Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [356]
While the manifesto was being drafted, I was discussing with Norman Tebbit what I hoped would be the final shape of the campaign and my own role in it. At our meeting on Thursday 16 April we went over press conference themes, advertising and party election broadcasts. By now I was in a mood for an early — June — election. We would have served the four years I always felt a government should. I felt in my bones that the popular mood was with us and that Labour’s public relations gimmicks were starting to look just a little tired.
As is the way of these things, the most appropriate date eventually wrote itself into our programme — Thursday 11 June. By then we would have seen the results of the local elections which, as in 1983, would be run through the number-crunchers of Central Office to make it into a useful guide for a general election. It would be supplemented by other private polls Norman had commissioned: this was particularly necessary for Scotland and London where there were no local elections that year. Some polling in individual key constituencies would also be done: though such are the problems of sampling in constituency polls that no one would attach too much weight to these. I saw this analysis and heard senior colleagues’ views at Chequers on Sunday: I knew by then that the manifesto was in almost final form. I had been through the final text with the draftsmen and with Nigel and Norman on that Saturday.
We had one last disagreement. Nigel wished to include a commitment to zero inflation in the next Parliament. I thought this was a hostage to fortune. Events unfortunately proved my caution right.
As always, I slept on the decision about whether to go to the country, and then on Monday 11 May I arranged to see the Queen at 12.25 p.m. to seek a dissolution of Parliament for an election on 11 June.
CLOTHES
In my case, preparation for the election involved more than politics. I also had to be dressed for the occasion. I had already commissioned from Aquascutum suits, jackets and skirts — ‘working clothes’ for the campaign.
I took a close interest in clothes, as most women do: but it was also extremely important that the impression I gave was right for the political occasion. In Opposition I had worn clothes from various suppliers. And if I had had any doubts about the importance of getting these matters very carefully organized, they were dissipated by the arrival of an outfit ordered for the Opening of Parliament in 1979. It was a beautiful sapphire blue suit with a matching hat. I had no time for a fitting and as I put it on with just a few minutes in hand I found to my horror that it neither fitted nor suited me and had to rush away to change into something else. It was a lesson not to order from a sketch, which can disguise unwanted bulges that are too painfully obvious to the real customer.
From the time of my arrival in Downing Street, Crawfie helped me choose my wardrobe. Together we would discuss style, colour and cloth. Everything had to do duty on many occasions so tailored suits seemed right. (They also have the advantage of gently passing by the waist.) The most exciting outfits were perhaps those suits I had made — in black or dark blue — for the Lord Mayor’s Banquet. On foreign visits, it was, of course, particularly important to be appropriately dressed. We always paid attention to the colours of the national flag when deciding on what I should wear. The biggest change, however, was the new style I adopted when I visited the Soviet Union in the spring of 1987, for which I wore a black coat with shoulder pads, that Crawfie had seen in the Aquascutum window, and a marvellous fox fur hat. (Aquascutum have provided me with most of my suits ever since.)
With the televising of the House of Commons after November 1989 new considerations arose. Stripes and checks looked attractive and cheerful in the flesh but they could dazzle the