But by then the Government had already suffered a blow from which, perhaps, we never fully recovered. In mid-July Iain Macleod had gone into hospital for a small abdominal operation. It had been a success and he had returned to No. 11 for a few days’ rest. At about midnight on Monday 20 July my telephone rang. It was Francis Pym, the Chief Whip. He said that Ted had asked him to ring round to tell us all that Iain had suffered a heart attack that evening and had just died. He was only fifty-six.
I felt the blow personally, for Iain had always been a generous and kind man for whom to work. I knew that he had given me my chance to shine and so make my way into the Shadow and then the real Cabinet. But I also immediately recognized that we had lost our shrewdest political intellect and best communicator. How Iain would have performed as Chancellor I do not know. But if one accepts, as I did and do, that the worst mistakes of economic policy derived from Ted’s overruling the Treasury, it is reasonable to suppose that matters might have turned out better if Iain had lived. He was succeeded by Tony Barber, a man of considerable intellectual ability, who by and large had an unhappy time at the Treasury. The economic problems of the next few years were founded in this transition. Although Tony may have had sounder economic instincts, Iain boxed at a much higher political weight.
The Cabinet which met after Iain Macleod’s death was a sombre one. Around the Cabinet table already sat nearly all of those who would be my colleagues over the next four and a half years. Their personal qualities would be severely tested. Tony Barber was an old if not particularly close friend from the Bar, an able tax lawyer, but not someone to stand up against Ted. Reggie Maudling, Home Secretary until his resignation over the Poulson affair in 1972,[24] was still interested in and had strong views about economic policy. By contrast, he was less than fascinated by his new brief. Technically still extremely competent, he was unlikely to oppose any shift back towards a more interventionist economic policy, which indeed he had always favoured.
Alec Douglas-Home had returned effortlessly to his old Foreign Office brief where, however, plenty of effort was soon required in giving effect to our promises made in Opposition to lift the arms embargo on South Africa and in trying to devise an affordable way of retaining a British military presence east of Suez. He was unlikely to take much part in domestic political affairs now, any more than he had in Shadow Cabinet. Quintin Hailsham had found his ideal role as Lord Chancellor, beginning a long spell in that office under Ted and then me, where he managed to combine his old sense of mischief and theatre with the sedate traditions of the Upper House. Peter Carrington was Defence Secretary, a post for which he was well suited and which he filled with aplomb. I knew that he was close to Ted. He doubtless became still closer when later as Party Chairman and Energy Secretary he had a crucial role in dealing with the final miners’ strike which precipitated the general election of February 1974. He was one of Ted’s ‘inner circle’.
Keith Joseph, by contrast, though a senior Cabinet figure and someone whose views had always to be taken seriously, was certainly not part of that circle and was never, so far as I know, invited to join it. Having been appointed to be Secretary of State for Social Services, Keith’s compassionate, social reforming side had become uppermost at the expense of his more conservative economic convictions, though he retained a profound distrust of corporatism in all its forms. His passion became the need to tackle the problem of the ‘cycle of deprivation’ which condemned successive generations to poverty. Like me, Keith had been given a high-spending ‘social’ department, and there was a natural opposition between what he (also like me) wanted for his own preferred programmes and the requirements of tight public expenditure control. Whether by chance or calculation, Ted had ensured that the two most economically conservative members of his Cabinet were kept well out of economic decision-making, which was left to those over whom he could wield maximum influence.
John Davies, the former Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) (who knew nothing of politics when he was summoned after Iain Macleod’s death to become Minister of Technology), certainly fell into that category. John was someone I liked and indeed appointed later to a post in my Shadow Cabinet. But his warmest admirer would have been hard put to make a case for his handling of the turbulent industrial politics which would now become his responsibility. John also represented ‘business’, a concept which Ted, with his latent corporatism, considered had some kind of ‘role’ in government.
With Tony Barber and John Davies, Robert Carr was, as Employment Secretary, the third key figure responsible for economic strategy under Ted. He was a good deal senior to me and we had different views and temperaments. He was a decent, hard working though not a colourful personality. But he had a difficult, arguably impossible, brief in trying to make the flawed Industrial Relations Act work. His reputation as a left winger in Conservative terms was less useful than some might have expected; trade unionists used to regard left-wing Conservatives not as more compassionate but merely as less candid. As Employment Secretary at the time of the first (1972) miners’ strike and Home Secretary at the time of the second (1974), few people faced greater difficulties during these years.
One who did was Willie Whitelaw as, successively, Leader of the House, Northern Ireland Secretary and finally Employment Secretary at the time of the three-day week. Willie was part of the generation which had fought the war. We seemed to have little in common and neither of us, I am sure, suspected how closely our political destinies would come to be linked. Since Education was not a department requiring at this time a heavy legislative programme, our paths rarely crossed. But I was already aware of Willie as a wise, reassuring figure whose manner, voice and stature made him an excellent Leader of the House. By the end of the Government his judgement and qualities were playing a role second in significance only to Ted’s own. Willie’s bluff public persona, however, concealed a shrewd political intelligence and instinct for managing men.
After Iain Macleod’s untimely death, Geoffrey Rippon was given responsibility for negotiating the terms of our entry into the European Economic Community. Although we had superficially similar backgrounds — both having been Presidents of OUCA and barristers — Geoffrey and I were never close. It always seemed to me that he tried to overwhelm opponents with the force of his personality rather than with the force of his argument. This may have been because Ted had given him the task of getting the best deal he could in negotiations with the EEC — and that deal was not always in our best long-term interests. This was something we were to realize more and more as time went on.
My impression was that the two members of Cabinet Ted trusted most were Jim Prior and Peter Walker. Both had proved their loyalty, Jim as Ted’s PPS in Opposition, and Peter as organizer of his 1965 leadership campaign. Jim was Agriculture Minister, a post which his farming background and rubicund features helped him make his own, before becoming Deputy Chairman of the Party under Peter Carrington in April 1972. Peter Walker’s thirst for the ‘modernization’ of British institutions must have helped draw him closer to Ted. He soon became Secretary of State for the huge new Department of the Environment, where he embarked with vigour upon the most unpopular local government reforms until my own Community Charge — and at the cost of far greater bureaucracy. Later he would go to the other conglomerate, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). Jim and, still more so, Peter were younger than me, but both had far more influence over the general direction of Government. Although their political views were very different from mine, I respected their loyalty to Ted and their political effectiveness.
24
John Poulson was an architect convicted in 1974 of making corrupt payments to win contracts. A number of local government figures also went to gaol. Reggie Maudling had served on the board of one of Poulson’s companies.