Does Mr Heath really matter?

John Grigg

'If you are elected, Mrs Thatcher, will you ask Mr Heath to join your government?' If the Tories win, Mr Heath, will you be prepared to serve under Mrs Thatcher?' Nothing is more certain than that these questions will be pressed upon the two peo ple concerned as soon as Mr Callaghan decides to call an election; and it is worth considering how much, or how little, their answers may affect the outcome.

What exactly is Mr Heath's position? He iS a former prime minister who, for that and Other reasons, remains a news-worthy figure. Like Mrs Thatcher, he has star quality, and curiously enough it has been enhanced rather than diminished by his loss of the Tory leadership. When he speaks he draws very large audiences, despite the reluctance of people nowadays to attend political meetings, and despite his own limitations as a speaker. It is hard to doubt that he has a quite substantial, though unquantifiable, following in the country.

He has made it clear that he has no intention of withdrawing from British politics, and he has kept broadly on side as a Tory

tvIP, though with a poor and at time deviant voting record. During the general election he is sure to campaign strongly for the party,

as he has done in by-elections. But on past and present form it is not to be expected that

he will go out of his way to proclaim Mrs Thatcher's virtues. On the contrary, it seems likely that he will continue to behave as though he, rather than she, were the true Party leader.

Should Mrs Thatcher make a great effort to change his attitude, or should she leave things more or less as they are, trusting to herself and circumstances to bring her victory? Many of her close advisers will be urging her to take the second course, and there are historical precedents to suggest that an eminent but aloof and troublesome colleague can safely be ignored. The case of Lord Rosebery early in the century may appear to support the view, and so may that of Enoch Powell in 1970. But are these two analogies quite as apt as they seem?

Rosebery, like Mr Heath, was a former prime minister with a personal following which to some extent cut across party lines. In his speeches he usually made a point of distancing himself from his success cor as Liberal leader, Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, and in November 1905 —when the Tory government of Arthur Balfour was tottering, and it was obvious that a general election could not be much longer delayed — he did so more emphatically than ever, in a speech at Bodmin. Balfour was encouraged by this to resign, calculating that the Liberals would be so damaged by disunity at the top that they might well lose the ensuing election, even if they managed to form a government. In fact, Rosebery's intervention merely isolated him and united the Liberal rank-and-file behind CampbellBannerman, who had comparatively little difficulty in forming a government and then went on to win one of the most sweeping electoral triumphs in British history.

It would, however, be misleading to equate Mr Heath with Rosebery. For one thing, he is a very different sort of man — toughfibred and power-orientated, whereas Rosebery was neurotic and never quite sure whether he wanted to be in or out. Moreover, Rosebery was not a member of the House of Commons, which was a seri ous disadvantage even in Edwardian times. Above all, perhaps, his record as prime minister had been totally disastrous, whereas only somebody blinded by prejudice or malice could so describe Mr Heath's.

Apart from the personal differences, circumstances favoured the Liberals in 1905 even more than they favour the Tories now.

In 1905 the Tories had been in power for ten years, during which they had landed the country in a colonial war expensive in money, life and credit. They were split more profoundly, by Joseph Chamberlain's Tariff Reform campaign, than Labour is split today by its left-wing ideologues; and the Tariff Reform challenge put the Liberals in the convenient role of defenders of the

status quo, whereas the Tories now are thought to be challenging the economic

consensus. Finally, the Tories in 1905 were led by a man who was an extremely bad party leader, whatever his merits as prime minister, whereas Mr Callaghan looks rather good in both capacities.

The case of Enoch Powell in 1970 may appear to be more relevant to the present situation, because it is so much more recent. And it certainly does have some bearing. Mr Powell was not an ex-prime minister, but he had a much larger popular following than Rosebery — also cutting across party lines — and he was an MP, not a peer. In quantity, moreover, if not in quality, the support for him was more impressive than Mr Heath's support today. Also, he was receiving greater attention from the media; indeed, his speeches were more fully quoted than those of any other politician, government or opposition.

Mr Heath, like Campbell-Bannerman in 1905 and Mrs Thatcher now, had to overcome the handicap of being an opposition leader who had not yet held the premiership. Yet he won the election not only without having to say that he would offer Mr Powell a post, but despite pledging himself explicitly not to offer him one. Would it be sensible to conclude from this that Mrs Thatcher need not bother about coming to terms with Mr Heath before the next election?

Any such conclusion would be very rash, because the same practical arguments that can be used to justify Mr Heath's exclusion of Mr Powell point to the necessity, or at any rate the desirability, of a ThatcherHeath accord in present circumstances. Mr Heath, like Mrs Thatcher now, had a generally hard-line, doctrinaire image as leader of the opposition. He risked antagonising the centre more than it is prudent for any would-be British prime minister to do. But by setting his face like flint against Mr Powell he went far towards reassuring the centre, and Mrs Thatcher would achieve the same result if she were now to be reconciled with Mr Heath.

Granted that it would be in the best interests of the Tory Party for the two of them to reach an accommodation, how is it to be done? The first point to stress is that the initiative lies with Mrs Thatcher. She is the person in possession, and unless she can bring herself to go further than she has yet gone to meet Mr Heath, there is no hope of ending the estrangement.

The most useful gesture that she could make would be to pass the word round that the record of the Heath government must, in principle, be ardently defended, and to set an example by doing so herself. It is the height of folly for a party to be apologetic about its own record or, worse still, to attack it, as many of Mrs Thatcher's intimates have done, Her own recent remarks about immigration on Granada TV incensed Mr Heath, not only because he thought them unrealistic and wrong, but also because they seemed, yet again, to imply that his government had failed. (But it would have been better for him to refrain from comment on the issue: silence would have been the most telling eloquence.)

Tory policy for the future, so far as it exists in documentary form, has received Mr Heath's blessing. Yet somehow Mrs Thatcher, Sir Keith Joseph and others have managed to give the impression that there is a gulf between his views and theirs. They have not said it, but they have allowed the world to believe that they feel it. In fact there is a gulf, but it is more personal than ideological, and for the party's sake — not to mention the country's — it ought to be bridged.

As for the question that will be put to Mrs Thatcher when the election comes, it is surely most important that she should reply to it: 'Yes, of course I will ask Mr Heath to join my government. He is one of the outstanding men of our time — brave, farsighted and respected throughout the world. His great talents must on no account be wasted'. And it is equally important that Mr Heath should reply to the question that will be put to him: 'Yes, I hope to be able to serve if invited.'