FRANK FIELD: I was sickened that some of Margaret Thatcher's own MPs hated her

A marvellous story from a very decent man. Field is an old-fashioned Labour man



Like most MPs, when I was first elected to Parliament in 1979 I was determined to do the best for my constituents. My arrival in Westminster coincided with Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power.

So when I needed to get something done for my Birkenhead constituency, it seemed obvious that the best way to do it was to lobby the most powerful person in the country on their behalf.

For some reason, Mrs Thatcher usually agreed to see me. We met frequently during her 11 years in Downing Street and our meetings were usually very formal. Quickly I would know if Mrs T, as I often called her, would agree to any of my requests. But I shall never forget our last two meetings in her final days in No 10.

On the first occasion, I had asked to see her to request more funding for the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead. This time, our meeting was not the usual formal affair. When she invited me in to her study I had never seen her so animated.
She had flown back that day from meeting President George Bush Snr in the US to discuss what to do about Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Mrs Thatcher was adamant that the Allies must go to war with Saddam but Mr Bush was agonising over the decision.

Pacing around the room, she told me how she had urged him that military action was absolutely vital. Her whole being was consumed with energy as I pleaded with her to come and sit down and talk about Cammell Laird.

Eventually she said to me: ‘What is it that you want, Frank?’ I told her how important her overseas tours were in attracting inward investment. On her next trip would she please secure crucial investment for jobs in Birkenhead and provide a little more from the regional assistance fund?

‘Everybody depends on me,’ she said.

‘I know, but will you please make this commitment?’

‘Don’t worry, you’ll scoop the fund,’ she said.

Less than 48 hours later, I bumped into one of her Cabinet Ministers, David Hunt, who at the time was MP for the Wirral, next to my Birkenhead seat, who said: ‘I see you have been to see the Prime Minister.’

A Prime Ministerial minute had been written straight after her meeting with me and sent to the relevant secretaries of state and their permanent secretaries, instructing them to grant the additional funds. ‘What was the phrase Frank, “scooped”?’ he said.

There wasn’t much in her record as Education Secretary in Edward Heath’s Government to suggest she would be a great Prime Minister.

But when she entered No10 she understood she had to get control of the Whitehall machine – and not be bypassed by it, as had occurred with so many of her predecessors.

A few weeks after we discussed Cammell Laird, I saw her again at No. 10 and the atmosphere could not have been more different. It was the day she had to decide whether to resign. I recalled all the times she had delivered for me. When I saw how some of her own Conservative MPs hated her and called her ‘that woman’ it sickened me.

I had phoned No. 10 and asked for Peter Morrison, the Tory MP who was her Parliamentary Private Secretary and responsible for keeping in contact with her backbenchers. The voice on the switchboard said Sir Peter had gone home. Startled, I repeated: ‘Gone home?’ The switchboard lady was clearly as shocked as I was. ‘Yes, that was my reaction too,’ she said.

‘Is the Prime Minister there?’ I asked. The switchboard lady said: ‘I am not supposed to tell you, but yes, the Prime Minister has come home.’

‘I will come over to see her,’ I said. The voice said: ‘I think that would be a very good idea.’ The next time I heard that voice was seven years later when she put through a phone call from Tony Blair asking me to become a Minister in his Government.

That fateful day for Mrs Thatcher, I went to Downing Street and was shown into the waiting room, despite protests from staff who told me the Prime Minister was too busy to see me. I had taken some work with me and sat down making a few phone calls when in walked Norman Tebbit.

Norman asked: ‘Why have you come?’

‘I have come to tell her that she is finished,’ I said.

Norman told me I would see her shortly. A few minutes later, in came Mrs T. I guided her to her chair and sat beside her. The energy, so evident the last time we met, had ebbed away.

‘Why have you come?’ she asked.

‘I believe you are finished, Prime Minister.’

‘It is so unfair.’

‘I have not come to discuss fairness, Prime Minister. You cannot now go out on a top note, but you can go out on a high note. You must resign before you face the Commons again. Otherwise those Tory creeps will tear you apart in public.’

‘But it is so unfair. I have never lost them an election.’

Eventually, she agreed that she too thought she had no choice but to resign – but others were not saying it to her face. ‘Why have you come, Frank?’ she asked again.
‘Whenever I have asked you for help for Birkenhead you’ve tried to help. And I feel I owe it you.’

Only then did I notice that the door was still ajar and in a moment Norman was back in the room. He too was protecting her and I think he wanted to repeat what I had said.

‘When is Denis coming home?’ I enquired.

‘Oh, after 11.30,’ replied Mrs T.

‘Will you talk to him about what you are to do?’

‘Oh yes.’

She was briefly back to her old self as she explained how I would be smuggled out of the building so no one knew I had been there. ‘I have arranged for you to go out another way. You will be taken out into Whitehall, not through Downing Street.’

I saw her only once more as Prime Minister: her last appearance at the Dispatch Box she had dominated for a decade. Her voice was different – I guess it was because she was fighting back the tears.

Then Dennis Skinner threw her a lifeline by heckling her. ‘I am enjoying this,’ she said – and the temper of the speech changed. It was a parliamentary triumph.

The ranks of Tory MPs behind her cheered as if to cover their murderous intent. I watched her as I stood at the end of the Chamber and, when I caught her attention, I nodded my approval.

But I couldn’t help wondering whether I would ever see a Prime Minister who was more able in pushing through radical reforms. Two decades on, I am still waiting and wondering.


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