Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography

When politics is in your blood, every circumstance seems to lead you back to it. Whether pondering Dicey,* (#ulink_81ab3547-4908-5a03-9e78-869e1ffaf981) poring over the intricacies of tax law or discussing current issues with other members of the Inns of Court Conservative Society, political questions insisted on taking centre stage in my imagination. So when in December 1954 I heard that there was a vacancy for the Conservative candidature in Orpington – which of course, being next to my old constituency of Dartford, I knew, and which was not too far from London – I telephoned Central Office and asked to have my name put forward. I was interviewed and placed on the shortlist. Sitting just outside the selection meeting with Denis, I heard Donald Sumner, the local candidate (and Association Chairman), advancing in his speech the decisive argument that in Orpington what they really needed was ‘a Member who really knows what is going on in the constituency – who knows the state of the roads in Locksbottom’. Denis and I roared with laughter. But Donald Sumner got the seat.

I was naturally disappointed by the decision, because Orpington would have been an ideal constituency for me. It seemed extremely unlikely now that a similarly suitable seat would become available before what looked like an increasingly imminent general election. So I wrote to John Hare to say that I would now ‘continue at the Bar with no further thought of a parliamentary career for many years’. Knowing me better than I knew myself perhaps, he wrote back urging me at least to reconsider if a winnable seat in Kent became available. But I was adamant, though I made it clear that I would always be available to speak in constituencies and would of course be active in the general election campaign.

Although I was in general a loyal Conservative, I had felt for some time that the Government could have moved further and faster in dismantling socialism and installing free enterprise policies. But it had not been easy for them to persuade popular opinion – or indeed themselves – that a somewhat stronger brew would be palatable. In fact, by 1955 a good deal of modest progress had been made as regards the removal of controls and, even more modestly, returning nationalized industries to the private sector.

In April 1955 Churchill resigned as Prime Minister to be succeeded by Anthony Eden, and there was in quick succession a snap general election, a new Conservative Government, the débâcle of Suez and the arrival at No. 10 of Harold Macmillan, the wizard of change.

During the general election campaign of May 1955 I spoke in a number of constituencies. But for me it was generally a dull affair. Once you have been a candidate everything else palls. Moreover, there was very little doubt of the outcome on this occasion. Sure enough, the Conservatives won an overall majority of fifty-eight. But the Eden administration’s political honeymoon turned out to be a short one. It quickly appeared that Rab Butler’s pre-election budget had been too loose, and there followed a much tighter emergency budget in October, which badly damaged Butler’s reputation – he was replaced as Chancellor by Harold Macmillan six months later – and seriously dented the Government’s. But it was, of course, to be foreign affairs which would be Eden’s real undoing.

The background to the Suez crisis of July to November 1956 has been much discussed. The general feeling, at least among Conservatives, was that Britain was a great power which should not be pushed around by Nasser’s Egypt and that the latter needed to be taught a lesson, not least pour encourager les autres. Many of the details, for example the degree of collusion between Britain and France on the one hand and Israel on the other, were not available to the wider public at the time. To us, therefore, it appeared almost incomprehensible that first Anthony Nutting and then my old friend Edward Boyle should resign from the Government in protest at the intervention. Now their actions are more understandable, though even all these years later I could not endorse them.

Politically, the failure of the Suez operation came as a body blow. Although it took many years for the full picture to emerge, it was immediately clear that the Government had been incompetent, and that its incompetence had been exposed in the most humiliating fashion. For a Conservative Government – particularly one led by someone whose reputation was founded on the conduct of foreign affairs – the outcome was particularly damaging. There was a mood of dismay bordering on despair among Conservative supporters. Denis’s reaction, as an ex-officer in the Royal Artillery, was sharpened by anger that our troops had been let down when the operation was halted close to completion. As he said to me: ‘You never announce a cease-fire when your troops are out on patrol.’ I would remember this: politicians must never take decisions in war without full consideration of what they mean to our forces on the ground.

We also blamed harshly the conduct of the United States, and the fact that anti-Americanism lingered on in some generally right-wing circles when I was Prime Minister must be in part attributed to this. I too felt that we had been let down by our traditional ally – though at the time, of course, I did not realize that Eisenhower felt equally let down by the Anglo-French decision to launch military operations on the eve of a Presidential election in which he was running on a peace ticket. But in any case I also felt that the ‘special relationship’ with our transatlantic cousins had foundations too solid to be eroded by even such a crisis as Suez. Some people argued that Suez demonstrated that the Americans were so hostile to Britain’s imperial role, and were now so much a superpower that they could not be trusted and that closer European integration was the only answer. But there was an alternative – and quite contrary – conclusion. This was that British foreign policy could not long be pursued without ensuring for it the support of the United States. Indeed, in retrospect I can see that Suez was an unintended catalyst in the peaceful and necessary transfer of power from Britain to America as the ultimate upholder of western interests and the liberal international economic system.

After the fiasco of Suez it was clear that Anthony Eden could not remain as Prime Minister. He fell ill during the crisis and resigned in January 1957. There was much speculation in the circles in which I moved as to who would succeed – in those days, of course, Conservative Leaders ‘emerged’ rather than being elected. My Conservative friends in Chambers were convinced that Rab Butler would never be summoned by the Queen because he was too left wing. By contrast, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of Suez, Harold Macmillan, was considered to be the right-wing candidate. All of which shows how little we knew of the past and present convictions of both men – particularly the brilliant, elusive figure who was shortly to become Prime Minister.

Harold Macmillan had the strengths and weaknesses of the consummate politician. He cultivated a languorous and almost antediluvian style which was not – and was not intended to be – sufficiently convincing to conceal the shrewdness behind it. He was a man of masks. It was impossible to tell, for instance, that behind the cynical Edwardian façade was one of the most deeply religious souls in politics.

Harold Macmillan’s great and lasting achievement was to repair the relationship with the United States. This was the essential condition for Britain to restore her reputation and standing. Unfortunately, he was unable to repair the damage inflicted by Suez on the morale of the British political class – a veritable ‘Suez syndrome’. They went from believing that Britain could do anything to an almost neurotic belief that Britain could do nothing. This was always a grotesque exaggeration. At that time we were a middle-ranking diplomatic power after America and the Soviet Union, a nuclear power, a leading member of NATO, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the centre of a great Commonwealth.

Macmillan’s impact on domestic affairs was mixed. Under his leadership there was the 1957 decontrol of private sector rents – which greatly reduced the scope of the rent control that had existed in one form or another since 1915 – a necessary, though far from popular move. Generally, however, Macmillan’s leadership edged the Party in the direction of state intervention, a trend which would become much more marked after 1959.

Even at the time some developments made me uneasy. When Peter Thorneycroft, Enoch Powell and Nigel Birch – Macmillan’s entire Treasury team – resigned over a £50 million increase in public expenditure in January 1958, Macmillan talked wittily of ‘little local difficulties’. I felt in no position to judge the rights and wrongs of the dispute itself. But the husbanding of public money did not strike me as an ignoble cause over which to resign. The first steps away from the path of financial rectitude always make its final abandonment that much easier. And that abandonment brings its own adverse consequences. Such was the case in the years that followed.

It was not until the late summer of 1958 that the Conservatives caught up with Labour in the opinion polls. By the time of the 1959 general election the two main parties were unashamedly competing to appeal to the nation’s desire for material self-advancement. The Conservative manifesto bluntly stated: ‘Life’s better with the Conservatives, don’t let Labour ruin it.’ It went on to promise a doubling of the British standard of living in a generation. As for Labour, a few days into the campaign the Party Leader Hugh Gaitskell promised that there would be no rise in income tax in spite of all the extra spending Labour planned – even in that political climate of optimism, a fatally incredible pledge.

Well before this I myself had re-entered the fray. In February 1956 I wrote to Donald Kaberry, the Party Vice-Chairman in charge of candidates:

For some time now I have been feeling the temptation to return to active politics. I had intended, when I was called to the Bar, to concentrate entirely on legal work but a little experience at the Revenue Bar, and in Company matters, far from turning my attention from politics has served to draw my attention more closely to the body which is responsible for the legislation about which I have come to hold strong views.

I went to see Donald Kaberry the following month. There was no problem in my being put back on the list of candidates – this time to be considered for safe, Conservative-held seats only. I was all the more delighted because I found in Donald Kaberry a constant and dependable source of wise advice and friendship – no small thing for an aspiring candidate.

I was less fortunate in the reception I received from Selection Committees. It had begun at Orpington in 1954. It was the same at Beckenham, Hemel Hempstead and then Maidstone in 1957 and 1958. I would be short-listed, would make what was generally acknowledged to be a good speech – and then the questions, most of them having the same purpose, would begin. With my family commitments, would I have time enough for the constituency? Did I realize how much being a Member of Parliament would keep me away from home? And sometimes more bluntly still: did I really think that I could fulfil my duties as a mother with young children to look after and as an MP?

I felt that Selection Committees had every right to ask me these questions. I explained our family circumstances and that I already had the help of a first-class nanny. I also used to describe how I had found it possible to be a professional woman and a mother by organizing my time properly. What I resented, however, was that beneath some of the criticism I detected a feeling that the House of Commons was not really the right place for a woman anyway. Perhaps some of the men at Selection Committees entertained this prejudice, but I found then and later that it was the women who came nearest to expressing it openly.

I was hurt and disappointed by these experiences. They were, after all, an attack on me not just as a candidate but as a wife and mother. But I refused to be put off by them. I was confident that I had something to offer in politics. I knew that many others who had crossed my political path very much wanted me to get into the House. And most important of all, Denis never had any doubts. He was always there to comfort and support me.

In April 1958 I had another long talk with Donald Kaberry and I spoke frankly about the difficulties I had faced as a woman with the Selection Committees. Unfortunately, this is not one of the topics on which even the wisest male friend can give very useful counsel. But Donald Kaberry did give me advice on what to wear on these sensitive occasions – something smart but not showy. In fact, looking me up and down he said he thought the black coat dress with brown trim which I was wearing would be just fine. His sartorial judgement would soon be put to the test. For I now entered my name for – and in July was called to interview at – the safe Conservative seat of Finchley, North London, whose MP was retiring.

I was one of a ‘long list’ of some 150 applicants, which contained a number of my future colleagues in the House. I was also one of those called for preliminary interview by the Constituency Selection Committee. I could tell that I had a good deal of support, but being the most popular person on these occasions can sometimes be less important than being the least unpopular person. If, as the weaker candidates are eliminated, all their support goes to your opponent it is quite possible to fall at the last fence – and we were barely out of the paddock.

It was arranged that the final four of us – three men and myself – should go before the Executive Council of the Association and I was pretty sure that I could expect some fierce opposition; it would be a fight.

I prepared myself as best I could. I felt reasonably confident that I knew the constituency. I had no doubt that I could cope with even quite abstruse questions of economic or foreign policy, for I had voraciously read the newspapers and all the briefing I could obtain. I prepared my speech until it was word perfect, and I had mastered the technique of talking without notes. Equally important was that I should put myself in the right state of mind – confident but not too confident. And I wore the black coat dress. I saw no harm, either, in courting the fates: so I wore not just my lucky pearls but also a lucky brooch which had been given to me by my Conservative friends in Dartford.

There was, however, one piece of thoroughly bad luck. This was that on the date of the meeting – Monday 14 July – it was quite impossible for Denis to come with me. Indeed, so quick was the whole selection process that he knew nothing whatever about it. Every year he would go away on a foreign sales tour for a month or so, and at this point his whereabouts were only ‘somewhere in Africa’. By contrast, the other candidates were accompanied by their spouses. So as I entered the packed meeting on that warm July evening I felt very much alone.

But as soon as I was on my feet the inhibitions fell away. As always, I quickly became too taken up with the thrust of my argument to worry too much about what other people were thinking. The applause when I sat down seemed warm and genuine. It was at questions that the trouble began.

Could a mother with young children really effectively represent Finchley? What about the strains on my family life? I gave my usual answers, and as usual too a section of the audience was determinedly unconvinced. And doubtless it was easier for them because poor Denis was absent. I rejoined the other candidates and their wives, where the tension was only relieved by that over-polite inconsequential small talk which such occasions always seem to generate. Once the last of us had performed, it seemed an endless wait until one of the officers came through to tell us the result. And when he did, it was to me that he spoke. There was no time to feel relief, pleasure or even exhaustion, because it was now necessary to return to receive the congratulations of the Executive.

It was only afterwards that I knew the precise result. The first round of voting gave me thirty-five votes as against thirty-four for my nearest rival. On the second round, when the two other candidates had dropped out, I had forty-six against his forty-three. It was then expected that, for form’s sake and to show that there was no ill feeling, the Executive should unanimously vote to select me as their candidate. Unfortunately, some of those who opposed my candidature had no such intentions. So I inherited an Association which I would have to unite behind me, and this would mean winning over people who had not disguised their disapproval.

But that was for tomorrow. First I must break the good news to my family back in Grantham. Denis was entirely incommunicado, blissfully unaware of what I had been through at Finchley. I had written him a letter some time before about the prospects, but he never received it. A couple of days later he was on his way from Johannesburg to Lagos via Kano in northern Nigeria. On changing planes he picked up a copy of the London Evening Standard which someone had left behind, and as he leafed through it he discovered the astonishing news that his wife had been selected for the safe seat of Finchley. I always seemed to be giving him surprises.

My first opportunity to impress myself on the Finchley Association as a whole was at the Adoption Meeting early the following month. This time I again appeared in a plain black outfit with a small black hat. I received what I afterwards learned was an almost embarrassingly glowing introduction from Bertie Blatch, the constituency chairman, who was to be a great patron and protector. (It was an added advantage then and later that Bertie owned the most important local newspaper, the Finchley Press.) As I entered the hall, I was met with warm applause. I used the occasion to speak at some length about both international and domestic affairs. I pulled out every stop. I knew that though I was the only duly selected candidate, this adoption meeting was not, as it should have been, a mere formality. There was still some die-hard opposition to my candidature, centred on one woman and her little coterie, who were trying to have the contest re-run. I was determined to overcome this. There were no problems in dealing with the three questions from the body of the hall. As Conservatives do on such occasions, they gave me a terrific reception. But at the end – and contrary to the newspaper report of the occasion – a few of those present refused to vote for my adoption, which was overwhelming but not (that magic word) ‘unanimous’. I left the meeting knowing that I had secured my candidature and confident of the loyalty of the great majority of the Association, but aware too that some were still determined to make life as difficult as possible.

I went as far as to write to Ted Heath, then Chief Whip, about the problems I was having. Partly as a result of his assistance, and partly because I used my own personal contacts, I managed to attract a distinguished field of speakers to come and speak on my behalf between my adoption and election day. Iain Macleod, Keith Joseph, Peter Thorneycroft and John Boyd-Carpenter – all people around whom my future political life would soon revolve – were among them. Denis’s belated but extremely welcome arrival on the scene also helped in a rather different way. Bertie Blatch gave me constant and unstinting support.

Finchley had been run with a degree of gentlemanly disengagement that was neither my style nor warranted by political realities. I intended to work and then campaign as if Finchley were a marginal seat, and I hoped and expected that others would follow my lead. From now on I was in the constituency two or three times a week and regularly went out canvassing in each of the wards, returning afterwards to get to know the Party activists over a drink in the local pub or someone’s house.

By the time I arrived as candidate, there was a good deal of concern that the Liberals in Finchley were becoming strongly entrenched. They were always excellent campaigners, particularly effective in local government elections. A few years before, there had been a famous local scandal over the barring of Jews from membership of Finchley Golf Club, in which a number of local Conservatives had been involved: the Liberals never missed an opportunity to remind people of it. I simply did not understand anti-semitism myself, and I was upset that the Party should have been tainted by it. I also thought that the potential Conservative vote was not being fully mobilized because of this. So I set out to make it absolutely clear that we wanted new members, especially Jewish Conservatives, in our branch organizations. Though I did not know it at the time, I was subsequently to find some of my closest political friends and associates among Jews. What was clear was that the potential Conservative vote was not being fully exploited, and that however many feathers might be ruffled in the process it was vital to strengthen our branch organization. I also put a good deal of effort into strengthening the Young Conservative organization in the constituency: I was sure that it was by attracting energetic young people that we could most surely resist the challenge of activist Liberals. By the time the election was called in September 1959 the constituency organization was looking in better shape, and I had begun to feel very much at home.

My first general election polling day in Finchley in October 1959 was very much to set the pattern for the nine such polling days which would succeed it. Soon after the opening of the poll I would vote in my own home constituency – Orpington in 1959, Chelsea and Westminster in later elections – and then drive up to Finchley with Denis. I visited each of the polling stations and our committee rooms, breaking for lunch with Bertie Blatch and others in a hotel. There I rigorously paid just for my own food and drink, to avoid the accusation of ‘treating’ electors, terror of which is instilled by Conservative Central Office into all our candidates. From 5 o’clock I carefully avoided visiting committee rooms, which should all be sending out workers to summon our supporters to the polls, just dropping into a polling station or two to show the flag. Then at close of poll Denis and I went to the Blatches’ for something to eat, visited the constituency offices to catch the latest largely anecdotal news, and finally attended the count – on this occasion at Christ’s College, though later all nine constituency counts would be held at Barnet Town Hall.

At the school, I found that each of the candidates had been allocated a room where he or she with a select band of supporters could get something to eat and drink and where we had access to that miracle of modern political life – a television. The 1959 campaign had, in fact, been the first in which television played a serious part. I divided my time between watching the growing piles of ballot papers, candidate by candidate, on the long tables in the body of the hall, and slipping back to my room to catch the equally satisfactory results coming in across the country as a whole.

At about 12.30 a.m. I was told that the Finchley results were shortly to be announced, and was asked to join the Electoral Returning Officer with the other candidates on the platform. Perhaps some people in a safe seat when the Tories were on course for a national victory would have been confident or even complacent. Not me. Throughout my time in politics, whether from some sixth sense or perhaps – who knows? – from mere superstition, I have associated such attitudes with imminent disaster. So I stood by the side of Denis with a fixed smile and tried not to look as I felt.

The Returning Officer began: ‘Deakins, Eric Petro: thirteen thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven.’ (Labour cheers.) ‘Spence, Henry Ivan: twelve thousand, seven hundred and one.’ (Liberal cheers.) And finally we reached: ‘Thatcher, Margaret Hilda: twenty-nine thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven.’ I was home and dry – and with a majority of 16,260, almost 3,500 more than my predecessor. The cheers rose. I made my short speech of acceptance, thanked all my splendid helpers, received a warm hug from Denis and walked down from the platform – the elected Member for Finchley.

In an unguarded moment, shortly after I had been selected for Finchley, I had told the twins that once I became an MP they could have tea on the terrace of the House of Commons. From then on the plaintive request had been: ‘Aren’t you there yet, Mummy? It’s taking a long time.’ I had known the feeling. It had seemed so very long for me too. But I now knew that within weeks I would take my seat on the green leather benches of the House of Commons.

It was the first step.

* (#ulink_7c720312-ad99-5050-8f39-1df6fd738590) A.V. Dicey, jurist (1835–1922).

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_c8dc092d-a014-5c28-adc1-053d25eefa78)

The Outer Circle (#ulink_c8dc092d-a014-5c28-adc1-053d25eefa78)

Backbencher and junior minister 1959–1964

BY NOW MY FAMILY AND I were comfortably installed in a large-ish detached house at Farnborough in Kent. We had decided to buy ‘Dormers’, which we saw advertised in Country Life, after rent decontrol threatened to make it a good deal more expensive to continue renting our flat in Swan Court. In any event, we felt the children needed a garden to play in.

The one and a half acres of garden were heavily overgrown but I enjoyed setting to work to improve things. When my parents finally moved to a house with a garden – very long but narrow – I was no longer living at home. So the garden at ‘Dormers’ was my first real opportunity to don thick gardening gloves and rip out brambles, trundle barrows of leaf-mould from the nearby wood to improve the soil, and plant out flowerbeds. Luckily, in Bertie Blatch I had a constituency chairman who doubled as horticulturist: but for all his tips my roses never quite resembled his.

For the twins, ‘Dormers’ was a seventh heaven. There was the new experience of their own garden, neighbours with children and all the excitement of a wood to walk in – though not alone. The house was part of an estate, so there was no through-traffic and it was safe for the children. I eliminated right at the beginning the dreadful possibility of their falling in the pond by having it filled with earth and turned into a rose bed.

Mark and Carol were six when I became an MP, old enough to get into plenty of trouble if not firmly handled. Nor was Denis at home as much as he would have liked, since his job took him abroad a good deal. Because my parliamentary duties meant that I was not always back before the twins went to bed, I insisted on full family attendance at breakfast. We also had the advantage of the long parliamentary recess and indeed the long parliamentary weekends. But I owe a debt of gratitude to Barbara, the children’s nanny until she married a local horticulturist who advised me on the garden – and to Abby who replaced her and who in due course became a close family friend. They kept the children in order and I always telephoned from the House shortly before six each evening to see that all was well and to give the children a chance to tell me that it wasn’t.

Although there were often constituency duties, the weekends provided the opportunity to sort out the house and usually to do a large bake, just as we had done at home in Grantham. In the summer months Denis and I and the children would work – or in their case play at working – in the garden. But on Saturdays in the rugby season Denis would probably be refereeing or watching a match – an arrangement which from the earliest days of our marriage had been solemnly set down in tablets of stone. Sometimes if he was refereeing an important game I would go along as well, though my concentration on the game was frequently disturbed by the less than complimentary remarks which English crowds are inclined to exchange about the conduct of referees. On Sundays we took the twins to the Family Service at the Farnborough parish church. Denis was an Anglican, and we both felt that it would be confusing for the children if we did not attend the same church. The fact that our local church was Low Church made it easier for the Methodist in me to make the transition. Anyway, John Wesley regarded himself as a member of the Church of England to his dying day. I did not feel that any great theological divide had been crossed.

Weekends, therefore, provided me with an invaluable and invigorating tonic. So did family holidays. I remembered what I had enjoyed – and not enjoyed – about my own holidays at Skegness. My conclusion was that for young children nothing beats buckets and spades and plenty of activity. So we used to take a house on the Sussex coast for a month right by the side of the beach, and there always seemed to be other families with small children nearby. Later we went regularly to a family hotel at Seaview on the Isle of Wight or rented a flat in the village. Crossing the Solent by ferry seemed a great adventure to the children who, like all twins, had a degree of (usually) playful rivalry. On the way down to the coast in the car we always passed through a place called ‘Four Marks’. I was never able to answer Mark’s question about who these four were. Nor could I think up a satisfactory response to Carol who thought that it was all unfair and that there should also be a ‘Four Carols’. Not to be outdone, Mark pointed out that it was no less unfair that Christmas carols had no male equivalent.

It is hard to know whether one worries more about one’s children when they are within reach or far away. I wanted the twins to be at home when they were young, but unfortunately, the nearby day school to which Mark went had to close in 1961, and Denis persuaded me that it was best that he should go to Belmont Preparatory School. At least Belmont was just on the edge of Finchley, so I could take him out to lunch. Also I knew he was not too far away in case of emergencies. But not to be left out, Carol decided that she wanted to go to boarding school as well. The house seemed empty without them.