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By Root 2823 0

of televised debates between myself and Michael Foot, and (separately) with the Alliance leaders. This was an exceptional suggestion: British prime ministers have never accepted challenges to election debates of this kind. The calculation usually is that prime ministers have nothing to gain from them, and quite a lot to lose. But I stood so much better in the polls than Michael Foot that Gordon thought that on this occasion the orthodoxy was wrong and that I could only gain from such a confrontation. I rejected the idea. I disliked the way that elections were being turned into media circuses. And, as I have already said, I did not underrate Michael Foot as a debater. In any case, the arguments were too important to be reduced to a ‘sound bite’ or a gladiatorial sport.

One of our principal assets was the state of the Party’s organization. Cecil Parkinson had done wonders for Central Office. He had brought the Party’s finances into order in the year or so since he had become Chairman: this was essential, because it is only by husbanding resources in mid-term that you can afford to spend as heavily as required in a general election campaign. Cecil had also brought in some very able people. Peter Cropper had reintroduced rigorous standards in the Research Department. Tony Shrimsley, in charge of press relations, was a highly professional and talented journalist who shared my own outlook; sadly, this was to be his last campaign — he was probably already fatally ill. Cecil had placed Chris Lawson in charge of a new Marketing Department, which dealt with opinion research and publicity; Chris was that rare and useful animal, a businessman with acute political instincts.

In the afternoon Tim Bell presented a paper summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of our position, based upon opinion polls. Tim had a more sensitive set of antennae than most politicians. He could pick up quicker than anyone else a change in the national mood. And, unlike most advertising men, he understood that selling ideas is different from selling soap. Tim set out a communications strategy whose main theme was ‘keep on with the change’, an approach which I welcomed. Its wisdom lay in the perception that it was the Conservative Government rather than the Opposition parties which was the radical force in British society. As we ourselves had shown in 1979, there are few more potent slogans for an Opposition than that it is ‘time for a change’. Tim showed that we could deprive Labour of that slogan and turn the argument against them.

We held another all-day session on general election strategy at Chequers on Thursday 7 April. Manifesto work was in its final stages by then and I was worried that campaign planning seemed to be taking place in a separate compartment. However, that could not be helped. The key members of the Central Office team, along with Tim Bell, Ferdy Mount, David Wolfson, Ian Gow and myself ran over the style and content of the campaign and, in particular, my part in it. By now speculation about an early general election was feverish and there was little or nothing that I could do to prevent it, without firmly ruling out an early election, which of course would have been a very foolish thing to do. I had already stated in public that I would not go to the country before the end of our fourth year and at this meeting I made no secret of the fact that my own instincts were against an early election; I had in mind an election in October. Certainly, the argument was finely balanced. Were we to wait, there was a danger that if the polls started to turn in Labour’s favour the prospect of their grossly irresponsible economic policies being implemented would weaken sterling and hold back investment. It is also generally true, as Jim Callaghan learnt to his cost when he postponed the election in the autumn of 1978, that in politics the ‘unexpected happens’. However, on the other side of the argument, I was convinced that we were now seeing sustainable economic recovery, which would continue to strengthen the longer we waited: clearly, the more solid