Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [0]
THATCHER
THE
DOWNING STREET
YEARS
MARGARET, THE LADY THATCHER. O.M., P.C., F.R.S.
HOUSE OF LORDS
LONDON SW1A 0PW
Contents
Introduction
CHAPTER I
Over the Shop
CHAPTER II
Changing Signals
CHAPTER III
Into the Whirlwind
CHAPTER IV
Not At All Right, Jack
CHAPTER V
Not for Turning
CHAPTER VI
The West and the Rest
CHAPTER VII
The Falklands War: Follow the Fleet
CHAPTER VIII
The Falklands: Victory
CHAPTER IX
Generals, Commissars and Mandarins
CHAPTER X
Disarming the Left
CHAPTER XI
Home and Dry
CHAPTER XII
Back to Normalcy
CHAPTER XIII
Mr Scargill’s Insurrection
CHAPTER XIV
Shadows of Gunmen
CHAPTER XV
Keeps Raining all the Time
CHAPTER XVI
Men to Do Business With
CHAPTER XVII
Putting the World to Rights
CHAPTER XVIII
Jeux Sans Frontières
CHAPTER XIX
Hat Trick
CHAPTER XX
An Improving Disposition
CHAPTER XXI
Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life
CHAPTER XXII
A Little Local Difficulty
CHAPTER XXIII
To Cut and to Please
CHAPTER XXIV
Floaters and Fixers
CHAPTER XXV
The Babel Express
CHAPTER XXVI
The World Turned Right Side Up
CHAPTER XXVII
No Time to Go Wobbly
CHAPTER XXVIII
Men in Lifeboats
Chronology
The Cabinet and Other Offices
List of Abbreviations
Index
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
‘Ayes, 311. Noes, 310.’ Even before the figures were announced by the tellers, we on the Opposition benches knew that Jim Callaghan’s Labour Government had lost its motion of confidence and would have to call a general election. When the four tellers return to read the total of votes recorded in the lobbies, MPs can see which party has won from the positions they take up facing the Speaker. On this occasion the two Tories walked towards the Speaker’s left hand in the space usually occupied by government whips. A great burst of cheering and laughter rose from the Tory benches, and our supporters in the spectators’ galleries roared with out-of-order jubilation. Denis, who was watching the result from the Opposition box on the floor of the House, shouted ‘hooray’ and was, quite properly, reproved by one of the Serjeants at arms. Through the din, however, the stentorian guards’ officer tones of Spenser Le Marchant, the 6′ 6″ Tory MP for High Peak who was famous for his intake of champagne, could be heard booming out the result — the first such defeat for a British Government in more than fifty years.
We had known the figures would be close, but we had not known how close as we filed in and out of the lobbies. I looked for the unexpected faces who might decide the outcome. Labour whips had been assiduously rounding up the handful of independent MPs whose votes might put them over the top. In the end everything turned on the decision of one elusive Irish MP, Frank Maguire, who did indeed arrive at the Palace of Westminster, lifting the hopes of Labour ministers. The wait before the announcement was filled with rumour and counter-rumour across the Chamber. It seemed endless. Our Chief Whip quietly gave me his own forecast. I said nothing and tried to look inscrutable, doubtless without success. Some on the Labour benches, hearing of Mr Maguire’s appearance, began to grin in anticipation of victory. But Mr Maguire had arrived only to abstain. And on 28 March 1979, James Callaghan’s Labour Government, the last Labour Government and perhaps the last ever, fell from office.
The obsequies across the despatch box were brief and almost formal. Mr Callaghan told the House that he would take his case to the country and that Parliament would be dissolved once essential business had been transacted. Replying for the Opposition, I said that we would co-operate in this to ensure a dissolution of Parliament at the earliest opportunity. A slight sense of anti-climax after all the excitement took hold of MPs. On all sides we felt that the Commons was for the moment no longer the centre of events. The great questions of power and principle would be decided elsewhere.