The strange case of Mr Heath's lie
Patrick Cosgrave
A couple of weeks ago, discussing the various rifts which currently exist within the Conservative Party, I insisted that there was a serious plot by Mr Heath and his friends designed, if it could not ensure his triumph, to make certain of Mrs Thatcher's discomfiture. In part, I argued, the difference between the two camps arose from a genuine difference over policy. In major part, however — as it seemed to me — it arose from the reaction of certain curdled personalities — notable among them Mr Heath's — to Mrs Thatcher's triumph in the leadership election last February. A few days after writing that column I met casually a young Tory backbencher who insisted that there was no Tory plot against Mrs Thatcher — or, at least, none of which he was a part. I begged to differ, and I think I have been proven right by what Dr Watson might have called the strange case of Mr Heath's lie.
Last week Mr George ffitch wrote, in the Daily Express, that Mr Heath had never been offered a Shadow Cabinet job by Mrs Thatcher. He even had a quotation from Mr Heath supporting this argument, though — with a lack of professionalism of which I had never suspected him — Mr ffitch failed to check his story with Mrs Thatcher, or her private office. Subsequently Mr George Hutchinson, in the Times, provided quotes from both sides — Mr Heath insisting that he had not been offered a job; and Mrs Thatcher insisting that he had. And the matter was further discussed in last Sunday's newspapers.
Let me say at once what I believe to be the truth of the matter. Mrs Thatcher, having become leader of the party against most expectations moved immediately, as most leaders of the Tory Party are inclined to do, to preserve the unity of the party. She visited her beaten opponent at his house in Wilton Street, and offered him a Shadow Cabinet job, which he instantly and abruptly refused. After a certain amount of desultory conversation she departed, accompanied by Sir Timothy Kitson —Mr Heath's embarrassed, but undeniably courteous PPS — to a small motor car driven by her friend, Miss Joan Hall. (I should explain that Mr Heath, though he had departed the leadership after his defeat on the first ballot, took some time to relinquish the leader's chauffeur driven car.)
From the time of his defeat Mr Heath has scrupulously avoided even the most superficial profession of loyalty to Mrs Thatcher. His behaviour in this respect contrasts most sharply with that of Sr Alec Douglas-Home who, Mr Heath's friends having destroyed him, nonetheless served loyally the new leader. However, Mr Heath's inability to say a good word about Mrs Thatcher subsequently became a trifle embarrassing to his friends. In particular, his inability to respond with even a momentary graciousness to a compliment paid to him by her in the House of Commons caused unease among those of his friends who still felt, however vaguely, that good manners were a good thing. Thus was born the idea that Mr Heath could justify his churlishness to Mrs Thatcher by suggesting, or lying, to the effect that she had been churlish to him first. And the Daily Express — for reasons they will find hard to justify — went along with that silly idea.
My thesis explained, let us look at this new theory of Mrs Thatcher's churlishness to Mr Heath in the light of reports at the time.
Mr Heath, it will be remembered, issued a statement after his defeat on first ballot, to the effect that it was his desire to spend some time on the backbenches. On February 12 Mrs Thatcher visited him, and; on February 13 her private office's statement was reported. The Times wrote that an announcement said, "Mr Heath indicated that he wished to adhere to his intention, already announced, of serving in Parliament on the backbenches." That report was ascribed to the political editor of the Times, Mr David Wood, and to his deputy, Mr George Clark. In my view, neither Mr Wood nor Mr Clark would have produced so unequivocal a statement unless they were satisfied that it accorded with Mr Heath's judgement.
An equally senior correspondent, Mr H. B. Boyne of the Daily Telegraph, described matters thus: "The formal announcement said Mrs Thatcher had asked Mr Heath to join the Shadow Cabinet 'which she will shortly be forming'. . But Mr Heath 'indicated that he wished to adhere to his intention, already announced, of serving in Parliament on the back benches.'
Mr Wood and Mr Clark and Mr Boyne thus — in spite of all their experience and skill — failed — according to Mr Heath and Mr ffitch — to realise that Mr Heath had not been asked. So did the Financial Times, in the person of its lobby editor, Mr John Bourne, who wrote: "Mrs Thatcher also asked Mr Edward Heath, who resigned as leader after she defeated him on the first ballot a week ago, to join the 'shadow' Cabinet which she will shortly be forming. Her statement concluded: 'However, Mr Heath indicated that he wished to adhere to his intention of serving in Parliament on the backbenches.'"
Dear me, if Mr Heath was telling the truth to Mr ffitch, a rather unexpected number of senior political correspondents appear to have got things very badly wrong. Even in an editorially unsympathetic paper — the Guardian — one of the most respected of political correspondents, Mr Ian Aitken, editorialised a trifle: "A statement issued by Mrs Thatcher after the visit to Wilton Street made it clear that she had fulfilled her pledge to invite Mr Heath to serve in her Shadow Cabinet; but that Mr Heath had reiterated his desire to go back to the obscurity of the backbenches for the time being."
And none of these remarks called forth a contradiction from Mr Heath. Indeed, Mr David Coss of the Daily Mail junior, certainly to the gentlemen already quoted, but accurate, nonetheless — said on February 13: "She called on him at his Wilton Street home and offered him a Shadow Cabinet post as she promised she would. To no one's surprise, Mr Heath declined. His aides claimed it would not be fair to the new leader for him to do anything else."
All this, I must remind the patient reader, was reported in the papers the day after it happened. Further, Mrs Thatcher's undertaking to offer Mr Heath a Shadow Cabinet post had been broadcast on radio and TV immediately he had withdrawn from the leadership contest. There was no room whatever for misunderstanding. And if there had been any misunderstanding those 'aides' of Mr Coss's report could have corrected it immediately, with a swift telephone call to one, some, all, or any of the political correspondents mentioned above. On the evidence, therefore, three conclusions can be reached. First, Mr Heath was offered a Shadow Cabinet post by Mrs Thatcher. Second, he refused that offer, as is his habit, churlishly. Third, a hitherto respected reporter, Mr ffitch, ignoring all the earlier and published evidence, printed Mr Heath's statement that he had not been offered a job, and did so without checking his story with Mrs Thatcher. Further, it may be noted that the group of newspapers for which Mr ffitch works — the Beaverbrook group — has gone out of its way to publicise Mr Heath favourably, even to the extent of carrying an article by Mr Heath deploring the lack of national leadership, failing to advocate anything that could be called a policy, and failing also to so much as mention Mrs Thatcher.
I repeat: if Mrs Thatcher's account of the meeting at Wilton Street had been in any way inaccurate, the time to say so was last February; and it could then have been said either overtly or covertly. That the matter is unscrupulously and casually raised now can only confirm what I said a fortnight ago: there are Conservatives (so-called) who are determined, at whatever cost to their party, to decry and damage Mrs Thatcher; that such people are prepared to perform this attack on the leader of the party even at the expense of the party's own fortunes; that they are, broadly, those — as Sir Keith Joseph observed on The World this Weekend last Sunday — who have no policy recognisably Conservative to offer the public and who are determined to avoid any "serious examination of what went wrong during the life of the last "Conservative" government. So far have our standards of public life and journalistic criticism declined that failures like Mr Heath, and the nonentities who support him, can count on as allies journalists of declining professional capacity, and newspapers of little scruple. Mr Heath, clearly, can rely on publicity for his terminological inexactitudes.
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