POLITICS

The old human error of confusing the message with the messenger

MATTHEW PARRIS

The world has now been informed by Lady Thatcher that Peter Lilley did not stand by her at the end, but the world should treat Lady Thatcher's recollection with caution. I understand that Mr Lilley is distressed that his former leader should remember his candour as disloyalty. He believes he remained a stalwart friend throughout and advised her candidly, sym- pathetically and in private. He is dismayed to see his behaviour cited, now, as evidence that he was personally abandoning her or her cause.

Perhaps by the time you read this he will have put his dismay on record. I would incline to Mr Lilley's version of events: the gloss Lady Thatcher places on the episode does not ring true. After all, we are examin- ing an interlude which came before anyone knew who the new leader was going to be, even if most suspected there would be a new leader. What ambition was therefore served by breaking ranks with her at this stage? The shrewdest observers, like Michael Portillo, will have remembered that the Tory party does not like disloyalty, though it cannot do without it. After one of its number has done the dirty work required, it is inclined to spurn him.

Mrs Thatcher was evidently doomed. But it was clear that after dispatching her the courtiers would grieve, miss her and reproach each other for what they had done; and that she would retain moral authority, perhaps even a renewed authori- ty. Knowing him somewhat, I have no doubt that Mr Portillo's best and natural instincts would have been to stick with Mrs Thatcher to the last, geeing her up and lay- ing the foundations for a continuing trust and friendship afterwards. Virtue and kind- liness alone would have dictated this course to him.

But if virtue and kindliness hadn't, ambi- tion would. It doesn't do to tell people they're done for. If Peter Lilley did give Margaret Thatcher a candid assessment of her chances then, far from showing back- sliding (as she has it) on his part, it showed a certain careless honesty. It indicates that he was giving too little thought to his own position, not too much.

He is not alone in feeling abused by her interpretation of history. Since the week- end, the newspapers have published lists, extracted from her memoirs, of her col- leagues at the time of her fall. Against each name we are offered her recollection of what they advised her, and her assessment of their loyalty. A cursory study of her list makes it very clear what one needed to do in order to be assessed as loyal: just tell her she was still a winner.

Never mind the facts. Never mind the arithmetic. Ignore everything you knew about what others were thinking and whis- pering. Just tell the old girl she was still the greatest. Tell her the battle was to the strong and the race to the swift and she was still the swiftest and strongest of them all. Pretend you couldn't see the leg-iron.

I remember once watching in horror as a minister of state fawned to her in the Mem- bers' Cafeteria in a manner which would have been embarrassing in a dog, let alone a Member of Parliament. I remember thinking, 'Crikey! How this fellow mis- judges my heroine! How she must be despising him for this!' He was in the Cabi- net within six months. He still is. The trait in her was strong: we like those who tell us what we wish to hear; we shoot the messen- ger who brings us bad news.

I never believed she would become like that, but she did, just like all the others. Why is it that, with all the evidence of his- tory at our disposal, and with any amount of personal anecdote each of us could sup- ply to back it up, that old human error confusing the message with the messenger — creeps ultimately into every successful career, undermining judgment and robbing us of candid friends?

John Major must have particular cause to remember the fault. Here's Bruce Ander- son, in The Making of the Prime Minister: In July 1985, Mrs Thatcher gave a dinner in No. 10 for the Whips. In the course of the meal, she asked what the backbenchers were saying about the economy. John Major, as Treasury Whip, informed her that the Gov- ernment's economic policy was widely misun- derstood, and widely unpopular. She retorted that this was nonsense, and spoke to John Major as if he disagreed with her economic policy. Mr Major tried to point out that he was not speaking for himself but merely try- ing to give an accurate account of the views of the Parliamentary Party .. . She persisted in treating him as if he was one of her Wet critics . . . The argument grew heated ...

Major was apparently furious at this. He told Penny Junor that when Bob Boscawen, who holds the Military Cross, came to his defence, Thatcher accused Boscawen of cowardice. But in the end she seems to have relented. At any rate, she promoted Mr Major not long afterwards. It seems that by 1985 the incipient madness was evi- dent but had not quite taken hold. Friends say, however, that the incident had a sear- ing effect on the young John Major.

But has he learned from it? Has he drawn lessons for himself? You might sup- pose from his latest Conference speech that he had. The Prime Minister went out of his way to invite colleagues to confide in him any misgivings they might have, but private- ly. He had a right, he told the Winter Gar- dens, to learn of Tory MPs' disagreements more directly than via the BBC.

That, however, is not quite the story one hears from friends on the front and back benches. By nature courteous, Mr Major is a long way from the wilder extremes of the latter-day Thatcher Court. He does not refuse to hear reports of dissent in the country or the party, or treat such reports as evidence of personal disloyalty in those who bring them. But he has already reached what was, for his predecessor, the first rung on her ladder to alienation: he can treat a rational argument, but one opposed to his own, as a personal affront. Those who come to him to raise a dissent- ing voice can be left with the feeling that they have angered him, and spoilt his opin- ion of them. And of course the reaction in the junior is the inevitable one: 'If enemy I be regarded, then enemy I be.'

That is the first rung. The next is to hear reports of others' dissent as though the mutiny were the bearer's own. It follows easily, for once it gets around that the chief bridles at dissent expressed on one's own behalf, human nature nudges us into reporting it instead as though it were the opinion of others. Chiefs have a way of sensing this and interpreting it accordingly. Thus when Chris Patten told Mrs Thatcher that there were many who did not care for her, she knew how to decode the remark. Her mistake was to decode Mr Lilley's report in the same way. But it was not meant in code.

Some who bring her successor reports of unease are using the code. Many are not. The Prime Minister would be wise to assume goodwill lest, falsely suspecting malice, he engender it,