Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [180]
Finally, there were the interviews. These came in quite different styles. Brian Waiden on Weekend World would ask the most probing questions. Robin Day on Panorama was probably the most aggressive, though in this campaign he made the mistake of plunging into detail on the problem of calculating the impact of unemployment on the public finances — a gaffe when cross-examining a former Minister of National Insurance. I made a gaffe of my own calling Sir Robin ‘Mr Day’ throughout. Alistair Burnet specialized in short, subtle questions which sounded innocuous but contained hidden dangers. One needed all one’s nimbleness of wit to make it unscathed through the minefields. Then there were the programmes on which members of the public asked questions. My favourite was always the Granada 500 when a large audience quizzes you about the things which really matter to them.
Our manifesto was launched at the first Conservative press conference on Wednesday 18 May. The whole Cabinet was there. I ran through the main proposals, and then Geoffrey Howe, Norman Tebbit and Tom King made short statements on their sections of the manifesto. After that I invited questions. Manifestos rarely make the headlines unless, as on this occasion, something goes wrong. The press will consign carefully thought-out proposals for government to an inside page and concentrate on the slightest evidence of a ‘split’. At the press conference a journalist asked Francis Pym about negotiations with Argentina. I felt that Francis’s reply risked being ambiguous, so I interrupted to make clear that while we would negotiate on commercial and diplomatic links, we would not discuss sovereignty. The press highlighted this: but there was in fact no split. That’s politics.
D-21 TO D-14
In Britain the general election campaign is only about four weeks long, usually less. For planning purposes during elections we always used the so-called ‘D- (minus)’ system, numbering each day in a countdown to ‘D-Day’ — polling day itself. The most intense period of the campaign is from D-21 on, which in this case fell on Thursday 19 May. We opened our campaign on D-20, Friday 20 May, two days after the launch of the manifesto. The first of our five Party Election Broadcasts (PEBs) had been shown on D-23.
It was not Francis Pym’s week. He told a questioner on BBC’s Question Time that in his opinion ‘landslides on the whole don’t produce successful governments.’ Naturally, people drew the inference that he did not want us to win a large majority. Of course, this was all very well for those with safe seats like Francis himself. But it was distinctly less good news for candidates in the Conservative marginals and those of our people hoping to win seats from other parties. And since complacency was likely to be our worst enemy in the campaign this remark struck a wrong note.
The first regular press conference on the campaign took place on Friday 20 May. Geoffrey Howe challenged Labour on the cost of their manifesto proposals and said that if they did not publish them we would. This was the first deployment of a very effective campaign theme. Patrick Jenkin, taking it up, drew attention to Labour’s plans for nationalization and regulation of industry. There were a number of questions about the economy. But, inevitably, what the press really wanted to know was what I thought about Francis’s remark. We had seen this coming and I had discussed what to say at the briefing session earlier that morning. Francis had been Chief Whip under Ted Heath and I made that the basis of my reply:
I think I could handle a landslide majority all right. I think the comment you’re referring to was natural Chief Whip’s caution. Ex-Chief Whip’s caution.