Jonathan
Aitken: 'I lost it all - except my £33,000 MP's pension'
Fame &
Fortune: The disgraced former Conservative MP on divorce, prison, bankruptcy -
and how he can still afford £15,240 for his Isa each year
Life's
lessons: 'I accepted that life had changed and got on with it,' says Jonathan
Aiken of being broke Photo: Geoffrey Swaine/REX Shutterstock
By Donna
Ferguson8:00AM BST 14 Jun 2015
Jonathan
Aitken, 72, is a former Conservative MP and Cabinet minister, who served seven
months in prison for perjury in 1999 after he sued The Guardian for libel. He
lives in Kensington with his second wife, Elizabeth, who is also in her
seventies, and has four children.
How did
your childhood influence your work ethic and attitude towards money?
I spent a
lot of my childhood in hospital as a tuberculosis patient. When I was about
four, I fell ill with TB and was then immobilised on an iron lung for
three-and-a-half years, looked after by nuns. It made me very competitive
because a lot of the children on the TB ward died. I was very keen not to die –
so I worked hard at the breathing exercises and I enjoyed my schoolwork. I
certainly had no interest in money.
Your father
was the Conservative MP Sir William Aitken, a nephew of Lord Beaverbrook. Was
your family very well off?
For a long
time, we weren’t particularly. I grew up in the era of food rationing, so no
one seemed to be. I remember eggs were rationed and minding a bit that I only
got two eggs a week.
As a
family, we were quite frugal and careful. Going to the cinema or the theatre
was a big treat.
We did
become more prosperous when I was in my teens. My father somehow or other made
money and bought a very nice moated house called Playford [in Suffolk]. When
you live in an Elizabethan moated manor house, you realise that your father’s
done all right.
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Did you get
any pocket money?
Yes,
something like sixpence a week. Those were the days when you could still buy a
packet of crisps for a farthing. I was always a bit cautious with my pocket
money – I’ve always been a saver.
Assistant
tennis and funerals reporter for the East Anglian Daily Times. It was a school
holiday job – I was 17. I was paid £4 a day. That was riches in those days.
Has there
been a time in your life when you didn’t know how you were going to pay the
bills?
After I
went bankrupt, there were two very rough years when I was out of prison and on
a bankrupt’s allowance. I had £200 or £250 a week to live on. I had to make
economies like travelling by bus and buying food in the supermarket after
midnight, because prices halved due to sell-by dates.
I wasn’t
desperate, my mother used to help out occasionally. I eventually settled my
debts under an IVA [an individual voluntary arrangement].
What’s the
worst thing about being broke?
Adjusting.
I had a dramatic reduction in my standard of living. I’d been rather rich.
Through the Eighties and Nineties, I was the chairman of a small merchant bank
which I had founded. I had banking deals in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia. My car
was a Jaguar. One minute I’d been having lunch at Claridge’s and I had a big
house in the heart of Westminster and a country house in Sandwich Bay in Kent
and then, crash, I had a big fall.
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Was it
painful?
It was, in
many ways – I went through defeat, divorce, disgrace, bankruptcy and jail.
That’s a royal flush of crises by anyone’s standards. It was painful
financially, certainly, but not as painful as getting divorced or going to
jail. I’d put being broke third or fourth.
The worst
thing was not being able to provide for my children. I minded not being the
provider of the family, but I managed.
How did you
cope?
I went back
to Oxford as a student, to study theology. Most of my fellow students were
training to be priests and were almost poorer than I was.
It was
hard, but although I was broke, it wasn’t a breaking experience – I accepted
that life had changed and got on with it. I learnt how to manage quite quickly.
I exchanged Mammon for God.
How much
have you had to pay out in legal fees since 1997?
I think it
was £4m. That, and an expensive divorce, was what brought me to bankruptcy.
What’s your
main source of income nowadays?
Pensions.
In a good year, I used to put £20,000 away into my pension pot, so I have a
good occupational pension from the investment bank, as well as a parliamentary
pension of £33,000 a year [he was an MP for 23 years].
I still
earn money as a business consultant and an author – I’ve always found it
possible to earn money with my pen. I write quite a bit for newspapers, and I
had a biography out on Margaret Thatcher which sold well last year.
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What is the
most lucrative work you have ever done?
I must have
made £250,000 from my book on Nixon [published in 1993].
After I
came out of prison, I was paid $15,000 to make a speech in the United States.
Worst money
mistake you’ve ever made?
Suing The
Guardian for libel. It cost me my reputation, my home, my parliamentary career
and my lifestyle.
Are you a
spender or a saver?
I’m
definitely a saver these days. I save to provide for whatever’s left to me of
life’s journey, and to still contribute something towards my children. But I’m
never going to be rich again – nor am I interested in that.
Do you
support any charities?
Yes. My
main focus is charitable work, which includes charitable giving but much more
is the work of being a trustee. I’m a trustee or some other office of eight
charities, and almost all of them are in the criminal justice or Christian
field. For example, Nacro, the crime reduction charity, and Caring for
Ex-offenders.
I donate
more than 50pc of my time and a good 15pc of my money to them.
Do you have
property?
No. I lost
it all, and I wouldn’t want a property now. I’m happy to rent. I’ve really lost
interest in possessions. I haven’t bought anything of any significant value for
nearly 20 years.
If you were
Chancellor, what economic policies would you change?
I think
it’s hard to handle the economy more wisely than George Osborne. I’m a
tremendous Osborne fan. I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury so I understand
quite a bit about curbing government expenditure. I think the Treasury under
George Osborne has been a success story. There are small things I’d like to
see: more encouragement for small businesses and the inheritance tax threshold
raised to £1m.
What’s the
most expensive thing you’ve ever bought (apart from property)?
For a time
I collected political first editions and got them signed by their authors. I
think the collection was worth £50,000, but I lost them all in my bankruptcy.
What’s the
one luxury or indulgence you couldn’t live without?
I still
take the trouble to buy handmade suits. They’re expensive – about £2,000. I buy
one every two years.
Notorious: Jonathan
Aitken and his daughter Alexandra arriving at court during his libel trial
against The Guardian
How do you
prefer to pay for things – cash, or debt or credit card?
Cheque. I
pay for a lot of things by cheque still. I use the credit card a bit because I
just have to, and I don’t pay by cheque in the supermarket. I’m sure that would
get people angry.
But I’m
old-fashioned enough to think there’s something rather solid about a
transaction like paying your tailor by cheque, and I do my charitable giving by
cheque. I realise I’m a bit of a dying breed.
How do you
tip?
Typically
on the high side – about 15pc. I don’t go to restaurants that much, but the
ones I go to, I know them quite well, so I’m reasonably generous to them.
Do you
invest in stocks and shares?
I do a
little bit. I put the maximum amount [£15,240] into my annual Isa.
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What do you
invest in?
I happen to
think that India is a very up-and-coming market, so I bought some shares in an
Indian investment trust for this year’s Isa, but I don’t play the stock market
the way I used to.
What are
your financial priorities for the next five or 10 years?
Keeping my
head above water. Remaining modestly solvent and saving so that I can leave
something to my children. I don’t think I’ll ever retire. I enjoy working and
I’m busier than I’ve almost ever been, with my consulting, my writing, my
speaking engagements and my charity work.
Money comes
very low on my list of priorities. I don’t really want to have money, and I
don’t really think of it that much. Life is very full and I’m very
happy.
- Margaret
Thatcher: Power and Personality, Jonathan Aitken’s biography of the former
Prime Minister, is available to buy now
 |
Jonathan
Aitken: A broken man
Twenty
years ago his star was in the ascendant. Jonathan Aitken mixed with beautiful
women, made millions and was tipped to be a future Prime Minister. Today he is
disgraced, divorced and facing a lengthy prison sentence. This is the story of
the man who lied and lost
by Kim
Sengupta Wednesday 20 January 1999 00:02 GMT0
It was a
pleasant evening of good food, fine wine and exquisite company. Jonathan
Aitken, 30, successful, handsome and with all the right connections, was
charting the future course of his life to a choice selection of his actor
friends and chums in the media. Go into business and become fabulously rich,
become an MP, then a minister and finally prime minister. There were dates for
the scaling of each of these peaks. The climb was slower than he anticipated.
But 22 years later, in 1994, he was in the Cabinet as chief secretary to the
Treasury. He'd made a pile of money from lucrative business deals with Arabs.
And he owned properties at home and abroad including a pounds 2m Westminster
house, the former London home of Brendan Bracken, where he entertained the
likes of Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher and Henry Kissinger.
The
downfall that followed is almost Shakespearean in its dimensions: here stands a
man fatally flawed by his own arrogance. The final act came with his disastrous
High Court action against The Guardian and Granada TV, and the words that would
later come back to haunt him: "the simple sword of truth and the trusty
shield of British fair play."
Aitken had
sued over a series of serious allegations made about his relationship with
wealthy Arabs, including the report that a pounds 1,000 bill for his stay at
the Ritz Hotel in Paris in l993 had been paid by a Saudi contact. Giving
evidence, Aitken lied under oath about the payment, inventing roles in the saga
for his wife and young daughter. He was found out and humiliatingly forced to
withdraw his action. The man whose head had been full of great plans at the age
of 30 suddenly discovered that he'd lost his credibility as a public figure.
The dreams
of greatness are now just cold ashes. But yesterday the man once tipped as a
future Tory leader managed to make a mark of sorts in history - as the first
former cabinet minister to plead guilty to perjury and perverting the course of
justice and, with that, likely to face a lengthy prison sentence.
Aitken is, he
says, now broke. The house in Westminster will have to be sold. His marriage,
he says, is over. Politically he is a man who is isolated, apart from a small
circle of maverick right-wing friends.
|
Aitken
jailed for 18 months
4.45pm
update
By Guardian
staff and agencies
Tue 8 Jun
1999 16.44 BST First published on Tue 8 Jun 1999 16.44 BST
Former
cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken was jailed at the Old Bailey today for 18
months after admitting perjury and perverting the course of justice.
He received
18 months for both counts, to run concurrently.
Mr Justice
Scott Baker told Aitken: "For nearly four years you wove a web of deceit
in which you entangled yourself and from which there was no way out unless you
were prepared to come clean and tell the truth. Unfortunately you were
not."
The
prosecution
Case
history
Former
Conservative Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken forced himself into a position
"where perjury was almost inevitable", the Old Bailey was told today.
He allowed
aides of the Saudi royal family to pay his £1,000 hotel bill during a stay at
the Paris Ritz in September 1993.
But he was
a Government minister in charge of Defence Procurement at the time, and banned
from taking hospitality which might place him under an obligation, Mr David
Waters QC, prosecuting, told the court.
When the
Guardian newspaper got a copy of the bill and challenged Mr Aitken, he told
them his wife Lolicia had paid his part of it using money he had given her.
Mr Aitken
continued with the same lies when he tried to sue the Guardian and Granada
television for libel in the High Court in 1997, said Mr Waters, adding:
"In fact, he forced himself into a position were perjury was almost
inevitable - inevitable unless he was to admit telling lies years before."
Mr Aitken,
56, who until the last election was Tory MP for Thanet, Kent, for 23 years, and
who was in the Cabinet as First Secretary to the Treasury in 1994-5, has
admitted committing perjury during the High Court libel action.
He has also
admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice by drafting a witness
statement for his daughter Victoria, 18, in which she backed up his version of
events.
The 16-day
libel hearing collapsed after evidence was produced that Mr Aitken's wife and
daughter were in Switzerland during the weekend of September 17-19, 1993, when
he had said they were in Paris.
Mr Waters
said Mr Aitken was arrested in March 1998 and charged in May. Two other
charges, alleging perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to pervert
the course of justice, had been ordered to lie on file not proceeded with after
Mr Aitken denied them at an earlier hearing.
Mr Waters
said: "It is fair to say between 1992-95, there is evidence to show that
he was a hard-working and conscientious minister." Mr Aitken resigned as a
Minister in 1995 to begin the civil proceedings.
Aitken
arrives in court
Mr Aitken,
wearing a smart blue suit and tie, arrived for today's hearing looking grave.
He was met by photographers as he entered the court with a group of friends.
His mother
Lady Aitken, actress sister Maria Aitken, and his son William, 16, had arrived
moments earlier. With them were his twin daughters Victoria and Alexandra, both
18, and their half-sister Petrina Khashoggi, also 18.
His former
boss, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was Defence Secretary at the time Mr Aitken was
Defence Procurement Minister between 1992-4, also sat in court, waiting to give
evidence.
Mr Aitken
spoke only once, replying when asked to confirm that his name was Jonathan
William Patrick Aitken: "It is."
Aitken's
stay at the Ritz
Mr Aitken
had "formed a very close relationship" with Said Ayas, a principal
aide to Prince Mohammed, the son of the king of Saudi Arabia, shortly after
becoming an MP in 1974. He had also become acquainted with the prince. Mr Ayas
and his wife became godparents to the Mr Aitken twins.
Mr Aitken
had stayed in a room at the Ritz which had been marked for payment from the
account of the "Ayas party" who were staying in two other rooms at
the hotel, said Mr Waters.
After The
Guardian got a copy of the bill in 1994, it challenged Mr Aitken who replied
that his wife had paid his portion of the account in cash.
The cash
payment had been made by a woman employed by the Saudis, Mr Waters told the
court.
Mr Aitken
received information from Ritz president Frank Klein about his bill which
showed how he was prepared to "pervert and utilise the information to his
own advantage", Mr Waters said.
Mr Klein
wrote to Mr Aitken telling him that a cashier recalled "a brunette lady of
European aspect, speaking French, paid the cash sum of 4,257 francs in favour
of the account of Mr Ayas".
Mr Waters
said part of the letter was helpful to Mr Aitken if he was using it
dishonestly. Other parts were unhelpful.
The fact
that the amount represented only about half of the sum owed and that it was
"in favour" or Mr Ayas's account presented a problem to his story.
The letter
to the Cabinet Secretary
In a letter
to Cabinet Secretary Sir Robin Butler, he cut out the references to the sum and
Mr Ayas.
Mr Aitken
told him it was his wife who paid the bill, when it was in fact a member of the
Saudi entourage.
Sir Robin
later met the then Prime Minister, John Major, who said Mr Aitken could dampen
the speculation by producing the Ritz bill.
Sir Robin
then called Mr Aitken for another meeting and it was then that he produced the
bill.
Mr Aitken
was forced to change his story and said that Abdul Rahman, another hotel guest
and the nephew of Said Ayas, had paid part of his bill by mistake.
Mr Aitken
told Sir Robin that he had "squared the circle" and paid Rahman back
the other part of his bill.
He
described it as an "unfortunate confusion" but the Guardian went
ahead with a further article about Mr Aitken's weekend at the Ritz, which
prompted the libel writ, according to Mr Waters.
Aitken's
family alibi
According
to his original false account, Mr Aitken insisted that he had not had business
meetings during the weekend at the Ritz.
During
cross-examination at the libel trial, he confirmed that his statement contained
the "truth and the whole truth", Mr Waters said.
He claimed
that his daughter and wife had spent some time in Paris over the weekend but
left before he arrived. "The reality being, they had not been there at
all," Mr Waters told the court.
The libel
trial collapsed when documents obtained from British Airways showed that his
family did not go to Paris but flew straight to Switzerland.
Mr Aitken
had claimed his wife and daughter had travelled to Aiglon College in
Switzerland, where Victoria was due to start school, via Paris, and that he had
been delayed on official business and missed them.
He
initially claimed he had stayed in Paris spending a quiet weekend, working on
his biography of Richard Nixon and meeting family friends.
He then
claimed his wife returned to the Ritz on Sunday to meet him after dropping off
his daughter at the school, Mr Waters said.
But in fact
his wife and daughter were never even in France.
Mr Aitken
had claimed that he drafted a false document for his teenage daughter Victoria
to back up his story only when inconsistencies emerged in his story.
The judge
asked how old Victoria was at the time the statement was drafted because it was
a "very grave" feature of the case that Mr Aitken involved his
daughter in the crime.
After the
collapse of the trial and his subsequent arrest, Mr Aitken made a statement to
police admitting that he had lied, Mr Waters said.
In it, he
said: "I deeply regret the lies I told and decisions I took to mislead a
large number of people. "This is a burden I will have to bear for the rest
of my life."
The defence
Evidence
from Sir Malcolm Rifkind
Sir John
Nutting QC, defending, called Sir Malcolm Rifkind to speak on Mr Aitken's
behalf.
Sir Malcolm
confirmed he had entered Parliament as an MP at the same time as Mr Aitken
after the 1974 general election.
He said
they had not had a close personal relationship but he had visited Mr Aitken's
Westminster home on several occasions for meetings of the "Conservative
Philosophy Group".
"I
thought of him as a very able, intelligent and articulate MP, someone who had
very considerable experience and who was always thought of as potential
ministerial calibre," he said.
Mr Aitken
was in a unique position later as a junior defence minister because of his good
contacts with influential Middle East Royal families with whom Britain wanted
to do business, Sir Malcolm said.
Sir
Malcolm, who volunteered to speak on Mr Aitken's behalf, described him as the
most able junior minister he had come across during his years in government.
He was
"able and intelligent" but, most of all, his personal contacts in the
Middle East turned out to be crucial when it came to protecting Britain's
contracts abroad.
He had
access to top levels of government in Saudi Arabia and other countries which
were usually exclusive to the Prime Minister or senior cabinet members.
Sir Malcolm
cited two separate occasions when Mr Aitken used his influence abroad to help
persuade Kuwait and Saudi Arabia not to cancel billion-pound contracts with
Britain and award them to other countries.
On the
second occasion he had set up a meeting between King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and
the then premier John Major to stop a £4billion contract going to the United
States.
The outcome
safeguard many defence jobs in this country, said Sir Malcolm.
He had no
reason to believe that Mr Aitken had ever benefited personally from his
contacts and the amount of work he did while working for the government left
him little time to do anything else. "I felt he was carrying out work in
very responsible way," said Sir Malcolm.
"I had
no hesitation in telling the Prime Minister that he had been a very impressive
minister and the public interest had been extremely well served."
He had
contacted Aitken and offered to speak in his defence, he said.
The
benefits of a friendship with Prince Mohammed
Sir John
Nutting QC said Aitken's close friendship with Prince Mohammed had provided a
"valuable link" between the governments of Britain and Saudi Arabia,
and it was against this background that he wanted the judge to view the events
at the Ritz hotel.
The two men
had met when Aitken was still a merchant banker and the director of a company
looking after the prince's interests in Britain, Sir John said.
"The
defendant and Prince Mohammed had formed, after their initial meeting, an
enduring friendship which lasted up to the time during which both of them had
positions in Government in their countries," Sir John went on.
Outlining
six points he said he intended to cover, he said they included the extent of
Aitken's contrition, and the consequences of the trial on his health, and on
his family.
"If
anyone supposes I am here to follow the slimy trail of every red herring which
has been drawn across this case, they will be disappointed," he told the
court.
Sir John
said Aitken had planned to meet Prince Mohammed at the Paris Ritz on Friday 17
for dinner.
But Aitken
was delayed because of an official visit for the reburial of General Wladyslaw
Sikorski in Poland, and the appointment was cancelled.
The prince
had to return to Geneva, and arrangements were made to hold the meeting there
on Sunday, which was where and when it eventually took place, Sir John told the
Old Bailey.
The bill at
the Ritz
Aitken's
bill at the Ritz was paid because of the "hospitality not untypical of
Arabs", Sir John said. The bill was only a small sum to the Arabs and to Aitken
at that time.
Sir John
said it was this conversation about the bill which was the main cause of
Aitken's downfall, but details of the conversation had "vanished long ago
into the ether".
He added:
"When later he realised the trap in which he had caused himself to fall,
he began to tell a series of lies and half-truths which nearly six years later
have brought him before your Lordship and into the dock of the Old
Bailey."
Defence
talks
He said
when Aitken and the prince finally met in Geneva, they discussed Saudi Arabian
security issues, especially the activities of Russian submarines as part of
Iran's new arsenal of weapons.
"To
meet this threat the Royal Navy had offered to lease to Saudi Arabia four
Upholder submarines that were surplus to the Royal Navy's requirements,"
Sir John said.
"It's
perhaps important to add in view of allegations made subsequently about the
weekend that those Upholder discussions involved government to government
negotiations or navy to navy leasing arrangements which had nothing to do with
third party contractors, or businessmen or middle men or commission men or
anyone else."
Sir John
said Aitken had provided "generous and reciprocal" hospitality over a
period of time, and it was a moot point whether the bill-paying incident had
breached the guidance for ministers.
Allegations
of sleaze
But the
questioning from the newspaper had come at the height of "Tory
sleaze" allegations and Aitken felt under pressure to keep his reputation
clean.
The source
of the tip-off to the Guardian had been Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner of the
Ritz, who had initially alleged that £1 million in cash was shared out at the
meeting with Mark Thatcher and others.
Sir John
said: "The allegation as to the meeting was simply untrue. The defendant
has never been paid in cash or in kind for any arms deal."
It was to
Aitken's "everlasting regret" that he had lied about who paid the
bill - he had done so after speaking to Ayas who was under pressure from his
employers to avoid publicity.
He was in a
dilemma when later more allegations were made against him - he felt he had to
clear his name with the libel action. Three of the allegations had been dropped
during the course of that trial.
Sir John
said Aitken felt he had no choice but to launch libel action against the
Guardian despite the fact that it could expose him to admitting that he had
lied about the Ritz bill.
He had been
accused of serious offences, including corruption and arranging prostitutes for
Arab friends, which he felt compelled to defend.
"He
was faced with a very genuine dilemma," said the QC. "To say nothing
and allow very serious allegations, the falsity of which he believed he could
prove, to go unchallenged or to fight them and risk that in the Ritz bill he
would have to tell a lie."
Questioned
by the judge
The judge questioned
why Aitken had not come clean about the bill at the time and then gone on to
challenge the other points.
That, said
Sir John, was not realistically an option because he had already said too much
about the weekend at the Ritz to go back on his word and expect to be taken
seriously.
Untrue
allegations
Several of
the allegations which had been made against him were later dropped, notably the
claim that he had arranged prostitutes for Arab contacts.
It was also
clearly untrue, said Sir John, that Aitken had tried to conceal his contacts in
the Middle East and indeed the fact was well known by many of his parliamentary
colleagues.
His former
secretary, Valerie Scott, who had spoken to the Guardian and contributed to his
downfall, had written to Aitken in January this year.
Her letter
said: "I am sorry to say that the consequence of my interviews and witness
statement was that they did contain many inaccuracies. Some of those were
misrepresentations, some were mis-recollections, others were mistakes and
others were caused by my words being taken out of context and being used in a
way that now makes me feel uncomfortable."
She said
her words had been "manipulated" into being unfair to Aitken in the
articles and programme.
Margaret
Thatcher: Power and Personality by Jonathan Aitken – review
Aitken's
anecdotes make for lively reading in a bracingly honest account of the Tory
heroine's faults
Simon
Hoggart
Wed 16 Oct
2013 16.30 BST First published on Wed 16 Oct 2013 16.30 BST
Slipping
her moorings … Margaret Thatcher, with Denis, leaves 10 Downing Street for the
last time as prime minister in 1990. Photograph: Lennox Ken/mirrorpix
Years ago I
asked a section editor on the paper for which I then worked whether he was
going to employ a particular journalist. "No, I won't," he replied,
"because he is an incompetent, lazy, stupid, arrogant plagiariser, who
can't even write. And I speak as a friend of his."
Which is
rather the way Jonathan Aitken speaks of his friend Margaret Thatcher. Here is
just a selection of the words he uses to describe her – either deploying his
own judgment or that of people he quotes: phoney, bullying, obnoxious,
hypocritical, deplorable, unpleasant, alienating, opportunistic,
confrontational, monomaniacal, disloyal, dysfunctional, snarky, pedestrian,
hesitant, insufferably rude, foolish, arrogant, grudge-bearing and an
anachronistic bigot.
Jim Prior
found her "vindictive and nasty"; others spoke of "her tendency
to fly off the handle too early, her capacity to get the wrong end of the stick
and her reluctance to apologise". She was "the least collegiate
politician I have ever met … this is because she has no friends". Others
accuse her of "governessy hatred", of being a "stubborn
Salome" who "liked to hog the limelight". Tim Bell, her
favourite adman, called her "the old bat", and Bernard Ingham, her
loyal press secretary, said she was "the most tactless woman I have ever
met in my life".
And Aitken
speaks as a friend of hers. They got off to a bad start. He ended a three-year
affair with Carol Thatcher, and her mother said bitterly: "He made Carol
cry." At a dinner party, shortly after she became Tory leader, he was
asked about her Middle East policies, and said: "She knows so little … she
probably thinks Sinai is the plural of sinus." This reached Private Eye,
and her factotum Airey Neave demanded Aitken make an apology in person, in the
division lobby: "She'll be wearing a green dress."
But he is,
overall, a huge admirer. He believes she was sound and brave on most foreign
affairs: the Falklands, the ending of the cold war, the liberation of Kuwait,
and the euro (though he suggests that she rewrote history when declaring she
was always against our membership of the ERM).
Her
judgment was less reliable in domestic affairs. Aitken points out that she
could not distinguish between the striking miners and Arthur Scargill,
regarding them all as members of the enemy within. That contempt for the
working-class people of the north and the Midlands brought a cost that the
Conservative party is still paying. The poll tax: surely the product of a
disordered mind? She began to treat the people closest to her with evident
contempt, most of all Geoffrey Howe who received a bollocking in cabinet that
no schoolteacher would be allowed to administer today. When the "stalking
donkey", Anthony Meyer, stood against her in 1989, she had a good campaign
team in place, but the whips warned her that on top of the handful of votes
Meyer got, there were all the abstentions, spoiled ballots and dozens of MPs
who had to be arm-twisted into supporting her. The situation was therefore far
more dangerous than it appeared. She brushed their fears aside as the hobgoblins
of lesser minds, and a year later insouciantly cleared off to Paris for a
ceremonial summit, which she could easily have skipped. But she loved mingling
with world leaders, and telling them where they were wrong. Meanwhile, she left
behind as her campaign manager Peter Morrison, a lazy alcoholic, who believed
all the fake pledges of support and spent much of the campaign asleep, drunk or
both.
By the time
of her defenestration, she had become the world's most powerful bag lady, of
the type who harangue you at bus stops, and who are best ignored, except that
you can't ignore the prime minister. You could call her, as a female King Lear,
"a very foolish fond old woman", except there was little fond about
her – apart from some engaging nonsenses. Just before the Falklands war ended
in her greatest victory – which she won by ignoring or assailing almost all her
own cabinet and a very substantial chunk of the Tory party in parliament, plus
the president of the United States and his most senior officials – she could be
found cooking the food at a children's party for the families of Downing Street
staff. Admirable in some ways; barking in others.
By the end,
however, she had slipped her moorings. Even one of her most devoted supporters,
the right-wing MP Nick Budgen declared that she was "off her rocker".
She retired (Aitken says her notorious "I shall be a very good backseat
driver" remark was directed at George Bush rather than John Major) but
devoted much of her life, like Ted Heath, to trashing her successor behind his
back. We all need a hobby, and that was hers. (There's another good account of
this in John Sergeant's book Maggie.)
The Fall of
Thatcher could be staged, not least because hers was a very modern hubris.
Having started out lacking in real confidence – her first cabinet was stuffed
with grandees who opposed all that she stood for – she was brought down in the
end by believing her own publicity. She adopted with wild enthusiasm the
"iron lady" sobriquet coined by the USSR army newspaper, forgetting
that everything in those Soviet rags was lies and propaganda. I recall a
grandiloquent speech, after the fall, to American travel agents in Glasgow, who
must have been puzzled to learn she had ended the cold war herself, with Ronald
Reagan as Robin to her Batman. She could give solipsism a bad name.
The
pleasure of Aitken's readable, even beguiling, book is in the anecdotes. He
suspects that her breathtakingly arrogant attempt to stop Bernard Weatherill
from becoming Speaker – something she had absolutely no right to do – helped
bring her down. He arranged that Howe's killer speech in 1990 would be heard
when the chamber was full, and in complete silence, giving it maximum effect.
She realised then that the end was near, but couldn't grasp even then her own
contribution to the coming catastrophe, and chose to blame the cabinet instead
– "treachery with a smile on its face".
Then there
was the time she went to holiday on Islay: the host family's noisy offspring
meant she was unable to sleep, so she went for a walk in a hooded coat.
Mistaken by a security officer for a sinister intruder, she was pinned to the
wet moorland by a slavering police dog. For some anti-Thatcherites, that story
alone will be worth the price of the book.
One day we
might reach a reasonable assessment of Thatcher, somewhere between the
adulation and the loathing: she achieved a reasonable amount economically at
home (while pitching us into the tooth-and-claw capitalism we suffer today),
had some influence on the world stage, and in the last few years in power lost
the plot. This book, by an alarmingly candid friend, will go a long way towards
helping find that balance.
