MEDIA STUDIES
Tory press gets Tory leadership election wrong (in 1975)
STEPHEN GLOVER
It is generally agreed that the Tory lead- ership election doesn't present the party with much of a choice. Once Kenneth Clarke has been excluded for all the obvi- ous reasons, objections against the other candidates pile up. That does not prevent them putting themselves around in the Tory press as the best thing since sliced bread. They have each written articles and been lunched by the high commands of our Conservative newspapers.
Things were much the same in February 1975 when Ted Heath was challenged for the leadership of the Tory party. It was said then, as now, that the choice was between pygmies. The Economist caught the general mood when it wrote in characteristically snooty vein, 'Mrs Thatcher is precisely the sort of candidate . . . who ought to be able to stand, and lose, harmlessly.' In the Times Bernard Levin dismissed the 'makeweight' candidates of 'Pryor [sic], Peyton or Howe'. Peregrine Worsthorne in the Sunday Telegraph was driven to recommend the charms of Lord Hailsham, while others thought Christopher Soames a safe pair of hands.
The first ballot took place on 4 February. The candidates were Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher and Hugh Fraser. Most people thought that Mr Heath would probably win, including Mr Heath himself. James Mar- gach in the Sunday Times wrote that he had it more or less buttoned up. The Daily Mail's poll of Tory MPs suggested that Mr Heath would come first, though possibly not by a wide enough margin to obviate the need for a second ballot. A Harris poll in the Daily Express found that 70 per cent of Tory voters preferred him to any other can- didate. Soundings in the constituencies pro- duced similar results in favour of the incumbent.
Not one national newspaper supported Mrs Thatcher before the first ballot, or pre- dicted that she would win. Although none was enthusiastic for Mr Heath, most came down on his side. The Daily Mail, then edit- ed by David English, published a half- hearted leader in his favour. The Daily Express was more loyal. The Times berated him for his inflationary policies (`Mr Heath, whether elected or no, cannot offer a future for the Conservative party so long as he is the prisoner of his own past') but could not bring itself to support Mrs Thatcher. The Daily Telegraph wrote a lead- er full of submerged dislike of Mr Heath ('On some issues he is wrong') while con- ceding that 'it seems likely that he will win.'
Only one important publication support- ed Mrs Thatcher before the first ballot, and thought it possible that she might be elect- ed leader. That was The Spectator. In the issues of 18 January and 25 January its political columnist, Patrick Cosgrave, had backed her as the best person to revive the Tory party. On the eve of the ballot, the magazine pronounced that `Mr Heath is a burnt-out case whose good fortune will never come again'. Mrs Thatcher, by con- trast, had 'a definite understanding of the kind of Conservatism which the nation needs' and could 'articulate it forcefully and with courage'.
Mrs Thatcher got 130 votes, Mr Heath 119 and Mr Fraser 16. Mr Heath withdrew. It would be fun to suggest that The Specta- tor's support was decisive, but I doubt it. Mrs Thatcher had come first in spite of the Conservative press. Tory MPs were influ- enced by their own feelings about Mr Heath, as well as Mrs Thatcher's campaign, brilliantly masterminded by Airey Neave. Even after she had won the first round, the Daily Mail was the only Tory daily paper that could bring itself to endorse her in the second ballot, in which other candidates now joined battle.
The Daily Express, while genuflecting loy- ally towards the departing Mr Heath, plumped for Willie Whitelaw, with a friendly gesture towards Jim Prior. The Sunday Times also preferred Whitelaw. (It had recommended abstention before the first ballot, in order to force a second.) So did the Times, under the editorship of William Rees-Mogg, stating loftily that, 'It is natural that the Times should prefer Mr Whitelaw to Mrs Thatcher; the whole char- acter and sympathies of the paper would suggest it.'
The Daily Telegraph's line was particular- ly interesting. Before the first ballot it had published pieces by several leading Tories entitled 'My Kind of Tory Party'. After Mr Heath's defeat, the paper might have been expected to come out for Mrs Thatcher. Indeed, she has persuaded herself that it did so. In the first volume of her memoirs, The Path to Power, she writes: 'The Daily Telegraph, an important barometer of Tory grassroots feeling, swung decisively onto my side.' In fact it did no such thing. Though some of its leader writers were prototype Thatcherites, its recently installed editor, Bill Deedes, was not. The paper's editorial on the eve of the second ballot was exceptionally occluded, and ended on a lame note: 'Whose name looks the strongest for the battle which must now be joined? That is something for the Tories to weigh today.'
Mrs Thatcher won easily, and those Tory papers which had been unwilling to back her grew to love her. Some of the editors and columnists who had withheld their sup- port became her firmest friends. Many of them had thought she was a pygmy, a few that she was too extreme, but she had won without their help. Whichever pygmy wins next week might one day turn into a giant.
Readers may be interested to know what has happened to Punch. It has turned into a magazine aimed at men between the ages of 25 and 45 who are obsessed by sex and have an IQ slightly below the national average. The first two issues of the new Punch were nonetheless oddly difficult to follow. The lay-out resembles that of a comic, and the new editor, Paul Spike, has no respect for typographical conventions. The only piece of recognisable journalism is a column by a former editor of this maga- zine, Alexander Chancellor, which shines out like a pearl in a dung heap.
Punch is now about as far as it is possible to be the original vision of its proprietor, Mohamed Al Fayed, who first came across Punch when he was a young boy scampering about on the banks of the Nile. It seemed to him the epitome of all that was stylish and authoritative. He hoped, in re-launching the magazine last September, to revive these qualities. And now he has this poor, sad thing. Perhaps the moral is that if you are a very rich man with a dream, you shouldn't put that dream into the hands of journalists.
In my column two weeks ago about how readers of different newspapers voted, I was wrong to say that the Financial Times 'went back to the Tories' before the elec- tion. In fact it published a wishy-washy leader which, on a close rereading, seems to incline slightly toward Labour. I should have also made clear that the figures in my table related to how British newspaper readers voted. The final line should have read, 'All British voters' and not, 'All Unit- ed.Kingdom voters'.
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