Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [175]
One of the most important things was to decide who would accompany me on my campaign tours. A coach had been hired and specially fitted out to take me around the country. We tried to keep the team as small as possible, though when the election was underway there always seemed to be a sizeable number on the bus. My PPS, Ian Gow, was a natural choice, with Michael Spicer taking his place on days when he had constituency engagements. At various times either Derek Howe or Tony Shrimsley would act as Press Officer. John Whittingdale, years later my political secretary and then only twenty-three, was chosen to do research. From Downing Street, Alison Ward and Tessa Gaisman would type the speeches, while one of the ‘Garden Room girls’ would keep me regularly in touch with No. 10 in case something happened which required my immediate attention. And last, but by no means least, we would be accompanied by my daughter Carol, who wrote and published a daily diary of the campaign. Harvey Thomas would go ahead to set up arrangements for meetings and reconnoitre for the press, while his wife typed text for the Autocue, which I now used for all big speeches. Travelling in the coach was bound to be tiring but we knew it would allow us to obtain better press and television pictures. Often it would be possible for me to fly or take the train to the spot at which the tour itself began, using the travel time to work on speech notes and briefing.
At this meeting we considered the arrangements for the manning of the correspondence unit which would be set up to deal with my mail during the election period. I decided to ask Sir John Eden, a former minister who was not standing again for Parliament, to take on this task. There was also the problem of deciding who should serve on the Questions of Policy Committee at Central Office, set up at each election to give authoritative answers to difficult questions put to our candidates. I concluded that Angus Maude, who was also standing down as a Member of Parliament, was the ideal person to chair this Committee.
Later that morning at Chequers we were joined by several other senior people from Central Office. They reported on their plans. One difficulty that came around at every election was to know when to produce the Conservative Research Department’s lengthy and rightly famous Campaign Guide — an encyclopaedia of political facts used by people of all political persuasions, including left-wing journalists too lazy to do their own research. The Campaign Guide’s appearance invariably triggered election speculation. We decided to aim at a publication date in July, though in the event the election came earlier and it had to be produced in a great rush to be ready for the start of the campaign in May. We discussed other literature which would be required for the constituencies. A Boundary Commission report was due and though the Party would benefit substantially from its proposals for the redistribution of seats, by the same token it was difficult to identify precisely the critical marginal seats in which the election would be won or lost. And it was vital that we focus our efforts on the marginals.
We discussed how to handle television: it was likely to be even more important than in earlier elections, though the new breakfast television would have less impact than had often been predicted. Gordon Reece had come over from the United States to help with this aspect of the campaign. Gordon was a former television producer with a unique insight into the medium. He had a much better grasp of popular taste than might have been expected from a man whose principal diet was champagne and cigars. He was always cheerful himself and he never failed to cheer others too. In fact, this was one of the few occasions when I can remember disagreeing with Gordon. He argued that we should be prepared to accept a series