alternatehistory.com

Part XIV:


♥ Philip Gould, Confessions of an Adman, (HarperCollins, 1996):

"Once I got done making the obvious jibes about Ted Heath's comeback, I realized the danger quite immediately. Mr. King had assembled a Cabinet to win the next general election and he had eighteen months to find the most opportune time to call it. All of our efforts so far had been to heal our wounds and to make ourselves ready to fight a Thatcher government. The stitches had not yet been removed and we now faced a much more dangerous foe."


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

"The King ministry of February 1987 had the potential to be as big a realignment of British politics as the formation of SDP. It was an attempt to seize centre ground. We had to reassess. All of us, Liberals included. But I found the Leader of the Liberals to be utterly unprepared to think as hard as I had done."


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

"The Liberal Party by February of 1987 had 60 MPs. The largest number we have had since 1923. We have had faced Mrs. Thatcher and Mr. Heath before and were easily able to draw distinction between ourselves and our opponents then. I had no doubt in early '87 we could just as easily point out the difference between Mr. King's ramshackle alliance of wets and dries."


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

"I locked myself in my office and stared at the list of Cabinet ministers for an hour before I realized the awful symmetry of it all. Tom King brought in just enough wets to be seen to seize centre ground, but had retained dries in the Employment, Energy, Home Office, Treasury and the Home Countries. And while Ted Heath's entry would cause a splash, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has no real brief. Sir Ted was allowed to roam about and offer suggestions, but he had no control over a single policy in a single department. Furthermore, by being a Cabinet member, he was now bound by the collective responsibility of being in the government not being able to criticize it. At the time it appeared Tom King gained a great deal and lost very little. Then came the Tory Boy rebellions of '87."


♤ Brian Monteith, The Rise and Fall of Thatcherite Tory Edinburgh, (Constable, 2009):

"The Tory Boy Rebellion of '87 started in Aberystwyth University of all places. Wales does not seem like a natural place for a Conservative uprising, but as a Scottish Tory I can tell you, when you grow up a Tory in a sea of Labour, you hold onto your beliefs much dearer than if you feel you are part of the majority. The Aberystwyth University branch of Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) was then in the hands of Powellites and they reacted to Tom King's inclusion of Ted Heath rather violently. They called upon FCS to disassociate itself from the Party for as long as Ted Heath was in the Cabinet. It was an extremist position of an extremist wing of an already self-avowed radical organization and was duly ignored for a variety of reasons, not the least being FCS Committee was overrun by the resurgent Heathite wets, whose king across the water had returned. The Powellites in Aberystwyth then did the most Powellite thing they could, they broke off from the FCS, formed a rival The True Tories' society and invited Enoch Powell to speak at Aberystwyth. Enoch Powell duly arrived, was duly barred from speaking by University officials and a riot was duly started. Police had to be involved.


♤ Tim Linacre, Tory Boys, (Pimlico, 1999):

"Cardiff, Bangor, Swansea, Newport and Trinity (Wales) Tory associations broke off from FCS as well. Cardiff, Newport and Bangor created The Blue Star Group. Trinity one upped them by officially switching their affiliation from the Conservative and Unionist Party to that of Mr. Powell's Northern Irish UlsterUnionist Party. But Swansea outdid them all."


♤ Peter Young, Port, Plots and Politics (Penguin Books, 1993):

"In Swansea, the Tory students invited Ollie North to speak at their campus. He turned them down, so they extended an invitation to Mr. North's lovely paper-shredding secretary Fawn Hall. To the surprise of almost everyone, she accepted and her arrival to speak at Swansea created something of a media sensation. Blonde, beautiful and big haired, she represented everything a good thinking proper Tory boy would want in the 1980s. She was feted and the resulting press enabled Ms. Hall to pursue a modelling career in Wales after the Iran-Contra hearings wound down in Washington. The Tory Boy Rebellion then spread to Scotland."


♤ Brian Monteith, The Rise and Fall of Thatcherite Tory Edinburgh, (Constable, 2009):

"We did not support Powell nor Heath, nor King. We therefore disassociated from the FCS and started The Blue Saltire Group. When someone pointed out that the actual saltire on the Scottish flag was white on a field of blue, we shrugged our shoulders and carried on. Mrs. Thatcher turned down an invitation to speak at our get together, but did so quite graciously. But John Moore accepted, and though his accent was more American than we would have liked and his speech less bellicose than what we wanted to hear, he tided us over. The Tory Boy Rebellion then went South and fizzled out, for in England there were enough wets still left in Tory student unions to seize control. The English wets then launched their own purges to pay FCS back in the same coin for the purges we had done in the early 80s."


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

"While the scenes of chaos among the Conservative student organizations roiled the colleges and universities of Wales and Scotland showed the passionate views held by a certain segment of the radical activity wing of the Party, three very different by-elections occurred, much watched by everyone for signs of how the electorate in general truly felt about it all."


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

"The Tory MP for Ludlow, Mr. Cockeram, was bullied into standing down before he was to be de-selected for alleged improprieties in his financial dealings. The resulting by-election in Ludlow in the third week of February '87 saw a Tory defending a 24% majority from the previous election. Although the '83 election was abnormal for a variety of reasons, that number does give colour to what we were up against. Despite our best efforts, we came in third, behind the Liberals and the victorious Tories. The Murdoch papers much trumpeted it."


♥ Philip Gould, Confessions of an Adman, (HarperCollins, 1996):

"The Ludlow by-election should not have counted in the public mind, but it did. Keith Best, the Tory MP for Ynys Mon, in my highly uninformed opinion committed much the same acts as Mr. Cockeram and left more evidence of his alleged improprieties then his dis-honourable friend from Ludlow. Had he been forced to resign, the resulting by-election would have a much more different result. But he was allowed to disappear into the shadows until the next general election and was then told to retire. Mr. King, or his advisers, gambled well on Ludlow. In the minds of a great deal many uninformed, it looked like the first Tory by-election victory in a long while and it was subscribed to Mr. King's leadership and his Cabinet choices. Given the realities of the constituency, an Alan Clark led Conservative Party could have retained Ludlow in '87, but no one wanted to hear it. But I do not regard myself as particular brighter than those who fell for Mr. King's trick at Ludlow, for I fell for his trick at the Vale."


♤ David Mellor, My Moment, (Fourth Estate, 2000):

"Sir Raymond Gower had represented the districts making up the Vale of Glamorgan since 1951, and having reached his 72nd birthday wanted to enjoy some well-earned rest. There was no 'trick'. A long serving Tory MP just wished to retire and Mr. King simply acquiesced to his wishes, that's all."


♥ Joe Ashton, My Labour, My Party, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993):

"John William Patrick Smith (from Wales, as opposed to the more famous John Smith from Scotland) would not be my first choice for a Labour MP, but this was Wales and we needed a soft-left Labour candidate. He had solid roots in the community and did not say too much about the bomb. It had all started off rather well for us in the beginning of the campaign."


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

"The so-called Alliance candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan was chosen by open selection much favored to my disgust in Wales, the resulting Liberal candidate ran the most lackadaisical campaign in recent memory, which is rather ironic, given what happened next."


★ Screaming Lord Sutch, Screaming Sutch II: Electric Boogaloo, (Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1987):

"I skipped the Ludlow by-election and let Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Umbrella Stand Jasper Wednesday Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable Arthur Norman Michael Featherstone Pussycat Smith stand as the candidate for the Loonies. Since the publication of my last book I got a bit of bad press for not going out to Wales and resolved to show my lack of prejudice by participating in the Vale of Glamorgan by-election. The prevailing atmosphere for Tories, Liberals and Labour was one of anxiety. My fellow fringe candidates were the same curious mix of good natures seekers of joy and the nutters. In addition to the usual in-fighting Communists (three different candidates), Trotskyists (two) and the odious National Front (only one this time) there were also two different Tory splinter groups. One candidate stood as an Independent Conservative, while another was a Welsh Ulster Unionist. Contrary to received wisdom of the popular press, I did not see either of the latter two gain traction among local Tories, but they did receive undue attention from the media."


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

"Like most Labour members and supporters I was quite cheered by Mr. Smith's victory in the Vale."


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

"I did not attach much importance to Vale of Glamorgan. I though we ran a good campaign there and although we came in third, we had built up our base in Wales overall as a result. In light of what happened next I must stress the Alliance voters were not former Tories. The Alliance was capturing a new type of voter, men and women who had no previous interest in politics."


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

"The day after the Liberals managed to come in third at Vale of Glamorgan and Tories coming in second, a dozen Tory tabloids, compacts and broadsheets ran with a nearly identical story on their front page under a bevy of hysterical headlines. Tory rebels, SDP and Liberals were accused of befuddling decent Tories into voting for the SDP and Liberal Alliance and thereby letting Labour into power. It struck hard at those of our supporters who leaned Tory. Many of them voted for us because they agreed with us on Europe and the Polaris and were disillusioned with Mrs. Thatcher's and Mr. King's governments. In each instance our message had been to assure them that a vote for an SDP candidate was not a 'wasted vote' for a fringe candidate but rather a vote for a Party capable of achieving power and best representing their beliefs in Parliament. Mr. King's propaganda swept all that aside in favour of a simple message: if you vote SDP, you are only helping Labour. It was well crafted bit of fear mongering."


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

"In the 1983 general election, up to 25% of voters, per one poll or another, said they would have voted for their constituency SDP or Liberal candidate if they thought the candidate could win, but did not want to 'waste their vote.' Statements such as these make one want to bite one's elbows. The post Vale carpet bombing in the Tory press added a new dimension of disinformation. Not only were the SDP to be consigned to the fringe, but now we were derided as nothing more but a Trojan horse for Labour. The earliest fruit of this ugly tree ripened at Greenwich."


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

"Guy Barnett, the Labour MP for Greenwich, had passed away on 24 December, 1986. Greenwich had consistently voted Labour since 1945, but in 1983 Mr. Barnett won by a mere 1,211 votes (4%) over a Conservative candidate, while the SDP made a strong showing with 25%. In theory, the seat was therefore winnable by all three major Parties. In practice…"


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

"Greenwich was not an ideal seat for the national spotlight from our point of view for it was sandwiched between the constituencies of SDP MP John Cartwright at Woolwich and Liberal MP Simon Hughes at the much benighted Bermondsey. The ghosts of Bermondsey then rose yet again when the local Labour party selected Deirdre Wood to stand for the Greenwich by-election in March of 1987."


♥ Philip Gould, Confessions of an Adman, (HarperCollins, 1996):

"Deirdre Wood was not an ideal candidate. She had a hard-left voting record while being on both the infamously leftie Inner London Education Authority and the cartoonishly leftie Greater London Council."


♥ Joe Ashton, My Labour, My Party, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1993):

"We had spent years doing our best to recover from the suicidal '83 election, and for our troubles, in Greenwich, south of Thames, by London, with the eyes of the national media upon us and every rotter within commuting distance, we picked a female Peter Tatchell. Labour, bloody Hell."


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

"In all my years in politics, no one was more prepared to enter Parliament without having first been there than Mrs. Rosie Barnes. She was an ideal candidate for SDP in Greenwich. She had roots in the community, was politically active, and, most vitally, was relatable and genuinely likeable. But, to my sorrow, none of this was known to me at the time of the Greenwich by-election in March 1987, for the local Party in Greenwich had a wholly different candidate."


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

"Our candidate in Greenwich in '87 was less than ideal. He had a stormy relationship with the SDP members in the local council and on more than one occasion harangued John Cartwright about being left to wither on a vine and consigned to oblivion. The locals did not know what to make of him, but were not quite ready to rid themselves of him. He had threatened to leave himself out of the selection on several occasions and the great hope of many in the area was that he would follow through on it. But to my regret he did not. It is a cruel thing to say, but given what I know now about his potential replacement, it is truthful. SDP went into the Greenwich by-election with the wrong candidate."


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

"The less said about the '87 Greenwich by-election, the better. It was not our finest hour."


♤ David Mellor, My Moment, (Fourth Estate, 2000):

"Although the Conservative constituency parties are never as rebellious or loony as those of Labour it would be silly to think of them as mere lackeys of a monolithic central Conservative office. More than one by-election saw the local Tories grimly shake their heads and reject a London offering as not meeting their needs. Nor were such actions always incited by parochial instincts to promote solely from their neighborhoods. In '87 in Greenwich, being unable or unwilling to find a local worthy, some members looked to nearby Lambeth and invited their councilor Iain Picton. Mr. Picton was not much beloved by senior officials in the Thatcher cabinet and his most famous act prior to his attempted Greenwich selection was pressuring the Government so much about the possibility of rioting due to unemployment it made Mr. Tebbit utter the now infamous line at the '82 Party Conference: 'I grew up in the '30s with an unemployed father. He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it.' Mr. Picton was passionately anti-apartheid as well and in August '86 did not do much to disavow the actions of those who pelted Mr. King's and Mr. Rifkind's cars with garbage at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh to protest Mr. King's continuation of Mrs. Thatcher's policy of not imposing economic sanctions on South Africa. But what truly made the good people of Greenwich wish for Mr. Picton to represent them in Parliament as a Tory was his tough stance on SDP. He warned any and all Tories against joining SDP and leaving the Party. In the climate of the times, his message on SDP overrode his more liberal tendencies in the eyes of the Conservative selection committee in Greenwich."


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

"Mr. Picton's win in Greenwich in March of '87 was interpreted by nearly all that a general election was soon to be in the offing. Among the Tories there was a vary expectation of a third victory, among Labour more than a bit of panic of being caught out and the Alliance was riven by anxiety."


♠ Mark Robinson, A Better Britain, (Pimlico, 2000):

"Ted (Heath) never talked about regrets. It was not in his nature. But there was a pain point that came close: the February 1974 election that resulted in him being voted out of office. On one occasion he said to me how adamantly opposed he was to having the early election in February of 1974 and was talked into it by the so-called hawks in his Cabinet, led by Jim Prior. On another occasion, after a great deal of wine was consumed, he mused how he could have held out longer, as he was not required to have an election until 1975. At the time I did not pursue the argument, nor ever mentioned it to him afterwards, for in my view by February of 1974, Ted was headed for disaster regardless of when the election would have been held. The economic situation was so dire it would have been not possible win then or later. If anything, I once heard Douglas Hurd and Jim Prior very diplomatically mention Ted's best chance to win in '74 would have been to go to the country earlier than the third week of February. Regardless of who is right, Ted's frame of mind regarding potentially dangerous early elections led him to advise Tom King to not call an election after the Greenwich by-election revealed our message struck home. He went out of his way to look for signs the electorate was troubled, despite the economy doing tolerably well with the inflation dropping to just below 4% for the first time in over twenty years. Unemployment had also fallen for the first time since 1981 to below three million (though that argument would be utterly lost on a man who did a U-Turn on his economic policy in the '70s because unemployment rose to one million). I rather fear Ted got to Tom King's ear regarding it being too early."


♤ David Mellor, My Moment, (Fourth Estate, 2000):

"I was among the hawks calling for a Spring offensive in '87, not out of any great wisdom but mainly because I had wanted to get the whole thing over with and start truly afresh. Since December '85, the country endured the trauma of watching its most popular peacetime Conservative Prime Minister chucked out of government by members of her own party, six high profile Cabinet resignations for a variety of reasons - some ugly and prurient, and the sudden return to prominence in government of a political figure out of power and recognition for well over a decade. I was not sure whether giving people more time to process the series of shocks self-inflicted upon the Conservative Party would help or merely give them more time to be confused about all of it and be revolted by us. We were up in the polls in March of '87 and that more than anything motivated me. Nothing else."


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

"When news broke of a publication of a diary kept by the last known mistress of Mr. Alan Clark - Ms. Azucena Ozols - several Tory politicians privately communicated to the Whips they may have been compromised by Ms. Ozols, for some within her clique of girlfriends knew Tory MPs, Biblically speaking. There was talk of a snap election to forestall embarrassing revelations."