Geoffrey Howe had his own droll wit. But in most other ways he was a very different politician from my other appointments that day. I would in any case have felt obliged to give Geoffrey a Shadow Cabinet post, simply because he was a candidate against me and I wished to unify the Party as much as possible. But it was a calculated gamble to make him Shadow Chancellor. I knew that as an immensely hard-working lawyer he would make the effort required to master his brief. I also knew that, in spite of his role in implementing the Heath Government’s prices and incomes policy as Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs, he had a well-deserved reputation as a believer in free-market economics. As such, he was very much a rarity in the upper ranks of the Conservative Party. Once I had decided that Keith would be better employed overseeing policy rethinking, Geoffrey seemed the best candidate. Very few who come new to such a demanding portfolio find it trouble-free. Geoffrey was to have a difficult time both trying to resolve our divisions on economic policy and in defending our case in the House. I would be put under a good deal of pressure to remove him and find someone better able to take on the Chancellor, Denis Healey. But I knew that Geoffrey’s difficulties, like mine, were more the result of circumstances than lack of native talent. By the time our period in Opposition was approaching its end he had become indispensable.
After careful thought I decided to keep Jim Prior as Shadow Employment Secretary. This was rightly taken as a signal that I had no immediate plans for a fundamental reform of trade union law. Jim’s suitability for the job is only understandable in the light of the Heath Government’s poisoned legacy. In the 1972 Industrial Relations Act Ted had attempted the most far-reaching reforms of trade union law since 1906: its failure made Conservatives right across the Party very wary of pursuing the same course again. Moreover, after Ted had taken on the militants and lost in February 1974, the main question in the public’s mind was whether any Conservative Government could establish a working relationship with the unions, which were now seen as having an effective veto on policy. It was Jim’s strong conviction that our aim should be to establish both that we accepted the existing trade union law, with perhaps a few alterations, and that we saw the union leaders as people with whom we could deal.
Such an approach made more sense at the beginning of the period in Opposition than at the end of it. But in any case it left two important questions unanswered. First, how would we react if events demonstrated that the theoretical shortcomings of the present law, as amended by the socialists, were having malign practical effects? (The circumstances of the Grunwick dispute[36] and of the strikes of the winter of 1978/79 would demonstrate precisely that.) Secondly, since the trade union leaders were at least as much socialist politicians as they were workers’ representatives, why should they cooperate willingly with Conservatives? There was a basic incompatibility between their economic approach and ours, and indeed between their political allegiance and ours. So how valuable would any amount of personal diplomacy between Jim and the TUC turn out to be? Probably not very. For the present, though, he was the right man in the right position.
Airey Neave had already privately told me that the only portfolio he wanted was that of Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary. His intelligence contacts, proven physical courage and shrewdness amply qualified him for this testing and largely thankless task.
The other appointments were less strategically crucial. Quintin Hailsham had no portfolio, but was in effect the Lord Chancellor in waiting. Francis Pym stayed on at Agriculture, though a few months later he had to give this up on health grounds. My old friend Patrick Jenkin I kept at Energy. Norman St John-Stevas, whom I had got to know from my days at the Department of Education and who was both a lively wit and one of my few open supporters on the second ballot of the leadership election, shadowed Education. Norman Fowler, a former journalist and a Member for the politically crucial West Midlands, came in as Shadow Social Services Secretary. I had no clear view about where precisely any of these stood in relation to the balance of opinion between left and right of the Party. But in appointing Tim Raison as Shadow Environment Secretary I knew that I was promoting someone associated with the left of centre, but who was tough-minded, thoughtful and knowledgeable about social policy in general. I believed he would be an asset. Two offers of Shadow Cabinet posts were turned down — one to John Biffen, who would in fact join later, and the other to Edward du Cann, whose early campaign team had provided the nucleus of mine. Edward stayed on as Chairman of the 1922 Committee, which was probably far more useful to me.
The next day (Tuesday) I had some less pleasant business to transact. At 10.30 Peter Walker came in. We had known each other since he had succeeded me as candidate for Dartford. But those days were long gone and there was no personal warmth between us. He had been one of the most effective members of Ted’s inner circle, and he opposed with vigour and eloquence the approach which Keith and I were committed to adopt. He clearly had to go. I found it a distasteful business breaking such news; over the years it was one of the things I most dreaded. But at least Peter can hardly have expected anything else. He became a consistent critic on the backbenches.
I confirmed in a discussion with Geoffrey Rippon, who now came into my room, that he did not wish to serve: that suited us both. I then saw Nicholas Scott, who had shadowed Housing. He too was on the left of the Party. The conversation was made slightly easier by the fact that I had absorbed the Housing portfolio into the wider Environment one. His job had been shot from under him.
I left to last the interview with Robert Carr. I told him that I had given the Shadow Foreign Secretary post to Reggie Maudling, which he presumably knew already. Perhaps he had just bid too high, or perhaps he might have been persuaded to stay in another capacity. But I was not keen to have another strong opponent in any position on the team. So I made it clear that I could not ask him to be in the Shadow Cabinet. After a difficult few minutes he left and told the press of his worries about ‘those people who seem to think [monetary policy] is some automatic mechanism’. Not too many guesses were required about who ‘those people’ were.
The published Shadow Cabinet list (to which Peter Thorneycroft as Party Chairman and Angus Maude as Chairman of the Conservative Research Department would later be added) was rightly seen as a compromise. As such, it annoyed the left of the Party who disliked my dropping of Robert Carr, Peter Walker and Nicholas Scott: it also disappointed the right who worried about Reggie Maudling’s return, the fact that Geoffrey and not Keith was Shadow Chancellor and the lack of any new right-wing faces from the backbenches. In fact, given the fragility as yet of my position and the need to express a balance of opinion in the Shadow Cabinet to bring the Party together, it was a relatively successful operation. It created a Treasury team that shared my and Keith’s views on the free-market economy, shifted the balance of opinion within the Shadow Cabinet as a whole somewhat in my direction, and yet gave grounds for loyalty to those I had retained from Ted’s regime. I felt I could expect support (within limits) from such a team, but I knew I could not assume agreement — even on basic principles.