Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [520]
First, it would have been absurd for a prime minister of eleven and a half years’ standing — leader of the Party for over fifteen years — to behave as if she were entering the lists for the first time. Tory MPs knew me, my record and my beliefs. If they were not already persuaded, there was not much left for me to persuade them with. Prime ministers can seek to charm and be sure to listen: I had been listening week after week to MPs’ grumbles; but I could not now credibly tell an MP worried about the community charge that I had been convinced by what he said and intended to scrap the whole scheme. Nor would I have dreamt of doing so. Thus there were strict limits on any canvassing I could usefully do to maximize my vote. A challenger like Michael, however, could promise promotion to those out of office as well as security for those already in it; he would be the beneficiary of all the resentments of the back-benchers.
Second, I felt that, as in 1989, the most effective campaign would be carried out by others on my behalf. In Peter Morrison I considered that I had an experienced House of Commons man who could put together a good team to work for me. Peter and I had been friends ever since he entered the House. He had been one of the first back-benchers to urge me to stand in 1975. I knew that I could rely on his loyalty. Unfortunately, the same quality of serene optimism which made Peter so effective at cheering us all up was not necessarily so suitable for calculating the intentions of that most slippery of electorates — Conservative MPs. I also envisaged, of course, that Peter would have other heavyweights in my team, including George Younger who had done such a good job in 1989.
The debate on the Address would give me an opportunity to renew my authority and the Government’s momentum. So I put extra effort into work on the speech. On the day itself (Wednesday 7 November), I was helped by yet another feeble attack from Neil Kinnock whose latest metamorphosis as a market socialist I mocked in the line: ‘The Leader of the Opposition is fond of talking about supply-side socialism. We know what that means: whatever the unions demand, Labour will supply.’ But I also had to deal with the more delicate issue of Geoffrey’s resignation. And that had hidden traps.
In his resignation letter Geoffrey had not spelt out any significant policy differences between us. Instead, he had concentrated on what he described as ‘the mood I had struck … in Rome last weekend and in the House of Commons this Tuesday’. I therefore felt entitled to point out in my speech that ‘if the Leader of the Opposition reads my Rt. Hon. and learned friend’s letter, he will be very pressed indeed to find any significant policy difference on Europe between my Rt. Hon. and learned friend and the rest of us on this side.’
That was true as far as it went, and it supplied my immediate needs. The debate went quite well. But it soon became clear that Geoffrey was furious about what I had said. He apparently felt that there were substantial points of difference on policy between us, even if he had not so far managed to articulate what they were. We had reached nothing more than a lull before a political storm that was to rage ever more strongly.
At the end of Thursday’s Cabinet (8 November), we took the unusual step of adjourning for a political session, civil servants leaving the Cabinet Room. Ken Baker warned of the likelihood of extremely bad results at the Bootle and Bradford North by-elections. Things turned out as he feared. The worst result was in Bradford, where we slumped to third place.