she studied chemistry and was a chemist in industry before studying law and practicing at the tax and patent bars. But as well as being clever she had this knack of simplifying and communicating, of getting to the heart of the matter and expressing it in simple words that made sense and resonated. People are being cruel when they say she never had a single original idea herself. They undervalue her ability to synthesize. (3) She did lead and she expected and got a lot out of those around her, yet she also listened. Soon after the 1987 general election a newly-elected Tory MP was walking through the members’ lobby in the House of Commons when he suddenly observed an old friend. The old friend had been elected in 1983 and was now a junior minister. He was running, literally running. 199

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

His hair was disheveled and he was carrying not only his briefcase and a box but also a full tray of papers. “Slow down,” called the new MP. “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he added. “Yes,” cried the young minister over his shoulder. “But Margaret wasn’t the foreman on that job.” That is a true story. The next is 100% apocryphal but instructive nonetheless. The story goes that in 1989 her cabinet and senior staff held a private dinner on the 10th anniversary of her becoming prime minister. At the Café Royal Margaret Thatcher sat at the head of the table with say 20 men in suits down each side. A waiter enters and heads to Margaret Thatcher. Waiter:

Prime Minister, would you like an appetizer?

Mrs. T:

Prawn Cocktail, please.

Waiter:

Prime Minister, for your main course?

Mrs. T:

A steak, please.

Waiter:

Prime Minister, what kind of steak?

Mrs. T:

Sirloin, please.

Waiter:

Prime Minister, how do you like your steak?

Mrs. T:

Rare, please.

Waiter:

Prime Minister, some potatoes?

Mrs. T:

Roasted, please.

Waiter:

Prime Minister, what about the vegetables?

Mrs. T:

Oh, they’ll all have steak too!

That was the perception, in this case based on a Spitting Image TV cartoon; in reality she was a better listener than usually given credit for. She did listen mostly to Cabinet Ministers and not all the best ideas came from her “right” wing colleagues as in the sale of public housing which came very much from those to her left such as Peter Walker and Michael Heseltine. And she was not always the hard driving freemarket radical portrayed so often today. She worried about abolishing exchange controls; she was not sure about public housing sales at deep 200

26. Ten Lessons

discounts feeling those already on the housing ladder might rebel; and some privatizations unnerved her a little. Another aspect of her view of leadership is revealed in this quote: “I kept tight personal control over decisions relating to the strategic defense initiative and our reaction to it.… I was also passionately interested in the technical developments and strategic implications. This was one of those areas in which only a firm grasp of the scientific concepts involved allows the right policy decisions to be made. Laid back generalists from the foreign office — let alone the ministerial muddlers in charge of them — could not be relied upon. By contrast, I was in my element.”

(4) She championed policies that went with rather than against the grain of human nature. She once said “popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation. We conservatives are returning power to the people.” Take public housing. In the late ’70s I told her to give it all away to the sitting tenants. Just mail them the deeds, I said. “No,” she replied — “people will not value it unless they pay something for it.” A couple of years later she launched the right to buy. This gave all sitting tenants a 33% discount plus an extra 1% discount for every year of paying rent up to a maximum of 50% off fair market value. Home ownership soared as nearly 3 million units changed hands under this scheme. Likewise with privatization where the shares were very widely spread and quickly appreciated. As noted earlier general public ownership of shares went from 7% to 23% while ownership by trade union members went from 6% to 29%. All of the great privatizations included special staff deals — hence the disproportionate boost among union members. Each one was different but to stymie opposition and generate positive feelings overall they included: ŪŪ Offers of free shares ŪŪ Matching programs — buy one get one free ŪŪ Programs that reserved a certain percent of the float for staff and pensioners ŪŪ Discounts 201

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

ŪŪ Incentives to keep shares long term and ŪŪ No limits on the number of preferential shares that could be bought — once only in that case. Employee response ranged from 19% to 99% and is highly correlated to the generosity of the proposed deal as one might expect. (5) There was a lot of strategic thinking well ahead of time. Ted Heath in his winter confrontation with the miners in 1973–74 had been forced into a corner by lack of coal reserves. There was only enough coal for industry to operate a 3-day week. Strangely, to some, overall production did not fall, showing how much fat there was in industry. Prime Minister Thatcher built up coal reserves to very high levels before she took on the miners. Or, take the suspension of exchange controls. Guided by an IEA monograph Geoffrey Howe, the Chancellor, spotted that he did not need Parliament’s approval; so he just did it. (6) She had a lot of very smart, dedicated, committed people to draw on. Lord Donoghue used to remark in his LSE lectures that the Tory party is “the stupid party.” There was some truth to this — some. But the Tories were becoming infected with ideas and intellectuals, ideas from the IEA such as: ŪŪ Markets work — governments fail ŪŪ Labour market reform ŪŪ Privatization and ŪŪ The conquering of inflation. Meanwhile intellectuals from industry (John Hoskyns) and academia (Alan Walters), and young men from the universities such as Peter Lilley, John Redwood, Michael Forsyth, David Davis and Michael Portillo — were changing the Conservative party. A party that in the post-war years had accepted Butskellism and middle-of-the-road socialism as inevitable had found its intellectual feet under Mrs. Thatcher. As she herself said, “standing in the middle

202

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of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides.” (7) There was a very strong sense of being in the last chance saloon. The winter of 78/79 had been awful. Mrs. Thatcher herself recognized this, saying: “There can have been few in Britain who did not feel, with mounting alarm, that our society was sick — morally, socially and economically. Trade Union leader Mr. Bill Dunn seemed to express the spirit of January 1979 when he said, of the ambulance men’s pay demands, if ‘lives must be lost, that is the way it must be.’” There were strikes galore. There were mountains of trash — the dead were not being buried. Either we got it done now or we became, say, an Argentina — a formerly prosperous country turned basket case. And the economics profession was nearly 100% against her. The nation was in need of a major turnaround — just what she provided with her leadership. (8) We must not forget Ronald Reagan and their partnership. It was very special indeed, much more so than that of Bush and Blair. Some people still believed the future lay with communism; some still believed Soviet statistics. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher instinctively felt that was wrong and evil. As early as 1950 she said, “We believe in the democratic way of life. If we serve the idea faithfully, with tenacity of purpose, we have nothing to fear from Russian communism.” It appears she had extraordinary foresight. (9) Preparation — Politicians in power are too busy to think and they are surrounded by bureaucrats and pestered by those with vested interests. Margaret Thatcher used her 3 to 4 years in opposition to prepare for government. In this regard, see John Hoskyns’ Just In Time and see Richard Cockett’s Thinking the Unthinkable. Ideas regarding labor markets, exchange controls, inflation, the Right To Buy public housing, privatization, contracting out and Enter-

203

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prise Zones were all well discussed before 1979. And she made it quite clear to her research and support staff what she believed in. (10) She did not try to do it all at once. She tackled problems one slice at a time, particularly on labor market reforms and privatization. Every year the unions were slowly but surely brought back under the rule of law. Every year advances were made on privatization and bit by bit a momentum was established. For example in the 1980 Employment Act she: ŪŪ Abolished statutory recognition procedure ŪŪ Extended the right to refuse to join a union ŪŪ And limited picketing Then in the 1982 Employment Act she: ŪŪ Prohibited action to force contracts with union employees ŪŪ Weakened the closed shop ŪŪ Removed some union immunities In the 1984 Employment Act she: ŪŪ Weakened union immunities ŪŪ Required pre strike balloting of union members ŪŪ Strengthened employers power to get injunctions Finally in the 1988 Employment Act she: ŪŪ Removed further union immunities ŪŪ Extended the right of the individual to work against a union So the lessons are: 1. Have a strong compass 2. Simplify and communicate 3. Lead but always listen 4. Develop policies that go with the grain 5. Think through your strategy ahead of time 6. Build good teams 7. Use circumstances 8. Make good allies 9. Prepare before you are in power and 10. Have patience 204

26. Ten Lessons

In conclusion, the Thatcher era 1979–97 (she went in 1990 but there was no Major era) is an extraordinary story of change, of a country saving itself in a turbulent world. And we must not overlook as mentioned earlier her impact on her opponents particularly New Labour which abandoned Clause 4 namely its commitment to public ownership and today also the Liberal Democrats, where some young men and women are making surprisingly Thatcherite political points. On the international scene there were several positive devel­ opments: ŪŪ the worldwide spread of privatization; ŪŪ China going capitalist; and ŪŪ reforms in central and eastern Europe. Margaret Thatcher’s influence is everywhere. And my institute, the IEA, is very proud of the small part we played in her education!

205

Postscript: What Remains to be Done What we may still call the Thatcher agenda includes many institutions yet to be opened up by choice and free market ideas. ŪŪ The greatest arm of the British state is the National Health Service measured either by its employee rolls or by its budget. Chancellor Nigel Lawson described the NHS as “The nearest the British have to a religion.” Politicians delight in reforming the managerial structures of the NHS but block any consumer choice or any relaxation of the restrictive practices of the clinical professions. It would be more accurate to call it the nationalized death service. ŪŪ The BBC, Britain’s huge broadcasting public corporation, inhibited all attempts to reform it. The IEA’s distinguished contributor Sir Alan Peacock chaired a committee into its public funding but concluded little could be altered. Technology is dissolving the BBC’s status as satellite, cable and now digital techniques erode its monopolist assumptions. ŪŪ Some nationalized industries endure. The Royal Mail remains a loss making state corporation but it has forfeited its monopoly of letter traffic. Competition is emerging slowly. ŪŪ The Forestry Commission, a state timber venture set up in World War I seems untouchable by political reform. It has changed its defenses from a mercantilist hostility to timber product importation. Now it purports to be protecting wild life. 207

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

ŪŪ 94% of British school pupils attend institutions run by the state through the intermediary agency of local authorities. Attempts to create parental choice and diversity have been blocked by the producer groups that hold it captive. ŪŪ With the exception of the University of Buckingham and a forprofit university, BPP, all of UK higher education is funded by the state. Nominally autonomous colleges have to comply with detailed interventions from London. They must comply or lose their funding. ŪŪ The British social security system offers diverse benefits. Both its recipient dependents and its employee numbers seem to grow regardless of political party. Efforts to promote voluntary philanthropy such as friendly societies have yet to prove successful. ŪŪ Both the level and complexity of British taxation bamboozles even the experts. ŪŪ Income taxes are supplemented by National Insurance which is little more than a tax on employment. VAT is levied as a condition of being an EU member state. ŪŪ Despite the many liberalizations the proportion of the British GDP absorbed by the state continues to rise. The challenge of politics is without end. Margaret Thatcher defeated the dragons she set out to slay, but the forces of bureaucracy and meddling continue to flourish. Politics needs leadership and courage. I doubt we will ever see a person of such tenacity and commitment as Margaret Thatcher. She was unique. She saved Britain. She altered world history.

208

Postscript: What Remains to be Done

Appendix I. Table of Margaret Thatcher’s Elections*

Labour Liberal

Conservative

Turnout

Winning Party and Majority

Dartford

38,128

5,011

24,490

85.51%

Labour majority of 13,638

1951

Dartford

40,094

N/A

27,760

85.22%

Labour majority of 12,334

1955

Did Not Fight

1959

Finchley

13,437

12,701

29,697

80.78%

Conservative majority of 16,260

1964

Finchley

12,408

15,789

24,591

78.18%

Conservative majority of 8,802

1966

Finchley

14,504

13,070

23,968

75.33%

Conservative majority of 9,464

1970

Finchley

14,295

7.614

25,480

65.30%

Conservative majority of 11,185

1974

Finchley

12,202

11,221

18,180

77.73%

Conservative majority of 5,978

1974

Finchley

12,587

7,384

16,498

69.46%

Conservative majority of 3,911

1979

Finchley

13,040

5,254

20,918

71.81%

Conservative majority of 7,878

1983

Finchley

10,302

7,763

19,616

69.05%

Conservative majority of 9,314

1987

Finchley

12,690

5,580

21,603

69.40%

Conservative majority of 8,913

1992

Did Not Fight

Year

Constituency

1945

Did Not Fight

1950

* Strict comparisons are not possible because of the constituency boundary changes

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Appendix II. General Election results from 1945 -2005 Year

Lab

Lib / SDP

Con

Other

No. of Seats

Winning Party and Majority

05-Jul-45

393

12

210

25

640

Labour majority of 146

23-Feb-50

315

9

298

3

625

Labour majority of 5

25-Oct-51

295

6

321

3

625

Conservative majority of 17

26-May-55

277

6

345

2

625

Conservative majority of 60

08-Oct-59

258

6

365

1

630

Conservative majority of 100

15-Oct-64

317

9

304

0

630

Labour majority of 4

31-Mar-66

364

12

253

1

630

Labour majority of 98

18-Jun-70

288

6

330

6

630

Conservative majority of 30

28-Feb-74

301

14

297

23

635

Labour majority of -33*

10-Oct-74

319

13

277

26

635

Labour majority of 3

03-May-79

269

11

339

16

635

Conservative majority of 43

09-Jun-83

209

23

397

21

650

Conservative majority of 144

11-Jun-87

229

22

376

23

650

Conservative majority of 102

09-Apr-92

271

20

336

24

651

Conservative majority of 21

01-May-97

418

46

165

30

659

Labour majority of 177

07-Jun-01

413

52

166

28

659

Labour majority of 167

05-May-05

356

62

198

30

646

Labour majority of 66

* minority government

210

Further Reading Campbell, John — Margaret Thatcher: The Grocer’s Daughter Vol. 1, Pimlico (2001). Campbell, John — Margaret Thatcher: Iron Lady Vol. 2, Pimlico (2004). Cockett, Richard — Thinking the Unthinkable, HarperCollins (1994). Coleman, Terry — “Margaret Thatcher Interview,” The Guardian, 2 November, 1971. Dale, Iain (Editor) — As I Said to Denis...: Margaret Thatcher Book of Quotations, Robson Books Ltd (1998). Dale, Iain (Editor) — Margaret Thatcher: A Tribute in Words and Pictures, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2005). Harris, Kenneth — Thatcher, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1988). Hollingsworth, Mark and Halloran, Paul — Thatcher’s Fortunes: The Life and Times of Mark Thatcher, Mainstream Publishing (2006) Hoskyns, John — Just In Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution, Aurum Press Ltd (2000) Jenkins, Simon — Thatcher and Sons: A Revolution in Three Acts, Allen Lane (2006). Lewis, Russell — Margaret Thatcher: A Personal and Political Biography, Routledge (1984). O’Sullivan, John — The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, Regnery (2006).

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Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

Ridley, Nicholas — My Style of Government: The Thatcher Years, Hutchinson (1991). Scott-Smith, Giles — ‘Her Rather Ambitious Washington Program’: Margaret Thatcher’s International Visitor Program Visit to the United States in 1967, Contemporary British History, Vol. 17, No 4, Winter 2003. Sergeant, John — Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy, Macmillan (2005). Thatcher, Carol — Below the Parapet: Biography of Denis Thatcher, HarperCollins (1996). Thatcher, Carol — Diary of an Election, Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd (1983). Thatcher, Margaret — The Downing Street Years, HarperCollins (1993). Thatcher, Margaret — The Path to Power, HarperCollins (1995). Thomson, Andrew — Margaret Thatcher: The Woman Within, W.H. Allen / Virgin Books (1990). Wapshott, Nicholas — Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher: A Political Marriage, Sentinel (2007). Watkins, Allan — A Conservative Coup: Fall of Margaret Thatcher, Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd (1992). Wells, John — Anyone for Denis?, Faber and Faber (1982). Wheatcroft, Geoffrey — The Strange Death of Tory England, Penguin Books Ltd (2005). Yergin, Daniel and Stanislaw, Joseph — The Commanding Heights: The New Reality of Economic Power, Simon & Schuster Ltd (1998).

212

Index

A Adams, Gerry, 132 Aitken, Jonathan, 156, 177-178 Andropov, Yuri, 144 Appleby, Sir Humphrey, 97 Armstrong, Sir Robert, 26 Armstrong, Thomas, 26 Asquith, Herbert, 191 Atkins, Humphrey, 116, 133 Attlee, Clement, 191

B Baker, Kenneth, 162 Baldwin, Stanley, 11, 191 Balfour, Arthur, 191 Bandaranaike, Sirimavo, 13 Brabourne, Dowager Baroness, 132 Beckett, Francis, 191 Bendelow, Martin, 73 Benn, Anthony Wedgwood (Tony), 8, 13, 29, 65, 86, 169, 191 Benn, Hilary, 29 Benn, Sir John, 61

Berry, Anthony, 134, 136 Beveridge, Lord, 50 Biffen, John, 68 Birch, Nigel, 84 Blair, Tony, 13, 169, 191 Boothroyd, Betty, 27 Bossom, Sir Alfred, 39 Boyd-Carpenter, John, 49 Boyle, Edward, 29 Boyson, Rt. Hon Dr. Sir Rhodes, 65 Branson, Sir Richard, 51 Bright, Graham, 161 Brittan, Leon, 122, 156 Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher, 96 Brogan, Colm, 30 Brooke, Peter, 133 Brooke, Rupert, 1 Bruce-Gardyne, Jock, 68 Buchanan, James, 48, 97 Burgdorf, Diane, 179 Busch, Adolphus, 39 Bush, George H. W., 137, 194 Bush, George W., 42, 67, 137, 194

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady

C

F

Callaghan, James, 11, 87, 191 Cameron, David, 17 Campbell, John, 27, 211 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, 191 Carr, Robert, 74, 78 Carrington, Lord, 115-116 Carter, Jimmy, 138 Chamberlain, Neville, 166, 191 Chope, Chris, 163 Churchill, Sir Winston, 145, 191 Clark, Alan, 161 Clarkson, Jeremy, 169 Cockett, Richard, 203, 211 Cole, John, 144 Coleman, Terry, 211 Collins, Joan, 169 Conquest, Bob, 142 Cook, Beryl, 37-38 Coors, Joe, 8 Crosland, Anthony, 29 Crowder, Sir John, 43 Curie, Marie, 26

Fallon, Michael, 162 Fischer, David Hackett, 138 Fisher, Antony, 189 Fitzgerald, Garret, 135 Foot, Michael, 96 Ford, Gerald, 138 Forsyth, Michael, 5, 101, 162, 202 Fraser, Hugh, 81 Fraser, John, 91 Friedman, Milton, 1-2, 74, 86, 118, 170, 176, 182 Frost, Gerry, 73

D Dale, Iain, 211 Dart, Justin, 184 Davis, David, 163, 202 Day, Robin, 29 de Gaulle, Charles, 50 de Valois, Dame Niette, 27 Deedes, Bill, 175 Delors, Jacques, 158 Dennison, Stanley, 189 Dexter, David, 7 Douglas-Home, Sir Alec, 50, 191 du Cann, Edward, 80 Dunn, Robert, 163

E Eden, Sir Anthony, 191

G Gaddafi, Col. Muammar L , 123, 133 Galloway, William J., 55 Gandhi, Indira, 13, 26 Gardiner, George, 163 George, David Lloyd, 191 Gilles, Dorothy, 23 Gilmour, Sir Ian, 84, 194 Gingrich, Newt, 199 Goldwater, Barry, 83 Goodrich, Margaret, 22 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 144 Gore, Al, 67 Gow, Ian, 136

H HM Queen Elizabeth II, 139 Hague, William, 17, 124, 167 Haig, Al, 116-117 Hailsham, Lord, 140 Hall, Margaret, 26 Halloran, Paul, 179, 211 Hare, John, 37 Harris, Kenneth, 29, 211 Harris, Ralph, 2, 9, 73, 87, 181-182, 189-190 Hayek, Friedrich August von, 1-2, 14, 27, 30, 41, 94, 128, 182

214

Index Heath, Edward (Ted), 3, 5, 13, 17, 28, 51, 53, 57, 58, 63, 66-69, 71, 72, 74, 78-83, 161, 166 Heffer, Eric, 18 Heffer, Simon, 150 Heseltine, Michael, 84, 109-110, 156, 160, 162-163, 200 Hewett, B.C., 59 Hickman, Sir Howard, 174 Hodgkin, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot, 26 Hogg, Quentin, 30, 140 Hollingsworth, Mark, 179, 211 Horsburgh, Florence, 63 Hoskyns, John, 202-203, 211 Howard, Michael, 17 Howe, Sir Geoffrey, 72, 82, 84, 93, 158 Hurd, Douglas, 133, 161-163, 166

Knight, Ted, 87, 111 Koestler, Arthur, 30

I

MacDonald, Ramsay, 11, 191 MacGregor, Ian, 121 Maclean, Muriel, 134 Macmillan, Harold, 42, 191 Maguire, Frank, 134 Major, John, 13, 17, 100, 161-163, 166, 176, 191-192 Maude, Angus, 80, 84 Maudling, Reginald, 53, 84 Maxwell, Paul, 132 McAlpine, Lord, 166 McGregor, John, 55 McGuinness, Martin, 132 McKenzie, Bob, 74 McPheeters, Frances L., 56, 60 Meir, Golda, 13 Menendez, Mario, 119 Meyer, Sir Anthony, 156 Mill, John Stuart, 20 Millar, Ronnie, 89, 139 Miller, Robert W., 93 Minford, Patrick, 96 Mitchell, David, 19, 37, 78 Moore, Charles, 191 Morrison, Herbert, 107 Morrison, Peter, 161-162 Mountbatten, Lord, 132

Ingrams, Richard, 175

J Jay, Sir Antony, 8 Jenkins, Simon, 199, 211 Johnson, Frank, 81 Joliot-Curie, Irène, 26 Jones, Colonel H., 118 Joseph, Sir Keith, 48, 53, 68, 84, 181182 Joseph, Sir Samuel, 182

K Kempson, Leonard, 174 Kempson, Margaret, 174 Khalid, Leila, 3 King, Tom, 133 Kinnock, Neil, 122, 165, 194 Kipling, Rudyard, 21 Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 115 Kissinger, Henry, 29, 83 Klaus, Dr. Vaclav, 146, 168 Knatchbull, Hon. Nicholas, 132

L Law, Andrew Bonar, 191 Lawson, Nigel, 14, 103, 121, 157, 188, 192, 207 Leigh, Edward, 163 Lewis, C.S., 30 Lewis, Russell, 12, 69, 100, 152, 211 Lilley, Peter, 202 Lloyd-Webber, Andrew, 169 Lovat, Lord, 81 Luce, Richard, 116 Lynch, Jack, 133 Lynn, Jonathan, 97

M

215

Margaret Thatcher — A Portrait of the Iron Lady Murdoch, Rupert, 129, 169

N Neave, Airey, 80, 84, 90, 131, 136, 161 Neubert, Michael, 161 Newton, Sir Isaac, 17 Nixon, Richard, 138 North, Richard, 152 Nott, John, 115-116

O Olivier, Sir Laurence, 84 Onslow, Cranley, 163 O’Sullivan, John, 81, 211

P Pardoe, John, 51 Parker III, James H., 61 Parkinson, Cecil, 162 Paul II, Pope John, 146 Peacock, Sir Alan, 207 Penry-Jones, Rupert, 175 Peyton, John, 81-82 Pinochet, Augusto, 167 Poole, Bob, 100 Popper, Karl, 30 Portillo, Michael, 162, 169, 202 Powell, Enoch, 68-69, 84, 115, 152, 187 Prior, Jim, 63, 74, 81, 84, 125, 176 Pym, Francis, 55, 116-117

R Radcliffe, Lord, 48 Reagan, Ronald, 18, 22, 113, 115, 119, 137-138, 144-146, 169, 181, 184-186, 198, 203, 212 Redwood, John, 202 Reece, Gordon, 80, 84 Rees-Mogg, William, 29 Ridley, Nicholas, 68, 72, 114, 162, 212 Roberts, Alfred (Alf), 18

Roberts, Beatrice Stephenson (See Stephenson, Beatrice), 18 Roberts, Muriel, 18, 20-21, 134 Robertson, Dennis, 189 Robinson, Joan, 189 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 184 Russell, Sarah, 180

S Sanders, Dame Cicely, 27 Sands, Bobby, 133 Savas, Steve, 101 Scargill, Arthur, 121, 124 Schulman, Milton, 176 Scott-Smith, Giles, 55, 212 Seldon, Dr. Arthur, 9, 144 Sergeant, John, 212 Shah, Eddie, 129 Shakespeare, William, 11 Shattock, Jeanne, 134 Shelton, Bill, 80, 161 Sherman, Sir Alfred, 181, 186 Simon, William, 138 Smith, Adam, 101, 194 Smith, Iain Duncan, 17 Smith, Margaret Chase, 55 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 142 Sproat, Iain, 22 St. Francis of Assisi, 89 Stanislaw, Joseph, 212 Stanley, John, 110 Stephenson, Beatrice (See Roberts, Beatrice Stephenson), 18 Stewart, James, 21

T Taggart, Mary R., 60 Tarleton, Hellen Artie, 42 Taylor, Eric, 134 Taylor, Teddy, 92 Tebbit, Norman, 128, 134, 162, 187 Thatcher, Amanda Margaret, 179 Thatcher, Carol, 212 Thatcher, Michael, 6, 22, 162 Thatcher, Sir Denis, 39, 177

216

Index Thatcher, Sir Mark, 177 Thorne, Angela, 175 Thorneycroft, Lord Peter, 84 Townend, John, 163 Trudeau, Pierre, 83 Tullock, Gordon, 48, 97 Twain, Mark, 173

U Utley, T. E., 81

V Vaughan, Dame Janet, 26 Vinson, Nigel, 72

W Wakeham, John, 134, 162 Wakeham, Roberta, 134 Walker, Peter, 74, 109-110, 121, 144, 200 Walters, Sir Alan, 18, 181, 187 Wapshott, Nicholas, 212 Wareham, Kathleen, 60 Washington, Simone, 157 Watkins, Allan, 212

Wedgwood, Cicely Veronica, 27 Weinberger, Caspar, 116, 170 Wells, John, 175, 212 Wheatcroft, Geoffrey, 212 Whitelaw, William, 74, 81-82 Whitman, Walt, 22, 137 Williams, Shirley, 26 Willink, Henry, 28 Willink, Rachel, 28 Wilson, Harold, 50, 53, 62, 67, 71, 73, 156, 191 Wood, John B., 93 Worcester, Sir Robert, 14

Y Yamey, Basil, 51 Yergin, Daniel, 212 Young, Hugo, 27 Younger, George, 161-162

217