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Part VIII:

♠ Michael Mates, Where There’s a Will, (Hamish Hamilton, 1995):

"All through the Spring and early Summer of '85, Mrs. Thatcher's goon squad engaged in black glove operations against Michael (Heseltine) over Westland. A thoroughly Thatcherite rag would suddenly post a bit of dark gossip about Michael, and then two weeks later another rag would post another and reference the earlier piece of gossip thereby giving it a soft confirm. Therefore when my secretary told me Michael (Heseltine) was on the line on the last day of Parliament before summer break, 26 July, 1985, I naturally assumed he had yet another tale of treachery. Before a word of greeting was out of my throat, Michael boomed, 'Nigel is out. Resigned.' I was struck dumb. Feebly I tried to figure out which Nigel had resigned, ignoring the most painfully obvious one. Perhaps sensing my confusion or driven by a nervous energy compelling him to speak about this extraordinary event, Michael spelled it out, 'Lawson has quit over ERM!' I sat down."


♤ Nigel Lawson, The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical, (Bantam Press, 1990):

"There can be only one Chancellor in Her Majesty's Government, and he or she must have suzerainty over the Treasury. The Prime Minister's so-called historic role as the First Lord of the Treasury is a myth of revisionist political history. No Chancellor of the Exchequer should have to submit to the indignity of being called 'Second Lord of the Treasury.' The Chancellor is the Treasury."


★ Alastair John Campbell, The Claret Revolution, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993):

"Sometime in 1985, Mr. Lawson came to the view that Britain should join the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System (EMS). He asked for a meeting with Mrs. Thatcher to persuade her to see his point of view. She called a select ministerial meeting on the very last day of Parliament before summer break - 26 July, 1985. Mrs. Thatcher's chosen champions to help her nip Mr. Lawson's budding Europhilia in the bud were: Geoffrey Howe (Home Office), Norman Tebbit (Industry), the recently politically rehabilitated Cecil Parkinson (Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster), John Wakeham (Chief Whip), Willie Whitelaw (Deputy Prime Minister) and Alan Clark (Wales). Mr. Lawson presented his case for joining the ERM. To the great shock of Mrs. Thatcher, Lawson's argument swayed Mr. Howe, Mr. Tebbit, Mr. Wakeham and even the fanatically loyal Lord Whitelaw. The only ones to argue against was the atavistically anti-European Mr. Clark and eager to please court favourite Mr. Parkinson. Faced with a revolt of her most inner circle, The Iron Lady then declared, 'I disagree. If you join the EMS, you will have to do so without me'." She then gathered her things and stormed out, leaving all stunned. Before a shaken Mr. Lawson could leave the room, Mr. Clark launched into a bitter harangue of him for daring to attack 'The Lady at such a time as this.' He went on in this vein until Mr. Parkinson intervened, but by this point the damage was clearly done. Mr. Lawson told all assembled he saw no point in carrying on and announced his resignation. Mr. Howe, Mr. Tebbit and Lord Whitelaw begged him to reconsider, but their efforts to cajole and lift the spirits of Mr. Lawson were undone by the torrent of abuse heaped upon him by Mr. Clark until Mr. Tebbit was alleged to have physically expelled Mr. Clark from the room. In the ensuing fracas, Mr. Lawson left. He would not be dissuaded."


♣ Bill Rodgers, Call Me What You Will, (Politico's, 2000):

"Nigel Lawson's resignation caught us off guard to such an extent David (Owen), Shirley (Williams), Roy (Jenkins) and I could not formulate a coherent response to the news for over two hours."


♦ David Steel, Against Goliath: The David Steel Story, (Penguin Books, 1989):

"When I was first told, I was not sure if I could believe it. I asked for a confirmation, twice."


♥ Bryan Gould, Hard Labour, (Penguin Books, 1989):

"None of us expected the Lawson resignation and we had no idea what to make of it, or how to use it."


♤ Alan Clark, Diaries: (Volume 1, In Power) 1983-1985, (HarperCollins, 1986):

"27 July, 1985. In a beastly mood. Azu (cena Ozols) is out of town. Coven in South Africa. Reduced to shagging a street walker to buoy my spirits. Have her sing carols to me. Beastly.

The Lady calls. It begins pleasantly enough. Fat Bastard's resignation means there is a vacancy at the Treasury. Tom King will take his spot. She thinks little Norman Lamont might be good at Energy. Then hints Norman the Lunatic (Tebbit) may be overburdened at Industry and it might be good to once again combine Trade and Industry under a single minister: John Moore. I bite my tongue, awaiting my fate. She then mentions how much she appreciated my loyalty and asks me to find a suitable replacement for the departing little Norman Lamont at Treasury. It takes my brainbox fifteen seconds longer than it should to realize what she just said. She wants me to recommend someone to be the second man at the Treasury. I may not be kingmaker, but can confer a knighthood. My erection threatens to destroy my pants. I say I will draw up a list. She thanks me and suggests I look over young John Major and see if he might be a good fit. I say I will.

There is nothing I would not do for this woman. Nothing."


♤ Bernard Ingham, Kill the Messenger, (HarperCollins, 1994):

"Mrs. Thatcher made several attempts at reconciliation with her suddenly recalcitrant former Chancellor, but Mr. Lawson would not listen to reason. There was nothing more she could have done."


♤ Nigel Lawson, The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical, (Bantam Press, 1990):

"I asked the Speaker to be allowed to explain my reason for resignation during the course of the debate on the first day after Summer Recess - Monday, 21 October, 1985. He acquiesced, but then suggested rather than be part of the debate I instead read the reasons for my resignation as 'a personal statement' at the start of business after questions. I met his request."


☆ John Bercow, Thatcher, Thatcherism, and Thatcherites, (Faber, 1998).

"The Speaker gave powerful, if not wholly impartial, advice to Mr. Lawson. Had Mr. Lawson made his resignation speech during the debate, he would have been subject to the rules of the debate and been more than likely heckled by Mrs. Thatcher's supporters. As the Speaker reminded the House before its start, by tradition, personal statements may not be interrupted. Therefore Mr. Lawson rose to his feet and was heard to the maximum effect with the House in still silence."


♣ Chris Patten, Roamer, (HarperCollins, 1995):

"Nigel Lawson was a Thatcherite of impeccable credentials. His speech was therefore not an attack on the policies of Mrs. Thatcher's government, for they were his policies as well, it was an attack on her implementation of the policies and, more to the point, it was an attack on her. It was personal and brutal, but more than a bit meandering."


♥ Denis Healey, Silly Billies, (Penguin Books, 1990):

"It was not an elegant speech. It was a Lawson speech. Smart, tough and self-centered."


♧ Mike Thomas, Separate Ways, (Duckworth, 2000):

"Dr. David Owen pointed out prior to the speech that nothing, short of an economic disaster or losing a war, is quite damaging to a Prime Minister as a rift with his (or her) Chancellor. This was not just a rift, but a declaration of a civil war. However, as in most civil wars, the first battle had no clear winner."


❥ Peter Shore, Leading the Left, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993):

"As of the writing of this book, I have been in Parliament for nearly thirty years. During that time I have witnessed some of the best and worst speeches ever uttered in the House. Lawson's does not rank in the top ten, nor the bottom, but it made for a fine spectacle."


♣ Roy Jenkins, Centre Ground, (Harper Collins, 1991):

"Watching Mr. Lawson's speech I was reminded of an oft quoted jibe about the 5'4" Leopold Amery. It was said of Mr. Amery, he would have been Prime Minister had he been half a head taller and his speeches half an hour shorter. The jury is still out on whether Mr. Lawson can become Prime Minister, but I daresay his speech would have been more effective had it been two hours shorter and a hundred percent less self-obsessed. By itself I did not think it amounted to much, nor did it shatter the Thatcher government, though it showed a most precarious interstice in its fundament. I would much caution future historians in linking Mr. Lawson's speech with what came next regarding Westland, for both affairs must be treated in their own right, impossible as the task may now seem."


♤ Bernard Ingham, Kill the Messenger, (HarperCollins, 1994):

"The basic facts behind the sudden public fit of British morality in the papers at the fag end of '85 were simple and ridiculous. Westland, a middling £300m helicopter company in Wales, fell on bad times. In Spring of '85, Michael Heseltine, the then Defence Secretary, found himself seized by a strange desire to have Westland be bailed out by a European enterprise, though there was none forthcoming. Mrs. Thatcher, and the rest of the Cabinet, had no wish to bail out a failing economic enterprise using British government funds. The British government, minus one minister with a most wonderful coif of hair and wondrous eyebrows, was therefore content to let Westland find its own method of salvation. It did just that, by linking up with an American company, Sikorsky. Mr. Heseltine, still seized by a strange desire he could not bring himself to articulate in the Cabinet started to denounce the government position via his proxies in the Summer of '85. This was a most hideous breach of collective responsibility. Mr. Heseltine was at this time a member of the Cabinet, the collective decision-making body of Her Majesty's Government of the United Kingdom. One cannot be a member of the decision-making body and then repudiate its decisions. Unfortunately, it was hard to prove Mr. Heseltine was responsible for the commentary and it much aggrieved Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Clark, the then Secretary of State for Wales."


♠ Michael Mates, Where There’s a Will, (Hamish Hamilton, 1995):

"Westland was not just some helicopter company in Wales, it was the sole manufacturer of helicopters in Britain. And only someone with no understanding of economic realities of life or a willful misunderstanding of it them, such as (Mrs. Thatcher's Press Secretary) Bernie (Igham), would think £300m was 'middling' to Wales in 1985. Westland was keeping a lot of mouths fed in the part of the country hard hit by the mining strike. It had to be saved. Michael (Heseltine) was born in Wales. He told me on more than one occasion that growing up in Swansea he felt the world utterly ignored it. He would not. He found a way to save the company, using a consortium of European buyers. His aversion to Sikorsky was due to the aforementioned company trying to sell to the British armed forces one of their own helicopters in early 1985. Sikorsky was turned down, based on Michael's recommendation. They then decided to buy out its only possible source of competition to force us to buy their product under a different label or threaten us with closing the plant, per Michael's view. It was vile. His arguments were sound and merited consideration by the rest of the Cabinet, but Mrs. Thatcher overruled him and denied him the right to be heard by the Cabinet, just as she had subsequently done with Nigel (Lawson). The Prime Minister tried to teach the working of the economy to a Chancellor and then tried to muzzle a Secretary of State for Defence on a defence issue. I know of no Secretary of Defence past or present who would take that lying down."


♣ Bill Rodgers, Call Me What You Will, (Politico's, 2000):

"As a former Minister of State for Defence and the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence I naturally knew of Westland, but I had not realized its full political significance until Heseltine's letter in 'The Times' on the heels of Lawson's resignation."


♧ David Owen, Into the Maelstrom, (Macmillan, 1991):

"All through the Summer of 1985, in addition to monitoring the Lawson situation I kept an eye on the Westland brushfire, carefully stoked by both the friends and foes of Michael Heseltine. I was therefore well prepared to address the issue in the House when Mr. Heseltine published his open letter."


♤ Michael Gove, Margaret Thatcher: The Official Authorized Biography: Volume IV: 1983 - 1985 (Fourth Estate, 2000):

"On Friday, 25 October, 1985, exactly four days after Mr. Lawson's vicious personal and unprovoked attack on Mrs. Thatcher, Mr. Heseltine's histrionic open letter to Lloyds Merchant Bank was published in 'The Times'. It suggested, in the strongest terms possible, that Westland was going to lose work in Europe because it now would be an American enterprise rather be allied with an Italian company Agusta. The malicious timing of Mr. Heseltine's letter meant the issue would dominate Parliament for two days and a weekend and further propel the false narrative of Mrs. Thatcher's 'autocratic' nature. However, Mrs. Thatcher was more concerned with the 'material inaccuracies' she detected in Mr. Heseltine's letter to 'The Times' and asked the Solicitor-General Sir Patrick Mayhew to point out the inaccuracies to Mr. Heseltine.


★ Rebekah Mary Wade, Hezza, (Politico's, 2000):

"There was just one simple problem, Sir Patrick Mayhew also happened to have been employed by Michael (Heseltine) and was previously asked by him to advise on the very letter he was now being asked to investigate. Sir Patrick was thus to be the family solicitor of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Sir Patrick, however, performed his duty admirably and wrote a report on the letter, finding inaccuracies in the Heseltine Letter, but none amounting to 'material inaccuracies'. A Cabinet meeting was scheduled on 12 November, 1985 to discuss the Mayhew Letter. However, on 10 November, 1985, the Mayhew Letter was in the major Sunday papers."


☆ John Bercow, Thatcher, Thatcherism, and Thatcherites, (Faber, 1998).

"It is remarkable to consider that during the whole of this imbroglio, Mr. Heseltine was in the Cabinet. His actions made a mockery of the collective responsibility. Had this been done by any other minister, he or she would have been sacked by Mrs. Thatcher, but Mrs. Thatcher had an aversion to one-on-one confrontation with Mr. Heseltine. The Iron Lady first encountered this difficulty on 5 May, 1979, when she offered him to become Secretary of State for Energy. He refused, arguing he should stay with Environment as that was the Cabinet he was shadowing while the Tories were in the Opposition. Mrs. Thatcher capitulated. This event would colour their relations for the rest of her premiership. While Mr. Heseltine embraced conflict, Mrs. Thatcher sought to avoid it, with him. It was a defect that certain ministers and (unscrupulous) civil servants soon found easy to exploit, knowing she would reward them if they would do that which she could not - attack Mr. Heseltine."


★ Alastair John Campbell, The Claret Revolution, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993):

"The papers were unkind to Mr. Heseltine. The 'News of the World' led with a headline of 'You LIAR.' 'The Sunday Times' ran with 'Heseltine told by Law Chief: Stick to the Facts!' But the attacks misfired. The issue quickly became not whether Mr. Heseltine exaggerated in his letter, but who leaked the Mayhew Letter to the papers, for while leaking is a political art, some things are rather off limits."


♤ Bernard Ingham, Kill the Messenger, (HarperCollins, 1994):

"For a layman, or even a so-called expert such as I, it is difficult to see what exactly is the wrongdoing that was levelled at Mrs. Thatcher by her enemies. Mrs. Thatcher asked for an advice from Sir Patrick. Sir Patrick gave it. The advice became public. Where is the tragedy, never mind the criminal act?"


♠ Michael Havers, Crime and Punishment, (Penguin Books, 1990):

"The Law Officer's opinion was, is and always must be confidential. It is the cornerstone of the British legal system. Sir Patrick Mayhew wrote a Law Officer's opinion. It was leaked without his knowledge, to serve political ends. It was a gross violation of our laws and as the Attorney-General for England and Wales and Northern Ireland I immediately notified Mrs. Thatcher I had to launch an inquiry into the matter, with her assistance or without it. Mrs. Thatcher naturally gave her consent to the inquiry."


♡ Cherie Booth, Speaking for Myself, (Little, Brown, 1998):

"Tony (Blair) wanted to burnish his multilateralist credentials and was therefore involved in matters regarding the Defence for half a year before the Westland affair got started. He was named to the Defence Select Committee of the House of Commons and was part of its inquiry, separate from the inquiry set up by the lapdogs of the Thatcherite government."


♠ Michael Mates, Where There’s a Will, (Hamish Hamilton, 1995):

"The attempt at a fix was in as soon as the Cabinet Secretary (Sir Robert Armstrong) was named to head the inquiry. I wanted to go to the papers and give them the whole of it, but Michael (Heseltine) told me to let it all play out. And play out it did."


★ Rebekah Mary Wade, Hezza, (Politico's, 2000):

"It did not take long for Mr. Havers to trace the leak to a young woman working in Mr. Clark's office."


★ Azucena Ozols, My Alan Clark Diary, (Bantam Press, 1987):

"A friend of Jeff (Jeffrey Archer) introduced me to Al (Alan Clark) at a party. Upon hearing my name, Al smiled and said, 'A Spanish-Latvian, how wonderfully intriguing.' I do not know why those words had such an effect on me, but they did. He had guessed my nationality at first try and rather be confused by it, he was 'intrigued.' And I was very much intrigued by him. My friend had brought me over to meet Jeff, for Jeff was in those days the Deputy Chairman of the Tory Party, but I found myself returning throughout the evening to talk to the charming Cabinet minister. I suppose it makes me sound mercenary, but I care not. My acting career had stalled with bit parts and I was repulsed by the leftist politics of my fellow actors and they were in turn repulsed by my knee-jerk anti-Soviet statements and made sure to officially and unofficially exclude me. For reasons that defy explanations, they believed Bolshevism had something to offer other than the cold graves into which more than a few of my family members were shoved after being executed by the KGB death squads or the even colder Siberia into which the rest of my family was exiled. My attraction to Al was not just based on an adolescent crush of an overgrown schoolgirl, it had also a lot to do with politics. It was our mutual interest in politics rather than our affair that led him to offer me a job as his press secretary."


♠ Michael Havers, Crime and Punishment, (Hamish Hamilton, 1990):

"Ms. Ozols revealed she was asked by Mr. Clark to leak the Mayhew Letter to the press, and then volunteered a piece of much more explosive information."