Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [270]
Some of the details raised in Westland continued to fascinate the cognoscenti, but they were a small and shrinking band. Westland shareholders accepted the Sikorsky bid and though there were to be some difficult times for the company the doom-laden consequences for it and Britain’s industrial base about which Michael Heseltine had warned so eloquently never materialized.
Some said I should have sacked Michael weeks before his resignation. Certainly, there is weight in the criticism that I allowed Michael too much leeway, not too little. At a meeting in No. 10 on 18 December, Leon Brittan urged me to sack him and was brutally dismissive of those who on tactical grounds urged the opposite. But it is necessary to remember two things. First, to begin with the issues were not as clear-cut as they became. Although, as I was later to stress to the House of Commons, decisions on defence procurement are for the Cabinet as a whole not just for the Defence Secretary, Michael certainly did have a legitimate role to play in deciding Westland’s future. The problem was that he did not stick to the limits of that role and not only sought to impose his own views on a private company but did so without respect for collective responsibility in the Government. Second, Michael was at that time a popular and powerful figure in the Party. No one survives for long as Prime Minister without a shrewd recognition of political realities and risks. It seemed to me that I should weather the storm best by reacting to events as they occurred, not trying to bring about a crisis, but sticking to the essential issues. In retrospect, I think that this paid off. Michael gained plenty of publicity but did himself great damage by storming out as he did: if he had not gone voluntarily he might have been still more troublesome on the back-benches.
But the most damaging effect of the Westland affair was the fuel which had been poured on the flames of anti-Americanism. And that fire, once lit, proved difficult to extinguish.
The kind of rhetoric which had been used by Michael Heseltine and his supporters about the American industrial ‘threat’ in the helicopter industry certainly touched a raw nerve. The Left always thought the worst of American motives because they saw the United States as the most vigorous, powerful and self-confident force for capitalism. Some on the far right — Enoch Powell with whom I so often agreed on other matters was the most obvious example — distrusted America on narrow nationalistic grounds: and for some in the Tory Party the memories of America’s actions at the time of Suez remained for ever fresh. The more fanatical European federalists were anti-American for other reasons: they saw the strong cultural and sentimental links between Britain and the United States as detracting from our commitment to Europe. This was essentially an anti-Americanism of the political élites. But there was also a popular variety, which was more worrying. The British people by and large did not understand or properly appreciate President Reagan. And by now the emergence of Mr Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, someone with an unusual understanding of how to play on western public opinion and who as a communist would always receive the benefit of the doubt from the left-wing media, provided an apparently favourable contrast with President Reagan. There was a feeling that the Soviets were the model of sweet reason, the United States of recklessness. These were the rich seams which Michael Heseltine opened up in the Westland affair and which others were now to exploit.
BRITISH LEYLAND
On the heels of Westland came the question of privatizing British Leyland (BL).* Paul Channon, who had been Trade minister at the DTI and whom I appointed to succeed Leon, was faced within days of taking office with a fresh crisis and one which unlike Westland affected the jobs of many thousands of people and concerned a significant number of Conservative MPs, including ministers.
I had not always seen eye to eye with Norman Tebbit over BL. I felt that