Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [191]
Early next morning Cecil came in to see me and said that he and Ann had decided that he should resign. There was only one problem. He had a public engagement to open the new Blackpool Heliport and to unveil a commemorative plaque. Clearly, it was impossible for him to go ahead with this. Denis stepped into the breach and unveiled the plaque, which poignantly had Cecil’ name on it.
Thankfully, this did not mean the end of Cecil’ political career. But he had to endure four years in the political wilderness and lost whatever chance he might have had of climbing to the very top of the political ladder.
In everything but the short term, Cecil’ resignation weakened the Government. He had proved an effective minister and, though he was only at the DTI a short time, had made a big impact, particularly on the City of London. It was Cecil who took the difficult but correct decision to introduce legislation to exclude the Stock Exchange from the operation of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act and so to terminate the court case which had been brought against it by the Director-General of Fair Trading. In return the Stock Exchange made a commitment to dismantle long-standing restrictions on trading and the process was begun that led to the Financial Services Act (1986) and the ‘Big Bang’ in October of that year. These reforms allowed the City to adapt to the highly competitive international markets in which it now operates and have been crucial to its continued success.
I asked Norman Tebbit to move from Employment to take over the DTI and shifted Tom King from Transport as Norman’ replacement. This enabled me to bring Nick Ridley into the Cabinet, as Transport Secretary. Nick’ arrival in Cabinet was a silver lining to the cloud that hung over us following Cecil’ departure. Like Keith Joseph, Nick was someone who wanted office in order to do what he believed was right. Although in my experience there are few politicians for whom doing the right thing is of no importance, there are fewer still for whom it is the only consideration. Nick and Keith were among them. Nick provided the Government (and me in particular) not only with a clear vision but also with technical solutions to policy problems. At Transport he pressed ahead with privatization and deregulation. And in the later years of the Government he was someone I could rely upon for complete loyalty and honest dealing. Indeed, it was an excess of honesty that ultimately brought him down. (The American journalist, Michael Kinsley, has defined a ‘gaffe’ as telling an inconvenient truth. I have to say that my own experience bears out the accuracy of his definition.)
Such was the team on which the success of the Government’ second term depended. I hoped that they would share the zeal and enthusiasm of their captain.
THE STUTTGART EUROPEAN COUNCIL
At the end of the week in which I formed the new Government I flew to Stuttgart for the postponed European Council, which was chaired by Chancellor Kohl. We had not ourselves asked for the postponement of the Council, which had originally been planned for 6–7 June, but once the proposal was made we welcomed it since it allowed more time to campaign. Probably our European partners thought that they might extract a few more concessions from a newly re-elected government than from one under the domestic pressures that elections pose.
The main issue at Stuttgart would, as usual, be money — ‘our money’ in particular — though I was discreet enough on this occasion not to use the phrase. I had to ensure a satisfactory refund for Britain in 1983 and to make as much progress as possible towards