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| Affiliation | Conservative |
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| <- |
1987-01-01 |
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| Name | Edward Heath |
| Address |
Salisbury, England , United Kingdom |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
July 09, 1916
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| Died | July 17, 2005
(89 years)
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| Contributor | 411 Name Removed |
| Last Modifed | Juan Croniqueur
Jul 09, 2023 09:53am |
| Tags |
Single - Disputed -
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| Info | Sir Edward Richard George Heath was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. His spell in office represented a transition between the traditional, squirearchical leadership of the party under figures such as Harold Macmillan and that of later, self consciously meritocratic figures starting with Margaret Thatcher.
Heath was the son of a carpenter from Broadstairs in Kent. He went to a state grammar school, and succeeded in the exam to get to Balliol College), Oxford. He needed an Organ Scholarship to support himself there. While at university he got involved in Conservative politics but unlike many Conservatives, was an active opponent of appeasement. He was elected as President of the Oxford Union Society in 1939 as an anti-appeasement candidate sponsored by Balliol.
He served in the Royal Artillery during World War II, and after demobilization in 1946 joined the Territorial Army. He became a civil servant in the Ministry of Civil Aviation until he was elected as MP for Bexley in 1950 (defeating an old colleague from the Oxford Union, Ashley Bramall).
He was swiftly appointed as a Government Whip when the Conservatives won the 1951 election. In December 1955 he became Government Chief Whip. Because of the convention that Whips do not speak in Parliament, he managed to keep out of the controversy over the Suez Crisis. On the announcement of Anthony Eden's resignation, Heath submitted a report on the attitude of Conservative MPs to those choosing Eden's successor which was extremely favourable to Harold Macmillan and was instrumental in securing Macmillan the job. Macmillan made him Minister of Labour after the 1959 election.
Heath was a fervent pro-European, believing in political as well as economic union. He was made Lord Privy Seal in 1960 with responsibility for the (ultimately unsuccessful) first round of negotiations to secure the UK's accession to the Common Market (as the European Community was then called). Under Sir Alec Douglas-Home he was President of the Board of Trade and oversaw the abolition of retail price maintenance.
After the Conservative Party lost the 1964 general election, Douglas-Home changed the rules to allow a ballot for party leader, and then resigned. Heath won the election in 1965, and became the youngest leader in the party's history. He retained the office despite defeat in the 1966 general election. The success of his party in the general election of 1970 surprised almost all contemporary commentators and was seen as a personal triumph.
The nature of the mandate that Heath had received was disputed, even at the time. Shortly before the election was called, his shadow cabinet had issued a policy document from a conference at the Selsdon Park Hotel which appeared surprisingly rightwing. Harold Wilson had regarded it as a vote loser and had dubbed it Selsdon Man in the attempt to portray it as paleolithically reactionary. Heath's government suffered an early blow with the death of Chancellor of the Exchequer Iain Macleod on July 20, 1970. The economic policy changes on which Heath was resolved (including a significant shift from direct to indirect taxation) were not fully implemented until 1972, by which time he was engaged in the attempt to strengthen legal constraints on trade unions still more tightly than had been proposed under the abortive reforms of Wilson's government. The resulting polarised climate of industrial relations led to the downfall of his government.
Heath's government made only modest efforts to curtail welfare spending, though the squeeze in the education budget resulted in Margaret Thatcher's choosing to complete the process of phasing out free school milk rather than cutting back spending on the Open University. The contrast with the later actions of Thatcher's own government resulted in Heath acquiring a strongly humanitarian image.
In Northern Ireland the Heath government pushed for a peaceful settlement with the democratic political parties. The Sunningdale Agreement was produced but fiercely repudiated by many Unionists and the official Ulster Unionist Party ceased to support the Conservatives at Westminster. This was to contribute to Heath's eventual fall from power.
Heath's major achievement as prime minister was to take Britain into the European Community in 1973. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, galloping inflation led him into confrontation with some of the most powerful trade unions, and energy shortages resulted in much of the country's industry working a three-day week to conserve power. In an attempt to bolster his government, Heath called an election for February 28, 1974. The result was inconclusive: the Conservative Party received a plurality of votes cast, but the Labour Party gained a plurality of seats due to the Ulster Unionist MPs refusing to support the Conservatives. Heath began negotations with leaders of the Liberal Party to form a coalition, but, when these failed, resigned as Prime Minister and was replaced by Harold Wilson who formed a minority government. Wilson was confirmed in office, with a wafer thin majority, in a second election in October of the same year.
Between the two general elections a Conservative Party discussion group, the Centre for Policy Studies, began to formulate a right wing diagnosis of the failures of Heath's government. Initially this trend was spearheaded by Sir Keith Joseph and, although Margaret Thatcher was associated with the CPS she was seen as a potential go between by Heath's lieutenant James Prior.
Having lost (at least in terms of parliamentary seats) three out of four general elections into which he had led his party, Heath came to be seen as a liability by many conservative MPs, party activists and by editors of newspapers sympathetic to the party. Among the wider electorate he attracted more sympathy, partly because of public statements he had made hinting at his willingness to consider the idea of serving in a government of national unity.
Heath resolved to remain as Conservative leader and, initially, it appeared that, by calling on the loyalty of his front bench colleagues, he might prevail. However, the determination of Airey Neave acting on behalf of disgruntled back bench MPs to seek any potential challenger to Heath, combined with the resolution of Margaret Thatcher that someone adhering to the CPS line should put their case to the parliamentary party led to her declaring herself a candidate in a leadership challenge.
As the rules of the leadership contest permitted new candidates to enter the fray in a second round of voting should the leader not be confirmed by a large enough majority, Thatcher's challenge was considered that of a stalking horse. Airey Neave as Thatcher's campaign manager was later accused of having deliberately understated her support in order to attract waverers away from Heath who lost the first ballot by 119 votes to 130 on February 4, 1975. Although Heath then withdrew from the contest, it turned out to be too late for any of his allies from his own wing of the party to overhaul Thatcher's lead. His favoured candidate, William Whitelaw, lost to Thatcher by 79 votes to 146 a week later.
Heath remained bitter over his defeat and was persistent in his criticisms of the party's new ideological direction for many years. After the 1979 general election he was offered, and declined, the job of Ambassador to the United States of America. He continued to be seen as a figure head by some on the left of the party up to the time of the 1981 Conservative Party conference.
Heath continued to serve as a backbench MP for the Kent constituency of Old Bexley and Sidcup until retiring from Parliament at the 2001 general election, by which time he was the longest-serving member and "Father of the House". He lived in Salisbury until his death from pneumonia on 17 July 2005.
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