The Powers Behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence of Number Ten (Text Only) by Dennis Kavanagh & Anthony Seldon

Author:Dennis Kavanagh & Anthony Seldon [Kavanagh, Dennis & Seldon, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Great Britain, Europe, Biography & Autobiography, Political Science, World, Reference, American Government, Political, History, General
ISBN: 9780007392636
Google: o2rNpc411IMC
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2013-06-20T12:49:20+00:00

The Parliamentary Private Secretary post (PPS) is unpaid and under Mrs Thatcher it was confined to affluent MPs. It has rarely been a springboard to higher political office, though all her PPSs served as Ministers of State, before or after their Number Ten post. Ian Gow’s four successors after his departure were all wealthy old Etonians – Michael Alison, Archie Hamilton, Mark Lennox-Boyd and Peter Morrison. It is often alleged that Mrs Thatcher lost touch with her MPs in the later 1980s and that this was reflected in the poor leadership campaign she waged in 1990. Peter Morrison, her final PPS, conducted a half-hearted canvass of MPs and overestimated the strength of her support.49 It was somehow appropriate that she was in Paris at the Conference on Security and Cooperation on the day the result of the first ballot of the leadership contest was announced. She dismissed Morrison from the job of running her campaign for the second ballot, but by then it was too late to rally support.

Some of her staff did their best to ensure that Tory MPs had access to the Prime Minister. She met MPs for a drink if she was in the House for a late-night vote. But she had never been a regular habituée of the House of Commons Tea Room or bars, and more pressing calls inevitably commanded her attention. She also had little aptitude for small talk – one trait she shared with Heath. Attempts by her PPS to counter this trend by guided tours of the tables in the Tea Room were often strained and embarrassing for all concerned. There were other causes of dissatisfaction among Tory backbenchers, which culminated in her failure to gain outright victory in the leadership election in 1990. They included the high inflation, the unpopular poll tax, disagreements over Europe and, above all, backbenchers’ fear for their seats, prompted by the above in a fast-approaching general election. No massaging of egos could counter the perception among many MPs that she was an electoral liability.

There was growing resentment among the many MPs sacked from office or not promoted. More than once Mrs Thatcher was told by her supporters in the ‘92 Group, and by No Turning Back MPs that they were not receiving their fair share of government posts. The critics targeted the whips, particularly Tristan Garel-Jones, her Chief Whip John Wakeham (1983–87) and her last Chief Whip, Tim Renton, to whom she left the main decisions on junior posts. Her indifference to or innocence about the political leanings of many of her junior appointments is confirmed by a Chief Whip and a Political Secretary.50 Mrs Thatcher in her memoirs notes that she often gave Cabinet posts to Conservatives ‘who did not share my philosophy’. To the extent that she did this, it was a reflection of the pool of talent at her disposal. ‘Competence is what mattered to her and to me,’ said John Wakeham.51

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