Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [182]
Our press conference that day, though allegedly on defence, was in fact devoted to the revelation that our candidate at Stockton South had once been a member of the National Front. He had left the National Front some years before and now claimed to be an orthodox Conservative and regretted his past. As far as we were concerned this was a peripheral embarrassment but some left-wing journalists seemed to see themselves as Woodward and Bernstein, fighting the Establishment. Again, it served to distract the Labour Party from issues of genuine interest to the public.
The Labour Party was now in deep trouble. That same day — the very day we had chosen to devote to defence — Jim Callaghan made a speech in Wales rejecting unilateral nuclear disarmament. The newspapers were full of contradictory statements about Labour’s position on nuclear weapons. Even among Labour front-benchers there was disarray: you could choose between Michael Foot, Denis Healey and John Silkin — each seemed to have his own defence policy. Michael Heseltine at our press conference and throughout the campaign was devastating in his criticisms of Labour’s policy.
I always realized that there were a few issues on which Labour was especially vulnerable — issues on which they had irresponsible policies but ones to which the public attached great importance. They were the ‘gut issues’. Defence was one. Another was public spending, where the voters always have a suspicion that Labour will spend and tax too much. For that reason I was very keen that Geoffrey Howe do a more comprehensive costing of Labour’s manifesto promises than usual. He produced a superb analysis that ran to twenty pages. It showed that Labour’s plans implied additional spending in the life of a Parliament of between £36–43 billion — the latter figure almost equal to the total revenue of income tax at that time. Labour’s economic credibility never recovered. Indeed, Labour’s profligacy has been its Achilles heel in every election I have fought — all the more reason for a Conservative government to manage the nation’s economic affairs prudently.
That Wednesday my election tour took me to the East of England, travelling by aeroplane and coach. It was a beautiful day. I spent part of it campaigning in East Dereham in Norfolk for Richard Ryder. As I have noted, he had been my political secretary, and I was glad to be able to help. And, of course, his wife, Caroline, had also worked for me. Almost a family occasion. I addressed a crowd in the packed market square. There were a few hecklers which made it more fun. I let rip with an old-fashioned barnstorming speech. Later someone told me that above the platform where I had stood to deliver the speech there was a large cinema sign advertising a film called The Missionary.
D-14 TO D-7
On Thursday 26 May (D-14) the opinion polls reported in the press gave us anything between a 13 and 19 per cent lead over Labour. The principal danger from now on would be complacency among Conservative voters rather than any desperate Labour attempts at a comeback.
Thursday was to be another pleasant day of traditional campaigning, this time in Yorkshire. One highlight was lunch in Harry Ramsden’s Fish and Chip Shop — the ‘biggest fish and chip shop in the Free World’ — in Leeds. I thoroughly enjoyed myself but the occasion was quite chaotic, with cameramen crashing around among the startled diners.
That evening I spoke at the Royal Hall, Harrogate, dwelling on a theme which was central to my political strategy. The turbulence of politics in the 1970s and 1980s had overturned the set patterns of British politics. Labour’s own drift to the left and the extremism of the trade unions had disillusioned and fractured its traditional support. The SDP and the Liberals