The Downing Street Years (96 page)

At the time I had a different view. Answering questions in the House of Commons on the outcome of Luxemburg I said at one point:

Looking back, I was wrong to think that. But I still believe it was right to sign the Single European Act, because we wanted a Single European Market.

European affairs took second place for me during the rest of this Parliament, with just a few exceptions. The main decisions had been made and even the Commission’s search for new ‘initiatives’ had been slowed for the moment by the need to work out and implement the Single Market programme. The Community was overspending its resources, but had not yet reached the new limits of VAT revenue which had been set. Enlargement had to be carried out. There was plenty to be getting on with.

Britain took up the presidency and the European Council met in London on Friday 5 and Saturday 6 December 1986. We were to meet in the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. The great expense and unpleasing design of this building can only be justified by the unsightliness of the original gaping hole — an overflow car park — which it filled. I took a close interest in the physical as well as the diplomatic preparations for our big summits. For example, I had earlier had the swivel chairs around the big conference table at the ‘QE II’ replaced by light wooden ones: I always thought there was something to be said for looking at your opposite number in the eye without his being able to swivel sideways to escape. On this occasion I took care to have the battleship-grey walls covered up with beige hangings and pictures, deliberately having some drawings by Henry Moore, borrowed from the Moore Foundation, placed opposite President Mitterrand, who I knew loved Moore as much as I did.

Undoubtedly, the main achievement of the British presidency was adoption of or agreement to a record number of measures to implement the Single Market. This was the sort of solid progess the Community needed, rather than flashy publicity-seeking initiatives which came to nothing or just caused bad feeling.

But the London Council itself could only be a modest success. On the way into dinner Chancellor Kohl had made it clear to my private secretary, Charles Powell, that there was no question of Germany being able to take major decisions on agriculture — the most vexed question at this time — before their forthcoming elections. If nothing dramatic could be accomplished on agriculture or the budget, however,
the Council was notable for the emergence of M. Delors as a new kind of European Commission President — a major player in the game. I had a brief foretaste of this at the first evening’s dinner, when, to my surprise and unconcealed irritation, he used the discussion period before dinner to launch into a long speech about the parlous financial state in which the Community found itself as a result of the CAP and to put forward a range of quite detailed suggestions. I replied that we should have all been told this before: it was plain from what he said that the Community was broke. I agreed that M. Delors should visit European capitals, as he proposed, to try to find a solution. But this sort of thing ought not to be repeated. I reflected to myself that no one could have imagined a top British civil servant springing surprises on ministers in this way: it illustrated all too well what was wrong with the Commission — that it was composed of a new breed of unaccountable politicians.

As President of the Community I had to give a press conference reporting on the outcome, at which I was accompanied by M. Delors. This time — again to my surprise — he refused to say anything, even when I asked him to comment on one of my answers. I continued to urge him, but to no avail. ‘I had no idea you were the strong silent type,’ I remarked.

M. Delors soon broke his silence. Three days later I gave a speech reporting on the presidency to the European Assembly in Strasbourg on Tuesday 9 December. It could not have been more
communautaire.
But when I sat down, M. Delors — a quite new M. Delors whom I had never seen or heard before — began to speak. It was Euro-demagogy, designed to play to the prejudices of his audience, to belittle the British presidency and to ask for more money. I was not having this. When he finished I stood up and demanded a right of reply — something quite unknown, apparently, in this ‘Parliament’. Speaking off the cuff, I answered the points which had been raised, as I would in a wind-up speech in the House of Commons. And I did not fail to observe how he had said none of this when he had had the chance at the press conference we had held together. He came in late to the lunch afterwards and took his place beside me. I told him then that time after time I had stood up for his position in the House of Commons, refusing to rule out extra money, even though under the most intense pressure. Of one thing he could be sure, I said: that would never happen again.

In the two years of European politicking that led up to the Single European Act, I had witnessed a profound shift in how European policy was conducted — and therefore in the kind of Europe that was taking shape. A Franco-German bloc with its own agenda had re-emerged
to set the direction of the Community. The European Commission, which had always had a yen for centralized power, was now led by a tough, talented European federalist, whose philosophy justified centralism. And the Foreign Office was almost imperceptibly moving to compromise with these new European friends. We could, of course, look to the veto, to legal safeguards, and to declared exemptions. In the future, however, these would increasingly be circumvented where they were not overthrown entirely.

CHAPTER XIX

All election victories look inevitable in retrospect; none in prospect. The wounds which Westland, BL and reaction to the US raid on Libya inflicted on the Government and the Conservative Party would take some time to heal. Economic recovery would in time provide an effective salve, as it became clear that our policies were delivering growth with low inflation, higher living standards and — from the summer of 1986 — steadily falling unemployment. But in the meantime, Labour had developed a thirst for power, moderated their image and gained a lead in the opinion polls. It was important that I should unify the Party around my authority and vision of Conservatism. This would not be easy.

Perhaps the most damaging accusation made against me during the Westland affair was that I did not listen. Like most allegations which stick, this contained a grain of truth. Once I begin to follow a train of thought I am not easily stopped. This has its advantages. It means that I can concentrate on a tricky point almost no matter what is going on in the background, a useful ability, for example, at Prime Minister’s Question Time. But it does, of course, also mean that I am inclined to talk over people and ignore timid or inarticulate objections and arguments. People who do not know me and how I work conclude that I have not taken in what has been said to me. Those who know me better will confirm, however, that this is generally not the case. I will often go away afterwards to revise my views in the light of what
I have heard. Indeed, I have even been accused by some supporters of taking too much notice of those who do not agree with me.

The suggestion that I do not listen, particularly when it comes from ex-ministers, can, however, simply mean that I do not agree with their views. You might say I ‘chair from the front’. I like to say what I think quite early on and then see whether arguments are adduced which show me to be wrong, in which case I have no difficulty in changing my line. This is, of course, not the traditional formal way of chairing meetings. My experience is that a group of men sitting round a table like little better than their own voices and that nothing is more distasteful than the possibility that a conclusion can be reached without all of them having the chance to read from their briefs. My style of chairmanship certainly nonplussed some colleagues, who knew their brief a good deal less well than I did. But I adopt this technique because I believe in argument as the best way of getting to the truth — not because I want to suppress argument. In fact, I would go further: nothing is more important to successful democratic government than the willingness to argue frankly and forcefully — unless, perhaps, it is the willingness to recognize collective responsibility when the decision is made.

So I set in train a series of steps to make plain that the Government encompassed — and was receptive to — a wide range of views. My first concern was to deal with the impression — that was apparently very widespread — that the Government was unaware of people’s worries. I could do this without diluting the Thatcherite philosophy because, whatever commentators imagined, the hopes and aspirations of the great majority were in tune with my beliefs. It was because I did listen to people that I knew this. But I never confused the leader page of the
Guardian
with
vox populi.

I used my speech to the Scottish Party Conference in Perth on Friday 16 May (1986) to stress that we were indeed listening to what people were concerned about. And in some cases we had already acted to put matters right. The Scots had been up in arms because of the effects of the domestic rate revaluation, which had sent some people’s rates bills soaring while others had apparently inexplicably dropped. So I reminded the 1986 Scottish Conference:

I went on to promise the same radical but sensitive approach to people’s concerns in education, where there was much discontent, and health where there was still more. I acknowledged:

What was important in this speech, and was remarked upon, was the tone. Of course, it is never enough just to listen: you have to come up with answers. But this was a time to demonstrate sensitivity and the speech went down well.

A second step towards getting the Government and Party off to a new start was provided by the reshuffle a little later that month. Keith Joseph had decided that he now wished to leave the Cabinet. The departure of my oldest political friend and ally, indeed mentor, saddened me. He was irreplaceable; somehow, politics would never be the same again. But Keith’s departure gave rise to important changes. What I needed was ministers who could fight battles in the media as well as in Whitehall.

Any analysis of the opinion polls revealed that where we were strong was on economic management; where we were weak was on the so-called ‘caring issues’. There is nothing new about this. No matter how unjust — and I personally resented the injustice because I have always found no one more willing to give time and money without reward than the typical Conservative — this is what was to be expected. In Health I felt that the best answer was to set out the record: but there was no evidence that it made much impact; indeed, it was widely disbelieved. In Education, however, the Conservatives were trusted because although people thought we would spend less than Labour on schools they rightly understood that we were interested in standards — academic and nonacademic — parental choice and value for money; and they knew that Labour’s ‘loony Left’ had a hidden agenda of social engineering and sexual liberation. Ken Baker had won hands-down the propaganda battle against the Left in the local authorities and he and
William Waldegrave, stimulated by the advice of Lord Rothschild, had set out what I had long been looking for — an alternative to the rates. But I felt that a first-class communicator like Ken Baker was now needed at Education.

John Moore, who had done an excellent job pressing ahead the privatization programme from the Treasury and was highly regarded by Nigel Lawson, now entered the Cabinet as Transport Secretary. I had high hopes of John. He was of my way of thinking. He was conscientious, charming, soft spoken and in some ways he had the strengths of Cecil Parkinson — that is, he was right-wing but not hard or aggressive. He came across very well on television, where in the subsequent election campaign he managed to be tough and sweetly reasonable at the same time. I had no doubt that John Moore would be an asset to the Government and a loyal supporter to me.