Polling Day came and I was back in the House with a majority of 12,500 over Labour. When the result was announced I moved the customary vote of thanks to the returning officer, pointing out that the same swing throughout Lancashire in a general election would mean Labour seat after Labour seat falling to the Tories and our becoming the government. I got a cool reception which the President of my Association said was due to ‘our not liking politics in Clitheroe’.

Taking my seat a second time was a bit of an anti-climax, and when on the Thursday I went to the weekly meeting of the 1922 Committee to be welcomed back little seemed to have changed, with Edward du Cann still chairman. It was said of Edward that when a young member asked him the time he put an affectionate arm round his shoulder and said: ‘What time would you like it to be, dear boy?’ And his somewhat oleaginous manner was not to everyone’s taste; but over the years he worked hard for the Party and had for a time been Party Chairman.

The next few weeks only served to remind me how boring could be the life of a backbencher, but I did not have to endure it for long; for on 28 March came the ‘no confidence’ vote which brought about the fall of the Labour government.

That night the catering staff in the House of Commons were on strike and the dining room and tea room were closed. In those days there was an open-fronted coffee bar on Bridge Street and there, on the evening of 28 March, MPs and other vagrants stood eating bacon sandwiches and sipping hot drinks from chipped mugs while waiting for the ten o’clock division. When it came and the government lost, Jim Callaghan rose to say that he would recommend to the Queen that Parliament be dissolved; and shortly thereafter I was back home preparing for yet another election.

It was an election which set me something of a problem. So hard had we worked during the by-election only a few weeks before that we had hardly left a door un-knocked. I decided, therefore, to ignore the towns and villages and visit the isolated farms. I had a splendid reception from people who assured me that a visit from a politician was like a visit from outer space. In the event I was back with a majority of 11,579, the Conservatives had a majority of forty-four seats, and Britain had her first female Prime Minister.

On the day the new Parliament met I was sitting in the dining room when I was told that the Chief Whip wanted to see me. I went along to Michael Jopling’s room and he asked me if I would like to be a whip; not, he stressed, a junior whip but a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury with the chance of promotion into a department sometime in the future. I fell for the story and joined the Office.

The next night I was again in the House of Commons dining room when the Prime Minister, who was at the next table, called over to me: ‘What’s that new member doing in the dining room without his jacket on? Go and have a word with him.’ And I got up and gave Tony Marlow appropriate advice. The new Prime Minister also made it very plain that she did not like ministers on the front bench putting their feet up on the Table, even though it was an old custom of the House. ‘You would not treat the furniture in your own home like that.’ But tradition proved a lot stronger than her objections and this was one battle the PM lost.

The Whips Office was then, I think, of a very high standard. We had a lot of fun but took our responsibilities very seriously. ‘Parties,’ said Enoch Powell ‘need whips as civilisation needs sewerage.’ And we carried out our sometimes unpopular duties with the relish of well-paid sanitary inspectors. In the top office next to that of the Chief Whip sat Michael’s deputy, John Stradling Thomas, Spencer Le Marchant, Tony Berry, Carol Mather, John MacGregor, James Douglas-Hamilton, Peter Morrison (the pairing whip) and myself. Downstairs in another office were the junior whips, Tony Newton, Bob Boscawen and Peter Brooke.

Spencer, with the grand title of Comptroller of Her Majesty’s Household, gave us racing tips, sometimes putting money on horses for us and only confessing what he had done when he handed over the winnings. Tony Berry was Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household and as such had on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays to send to the Queen a telegram of not less than 300 and no more than 750 words telling her of the goings-on in the House. Another of his duties was to stay behind at Buckingham Palace during the State Opening of Parliament as a hostage for the Queen’s safe return.

James Douglas-Hamilton (then Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and now in the House of Lords as Lord Selkirk of Douglas) was a worrier. One Monday morning he reported that a friend of his who was a candidate for a Scottish seat had got himself into terrible trouble with his prospective constituents. Excessive zeal had led him to attend funerals to which he had not been invited.

James was a man of impeccable manners and when, later, he was translated to the Scottish Office those same good manners got him in to trouble. The driver of his official car was a rather elderly lady and the other drivers in the department complained that whenever his car stopped on arriving at its destination James, instead of waiting for the driver to open the door for him, jumped out and opened the door for the driver. They thought this was not in accordance with precedent and should be discouraged. Back in the Whips Office and when not writing a book about his uncle, a spitfire pilot, James drove himself and us insane with his tales of woe about the Scottish Conservatives backbench committee. Albert McQuarrie MP complained that the election for the officers of this committee of ten members had not been conducted properly. He knew this because before the election he had canvassed all the other nine members and each one had promised him their vote for chairman. How, therefore, could he not have been elected? The ballot papers were recounted with new scrutineers. There was only one vote for McQuarrie – presumably his own.

Bob Boscawen had during the War suffered terrible injuries which he bore with great fortitude, and he was a great companion. He and Carol Mather who, like Bob, had won an MC in France in 1944 and had been on Monty’s staff, were the old soldiers who did their best to keep the rest of the office and junior MPs in order and properly dressed. On one occasion Carol reprimanded Tristan Garel-Jones for wearing a particularly bilious long, green Loden overcoat. ‘The last time I saw anyone wearing a coat like that,’ he said, ‘I shot him.’

Michael Jopling, the Chief, took himself very seriously, and with good reason. A new government formed from a party which has been out of office for some years has a lot of tricks to learn, and a lot of things can go wrong when it comes to the management of business in the House. New ministers did not always turn up in the chamber at the right time and when they did turn up did not realise that what they said was not of the slightest importance. What was important was that they should keep talking until close to but not a second later than ten o’clock. Whips in their turn had to be ready to move the closure when the minister did sit down to prevent the business being talked out, or a member of the Opposition getting the last word. One awful night in the summer of 1980 a minister was not in the chamber when his business was reached. Spencer Le Marchant, the whip on duty, jumped up and down at the dispatch box bawling ‘I beg to move’ while the Opposition yelled ‘Resign’ and Michael Foot asked the Speaker to adjourn the House. Eventually Jim Prior, who had been in the corridor behind the Speaker’s Chair, rushed into the chamber and began to make a speech in place of his missing junior minister. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong speech on the wrong subject and uproar continued unabated.

There was another occasion when things went very wrong. I reported to the Chief that there was much muttering in the Smoking Room about some business on the Order Paper. There were rumours of a rebellion and the possibility of a government defeat. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Michael, ‘Get all those people into the chamber to hear the minister winding up’; and at half past nine I flushed the mutterers out of the Smoking Room and pushed them into the chamber. They listened to the minister’s winding-up speech and then, to a man, marched into the lobby and voted against the government. The next morning there was an emergency meeting in the Whips Office. A new edict was issued: ‘Do all you can to keep our backbenchers out of the chamber. When a minister is replying to a debate encourage no one to listen.’ Perhaps the strict enforcement of this command accounts for the many years of Conservative government which followed.

During the 1979–80 session I was the whip attached to the Department of the Environment and as such was responsible for the Housing Bill of that year. Monica Ferman wrote of the committee stage of the Bill in the New Statesman of 21 November 1980:

One day the Chief said that as a great privilege the whips had been invited to go along to No. 10 for tea – a golden opportunity for us as business managers to tell the Prime Minister how we felt things were going on the political front. We trooped in to the drawing room and for a while there was desultory conversation. Suddenly, Tony Newton (who after a very distinguished career went to the Lords as Lord Newton of Braintree and, sadly, died in March 2012) had a rush of blood to the head. ‘Prime Minister,’ he said, ‘my wife is a school teacher and you have no idea what is happening in our schools these days. My wife says that in the mid-morning break the pupils are copulating in the bushes.’ You could have heard a pin drop. It is the only time I can remember the PM being rendered speechless. Afterwards we made poor Tony’s life a misery, constantly questioning what had made him commit this act of political suicide and assure a dramatic end to his career when it had barely begun. In fact of course, Tony went on to great things and we will never know whether the Prime Minister misheard what he said or was greatly impressed by his frank exposition of a matter of great social significance.

Spencer Le Marchant and I were early risers, always in the office by about 8.30 a.m. He used to spend his time ringing the stock-broking firm in which he was a partner. I used to see my secretary and get on with the constituency correspondence. One morning I rang my secretary and she said she was very busy and could not possibly come to do my work. Spencer overheard and passed me a note – ‘sack her’ it said. ‘Can’t,’ I scribbled back, ‘who am I going to get to replace her?’ ‘Keep her on the line’ whispered Spencer and started dialling furiously. ‘Got one!’ he cried. ‘Well, Mrs -----,’ I said, ‘I think the time has come for us to part.’ Half an hour later, thanks to Spencer, a secretary with impeccable credentials stood at my desk and many of my problems were solved.

In September 1980 I went on a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) visit to Malawi – my travelling companions being David Ennals, Bill Whitlock, John Wilkinson and James Kilfedder. David Ennals was well-meaning but sometimes something of an embarrassment. President Banda was much given to dancing with the ladies of the country at great rallies staged so that they could demonstrate their love for him. Once, in the middle of the bush we came up behind a lorry in the back of which were forty or so women. We were told that they were on their way back from National Day where they had been dancing for the President. ‘Signal to the lorry driver to stop,’ said Ennals, ‘I want to dance with them.’ And in the middle of nowhere forty or so exhausted women were asked to disembark so that D. Ennals MP could caper and cavort around them, doing what he imagined was a Banda-like leap, skip, hop and glide, with fly-whisk raised to heaven.

The Malawian MP who was looking after us said that in his view mice were far more tasty than sausage when they were fried with their fur burnt off. Custom had it, he said, that you start with the tail and finish with the head. Perhaps he was pulling our legs. In Blantyre a poster in a school classroom explained the nutritional value of and best way to cook caterpillars and ants. At one village David Ennals asked the headman if he had to go far to get his water. He replied: ‘No, I’ve got eight wives’; and he looked very well on it. So, in fairness, did the wives.

Later in the trip we visited a hospital out in the wilds and a woman needed a blood transfusion. John Wilkinson very courageously offered to provide blood but, much to our amusement, half an hour after doing so he fainted.

I decided that it would be a great pity not to visit Rhodesia in the dying moments of UDI. There were no direct flights from Malawi because of sanctions, so I flew via Johannesburg. As the plane approached Salisbury Airport the cabin staff insisted on the blinds being drawn because, they said, of the risk of a missile attack, and when we entered Meikles Hotel other guests were leaving their rifles with the hall porter.

By the end of 1980 I was the whip for the Department of Trade and Industry, Keith Joseph being Secretary of State, and each morning had to attend the minister’s meeting. Keith’s right-hand man was Viscount Trenchard who, I imagine, was recruited to the government because of his expertise in the City, but who had the quaintest ideas as to how to perform as a minister. Keith himself had some odd habits. On taking the chair at a morning meeting he would cry ‘Agenda!’ which was the cue for everyone to shout out what he wanted to have discussed that morning. Every morning Tom Trenchard shouted out ‘Private sector!’ and every morning Keith responded in a pained voice, ‘Not the private sector again.’ Michael Marshall, the junior minister, had a room with a leaky roof and on entering one had to avoid tripping over one of the many buckets on the floor.

In January 1981 I was sitting in the Whips Office when Michael Jopling phoned from No. 10 and asked me to get round as soon as possible. When I got there he was standing outside the PM’s room with his face wreathed in smiles. ‘I reckon I’ve done pretty well for the office. Three of you are to be promoted – Peter Morrison, John MacGregor and you; you because I have persuaded the PM that it is necessary to have a lawyer in the Department of Employment to look after trade union reform and they are losing their lawyer as a result of Paddy Mayhew going off to the Home Office. Leon Brittan whom he is replacing is to be Chief Secretary.’

Jim Prior had been Secretary of State for Employment since the general election and had been much criticised for his so-called softly softly approach to the trade unions. Reform of industrial relations law was urgently required but Jim had taken the view that there would be big trouble with the unions if reform came in other than small doses. The result had been a very tame first Trade Union Bill, which made some small inroads in to the closed shop and outlawed some more blatant types of secondary action i.e. industrial action against employers not directly involved in an industrial dispute.

None of this was to the liking of Margaret Thatcher and when I went to see her on my appointment she made it clear that she wanted a metaphorical bomb put under Jim. The horrors of the closed shop were much in the public eye at that time because of the case of the Sandwell dinner ladies who had been sacked by the Sandwell local authority for refusing to join a union; and the Prime Minister was determined to see that abuse of union power of this or, for that matter, any other sort was stopped.

Jim was a delight to work with and very well liked by his officials. They, however, seemed to think that the Department of Employment’s role was to see that the interests of the trade union movement were properly represented in government. That, to put it mildly, was not how the Prime Minister saw things, and I had come back into Parliament heartily fed up with the irresponsibility of the trade unions and their pretensions to be almost a partner in government. In my view, the Conservative government was there to bring about radical reform in the field of industrial relations, to get rid of, not condone, abuse of power by the trade union barons and to look after the interests of ordinary working people.

Jim knew he had to prepare for the next step in trade union reform, but he was not inclined to say how big he thought that step should be and was in no great haste to make the next move. One thing in particular was absolutely clear. He had shut his mind entirely to the most obvious way forward which was to remove from trade unions the immunity from actions for damages for the wrongs of their servants or agents which they had won in 1911.

Peter Morrison and I had joined the DE on the same day and being the most junior of all the departmental ministers had to share a driver named Trevor; and I, like he, lived south of the river. That meant that Trevor called for me first in the morning, and then went on to collect Peter from Cambridge Street. Usually, however, Trevor was late, putting forward as an excuse the fact that the hamster had got out.

I was the minister responsible for health and safety, and one of my first tasks was to try and sort out a problem concerning an ICI site in western Scotland. There was a dock at which explosives were loaded and unloaded, and someone had woken up to the fact that the local authority had built an enormous sports complex, dance hall and recreation centre across the water from the dock. Surely, if there was a massive explosion on the dock at a time when the centre was full many lives would be lost. An expert on safety worked out what was called the societal risk, not the risk of one person being killed but the chances of a lot of people being killed, and he advised that the risk was unacceptable. A careful measurement had been made of the distance from the dock to the sports complex, a careful survey had been carried out of the quantities of explosives being handled and a meticulous note had been taken of the number of people frequenting the local authority’s establishment at times when the dock was being used. After that, the whole lot were multiplied together and divided by the square root of the town clerk, and the answer was that something had to be done. Up to Scotland I went and talked over the problem with the local authority, then with ICI and then with the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) experts, but no reasonable solution to the problem could be found. But a solution was found. The man who had measured the distance from the dock to the sports hall was asked to get out his measure again and have another go. Off he went and soon returned triumphant. The sports hall was 200 yards further away than he had originally thought and the experts, having made another of their elaborate calculations, delivered their verdict: ‘On the new evidence now available there is no need to do anything’. Business could continue as usual; and I could return to London to claim that another knotty problem had been resolved.

In September 1981 there came a major reshuffle. In the summer Mark Carlisle had told me that he felt his job was at risk. I was sad for him but it was difficult not to smile at the story he told to justify his pessimism. ‘I was asked to go to No. 10 for breakfast,’ he said. ‘When I got there the PM told me that Keith Joseph would be joining us shortly. I did not like the sound of that because I knew Keith wanted my job. But worse was to follow. I sat at the table where there was a nice bowl of strawberries and was about to tuck in when the PM shouted: ‘No, Mark! Those are for Keith. There are prunes for you on the sideboard.’ ‘I knew then,’ said Mark, ‘that the game was up.’

In another important change in the reshuffle Jim Prior was moved to Northern Ireland, and Norman Tebbit descended on the DE in fighting form. He gave instructions that a special alarm system should be placed in his office because some demonstrators had in the last weeks of Jim’s reign managed to get past the security at the front doors and all the way up to the ministerial floor. A few days passed and Norman realised that, in spite of his orders, nothing had been done. He summoned the man responsible who had the temerity to say that he had decided that the matter of the alarm was not a top priority. Norman’s rage not only terrified the delinquent official, who left shaking like a leaf, but the message that the new Secretary of State was not a man to be trifled with spread through the department like wildfire.

Norman’s time at the DE showed how one man with determination can change the ethos of a whole organisation. What he did in a remarkably short space of time was change the DE from being the apologist of the trade union movement to being its scourge. His mischievous humour at first horrified officials; his blistering attacks on the TUC, the union leaders and all those concerned to look after the one-legged, black lesbian rather than Mr and Mrs Ordinary English caused consternation. But in time officials began to enter in to the spirit of things and even share in a bit of the mischief. We began to work up a really radical new Employment Bill and told the parliamentary draughtsmen that it was going to be called The Extension of the Rights of Employees Bill to emphasise how the rights of ordinary people which had been invaded by the trade unions were now to be restored to them. Devising such a controversial title was quite a good ploy because Whitehall spent so much time thinking of arguments against the proposed name of the Bill they had little energy left to attack the substance. And plenty of substance we were determined there should be, principally the virtual abolition of the closed shop and the removal of nearly all the legal immunities the trade unions had attracted over the years.

Norman and I both quoted with relish the report of the 1903 Royal Commission set up after the Taff Vale judgment. For, with Sidney Webb one of its members, it had strongly urged that trade unions should be liable like everyone else for wrongful acts.

This fundamental principle was first accepted and then rejected by the Liberal government of 1906. It was high time, in spite of the extension of the immunities by Labour governments in 1965 and 1976, that the principle was reaffirmed.

We were introducing the Bill at just the right time. Unemployment and industrial change had reduced the membership of and weakened the trade unions. The public were fed up with their behaviour and there was no way the Labour Opposition could make the status quo look respectable.

One cause célèbre about this time caused me much embarrassment and Norman much mirth. For years an absurd body created by the DE had been used to help enforce the work permit system. It was called VOCA which I think stood for the Vocal and Orchestral Concert Association. Before I arrived at the DE I had imagined that the work permit system was there to help enforce immigration control and to prevent foreigners coming in to the country and pinching British people’s jobs. Not on your life. The DE considered that the work permit system was there to protect vested interests from competition and, in this instance, to ensure that British people were not able to listen to foreign orchestras.

I was told that VOCA had for long ruled that foreign orchestras should not be allowed to give more than five concerts on a visit and I was therefore advised that the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, which had contracted to give seven performances, was out of order. The necessary work permits could not be issued. I was told that if the permits were issued lasting damage might be done to the BBC Symphony Orchestra and indeed music in Britain would die, and the country would become a cultural desert. In short, civilisation as we knew it would come to an end and posterity would hold the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Employment entirely responsible. Could I really take such a burden on my inadequate shoulders? Clearly not. The work permit applications must be refused.

But I had not reckoned with Mr Jasper Parrot (not Carrot), an impresario who was, I suppose, the agent for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and responsible for arranging the tour. Neither had I reckoned with Mr Parrot’s energetic and persistent MP, Sir Brandon Rhys-Williams.

Brandon and J. Parrot came to see me. I listened patiently but, sticking to my departmental brief, refused to budge. Brandon promptly applied for an adjournment debate and I still refused to budge; and afterwards he and Parrot accosted me in the Central Lobby and complained bitterly about my intransigence.

They demanded to see Norman Tebbit who, having other things on his mind, told them to jump out of the window, or words to that effect. It was not the reply they had expected, and that very evening Brandon, still suffering from the lash of Norman’s tongue, went up to the Prime Minister in the division lobby and in loud and querulous tones complained about (a) the decision and (b) the way he had been treated by Norman. Looked at from Brandon’s point of view there was good news and there was bad news. The bad news was that a whip quickly reported to Norman that Brandon had been sneaking to the PM at which Norman strode across to Brandon, picked him up by the back of his jacket and shook him with some vigour. The good news for Brandon was that his remarks made a great impression on the Prime Minister – so great indeed that the next day she phoned Norman, gave him an enormous rocket and told him that his civil servants and his under-secretary must have been quite mad to refuse the work permits and the decision had to be reversed forthwith. Norman, hooting with laughter, told his private secretary that his mistress’s orders had to be obeyed, but he did not utter a word of complaint to me, or about me to anyone else.

He deserved a present. I bought a large stuffed parrot and numerous coloured hat pins which I proceeded to stick in the bird. I then presented it to Norman who suspended it on a piece of string above his desk where it remained for many months to come. Visitors, high and low, always asked him to explain the parrot which he did with great gusto and in terms which would not have amused its namesake. To this day I do not know whether the pins worked.

On a Friday towards the end of 1981 there was a debate on unemployment on an Opposition motion. Many thought I was crazy to volunteer to reply on behalf of the government, and the Opposition was very cross having expected the government to put up someone from either the Treasury or the Department of Industry. But I did myself a good turn. My speech went down very well and earned me a nice compliment from Jack Weatherill who was in the chair. I wound up in the debate on the second reading of the Employment Bill which contained the Tebbit proposals for reform of trade union law, including the virtual abolition of the closed shop. I was flattered when Cross-Bencher of the Sunday Express wrote, ‘Many Tory MPs rate it one of the most aggressive and intelligent winding up speeches in years’. A friend quipped, ‘If you don’t look out you’re going to get yourself promoted and then you’ll be in a real mess.’

At Christmas 1981 I noticed that Norman was about to go home with not one but two dispatch boxes. I commiserated with him for having so much work to do over the holiday. He looked rather sheepish and opened up the boxes one of which contained a melon and the other smoked salmon.

At about this time I was asked to take part, with Angus Ogilvy and one or two other nobs, in a rather swell event in the City of London. Young people had been invited to show their skill in arts and crafts; and their achievements were laid out for inspection in the Mansion House. This is a cautionary tale and explains why MPs and ministers get pretty angry when told by the press that they are living it rich while poor journalists have to sustain themselves on little but baked beans and beer. We all looked at the entrants and what they had produced, and we dished out the awards. Then it was our turn, and we stepped forward to receive a little thank you for our efforts. Angus Ogilvy was presented with a pretty little silver dish, the next in line a rather fine painting, the third some brass candlesticks. I had not come expecting anything, but I cannot deny that by now my appetite was whetted. I was full of expectations but far too well brought up to show disappointment when I was handed a well-turned bread board.

When I think of 1982 I think of the Falklands, not of my own work in the Department. On the day after the Argentine invasion I, along with a number of other junior ministers, went to the PM’s room in the House of Commons to hear the Prime Minister talk about what had happened and what was to be done; and then on the Saturday the House met for an emergency debate. It was a disaster, with a dreadful speech from John Nott. I travelled back to London on Monday convinced somebody’s head was going to have to roll and, in the event, Peter Carrington, one of the most capable members of the Cabinet and one of the most honourable of men, resigned; as did Humphrey Atkins, the foreign affairs spokesman in the Commons and Richard Luce. John Nott went when the war was over.

The behaviour of the BBC during the Falklands War was appalling. In the country there was a great upsurge of patriotism and pride in the way our forces had responded when called upon to repel aggression, but the BBC and its employees seemed to find such emotions quite incomprehensible. In reply to criticisms that the BBC never referred to ‘our’ forces during the war and seemed to show no particular emotional commitment to them, Mr Richard (later Sir Richard) Francis, managing director, BBC Radio, said the BBC carefully distinguished between ‘Argentine’ and ‘British’ forces, but ‘we [the BBC] have no task force in the South Atlantic; and the BBC has no role to boost the morale of British troops or rally the British people around the flag. The widow of Portsmouth is no different from the widow of Buenos Aires.’

The BBC may have thought it smart and trendy to be uninvolved in the war; but they were entirely out of step with the British people, as were also all too many churchmen. There was no doubt about the pride of the servicemen who attended the service in St Paul’s on Monday 26 July 1982 – pride in a job well done. They had come, I am sure, to thank God for giving us victory, but those responsible for arranging the service could not bear to talk in those terms and had devised a wishy-washy theme of thanks-giving for the cessation of hostilities. When the Church does not reflect the pride and joy of ordinary men and women at a job well done in a righteous cause it cannot be surprised if congregations walk out of the doors.

I got back to London on the first Monday of the New Year and there was a message from Downing Street asking me to ring the Prime Minister. I rang to find that I was to be Minister of State at the Home Office with responsibility for immigration matters, in place of Tim Raison.