Ted Heath RIP

Ted Heath, Prime Minister from 1970 to 1974, died yesterday aged 89.

For a man with moderate views about most issues, he stirred up a great deal of passionate support and even more passionate oposition. Probably part of the reason for this is the main issue on which he was not moderate, his pro-Europeanism. The man who took Britain into the Common Market would always be something of a hate figure among those who detest everything the European Union stands for. Added to this his animosity towards his successor as Conservative leader, Margaret Thatcher, inspired considerable return animosity from the more extreme amongst her self-appointed cheerleaders.

Ted was a self-made man of very considerable abilities. He carefully concealed an excellent sense of humour, and he also had, rather less carefully concealed, a private side which took great joy from beautiful music and from activities such as sailing. But he had difficulty suffering gladly those who he considered to be fools - and his judgement of who was a fool was not always correct.

My strongest single memory of Ted Heath, however, relates to a battle of wills which set against each other two of the strongest displays of self-discipline I have ever seen.

Ted was appointed by moderate Conservatives as Life Patron of the former Federation of Conservative students, FCS, (which shortly after the incident I am about to describe was shut down by Norman Tebbit for being too right wing.) All three political parties have had problems with hotheads taking over their youth or student movements, and when one such bunch of hardliners took over FCS they were very displeased at having such an arch moderate as their Patron. However, they were trying to get back into the good graces of the party, and excessive displays of factionalism were not helpful to this. So when it was "suggested" that they might like to invite the Life Patron they decided on a more subtle way to express their disapproval than students commonly use.

When Ted Heath was shown into the hall where he was to speak, everyone present rose as one, and began to applaud, the great majority also cheering in an imitation of a rapturous welcome. Of the 200 or so people present, about five were genuine fans of Ted's, and perhaps another fifty, including myself, were not, but were applauding out of the common courtesy due to a guest speaker, especially one who is also a former leader of one's own country and party. These were the only people in the room who were not smiling, as we were still trying to work out what on earth was going on.

The remaing 150 or so students present were members of the hardline faction and were clearly under the strictest orders that the only acceptable way to show disapproval was to parody rapturous support. The imitation of a warm, if slightly excessive, welcome, was continued until Ted actually started to speak, and then revealed as a parody when they applauded rapturously after every single phrase of his speech.

The political discipline required to impose on a group of hardliners that they would pretend to welcome Ted Heath was remarkable, and it might have worked but for the even more remarkable discipline he showed in response. When he arrived to an apparently rapturous welcome he gave his famous smile, which was probably quite sincere - he could have been forgiven for not realising at first what was going on. When his speech was interrupted for about the fifth time with applause, he showed for the one and only time that he knew what was going on by saying "In a moment I shall say something important, and then you can applaud." When this comment in turn was greeted by applause, he obviously decided that he would deal with this by pretending to take the applause as sincere and nothing but his due.

For the rest of the session the conference pretended to applaud him and he pretended to accept it. Everyone in the room knew that the applause was a parody. Everyone in that room knew that Ted knew it. Hardly anyone in the room allowed any sign to show on their faces that they knew it. Hence my comment that this battle of wills was one of the strongest displays of self-discipline I have ever seen. But I think Ted got the better of it. Perhaps that is a good way to remember him.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well said. This was without doubt Heath's greatest achievement.

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