Thatcher strikes at heart of Tory unity

Former leader delivers a right-wing blast

DONALD MACINTYRE

Baroness Thatcher last night undermined John Major's urgent attempts to reunite his party in the wake of two damaging defections, by delivering a contemptuous dismissal of calls for "One-Nation Toryism".

In a uncompromising restatement of her own right-wing, Euro-sceptic creed, Lady Thatcher derided exponents of the alternative view, such as the recently departed Emma Nicholson, as wanting "No-Nation Conservatism", on account of their espousal of "European federalism".

In a devastating critique of what she freely admitted were the "problems" now facing the Tory party, the former Prime Minister acknowledged that there had been "differences" between herself and Mr Major, who went out of his way in October to proclaim the "One Nation" nature of his government. And she suggested it was "baloney" for "malcontents" to argue that the Tory party had moved too far to the right.

Lady Thatcher used her lecture in London to complain that "in certain limited but important respects, our policies and performance have not lived up to our analysis and principles".

She declared: "We are unpopular, above all, because the middle classes and all those who aspire to join the middle classes feel that they no longer have the incentives and opportunities they expect from a Conservative government."

Lady Thatcher combined perfunctory support for Mr Major and personal criticism of Tony Blair with enthusiastic endorsements for the three leading Cabinet right-wingers, Michael Howard, Michael Portillo and Peter Lilley.

She went out of her way to praise John Redwood, who challenged Mr Major for the party leadership last summer, for his assertion that a single currency would be a "major step on the way to a single European nation".

Her Keith Joseph memorial lecture attacked Labour for its addiction to tax and spending, for its devolution proposals, which she said threatened "chaos", and for its embrace of European "federalism".

On the Opposition leader himself, she was more muted, saying that he was an instinctive "man of the left", and that she doubted whether he would be able to control his party, or whether his "heart" and "gut" were not in favour of government spending.

But the implication was that her own brand of anti-Brussels Conservative individualism was what was needed to combat the electoral threat posed by a "new-look" Labour Party - 39.5 points ahead of the Tories in today's Gallup poll for the Daily Telegraph. In an unabashed assertion of her right to engage in internal party conflict she declared: "Splits and disagreements over important issues never did a party so much harm as the absence of honest, principled debate."

There was, too, a hint of menace in her pledge of support for Mr Major's task of resisting "dangerous and damaging" proposals for European integration. "We look forward to a successful outcome," she declared.

As the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, said Lady Thatcher had taken Mr Major "prisoner", the Tory high command put a brave face on her lecture, with Brian Mawhinney, the party chairman, saying that she had been "devastating" in her criticisms of the Labour Party. He added that he welcomed "her restatement of the principles and policies which she put in place, and on which John Major has built and developed".

In private, some Tories expressed relief that she had not suggested the Tories might benefit from losing office. "The attractions of Opposition are greatly exaggerated by those who have not experienced it," Lady Thatcher said.

Admitting for the first time in public that it was "no secret" that she had differed "on occasion" from her successor, she insisted that these concerned means and not ends.

"In the present Prime Minister, the party has a leader who shares the broad analysis that Keith Joseph and I put forward," she said.

Thatcher's speech, page 2 Leading article, page 14