Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality Read online

  MARGARET THATCHER

  To Elizabeth

  Contents

  List of illustrations

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  1 The early years

  The birthplace

  Family tensions

  Fun (or lack of it)

  First school

  Fatherly inspiration

  Reflection

  2 The war, grammar school and fighting her headmistress

  Grantham at war

  KGGS

  Getting her own way

  Reflection

  3 Oxford, boyfriends and political ambition

  Early unhappiness at Oxford

  Stirrings of romance

  Success in OUCA politics

  Reflection

  4 First steps in politics

  Young Conservative

  Mentored by Alfred Bossom MP

  Young candidate

  Three men on a string

  The general election of 1950

  Frustration, consolidation and engagement

  Reflection

  5 Marriage, motherhood and Finchley

  Marriage

  Motherhood

  The bumpy road to Finchley

  Elected

  Reflection

  6 First years in Parliament 1959–1964

  The lucky legislator

  Making her way in the House

  Junior minister

  In the constituency

  Family life

  Reflection

  7 Front-bench opposition

  Entering opposition

  Iain Macleod’s no. 2

  Joining the shadow cabinet

  Wooed by the Americans, dismayed by the Soviets

  Preparing for government

  Reflection

  8 Secretary of State for Education

  First moves

  Milk snatcher

  Saved by the Prime Minister

  Wider than education

  Reflection

  9 Heath on the ropes

  The twilight of a Tory leader

  The phoney war in the party

  The rise and fall of Sir Keith Joseph

  Reflection

  10 Winning the leadership

  Deciding to run

  Toffs for Thatcher and other surprises

  A deal with Edward du Cann

  Enter Airey Neave

  A stunning result on the first ballot

  Reflection

  11 Leader of the Opposition: a fragile beginning

  Winning the final round

  An uncertain start

  Personal glimpses

  Reflection

  12 Three frustrating years

  Party conferences and foreign visits

  Outmanoeuvred by James Callaghan

  New policies and philosophies

  Reflection

  13 Last lap to the election

  The importance of the laughing boys

  The winter of discontent

  The vote of no confidence

  Reflection

  14 The final ascent to No. 10

  Waiting before the off

  Soft-centre campaigning

  On the eve of power

  Victory

  Reflection

  15 First moves as Prime Minister

  Making a start

  Handling her cabinet

  Challenging the civil service

  Reflection

  16 The learning curve

  Inside No. 10

  Bridge builders and voices

  Old Stripey and stubbornness

  A favour for Rupert Murdoch

  Personality traits on and off duty

  Dog days on Islay

  Reflection

  17 First steps in foreign affairs

  Learning from Lord Carrington

  Rhodesia

  Europe

  A slow start to the Special Relationship

  Reflection

  18 Storm clouds on the economy and in the cabinet

  The gathering storm

  Outflanking Jim Prior

  The courage of the 1981 Budget

  The vulnerable Prime Minister

  Blockbustered into reshuffling the cabinet

  Reflection

  19 The Falklands War I: the prelude

  Sabotaging the leaseback option

  Parliament’s war

  Seeing off Haig

  Reflection

  20 The Falklands War II: into the fighting

  Military and political preparations

  South Georgia, the Belgrano and the Sheffield

  More diplomatic wobbles

  Reflection

  21 The Falklands War III: victory

  The battle for the Falklands

  Victory

  Reflection

  22 After the Falklands

  The changing of the political landscape

  The economy and the unions

  The beginnings of privatisation

  The suicide of the opposition

  A landslide victory

  Reflection

  23 Stumbling into the second term

  Cecil Parkinson and the Speaker

  Other early glitches

  Difficult problems

  Her blue-eyed Chancellor

  Reflection

  24 Terrorism, Ireland and Hong Kong

  Facing down terrorism

  The Anglo-Irish Agreement

  Accepting reality in Hong Kong

  Reflection

  25 Batting for Britain in Saudi Arabia

  The deal of the century

  Fighting the French

  The Denis back channel

  Difficult hurdles to overcome

  The motivation of the Prime Minister

  Reflection

  26 Unions and miners

  Stepping stones towards solving the problem

  Arthur Scargill’s challenge

  David Hart: her secret Blue Pimpernel

  The NACODS crisis and the collapse of the strike

  Losers but no victors

  Reflection

  27 Strengthening the Special Relationship with Ronald Reagan

  The gold seam and the fault-line

  The personal chemistry

  Islands and tensions

  The bombing of Libya

  Reflection

  28 Starting to win the Cold War

  Why the Iron Lady was for turning

  The Chequers overture to Mikhail Gorbachev

  Bridge building between Moscow and Washington

  Differences with Reagan over SDI and Reykjavik

  Star performance in Moscow

  Reflection

  29 Rumblings of discontent

  Tensions with ministers

  Clashing with Heseltine

  The Westland crisis explodes

  That Bloody Woman

  Reflection

  30 Into the third term

  Approaching the 1987 election

  Winning for the third time

  A bold but flawed beginning

  Life without Whitelaw

  Reflection

  31 Trouble with Nigel Lawson

  Flashpoints of personality

  First clash over the ERM

  Shadowing the Deutschmark

  The boom or bust Budget

  Howe stirs the ERM dispute

  Reflection

  32 Swinging towards Euroscepticism

  Always a doubter

  Diddled by the Single European Act (SEA)

  Disillusionment with Geoffrey Howe

  The Bruges speech

  Reflecti
on

  33 Boiling over on Europe

  The fall-out from Bruges

  High noon in Madrid

  The dismissal of Geoffrey Howe

  Reflection

  34 Exit the Chancellor, enter the stalking horse

  Trying to stabilise the government

  The problem of Alan Walters

  Lawson snaps

  The stalking horse

  Greater events

  Reflection

  35 Countdown to the coup

  The invasion of Kuwait

  The poison of the poll tax

  Her last row on Europe

  Howe prepares to strike

  Reflection

  36 End game

  Howe goes for the jugular

  Heseltine enters the ring

  Peter Morrison’s complacency

  A hard day’s night in Paris

  Reflection

  37 Exit

  First soundings

  The cabinet defects

  A bravura farewell performance

  The election of a new leader

  Reflection

  38 The agony after the fall

  Trauma and tantrums

  Travelling, speech-making and writing

  Last months as a Member of Parliament

  Sabotaging her successor

  Reflection

  39 Snapshots of her retirement years

  Strategic ideas and personal conversations

  Still batting for Britain

  A break in the Highlands

  Seventieth birthday

  Finding her spiritual home

  Epilogue

  Decline

  Fading out with dignity

  Farewell

  Bibliography

  Principal sources

  Notes describing sources

  Index

  List of illustrations

  Between pages 204–205

  The Roberts family (Getty Images)

  All smiles at the Kent Conservative Dance (Express Newspapers)

  Conservative Candidate for Dartford (Getty Images)

  Margaret and Denis Thatcher on their wedding day (Getty Images)

  Margaret watches her children Carol and Mark (Press Association)

  New Member of Parliament for Finchley (Getty Images)

  Victory in first ballot of Tory Leadership (Getty Images)

  Leading the Conservative campaign for a Yes Vote in 1975 (Getty Images)

  Margaret Thatcher waves to the crowd outside her home on Flood Street (Getty Images)

  With Kenneth Kaunda (Press Association)

  Political campaigning with Ian Gow (Courtesy of Dame Jane Whiteley)

  Leaving Heathrow for European Summit meeting (Press Association)

  With King Fahd of Saudi Arabia (Getty Images)

  With François Mitterrand and Charles Powell (Getty Images)

  Between pages 540–541

  Visiting ‘Our Boys’ at Port Stanley (Getty Images)

  Welcoming Mikhail Gorbachev to Chequers (Corbis Images)

  Test driving Britain’s new Challenger tank (Press Association)

  Visiting Moscow (Corbis Images)

  Facing questions from the media alongside Bernard Ingham (Rex Features)

  Reagan and Thatcher on the patio of the White House (Getty Images)

  Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet (Getty Images)

  Speaking at No. 10 Downing Street Dinner for President Reagan (White House official photograph/Thatcher papers/Churchill Archives Centre)

  Leaving Downing Street for the last time (Getty Images)

  Arriving with the Queen at Claridge’s (Getty Images)

  Windswept on Rannoch Moor (Courtesy of Lord Pearson of Rannoch)

  In front of a statue of Lenin (Courtesy of Bill Cash MP)

  Arriving early for opening of Parliament (Getty Images)

  Surrounded by Chelsea Pensioners (Getty Images)

  Back cover

  Margaret Thatcher leaves Westminster Abbey with Jonathan Aitken after attending the memorial service for the former Speaker Selwyn Lloyd, 5 July 1978 (Press Association)

  Acknowledgements

  I gratefully acknowledge all those who have helped me in the research, preparation and production of this biography of Margaret Thatcher.

  There are two treasure troves of Thatcher papers to which I owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude. One is the Thatcher Archive at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. I particularly thank Dr Allen Packwood the director of the Churchill Archives Centre and the Thatcher Archivist Andrew Riley. The other and closely linked main source of papers is the Margaret Thatcher Foundation and its website. Its editor Christopher Collins and its head Julian Seymour deserve the highest praise for their vision and their industry in making such huge resources of historical material on Margaret Thatcher so easily available to scholars, students, historians and biographers.

  I have trawled through several other collections of source material and would like to thank the staff of the British Library, the British Library Newspapers, the Churchill Archives Centre, the Templeman Library at the Univeristy of Kent, the Boris Johnson newspaper cuttings archive and the Hans Tasiemka Archives.

  The old agricultural saying ‘There’s no manure like the farmer’s foot’ applies to political biography. So I am immensely grateful to the many helpful guides and welcomers who showed me around places and institutions which were part of Margaret Thatcher’s life story.

  At Grantham I would like to thank Michael and Diana Honeybone, former teacher at KGGS, who escorted me around the locations in the town, the schools and the churches which the young Margaret and the Roberts family attended. In particular I am grateful to local historian Malcolm G. Knapp and Denys Lambley of the Finkin Street Methodist Church. My thanks also go to Ian Todd, Assistant Head Teacher of Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School, Mrs Janet Thompson, the Archivist, and Diane Barrett, Office Manager at the school; also to Mark Anderson, Head Teacher of Huntingtower Community Primary Academy, Grantham, and Margaret Lockwood, Office Manager. Sandra Good, the proprietor of Living Health on North Parade, kindly showed me around what used to be Roberts Food Stores on the ground floor and the flat above where the family lived, including the room where Margaret Thatcher was born.

  At the University of Oxford I appreciated visiting Margaret Thatcher’s old room at Somerville and touring the college with the distinguished historian Dr Franklyn Prochaska, husband of the Principal Dr Alice Prochaska.

  At the Royal Hospital Chelsea I was most grateful to be shown around and briefed by the Lieutenant Governor, Major General Peter Currie, and the Chaplain the Revd Dick Whittington.

  The most enjoyable sources were the living witnesses to Margaret Thatcher’s career in public life, some ninety of whom gave me interviews. Their names are listed, with gratitude, at the end of the book.

  Lastly, I must thank the many previous authors who have written books on Margaret Thatcher. Most biographers assimilate fragments, large or small, from their predecessors’ writings. I am no exception to this practice and I would particularly like to thank the earliest Thatcher biographers, Patricia Murray, Ernle Money, George Gardiner, Russell Lewis and Penny Junor. I also much appreciated Hugo Young’s portrait One of Us, the two-volume biography by John Campbell and the first volume of the official biography by Charles Moore published earlier this year.

  Finally, the greatest thanks of all go to my own home team of researchers and secretarial helpers.

  The chief researcher on my two-year biographer’s journey was Jacqueline Williams, whose diligence and dedication in unearthing the raw material of history was magnificent. She was ably assisted by two talented interns from Oxford University, Mark Holmes and Tom Perrin, whose enthusiasm was infectious as we read through the first draft of the manuscript and made many changes. I am also grateful to my daughter Victoria Aitken for her encouragement and occasional research.

  The brunt of the typing of the manuscript was borne by
the excellent Prue Fox. She was supported by Helen Kirkpatrick and Rosemary Gooding, while the onerous task of scheduling interviews and collating the draft chapters was superbly executed by Susanna Jennens.

  I would also like to thank everyone concerned with this book at my publishers Bloomsbury, particularly my editor, Robin Baird-Smith, and his assistant editor, Joel Simons.

  The last but really the first helper, encourager and sharer of my workload has been my beloved wife Elizabeth. She walked every step of the road of my author’s journey, and the book is lovingly dedicated to her.

  Jonathan Aitken

  July 2013

  Prologue

  After the applause comes the appraisal.

  The applause created the most moving moment at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. As her coffin was carried out of St Paul’s Cathedral on the shoulders of military pallbearers while the choir sang Nunc Dimittis to the hauntingly beautiful setting of Stanford in G, the first sight of her cortège by the crowds spontaneously produced a swelling wave of sound.

  It was so unexpected that those of us still seated beneath the great dome of Christopher Wren’s ecclesiastical masterpiece were startled. For days the London media had been predicting hostile protests. So at this fleeting instant I and many others in the congregation wondered whether we were hearing the ultimate anti-Thatcher demonstration.

  Far from it. For it quickly became clear that the great roar rolling up from Ludgate Hill and other streets near St Paul’s bore the unmistakable resonance of massive cheering.

  What were those crowds cheering her for? Some were too young to have known the age of Thatcher. Many more were likely to have disagreed with the values and the policies she championed. But on the day of her obsequies the overwhelming majority seemed ready to salute her life’s journey for its achievements, breakthroughs and for its footprints on the sands of time.

  Applause is usually thought inappropriate at a funeral, but Margaret Thatcher broke so many conventions and ceilings in her life that the shattering of one more establishment custom in death seemed right. She would have enjoyed those cheers. Not only did they symbolise the affection of her fans; they also marked one last victory over her foes.

  Because she was such a political polariser, it was anticipated that her adversaries from the militant left would turn out to give their old enemy a farewell booing. I encountered some of them on my walk towards St Paul’s. These would-be troublemakers were hostile enough to give me and others attired in our tailcoats a few jeers. But a friendly apple-cheeked woman in the same part of the crowd had a different message. ‘Don’t you worry about them lot,’ she said in her West Country burr. ‘We’ll drown them out.’ And they did.

  The subtleties that were important elements in the make-up of Margaret Thatcher were often drowned out. She herself concealed many of them. She could be politically cautious while preferring to sound proudly radical. She had an overdeveloped sense of privacy. Throughout her life she suppressed personal information, insecurities, emotions and inconvenient truths behind a façade of carefully projected self-certainty. She became the most famous woman in the world on account of her highly visible political directness. Yet on the less visible sides of her character she could be more difficult and complicated than most people guessed.