G.O.W.
of the century
Nicholas Henderson
THATCHER by Kenneth Harris
Weidenfeld, £12.95, pp. 248
Much has been written about the phenomenon of Mrs Thatcher; and she has not been backward in promoting herself a trait no doubt developed in those early years behind the shop-counter in Grant- ham, a time which Kenneth Harris regards as particularly formative because of the influence of her father, a lay Methodist preacher who taught her to be controlled and not to follow the crowd.
According to Harris, the reasons for her success have lain in her unique and evident will-power Cher manifest ability to do what she said she would'); in her uncompromis- ing, messianic way of thinking, demanding from those around her conviction rather than consensus, a quality which has coined her an 'ism' all her own; and in her determination, unlike that of her predeces- sors, to reduce the role of government and trade unions in the economic life of the country.
Of course she had luck to get there at all. In the only Cabinet post she had held before becoming Prime Minister — that of Minister of Education under Heath — she was described by the Sun in a headline as The Most Unpopular Woman in Britain. When she stood for the leadership she was best known for having abolished free milk in schools. She was only the third choice for the Tory leadership of Airey Neave who later became her campaign manager. She would not, surely, have been chosen had Heath behaved differently in 1974, had Keith Joseph not felt that the storm created by his speech, encouraging more contraception, ruled him out, and had the leaders of the Conservative Party, particul- arly Whitelaw, not been inhibited by tradi- tional loyalty from standing against Heath in the first ballot for the leadership in 1975.
Mrs Thatcher does not appear to have had such inhibitions, and it is intriguing to ask whether this was because she was not in thrall to the old-boy spirit that had for long permeated the higher reaches of the Tory Party; and indeed one of the most interesting questions is whether being a woman has helped or hindered her political progress. According to Francis Pym, in The Politics of Government, The fact that she was a woman never came into it'. James Prior in his autobiography takes a different line, writing, 'Margaret has al- ways sought to exploit the fact that she is a woman amongst a large number of men . . . a few tears, the odd tantrum, then a bit of coquetry. . . '. Harris is much more categorical: 'Her greatest advantage was that she was a woman'. He continues with an analogy that is original to me: 'Just as left-handed boxers have an edge because they fight more right-handed boxers than left-handed ones, women politicians have more experience of dealing with men politicians than the men have of dealing with women'. The question that springs to this reviewer's mind is whether there is not some innate chivalry in men, of which they, to be sure, are particularly aware, that affords women a certain domain of invulnerability from which they can launch their challenges.
Unlike previous Prime Ministers she has not governed by normal Cabinet means. She prefers groups, and, to secure imple- mentation of her economic policy in the early days, she managed to pack the E Committee with monetarist votaries. The wets were beaten by exclusion, and have continued to be so. Only four of the original 24 members of her Cabinet have survived. If there has been no Night of the Long Knives A la Macmillan, neither has there been assured sunlight for those in her orbit. Nor does she rely on the traditional forces of Conservative support — the landlords, retired officers, the City, White's. She has indeed created a new constituency of nation-wide voters: the new house and share owners. These form the bedrock upon which her ballot is founded. True, the Opposition has been pathetic; but I do not think that this is the cause of her success any more than it was her opposition that brought down Cal- laghan. What is striking is that until now she has not been undermined from within.
That she has traversed appalling as well as triumphant times is described by Harris in almost fairytale terms; and given her unchallenged present position it is as well to be reminded of the travail she had to contend with in her first two years at No. 10. Harris regards 1981 as the watershed year of her three successive governments. Despite a continued recession, high unem- ployment, numerous bankruptcies, a dis- mal rating in the polls, the condemnation of 364 economists, widespread inner city riots, strong opposition within her own Cabinet, she stuck to her anti-inflation strategy. By early 1982 the economic sky was beginning to brighten; but it was the Falklands War that was, I think, the decisive moment, making everyone here and abroad aware of her calibre.
Where the book is weakest is on foreign policy, particularly on Mrs Thatcher's atti- tude to Europe. We are told about Bri- tain's budgetary rows and there is a sniff at Foreign Office concern over her trampling on diplomatic niceties. But Harris does not analyse Mrs Thatcher's failure to under- stand why the concept of a united Europe is so important to our continental partners. On the face of it there is no reason why her upbringing should make her cool towards the idea of closer links with our European neighbours, any more than Heath's makes him warm towards it. Perhaps that is a flaw in her that he finds difficult to explain, given the fact that she is such a realist.
In the first chapter of his book Harris claims that Mrs Thatcher is 'the most outstanding peace time Prime Minister of the century'. I doubt whether many of those who dislike her personality or her politics would disagree with this any more than they would with the more specific assertion in his last chapter that 'only Gladstone, perhaps, has had such a pro- found personal effect on government and politics, on shaping society according to a vision'.
Excellent in narrative, analysis and interpretation, this account explains, bet- ter than any other I know, the phe- nomenon of Mrs Thatcher.
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