When I was at school in America during the war, the presidential elections look place, when Franklin Roosevelt, uniquely, sought a third term of office. He was opposed by Wendell Wilkie on the basis of ‘no third term’. Roosevelt, who in my judgement was the outstanding President of this century, in the midst of a deep depression in the United States, used his presidential powers to commission large projects of public works to get America back to work. The Tennessee Valley Authority is but one example. He formed two public corporations to carry out the works – the WPA (Works Project Association) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). This was partly the basis for the New Deal. Interestingly enough, his ideas were inspired by the British Liberal Party’s report on Britain’s Industrial Future, known as the ‘Yellow Book’. This formed the basis of the party’s 1929 election campaign slogan: ‘We can conquer unemployment’. A colleague told me that there is a copy of the Yellow Book in Roosevelt’s private library at Hyde Park, with annotations in the margin as to how the proposals contained in the report could be applied to America. The Republican opposition reacted very much as the Tory Party in Britain did after the war in opposing virtually all state intervention.
The post-war Liberal programme based on industrial partnership, profit sharing and worker representation on company boards, with a massive extension of the Lloyd George/Asquith welfare state and with an overall insistence on personal liberty, all added up to the philosophy and policies with which I wholeheartedly agreed. This was a practical expression of Roosevelt’s policies of the New Deal, which inspired me as a child.
I found the Britain of 1945 politically class conscious. The Parliamentary Conservative Party was dominated by the knights of the shires; although they could proudly produce two trade unionist MPs (the MPs for Bath and Totnes) as evidence of their classlessness. They were passionately opposed to all nationalisation, were frankly hostile towards Europe and insufficiently aware of the need to bring colonial territories towards their independence. The Labour Party was still predominantly under the influence of the trade union movement, both for its philosophy and sources of finance.
For me, the Liberal Party offered a chance of a more enlightened Britain. I decided I would join the University Liberal Club when I went up to Oxford, and called in at the Liberal Party Headquarters, then in Gayfere Street, to ascertain whom I should approach in the university. I felt that the best contribution I could make to the fortunes of the Liberal Party was a build-up of the membership of Oxford University Liberal Club. I hit the target of 1,000 members. To achieve this required the efforts of individual college secretaries, one of the most colourful of whom was John Turner, who was briefly to become Liberal Prime Minister of Canada.
I also organised undergraduate tours during vacation time, in which half a dozen undergraduates would visit a key seat to do a week’s canvassing and loud-speaking throughout the constituency. The effect was to galvanise local activity and also to show that the Liberal Party was rich In young talent. One of my early tours, and certainly the first in Devon and Cornwall, was in the Bodmin district in support of John Foot (now Lord Foot, brother of Dingle, Michael and Hugh). I am staggered to realise that this was fifty years ago. I also welcomed a tour in North Devon, during which the date of the 1959 election was announced. The team included a young Martin Bell, and some of them stayed on to help the campaign.
At an early stage in my membership, I was elected to the Liberal Party Council and the party executive, which met quarterly and monthly respectively. Although there were some stalwart members on both bodies, I felt too much time was devoted to debating lengthy resolutions, which were seldom if ever reported. An inordinate amount of time was devoted to amendments to the constitution of the party. I took the view that it would be far more valuable to leave the two bodies referred to and concentrate on the North Devon constituency, where I had agreed to become prospective parliamentary candidate in 1952. I was convinced that the seat could be won but that two attempts would be necessary.
During this period my guru was Megan Lloyd George, who was the Liberal MP for Anglesey, one-time Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and, in a family connection, had been one of my mother’s bridesmaids. To my deep distress, she later defected to the Labour Party. She had all the sparkle and vitality of her father and inherited his radical views. I would go into the Central Lobby of the House of Commons and, whilst waiting for her, would survey the scene and identify Members who passed through. On one of these occasions in St Stephens Hall, I saw Megan’s brother, Gwilym Lloyd George, by then a Tory MP, talking to Harold Macmillan, whom I had as yet not met. Harold Macmillan was somewhat surprised when he heard a cry of ‘Uncle Gwilym!’ Gwilym asked whether it was true that I intended to stand for Parliament. ‘Yes’, I replied, ‘but as a Liberal’. ‘But’, said Gwilym, ‘there is no need, since all the best policies of the old Liberal Party have been taken over by the Tory Party’. I replied: ‘I never thought that I, as a son and grandson of Conservative MPs, would tell the son of a Liberal Prime Minister in the Palace of Westminster how profoundly wrong he was’.
I have always maintained that the ideal way of learning to handle hecklers is to debate at the Oxford Union. I certainly found it a wonderful experience in preparing for a political career. Two debates in particular come to mind. The first was during the Suez crisis in 1956. Aneurin Bevan and David Maxwell-Fyfe had both accepted invitations to speak on the Suez debate at the Union. Both had to cancel because of a three-line whip in the House of Commons. It was therefore decided to invite four dogsbodies, who had just gone down from Oxford, of whom I was one, to fill their place. William Rees-Mogg and Peter Tapsell were to lead for the government and the two speakers in opposition were Bryan Magee and myself. The house was packed. It was barely a week since Sir Edward Boyle had successfully fought off a no confidence motion tabled against the government in the Union. Clearly the government was not going to have an easy run in the Suez debate and they were ill prepared for the body blow that was to hit them. In the course of my speech I said: ‘Mr Anthony Nutting has resigned from the government and there will be others whose consciences will prick then, to the point of resignation’. This was greeted by jeers from the government side and cries of: ‘Name them, name them’. I replied: ‘We shall not have to wait long before we see who will be next. They will have an honoured place’. The time was 9.05 p.m. and at that moment a piece of paper was handed to the secretary of the Union, Brian Walden. He handed me the piece of paper, on the strength of which I said: ‘I have news for the House. News relating to an old friend of mine, who is the youngest minister to have attended a Cabinet meeting since William Pitt; a man who was elected to the presidency of the Oxford Union with one of the largest majorities of the century. And the news that I have for the house is that on the issue of Suez, Sir Edward Boyle has resigned from the government.’ The effect was electric; and since the news had been first broadcast on the 9 p.m. news, nobody in the hall had been forewarned. There were wild scenes of enthusiasm on the opposition benches and during the uproar I pointed a finger at the main heckler and waited for complete silence before turning to him and saying: ‘I hope that goes some way to answering the Honourable gentleman’s question’. Poor Rees-Mogg had to follow immediately afterwards and since Edward was a personal friend of his as well as being a political colleague, William couldn’t have asked for a more unhelpful lead into his speech.
The second debate which comes to mind was on the European Community on 3 June 1975, in the middle of the referendum campaign. The debate was carried live on television: Ted Heath and I spoke for the ‘yes’ lobby and Barbara Castle and Peter Shore for the ‘no’ lobby. Barbara Castle was not very much at home in the Union and during her speech I asked her if she would give way, which she was graciously pleased to do. I asked: ‘Since the Rt Hon. Lady’s opposition to the Common Market is sincere, deep, and some might think pathological, and since the referendum seems likely to produce a ‘yes’ majority, what will she do? Stay on in government implementing policies to which she is diametrically opposed, or will she surrender the seals of office?’ She retorted: ‘If the vote goes “yes”, my country will need me’. It was a gallant comeback but didn’t carry the house, which passed by a large majority the motion ‘That this House says “Yes” to Europe’.
Each term a group photograph was taken of the Standing Committee and the officers. One term the photographers were late in delivering prints and were very coy about providing the reason. Ultimately the truth came out: the senior treasurer and Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Canon Claud Jenkins, had been wearing copper fly buttons on his trousers, but had omitted to do them up. Under the influence of the flashbulb they made a glistening appearance on the prints and had to be individually etched out of the picture! Although they did a superb job, one can still just make out the offending buttons! However, I am not going to say under whose presidency this occurred!
A closing note about our venerable Canon, Claud Jenkins. Mr Dubber, the steward at the Oxford Union, had completed fifty years’ service. Viscount Simon, the senior ex-president, had been asked to present him with a clock, and had been invited to take the presidential choir. The Canon, as senior librarian, was also asked to say a few words. None of us knew what – if any – were the Canon’s political beliefs. We were soon to learn that he had been embittered by Lord Simon’s defection from the Liberal Party and his founding of the National Liberal Party. He began by welcoming Lord Simon and remarked that he was one of the most distinguished lawyers of the century. As to Lord Simon’s politics, he was originally a Liberal – at least, he believed in ‘Liberalism’ as he chose to interpret it. In 1931, he broke away from the Liberal Party to form the National Liberals, who became, in due course, indistinguishable from the Conservatives. He was present at what he regarded as the last obsequies paid to the Liberal Party. The Canon continued to say that he could only hope that with the foresight which the noble Lord had shown in directing his own political career, he took care to see that there were holes in the coffin, as it appeared that the burial was somewhat premature. These withering remarks must have brought back to Lord Simon memories of Lloyd George’s attack in the House of Commons: ‘Many Honourable and Right Honourable gentle men have crossed the floor of the House, and done so out of conviction, but never has an Hon. or Rt Hon. gentleman crossed the floor and left behind him such a slimy trail of hypocrisy’. And again: ‘The Rt Hon. gentleman has sat for so long on the fence that the iron has entered into his soul’.
Following the near rout of the Liberal Party in the 1950 general election, when out of 475 Liberal candidates fielded, 319 lost their deposits, the 1951 election which followed was an exercise in survival. To give one example, the Devon & Cornwall federation consisted of fifteen parliamentary seats. In the 1951 general election six of these were not fought by the Liberals – including Torrington and Truro, both of which were subsequently to return Liberal MPs. Of the remaining nine constituencies, three Liberal candidates were in second place, thousands away from winning, whilst six others were in third place – including North Devon. It would take a great act of faith in the ’50s to prophesy that in the ’90s there would be seven Liberal Democrat MPs in the area. It was against that background that the Liberal headquarters in London launched a project known as ‘Operation Basic’ to assess the position of the party throughout the country and plan for a recovery.
When the team came to Devon and Cornwall, the North Devon representatives asked if they could see the team privately after the public discussions were completed. It transpired that their reason for asking for this procedure was that they were disappointed in their Liberal candidate in the last election, when they had sunk to third place. However, the candidate’s brother was an officer of the Devon & Cornwall Federation and would have found it rather embarrassing if the North Devonians had made their complaints public. A private meeting took place and for some unknown reason the agent for North Cornwall, Frank Tyrell, attended it. North Devon indicated that if they could find a young candidate who was prepared to work, he would have every chance of winning the seat back. Frank Tyrell chipped in to say that he had just the man for North Devon – a young graduate who had campaigned with Dingle Foot in the North Cornwall constituency in the 1950 and 1951 elections.
After this, things moved fast. I received a telephone call from the chairman of the North Devon Liberals, Tom Friend, who asked whether I could come up from Cornwall, where I was ostensibly studying for my Bar finals, to meet the four divisional officers. I had only just heard from Frank Tyrell that he had recommended me as Liberal candidate for North Devon. I told Frank, as I was to tell the North Devon officers, that I was not interested in taking on a constituency until such time as I had built up a practice at the Bar. However, I agreed to meet them and said that although I was not planning to become a candidate, I would gladly give them a hand in building up the organisation. At the end of the meeting the president, Tom Dunn, who was widely loved and deeply respected, asked me whether I would give them a promise that if I changed my mind about becoming a candidate I would give North Devon the first option. I had known and loved the area as a child on holiday and gladly gave such an undertaking. I remember the old boy looking at me and saying: ‘May we treat that as a firm promise?’
When I got back to North Cornwall I rang Dingle Foot at his London number to tell him the news. He seemed horrified, and went on to explain his reaction: I had campaigned in his support throughout his constituency of North Cornwall; he had now regretfully decided to stand down as candidate, owing to pressure of work; he had refrained from doing so until such time as he could contact me and obtain my agreement to become his successor. He had not as yet discussed this with Frank Tyrell or the constituency. I told Dingle that I had given a firm promise to North Devon and could not give them the chop. ‘They are bound to understand and release you from your undertaking.’ I replied that I could not let them down. Had I not given my word I would have given very serious consideration to taking on the candidature of North Cornwall: the Liberals had a full-time agent; we were in second place, and I believe I could have won the seat in the 1955 election.
The following week I received a letter from the Torrington Liberal Association asking me whether I would consider being their candidate.
The smell of battle became too strong and I decided that if I was going to win any Liberal seat in the West Country, I would probably need to fight two elections and put in five or six years’ hard work. I relented and agreed to be prospective parliamentary candidate for North Devon in April 1952, thereby establishing a partnership which continues to this day.
During that period I have come to rely on the loyalty and affection of my supporters in the constituency. This was put to the test in 1979. My trial was due to start at the Old Bailey on 8 May and polling day was on 3 May.
I was exposed to the full glare of publicity. Nevertheless I was reselected by the North Devon Liberal Association to fight the seat. Although we did not hold it, 23,000 people voted for me – a wonderful assertion of solidarity. I have no bitterness about the result. My great regret was that I would no longer be able to look after my constituents’ interests. I can now derive immense satisfaction from the vigorous representation which the constituency enjoys in Nick Harvey, our Liberal Democrat MP. I am privileged to serve him as president of the North Devon Liberal Democrats.
There are two wonderful ladies, each of whom has played a vital part in my political life. I refer to Lilian Prowse, MBE, and Judy Young, MBE.
Lilian became my agent in North Devon in 1956 and remained so until and including the election of 1979. Our partnership lasted for twenty-three years, our friendship for over forty. In 1956 the divisional officers, who included the Hon. Divisional Secretary, Jack Prowse (Lilian’s husband), were wrestling with the setback which had relegated the Liberals in the 1955 election for the first time to third place. Someone asked if there was anyone who would keep the minute books, deal with correspondence and send out the odd circular. Jack said: ‘I think my wife might be able to fit the bill’. She was duly appointed and no one at the time could have imagined that she would provide organising skills for which she was to become famous. Perhaps the greatest compliment paid her was that the Tories used to refer to her as ‘that woman’! She must take a very large share of the credit for the growth of membership, the birth of local branches in almost every part of the constituency and the increase in income to the North Devon Liberal Association.
Just after the polls closed in the 1959 election, I called in at the office, not only to find everything beautifully tidied, which is rare at the end of a hectic campaign, but two duplicator stencils laid out for immediate use, one assuming we had won, the other on the basis of defeat. Happily the first draft was used, and my majority was 362.
The most closely fought election was that of 1970. The Conservative candidate had been virtually full time, visiting house to house for the four years preceding the election. The Tory and Liberal machines were evenly matched, and each was a formidable army. At the end of the day, neither side could have done more. We had 1,000 people working on polling day. The total postal vote was 2,500, of which 1,200 were Tory, 1,200 were Liberal and 100 were Labour. The majority was 369. Lilian kept superbly calm during the rather hair-raising count.
I always used to be amused watching Lilian appealing for help on the telephone; first the left earring would come off, and was stripped for action; she would usually start off to the effect: ‘I don’t expect you can help me’, and then went on to describe what job of work she wanted her listener to take on. Her powers of persuasion were almost always successful. It is difficult to imagine that she is now a great-grandmother, although not immune from tackling challenges, such as raising £100,000 for the organ appeal for Barnstaple Parish Church. She and Jack must be very proud of the fact that in one way or another all of their four children have followed in the tradition of giving public service.
In 1965 I was elected treasurer of the Liberal Party. Judy Young was working in the Finance Department of the Liberal Headquarters in Smith Square. When I became leader of the party in 1967, I had to give up the treasurership and I asked Judy whether she would like to come over to the House of Commons and join Marilyn Moon and the team in my office, which I am delighted to say she agreed to do. I was immensely fortunate in having in the office, in addition to Judy and Marilyn, Tom Dale, who dealt with organisational matters, such as leader’s tours, and Richard Moore, who carried out research and gave invaluable assistance, not only in the drafting of speeches and articles, but also in response to requests for information on our position regarding political matters in the UK and abroad. Between us we succeeded in moving a mountain of correspondence. Judy accumulated detailed knowledge of North Devon constituents’ cases, and liaised with the Barnstaple office. The two offices would very often decide what was the appropriate action to take in regard to an outstanding case – for example, was a particular national insurance claim to be handled by the local NI manager, or was it a case which I ought to raise with the minister in London? She continues to take an intense interest in the fortunes of North Devon, where she has many friends and is always warmly welcomed.
She can always be relied upon, particularly in a crisis, which could sometimes involve working into the small hours. I remember writing and re-writing my first leader’s speech to the Liberal Assembly, calling it a day at 3.30 in the morning, which then needed to be typed. Apart from the continuing benefit of Judy’s invaluable assistance – in view of the fact that she still looks after my affairs – she has kept in immaculate order all the papers relating to my political career.
Amongst her other gifts, Judy is also a skilled gardener, and plants flourishing under her ‘green fingers’. Our garden in Devon is well stocked with birthday and Christmas presents from her of plants, shrubs and trees, which are known as ‘Judy’s children’. It is a growing horticultural family.
Judy has organised many personal events in my life, and has supported me in happy and less happy circumstances. It has been a partnership and friendship of over thirty years.
At various times between 1950 and 1970, the Liberal Party came close to extinction. In planning the 1950 general election, the party strategists, comprising Frank Byers, Philip Fothergill and Edward Martell, decided to fight on a broad front. We had often been told that by fighting on a narrow front we would not have enough MPs to form a government. It was worth the attempt, but the result was slaughter! As I have already mentioned, 475 candidates stood, of whom 319 lost their deposits. The organisation simply was not there. We polled a total vote of 2,621,548 and returned nine MPs. It was clear that the party had been kept alive by a handful of dedicated Liberals who, like Horatius, had bravely held the bridge but, alas, this was not enough. It was a replay of the Charge of the Light Brigade. The only redeeming feature of that election was that Lloyds’ Insurers must have thought it unlikely in the extreme for any national party to lose so many deposits, and we were fully insured!
Somehow we managed to regroup and face the 1951 election, but we only had 109 candidates, and polled 730,556 votes and returned six MPs. The party’s fortunes had reached rock bottom.
In retrospect I don’t think any of us realised how near we were to disaster in the 1959 general election. The Conservative Party had used the name ‘Liberal’ in a whole variety of situations, which was bound to confuse the electorate. Thus, standing as Conservative candidates were six calling themselves Conservative and National Liberal; one National Liberal; four National Liberal and Conservatives; six Liberal and Conservatives; but the most debilitating argument was that of the ‘wasted vote’ for the Liberals, However, we fielded only 216 candidates and returned six MPs. Of these, two were the subject of the Bolton and Huddersfield pacts, as the result of which the Liberal Party gave the Tories a straight run against Labour in Huddersfield East and Bolton East, in return for a similar dispensation in Bolton West and Huddersfield West. The arrangements were highly vulnerable and easily revocable. The Tories decided not to fight Cardigan, which was Liberal-held although we would have held it had the Tories stood. However, the fact remains that only three of the six MPs were returned in a three-cornered fight: Clement Davies, the former Liberal leader Jo Grimond and myself (with a majority of 362). With Clem’s death, we were temporarily reduced to five Liberal MPs, as was the case after the Carmarthen by-election in 1957. How much smaller could we get before we were no longer recognised as one of the parties in the House? In the event there was only one Liberal gain in the entire country, namely North Devon, and one loss, which was the neighbouring division of Torrington.
The next crisis was in 1965, when the Liberal Party seemed to be unaware, or at least unconcerned, that it had an overdraft of £70,000, which for a small party at that time was enormous. Sir Andrew Murray was the incumbent treasurer, and I was approached at the Liberal conference that year and asked whether I would stand against him, to which I agreed and won. My first step was a visit to Coutts Bank, where the party had its account. I was courteously received by the directors, wearing their traditional frock coats. I indicated that I had been elected treasurer and that I would clear off the overdraft at the earliest possible moment. There was, however, one thing they could do to assist the process, and that was to increase the overdraft to £100,000! They agreed. I realised that I had a formidable task ahead of me, and took the view that unless we could turn the figures round in six months the party would have to go out of business. Tremendous efforts were made by Liberals throughout the country. When I first became leader in 1967 I resigned as treasurer, but for the first few years of my leadership I had to devote a great deal of energy towards raising funds. This had not been regarded as part of the leader’s job in the past.
In the general election of 1970, the Liberal Party lost seven MPs, including Eric Lubbock. The combined majority obtained by John Pardoe in North Cornwall, David Steel in Roxburgh, Selkirk & Peebles, and me was 1,600. If 800 Liberals had voted Tory we three would have been out and the Parliamentary Party would have consisted of one Welsh MP and two Scottish MPs. It was clear that we had not yet then turned the party round.
By-elections are always of crucial importance to a third party. They can launch a campaign on equal terms as the two other major parties, expressed in terms of funds, organisation and outside help. Also very important is that the media, certainly in recent years, has given almost equal coverage to the three main parties. A successful by-election can do wonders for morale, but one always has to ask the question: is any one result a false start, or is it a harbinger of spring?
The first successful by-election in my lifetime was the Torrington by-election in March 1958. The campaign was fought on the condition of the area in terms of low wages, lack of industrial jobs and the very restricted incomes of local farmers. I led an army of North Devon volunteers day after day, and finally Mark Bonham Carter cracked the Tory vote, and won by a majority of 219. It was a dress rehearsal for North Devon the following year, when I won the seat.
The next earth-shaking by-election was at Orpington in March 1962. This constituency, in the stockbroker belt, had at one time as MP Sir Waldron Smithers, who was so right-wing that he was regarded in Parliament as a bit of light relief. The sitting Tory, Donald Sumner, caused a by-election when he was appointed to the county court bench. When the Orpington Liberal executive met to plan the by-election campaign, they were informed by Jack Galloway, the very attractive prospective candidate, that there was an unusual complication Jack had not fully understood the technical terms ‘nisi’ and ‘absolute’, and in good faith had married his present wife before his first marriage had been dissolved. This would not have mattered, but the first wife threatened to attend all Jack’s meetings and denounce him as a bigamist. All agreed that Jack was not to blame but these vindictive wrecking tactics led them to agree reluctantly that he was wise not to fight.
The Chief Whip, Donald Wade, was telephoned immediately and asked if he could suggest a prominent Liberal, such as Mark Bonham Carter, to step in as candidate. Donald warned them that the writ might be moved at any time and that the Association should find someone local who would not need time to get known in the constituency After discussion, the agent, Christine Parker, who had made the telephone call, turned to Eric Lubbock, a local councillor, and said: ‘What about you doing it, Eric?’ Eric replied that his employers, Charterhouse, were already long-suffering about his absences on council business and he didn’t like to ask them for more time off to fight a by-election. The members of the executive pressed him to reconsider his position and he agreed to put it to his boss the next day.
He marched into the office of the managing director, Bill Warnock, and said that he had been asked to stand in the by-election. Warnock asked what the figures had been at the last election, and having heard them, laughed and said: ‘Do have three weeks off at the company’s expense.’ The figures requested were 24,303 Conservative, 9,543 Labour and 9,092 Liberal. Eric Lubbock, now Lord Avebury, fought a splendid campaign and won a majority of 7,855. The news was given to Jo Grimond, then leader, live on television – he gasped almost in disbelief. Eric held the seat until 1970, when I, then leader, received the news of his defeat live on TV, and felt shattered.
His first constituency case was initiated by a telephone call at 2 a.m. His wife, Kina, said that he was asleep but that she would give him a message: ‘Tell the MP’, said the constituent, ‘that my neighbour has thrown a dead badger into my garden, and I want Mr Lubbock to arrange with the council to have it removed!’ Such is the variety of tasks facing an MP.
When Eric took his seat, the Tories in the chamber greeted him with utter silence. The only Tory MP who shook him by the hand was Bob Boothby. For Liberals it was a memorable occasion. Watching from the Peers’ Gallery in the Commons was the Liberal Party’s elder statesman, Viscount Samuel. He came into the Whips’ Office to congratulate him: ‘This gives me particular pleasure, since I sat in Parliament with both your grandfathers’.
David Steel won a splendid victory at the 1965 by-election at Roxburgh, Selkirk & Peebles, followed by Wallace Lawler in 1969 at Birmingham Ladywood. These contests were not enough to turn round the fortunes of the party in time for the 1970 general election. However, in 1972 and 1973 (here were five successful by-elections: Rochdale, covering a Labour industrial area, returned Cyril Smith; Sutton & Cheam, a home counties commuter base, returned Graham Tope; the Isle of Ely, in the agricultural Fenlands, elected Clement Freud; Ripon, in rural Yorkshire, returned David Austick, and Berwick-upon-Tweed returned Alan Beith.
In the spring of 1973 Liberals won 1,500 council seats and proceeded to practise community politics, which resulted in some first-class electoral organisations. For my part, I campaigned in all the by-elections, devoting as much time as I could to help ensure that each contest had adequate organisation, enough outside help, funds and sufficient publicity. Things were beginning to turn round, and the five by-elections already mentioned were the launch pad for the February 1974 election. In an interview I gave to Kenneth Harris prior to the 1973 Liberal conference I said that while Jo Grimond had built up the intellectual credibility of the Liberal Party, my task had been to build its political credibility.
The result of the February 1974 general election is well known, but bears repetition. Starting from a baseline of two million votes the Liberal strength shot up to six million. It was a bitter fact that those four million additional votes gave us only three more MPs. Under any fair voting system, this should have been a breakthrough.
Having often experienced Liberal failure to win a winnable seat, whether at a by-election or general election, I determined in the 1960s to set up a Winnable Seats Committee, to concentrate on enough seats to give us a proper foothold in the House of Commons. We decided to keep the committee to three in number – namely Ted Wheeler, who was also Chief Agent, and Dominic le Foe, a brilliant publicist and speaker. We decided to keep our activities as free from publicity as possible as we didn’t want the other parties to know which constituencies we were targeting nor to incur the hostility of those Liberal Associations we could not help through lack of resources.
Ted would go to the selected constituency well in advance and would prepare a highly detailed report which itemised the strengths and weaknesses of each particular constituency. The three of us would then meet the constituency officers for two or three hours. In every case we set targets for membership, income, publicity campaigns and the formation of new branches, the achievement of which was the condition of continuing help from our committee. Money was always tight – sometimes I would get an individual to sponsor a constituency and on several occasions the candidate himself chipped in.
The stimulus of £1,000 channelled by our committee to a local Association would be more likely to hit the targets than relying on the candidate to raise the money, or part of it, himself.
Each constituency was a different case. One particular example was in the Inverness constituency, which was eminently winnable. For the candidate, travelling distances from his place of work to the constituency were so vast that by the time he arrived it was almost time to return. I suggested that the candidate should give up his teaching post; that we should set up a Scottish Research Centre in Inverness; and that the candidate should become its director, with a modest honorarium. As far as I was concerned he could pack the work of the Centre into four days a fortnight, provided the remaining ten days were used in nursing the seat. David Russell Johnston, as he was then known, the candidate in question, agreed and the distinguished parliamentary career that followed is evidence that our strategy paid off.
I visited the constituencies of all my parliamentary colleagues to help reinforce their tenure. I also included another group of constituencies which were considered winnable by us. When I became leader I carried on this work, which I believed was absolutely vital.
A critical aspect of campaigning lies in timing, whether nationally or locally. If the campaign peaks too early it will begin to run out of steam and may run down very fast. If it fails to reach a peak at all, the campaign clearly will not get off the ground. Ideally the contest should be on a rising market up to and including polling day. This was particularly true in the Torrington by-election in 1958, which was the Liberals’ first gain in a by-election since before the war. If the vote had been taken a week earlier we would have won by a majority of 1,200–1,500 votes. As it was, we reached our peak too early and won by 219 votes. Had polling been, say, two days later, the Conservatives’ counter-offensive would have had an effect and we should probably have been out by 1,200–1,500 votes.
In the February 1974 general election I was shown a private opinion poll which showed the Liberals could poll 7.5 million votes. My reaction was to conclude that the other parties had also seen this poll and would sense the appalling dangers which the figures represented to them, namely that with a further half a million votes we could make the breakthrough under our present electoral system. In the remaining days of the election they would turn their fire on us. Any votes over five million for us would be a bonus.
To give one example of the power of the big brigades: the government in office take the eve of the eve of poll for their last political broadcast in the series; the official opposition take theirs the day before that, namely the Monday before polling day; the Liberals are relegated to the previous Saturday – five days before polling day. The pressure on us was tremendous but we still ended up with six million votes.
By January 1974 it was clear that the government and the miners were on a collision course. To conserve coal stocks, industry was working on a three-day week and there were power cuts nationwide. The government was insistent that any settlement should be made within the framework of Phase 3 of the government’s anti-inflation policy. The miners took the view that events in the Middle East, with the price of oil soaring, made them a special case in which Phase 3 had become outdated.
The TUC offered not to use the miners’ settlement, when and if achieved, as an excuse for demands for other industries. On 31 January 1974 I asked the Prime Minister in the House of Commons: ‘Does he regard the TUC’s initiative and the Relativities Report on the Pay Board at least as giving some scope for hope? Is not the general acceptance by the government of the Relativities Report at least a recognition by the government that greater flexibility is required under Phase 3?
‘Could the Secretary of State under paragraph 61 regard the case of the miners as one of special national interest for immediate consideration and to be referred to an examining body? Is the Pay Board’s suggestion that the pay code may have to be amended if the recommendations go beyond Phase 3 something the government would accept? Since we are in a situation in which we are heading for a head-on collision, if the miners regard the £44 million as an interim offer awaiting the outcome of the examination, and the government regard it as an immediate settlement under Phase 3, honour could be settled on both sides.’
Mr Heath replied: ‘… when we operated the freeze and then Stage 2, we recognised that anomalies had arisen and asked the Pay Board to report on how this should be dealt with. We immediately accepted the Anomalies Report, and this came into effect with Stage 3. As a result, over 90 per cent of the anomalies have already been peacefully settled and worked out through the Pay Board as a result of the Report. I believe that relativities can be dealt with in exactly the same way … the question of relativities can be dealt with as soon as this machinery is set up. I am right in inviting the TUC and CBI to help us set it up as soon as possible.’
I was convinced that there was scope for compromise that could lead to a settlement. Accordingly, Cyril Smith MP, our industrial spokesman, who knew Joe Gormley, president of the NUM, through his Lancashire and previous Labour connections, arranged a visit to the National Union of Mineworkers’ headquarters on 7 February 1974. Our delegation consisted of Cyril Smith, John Pardoe MP and myself. Joe Gormley and two of his colleagues, Mr McGahey and Mr Daly, represented the union. I suggested that the £44 million on offer should be regarded as an interim settlement, pending examination of the whole pay structure of the miners as a special case. The government should be asked to make it clear that whilst they could not go beyond the £44 million at this stage, the offer should cover the present situation. The existing pay deal was due for renewal by 1 March, by which time the Pay Board should be asked to produce its report.
Although the government could not accept any Pay Board recommendations without seeing them first, nonetheless it should indicate that it would accept any reasonable suggestion, and that in any event £44 million was money on the table which the union was entitled to take up without prejudice to their right to argue their claim for special recognition. In my view, if the union turned down £44 million and therefore turned down further opportunities for negotiations, Mr Heath on that basis could go to a general election and, in my view, be returned with a majority of twenty to thirty MPs. If, on the other hand, the government, having conceded the £44 million, accepted the Pay Board’s recommendations, and on the strength of this made an additional offer, a refusal by the union would strengthen Mr Heath’s position, and in my view he would get back with a majority of nearer fifty.
We had a fruitful hour’s discussion, and whilst Mr Gormley very properly indicated that all decisions on these issues would have to be decided by his executive, he was grateful for our interest. He said that we had raised some valuable points and were clearly working for a constructive compromise.
After leaving the miners, more than ever convinced that there could be a compromise, we contacted Derek Ezra, chairman of the National Coal Board, and raised the issues which had come up at our meeting with the miners. I was delighted to learn that his mind was moving in a direction similar to our own. That morning he had a meeting with Campbell Adamson, Director-General of the CBI, and Len Murray, General Secretary of the TUC, at which they agreed that they ought to see the Prime Minister informally to try to find a solution to the miners’ problem, with a suggested compromise not dissimilar from our own.
We called on Michael Clapham, president of the CBI, with whom we had a constructive session. From his office, I decided to telephone Willie Whitelaw, then Employment Secretary, to tell him what progress we had made. We asked for an urgent meeting. He replied that whilst he had taken careful note of what we said, an announcement had been made minutes before by the Prime Minister on the one o’clock news that the Queen had granted his request for an immediate dissolution of Parliament, so that a general election would be held on Thursday 28 February 1974.
Any further hopes of a settlement, at least before an election, were swept away.
The Liberals went into the February 1974 general election in good heart. The Liberal Party’s financial crisis was resolved; its policies had been brought up to date at the Southport Assembly in September 1973 and five by-elections had been won. Taking the batch of eight by-elections, our total vote was higher than that of the other two parties.
As I said at that conference:
The electorate are obviously prepared to give us a chance, for which we are grateful; they are anxious to listen to our policies, to which we must respond. We are witnessing nothing less than the renaissance of the Liberal Party. But before I touch on our policies, may I be allowed at the outset to offer to the Conservative and Labour Parties, and for that matter one or two political commentators as well, a few home truths, which I suspect the electorate are more ready to accept than they are.
First, there is no God-given or man-made right for the Conservative and Labour Parties to rule this country for ever – much as they may dislike to hear it.
Second, they most certainly do not between them represent the sum total of human and political wisdom – however surprised they may be to learn that.
Third, in the mind of the electorate they have both failed in office: failed to keep inflation under control; failed to maintain the value of our currency; failed to modernise industrial relations; failed to end class divisions in our society; failed to give Britain the democratic institutions she deserves; failed to stem the growing sense of disillusionment with them and their leaders. Above all, failed to give this country a sense of national purpose. The brutal fact is that the electors are bored to death with both of them. And one final piece of advice: the Tory and Labour Parties won’t dispel this unpopularity by abusing the Liberal Party.
I went into the February 1974 general election defending a majority of 369. It would have been fatal in my view if I had taken the daily press conference in London, either absenting myself from North Devon for most of the campaign or flying back to North Devon late in the morning, returning to London by car through the night. I therefore decided to explore the possibility of setting up a television land link between my office in Barnstaple and the National Liberal Club in London, where the daily press conferences were held. I was told it was practicable and so I pressed ahead.
I understand that Conservative Central Office took legal advice as to whether this development infringed the Representation of the People Act and/or whether the cost of transmitting from North Devon should be counted against the constituency expenses. I suspect they received the same advice as I did – namely that provided the background was not recognisable as being any place in particular it was perfectly legitimate.
This new procedure worked like a charm. It had the added advantage that questions had to be asked through the medium of a hand-held mike passed round by the press officer. Therefore we had one question at a time with suitable time given for reply. I think this calmer atmosphere helped us to pitch our campaign more reasonably than the usual dog-fight.
Although I went into the October 1974 election with a majority of 11,000, I repeated the land link to London, which resulted in my having more time to tour round the rest of the country rather than being stuck in London.
The nation was bitterly divided; we were experiencing the miners’ strike, which produced some very ugly incidents, and the three-day week. I was determined to see the Liberal Party acting as the voice of moderation. The pattern of the opinion polls, although differing in their final figures, all showed a steadily increasing volume of support for the party.
I set out in the Daily Mirror on 27 February 1974 why I thought electors should vote Liberal:
Your vote at this election could help make history. The Liberal Party stands poised on the verge of a major breakthrough, and for the first time in fifty years you have the alternative of three parties from which to choose the next government.
The Liberal Party offers you a new choice, because it offers a fresh approach to our problems – and no easy solutions.
A new approach which is not based on any class or sectional interest, and which recognises that if this country is to recover it must first be united.
We must break down the artificial barriers that divide us. We should begin in the factories and offices by ending suspicion between management and workers, giving workers an equal share in the running of their company – including a share in the profits.
We must tackle rising prices, because inflation always hits hardest at the weak and the poor.
To tackle it effectively, we must first introduce greater fairness in our society.
We must have guaranteed minimum earnings for the lowest paid.
We must extend family allowances to the first child and eliminate the means-test society by guaranteeing every family an adequate minimum income through the tax-credit system.
Equally vital, we must protect our pensioners. Pensions should be linked to national average earnings. As earnings rise, so should pensions.
For single persons, the pension should be fixed at one-third of average earnings. For a couple it should be half.
When we have made provision for the most needy, we can reasonably ask some restraint from those who can afford to tighten their belts.
The Liberal policy for prices and incomes is to control both equally. We would act on prices by tackling monopolies and price-fixing to get genuinely competitive prices.
We must decide every year how much as a nation we can afford to pay ourselves and how much we can allow prices to rise. Those that exceed these limits would be taxed.
But our first task must be to unite this country. So before you vote, please consider one point: which party do you think has the best chance of uniting us?
A party which represents big business and gets a large amount of its funds from that source?
A party almost wholly financed by the trade unions?
Or a Liberal Party dependent on no vested interest and therefore free to work for the country as a whole?
This time you must vote Liberal.
The headlines indicated that things were really moving in our favour. The Daily Express on 27 February 1974 carried the banner heading:
‘HERE COMES JEREMY. HAROLD, TED ARE WORRIED’
Again another headline read:
‘SENSATIONAL POLL RESULT. LIBERALS ARE GAINING FAST’
and:
‘TED, JEREMY NECK AND NECK’
‘HEATH, WILSON FIGHT TO WIN OVER THE NEW LIBS. THE BATTLE FOR JEREMY’S ARMY’
The Sun, 25 February 1974:
‘THE JEREMY JITTERS’
‘HEATH FEARS HE WON’T GET OUTRIGHT WIN’
‘SUDDENLY LIBERAL LEADER JEREMY THORPE WAS PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE WITH THE TORIES.’
Evening News, 27 February 1974:
‘TED AHEAD’
‘RACE TO LIBS FALTERS’
‘Mr Jeremy Thorpe has achieved a staggering 38% in personal popularity in the London and South-East area which contains many marginal constituencies. National opinion poll in the Evening News today shows the Liberal leader with an impressive lead over his two main opponents as the campaign deadline looms. Mr Heath’s popularity rating in London and the South-East is 24% and Mr Wilson’s 15%.’
In the event, Harold Wilson formed a minority government and it was clear that he would seek to increase his majority, probably by calling a second election at the earliest opportunity. I felt that October was a real possibility and launched our campaign with the hovercraft tours in the summer, to which I refer elsewhere.
The big issue for the Liberal Party that autumn was to establish the party’s position in the event of no party having an absolute majority. At the conference in Brighton on 11 September 1974, I said:
We now face the supreme test of our conviction and courage.
Our unity of purpose and our strength of character will be tested as never before, This time there will be no honeymoon period before the other two parties, hitherto contemptuous of our influence, turn their wrath on us simultaneously. This time the warning lights are already on.
Liberals entered the contest as free agents owing no favours to paymasters and with no pacts or promises hedging their position.
Dealing with the controversial coalition issue, I said:
I do not and never have believed there is under present conditions a sufficient basis of agreement for a Tory–Liberal or Labour–Liberal coalition.
But that does not mean that we have ever suggested that government should be made impossible, nor in such a situation that we would opt out of our parliamentary responsibilities.
If this country was faced with a catastrophic economic crisis, then we would be prepared, for a limited period on an agreed programme, to join an all-party government of national unity. Is it really thought to be in the interest of the nation to say less?
I asked:
Are you going to say: ‘There may be 4,000,000 unemployed, there may be a collapse of the currency, and there may be bankruptcy. We have no responsibility. We wish to play no part in the rescue of the nation, we are pure’? Of course we are not going to opt out of the responsibilities facing this nation.
Liberals offer the electorate a unique combination of reasons for giving the party their support. Only the Liberals can unite the country in a common fight against inflation.
It is only the people of Great Britain who can insist that men and women of common sense, high talent and goodwill should come together to rescue the country from desperate economic peril.
If I am right in thinking that the supreme need is for unity, let me ask any Conservative this question: do they really believe that the return of a Conservative government will gain the support, trust, and enthusiasm of the trade union movement, and has Mr Heath really proved to be the key to industrial peace?
And to any Labour voter: do they in all conscience think that a majority Labour government will engender the confidence and enterprise of industry to invest, to expand and create new jobs? Is Mr Benn really the answer to economic prosperity? Don’t we as a nation need to gain the trust of both?
At the last election, 6,000,000 Liberal voters formed an alliance for unity and struck a mortal blow against a discredited two-party system.
The politics of this country can now be totally changed.
I had some fears that our vote might not hold up as the result of the electoral system, which had disfranchised millions of voters in February. Happily we were within 1 per cent of our previous total. The outcome was just as disappointing as it was in February and followed the same pattern, namely:
February: Conservatives 12 million votes – 300 MPs; Labour 12 million votes – 300 MPs; Liberals 6 million votes – 14 MPs.
October: Conservatives 10.5 million votes – 276 MPs; Labour 11.5 million votes – 319 MPs; Liberals 5.25 million votes – 13 MPs.
The supreme irony is that the Liberals polled, in October 1974, 5,231,477 votes, winning 13 seats. The Liberal Democrats in May 1997 polled 5,243,440 votes and won 46 seats. In almost every Western European democracy a vote of five to six million would have produced a minimum of 100 MPs!
In February 1974 the Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, against the background of the miners’ strike and the three-day week, had called a general election on the basis of: ‘Who governs Britain, the miners or the elected government?’ The result of the poll was indecisive: the Conservative Party had a larger number of votes than Labour, whilst the Labour Party had a larger number of MPs than the Conservatives. So much for our electoral system!
In his autobiography, The Course of my Life, Edward Heath says: ‘I tried to contact the Liberal leader, Jeremy Thorpe, who was in the West Country celebrating his party’s improved showing. On the Saturday afternoon when all the votes had been counted, he turned up at Downing Street for talks.’ This rather bland statement suggests that I was carrying out a sort of cold canvass of Downing Street looking for work!
The position is quite clear: on the Friday evening following polling day – 1 March 1971 – No. 10 rang me at my home in North Devon. I was still in Barnstaple leading a torchlight victory procession. It was suggested to No. 10 that I would be back in my cottage by 10.30 p.m. and they indicated that they would call back. I arrived back in time, but by midnight no call had come through, so I decided to ring No. 10 myself to be told by the Prime Minister that they had been unable to get through. Once again the local Chittlehamholt exchange had broken down at a crucial moment!
The Prime Minister indicated that our two parties appeared to have similar views on Europe and the statutory incomes policy – when would I be able to meet him? I agreed to come up to London the next morning.
The Prime Minister suggested that we keep the fact that we were meeting private. I agreed, and in so doing, recognise now that I made a mistake. When the news broke that a meeting was to take place, many Liberals panicked and thought that I, as Leader of the Liberal Party, was about to sacrifice the very independence of the party which I had spent the last twenty-five years working to preserve. However, I felt that if the Prime Minister of the day requested a meeting, one had an obligation to go.
Although I had always been opposed to joining a Tory coalition, at least I had a duty to find out what was proposed so that, with my colleagues, we could make an informed judgement.
The meeting consisted of the Prime Minister, myself and Robert Armstrong, Secretary to the Cabinet. The Prime Minister opened by saying that the Conservative Party had obtained the largest national vote at the general election and therefore had a right to try to form an administration. His offer was a complete coalition with the Liberal Party and a seat in the Cabinet. I can state with utter conviction that no specific ministry was mentioned or suggested. Mr Heath suggests in his book that I expressed the preference for the job of Home Secretary on two occasions.
The statement he made to the Press Association of 3 October 1996 said: ‘I had absolutely no intention of offering Jeremy Thorpe the Home Office in a coalition government, nor did I ever mention it to him’. If in fact I had raised the matter twice, it is odd that I should have drawn no response from him at all. I later learnt from a reliable source that what he had in mind was a Foreign Office job with specific responsibility for Europe.
I conceded his constitutional right to form an administration but pointed out that as we sat there I had the equivalent of almost half his popular vote behind me – six million people had obtained fourteen MPs. Or to express it in another way, four million extra votes had yielded three more MPs. ‘Does this mean that you are asking for electoral reform?’ the Prime Minister asked, to which I replied: ‘Yes’. He went on to say: ‘We have no set policy on this’. I remember reflecting at that moment that it was high time they did! In fact insofar as they did have views, the Conservative Party had favoured the status quo or first-past-the-post. The term proportional representation was never used, as is wrongly suggested in his book.
Apart from general considerations I made two specific points. First, we did not know who had won the election, but we did know who had lost it. Secondly, apart from the likely views of my colleagues, who were frankly hostile to the idea of a coalition, we had many grave reservations about him leading a coalition. I had been highly critical of his handling of the miners’ dispute before the election.
Another important point was the mathematics of the situation: 296 Conservative MPs plus 14 Liberal MPs, making a total of 310, which was a figure of less than half the total of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister confirmed that he had not approached the Scottish or Welsh Nationalists, nor the Ulster MPs. I predicted that his suggested coalition government would be brought down on the first critical vote on the Queen’s Speech. With this he disagreed.
I said I would, however, report our discussion to my parliamentary colleagues. I don’t think I left him very sanguine about the chances of success.
Our meeting took place on the following day (the Sunday). At that meeting the Prime Minister opened the discussion by saying that he had discussed the matters raised by me with his Cabinet colleagues and they were adamant that they wished to continue to serve under his leadership. There was therefore no question of a change being made. On the question of electoral reform he would offer a Speaker’s Conference. (This is an established procedure, presided over by the Speaker, for dealing with such electoral matters.) The Prime Minister said that there would be a free vote on the recommendations made. I made it clear that unless the Cabinet took a collective view in favour of reform and made it a vote of confidence in the government, no reform would have any chance of going through Parliament whilst the Conservative Party continued to favour the present first-past-the-post system.
In the meantime I sounded out my colleagues informally on the Sunday, and arranged a meeting of the Parliamentary Party for Monday morning, by which time I would know the outcome of my second meeting with the Prime Minister on the Sunday evening.
In my letter of Monday 4 March to the Prime Minister I referred to the second meeting, to which his letter to me of the same date, strangely enough, did not allude. I continued: ‘I made it clear that in my view, after preliminary soundings, there was no possibility of a Liberal-Conservative coalition proving acceptable, but that we might give consideration to offering support from the opposition benches to any minority government on an agreed but limited programme. This you have now explicitly rejected.’
My Parliamentary Party met on Monday and confirmed my reservations on the question of coalition and the following statement was issued:
The outcome of the election clearly shows that the electorate is not prepared to give either a Conservative or Labour administration a mandate to pursue their conventional policies, The six million people whom we represent voted for policies of moderation. In the present situation we are convinced that such policies can only be carried out effectively by a government of national unity consisting of members of all parties, committed to a limited programme for an agreed period. This would give overriding priority to those policies required to be implemented in the national interest. The gravity of the country’s economic plight is such that party conflict must be subordinated to the country’s need.
It is now the duty of the other parties to enter into immediate discussion with a view to achieving this. To this end we have urged the Prime Minister to convene an immediate meeting of the party leaders.
Mr Heath’s book makes the extraordinary claim that I (JT) ‘was very keen to enter a coalition, as were many of his colleagues’. As the Duke of Wellington replied to the lady who said: ‘Mr Smith, I believe’ – ‘Madam if you believe that you’ll believe anything!’ The suggested arrangement for general support for the government from the opposition benches for agreed measures in the national interest, short of coalition, was taken up by Jim Callaghan, when he was Prime Minister, and David Steel, and was the basis of the Lib–Lab Pact some years later. Mr Heath, for his part, felt unable to accept such an arrangement.
By June 1974 it became clear that there was a real possibility of an autumn election. I was determined to get the Liberal campaign off the ground before the other two parties. This again was a question of timing. I was told, however, that it was no good, as everyone would be on the beaches. ‘Very well’, I said. ‘Let’s go to the beaches and do a beach-storming campaign by hovercraft’. On Wednesday 28 August at 9 a.m. we set off from North Devon in perfect weather. The hovercraft jumped some twenty feet off the RAF Chivenor runway on to the mud flats of the Taw River below, spattering us with mud! This was rapidly washed off by the spray. My real concern in making the leap had been that we might turn a somersault, with the hovercraft landing upside down in the mud. We crossed the bar where the rivers Taw and Torridge meet and flow out to sea, arriving at Ilfracombe at 9.15 for an open-air meeting by the quay, which was attended by 1,500 people.
The next two days were spent travelling around the Devon and Cornish coastline, accompanied by two West Country neighbouring MPs, John Pardoe (North Cornwall) and Paul Tyler (Bodmin). We called on sixteen different seaside places. Wherever we landed, a large, enthusiastic crowd turned out. One or two scenes have particularly stuck in my mind: the picturesque harbour at St Ives was filled at the quayside with a mass of people, dressed in bright holiday colours; the stretch of the Barbican in Plymouth, lined with some 10,000 people; and perhaps the most memorable of all – our arrival at Kingsbridge, as we came up the river Dart, accompanied by a flotilla of small boats.
The only human casualty was a lady Journalist who was given a brandy to steel her for the journey; at this point the hovercraft bucked and the brandy went up her nose, an experience which, I am told, is very painful!
Our last stop for this part of the tour was Sidmouth, after which we were to resume on the Monday, calling at Bournemouth, Brighton and Eastbourne along the south coast. However, no sooner had we all disembarked on to the beach than a rogue wave hit a window of the hovercraft and pushed it in, rapidly filling it with water. Subsequently it transpired that that particular hovercraft had been on duty in the desert in the Middle East and had been involved in several sandstorms. The effect of this was that sand had settled in the rubber sealing around the window, causing the rubber to perish. In fact I now know that this could have happened at any time while we were at sea. We must be thankful it didn’t.
I arranged a further hovercraft to be made available to us from the Isle of Wight on the Monday. Unfortunately the weather had turned and there were gale warnings. It would have been too dangerous to put to sea. As we learnt later, it was in fact also the day of the Fastnet Race during which Ted Heath’s boat, Morning Cloud, sank. Our cancellation was an inevitable decision, though a disappointing one. I am certain that had we gone to the remaining seaside resorts, people would have turned out in even greater numbers, not only to hear the word, but to see whether we were likely to sink! In spite of these setbacks, we carried on by car and reckoned to have addressed over 60,000 people during the course of the tour. It was well worth the effort.
Although Jo Grimond made the occasional hop by helicopter, I believe I was the first party leader to use the helicopter on prolonged regional tours. During the 1970 election and the two 1974 elections, I travelled thousands of miles, which enabled me to visit scores of targeted seats. One major disaster was averted in 1970. Caroline and I had left North Devon and had called on five Welsh constituencies in South, Mid and North Wales, proceeding to Liverpool for a meeting with candidates of the region, and thereafter on to Cheadle in support of Michael Winstanley, before going on to Yorkshire. At Cheadle we landed in a field which was surrounded by a housing estate. A large crowd of people were waiting and dangerously some of them lunged towards the machine, whose rotor blade was still turning. One of these was an over-enthusiastic Tory lady, who held aloft a banner which was sliced in two by the blade. At that moment Caroline shouted: ‘Look!’ and there on the ground was unmistakably a tuft of hair which looked as though it belonged to a woman. ‘My God’, I thought, ‘We’ve scalped a woman!’ My mind shot back to Wild West films, when Native Americans scalped palefaces – was this always fatal? I concluded that it was. A series of thoughts flooded through my mind: should I cancel electioneering for the rest of the day as a mark of respect to the deceased? Should I call on the next of kin? Would the inquest take place during the election campaign? Presumably the press, to whom bad news is often good news, will carry banner headlines: ‘Thorpe kills woman!’
Caroline and I climbed out of the helicopter looking ashen, only to discover to our immense relief that a young lady had indeed lost her hair, but it was a wig which had blown off in the whirlwind of the rotor blade, and was trampled underfoot! I met the young lady months later at a Liberal meeting and was relieved to hear that she was none the worse for wear, though not wearing a wig.
To give another example of the amount of ground one was able to cover in a short space of time, I recall particularly a two-day tour during one of the 1974 elections. Starting in North Devon where I took the 10 a.m. national press conference by a special TV link between Barnstaple and the National Liberal Club in London, I set off by helicopter for an open-air meeting in Hereford, followed by North Hereford and four other constituencies, ending in Birmingham, and returning to London that night.
Day two: I took the daily press conference in London, before flying to Chelmsford, Orpington, Richmond, the Isle of Wight, North Dorset and back to North Devon for four meetings in the constituency. Not surprisingly, we were running late, and as it was getting dark, the pilot insisted that we should land at Exeter, where there would be appropriate lighting for the landing. He reckoned that it would be impracticable to land in my neighbour’s field in North Devon, which was the usual landing and take-off place during the campaign. From Exeter, I could not have got to the meetings in time and therefore I suggested that four tractors should be positioned in the four corners of the field, with headlights full on. This was successfully requested by radio from the helicopter and we duly landed in a blaze of lights to fulfil the evening engagements. My neighbour had already started the first meeting and was surprised and relieved to see me.
I have been fully committed to the cause of electoral reform for many years. One of my earliest recollections is of taking part of a deputation to die then Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George, led by the Independent MP for Oxford University, humorist and writer Sir Alan Herbert, in 1955. We urged the case for a Royal Commission on voting systems. At that time HMG was drafting constitutions for colonial territories about to receive independence. Quite apart from the distortions which our present system of first-past-the-post produces, nothing could be more dangerous than giving our own electoral system to a colonial territory where a group, either ethnic or religious, might be under-or over-represented in the ensuing election. We have been very careful to avoid this danger. I was Honorary Secretary of the committee seeking the Royal Commission, and our support covered a widespread cross-section of political opinion from Tony Benn and Michael Foot on the left to Douglas Savory, the MP for the university seat of Belfast University.
Reference should be made to the Orme Square meeting which took place on 24 March 1974. I had decided to invite the leaders of the business community for a meeting in my home. I organised six of my parliamentary colleagues to deliver the invitations personally. Each was to be assured that we were not going to ask them for money, but might raise matters which would be of possible interest to their shareholders. Almost every invitee accepted and turned up, twenty-four in number. A further four indicated that they were unable to be there but expressed interest. They included: Sir Marcus Sieff (Marks & Spencer); Sir Val Duncan (Rio Tinto); John King (Babcock & Wilcox); Sir Mark Turner (British Home Stores); Jim Slater (Slater Walker Securities); Ralph Bateman (Turner & Newall); Sir John Clark (Plessey Company); Viscount Caldecote (Delta Metal Co.); The Earl of Inchcape (P & O); Sir Kenneth Keith (Hill Samuel Group); Maxwell Joseph (Grand Metropolitan Hotels); Hon. David Montagu (Orion Bank); Ronald Grierson (GEC); John Hargreaves (IBM); Maldwyn Thomas (Rank Xerox); Edmund de Rothschild (N. M. Rothschild & Sons); Sir Ian Morrow (Hambros Industrial Management Ltd); Nigel Broackes (Trafalgar House Investments); Lord Stokes (British Leyland Motor Corporation); Sir John Partridge (Imperial Group); Mr John Pile (Imperial Group); Mr R. A. Garrett (Imperial Tobacco); Sir Alex Alexander (Imperial Foods); Mr Bruno Schroder (Schroder Wagg J. Henry Co.); Mr A. Macdonald (General Accident); J. R. M. Whitehorn (CBI); and Anthony Wigram (CAER).
The Hon. John Sainsbury, Sir Paul Chambers, Sir Arnold Weinstock and Professor Sir Ronald Edwards expressed interest, but were unable to be present.
In thanking them for their presence I said that the one thing they all had in common was that in one way or another they subscribed to Conservative Party funds. Whilst I was able to recommend a wider scattering of bread upon the waters, this was not the purpose of the meeting. I wanted to make it perfectly clear that I applauded the fact that their companies were contributing financially to the cost of keeping democracy alive, but I suggested that their motive was not because Mr Heath was the soul of flexibility nor Mr Anthony Barber the greatest Chancellor of our time. I suggested that what they wanted was a degree of continuity without bouts of nationalisation, denationalisation and re-nationalisation. What they needed was the strengthening of the middle ground in politics.
As far as the recent election was concerned (February 1974) they had not had very good value for money. With a turnout of 78.8 per cent, which was high, a Labour government had been returned with only 37.2 per cent of the electorate voting for them – 222,000 votes less than the Conservatives. In fact Labour with fewer votes was returned with five more MPs than the Conservatives. The Labour Party had formed a government with no less than 60 per cent of the votes opposed to them. The Liberal Party vote had gone up by four million to a total of six million which resulted in an increase of three MPs. One may ask why the Liberal Party declined the invitation to join a coalition with Edward Heath in February 1974. Although I did not wish to embroil them in a party political discussion, I would like to make two points which I had raised with the Prime Minister:
First – simple arithmetic: 296 Conservative MPs plus 14 Liberal MPs makes a total of 310 out of a House of 635. A coalition, in the absence of a majority, would have fallen on the first vote – probably on the Queen’s Speech.
Second, and far more fundamental, we did not know who had won the election, but we knew who had lost it. My colleagues and I had been very critical about Mr Heath’s handling of the miners’ dispute, which I believe could have been honourably settled. I did, however, offer him a formula of giving general support from the opposition benches for agreed measures. Mr Heath felt unable to accept this (although years later the formula was accepted by Mr Callaghan).
My suggestion to those present was that in order to get value for money, they should press the Conservative Party to give serious consideration to the whole question of electoral reform. In fact, the Conservative government had reintroduced proportional representation for Stormont in order to avoid a distortion of the respective strengths of the religious communities in the province of Northern Ireland.
The case for PR was simple. Taking the number of MPs returned, say, from the City of Leeds as being a total of six, PR would ensure two things, First, that each party would be represented in direct proportion to their vote in a multi-member constituency. Therefore a party gaining one sixth of the vote would get one seat, and so on. Second, since the voter could vote for up to six candidates of his or her own party, thus representing a wider choice between varying shades of opinion, this usually strengthened the hand of the moderates.
Sir Val Duncan (Rio Tinto) immediately reacted by saying: ‘No more money for the Conservative Party until they come out for electoral reform’.
I want to state clearly that acceptance of the invitation to the gathering did not of itself imply acceptance of the case for electoral reform.
However, since then support for electoral reform has been growing in all quarters, including the business community, as expressed by the CBI.
In December 1997, the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, appointed Lord Jenkins of Hillhead to chair an independent commission on the voting system, charged with making its report in the autumn of 1998, after which the government was committed to a referendum.
The Commission’s terms of reference were:
The Commission shall be free to consider and recommend any appropriate system or combination of systems in recommending an alternative to the present system for parliamentary elections to be put before the people in the government’s referendum.
The Commission shall observe the requirement for broad proportionality, the need for stable government, an extension of voter choice and the maintenance of a link between MPs and geographical constituencies.
I include my memorandum, which I submitted to the Commission.
Memorandum by The Rt Hon. Jeremy Thorpe, submitted to the Independent Commission on the Voting System
This memorandum seeks to establish a voting procedure which reconciles the almost irreconcilable objectives of combining numerical accuracy with the retention of a strong connection between an MP and his or her constituents, This involves running two different systems in harness, namely: proportional representation by the single transferable vote in the larger cities of the United Kingdom, complemented by the alternative vote in the remaining constituencies.
One extraordinary factor which arises from the 1997 general election is the fact that there is no Conservative MP in Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow or Edinburgh. This cannot be healthy in a democracy. Taking approximately sixty city constituencies, there is set out in the accompanying table the collective total gained by each party; the percentage that this represents in the individual constituency; what seats were actually won; and what the probable outcome would be if those constituencies had run the elections collectively on a PR basis. It is fair to say that this latter figure is only an estimate, since the electorate might have voted slightly differently given the absence of what I might vulgarly call the squeeze factor. Cities very often have a corporate view of their problems which brings about a degree of cooperation between local MPs, often of differing political persuasions.
I do not believe that a three-or four-member constituency in, say, Manchester or Birmingham would make the individual voter feel remote from his MP. On the contrary, it might be the first occasion where a significant minority, at present deprived of representation, would have a chance of getting their voice heard. The great joy of PR is not only that it accurately reflects the support enjoyed by each party, but enables the electors to make a choice not only of party, but of individual candidates within their party. The enlarged parliamentary constituencies would be created by bunching together existing single-member parliamentary constituencies, and could safely be left to the Boundary Commissioners, who would decide the number of parliamentary constituencies to be bunched and any routine amendments to existing constituency boundaries.
It is an extraordinary thought that the official opposition, by reason of the eccentric voting system under which we labour at present, should be totally without representation in many of the major cities in the United Kingdom. It used to be said that the first-past-the-post system was excellent in a two-party situation and produced ‘strong government’. My dual comments are that we no longer have a two-party situation – we have three UK parties, the two nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, and no less than four parties in Northern Ireland. I do not know what is meant by ‘strong government’ unless it means arming one party with an overall majority, disregarding the extent to which it might be in a minority nationally, and producing an unrepresentative result for the rest of the political field. To give one flagrant example: in the February 1974 general election the Liberal vote increased from two million to six million. The effect of adding four million to the total result produced only three more MPs.
The first-past-the-post system does not ensure a fair outcome, even with a contest involving only two candidates. In 1948, using the first-past-the-post system, the United Party of South Africa polled more votes than the Nationalist Party, but the Nationalists won a majority of the seats and claimed that this gave them a mandate to extend and formalise the system of apartheid. It is interesting to reflect that that outcome did not represent the majority view of the South African electorate. For this they paid a heavy price. To have brought this about is attributable to the system whereby one has only one MP returned whether he and his party have polled say 80 per cent or 20 per cent – the majority or minority of votes.
Although sixty constituencies have been considered for amalgamation, there are other cities which think corporately, such as Coventry, with three MPs at present, which could suitably become a three-member seat. Other cities could be considered by the Commissioners. The whole process could he completed before the next election.
In order to maintain a close link between the MP and his or her constituency outside the big towns, I would recommend the use of the alternative vote. It does away with two weaknesses of the present first-past-the-post system. It is a fact that over 300 MPs, or almost half the House of Commons, were elected on a minority vote in the 1997 general election – that is, a majority of their constituents were opposed to their return. In the general election of February 1974, the number was 4051 Once these results are aggregated it becomes more likely than not that the government returned will also be in a minority nationally.
The second great defect of the present electoral system is that where the likely outcome is closely contested between any two political parties in an individual seat, the parties in third place are crucified and their supporters advised that they must in no way vote in accordance with their convictions, but must vote for one of the two leading contenders as the only way to prevent their least favourite party candidate being returned. No vote should be regarded as wasted if people vote according to their convictions. There is something highly civilised in saying to the electorate: ‘As a result of the poll to date no one party has a clear majority, your party is clearly defeated, but we would like you to express your second preference, which you have conveniently marked on your ballot paper’. The present situation is rather like a man who goes to buy twenty Benson & Hedges cigarettes, only to find that his brand is not in stock and his money is put in the till. Good commercial practice would suggest that the customer should be asked what was his second preference. Equally he could play his part in the election of his Member of Parliament. The need for tactical voting is proof of the shortcomings of the first-past-the-post system. The alternative vote is to be preferred to the second ballot system used in France, which unnecessarily prolongs the contest and takes place in two stages and leads to unseemly bargaining. The additional seat formula linked to AV runs the risk of party listing and is a very blunt way of trying to introduce a proportional result.
There will be criticism that the proposed arrangements will involve using two different systems in the same election. With the advent of the new Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the European Parliament, we will all be using proportional systems of voting (some better than others!) whilst Westminster is still saddled with the old-fashioned first-past-the-post system. When a Conservative government sought to increase the numbers of Euro MPs in Northern Ireland from two to three so that the Catholic minority would be fairly represented, our European colleagues made it clear that the first-past-the-post system would in all probability result in three Protestant Euro MPs being returned. They insisted that if there were to be a third Euro MP, the use of PR for a three-member constituency would be the only guarantee that the Catholic minority would be fairly represented. This, of course, would be on the assumption that they had one-third of the vote, which was highly probable.
Different electoral systems involving the same principles operate for local government in Northern Ireland and there is no move afoot to revert to the first-past-the-post system operating in the rest of the UK. When David Lloyd George partitioned Ireland he was determined that the Catholics in the north and the Protestants in the south should be fairly represented. He therefore provided PR for the elections north and south. He also hoped that the system would make it less likely that polarisation on a religious basis would occur. It is not a mere accident that in the south, where PR has never been abolished, the Protestant community have produced distinguished state presidents and Cabinet ministers. What is enormously significant, to me at least, is that there are two cathedrals in Dublin, both of which are Protestant, and in the absence of a Catholic cathedral a Protestant one is loaned out when needed for great state occasions!
Another minor example of dual electoral systems being used in an election was the university seats: nine MPs were elected by STV and three by first-past-the-post. I suppose it could be said that the German electoral system is a blend of first-past-the-post topped up with a proportionate formula, which incidentally was the invention of Asten Albu, the Labour MP for Edmonton, and member of the Control Commission.
I enclose by way of postscript certain county oddities produced at the last election. With regard to the 1948 South African election result, 547,000 votes for Smuts produced sixty seats, while 442,000 votes for Malan produced seventy-eight seats. Every contest was a straight fight.
The dual system which I have suggested was recommended by the Speaker’s Conference of 1917. They recommended that PR with the transferable vote should be used in constituencies returning three to five members, and the alternative vote in single-member constituencies with more than two candidates. While the coalition government of 1916 was in office, a scheme was prepared, in pursuance of the Representation of the People Act 1918 for the election of 100 Members by PR. But the Liberal motion to carry it into effect was defeated on a free vote by fifty-six votes.
At the 1930 Speaker’s Conference, the Conservative Party voted in favour of electoral reform by means of the single transferable vote, whilst the Labour Party supported the alternative vote. In 1931 a bill making provision for the introduction of the alternative vote was actually passed by the House of Commons but was rejected by the House of Lords.
In the course of the 1979 general election, I was provided with an advance copy of a leaflet which was to be distributed in North Devon by Mr Auberon Waugh, a fringe candidate in the constituency. The leaflet was scurrilous and libellous, and I decided that we should issue a writ for libel and an injunction in the High Court restraining the circulation of the leaflet. The importance of an injunction was that without it, by the time the libel action came to court, the damage would have been done. Accordingly we decided to ask immediately for an injunction from a judge in chambers, who happened to be the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery.
During that morning I was canvassing in a remote area on the North Devon–North Cornwall border at Woolfardisworthy, known as Woolsery, when a black cloud emerged on the horizon, and the entire press corps arrived. ‘What was my reaction to the fact that the Lord Chief Justice had refused to grant me an injunction, on the grounds that the matter should be left until the hearing of the libel action?’ It was pretty depressing news. I said that I would not comment until I had been briefed by my lawyers.
How right I was!
I made for the next village, where there was a telephone box in the square, and managed to track down Christopher Murray, one of my solicitors, to find out what had happened. He replied: ‘You are not up to date – understandably.’ It transpired that my legal team had left the Lord Chief Justice and proceeded immediately down the corridor leading to the Court of Appeal, presided over by Lord Denning, the Master of the Rolls. At a suitable moment they had broken into the proceedings in hand and asked, as a matter of urgency, for an appeal to be heard from a decision just made by the Lord Chief Justice. They had asked that pending the appeal a restraining interim injunction be granted. Lord Denning had recognised the urgency of the matter in view of its relevance to the election. Within two hours he had heard the appeal and determined in my favour, reversing Lord Widgery’s decision, and had issued an injunction. The law is capable of acting with speed in an emergency!
I returned to Woolsery and found the press corps still there. I told them that they were inadequately informed and had themselves been scooped.
In 1966 Jo Grimond let me know that he intended to relinquish the party leadership. I urged him strongly to stay on to continue to make his undoubted contribution to the party and the nation. Frank Byers, at a private meeting, asked Jo whether he had enjoyed being leader, to which Jo replied: ‘Yes’. ‘In that case,’ said Byers, ‘you can disenjoy the job for a bit longer’. Jo stayed on, but did not tell me when he finally decided to retire, as he felt that in all probability I would try to persuade him to stay on.
The Parliamentary Party of twelve were the total electorate at the time. We all knew how everyone was thought likely to vote. We subsequently discovered that Peter Bessell, the MP for Bodmin, had pledged his support to two of the three candidates! The one commitment was that Eric Lubbock and I agreed that if either of us were elected the other would give him whole-hearted support. Against that pattern, he continued as my Chief Whip when I became leader. The twelve votes were counted by Donald Wade, a Liberal life peer and former Chief Whip in the Commons. The votes were taken out of a champagne cooler on the Chief Whip’s desk. The result was Thorpe six, Lubbock three, Hooson three. The latter two withdrew and moved that I should now be elected unopposed.
The Liberal Party has its fair share of internal criticism. Apart from the ham-fisted attempt to depose me while I was on my honeymoon in 1968, I received much help from the party in the House and in the country. One cause for unrest was the relationship between different sections of the party. In the ’40s and ’50s there was very little contact between the Liberal MPs and the party in the country. There was also profound disagreement in the Parliamentary Party itself. Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris (MP for Carmarthen) was a proponent of nineteenth-century laissez-faire; whilst Megan Lloyd George, along with Emrys Roberts (MP for Merioneth) stood for the radical, reforming wing. To the horror of loyal Liberals in the country, the Parliamentary Party was known to split and vote in two different lobbies, some for the ‘ayes’, some for the ‘noes’, which justifiably earned the derision of the rest of the House. Despite the fact that the House of Lords contained considerable talent in Viscount Samuel, Lord Beveridge, Lord Pranks and Lord Layton, the Liberal Lords had equally weak links with the MPs in the Commons. On her peerage, Lady Violet Bonham Carter, now Baroness Asquith, asked the Liberal leader in the Lords, Lord Rea, how often the Liberal peers met. ‘Never’, came the reply. ‘Never?’ said Violet. ‘We must meet regularly once a week.’ ‘And this’, said Violet to me, ‘we now do’.
Political development at local level was taking place by the time I became leader. Local councils which had had no Liberal representation for three decades woke up to find them being elected in twos and threes. This was attributable to the practice of community politics, in which the activist relates to the problems of individuals and fights hard to find solutions. It was suggested that the leadership was hostile to community politics, but far from it; Liberal MPs attributed much of their electoral success to their campaigning in their constituencies on a local and personal basis.
It was about the time when I became leader that the so-called ‘Red Guards’ were spawned. Originally enthusiastic young Liberals, many of them campaigned for policies which had little to do with the philosophy of Liberalism, and they were becoming an electoral liability. Their criticism of the leadership was intense, not all of it fairly placed.
Young Liberal national leaders came and went, Peter Hain, now a Labour minister, being one. A number joined the Conservative Party. A point was reached where it appeared that the youth movement and the party were on a serious collision course. I asked their newly elected leader, Steve Atack, to come and see me and told him of my concerns about the situation.
I was anxious to face criticism where it was merited, but expected the Young Liberals to provide chapter and verse where it was not. I suggested as an experiment that I would be available for an hour a week for the foreseeable future for meeting him and some of his colleagues. This proved beneficial and was continued on a less formalised basis. The irony of the situation is that those who at the time were most critical of the leadership have gone on to join the other two parties and may now be regarded as birds of passage. It was a further irony that in the closing period of my leadership I received very loyal support indeed from Atack’s Young Liberals.
Our local government base continues to expand, and the activity involved strengthens constituency organisations, which has helped lead to striking advances at parliamentary level.
In May 1976, with extreme reluctance, I resigned as leader. I felt that the intense publicity on the subject of the so-called Scott affair was crowding out Liberal coverage of the real issues of the day North Devon was a different issue, and I felt, as did my local Association, that it was just and reasonable that I should contest the seat at the next election.
I was asked recently what I was most proud of and what I most regretted during the course of my political career. For the former: first, to have played a major part in the evolution of a united Europe. Second, that I was involved in the introduction of legal reforms, including being a sponsor of the abolition of capital punishment. Third, the devolution of power from the centre, including Parliaments for Scotland and Wales. Fourth, partnership in industry. Fifth, that I can claim to have fought for the principles of human rights, which include to racialism everywhere, and in particular opposition to the apartheid system in South Africa.
Above all, I played my part in taking the Liberal vote, which had got stuck in a rut, from two million to six million votes. And although this led to almost no increase in representation in Parliament, it broke the mould in that it was recognised at last that we had a three-party political set-up, operating under a two-party electoral system. The electorate at the last general election in 1997 exercised their own electoral reform by tactical voting, and it was the turn of the Conservative Party to be punished by the system.
They were denied representation in almost every major city in the country.
One essential for a third party is to keep in the public eye, to ensure its voice is heard. It was particularly important to be part of the inter-party negotiations (for example on the allocation of party political broadcasts) and also to be involved in three-party discussions on arrangements for general elections. It was also important to ensure that the Liberal voice was heard in debates in the House. I recall on one occasion when there was a two-day debate on an important issue and not a single Liberal was called. As a result of strenuous efforts, which did not please the other two parties, time was granted on what was called Supply Days, which is debating time for the subject chosen by the opposition. When Harold Wilson was Prime Minister he took the view that the opposition was insufficiently funded and in consequence state grants were provided for opposition parties to finance their parliamentary offices – before this, when I became leader I received financial support from party headquarters for one secretary, the other secretary being paid out of my own salary of £3,250 per annum. This new grant was known as the ‘Short’ money after Edward Short, the then Leader of the House.
When it was mooted that the government alone should lay a wreath at the Cenotaph on Armistice Day, Liberal reaction was expressed with devastating force by David Steel, then leader, that the Liberal Party provided two Prime Ministers who were in charge during World War One, and we wished to join in the tribute to the fallen.
On the question of life peerages, Macmillan steadfastly refused to consider the appointment of Liberal life peers, despite the fact that they had supported the Life Peerage Act on the basis that it would make for a more effective balance in the House of Lords. When Harold Wilson became Prime Minister in 1964, he offered Jo Grimond two life peerages and asked who they might be. Grimond replied that a strong case could be made for the nomination of two former Liberal Chief Whips in the House of Commons – Frank Byers and Donald Wade. However, he had some difficulty in deciding, as there was a strong case for including Lady Violet Bonham Carter, as she merited membership of the House of Lords. However, she had had a minor stroke and could not be guaranteed to give full-time service, and not least, she was Grimond’s own mother-in-law. ‘I see the difficulty’, said Wilson. ‘I’ll give you three peerages, provided Lady Bonham Carter is the third, and to save you embarrassment, I’ll put her on my list as opposed to yours’. In 1967, as leader, I asked Wilson whether we could expect further creations. Wilson replied: ‘Yes, you can have two’, to which I replied: ‘I have known certain generous Prime Ministers who have agreed to three recruits’. I got the Prime Minister’s agreement to nominate three.
As for regrets, having actively campaigned when Liberal fortunes were at their lowest; having seen them revive in the ’60s and ’70s, until the present breakthrough with forty-six MPs, I regret that I am no longer on the front line of the battlefield, although I continue to be involved in the encouraging Liberal Democrat advance. Tactical voting is a very fragile plant. Given the next election, with by then a possibly unpopular Labour government and/or a possibly revived and united Conservative Party (which I think unlikely), the Liberal Democrats will need resolutely to campaign to hold, reinforce and improve upon their six million supporters. I hope I may claim that my leadership achieved, as I intended it to achieve, the three political Rs – relevance, reliability and radicalism.