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Description of Sir Alfred Sherman's Last Interview: The Rise and Fall of Margaret Thatcher |
Sir Alfred Sherman, the founder with Margaret Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph of arguably the most influential and radical think tank of the late twentieth century, the Centre for Policy Studies, died in August 2006. The CPS set the basic philosophy and policies of the Thatcher Governments in the 1980s and in many ways the Blair Governments since 1997. A few weeks before his death Sir Alfred recorded his reminiscences which Heritage Media has now
issued on cd.
"Sir Alfred Sherman's last recorded political thoughts show great insights into the social background and personality of Margaret Thatcher. He analyses her election as Tory leader, her Premiership, its crises and achievements and the political characters who supported and undermined her. Here, with a microphone close and in a private setting, Sherman was at his brilliant, intellectual and acerbic best." Rodney Atkinson.
EXTRACTS
"Willie Whitelaw was the main enemy. cunning and always stabbing in the back"
"Chris Patten perpetually undermined the Thatcher regime" and his Conservative Research Department was "a hotbed of bisexualism". "Patten was the political adventurer, he believed in management not ideas"
"Geoffrey Howe encouraged people to underestimate him but underneath that he was full of resentment". "She used to treat him with a certain amount of contempt and he resented it. He looked for chance to get his own back."
"Michael Heseltine was in many ways the most talented of them all. She perhaps made a mistake in quarreling with him so strongly and although she would not have wanted to be succeeded by him he would have been no worse than John Major"
Sherman on Sherman: "Margaret Thatcher's people were suspicious of me, partly because I was a Jew and partly because I was a man of ideas."
Sir Alfred Sherman
Sir Alfred Sherman was born in modest circumstances to an emigré Russian Jewish family in the East End of London. He went to a state school in Hackney. He was an outsider, not least because his superb intellect was
nurtured by the rigour of his critical Marxist studies and a wide experience of European history and languages. He fought in the Spanish civil war, went to support Yugoslavia after its split with Moscow, spoke fluent Spanish and was a Balkans expert. During the Second World War he learned Arabic and gained "useful insights into the Moslem mind". This erudite internationalism did not sit easily in the Conservative Party.
Sir Alfred Sherman greatly admired another outsider, Margaret Thatcher, and just before his death in August 2006 when these recordings were made, he was greatly disturbed by the direction of the new anti-Thatcherite Conservative Party under David Cameron. He thought the Tory Party had not learned the lessons of the post Thatcher collapse: "By turning their backs on her, Conservatives cut themselves off from their own history" he wrote.
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Contents of Sir Alfred Sherman's Last Interview: The Rise and Fall of Margaret Thatcher |
How Powell and Macleod brought about a new system of electing a Tory leader - election of Edward Heath - Sherman and Selsdon man - was Thatcher a Thatcherite? - who controlled the Tory Party? - who undermined the Thatcher
administration? - three Tory policy institutes, CRD, CPS and Nr 10 -Christopher Patten, a perpetual opponent - the Poll Tax and Sherman's warnings - shadowing the Deutschmark - Sir Alan Walters at No10 - the Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe resignations - John Major and the ERM disaster - Heseltine ("in many ways the most able") challenges for leadership - Margaret Thatcher goes to Paris NATO meeting - her campaign mishandled, "could have won" says Sherman - Thatcherism failed to create successors - Parkinson, Lilley, Moore, Portillo analysed - Thatcher and Tebbit failed to tackle European issue - Blair continued broadly Thatcherite policies but Brown spent too much to "secure his successorship" - Labour crisis inevitable.
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