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Authors: Gillian Shephard
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what you put in, in terms of effort, presence and attention to detail. If Margaret Thatcher, at difficult moments, felt supported by Finchley, that is because Finchley knew that every detail of its collective and individual life mattered to her.
THREE
âTHERE WAS ALWAYS A LITTLE DANGER ABOUT HER, APPREHENSION OF A DAMNING PUT-DOWN OR MEMORABLE ERUPTION.â
M argaret Thatcherâs ferocious attachment to hard work, her high standards and stamina, her insistence on getting things right, had a flip side. She could be impossible to work with, given to tantrums, tears and shouting matches and lightning changes of mood. She was indeed, as John Major says, âa woman of contrasts who could behave with great kindness, yet who was equally capable of great intimidationâ.
Throughout her leadership, Margaret Thatcher was portrayed in the press as confident, battling, principled, unwavering, domineering, arguing, occasionally losing, more often winning. She was an extraordinarily divisive figure, and remains so to this day. Very few people are neutralabout her, and the mere mention of her name still arouses strong reactions, not only in Britain, but also abroad.
In opposition, and in her first parliamentary term as Prime Minister, however, there is plenty of evidence that she was privately much more hesitant than her manner indicated.
In
One of Us
, Hugo Young describes how
alongside the euphoria [of the success of the 1979 election] went anxiety⦠None of her colleagues had ever experienced a more assertive, more overbearing leader ⦠in part it was an act put on to convince herself and others that she really was the boss.
Those who were in a position to observe Margaret Thatcher at close quarters confirm this initial lack of confidence.
Matthew Parris, who worked in her private office in the early days of her leadership, and was later a Conservative MP and then a journalist, puts it thus:
History, having concluded that Margaret Thatcher was a tremendous, convinced, directed and unstoppable force, has all but forgotten the fragile self-confidence, the hurt, the panic, the changeability and the near despair that, I keep having to remind myself, I saw in the early days. (âA time, a place, Two entirely different storiesâ,
The Times
, 26 May 2012.)
This hesitancy was also noted by Michael Jopling, her Chief Whip from 1979 to 1983.
Although I did not actually hear her say it, I know that when she took over as Leader of the Opposition she did say that one problem was that all the brains were among the right wing of the Conservative Party. She also described Keith Joseph as her muse. It has surprised me that if that was her view then, she must have changed it before 1979, when she appointed a Cabinet with a strong left-of-centre flavour. As a result she failed to get Cabinet support in 1980 for the economic policy proposed by her and Chancellor Geoffrey Howe. So, in two shuffles in 1981 to restore the balance, she dropped Christopher Soames, Ian Gilmour, Norman St John Stevas and Mark Carlisle. But what surprised me was that her muse Keith Joseph never held any of the great offices of state, Treasury, Home Office or Foreign Office.
She almost fell into the same trap again in 1982 when she had another shuffle. At a very late stage when all was agreed, we pointed out to her that she was again poised to appoint a Cabinet which had a similar slant to the earlier one. As a result of this, changes were made to redress the balance. Among other changes, she brought in Lord Cockfield as Trade Secretary at the last minute.
Given that of all the members of a probable Cabinet after the 1979 election, only two, Keith Joseph and Norman St Stevas, had voted for her in the leadership election, it is hardly surprising that she was at first hesitant of making wholesale changes to her Cabinet. The fact was that the Conservatives were divided after the 1979 election. In away, she was there on sufferance, not least
THREE
âTHERE WAS ALWAYS A LITTLE DANGER ABOUT HER, APPREHENSION OF A DAMNING PUT-DOWN OR MEMORABLE ERUPTION.â
M argaret Thatcherâs ferocious attachment to hard work, her high standards and stamina, her insistence on getting things right, had a flip side. She could be impossible to work with, given to tantrums, tears and shouting matches and lightning changes of mood. She was indeed, as John Major says, âa woman of contrasts who could behave with great kindness, yet who was equally capable of great intimidationâ.
Throughout her leadership, Margaret Thatcher was portrayed in the press as confident, battling, principled, unwavering, domineering, arguing, occasionally losing, more often winning. She was an extraordinarily divisive figure, and remains so to this day. Very few people are neutralabout her, and the mere mention of her name still arouses strong reactions, not only in Britain, but also abroad.
In opposition, and in her first parliamentary term as Prime Minister, however, there is plenty of evidence that she was privately much more hesitant than her manner indicated.
In
One of Us
, Hugo Young describes how
alongside the euphoria [of the success of the 1979 election] went anxiety⦠None of her colleagues had ever experienced a more assertive, more overbearing leader ⦠in part it was an act put on to convince herself and others that she really was the boss.
Those who were in a position to observe Margaret Thatcher at close quarters confirm this initial lack of confidence.
Matthew Parris, who worked in her private office in the early days of her leadership, and was later a Conservative MP and then a journalist, puts it thus:
History, having concluded that Margaret Thatcher was a tremendous, convinced, directed and unstoppable force, has all but forgotten the fragile self-confidence, the hurt, the panic, the changeability and the near despair that, I keep having to remind myself, I saw in the early days. (âA time, a place, Two entirely different storiesâ,
The Times
, 26 May 2012.)
This hesitancy was also noted by Michael Jopling, her Chief Whip from 1979 to 1983.
Although I did not actually hear her say it, I know that when she took over as Leader of the Opposition she did say that one problem was that all the brains were among the right wing of the Conservative Party. She also described Keith Joseph as her muse. It has surprised me that if that was her view then, she must have changed it before 1979, when she appointed a Cabinet with a strong left-of-centre flavour. As a result she failed to get Cabinet support in 1980 for the economic policy proposed by her and Chancellor Geoffrey Howe. So, in two shuffles in 1981 to restore the balance, she dropped Christopher Soames, Ian Gilmour, Norman St John Stevas and Mark Carlisle. But what surprised me was that her muse Keith Joseph never held any of the great offices of state, Treasury, Home Office or Foreign Office.
She almost fell into the same trap again in 1982 when she had another shuffle. At a very late stage when all was agreed, we pointed out to her that she was again poised to appoint a Cabinet which had a similar slant to the earlier one. As a result of this, changes were made to redress the balance. Among other changes, she brought in Lord Cockfield as Trade Secretary at the last minute.
Given that of all the members of a probable Cabinet after the 1979 election, only two, Keith Joseph and Norman St Stevas, had voted for her in the leadership election, it is hardly surprising that she was at first hesitant of making wholesale changes to her Cabinet. The fact was that the Conservatives were divided after the 1979 election. In away, she was there on sufferance, not least
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