The Labour party conference followed a week later at Brighton and Raymond delivered a keynote speech on the state of the nation’s finances. He pressed the unions to continue supporting their Government by keeping the twin evils of inflation and unemployment at acceptable levels. “Let us not pass on three years of achievement to be squandered by a Conservative Government,” he told the cheering delegates. “Brothers, I look forward to presenting five more Labour budgets that will make it impossible for the Tories to imagine a future victory at the polls.”
Raymond received one of the rare standing ovations to be given to any Cabinet minister at a Labour party conference. The delegates had never doubted his ability, but over the years they had grown to respect his sincerity as well as his judgment.
Seven more days passed before Simon addressed the Tory faithful at the Conservative party conference. in Blackpool. By tradition, the leader always receives a four-to-six-minute standing ovation after he completes his speech on the final day. “He’d still get four minutes,” said Pimkin to a colleague, “if he read them Das Kapital.”
Simon had spent six weeks preparing for the occasion since, like Andrew, he was convinced this would be the last conference before the election. He was pleasantly surprised to find Charles Seymour coming forward with new ideas on tax reform which he hoped might be considered for inclusion in the leader’s speech to the conference.
Charles had recently been making useful contributions in the House during finance debates, and Simon hoped that it would not be long before he would be willing to return to the front bench. His main preoccupation in the House had been as a member of the Chairmen’s Panel from which committee chairmen were recruited for each bill. Charles had mellowed considerably during his time on the back benches and many of his friends feared he had lost his ambition for high office and might not even stand at the next election. Simon hoped this wasn’t the case as he desperately needed someone of Charles’s ability to counter Raymond Gould at the Treasury. Simon included Charles’s suggestions in the final draft of his speech and dropped him a handwritten note of thanks.
On that Friday morning in Blackpool, in front of 2,000 delegates and millions more watching on television, Simon presented a complete and detailed plan of what he hoped to achieve when the Conservatives were returned to Government.
“Power is what we want and power is what we seek,” he told a mesmerized audience. “For without power we cannot serve.”
After the peroration the delegates duly rose for a genuine six-minute ovation. When the noise had died down Pimkin was heard to remark, “I think I made the right decision.”
The conference season over, members made their way back from the three seasides to Westminster. Sadness overcame the House in their first week back when the aging Mr. Speaker Weatherill suffered a minor heart attack and retired to the Lords. The Government’s overall majority was only two at the time and the Labour party Chief Whip feared that if they supplied the new Speaker from their own ranks and the Conservatives were to retain the old Speaker’s safe seat the Government majority would cease to exist.
Simon reluctantly agreed that the Speaker should come from his own benches and asked his Chief Whip to suggest a suitable candidate.
When Charles Seymour asked to be granted a private interview with the leader Simon agreed immediately.
Charles arrived at the Opposition leader’s office the following morning. It was the first time they had talked alone since the leadership battle. A head of white hair had grown from the roots of Charles’s once Odyssean locks, and the deeper lines in Charles’s face gave him a more gentle look. Simon couldn’t help noticing a slight stoop had replaced his ramrod bearing. Looking at them now no one would have suggested they were contemporaries. Charles’s request came as a shock to Simon for he had never once considered his great rival as a candidate for that particular job.
“But I want you to return to the front bench and be my Chancellor,” said Simon. “You must know I would be delighted to have you back in the team.”
“That’s considerate of you,” said Charles. “But I would prefer the more restful life of being an arbitrator rather than an antagonist. I’ve lost that desire always to be on the attack. For over twenty years you’ve had the advantage of Elizabeth and two sons to keep your feet on the ground. It’s only quite recently that Harry has done the same for me.”
All men are thought to have one great moment in their careers in the House, and for Alec Pimkin it was to be that day. The election of a Speaker in the Commons is a quaint affair. By ancient tradition no one must appear to want the honor, and it is rare for more than one person to be proposed for the post. During Henry Vl’s reign three Speakers were beheaded within a year, although in modern times it has been more the heavy burden of duties that has often led to an early grave. This tradition of reluctance has carried on through the ages, and for that reason a future Speaker frequently does not know who has sponsored him. Dressed in a smart blue suit, sporting a red carnation and his favorite pink-spotted bow tie, Alec Pimkin rose from his seat on the back benches to move that “the Right Honorable Charles Seymour does take the chair of this House as Speaker.” His speech was serious yet witty, informed but personal. Pimkin held the House in his grasp for nine minutes and never once let it go. “He’s done his old friend proud,” one member muttered to another across the gangway when Pimkin sat down, and indeed the look on Charles’s face left no doubt that he felt the same way, whatever had taken place in the past.
After Charles had been seconded the tradition of dragging the Speaker-elect to the chair was observed. This normally humorous affair, usually greeted with hoots of laughter and cheering, became even more of a farce with the sight of the small, portly Pimkin and his Labour seconder dragging the six-foot-four former Guards’ officer from the third row of the back benches all the way to the chair.
Charles surveyed the Commons from his new vantage point. He began by expressing his grateful thanks for the high honor the House had bestowed on him. From the moment he rose and stood his full height, every member knew they had selected the right man to guide them through the parliamentary calendar. The sharpness of his tongue may have gone but there remained a firm delivery and natural authority that left none of his colleagues in any doubt that Mr. Speaker Seymour intended to keep “order” for many years to come.
The Conservatives held the Croydon North-East seat comfortably at the by-election, and captured a marginal six weeks later. The press pointed out that it only needed the Tories and the SDP/Liberal Alliance to join together for the Government and Opposition to be in equal numbers, leaving the seventeen Irish members to decide the fate of the Parliament. Raymond was determined that the Government should hold on for another few weeks so that he could deliver his third budget, which he was convinced would act as a launching pad on which to fight the election.
Andrew had realized that Raymond’s next budget might help Labour’s chances at the polls, and he sought an official meeting with the leader of the Opposition to discuss the possibility of a “no confidence” motion.
Simon agreed with Andrew’s suggestion and thought that they should time the debate for the end of March. If they won that would ensure an election before the budget.
Raymond had accepted an invitation to address a large Labour rally in Cardiff the weekend before the vote of “no confidence.” He boarded the train at Paddington, settled into his compartment, and began to check over his speech. As the train pulled into Swindon a railway official stepped on board and, having discovered where the Chancellor of the Exchequer was seated, asked if he could speak to him privately for a few minutes. Raymond listened carefully to what the man had to say, replaced the speech in his brief case, got off the train, crossed the platform, and returned by the first available train to London.