A number of explanations suggest themselves. The first, and most obvious, is that I was a visiting statesman with a fair prospect of exercising political power in my own country within a few years. They therefore put themselves out to deal with, and even be pleasant towards, me. I was under no illusion about that. Equally, I saw that it was my duty to establish terms on which British interests could, then or later, be protected and advanced. Since they were the rulers of their countries, they were the people with whom I had to deal. Also I can see that certain distinctions can and should be maintained: namely, that rulers with blood on their hands should be treated correctly but no more, while democratic statesmen should be eligible for those additional marks of regard, from an honorary knighthood to an official dinner at Downing Street, which Britain has within her gift. Even so, I am not so naive as to think that this would greatly alter the conduct of authoritarian regimes.
My second consideration is that I was able, on some occasions, to obtain the release or emigration of political prisoners as a sort of quid pro quo for my visit. Those released were never as many as I would have liked; but even a handful was better than none. And every prisoner freed meant hope for ten more. Indeed, it told all those remaining that we had not forgotten them.
Third, we must remember that vice, like virtue, comes in many varieties. It is an odd reflection on human nature that a ruler might order the murder of a political opponent in the morning and yet carry out a pledge he had made in a treaty in the afternoon. Some of those with whom I supped with a long spoon nonetheless kept the promises they had made to Britain and, in one instance, materially helped another country to resist and overcome aggression and occupation.
Finally, international relations is a matter of second-best alternatives rather than the ideal. Even if it had been within my power to replace one ruler with another — which it never was — I would rarely have been able to replace a bad one with a better, and often it would have been with a worse. Those, for instance, who rejoiced in the fall of the Shah must reconcile themselves today to the sad truth that the regime of the Mullahs is more oppressive to its own citizens, and abroad promotes terrorism and subversion, where the Shah was a pillar of stability, if in the end a shaky one.
States tend to act upon their own interests rather than the interests of the peoples of other countries. That is all the more reason for people in democratic countries to pressurize not only foreign governments which suppress human rights, but also their own governments to make improvements in human rights one aim of Western diplomacy. I may sometimes have resented this second sort of criticism of my own actions in power; not long afterwards, however, I was usually glad to have had my elbow jogged.
CHAPTER XI
Apprenticeship for Power
Leader of the Opposition March 1977 to March 1979
A PLEASANT INTERLUDE
The Lib-Lab Pact did none of the things subsequently claimed for it by its exponents. It did not halt, let alone reverse, the advance of socialism: indeed, it kept the Labour Government in office and enabled it to complete the nationalization of the aircraft and shipbuilding industries. Nor was it responsible for the frail but real economic recovery which gradually improved the Labour Party’s political standing in 1977/78: that was the result of the financial measures imposed by the IMF several months before the Pact was agreed. It did not help Mr Callaghan to marginalize and defeat the Left; indeed, the Left emerged strong enough to take over the Labour Party within a few years.
The real benefits were quite different and completely unintended. First, the fact that the Liberal Party demonstrated the closeness of its approach to that of Labour gave a salutary warning to potential Conservatives who, for whatever reason, flirted with the idea of voting Liberal as a more civilized alternative to socialism. The Pact therefore hardened our support. Secondly, I can see now that in March 1977 we were not yet ready to form the kind of government which could have achieved a long-term shift away from the policies which had led to Britain’s decline. Neither the Shadow Cabinet, nor the Parliamentary Party, nor in all probability the electorate, would have been prepared to take the necessary but unpalatable medicine, because they had not witnessed how far the disease had spread. It took the strikes of the winter of 1978/79 to change all that. Finally, the Government’s survival was a real, if well disguised, blessing for me. I benefited greatly from the next two gruelling years as Leader of the Opposition. I learned more about how to achieve what I wanted, even though I always felt in a minority in the Shadow Cabinet. Although I had both good and bad days, I also became a more effective debater, public speaker and campaigner, all of which would stand me in good stead as Prime Minister. Above all, perhaps, I had the opportunity to demonstrate both to myself and to others that I had that elusive ‘instinct’ for what ordinary people feel — a quality which, I suspect, one is simply born with or not, but which is sharpened and burnished through adversity.
My disappointment with my speech in the No Confidence debate on Wednesday 23 March 1977 was quickly dispelled by a succession of good news. Politicians sagely remark, when questioned on such matters, that they take little notice of opinion polls; but political life is a great deal easier when they are substantially in your favour. It was quickly apparent that the public did not like the deal which had been stitched up between the Labour and Liberal Parties. The polls showed the Conservatives fifteen to twenty percentage points in the lead over Labour and registered a sharp drop in approval for the Liberals. My speech attacking Denis Healey’s Budget the week after the No Confidence debate reassured the Parliamentary Party: I spoke from rapidly scribbled notes, reaching through the statistical smokescreen to draw out the contradictions which lay behind it. Then the following day we won Birmingham Stechford — Roy Jenkins’s old seat — with a swing of 17.4 per cent. Having watched the result on television at Flood Street, I put out a statement, rubbing in the salt, saying: ‘We are the people’s party now.’
On my return from my visit to the Far East in April, I plunged into campaigning at two more by-elections — first in the Nottinghamshire mining seat of Ashfield and then in the Humberside fishing port of Grimsby. In normal times both would have been safe seats for Labour. I was told that we probably would not win Ashfield but that Grimsby was within our grasp. Talking to voters — over fish and chips in Ashfield and haddock and poached egg in Grimsby — I had a rather different impression. Although we had two good candidates, it was the misfortune of our man in Grimsby, who worked in the fishing industry, to follow in the footsteps of the late Tony Crosland. It was clear that even Conservative voters had appreciated having a rather grand socialist to represent them and would have liked someone similar. In fact, I was right. We won at Ashfield, overturning a Government majority of nearly 23,000, and narrowly failed to take Grimsby, where the voters chose the nearest thing to a grand socialist, the television personality Austin Mitchell. Just a week later we secured large gains in the Metropolitan and County Council elections, recapturing the GLC (Greater London Council) — an important prize which would give us an opportunity, so important to any Opposition, to demonstrate at a local level some of the policies, such as the sale of council houses, which we intended to pursue nationally.