Edward Heath: A Biography

452 Pages·1993·39.459 MB·English

by  John Campbell

EDWARD
by the same author
HEATH
LLOYD GEORGE: THE GOA'f IN THE WILDERNESS
F.E. SMITH, FIRS'f EARL Of BIRKENHEAD
ROY JENKINS
NYE BEVAN AND 'fHE MIRAGE OF BRl'flSH SOCIALISM A Biography
John Campbell
Cf)
JONATHAN CAPE
LONDON
\
For Alison, again
First published 1993
I 3 S 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
©John Campbell 1993
John Campbell bas asserted his right under
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
to be identified as the author of this work
First published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by
Jonathan Cape
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London sw1v 2SA
1125S1+<6
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Printed and bound in Great Britain by
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Contents
Acknowledgments. -
XI
Introduction -
xiv
PART ONE: Scholarship Boy"
Broadstairs -
I
3
2 Balliol and the Union '
15
3 'A Good War''
40
4 Some False Starts \...
51
PART TWO: Rising through the Ran.ks
5 The Class of 1950 _
-v-1> 71
-ChiefWhip -
90
7 'Mr Europe' - _
108
8 After Blackpool
h - 139
4A New Kind of Tory Leader' -
166
PART THREE: Preparing for Power
.../IO - Establishing Authority-
189
vlf 1 Pressures of Opposition '-
212
12 -'Selsdon Man' -
239
13 Victory from the Jaws of Defeat-
268
/ PART FOUR: Power
J 14- 'A New Style of Government!-
1p; 289
'The Quiet Revolution'
307
16 . Special Relationships-=-
334
! 7 Reversing the Veto
352
18 'Kill the Bill'
364
19 Heathmen on the Home Front
376
20 The Vote for Europe
396
. Contents
406/
First Blood to the Miners
423
The Abolition of Stormont
436
U-Turn: Industry .
4S7
The Collapse of the Industrial Relations Act Illustrations
468
s
U-Turn: Inflation . _
2 484
Jfi, "'The Prime Minister and H~s Office
S09
~ -The Prime Minister and His Party-·
s22
,)B...,_ The Barber Boom 542
_ ~ Whitelaw in Ulster SSS
Oil and Coal
30 S74
The Three-Day Week
31 s98
'Who Governs.?' -
32
PART FIVE: Rejection -
'National Unity'
33
'The Peasants' Revolt' -
34
between pages 204 and 205
PART srx: Spectre at the Feast 679 1 Aged three, with his mother, Edith
3s Unreconciled - 716 2 With Edith and his younger brother, John
36 Internal Exile .... . 7S41 3 With his father, William, in 1967
<D The Nemesis ofThatchensm- 4 Prospective Tory candidate, Bexley, 1948
793
s
38 Grandfather of the House Returned to Westminster, 19s1
6 With Patricia Hornsby-Smith and Margaret Roberts
808
Epilogue - 7 With Harold Macmillan
8 First party conference as leader, Brighton, 196s
813
Notes and References ...., 860
Bibliography _ 86S between pages 236 and 237
Index 9 Campaigning in Orpington at the 1970 General Election
IO The new Conservative Cabinet in the garden at Number IO
11 With Liam Cosgrave and Brian Faulkner
12 With French President, Georges Pompidou
13 Outside Number 10 with Kenneth Kaunda
14 At the helm of the third Morning Cloud
s
1 Rehearsing with the London Symphony Orchestra
16 At Chequers in 1970 with the Queen and President and Mrs
Nixon
between pages 716 and 717
17 With Margaret That,her at the party 'onfercn,e, 1972
18 Into Europe: Heath signs the Accession Treaty
19 Students demonstrate at Birmingham University, 1973
20 The battle of Saltley gate: the 1972 miners' strike
· ntustrations ·
Canvassing in Bexley in the February 1974 ~eneral Election
~~. Enoch Powell at the 1973 party conference m Blackpool
With Jeremy Thorpe and Harold Wilson
23
The new leader carries off the old Acknowledgments
24
between pages 748 and 749 ·
Heath and William Whitelaw on the platform at the 1976 party
25
conference
6 Heath speaking from the floor at the 1978 party c~:mfere~ce
2
The 1975 referendum: leading the 'Yes' campaign with Roy
27
Jenkins . . . .
28 With Deng X1aopmg m Peking, 1987 .
Launching the North-South Commission's second report m
29
1983 with Willy Brandt . . . T ms is not an 'authorised' biography, but neither is it exactly
Negotiating with Saddam Hussem for British hostages in
30 unauthorised. Sir Edward Heath has known about it since its
Baghdad, 1990 inception, apd while he has not been willing to help me directly with
Margaret Thatcher and her three predecessors
31 papers or interviews - giving priority, understandably, to his own
32 At home in Salisbury long-promised memoirs-he has placed no obstacles in my way. He
has made no attempt to stop his friends and former colleagues talking
. CARTOONS to me. I know that several checked with him before they agreed to
page
see me: those few who refused did so, I believe, on their own in
196
'Into Europe', Vicky itiative. His office has on a number of occasions sent me the full
304
'Grocer Heath', John Kent transcript of speeches only partially reported in the press. I should
771
'Thatcher's First Defeat', Garland like to record my appreciation of his attitude, which in my view is
probably the ideal relationship between a biographer and a living
subject.
Next, I should like to thank the large number of Sir Edward's
friends, associates and former colleagues and others who have
CREDITS worked, played or sailed with him - he has no relations - who have
talked to me, often at length, in formal interviews and informal con
The author and publishers are g~ateful _to t_he following sour~es for
versations over the past six years. The following list excludes, at
permission to reproduce illustrations: Birmmgham Post & Mail Ltd,
their own request, a number who prefer not to be mentioned. To all
pl. 19· Camera Press, pis 1-3, 9, 13, 17, 24-5, 29, 31; Hulton Deutsc~,
of them I am most grateful for helping me get closer to a subject they
pis 8: 1cr-12, i6, 21, 26-?; Popperfoto, pis .4• ~8, 30; Pres~ Assoa all agree is exceptionally difficult to know well: Robin Aisher, Lord
ation, pl. ; Rex Features, pis 15, 23; Syndication Int~mattonal, pis
7 Aldington, Sir Ashley Bramall, Sir Paul Bryan, Richard Burn, Sir
, J2; Times Ne~spapers Ltd, pis 14, 18; Topham Picture Source,
22 Alistair Burnet, Lord Carr of Hadley, Colonel George Chadd, Sir
pis 5, 6, 20. Robin Chichester-Clark, Lord Croham, Sir Edward Du Cann, Lord
Ezra, Lord Forte, Lord Fraser of Kilmorack, Lord Gilmour, Jane
Glaser, Lord Goodman, Clare Hollingworth, Lord Home of the Hir
sel, Barbara Hosking, David Howell MP, Lord Hunt ofTanworth,
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, Tom Jolly, Lord Joseph, Sir Timothy Kit
son, Moura Lympany, Michael McGahey, Lady Macleod of Borve,
xi
· Acknowledgments ·
Acknowledgments.
Sir Donald Maitland, Simon May, Mrs Sara Morrison, Lord Murray
London Library for being one of the last places where one can still
of Epping Forest, Owen Parker, Mrs Jo Pattrick, Sir Leo Pliatzky,
r~d bound volu~es of The Times instead of fiddling around with
Enoch Powell, Lord Prior, Reginald Pye, Lord Pym, Lord Roll, the
micro~tlm. At a Ume of lamentable cuts in public libraries, I should
late Lord Rothschild, Andrew Rowe MP, . Anthony Sampson,
also hke to record my debt to Kensington and Chelsea Central
Madron Seligman MEP and Mrs Nancy-Joan Seligman, Brendon Library.
Sewill, Dr Thomas Stuttaford, Jeremy Thorpe, Michael Trend MP,
The con~ribution ofp icture researchers is too rarely i:ecognised, .so
Lord Walker, Sir Brian Warren, Lord Whitelaw, Mrs Rosemary
I should like to make a point of thanking Cathie Arrington of
Wolf£ Jonathan Cape for tracking down such an excellent collection of
I am also grateful to a large number of fellow historians and jour photographs to illustrate the book. .
nalists who have helped me in one way or another, by giving nie
I s~ould like to. thank Graham C. Greene for commissioning the
information or ideas, or starting me on a fruitful train of thought.
book m the .first place; there are four people without whom it would
The following list is far from complete; but I would particularly like
never have been finished. For twenty years now Dr Paul Addison has
to thank John Bam~s, John Grigg, Professor P~ter ~ennessy, Dr been an unfailing source of wisdom, encouragement and understand
Martin Holmes, Dr Rodney Lowe, Professor Keith Middlemas, Dr
ing w~en I have flagged or doubted: never has his help been more
Frank Prochaska, Dr John Ramsden, Andrew Roth, Robert Silver
appre~ated. For almost as long Bruce Hunter of David Higham
and Jeremy Treglowne. I beg that those whom I have not specifically Associates, my agent, has sustained me and believed in me from
mentioned will forgive me.
book to book; while it has been a great pleasure to be re-united on
I am grateful to the following for allowing me to quote material
this book wjth Tony Colwell ofJonathan Cape, who has been a most
for which they hold the copyright: Aurum Press for quotations from
patient and supportive publisher: All of these read chapters and com
The Whitelaw Memoirs; Contemporary Record for quotations from the
~ented. constructively. But the person who has had the greatest hand
transcripts of Institute of Contemporary British History witness
m shapmg and sharpening this book has been Liz Cowen. With in
seminars; The Economist Newspaper Ltd for quotations from The
finite skill and tact _she reduced an excessively long typescript to
Economist; Faber & Faber Ltd for quotations from Eric Roll, Crowded manageable proport10ns: no author ever had a more sensitive or
Hours; Nicholas Garland for one of his cartoons from the Independent;
sympathetic editor. I wish every book published could be submitted
John Kent for one of his 'Grocer Heath' strips from Private Eye;
to her scrutiny. Needless to say the responsibility for any errors that
Dominic Lawson for quotations from the Spectator; Longman Group
may remain is solely mine; likewise the judgments and interpre
UK for a quotation from George Hutchinson, Edward Heath; Pan tations in the book are all my own.
Macmillan Ltd for quotations from Edward Heath, Sailing, Music
Finally, as ever, I must thank my wife Alison for her love, patience
and Travels, published by Sidgwick & Jackson; Professor Lord Ski and s~pport - em_otional and financial - through another long bio
delsky for an extract from a letter to Lord Boyle; Solo Syndication & graphical haul. Without her, it goes without saying, the book could
Literary Agency for a Vicky cartoon from the Evening Standard;
, not have been written. This time, however, I should also mention
Times Newspapers Ltd for quotations from The Times and the Sun
my children, Robin and Paddy, who have lived with Ted Heath for
day Times; Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd for quotations from Marcia almost as long as they can remember. They have often questioned
Falkender, Downing Street in Perspective, Brian Faulkner, Memoirs of a
what I have been doing all this time: they too will be pleased that at
Statesman, and Nigel Fisher, The Tory Leaders: Their Struggle for
last I am moving on to something new. I am only sorry that neither
Power. In respect of a number of other authors and publishers I
my father nor my mother-in-law lived to see the book completed.
sought permission to quote but received no reply: in these cases I
have taken silence for consent. Where I have been unable to trace a
JOHN CAMPBELL
copyright holder I can only ask to be forgiven.
London, March 1993
I am also grateful to Mrs Ann Gold for permission to see Lord
Boyle's papers at Leeds University; to Robin Harris for allowing me
to use the library at Conservative Central Office; to the Labour Party
Library for their excellent collection of press cuttings; and to the
Xll xiii
· Introduction ·
leader a man so lacking in electoral appeal. In 1975 they got rid of
him not for the most part because they rejected his policies, nor even
because he had lost two General Elections, but principally because so
many of them had been personally repelled by his rudeness that they
were ready to vote for almost anyone, even · an inexperienced
Introduction
woman, who would stand against him. Yet here is the central para
dox of Heath's career. For he first made his name in the party as an
exceptionally sensitive and popular Chief Whip~ widely lauded for
his 'skill in human relationships'. (The myth that he was a famous
disciplinarian grew up later.) He was elected leader in 1965 because
he was seen as the Tories' answer to the supreme politician, Harold
Wilson; he was thought to be particularly good on television. In 1970
he confounded the polls to achieve the biggest swing of seats at a
General Election since 1945 - the only time that a clear majority for
one party has been converted at a single election into a clear majority
TED Heath was Prime Minister for only three and a half years. for the other. Once elected, he was in many ways the best-equipped
His premiership, which started out with such high hopes inJu~e Prime Minister of modem times: cool headed, clear sighted, cour
1970, collapsed in chaos and humiliation in Februar~ 1974. Within ageous and conscientious, thoroughly professional, immensely well
twelve months he had lost the Conservative leadership as well. For informed, with a high sense of his responsibility and a clear vision of
the next sixteen years he was consigned to the political doghouse, what he wanted to achieve. Yet in the end all these qualities went for
condemned to a sort of internal exile while everything he stood for nothing because he lacked the essential quality of political leadership:
was disowned, reviled and reversed by his all-conquering successor. the ability to communicate his vision and inspire loyalty beyond the
It is a truism that most political careers, excepting only those whose narrow circle of his closest colleagues.
promise is cut short by early death, end in rejecti~n and/ or failure; As a result, all his good intentions were cruelly misunderstood. He
but Heath's appeared to end in more complete isolation, obloquy and set out to be a Prime Minister above party who ·would set Britain on
embarrassment than any other in modem times. During the years of a new course of modernisation, regeneration and national pride. But
Margaret Thatcher's long hegemony; ~onservative Centr~l Office he was portrayed by his opponents as the most reactionary Tory
effectively wrote him out of the party s history, as though his leader leader since Neville Chamberlain, bent on putting the clock back
ship had been an unfortunate mistake that was best forgotten. Yet at thirty years. Faced with simultaneously mounting inflation and un
employment, he reversed many of his original policies, with the
the age of seventy-seven he remains defiantly unbowed. He has
almost unanimous approval of the press; yet he was still regarded as
never given an inch to his critics, never retired, never accepted a
stubbom and inflexible. The more strenuously he sought consensus,
peerage, never even written his memoirs, but has stayed on to 1
the more he was denounced as extremist and 'confrontational'. He
become Father of the House of Commons while men and women
wanted above everything to unite the country: he finished up pre
fifteen years his junior, some of whom were not even in the House
siding over a country more bitterly divided than at any time since the
when he was Prime Minister, have come and gone. A whole gener
immediate aftermath of the First World War.
ation has grown up for whom his baleful prese1:1ce - slu?1.ped
The British public has never understood Ted Heath. As a good
impassively on his seat below the gangway, or choleric on televlSlon,
amateur musician and successful international yachtsman he is with
furiously denouncing his successor - has bee~ a permanent feature ~f
.o ut question the most multi-talented Prime Minister this century: by
political life. Not only can this generation not remember his
comparison with his principal rivals, Harold Wilson and Margaret
premiership: they cannot imagine how such a crusty old curmud-
Thatcher, he is a veritable Renaissance Man. Yet in office he came
geon could ever have been Prime Minister in the first place. .
across as a one-dimensional political robot: his interests were remote
The question is not a new one. He was always an unusual polit
from ordinary people, and his occasional attempts to convey his en
ician. In the 1960s, as his poll ratings dropped to record levels, Tory
thusiasm for them astonishingly banal. The one thing everyone
MPs asked themselves how they could ever have chosen as their
xv
XlV
· Introduction · · Introduction ·
knows about him is that he is passionately committed to a united the party. But it was Heath, by his personal example as much as by
Europe. Yet the springs of that commitment remain a mystery: no his policies, who first set the Tories on the way to becoming the
one could be more quintessentially English. Not only does he speak party of individual opportunity and social mobility, leaving Labour
no European language: he speaks English like a man who is tone still struggling to .shake off the image of a backward-looking class
deaf. How can a musician have no ear for the music of words? The based anachronism.
paradoxes multiply. As a bachelor, he is widely supposed to dislike Second, Heath more than anyone else committed the Conserva
women; but many of his most loyal friends are women. Stories tives to Europe. Harold Macmillan made the first move to try to join
abound of his rudeness, lack of conversation and long, disconcerting the EEC in 1961; but following General de Gaulle's veto in 1963 the
silences: Douglas Hurd has memorably written of his 'Easter Island' party could easily have retreated from that objective had it elected
face. But on the right occasion, in the right company, he can be any leader but Heath in 1965. Europe was central to Heath's political
charming, relaxed and witty. He is often frankly selfish; but he can vision. He succeeded in 1971, where possibly no other British Prime
also be immensely thoughtful. He is as consistent as a block of Minister could have succeeded, in negotiating British entry to the
granite; yet he is also moody and unpredictable. Friends and col Community. In doing so he identified the Tories so firmly as the
leagues who claim to know him as well as anyone will confess in the pro-Europe party - while Labour still veered between reluctant
same breath that they do not really know him at all. He remains im acquiescence and outright opposition - that even Mrs Thatcher was
penetrable, self-sufficient, self-contained: as Churchill famously unable to do more than slow the pace of integration. Twenty years
described the Soviet Union: 'A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an after Heath signed the Treaty of Accession, Britain's relations with
enigma'. Europe remain a matter of intense controversy; the Tory party is
Yet history will surely judge him less harshly than his contempor divided on the subject as never before. As the leading champion of
aries. For as the tide ofThatcherism ebbs it is becoming possible to Britain-in-Europe over the past thirty years, Heath must shoulder
take a more balanced view of his achievement. Notwithstanding the much of the blame for the public's persistent suspicion of the Euro
disappointments of 1970-4 and all the vitriol and condescension pean enterprise: here again he has failed to communicate his vision.
levelled at him since, Heath can now be seen - in at least three re Yet the fact that the future of the Community is today the central
spects - as the pivotal figure around whom the history of the modem issue of British politics is above all Heath's achievement.
Tory party has turned. . Third, Heath's _G overnment was the precursor, for better or
First, his rise to the leadership both reflected and accelerated the worse, of the Conservative governments of the 1980s. Here the
social transformation of the party. It was Heath who broke the legacy is ambiguous; but the fact is that the so-called 'Thatcher revo
hitherto patrician mould of Tory leaders. In 1965 the four previous lution' was in part the fulfilment of an agenda initially set by Heath
leaders had been successively a duke's nephew, the son of a seventh and partly an exaggerated reaction to his retreat from that agenda.
baronet, the son-in-law of another duke and a fourteenth earl. Te~ On the one hand-as Heath's critics never ceased to remind him -it
years later the carpenter's son from Broadstairs was succeeded by a was his 1970 manifesto which first proclaimed many of the goals
r
grocer's daughter from Grantham, who was followed in her tum by which formed the core of 'Thatcherism': lower taxes, less public
the son of a sometime trapeze artist . and manufacturer of garden spending, Government disengagement from industry, legal curbs on
ornaments. It is easy today to forget the social revolution which that trade unions and more ·selective targeting of welfare. On the other,
shift represented. It was in fact a painful process in which Heath as the scale and consequences of his Government's enforced abandon
the pioneer suffered years of snobbish mockery. The party knew it ment of the 1970 agenda - the unsustainable inflati~nary boom of
needed to broaden its. appeal, but thirty years ago many traditional 1973, the complex straitjacket of prices and incomes policy and the
Tories found it hard to accept a leader with no 'background', no 1974 miners' strike which encompassed the Government's defeat -
private wealth and a ghastly accent. He won through only at great came to furnish the negative precedent against which his successor
personal cost: it was at this time that the popular Chief Whip with set her face: though unemployment rose in 1981 to three times the
drew into his shell. Others have widened the breach he made, to the · level that had compelled Heath to change course, Mrs Thatcher
extent that he in his tum now seems a grandee from a vanished staked her reputation on her determination not to do the same. When
world, blaming Mrs Thatcher for bringing 'football hooligans' into all the talk at the 1981 party conference was of when she would be
XVI XVll
· Introduction · Introduction
forced to emulate his famous 'U-Turn', she vowed emp_hatically: maintain that they had discovered the key to unlock the long-delayed
'The lady's not for turning.' It was explicitly by contrast with Hea~ 'economic miracle' which had eluded all her predecessors, he was
that she defined herself. When she first attained the Tory leadership isolated and ignored: the party and a sufficient minority of the
in 1975 cynics hadjeered that she was merely 'Heath ,wi~ tits'. N~w . country were persuaded that the price in permanent unemployment
her admirers retorted that, on the contrary, she was Heath with and visible poverty was worth paying. Now that the 'economic
miracle' has evaporated, however, and the coilntry finds itself in the
balls'.
So long as she seemed to carry all befor~ her, the best case ~t early 1990s plunged back into an even deeper recession than in the
could be made for Heath was that he had tned prematurely to anti early 1980s - but now with a weaker economy than ever with which
cipate some of her reforms, in unfavourable circumstar_ices, before to try to spark recovery - Heath's lonely doom-mongering looks
the public or the party was ready to accept them. On this argum~t more prescient than he was given credit for in the heady boom years.
the 1970-4 Government was part of a painful but ne~essary learrung Of course the fact that Thatcherism too has ended in painful dis
experience which prepared the ground for Tha~chensm: the d~rkest illusion does not make Heath's Government a success, even in
hour before the glorious dawn. Loyal Thatchentes, however, jeered hindsight: the dismal record of the British economy merely con
that he had simply lacked the courage of her convi~ons. ~ll through tinues to unfold, from one aborted miracle to another. But it does
the 198os his famous 'U-turn' was ruthlessly dended m order to put his tribulations in perspective, and demolishes the right of the
highlight Mrs Thatcher's contrasting _'resolutio1:1'· H~ath's refusal to Thatcherites to disparage his record a~ uniquely bad. In truth he was
recognise her achievement was ascribed to bitter jealousy of the exceptionally unlucky. International and domestic factors -in the
woman who had supplanted him. . · fevered 1970s conspired to derail his Government~ He ~as con
Of course he was bitter. But at the same time he genumely and fronted by the collapse of the international financial system and
fundamentally disapproved of the whole thrust of her polici~, which massive global inflation, culminating in the 1973 'oil shock'; an irres
,-
soon went far beyond anything he had ever dreamed of m 1970. r ponsible trade union movement at the height of its power, backed by ·
Heath was a member of the generation whose values had. been an unscrupulously opportunist Opposition; Northern Ireland on the
shaped by the Second World War. He had come into politics as a edge of civil war; plus a social climate disturbed by a whole range of
convinced supporter of the postwar settlement, founded on. the fears and dislocations, from terrorism and rising crime through stu
mixed economy and the Welfare State, which had delivered _full dent revolt and violent demonstrations to coloured immigration,
employment, social stability and ever-rising living stand~rds s11:1ce sexual permissiveness and decimalisation of the currency, which co- ·
1945. By 1965 he recognised that this settlement_ _ was under mcr~as~g incided with and seemed to exacerbate galloping inftation. Five years
strain: his purpose in 1970 had been to moderruse and reform i~, ~­ earlier or ten years later, with all his shortcomings, Heath might
jeering more enterprise and efficiency into the economy to enable it have been a great Prime Minister. But he was caught at a moment of
to continue to deliver the standards the country had come to expect. transition between two traditions, when the earth moved under his
But he never doubted that this could be achieved within the existing , feet. Arguably he was the true Tory who set out in 1970 to find a
institutional and conceptual framework. The 1970 manifesto makes it middle way betweeri the exhausted tradition of interventionism
quite clear that he never dreamed of abdicating the. Government's which he inherited from Macmillan and the emerging free market
fundamental responsibility for maint~g ful~ employment and doctrines seized on and carried to extremes by Mrs Thatcher. Had he
decent social provision, as Mrs Thatcher qwte deliberately proceeded been able to strike and hold this balance the country might have been
to do after 1979. 'Selsdon Man' was a myth largely created by Harold spared much of the wasteful agony of the Thatcher years.
Wilson. Heath was genuinely angered by Mrs Thatcher's conte~p­ But the irony is that it was Heath himself who inflicted Mrs
tuous jettisoning of the 'One Nation' tradition of Toryism which ·Thatcher on the party. His fate was not entirely the result of irresis
had been the party's maiilstream since 1940. On the one hand·.he tible historic forces and the swing of intellectual fashion. His own
denounced her exclusive reliance on market forces and neglect of m awkward personality played a crucfal part. Heath was in three critical
frastructural investment as short-sighted and destructive; on the respects the author of his own misfortune. First, making every
other he damned her social philosophy as morally repugnant and allowance for the difficulties it faced, his Government fell because he
socially divisive. So long as she and her successive chancellors could was unable to persuade the country to support what he was trying to
xviii xix
.'
· Introduction ·
do: he should have won the February 1974 election. Then his pride
and stubbornness in refusing to stand down when he had lost the
support of Tory MPs enabled Mrs Thatcher to seize the reins and set
off on her dizzy joyride through British •politics. With a little
modesty Heath could easily have secured the leadership for White . " PART ONE
law, Prior or some other leader more congenial to his own brand of
Toryism: Mrs Thatcher was not remotely a contender until he gave
'her the opening. Finally, by refusing to accept his defeat but appear
Scholarship Boy
ing instead to conduct a sour personal vendetta against his successor,
he made it easy for her to sideline him. Had he only played the part
of the loyal but worried elder statesman, he still had a sufficient fol
lowing in the party to have made it difficult for her to kick over the
traces as thoroughly as she did. Alternatively he could have provided
a focus of constructive opposition for the discarded 'wets'. But he
was too proud and solitary to co-operate with any faction. On the
contrary, by simply sounding off indiscriminately against all her
policies without exception, giving credit for nothing, he embar
rassed his old friends and frightened off younger supporters who
could not afford to jeopardise their careers by association with him.
As a result Mrs Thatcher positively thrived on his tirades. If, as
Oscar Wilde wrote, 'each man kills the thing he loves', Heath un
wittingly did more than anyone to sustain the thing he loathed.
For the past twenty years Heath has been a political Cassandra -
very largely right, but not believed. It is his own fault; but a tragedy,
too - certainly for himself and maybe for Britain. Over a long
lifetime he has been a politician of remarkable qualities; well in
tentioned, high minded, honourable, patriotic in the best sense and
in many respects far-sighted, but cursed with a sort of blight which
has turned to ashes practically everything he has sought to achieve.
He aimed high, promised much, but ultimately was denied the place
in history his ambition craved. His is the Shakespearean tragedy of a
nearly great man brought down by his own flaws.
xx