The publication of Volume Two of Charles Moore’s much praised biography of Margaret Thatcher provokes questions about how far the civil service has changed in the 30 years since her iron rule at Number Ten. She had a reputation for beating the bushes of Whitehall pretty hard and she once remarked that when she retired she was going to set up a Rent-a-Spine business for the Foreign Office.
“The Foreign Office, to her, were distinctly untrustworthy and she felt that very, very strongly,” according to Cecil Parkinson, probably her closest colleague. “She didn’t like the institution. She didn’t like the civil service. But she did admire and respect individual members of both.”
Lord Parkinson and I were sitting in the pillared room at Number 10. We were discussing the Thatcher years as part of a joint project between Number 10 and King’s College London. It explores the key themes of Thatcher’s premiership through six conversations, all filmed in Downing Street, with some of those who knew her best: Nigel Lawson, Charles Powell, Cecil Parkinson, Norman Tebbit, Janice Richardson – a former garden girl – and Sir Bernard Ingham. The interviews, done by various people including Charles Moore, can be found on the Number 10 website.
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So if Mrs Thatcher disliked the civil service, was she determined to “handbag” it? Lord Parkinson, who served her as cabinet minister and as Tory party chairman, had a very clear answer.
“She never, ever sought to take the civil service on and to reform it from top to bottom,” he said. “She sought to make sure that it could do what we wanted.”
Not remodel it from top to bottom, perhaps, but she was certainly keen to streamline it, bringing in Derek Rayner from M&S to organise an efficiency drive. She once asked Lord Parkinson how the chairman of Lloyds could run the bank with one personal secretary when every junior minister needed five people in their private office. It’s the kind of question that has been asked by some ministers much more recently.
Thatcher’s changes to Whitehall inevitably met criticism and resistance, yet there was nothing like the confrontation and all-round angst created by the reform programme of former cabinet office minister Francis, now Lord, Maude, under the coalition. His approach produced headlines saying things like: “Ministers say it’s easier dealing with union bosses than permanent secretaries – the civil service love affair is over” and “Worst civil servants to be sacked”. (No mention of worst ministers.) Then there were Lord Maude’s claims that civil servants were blocking him. Lord Parkinson seemed unimpressed.
“I look back now – I did in the early days when the coalition was saying that it was finding it difficult to get things done. Well, there never was a more radical Conservative government than the Thatcher government but the civil service never stopped us from doing any of the things we wanted. The civil service had lots of opportunities to be obstructive but they weren’t.”
Lord Parkinson acknowledges that there is a tendency for politicians who have been out of power for some time to assume that the civil service are all supporters of the predecessor government. “But in fact,” he said, “one of the things I learned quite quickly about the civil service is...and I hope they won’t be offended if I describe them as mercenaries. They make it quite clear to you: ‘Minister, it’s your policy – all we do is implement it and try to help you form it.’ So we didn’t have any hang-ups like that. Margaret was quite a traditional person.”
Perhaps one reason Thatcher’s reforms did not attract as much hostility as recent ones is that her efficiency unit tended to work with departments. And Thatcher was more interested in the civil service than David Cameron seems to be. Rayner used to say that a word from her was enough to undo a logjam or encourage someone to think again. Matt Hancock, the new cabinet office minister, shows every sign of sticking to the Maude reform policies – some of which produced excellent results – but with a much more emollient style. It could make all the difference.
Emollience was never part of Thatcher’s style – or was it? Lord Parkinson described her as “incredibly caring” about those who worked for her. “People rallied to her because she was such a likeable, warm person – all this will be news to some – but people were devoted to her. I remember one of her detectives saying: ‘If I had to step in front of her and take the bullet, I’d do it willingly.’”
One other surprising thing was her insecurity – evident in her uncertainty about the outcome of the 1983 election campaign. After victory in the Falklands War, she was at the height of her powers – yet she packed up her things in case she had to leave Number 10. Everyone else, civil servants included, knew she would win. In the run-up to election day, even that model of Whitehall impartiality, Sir Robert, now Lord, Armstrong, her cabinet secretary, was heard to speak of “the next prime minister... whoever she may be.”