rs Thatcher's prospects
atrick Cosgrave
It hardly seems worthwhile writing the usual piece about the reorganisation of the Shadow Cabinet, since the present set-up cannot enjoy a very long life and since, moreover, the Conservative Party is virtually leaderless in the House of Commons at the moment, by virtue of the refusal of its most unsuccessful and unlikeable leader this century to bow to the rnaniest wishes of his peers, and depart for Broadtairs or wherever with an odd shred or two of dignity. I have been accused before of using excessingly violent language about this morbidly pathetic creature, so I will merely content myself now with observing that Mr James Margach of the Sunday Times, one of the most acute observers of politics as he is one of the mildest mannered and most amiable of men, has just commented on the behaviour of the pseudo-leader of the Opposition by saying that the longer he hangs on the more likely it is that he will be carried screaming from his perch."
More to the point is that Mrs Margaret Thatcher is now to join Mr Robert Carr in the Opposition front-bench Treasury team. It is a typically botched solution. Mr Carr, amiable and good man that he is, and blessed with abilities in various fields, was never anything remotely approaching even a mild success as an opponent of Mr Healey. Mrs Thatcher, who I once said, accurately, had the best mind in the last Conservative Cabinet, has been anxious for the post of Shadow Chancellor for a long time and should, for she has earned it, have been given undivided responsibility. For one thing, she has a ruthlessness in disputation which is matched by nobody in her party, and is almost certainly the only Conservative who could give Mr Healey his come-uppance. ,(It ought to be remembered, incidentally, that even Mr Powell failed to achieve that end, when he opposed Mr Healey as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.) It is said, probably with accuracy, that Mr Carr was reluctant to give up his position to Mrs Thatcher, since they differ profoundly about economic policy. Indeed they do, and that makes the Tory posture even more ridiculous.
However, the central fact is that Mrs Thatcher has at last arrived where she deserves to be, at the centre of Tory economic policy formulation. She will certainly be Chancellor in a future Tory government, and the moment seems right to attempt some assessment of her, while leaving aside all that boring drivel about a woman getting so far in politics.
Mrs Thatcher was ill-served by having to spend so much time in the Department of Education and Science. From the outset, and as a result of one or two quite unimportant decisions, she was under severe pressure from the educational (if that is the right word) establishment, and so was never strong enough, or well-supported enough, decisively to alter the direction of British educational philosophy in a way that may well be possible for her disciple and likely successor, Mr Norman St John-Stevas, She ended her time at Curzon Street, therefore, as a politician whose strong convictions that quality was preferable to equality, and that parents should have more power than educational bureaucrats — both admirable sentiments, and Conservative to boot — were unweakened, although she had never enjoyed the opportunity to put them fully into practice. There was another, and more personal thing. So unwontedly savage, unfair and vitriolic were the attacks made on Mrs Thatcher from 1970 onwards — attacks alike personal and uninhibited — that a certain defensiveness in her nature had been allowed to come to the top: possessed as she is of a remarkably retentive memory, a quick logical intelligence, and the capacity to freeze a critic, she covered her wounds with an aggression that did not always serve her purpose; and she did not always seem to grasp that she was damaging herself thereby.
A difficulty in the past has been not just that she has been overly defensive, but that she has been too well-disciplined. So effective has been the training she has given herself — in the various subjects she has taken up, and in her manner and deportment as well — that it is difficult for her to relax. When a difficult four years in a hot spot ministry had taught her to be wary of all critics, and even of some friends, she increasingly used her discipline to protect herself, and the barbs of her intelligence and wit to strike at her enemies.
It is hard to know precisely what happened immediately after the Tory defeat this February which made this very self-contained and armoured woman, whose ability few doubted, but whose personality few were easy with, into somebody who could be thought of quite seriously as a candidate for the leadership of her party. Getting away from the Education portfolio without having to give up her interest in education was certainly a factor. The relaxation of inhibition which opposition involves was certainly another: as her whole career shows, Mrs Thatcher learns very quickly and puts to excellent use every opportunity to think about herself and her philosophy. On general questions of economic policy — on the lack of fidelity on the part of the Heath government to its 1970 manifesto, for example, or on the idea of floating exchange rates — she was frequently the only defender of the old policies, and of daring and imagination, in the Heath Cabinet, protected by her sex from the danger of running afoul of Mr Heath's vengeance. (There was one moment when he was tempted to dismiss her, but feared to get rid of the statutory woman.) After February the position of all who thought like her was strengthened, and she seemed able to become both more wide-ranging and more positive.
She has, of course, enemies in plenty within her own party. Another prominent Tory lady, and not one ot the type to be motivated by simple jealousy, once virtually spat when I mentioned my regard for Mrs Thatcher. "A dreadful woman," she snapped, "wholly without heart." An able male Tory backbencher, certainly no opponent of the advancement of woman, snarled at the mention of her as a possible leader, "irredeemably lower middle class. She has that kind of constricted and suburban mind." Neither of these critics, I should say, ever worked closely with her: those who have, if they are able, generally have a very different view, and combine admiration with affection. On the face of their public reputations Mrs Thatcher and Mr St John-Stevas made an unlikely combination, yet their mutual regard and liking were marked. He, managed, too, using those ingrained traits ol deep humour and irony which are so charaC' teristic of him, to bring the Secretary of States flashing humour into play in public, much to the benefit of Mrs Thatcher's reputation. Yet there have been things about her record — museum charges are a particular example which fortify the charges of insensitivity an coldness made against her. It should be observed in relation to such matters that, on assuming office, Mrs Thatcher probably hal the weakest ministerial team in the whole 0 the 1970 government working in her suPP011„' and the necessity of acting right across the board of the Department's responsibility encouraged her tendency to grim embattlement and the defensiveness I have mentioned' It was not until Mr St John-Stevas's arrival that any relaxation was possible. _ However, for the foreseeable future Mrs, Thatcher's political career will lie in the field 0, national economic policy. It is here, I think' that a particular strength will become aPPar' ent. All Chancellors in recent years have been particularly lacking in philosophical depth,' Even Mr Jenkins, who was the one most notee! for having some kind of general political attitude that might be called — by t.II„,e Observer, say — a philosophy, in no wise carried it over into his business at the Treasury• Mrs Thatcher has more than is normallY required of a Chancellor in technical expertise' and a brain capable of assimilating more technical information more quickly than all.Y recent occupant of an econonic post either in opposition or in government. But she has also a very distinct, clear, and fiercely held To ,q philosophy, which bears heavily on te' administration of the national economy. It is free-enterprise, truly opportunity-based, trulY self-reliant philosophy, and she has never; shown any sign of abandoning it in the face 0 circumstances as have the majority of colleagues. It is belief, to which will be adde skill, that makes her a most formidable Opposition Treasury spokesman. It is far too early yet to say whether she 11° the higher powers which the leader of a Pal ought to possess (though the present leader 0 her party does not, of course, possess thern). Here, her sex has been a handicap, for a possessed ofof her intelligence and temperamen would have risen farther faster, or would have wanted to know the reason why. Sensibly, she has eschewed any immediate ambition for the highest post, preferring to put her ',weight' influence and ability behind Sir Keith Joseph, with whom she agrees on so many matters. But she is still a young woman in terms of the • leadership stakes; she has herself said that it is desirable for a leader to have held one of the major offices of state in government, and she looks well set to do that long before the tin comes for the Tories to hold an election 'I' which she would be a candidate. All herf faculties of discipline and capacity to learn, °r intelligence, memory and skill, will serve he well in the years now begun of preparation.
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