Thatcher papers show her plans

Former prime minister closest allies conspired against legislative programme as part of war with cabinet ‘ets’ One of Margaret Thatcher’s closest allies actively conspired, with her permission, against a key part of her government’s legislative programme as part of a war with the cabinet “wets”, papers released for the first time show. Demonstrating just how divided her first cabinet was, the 1980 papers reveal how Thatcher’s private secretary, the backbench MP Ian Gow, was active in fomenting rightwing MPs’ opposition to a bill devised by the employment secretary, Jim Prior, to limit but not ban secondary strike action by trade unions. The right wanted much tougher legislation. Acting in collaboration with the solicitor general, Sir Ian Percival, Gow actively encouraged rebellion, keeping the prime minister briefed on what he was doing against a key part of her legislative programme. Prior threatened in cabinet to resign; had Gow’s role become public, it would have rocked the Conservative government. Gow, a firm supporter of the Ulster Unionists, was also involved in consulting their leader, Jim Molyneux, and the former Tory Enoch Powell on how to oppose the government’s constitutional initiative for Northern Ireland. Gow was murdered by the IRA in 1990. The 30,000 pages of internal letters, notes, memoranda and other documents – some ephemeral but many casting new insights into the first Thatcher government – are being placed online by the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge University. They complement official government files from the same period already released by the Public Record Office. The newly released documents show a prime minister feeling her way in power, unexpectedly deterred by public demonstrations against her and already privately trying out phrases, such as “the enemy within” and “there is no such thing as society”, that she would proclaim publicly years later. Chris Collins, the Thatcher Foundation’s archivist, said: “I was surprised by the amount of stuff that was committed to paper, seen by the prime minister. There was a high degree of risk involved. You get a sound read-out of her mood from the documents. With some prime ministers, you cannot tell what they are thinking but there is no doubt with her. A squiggly line means I don’t like this, two squiggles I HATE this.” There is further evidence that Thatcher encouraged rightwingers’ references to her first year in office as being wasted, because there were not enough hardline policy initiatives. Among those publicly criticising the government’s performance was the industry secretary, Sir Keith Joseph, with a note from Bernard Ingham, the Downing Street press secretary, saying Thatcher was “quite relaxed about it … I believe she agrees with Sir Keith but for the sake of the government and confidence in it does not say so.” Notes about Thatcher’s 1980 party conference speech, in which she famously announced “the lady’s not for turning”, indicate how fraught the writing was – as was the previous year’s effort, described by one of the drafters, Sir John Hoskyns, head of the Downing Street policy unit, as “an unbelievable shambles”. Handwritten notes show her trying out the phrases about society and the enemy within – concerning all trade unions, not just the miners, against whom the phrase was eventually deployed four years later. The accounts of the speech’s development bear out Hoskyns’s recollection of Denis Thatcher telling his wife: “Honestly, love, we’re not trying to write the Old Testament.” The 1980 speech soft-pedalled on attacking Labour, then embarking on internecine strife, but the papers show how closely Downing Street monitored who might emerge as leader after James Callaghan, who resigned on 15 October. Denis Healey was regarded as particularly formidable, being described as “the most powerful, the most dangerous and the most uncertain of the candidates” by Tory chairman Lord Thorneycroft. Thatcher regarded the eventual winner, Michael Foot, with disdain. Gow had lunch in August 1980 with Neville Sandelson, a rightwing Labour MP, who was privately planning to defect to what became the SDP six months later. Gow reported back to Thatcher: “[He] says that his remaining political purpose is to ensure the re-election of the Conservative party at the next election because only by [that] will there come about the split in the Labour party which he considers to be the essential precondition for a real purge.” Thatcher could be discomforted by demonstrators. After being heckled in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in February 1980, she wanted to call off a visit to nearby Calne when told 450 locals had just lost their jobs. “We can’t go there! Not another occasion like that!” she wrote with heavy underlining. Nevertheless, the trip went ahead. The files are online at www.margaretthatcher.org . Margaret Thatcher Politics past Trade unions Stephen Bates guardian.co.uk

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