within a short time revised the system of cold weather payments to make it a good deal more effective. That done, the weather improved, and the new system remained untested.
I enjoyed my two years at Social Security, and did not anticipate that they would soon come to an end. In early 1987, however, the Conservatives returned to the lead in the opinion polls, and all parties began to prepare themselves for a general election. After two successive election defeats Labour still looked unelectable, and we were generally confident of another win. As the election approached speculation grew, and I was tipped for all manner of jobs in the new Parliament.
I had a modest role in the preparations for the June election by helping the Treasury to ‘cost’ Labour’s social security policies. The bulk of this work was done by Andrew Tyrie, then Nigel Lawson’s special adviser, and after 1997 the Tory Member for Chichester. It was a brilliant success in undermining Labour’s claim to be able to afford their programme without massive tax increases.
When the election was called, Peter Brown, my constituency agent in Huntingdon, had prepared yet again for me to fight the seat as though it was a marginal. I was committed to a busy programme, including three speeches each evening at different villages, as well as a string of question-and-answer sessions with special-interest groups. This was our normal practice. We expected to win the election in Huntingdon, but we never took it for granted and left nothing to chance, working hard for the biggest possible majority.
Our plans were complicated when I was invited to join a number of Central Office press conferences during the campaign. As these took place early in the morning, I would drive to London after my evening speeches and return to the constituency mid-morning. It was exhausting, and sleep was at a premium. But it was exhilarating to see the campaign from the centre. I was at the morning conference a week before polling day on 4 June, ‘wobbly Thursday’, when Margaret – tired and in pain from a tooth infection – was snappy and irritable, and everyone walked on eggshells to avoid provoking an explosion.
It was evident from the underlying atmosphere at Central Office that morning that the relationship between Norman Tebbit, as Party Chairman, and David Young, the Secretary of State for Employment and a leading figure in planning the campaign, was one of mutual distrust. But our private rolling daily opinion poll never blinked, and the election was won comfortably. Division of the anti-Conservative forces gave Mrs Thatcher a reduced, but still substantial majority of 102, although she received only 42 per cent of the poll. It was a stunning third election victory for her.
At Huntingdon I won with a record majority of over twenty-seven thousand, and more than two-thirds of the vote. It was now one of the safest Tory seats in the country. Norma and I returned to Finings to celebrate and ponder the next five years. Neither of us would then have believed that when the party was to defend its majority at the next general election, it would be doing so with me as prime minister.
THE DAY AFTER the 1987 election came the startling news that Norman Tebbit was stepping down as party chairman. Although our campaign had been criticised as inept, and rumours abounded that Norman’s relationship with the Prime Minister had deteriorated, this was still a shock. We had just won an election – albeit against an unelectable opposition – and Norman was popular in the party for his robust Conservatism and for the courage with which he had returned to front-line politics after the dreadful injuries he and his wife Margaret had suffered in the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton. He and I were to have our differences in later years, but he was a loss to the government, and I was sorry to see him go. So, despite their reported disagreements, was the Prime Minister, who tried in vain to persuade him to stay.
I was asked to call on Margaret at Downing Street on the Saturday afternoon following the election. My days at Social Security were at an end. Another year, another job. But where next? A sideways move as a minister of state seemed unlikely, since a telephone call from Number 10 would have sufficed to tell me that. I considered the possibilities. I was sure that John Wakeham would be promoted to the Cabinet, leaving a vacancy as chief whip. John MacGregor, too, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was bound to be offered his own department. Either of those two vacancies seemed possible for me. As I drove to London, the lunchtime news listed the ministers believed to be leaving the Cabinet. It seemed the reshuffle was going to be a big one.
When I arrived at Number 10 I was shown into the small waiting room on the ground floor near the Cabinet Room. To my surprise the Transport Secretary John Moore was already waiting there, and within a few minutes we were joined by Norman Fowler, the Paymaster General Kenneth Clarke and John MacGregor. Then the Industry Secretary Paul Channon arrived.
One by one we were summoned to learn our fates. As John MacGregor preceded me, I guessed that I was to join the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. This proved to be right. When I was called in to see her the Prime Minister was warm and friendly. She spoke of the importance of the job, adding almost as an afterthought, ‘The Queen is expecting you at the Palace this afternoon so you can join the Privy Council.’ Although membership of the Privy Council is automatic upon joining the Cabinet it is a preferment of some significance. It is coveted more than any other recognition in the Commons, and I was delighted. As I left Number 10 with Norman Fowler (the new Employment Secretary) for the Privy Council the skies opened and the rain pelted down as we huddled under an umbrella. But nothing could have dampened our spirits that day, and the meeting of the Privy Council was a very jolly affair.
Later I learned that I had been right in my guesses about the two jobs that might have been offered to me. The Prime Minister’s original intention, backed by William Whitelaw, was for me to become chief whip; but Nigel Lawson asked for me as chief secretary, and after a tussle he gained Willie’s support and had his way. This meant that I would now join the Cabinet, whereas the chief whip attends Cabinet but is not a member of it.
It is tempting to reflect on how events might have turned out if I had become chief whip. An appointment to that post usually lasts for a whole Parliament. If that had been so in my case, I might never have been foreign secretary, chancellor or prime minister. Instead I would have been chief whip during Margaret’s leadership contest against Michael Heseltine in 1990. I have often wondered if I would have been able to obtain for her the few extra votes that would have enabled her to win on the first ballot. She would then have remained prime minister until the next general election, when the electorate as a whole would have had the chance to judge the government. I believe we would probably have lost that election – but it would have been a more fitting end for a long-serving prime minister than removal by her own colleagues. Moreover, it would never have given rise to the bitterness that has scarred the Conservative Party ever since. Nor would Europe have become such a divisive issue.
But all that lay far ahead, and I was pleased at the job I had been given. The Treasury is the most powerful department in the government, since it not only determines macro-economic policy but controls the purse strings. Macro-economic policy was the prerogative of the Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, but public spending was to be my responsibility as chief secretary.
The chief secretary has one of the lowest profiles of any Cabinet minister, but this is deceptive. For he is the most influential minister in determining the division of the total of public spending – who gets what. This gives him the power, if he wishes, to facilitate new policies or to hold them back. Thus, although the most junior member of the Cabinet, the chief secretary has an authority far greater than the casual observer ever realises. As prime minister I was always very careful who I appointed to the role, and watched very carefully what they did with it.
The Treasury had many of the best officials in Whitehall. My Private Secretary, which in Whitehall parlance means the head of my Private Office, was Jill Rutter, a Treasury high-flyer. She
