The Downing Street Years (147 page)

The last meeting was with Tony Newton who, though clearly nervous, just about managed to get out the agreed line. He did not think I could win, etc., etc. Nor, by now, did I. John Wakeham came in again and elaborated further on what he had earlier told me. I had lost the Cabinet’s support. I could not even muster a credible campaign team. It was the end.

I was sick at heart. I could have resisted the opposition of opponents and potential rivals and even respected them for it; but what grieved me was the desertion of those I had always considered friends and allies and the weasel words whereby they had transmuted their betrayal into frank advice and concern for my fate. I dictated a brief statement of my resignation to be read out at Cabinet the following morning. But I said that I would return to No. 10 to talk to Denis before finally taking my decision.

I was preparing to return when Norman Tebbit arrived with Michael Portillo. Michael was Minister of State at the DoE with responsibility for local government and the community charge. He was beyond any questioning a passionate supporter of everything we stood for. He tried to convince me that the Cabinet were misreading the situation, that I was being misled and that with a vigorous campaign it would still be possible to turn things round. With even a drop of this spirit in higher places, it might indeed have been possible. But that was just not there. Then another group of loyalists from the 92 Group of MPs arrived in my room — George Gardiner, John Townend, Edward Leigh, Chris Chope and a number of others. They had a similar message to Michael. I was immensely grateful for their support and warmth, and said that I would think about what to do. Then at last I returned to No. 10.

I went up to see Denis on my return. There was not much to say, but he comforted me. He had given me his own verdict earlier and it had turned out to be right. After a few minutes I went down to the Cabinet Room to start work on the speech I was to deliver in the following day’s No Confidence debate. My Private Office had already prepared a first draft, conceived under very different circumstances. Norman Tebbit and — for some reason — John Gummer came in to help. It was a mournful occasion. Every now and again I found I had to wipe away a tear as the enormity of what had happened crowded in.

While we worked on into the night, Michael Portillo returned with two other last-ditchers, Michael Forsyth and Michael Fallon. They were not allowed to see me as I was engrossed in the speech. But when I was told that they had been sent away, I said that I would naturally see them, and they were summoned back. They arrived about midnight and tried in vain to convince me that all was not lost.

Before I went to bed that night I stressed how important it was to ensure that John Major’s own nomination papers were ready to be submitted before the tight deadline if indeed I stood down. I said that I would sleep on my own resignation, as I always did with important matters, before making my final decision; but it would be very difficult to prevail if the Cabinet did not have their hearts in the campaign.

At 7.30 the next morning — Thursday 22 November — I telephoned down to Andrew Turnbull that I had finally resolved to resign. The private office put into action the plan already agreed for an Audience with the Queen. Peter Morrison telephoned Douglas Hurd and John Major to inform them of my decision. John Wakeham and Ken Baker were also told. I cleared the text of the press statement due to be issued later in the morning, spent half an hour of rather desultory briefing with Bernard, Charles and John for Questions in the House, and then just before 9 o’clock, went down to chair my last Cabinet.

Normally, in the Cabinet anteroom ministers would be standing around in groups, arguing and joking. On this occasion there was silence. They stood with their backs against the wall looking in every direction except mine. There was a short delay: John MacGregor had been held up in the traffic. Then the Cabinet filed, still in silence, into the Cabinet Room.

I said that I had a statement to make. Then I read it out:

The Lord Chancellor then read out a statement of tribute to me, which ministers agreed should be written into the Cabinet minutes. Most of that day and the next few days, I felt as if I were sleepwalking rather than experiencing and feeling everything that happened. Every now and then, however, I would be overcome by the emotion of the occasion and give way to tears. The Lord Chancellor’s reading of this tribute was just such a difficult moment. When he had finished and I had regained my composure, I said that it was vital that the Cabinet should stand together to safeguard all that we believed in. That was why I was standing down. The Cabinet should unite to back the person most likely to beat Michael Heseltine. By standing down I had enabled others to come forward who were not burdened by a legacy of bitterness from ex-ministers who had been sacked. Party unity was vital. Whether one, two or three colleagues stood, it was essential that Cabinet should remain united and support their favourites in that spirit.

Ken Baker on behalf of the Party and then Douglas Hurd as the senior member of the Cabinet made their own short tributes. I could bear no more of this, fearing I would lose my composure entirely, and concluded the discussion with the hope that I would be able to offer the new leader total and devoted support. There was then a ten-minute break for courtesy calls to be made to the offices of the Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Party (Jim Molyneaux of the Unionists could not be contacted) and a statement was accordingly issued at 9.25 a.m.

The Cabinet meeting then resumed. It was almost business as usual. This ranged from matters of the utmost triviality — an unsuccessful Fisheries Council ruined by incompetent Italian chairmanship — to matters of the greatest importance, the decision to increase our forces in the Gulf by sending a second armoured brigade. Somehow I got through it by concentrating on details, and the formal Cabinet ended at about 10.15 a.m. But I invited ministers to stay on. It was a relief to have more or less normal conversation on what was uppermost in our minds, namely the likely outcome of the second ballot, over coffee.

After Cabinet I signed personal messages to Presidents Bush and
Gorbachev, European Community and G7 heads of government, and a number of Gulf leaders. Douglas and John were by now busily organizing their campaigns, both of them having decided to stand.

Later I worked on my speech for the afternoon debate. By this time I was beginning to feel that a great weight had been lifted from me. A No Confidence debate would have been a taxing ordeal if I had been fighting on with so many of the Cabinet, junior ministers and back-benchers against me. Now that I had announced my departure, however, I would again enjoy the united support of the Tory Party. Now it would be roses, roses, all the way. And since this would be my last major parliamentary performance as Prime Minister, I determined to defend the achievements of the last eleven years in the same spirit as I had fought for them.

After a brief Audience with the Queen I returned to No. 10 for lunch. I had a quick drink with members of my staff in the study. I was suddenly conscious that they too had their futures to think about, and I found myself now and later comforting them almost as much as they sought to comfort me. Crawfie had begun the packing. Joy was sorting out outstanding constituency business. Denis was clearing his desk. But I had more public duties to perform. I held my normal briefing meeting for Questions and then left for the House at just before 2.30 p.m.

No one will ever understand British politics who does not understand the House of Commons. The House is not just another legislative body. On special occasions it becomes in some almost mystical way the focus of national feeling. As newspaper comments and the reflections of those who were present will testify, I was not alone in sensing the concentrated emotion of that afternoon. And it seemed as if this very intensity, mingled with the feelings of relief that my great struggle against mounting odds had ended, lent wings to my words. As I answered Questions my confidence gradually rose.

Then I sat down to draw breath and listen to Neil Kinnock make his opening speech in the No Confidence Debate. Mr Kinnock, in all his years as Opposition leader, never let me down. Right to the end, he struck every wrong note. On this occasion he delivered a speech that might have served if I had announced my intention to stand for the second ballot. It was a standard, partisan rant. One concession
to the generosity that the House feels on such occasions (and that his own back-bencher, Dennis Skinner, no moderate and an old sparring partner of mine, was about to express in a memorable intervention) might have exploited the discomfiture that was palpably growing on the Tory benches. It might have disarmed me and eroded the control that was barely keeping my emotions in check. Instead, however, he managed to fill me and the benches behind me with his own partisan indignation and therefore intensified the newfound Tory unity — in the circumstances a remarkable, if perverse, achievement.

The speech which I then rose to deliver does not read in Hansard as a particularly eloquent one. It is a fighting defence of the Government’s record which replies point by point to the Opposition’s attack, and which owes more to the Conservative Research Department than to Burke. For me at that moment, however, each sentence was my testimony at the bar of History. It was as if I were speaking for the last time, rather than merely for the last time as Prime Minister. And that power of conviction came through and impressed itself on the House.

After the usual partisan banter with Opposition hecklers, I restated my convictions on Europe and reflected on the great changes which had taken place in the world since I had entered No. 10. I said:

My final reflection was on the Falklands and Gulf Wars, the second of which we were just then gearing up to fight.

Such was my defence of the record of the Government which I had headed for eleven and a half years, which I had led to victory in three elections, which had pioneered the new wave of economic freedom that was transforming countries from eastern Europe to Australasia, which had restored Britain’s reputation as a force to be reckoned with in the world, and which at the very moment when our historic victory in the Cold War was being ratified at the Paris conference had decided to dispense with my services. I sat down with the cheers of my colleagues, wets and dries, allies and opponents, stalwarts and fainthearts, ringing in my ears, and began to think of what I would do next.

But there was one more duty I had to perform, and that was to ensure that John Major was my successor. I wanted — perhaps I needed — to believe that he was the man to secure and safeguard my legacy and to take our policies forward. So it was with disquiet that I learnt a number of my friends were thinking of voting for Michael Heseltine. They distrusted the role which John Major’s supporters like Richard Ryder, Peter Lilley, Francis Maude and Norman Lamont had played in my downfall. They also felt that Michael Heseltine, for all his faults, was a heavyweight who could fill a room in the way a leader should. I did all I could to argue them out of this, not only in personal conversation but also at the lunch to which I invited my supporters on Monday. In most cases I was successful.

Before then, however, I was to spend my last weekend at Chequers. I arrived there on Saturday evening, travelling down after quite a jolly little lunch with the family and friends at No. 10. On Sunday morning Denis and I went to church, while Crawfie filled a Range Rover with hats, books and a huge variety of personal odds and ends which were to be delivered to our house in Dulwich. Gersons took away our larger items. Denis and I entertained the Chequers staff for drinks before lunch to say farewell and thank you for all their kindness over the years. I had loved Chequers and I knew I would miss it. I decided
that I would like to walk round the rooms one last time and did so with Denis as the light faded on that winter afternoon.

From the time that I had announced my resignation, the focus of public interest naturally switched to the question of who would be my successor. As I have said, I did all that I could to rally support for John without publicly stating that I wanted him to win. From about this time, however, I became conscious that there was a certain ambiguity in his stance. On the one hand, he was understandably anxious to attract my supporters. On the other, his campaign wanted to emphasize that John was ‘his own man’. A joke — made in the context of remarks on the Gulf — about my skills as a ‘back-seat driver’ provoked a flurry of anxiety in the Major camp. It was, unfortunately, the shape of things to come.