With peace, they had different priorities, and they did not think that Churchill was the right man to organise the peace dividend. By , Margret Thatcher had defeated a phalanx of foes, yet the country was still embattled. A lot of her own backbenchers wanted a quieter life. Many of them also felt neglected. But she did not see why she should have to stoop to conquer. They would have preferred it if she had stopped to listen. Under the Tories' rules, to succeed on the first ballot, a sitting leader would have to win an absolute majority, plus a further 15 per cent of the votes of all sitting Tory MPs.
Although she beat Michael Heseltine by 52, she fell four votes short of the required margin. Her position crumbled, and with it, her leadership. Yet there could easily have been a different outcome. Michael Heseltine had toppled her: he was still some way short of having the votes to succeed her. A man of strong emotions, he had come to detest Mrs Thatcher. He was also buoyed up by the result.
So he was too carried away for cold-eyed calculation, and the Heseltine team was not well-stocked with political strategists. If it had been, one of them might have said: 'We don't have the votes. Press ahead now, and you'll be setting everything up for John Major. The European debate has continued and shows little sign of settling into relative political calm. Heseltine was one of the most determined proponents of British membership of Europe. He outshone Geoffrey Howe and Douglas Hurd notwithstanding their mastery of the intricate provisions of the treaties that increasingly bound Westminster to Brussels.
Heseltine probably came close to being a British Gaullist rather than seeing the United Kingdom as a link between America and Europe. I suspect Heseltine's European view, like his domestic political attitude, was managerial. Essentially he was a Euro-fixer. He believed that effectively the future of the European Union lay with the Franco-German partnership and that Britain should convert it into a triumvirate. To that end it was essential that Britain should show its European credentials by joining the euro.
After Heseltine left the cabinet his political behaviour was shrewd and well-judged. His quarrel with Margaret Thatcher over the style and content of her government was well known. It needed no repetition. He concentrated his political fire upon the Labour Party.
This he did exhaustively at the supper events provided by Tory activists. It was an adroit tactic. His home-spun Evangelism evoked a warm response and he avoided the snares of speaking to hostile audiences in the Commons. This political investment did not yield the results expected by many. When Margaret Thatcher was ousted from leadership, the Conservative parliamentary party did not turn to Heseltine.
But if you apply that sort of approach, that anybody who disagrees with the party, think what you'd be doing in historic terms to all sorts of people, distinguished people in the Conservative Party who at one stage or other have believed that national self-interest and their own personal commitment was more important than party. We are not, if you like a totalitarian society. The party does not dominate your life to the exclusion of all else.
The Conservative Party is a broad coalition of people that come together with broadly right-wing philosophy, but with a range of different perceptions as to how that should turn into practical politics. And if you start advocating the position of saying to people, this is what the party has said today, and therefore you are wrong, and you have to be quiet, then you are going to cut down from underneath any sort of reality about the Conservative prospects.
Let me quote to you - you'll know the quote I daresay. Because you believe in things. You believe first of all that the views you have, the philosophy you hold, the energy that you might bring to the game is able to help Britain's own future, the widest constituency of people, self-interest of your nation - that's what you believe.
You may be wrong, you may make bad judgments but that's what you believe, that's what drives you and you want to play a part in it. And, if people say: well, that is arrogant, well, that's what they say. I mean, they've said the most appalling things about Churchill before the War - the most terrible things were said about him, by people saying the Party says this; this man is rocking the boat - they had every sort of abuse.
He turned out to be right. And, I can think of endless examples of people who had the courage to stand for what they believed in and found that history came their way.
And, I have no doubt - indeed, I have a few experiences - but talking to people all over the world, travelling as one does outside this country, I don't meet a serious constituency of people who think that there's a future for this country's influence in the world outside Europe. Now, of course, I get lots of letters. I got one this week with a picture of me hanging at the end of a rope calling me a traitor.
I think, I think, that's what someone shouted out when MacMillan first announced the application to sign the Treaty of Rome. I think, the word 'traitor' came from the Tory backbenches and I got some other letter with a picture of my head on a block about to be chopped off, with references to having fought in the War.
I mean, I don't sneer at those people but they are not living in the Twenty-First Century or the psychology of it. They are looking back and they have misunderstood the extraordinary fusion of self interest that Europe represents.
I mean, I go further you see. If I look at what I think is going to happen in the Twenty-First Century, I think, that all sorts of forces are part of this shrinking global world and that they are going to force a wider range of nations to share sovereignty. I think international terrorism, international environment, international capitalism are now above the nation state and there's going to be an increasing need to try and find ways of regulating these activities.
The environmental situation is, quite obviously, already happening. Because I listened to Churchill's great postWar speeches and there they all are! The Hague, Zurich, the Royal Albert Hall - there is a visionary Conservative talking about what tomorrow is going to be like and people like myself were brought up to understand that.
I listened to MacMillan, to Hume, to Heath. I served under Heath, of course, to start with, under Mrs Thatcher. And, I mean, take Mrs Thatcher said every sort of thing to pander to Euro-scepticism but what is the historic reality? What is the reality?
No Prime Minister of this country has shared British sovereignty more absolutely, more irrevocably than Mrs Thatcher. She entered the Exchange Rate Mechanism and so, you have to judge people. Wednesday, 8 March, Heseltine sacked as government adviser. News in-depth Brexit. Michael Heseltine sacking sharpens atmosphere at Westminster.
Thursday, 2 March, Monday, 27 February, Britain after Brexit James Blitz. Heseltine to the Brexit barricades. Ministers warn Lords not to amend Brexit bill. Tuesday, 29 November, The Oxford Union: politics or business. Wednesday, 9 November, Robin Lane Fox.
Best of how Tarzan tamed a jungle. Monday, 6 June, Heseltine lays out plans to revive Teesside. Thursday, 19 May, Instant Insight Sebastian Payne. Wednesday, 6 April, Central banks.
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