The Downing Street Years (48 page)

At this stage it was the themes rather than the particular measures which needed to be worked out, and Ferdy and I discussed what these should be. In education, for example, we wanted to increase parent power, widen the variety within the state sector and see whether we could come up with workable proposals for education vouchers. We were concerned about the lack of knowledge displayed by many children about our country and society, and our history and culture. Of course, these and other topics — like all the really great issues — were never going to be amenable to instant action. But both Ferdy and I were convinced that at the heart of the Conservative mission is
something more than economics — however important economics might be: there is a commitment to strengthen, or at least not undermine, the traditional virtues which enable people to live fulfilling lives without being a threat or a burden to others. This was the beginning of many of the themes and ideas which would dominate my third term of office.

Indeed, as early as June 1982 I set up an
ad hoc
group of ministers to see how this ambitious programme could be developed, comprising Keith Joseph, Willie Whitelaw, Geoffrey Howe, Norman Tebbit, Michael Heseltine, Norman Fowler and Neil Macfarlane (as Sports minister). I invited Janet Young to join us in October. The group was officially — though rather misleadingly — known as the Family Policy Group’; the first meeting was held in July 1982 and detailed work was now commissioned. All sorts of questions came within its remit, including the reform of the taxation of husband and wife, education vouchers, reducing crime and the widening of home ownership through increased discounts for the sale of council houses.

It is never easy to make the transition from policy-making in government to writing a party manifesto. In 1982 I used a special exercise to ease the problem. In September I wrote to Cabinet ministers requesting them to prepare a ‘Five-Year Forward Look’ for their departments. These papers were to summarize what had been achieved, what was under way and what still needed to be done. I received most of these papers just before Christmas and looked through them over the holiday. As someone once said of British Rail food, there was a considerable variation in quality. Relatively little new could be said on Treasury matters because the strategy was clear and the real test was to follow through the policies we already had. Similarly, as regards the Health Service the main priority at that stage was to defend our record and explain what had been achieved, rather than embark on politically difficult new initiatives.

By contrast, in both housing and local government there was more room for new thinking. The ‘Right to Buy’ had proved a huge success, but the wider we could extend home ownership in this way the more difficult it would be for Labour to oppose it. In employment, we were preparing for the introduction of the Youth Training Scheme and discussing the next step in trade union reform which would eventually result in the 1984 Employment Act.

In education, Keith Joseph had begun what would be a long process of reform. Falling school rolls had allowed us to increase to record levels public spending per pupil and to achieve the best ever pupil-teacher ratios. But extra resources only permit improved standards:
they do not ensure them. So Keith was pressing for changes in teacher training. He was issuing new guidelines for the school curriculum. Keith and I were also anxious to do something more to increase parents’ power to choose by seriously investigating the possibilities of vouchers or at least a combination of ‘open enrolment’ and ‘per capita funding’, that is a kind of voucher applying just to the state sector.

There was a new momentum for fresh thinking at No. 10 and ministers had taken stock of their policies. By the end of 1982, although I was still not expecting an early general election, I felt that the Government was moving, as it should, into the run-up for the next campaign. There were plenty of possibilities for mishap, but our general political position was strong and the economic prospect was improving. Indeed, well before the end of the year I had authorized the setting-up of party policy groups to consider these and other proposals for the manifesto. Speculation about the date of the election soon began.

CHAPTER XI

The central importance of the manifesto in British general elections often strikes foreign observers as slightly odd. Party manifestos in Britain have acquired greater and greater significance over the years and have become increasingly detailed. In the United States and continental Europe, party ‘platforms’ have less authority and as a result they are not nearly as closely studied. Even in Britain it is only relatively recently that manifestos have been so full of detailed proposals.

The first Conservative manifesto was Sir Robert Peel’s 1835 address to his electors in Tamworth. The ‘Tamworth manifesto’, for all the obvious differences, has one basic similarity with the Conservative manifesto today: it was then and is now very much the party leader’s own statement of policies.

I was never encumbered with the ramshackle apparatus of committees and party rules which makes the drafting and approval of Labour’s manifesto such a nightmare. However, the party leader cannot dictate to senior colleagues: the rest of the government and parliamentary party need to feel committed to the manifesto’s proposals and consequently there has to be a good deal of consultation. I discussed the question with Cecil Parkinson and we agreed that Geoffrey Howe was the right person to oversee the manifesto-making process. There has never been a more devout believer in the virtues of consultation than Geoffrey. It had been necessary to exclude the Treasury from the Falklands War Cabinet and naturally he welcomed this chance to widen his role. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he had the seniority and experience to supervise the required policy work. Looking back, this arrangement was successful in one of its aims — that of reducing the burden on me — but, as we shall see, it turned out to have significant
drawbacks. In 1987 I decided to oversee the preparation of the manifesto myself.

The whole process began almost a year before the election. On Saturday 19 June 1982 I approved the setting up of party policy groups with the remit of identifying ‘tasks for Conservative administration during the rest of this decade; to make proposals for action where possible; where not possible, to identify subjects for further study’. Eleven such groups were originally envisaged, though in fact two were never set up: we dropped the idea of a group on ‘constitutional reform’ because I felt that there was really nothing of note to say on that subject, and the terms of reference on ‘the extension of choice’ turned out to be too vague. (This was a theme better dealt with in detail by the other groups.) The nine we did set up covered unemployment, enterprise, family and women’s affairs, education, the cities and law and order, the poverty trap, the European Community, nationalized industries and urban transport. We decided that the chairman of each group should be a parliamentarian — an MP or peer — who would help to select members for their group from among the Conservative-minded in the worlds of business, academe, voluntary service and local government. To keep the Government informed, special advisers to the relevant Cabinet ministers would sit in on the meetings. (Special advisers are political appointees, and so free from the constraints of political neutrality which prevent the use of civil servants in such roles.) Secretarial and research work was done by members of the Conservative Research Department.

Essentially, the policy groups had two purposes. The first and more important was to involve the Party as a whole in our thinking for the future. In this I believe they were successful. The second was to come up with fresh ideas for the manifesto, and unfortunately in this purpose they failed. For one reason or another it took too long to find appropriate chairmen and the right balance of group members. It was not until October or November 1982 that the groups actually got down to work — originally, optimistically, we had thought that they might get started in July. The groups were due to report only at the end of March 1983, but by then of course we in government were all well advanced on our own policy work. Another problem is the human vanity of wanting to demonstrate that you are on the inside track. All too often their proposals trickled out through the press. Indeed,
The Times
published a detailed account of the report from the Education Policy Group.

The fact is that the really bold proposals in any manifesto can only be developed over a considerable period of time. Relying on bright
ideas thought out at the last moment risks a manifesto that would be incoherent and impossible to carry out. So, in the end, the real work for the 1983 manifesto had to be done in No. 10 and by ministers in departments.

As head of my Policy Unit at No. 10, Ferdy Mount was ideally placed for manifesto drafting, and uniquely gifted for it too. He was able to see how ministers were thinking from the ‘Forward Look’ papers I received at the end of 1982. The next step was taken in February 1983, when Geoffrey Howe wrote to Cabinet colleagues, asking them to send him their suggestions for the manifesto not later than April. Their submissions would then be accepted, sharpened up or rejected by a smaller group of ministers and advisers directly responsible to me. The Treasury would keep a weather eye on the cost of proposals — another advantage of Geoffrey’s close involvement — with the result that we were able to say during the election that all of our proposals had been taken into account in the latest Public Expenditure White Paper. Since we expected the contrast between Tory prudence and Labour profligacy to be a central issue in the campaign, this made political as well as economic sense.

Ferdy, Geoffrey Howe, and Geoffrey’s special adviser, Adam Ridley, worked intensively together on Ferdy’s first draft during March and early April. Subsequently, they were joined by Cecil Parkinson, Keith Joseph, Norman Tebbit, David Howell and Peter Cropper (the director of the Conservative Research Department), over the weekend of 9–10 April at which departmental submissions were fully considered. By the end of April we had a fairly complete draft, on which I worked with Geoffrey, Cecil, Ferdy and Adam at Chequers on Sunday 24 April. Shortly afterwards, the Party’s Advisory Committee on Policy met under Keith Joseph’s chairmanship to give it the Party’s final seal of approval: interestingly, in the light of later events, the main criticism came from the two representatives of the ’22 Committee who thought that we were not doing enough to reform the rates. On Wednesday 4 May chapters of the draft manifesto were sent for checking and agreement to individual ministers. A few final changes were made later still at my last pre-election strategy meeting at Chequers the following Sunday, after which it was at last ready to go to the printers. It was finally submitted in proof to an unofficial meeting of Cabinet.

The most important pledges in the manifesto fell into three groups. First, we promised to accelerate privatization, which was fundamental to our whole economic approach. If elected, we committed ourselves to sell British Telecom, British Airways, substantial parts of British
Steel, British Shipbuilders, British Leyland and as many as possible of Britain’s airports. The offshore oil interests of British Gas would also be privatized and private capital would be introduced into the National Bus Company. This was an ambitious programme — far more extensive than we had thought would ever be possible when we came into office only four years before.

The second important group of pledges concerned trade union reform. Building on the consultations on our Trade Union Democracy Green Paper, we promised legislation to require ballots for the election of trade union governing bodies and ballots before strikes, failing which unions would lose their immunities. As I have noted, there was also a cautious pledge to consider legislation on the trade union political levy and on strikes in essential services. The caution was justified: we legislated on the former. At a time when Labour was promising to repeal our earlier trade union reforms, we were moving ahead with new ones: the contrast was stark, and we were sure the voters would appreciate the fact.

The third significant group of manifesto proposals related to local government. In particular, we promised to abolish the Greater London Council (GLC) and the Metropolitan County Councils, returning their functions (which we had already limited) to councils closer to the people — the boroughs in London, and the districts in the other metropolitan areas. The proposal surprised most people and was subsequently portrayed as a last-minute measure, sketchily thought out. The truth was very different. The previous year a Cabinet committee had examined the issue very thoroughly and recommended abolition, though past experience of leaks led me not to put the question to Cabinet for final decision until shortly before the election. We also promised to introduce what came to be known as ‘rate-capping’ — legislation enabling us to curb the extravagance of high-spending councils, in the interests of local ratepayers and the wider economy.