Edward Heath Edward Heath ▼ Primary Sources ▼ Edward Heath Edward Heath, the son of a builder, was born in Broadstairs on 9th July, 1916. He studied at Balliol College , Oxford where he was influenced by the political and religious ideas of A. D. Lindsay and William Temple . In 1937 Heath became president of the Oxford Conservative Association. In 1938 he went with three other undergraduates to observe the Spanish Civil War . He met leaders of the Popular Front government and on his return he campaigned against General Francisco Franco and the Nationalist Army . As well as being in favour of intervention in Spain Heath was a strong opponent of the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain . Although a member of the Conservative Party , Heath supported his university tutor, A. D. Lindsay , the anti-appeasement candidate in the Oxford by-election in October, 1938. The following year he was elected as president of the Oxford Union. Heath was called up to the British Army in August, 1940.

After receiving training at Storrington in Sussex, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in March 1941 and was posted to the 107 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment based in Chester. Following the D-Day landings, Heath's regiment arrived in France on 6th July, 1944. Over the next few months he was involved in heavy fighting in Belgium , Netherlands and Germany . He also took part in Operation Veritable, the action to capture the land between the rivers of the Rhine and the Maas. As a result of this action he was awarded the military MBE and was mentioned in dispatches. Heath remained in Germany after the war and attended the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. A member of the Conservative Party , Heath worked as news editor of the Church Times. In 1948 he went to work for the finance house of Brown, Shipley and Company. In the 1950 General Election Heath won Bexley with a majority of 133. A committed European, Heath made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 26th June in favour of the Schuman Plan .

He ended his speech with the words: "It was said long ago in the House that magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom. I appeal tonight to the government to follow that dictum, and to go into the Schuman Plan to develop Europe and to coordinate it in the way suggested. Heath showed that he was on the left of the party with an article in the seminal Conservative pamphlet, One Nation (1950). However, after being appointed as deputy chief whip in 1953 he had to remain silent in the House of Commons . In 1955 Anthony Eden appointed Heath as his Chief Whip and had the task of persuading Conservative MPs to support the government during the Suez Crisis . Later he served as Minister of Labour (1959-60) under Harold Macmillan . As Lord Privy Seal he led the British team negotiating entry into the Common Market. A passionate European he was devastated when Charles De Gaulle vetoed Britain's entry in 1963. In the Alec Douglas-Home administration Heath was President of the Board of Trade.

The Labour Party won the 1964 General Election and the following year Heath defeated Enoch Powell and Reginald Maudling to become leader of the Conservative Party . In 1965 Heath supported attempts by Harold Wilson to bring down the white minority regime in in Rhodesia . This upset Conservatives on the right and Heath had to deal with a rebellion led by Lord Salisbury. Heath lost the 1966 General Election to Harold Wilson . In 1968 Wilson's popularity slumped after Enoch Powell made his "rivers of blood" speech on immigration. Instead of supporting the use of the race issue to gain favour with the British electorate, Heath sacked Powell as a member of the shadow cabinet. The Conservative Party won the 1970 General Election with a majority of 30 seats. Heath now became prime minister and immediately made the third British application to join the European Economic Community (ECC). On 28th October, 1971, the House of Commons voted with a 112 majority to go into Europe. However, many in his party was unhappy with this policy and it created deep divisions that lasted for over thirty years.

Heath also followed a policy of supporting British industry. In 1971 Rolls-Royce faced bankruptcy and received considerable funds from the government. The Upper Clyde Shipbuilders was also bailed out when it got into economic difficulties. Heath came into conflict with the trade unions over his attempts to impose a prices and incomes policy. His attempts to legislate against unofficial strikes led to industrial disputes. In 1973 a miners' work-to-rule led to regular power cuts and the imposition of a three day week. Heath called a general election in 1974 on the issue of "who rules". He failed to get a majority and Harold Wilson and the Labour Party were returned to power. In January 1975 Margaret Thatcher challenged Heath for the leadership of the Conservative Party . On 4th February Thatcher defeated Heath by 130 votes to 119 and became the first woman leader of a major political party. Heath took the defeat badly and refused to serve in Thatcher's shadow cabinet. He considered Thatcher to be a right-wing authoritarian and like another former Conservative prime minister, Harold Macmillan , Heath constantly criticized her policies. Heath remained in the House of Commons as a backbencher.

However, during this period he became an important international statesman and was one of the key members of the Brandt Commission into North/South problems (1977-80), and for several years thereafter was one of the Third World’s most moving advocates. Heath joined the House of Lords in 2001. Sir Edward Heath died of pneumonia on 17th July, 2005. (1) Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (1988) At the time I went up, Balliol's already formidable reputation was being further enhanced by the then Master, A. D. Lindsay. 'Sandy' Lindsay had previously been Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University, a chair once held by Adam Smith. There the comparison ended, for Lindsay was a socialist whose Christian faith was an integral part of his political philosophy. In 1926, two years after he became Master, he had caused an uproar, both among the College parents and more widely in the University, by supporting the General Strike; and, in 1931, he had entertained Mahatma Gandhi for a fortnight in the Master's Lodge during the Indian leader's visit to Britain.

Although Lindsay's own principles were strongly social democratic, he was completely non-dogmatic and non-doctrinaire both in argument and in deed. He believed that democracy alone, and the freedom of expression it underpinned, could give each individual the chance to live his or her own full life. Lindsay had more influence on me at Oxford than anyone else. Ironically, by hastening my intellectual development, this great socialist probably strengthened my innate Conservatism: and the more I exposed my instinctive political views to intellectual questioning, the more solid and rigorous their foundations became. (2) Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (1988) My Christian faith also provided foundations for my political beliefs. In this, I was influenced by the teaching of William Temple. Temple's impact on my generation was immense. He believed that a fairer society could be built only on moral foundations, with all individuals recognising their duty to help others. Like Lindsay, he was a socialist and, in his wish to redress the balance of power between those who own and those who produce, he sometimes failed to see that some would seek through socialist measures not justice, but power for its own sake.

He was, however, the first Anglican leader for decades to set out the Church's teachings in modern terms. He propounded a view of morality which was not preoccupied with sexuality, but which was relevant to the myriad problems besetting the individual in the personal, professional and social spheres. On mainland Europe, the related but more conservative doctrines of Christian Democracy had, regrettably, been submerged by fascism and nationalism. But many of us were already intrigued and rather attracted by the apparent kinship of Christian Democratic thinking with our own moderate Conservatism, which we similarly predicated upon the view that the individual can be truly fulfilled only as part of a social unit. (3) In 1938 Edward Heath went with three other undergraduates to observe the Spanish Civil War . In the summer of 1938, together with three other Oxford undergraduates, I received an invitation from the Republican government of Spain, which had then been involved for nearly two years in its civil war, to spend two or three weeks in Catalonia, the last great province remaining under its control. I was invited in my capacity as chairman of the Federation of University Conservative Associations.

My colleagues were Richard Symonds, a socialist from Corpus Christi who joined the United Nations secretariat after the Second World War; Derek Tasker, a Liberal from Exeter College who was later ordained and became the Canon Treasurer of Southwark Cathedral; and George Stent, a South African from Magdalen, who was probably the furthest to the left of us all in his political views. For all of us, it was to be our first taste of war. We were to witness a conflict which aroused, in our generation, passions every bit as fierce as those stirred up by the war in Vietnam thirty years later. The struggle between the Republicans and General Franco's fascists had gained particular international significance because of the intervention of Germany and Italy on Franco's side, and the refusal of the Chamberlain government to do more than isolate Spain. Moreover, many of our contemporaries had gone off to Spain to fight, the majority on the Republican side, and many had lost their lives. My sympathies were firmly with the elected government of the Spanish Republic simply because it was not a dictatorship, although it was somewhat to the left and was supported by the Soviet Union.

The base for our visit was Barcelona, and we travelled there via Calais, Paris and Perpignan. At one point, our night train came to a juddering halt. Opening the window, we discovered that a wheel had come off, but not from our carriage. We arrived late at Perpignan, our destination in France. After a superb lunch in a restaurant overlooking the main square of the town, we were then driven at breakneck speed along the coast, a lot of it at quite a height, on the winding mountain roads down to Barcelona. We found the capital city of Catalonia in darkness - it was never lit up for fear of air-raids - and settled in to a comfortable hotel. Instructions in our rooms told us to go down to the basement in the event of an air-raid alarm. It was just as well that we did not heed those instructions, opting instead for the excitement of watching the bombers flying past. During one raid, a bomb went straight down the hotel lift shaft, skittling to the bottom and killing all those who had rushed down to the basement shelter.

(4) Edward Heath, radio broadcast from Barcelona (17th July, 1938) I did not quite know what I was going to find, as this was our first experience of actual warfare. I imagined we might come to a wrecked city and find a terror-stricken people, haggard and worn... with rioting and looting and feelings running high... What we did find surprised us all... Everything is perfectly normal, life is going on almost as usual... people thronging the streets, sitting in cafes, laughing and talking with far from long faces... the liberty of the individual has impressed me greatly... There are no secret courts here. During the raids the same calmness and normal behaviour continues . . . people go quietly to a shelter, there is no sign of panic. But they realise what it all means, as people who have never seen them never can realise the destruction of defenceless men, women, and children, bombed in unprotected villages, is most ghastly. I have seen the planes 200 feet above my head, heard the bombs, and the village I had passed through five minutes before was in ruins. Yet still the morale of the people is untouched.

(5) Edward Heath, speech in the House of Commons on the Schuman Plan (26th June, 1950) I found that their attitude was governed entirely by political considerations. I believe there is a genuine desire on their part to reach agreement with France and with the other countries of Western Europe. I believe that in that desire the German government are genuine and I believe, too, that the German government would be prepared to make economic sacrifices in order to achieve those political results which they desire. I am convinced that, when the negotiations take place between the countries about the economic details, the German government will be prepared to make sacrifices ... I believe that these discussions would give us a chance of leading Germany into the way we want her to go. It was said long ago in the House that magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom. I appeal tonight to the government to follow that dictum, and to go into the Schuman Plan to develop Europe and to coordinate it in the way suggested. (6) Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (1988) Throughout these weeks I was able to observe Eden closely. In particular, I watched the animated way in which he worked on his papers.

As he went over telegram after telegram from our ambassadors at the United Nations and in the major capitals of the world, one could only admire the skill and the speed with which he worked. Like all the best leaders in peace and war, he seemed able to visualise the situation many moves ahead. He was also able to make realistic assessments and imaginative proposals for dealing with them. The only exception I noticed was his readiness to accept the information coming in from the intelligence services in the Middle East. All too many of them were misleading enough taken at face value, but at times he seemed to read into them what he wanted. This was especially the case with regard to Nasser's personal position in Egypt and his relationship with other Middle Eastern countries. Eden was determined that Nasser and his regime should be brought down. The intelligence services often provided gossip and items of tittle-tattle which seemed to show that this was about to happen. But it never did and Nasser emerged more or less intact from the whole episode. Secret discussions on the possibility of an invasion between the British, French and Israelis were carried out in Paris in the latter part of October.

I was first told of these discussions after a meeting of the inner circle of Ministers and officials held at Chequers on 21 October. I was alarmed, but far from surprised, that a plan was being hatched to circumvent the negotiations in New York. Four days later, I went into the Cabinet Room as usual shortly before Cabinet was due to start, and I found the Prime Minister standing by his chair holding a piece of paper. He was bright-eyed and full of life. The tiredness seemed suddenly to have disappeared. 'We've got an agreement!' he exclaimed. 'Israel has agreed to invade Egypt. We shall then send in our own forces, backed up by the French, to separate the contestants and regain the Canal.' The Americans would not be told about the plan. He concluded, somewhat unnervingly, that 'this is the highest form of statesmanship'. The Sevres Protocol, as it became known, had been signed the day before, in a suburb of Paris. Sir Patrick Dean had signed on behalf of the Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, and Christian Pineau and David Ben-Guiron had signed, respectively, on behalf of France and Israel. Only Lloyd, Macmillan, Butler and myself were to know about it.

I did my utmost to change Eden's mind, warning him that it was unlikely that people would believe him - and that, even if the Protocol remained a secret and people accepted the official reason for going in, the very act of doing so was likely to split the country. Eden did not dispute any of this advice, but simply reiterated that he could not let Nasser get away with it. Before we could have a proper discussion, the door opened and the Cabinet began to file in. At the meeting which followed, Eden repeated what he had said to our conference about the need to use force only if necessary. Although several Ministers had doubts about military action, the only one who actually resigned was Walter Monckton, the Minister of Defence. He was replaced by Antony Head on 18 October and took a non-departmental post. On 30 October, the Prime Minister interrupted business in the House at 4.30 p.m. to make a statement announcing that Israel had attacked Egyptian territory and was moving towards the Canal. At the same time it had given an undertaking that it would not attack Jordan or other neighbouring countries whose independence we were concerned to maintain.

As these debates proceeded, more and more questions were being asked and were remaining unanswered by an increasingly exposed, embarrassed and truculent government. In between the two front-bench wind-up speeches on Thursday 1st November, the drama moved on to another plane when the Conservative Member for the Wrekin, William Yates, interrupted on a point of order and said, "I have come to the conclusion that Her Majesty's Government has been involved in an international conspiracy," and the House had to be suspended amid considerable uproar. (7) Harold Macmillan , letter to Edward Heath (26th December, 1962) I only trust that nothing I have done at Rambouillet or Nassau has increased your difficulties. My impression of de Gaulle is that he is friendly to me personally, not unfriendly to Britain (always remembering the insults he conceives were put upon him by Churchill during the War), wants friendly relations with Britain, but does not want us now in the Community because he is in a mood of sulks about the future of Europe politically and would prefer to stay where he is with France dominating the Five. At the same time I am not sure that he wants this to be too public.

The only thing that seemed to worry his advisers were the moments in the discussion where he gave away his hand too obviously and I pounced upon this. You know how great a confidence and faith my colleagues and I have had in you throughout, and the wonderful -work that you have done is fully recognised throughout the country. Come what may, your position will stand very high. (8) Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (1988) At the beginning of February 1970, however, it was back to serious politics. The Shadow Cabinet met at Selsdon Park Hotel, near Croydon, to co-ordinate the results of our policy reviews and discuss an early draft of our manifesto. There had been a regrettable departure from our team in the autumn. Sir Edward Boyle, who had done so much to ensure the success of the policy groups, had agreed to take up the post of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds, and announced his decision to leave politics at the coming election.

I had always regarded Boyle as a candidate for one of the first offices of state, and during the 1960s I offered him a variety of senior posts, but his interest in education, which had given him Cabinet rank under Macmillan, only deepened. He held liberal views on virtually every subject, but he was especially committed to equality of opportunity. Unfortunately, this made him unpopular with vocal members of our right wing and, unlike those who are wholly addicted to politics, Boyle would not compromise an inch to buy a respite from criticism. I understood when he told me about the Leeds appointment, and reluctantly accepted that he should leave. He helped out during the election campaign, however, and I recommended him for a life peerage in 1970 when I became Prime Minister. We stayed in touch until his early death in 1981. After some reflection I decided to offer the Shadow Education post to Margaret Thatcher, who had dealt effectively with Fuel and Power and Transport since joining the Shadow Cabinet in 1967. (9) Edward Heath, Conservative Party election manifesto (1970) Inflation is not only damaging to the economy ...

it is a major cause of social injustice, always hitting hardest at the weakest and poorest members of the community . . . the main causes of rising prices are Labour's damaging policies of high taxation and devaluation ... the Labour government's own figures show that, last year, taxation and price increases more than cancelled any increase in incomes ... so wages started chasing prices up in a desperate and understandable attempt to improve living standards. (10) Denis Healey , The Time of My Life (1989) According to Douglas Hurd, who, after working for Heath in Opposition, succeeded Marcia Falkender as the Political Secretary at No. 10, Heath saw himself as a latter-day Robert Peel, creating a new Conservative Party to fit the new social realities of which he was himself the product. It was a good analogy. Heath was the first Conservative leader from the lower middle class, as Peel was the first leader to represent the new rich who had made their money out of manufacturing industry. They had similar personalities too. Peel was described by contemporaries as "an iceberg with a slight thaw on the surface", his smile "like the gleam of the silver plate on a coffin lid".

Both men had to make up in vigour and industry what they lacked in more human and exciting qualities. It could be said of Heath, as it was of Peel, that he ended up like "the Turkish Admiral, who steered his fleet into the enemy's port". He finally came under heavy attack from inside his own Party for lack of Conservative principle. In taking Britain into the Common Market, like Peel in repealing the Corn Laws, he never won the general consent of his Party. Heath was also a confirmed pragmatist, though he has always been reluctant to admit that he ever changes his mind. In fact no Prime Minister has ever reversed the whole thrust of his policies as fast and completely as Heath. He abandoned his Thatcherism lock, stock, and barrel when he discovered it was causing mass unemployment. Contrary to his declared intentions, he baled out Rolls-Royce and Upper Clyde Shipyards, abandoned the market economy in favour of industrial interventionism, embraced the control of prices and incomes, and condemned the Lonrho affair as "the unacceptable face of capitalism".

(11) Edward Heath, speech in Cromer (July, 1974) I have always had in my mind's eye a vision about the people of this country . . . We are a great people and a great nation. We are one nation. One nation in which men and women of all creeds and all races can live together not in conflict but as neighbours. One nation in which the young know they will have their fair share of the opportunities and the elderly know they will have their fair share of the rewards. One nation in which all those who work in industry share the same aim, of creating new prosperity for themselves and for the community. One nation which is ready to make a major contribution in Europe on terms that are fair and just. One nation the world will choose to listen to once more because it hears us speak with one voice. Because it sees us ordering our affairs with fairness and good sense. A nation worth listening to. A nation worth living in. That is what this government - your government - will achieve. (12) Edward Heath, Conservative Party election manifesto (1974) Inflation is not only damaging to the economy ...

it is a major cause of social injustice, always hitting hardest at the weakest and poorest members of the community . . . the main causes of rising prices are Labour's damaging policies of high taxation and devaluation ... the Labour government's own figures show that, last year, taxation and price increases more than cancelled any increase in income. (13) Edward Heath, Conservative Party election manifesto (1974) Membership of the EEC brings us great economic advantages, but the European Community is not a matter of accountancy. There are two basic ideas behind the formation of the Common Market; first, that having nearly destroyed themselves by two great European civil wars, the European nations should make a similar war impossible in future; and, secondly, that only through unity could the western European nations recover control over their destiny - a control which they had lost after two wars, the division of Europe and the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union. We must . . . work out with the trade unions and the employers a fair and effective policy for prices and incomes ... if after all our efforts we fail to get a comprehensive voluntary policy we shall need to support the voluntary restraint that 15 achieved with the back-up of the law.

It would be irresponsible and dishonest totally to rule this out ... In the absence of an effective prices and incomes policy and Government would have to take harsher financial and economic measures than would otherwise be necessary. (14) Edward Heath, The Course of My Life (1988) My mood as the counting began was hopeful, but not confident. The campaign had been short, and the electorate had had no time to put the bad news of the last few days into its proper context. We were particularly worried about the Liberal vote. The party had been as high as 30 per cent in the opinion polls of September 1973 and, of course, we could not count on help from the Ulster Unionists in a close election because we had established power-sharing in Northern Ireland. When the early results came in, we knew straight away that the support of minor parties could be needed. In my own seat I now had a majority close to 10,000, but that was little reason for cheer. As I was driven back to Downing Street after the announcement of my result, I still could not be sure whether I would be Prime Minister the next day.

I was certain, however, that we could no longer hope to be returned with the sort of lead we had enjoyed in 1970. The last results were not in until the Saturday. We had won more votes than Labour, but had fallen short of their tally of seats, mainly because the Liberals' 19 per cent of the vote had taken support from us. The final score was Labour 301, Conservatives 297 and Liberals 14. In addition, there were nine Nationalist MPs from the mainland, twelve Ulster MPs and two Independents who were formerly Labour. Oddly for an indecisive election, the turnout was high. Although the result was a bitter disappointment, the government of the country had to be carried on regardless of what I felt and, on the basis of the results, I had a clear constitutional duty to see if I was best placed to carry on that responsibility. Labour had fought the election on the most extreme platform of any party since the war, which had been more or less ignored thanks to the inevitable media focus on the miners' strike. I could not leave office without trying everything within my power to form a moderate alternative government.

(15) Margaret Thatcher , The Path to Power (1995) I felt sorry for Ted Heath personally. He had his music and a small circle of friends, but politics was his life. That year, moreover, he had suffered a series of personal blows. His yacht, Morning Cloud, had sunk and his godson had been among those lost. The election defeat was a further blow. Nonetheless, I had no doubt that Ted now ought to go. He had lost three elections out of four. He himself could not change and he was too defensive of his own past record to see that a fundamental change of policies was needed. I arranged to see Ted on Monday 25 November. He was at his desk in his room at the House. I need not have worried about hurting his feelings. I went in and said: 'I must tell you that I have decided to stand for the leadership.' He looked at me coldly, turned his back, shrugged his shoulders and said: "If you must." I slipped out of the room. (16) Michael Cockerell, Ted Heath and Me , The Guardian (19th July, 2005) Ted Heath never liked to leave things to chance.

Even as he lay dying at his home in Salisbury on Sunday, his office was ringing the media to tip them off that the end was very near. When his death was announced at 9pm, television and the newspapers had their prepared obituaries and tributes ready to go straight to press and on air. Of the many leading politicians I have made films about over the years, the former Conservative prime minister was the trickiest to deal with. He was a man of many moods. Sometimes when you made the pilgrimage to film him at his breathtakingly beautiful house in the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral, he would be jovial and ebullient - at other times he would be in a total grump and monosyllabic in his answers. His customary way of greeting you was to make you feel not at home, to try to destabilise you before you had even started. As we sat down for one interview, he said: "Have you got your usual list of boring questions?" Yes exactly the same, I replied. "Oh well, we'd better get it over with." I thought the interview went reasonably well and when it was over I asked if he thought the questions had been as boring as usual.

"Oh yes," he replied, "but infinitely more irrelevant." I told his private secretary about this. "That's good, if he's rude to you it means he likes you." The complexities of Heath's character provide rich material for political psychoanalysts. When I was making a film about his life, he told me that he decided that he was going to be prime minister when he was at the local grammar school in the Kent seaside town of Broadstairs, where he grew up. "But I didn't tell the other boys as they might have been jealous," he said. Taking Heath back to Oxford to film him in Balliol - he had won an organ scholarship to the college - put him into one of his jovial moods. In the grand dining hall we talked as we inspected the imposing portraits of old Balliol men who'd became prime ministers - Asquith, Macmillan and Heath himself. Did he think Balliol gave some quality that helped in becoming prime minister? "Oh yes, complete mental control - intellectual control." What they called tranquil consciousness of effortless superiority, I said. "Yes, absolutely it's the first thing, they teach that from the moment you get here." And he felt that for the rest of his life?

"Yes, that's what caused so much trouble." And he laughed. We took Heath back to Nuremberg, where he had gone as an undergraduate in 1937 to assess for himself the menace of Nazism. He told me that what he saw at the Nuremberg rally and later as an artillery officer during the second world war inspired in him the idea that would dominate his whole political life. "I saw in German cities, practically everything was destroyed. And I was convinced then that what my generation had to do was to create a unity in Europe which would mean that that this would never happen again." While Heath would talk fluently about the political influences on him, he was notoriously guarded about his private life. The one exception came when we arranged to film him in Broadstairs. I met him when he stepped out of his car and instead of his usual insult for a greeting, he beamed at me and said: "Smell that air - wonderful isn't it - the best in the world." He was relaxed and jovial over our lunch in the best hotel: he ate smoked salmon and fresh asparagus with hollandaise sauce. But he refused a drink: "Never before a big interview," he said.

When we began recording for the first time he opened by a fraction the doors on to his feelings. He had never before talked publicly about his girlfriend from Broadstairs. She was Kay Raven the daughter of the local doctor who had waited patiently for him throughout the war. Heath had taken up with her again after the war and his friends had expected them to marry. But he never got round to proposing. "She decided she would marry someone else, but I don't discuss these things," said Heath. "Did you get over it?" "Yes." "It was said you kept her photograph by your bed." "Yes." "Did you?" "Yes."- and he looked away, as if close to tears. He talked so movingly about the death of his mother that I felt we had crossed a barrier and when we next time we met he would be more relaxed and prepared to give more of himself. The opposite happened. It was as if he had decided to give me just one glimpse - but never again. I later asked him if he felt he had missed out by never having married.

"A lot of people say I have gained, because instead of having to spend time with one's family or not spending time and being divorced, I've just been free to use my time in the world of politics." Throughout his life it was music that absorbed his feelings (17) Moscow Times (19th July, 2005) A carpenter's son who broke the tradition of blue bloods leading the Conservative Party, his major achievement was to negotiate Britain's 1973 entry into the European Community. The entry overturned years of resistance both domestically and by France, which had vetoed Britain's entry in 1967. In 1992, he became Sir Edward, a member of the country's most prestigious order of chivalry, the knights of the Garter. "He was a man of great integrity and beliefs he held firmly from which he never wavered, and he will be remembered by all who knew him as a political leader of great stature and importance," Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday.

Heath came to power in 1970, pledging to end Britain's long cycle of post-World War II decline, but he was thwarted and, in the end, brought down by militant unions. In 1974, with Britain reduced to a three-day week by striking coal miners, Heath called an election demanding "Who governs?" in a challenge to the unions. He lost to Harold Wilson's Labour Party and lost again when an election was called in October that year. In all, Heath had taken the Conservatives to defeat by Labour three times since becoming leader of the party in 1965. The Tories rebelled, and in February 1975 another outsider, the grocer's daughter Thatcher, successfully challenged him for the party leadership. On Sunday, Thatcher called him a "political giant" and "the first modern Conservative leader." (18) The Times, Sir Edward Heath (19th July, 2005) He took office on June 19, 1970, and declared from the pavement outside 10 Downing Street that “to govern is to serve”. Partly by ill-chance it was not a government of strong ministers.

Iain Macleod died after a month, and left a gap which not only muted the administration’s persuasiveness but also deprived it of effective macro-economic control. Macleod’s successor as Chancellor, Anthony Barber, always seemed more interested in the details of taxation reform than in the direction of the economy. Maudling as Home Secretary had personal troubles, which prevented his authority being as great as his political sagacity, and had eventually to resign from office in July 1972. Douglas-Home as Foreign Secretary was widely liked and respected, but was perhaps a little representative of the past. The great harbinger of the future within the Government was kept very much in her place as a junior member of the Cabinet, and was nearly dismissed as Education Secretary at the end of 1972. Heath rather contemptuously spared the axe at the last moment. It was perhaps not the best basis for their future relationship. The Government, therefore, depended very heavily upon the Prime Minister.

Heath was eager to supply both the energy and the authority, and he achieved at last one triumph which, at least to some, makes him rank with Pitt, Peel, Asquith and Attlee as prime ministers who have set the nation’s course for a generation and more. He succeeded where Macmillan and Wilson had failed and got Britain into Europe. Partly by establishing an effective relationship with Pompidou (the only one between a British prime minister and a French president since the Fifth Republic began), Heath brought the negotiations to a successful conclusion and then won the crucial House of Commons vote by a majority of 112 in October 1971. This victory was aided by the votes of 69 Labour MPs, who defied a three-line whip, the Labour Party having shown more regard for factious opposition than for consistency. On January 22, 1972, Heath signed the treaty of accession in Brussels. It must have been one of the most satisfactory days of his life, even though he was doused in ink. Domestically there was less satisfaction. The Heath Government began in what now appears as a surprisingly Thatcherite direction.

A necessary Industrial Relations Bill (which indeed owed a good deal to Barbara Castle’s abortive foray in 1969) was quickly introduced but produced some nonsenses in implementation. The Commonwealth was thrown into uproar by a decision to sell arms to South Africa, and a policy of letting “lame duck” companies collapse was proclaimed. Some of the interventionist institutions created by the Wilson Government, such as the Prices and Incomes Board and the Consumer Council, were ritually slaughtered. The contrast with the 1979 Government was that, whether through weakness or through wisdom, these policies were mostly not persisted with when unfortunate consequences began to show. Public money was pumped into Rolls-Royce as well as into Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, the Prices and Incomes Board resurfaced at the beginning of 1973 in the form of the Pay Board and the Prices Commission, the Consumer Council had a still more glorious resurrection in the shape of a full-scale Ministry of Consumer Affairs, and when unemployment went above a million in 1972 a policy of almost headlong reflation was launched. Northern Ireland affairs occupied a good deal of the Prime Minister’s time. Terrorism escalated and devolved government was in near-collapse.

In March 1972, Heath suspended Stormont and appointed William Whitelaw as the first Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, a viceroy with full powers. This led to a sustained effort to bring Protestants and Catholics together in a power-sharing arrangement for the province. This was finally achieved in the Sunningdale agreement of December 1973, which was brave but short-lived. The month of March 1972 was only the beginning of Whitelaw’s role as the firefighter of the Government. When agreement was achieved in Northern Ireland he was brought back as Secretary of State for Employment to endeavour to deal with the miners in what proved to be the last drama of that administration. It was prefaced and made immensely more difficult by the shock of the first oil price increase. Against this unfavourable background he and Heath failed, and they and the nation were plunged into the gloom of the three-day week. The challenge of the miners was regarded as sufficiently serious to provoke an early general election on the question of “who governs Britain”.

But Heath did not make up his mind to have it early enough, wavered through January, eventually called it for February 28, and failed to keep the mind of the electorate on the single issue for this length of time. The result was not exactly a defeat — the Conservatives polled 1 per cent more votes than Labour — but a signal failure to secure a victory. Heath, with four seats fewer than Wilson, hung on over the weekend that followed polling day. He tried to make a coalition with the Liberals, who were not easily patronisable partners — they had done exceptionally well for votes (19 per cent) and been rewarded with only 2 per cent of the seats. It was a reasonable but slightly inept attempt, for it ended both in putting Wilson back into office and giving him a complete command over the date of the second 1974 election, which almost inevitably followed from the hung Parliament. This second election in October was the last which Heath was allowed to fight as leader, an outcome which followed to some extent from its course and result.

Heath fought highly respectably on a platform of national unity in the face of national danger, and did quite well to limit Wilson to a barely working majority, but it meant that he had lost three out of four general elections and many Conservative candidates (by no means all of the Right) claimed to find him unpopular on the doorsteps. A contest for the leadership became inevitable. First it was Keith Joseph who looked the most likely challenger. Then Margaret Thatcher emerged with stronger nerves. The ballot took place on February 4, 1975, and was a devastating blow to Heath. She had 130 votes. He had 119. Hugh Fraser had 16. Heath immediately withdrew and left her to win an overall majority on a second ballot over Whitelaw, Howe, Prior and Peyton. Heath never fully got over this defeat. As a result there was a strong element of sadness in his last three decades, but such were his innate qualities that there were elements of splendour too. He remained an MP until 2001, but he never held office again. The only one he was offered was the embassy in Washington, which he declined with disdain in 1979.

He remained very bitter towards Thatcher, and alienated many half-friends with the frankness with which he expressed this — his appointment in 1992 by the Queen as a Knight of the Garter came safely after her fall from power. Heath’s tactless curmudgeonliness probably cost him the chancellorship of Oxford University, a post by which he set much store, vacated in 1987 when Macmillan died. Sir Edward Heath - Telegraph Advertisement Sir Edward Heath Sir Edward Heath, who died yesterday aged 89, achieved his great ambition of taking Britain into the European Economic Community, but proved unable to solve the many economic and labour problems which afflicted his administration between 1970 and 1974. 12:01AM BST 18 Jul 2005 Comments The first Conservative Prime Minister to be born the son of a manual worker, Heath pursued his European vision against every discouragement. But in the face of almost continuous crisis he was unable to maintain policy at home. Elected on laissez-faire economics, his government found itself pouring out public money in all directions. Determined to reform industrial relations, he made matters worse through ill-considered legislation.

Heath, moreover, conspicuously lacked the ability to charm his way out of trouble: for a leading politician he was an astonishingly inept communicator. His awkward mannerisms - the brusque retort, the shoulders heaving in mirthless laughter - repelled; his speeches were wooden in delivery and banal in phrasing; for almost a year, from November 1972 to October 1973, he gave no television interview. In consequence, "the Grocer" was pilloried as a heartless automaton, contemptuous of the poor and unemployed. In reality, his administration twisted and turned because the kind of Conservatism which Heath espoused - and which appealed to his instincts far more than did the prescriptions of the market-place - was corporatist rather than political, dirigiste rather than democratic. In some respects Heath was a permanent secretary manqué, more at ease with civil servants than with his own Cabinet. His creation of the Central Policy Review Staff, or Think Tank, to help him take the long strategic view, suggested his impatience with orthodox politics. Heath also differed from most prime ministers in his interests.

A keen sailor, he had won the Sydney-Hobart race in his yacht Morning Cloud in 1969; and in 1971, as Prime Minister, he captained the British team which won the Admiral's Cup. That same year he conducted Elgar's Cockaigne overture at the Royal Festival Hall. Related Articles Dame Peggy Fenner 06 Oct 2014 But these were not accomplishments to impress the voters. When Heath was ejected from office in 1974 the failure was too painful for him even to admit, yet alone redeem. For years he treated the Right with the same contempt, if rather less bitterness, that he lavished upon Mrs Thatcher herself. Edward Richard George Heath was born on July 9 1916 at Broadstairs, Kent, the elder son of a carpenter. Edward was particularly close to his mother, who never failed in either ambition or admiration for her son. His brother, who died in 1982, became a borough surveyor in Harrow. He was educated at Chatham House School, Ramsgate, where he was determinedly industrious.

Though he failed (twice) to win a scholarship to Balliol, he went there as a commoner in 1935, thanks to some financial sacrifice by his parents and a loan from the Kent Education Committee. Heath always resented the difficulty that he had had repaying the loan, and later, when student loans were advocated to replace grants, he fiercely opposed it. In his first term at Balliol Heath won the college's Organ Scholarship. During the summer of 1938 he went on a student delegation to Franco's Spain. In the Oxford by-election, just after Chamberlain's deal with Hitler in Munich at the end of September, Heath campaigned for AD Lindsay, the Master of Balliol, who stood as an anti-appeasement candidate against the official Conservative, Quintin Hogg. Later that autumn he was elected President of the Oxford Union. He came down from Oxford in 1939 with a second in PPE, and in August went to tour in Germany. He was in Leipzig when he heard the news of the Nazi-Soviet pact, and returned to England on September 1, two days before the declaration of war.

That October he set out on a three-month debating tour of the United States. Called up in July 1940, he was assigned in March 1941 as Second-Lieutenant to the 107th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, and posted to Liverpool to help defend the Mersey docks. Heath adapted well to Army life, and in March 1942 was appointed adjutant of the regiment. But it was not until July 1944, three weeks after D-Day, that he saw serious action, landing under fire at Arromanches and pushing east and north towards Antwerp. In September the 107th kept open a bridge at Nijmegen against fierce German air attack. Heath proved an efficient officer, and in September 1945 was posted as second-in-command of 86 (HAC) HAA - the Honourable Royal Artillery Company, the oldest and one of the most socially exclusive regiments in the British Army. For three months, with the commanding officer away, Heath was in charge. He was demobilised in August 1946 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel; in the same year he was appointed MBE.

He had also been mentioned in dispatches. He retained his connection with the HRAC as a Territorial officer, and for three years from 1951 was Master Gunner at the Tower of London. In 1946 he took the Civil Service exam and passed out joint top. For two years he worked in the Ministry of Civil Aviation, resigning when he was adopted for the Labour-held seat of Bexley. In 1948 and 1949 he was news editor of the Church Times - "a political fish in holy water", as he described himself - and afterwards a merchant banker with Brown Shipley. At the General Election of 1950 Heath squeaked home with a majority of 133 in Bexley, then a marginal seat, which he held until he stepped down in 2001. In his maiden speech, he attacked the Labour government for its negative response to the Schuman plan to create a single European market in coal and steel. After the 1951 election Heath became a Whip, and was promoted to Deputy Chief Whip a year later. Following the 1955 election he was appointed Whip.

He won credit for holding the party together during the Suez Crisis of 1956. When Macmillan became Prime Minister in 1957, it was with Heath that he celebrated with a supper of oysters and Champagne at the Turf Club. In 1960 Macmillan brought Heath into the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal, responsible for negotiating Britain's attempt to join the EEC. Although de Gaulle's intransigence meant that Heath's efforts ended three years later in failure, he won respect for his grasp of detail. "We in Britain," Heath declared after the General's "Non" in January 1963, "are not going to turn our backs on the mainland of Europe or on the countries of the community." He was awarded the Charlemagne Prize; and put the £446 bounty towards a Steinway piano. When Sir Alec Douglas-Home succeeded Macmillan, Heath was made President of the Board of Trade. His principal achievement was the abolition of resale price maintenance, a bold and progressive move, carried out in the teeth of opposition from small shopkeepers. In opposition Heath became chairman of the party's Policy Committee.

The battle for the succession after Sir Alec Douglas-Home's resignation in 1965 was the first time that the Conservative Party had ever elected a leader. Heath emerged triumphant from a three-cornered fight with Reginald Maudling and Enoch Powell. But hopes that the party would win back voters were disappointed. In March 1966, Harold Wilson gained an absolute majority of 96 seats. Labour's failures - notably devaluation and the failure to tame the Trade Unions - afforded opportunities for Heath. But he had troubles with his own party. In 1967, after a series of acrimonious disputes, he sacked Edward du Cann as party chairman, and replaced him with Tony Barber. The following year, the Conservative leadership came under fierce criticism from the Right, led by Enoch Powell, for its vacillating stance on Wilson's Race Relations Bill. When Powell over-reached himself that April with his "Rivers of Blood" speech Heath unceremoniously sacked him. However, senior party figures - notably Sir Keith Joseph - were in sympathy with Powell's economic thinking.

A meeting of the Shadow Cabinet at the Selsdon Park Hotel in Surrey adopted tax cuts, trade union reform, emphasis on law and order, and immigration control. "Selsdon Man" had begun his brief existence. When Wilson went to the country in June 1970, the opinion polls at the start of the campaign gave him a clear lead. Heath's leadership seemed to be denying the Tories all hope of victory. He refused to be flustered. His campaign managers boldly made his personality an issue, showing him touring the country meeting the people and being warmly welcomed. The gambit was successful; on June 18 the Tories were returned with an overall majority of 30. At the victorious party conference that autumn Heath promised "a quiet revolution" which would foster individual effort and take government out of the market place. But, disastrously, Heath's first priority was to take Britain into the European Community (though his very first act as PM was to ban smoking in Cabinet). Terms were announced in June and, in October, accepted by the Commons (on a free vote) by 356 to 244 votes.

Heath celebrated by playing the first Prelude and Fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. In January 1972, he signed the Accession treaty in Brussels. But in February 1972 the second reading was passed by a majority of only eight, in an atmosphere that degenerated into fisticuffs. Britain became a member of the EEC on January 1 1973. By then, however, the government had run into serious economic difficulties. Heath had bad luck from the beginning, for Iain Macleod, whom he had appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1970, died soon after. Macleod's successor, Tony Barber, produced a budget which cut both income and corporation taxes. But the government was hard put to control wages in the public sector. Strikes by the dockers and the power workers forced the administration to introduce two states of emergency within its first six months; and the need to ration heating and lighting in December 1970 led to a rush on candles.

Lord Wilberforce, appointed to arbitrate, gave the power workers 15 per cent, a bad start for the policy that every wage award should be lower than the one before. Meanwhile, the Industrial Relations Bill specifying "unfair industrial practices", and proposing secret ballots and a "cooling-off" period before strike action, led to protests. The Act eventually came into force in March 1972. Many unions adopted the simple but effective tactic of failing to register with the Industrial Relations Court. Within six months the government had effectively abandoned its own Act. Even before that, though, Heath's troubles with the unions had multiplied. There was a steady rise of unemployment in 1971, and despite its declared policy not to help lame ducks, the government rescued Rolls-Royce in January, and Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in June 1971. Matters reached a crisis at the beginning of 1972, when the unemployed figures went over the million mark and miners began a strike. Thereafter Heath completely caved in, changing the economic direction of his government.

Determined that Britain should join the Common Market in January 1973 with business booming, he persuaded Barber to introduce regional investment grants and to provide favourable terms for investment in plant and machinery. An Industry Bill allowed the government to assist individual companies, which resulted in heavy investment in British Steel and the coal industry. Tony Benn exulted at this "spadework for socialism". Norman Tebbit reflected that "perhaps Selsdon Man was always a Civil Servant at heart". In June 1972 the pound was floated, and soon dropped from 2.70 to the dollar to 2.40. Public expenditure rocketed. The increase in the money supply caused a credit explosion, a property boom and a boom in secondary banks. Inflation fell in the third quarter of 1972. After striving in vain throughout the autumn of 1972 to reach a voluntary agreement with the unions, Heath was obliged that November to introduce a 90-day statutory freeze on wages, salaries, rents and dividends. This was followed in April 1973 by Stage Two, under which pay rises were limited to £1 a week plus four per cent.

Stage Three, unveiled in October 1973, limited pay rises to £2.25 or seven per cent per week, up to a maximum of £350 per year. For a year these policies appeared to work; by May 1973 it seemed that inflation was under control. And in the full year of 1973 industrial output rose by nine per cent and exports by 12 per cent. But a host of other issues - Mrs Thatcher's ending of school milk, Peter Walker's abysmal and philistine reform of local government, and Heath's obsession with imposing museum charges - kept the government unpopular. In spite of all this, Heath was obsessed by large-scale vanity projects. His support of Concorde, and his plans for a Channel Tunnel and the development of a third airport (together with deep-water seaport) at Maplin, all continued until he lost power. In Ulster Heath made a bad error in August 1971, when he supported Brian Faulkner, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, in his decision to introduce the internment of suspects without trial. Before long Heath was forced to order that "intensive questioning" should cease.

On January 30 1972, "Bloody Sunday", a march against internment in Londonderry ended with 13 unarmed demonstrators being shot dead by paratroopers. In March Heath suspended Stormont and put the whole apparatus of law and order in Northern Ireland in the hands of Westminster. A year later, Willie Whitelaw, then Secretary of State, proposed a new Northern Ireland Assembly, and that November he secured agreement to a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive. In December 1973, at Sunningdale, Heath persuaded Unionist leaders to accept a Council of Ireland, in return for the Republic waiving its claim over all 32 counties. By that time, though, Heath's administration had run into terminal trouble, and it did not help that the Prime Minister was suffering from a thyroid deficiency. Raw materials doubled in price between September 1972 and September 1973, and the price oil quadrupled as a result of the Arab-Israeli war in the autumn of 1973. Heath did all he could to avoid a miners' strike, offering them up to 16 per cent, but ultimately he refused to make an exception for the Coal Board.

Determined to avoid running out of stocks at the power stations, the government prematurely announced a three-day week on December 13. This added to the sense of social breakdown. It was only reluctantly that Heath agreed to fight an election on the issue on February 28 1974. Though 300,000 more people voted Conservative than Labour, the Conservatives only won 297 seats to Labour's 301. The Liberals under Jeremy Thorpe, with 19 per cent of the vote and 14 seats, potentially held the balance of power, and Heath added to his unpopularity by staying on in Downing Street over the weekend in an attempt to treat with them. Another election before long was inevitable; no less certainly it would be very difficult for Heath to win. A visit to China in May 1974 underlined his image as an international statesman, while at home he campaigned on the theme of national unity. In the election of October 1974, the Conservatives did rather better than had been predicted, registering only 3.4 per cent (or 42 seats) less than Labour. Wilson's overall majority was only three.

But two election defeats in a year were bound to produce a challenge to Heath's leadership. In November Mrs Thatcher told Heath that she was going to stand against him. "You'll lose," was his only reply. Over the years his charmless ways had offended countless people. Airey Neave, who ran Mrs Thatcher's campaign so brilliantly, had hated Heath since 1959 when he had told the then Chief Whip that, due to a heart condition, he would be unable to stand in the forthcoming election. "You're finished," had been Heath's response. His attempts to lobby Conservative MPs were ghastly failures. On the first ballot Mrs Thatcher scored 130 votes to Heath's 119. "So," Heath remarked on being given the news, "we got it all wrong. The long war against Mrs Thatcher had begun, even if he rarely accorded her the honour of mentioning her name. As her star rose, so his loathing for her increased, until in the flood tide of her success his gracelessness assumed an almost heroic quality. He seemed to relish his isolation as the only possible attitude available to a man who had cast himself as a colossus amongst pygmies.

Shorn of the burden of power, Heath became a more relaxed - sometimes even a witty - speaker. He played a leading part in the campaign to secure a "Yes" vote in the referendum on Europe. He was careful, though, not to parade his hopes for the future development of the Community, or to mention that he had envisaged monetary union by 1980. The "Yes" vote carried the day by 67 per cent to 32 per cent. Outside politics Heath led a busy and varied life, travelling widely and conducting whenever possible, especially with the European Community Youth Orchestra. If some complained that he beat time like a metronome, his recording of the Beethoven Triple Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra was respectfully reviewed. He dictated a series of books - Sailing: A Course of My Life (1975), Music: A Joy for Life (1976), Travels: People and Places in My Life (1977) and Carols: The Joy of Christmas (1977) - and promoted them assiduously. His first three books netted him some £300,000.

In 1977 Heath became member of the North-South Commission headed by Willy Bradt, which aimed to find means of closing the gap between the rich nations of the North and the poor ones of the South. By the time of the General Election of 1979, the bien pensant element applauded when he attacked Mrs Thatcher's rejection of an incomes policy. During the election campaign a MORI poll suggested that the Tory lead of 5 per cent would be tripled if he were to replace Mrs Thatcher. It is said that Heath nursed a sneaking hope that he might be appointed Foreign Secretary. Mrs Thatcher offered him the embassy in Washington, which he indignantly rejected. Heath was soon attacking the "ruinous" and "catastrophic" effects of her monetary policies on manufacturing industry, and issuing dire warnings about unemployment figures, which were soon soaring over the three million mark. But the Falklands War - Heath advocated a negotiated settlement - and economic revival enabled Mrs Thatcher to triumph in the election of 1983. Heath attacked privatisation, condemning the government on unemployment benefit and tax cuts.

In 1985 he bought a beautiful house in Salisbury Close, where photographs of world leaders (some of them despots, but in his view, his peers) were prominently displayed. But though he signed a lucrative deal with Weidenfeld for his memoirs, somehow he could not get down to writing them. In 1987 he lost to Roy Jenkins when he stood for the Chancellorship of Oxford University. Mrs Thatcher's third term of office brought more grist to his mill, and he opposed the poll tax and education reforms. The Spectator made him Parliamentarian of the Year. The collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe left Heath supporting a united Germany, while Mrs Thatcher strove to keep the two parts separate. The Tiananmen Square massacre seemed rather to puzzle than to outrage him. He also gave an emollient reaction to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, stressing the need for a negotiated settlement. In October he led a mission to Baghdad, which succeeded in securing the release of 33 hostages. He also met Saddam, who impressed him.

"He made a misjudgment about Kuwait," Heath explained, "and I am sure he recognises now that it was a misjudgment." In November 1990 Heath at last enjoyed the gratification of Mrs Thatcher's resignation. When he heard the news of her departure he told his office (in echo of the fallen Prime Minister) to "Rejoice! Rejoice!" and bought his staff Champagne. The next June, after Mrs Thatcher had made an anti-European speech in New York, he boiled over in fury. "She shows no appreciation of the ghastly legacy she has left this country," he spluttered. Heath supported John Major in 1992, treating the concessions obtained at Maastricht as purely tactical withdrawals. Returned once more for Bexley, he relished his position as "Father of the House". But he soon turned against Major after Britain left the ERM. He took great pleasure in being awarded the Garter in 1992. In 1998, he finally brought out his autobiography, The Course of My Life, which had involved dozens of researchers and writers (some of whom he never paid) over many years. He never married.

Enoch Powell Biography Enoch Powell Biography John Enoch Powell was born on 16 June 1912, the son of Albert Enoch Powell (1872–1956), a primary school head teacher, and Ellen Mary, née Breese (1886–1953), a teacher, of Stechford, Warwickshire. His mother gave up teaching in order to learn Greek and impart it to her son. He was educated at King Edward’s High School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge: an outstanding student, he achieved sufficient scholarships to cover the cost of his education. While at Cambridge, he was much influenced by the professor of Latin, the poet A. E. Housman. (He was later to publish four volumes of poetry.) He married Margaret Pamela (Pam), daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel L. E. Wilson, in 1952; they had two daughters. He was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1934 to 1938 and was then appointed professor of Greek at the University of Sydney, making him the youngest professor in the British Empire.

He published A Lexicon to Herodotus in 1938 followed by The History of Herodotus in 1939. He returned to England on the outbreak of war in order to serve in the Army. He served from 1939 to 1945 in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment (when he could not join as an Englishman, because he had no previous military service, he joined as an Australian) and on the General Staff. He rose rapidly through the ranks, exceptionally (though not uniquely) from private to brigadier, and at the age of thirty-two was one of the youngest brigadiers in the British army. He was awarded the MBE (military) in 1943 for ‘gallant and distinguished services in the Middle East’. His task was to assess intelligence reports and contribute to military planning – in effect to anticipate Rommel’s actions. He was then posted to India to serve on the South-East Command planning staff and fell in love with the country. After his wartime service, Powell decided to pursue a career in politics – essentially to fight for the Empire and especially India.

By the time he entered the House of Commons the cause for which he wanted to fight had been lost, but he was already in love with the House of Commons. He served in the Conservative Parliamentary Secretariat and then the Research Department from 1945 until 1951, working alongside Reginald Maudling and Iain Macleod. His first candidacy was in the 1947 Normanton by-election. After nineteen unsuccessful attempts to be selected in other seats, he was adopted as the Conservative candidate for Wolverhampton South West; he was elected in the 1950 general election with a majority of 691 and served as the Member for the seat until February 1974. He enjoyed his highest majority, of 14,467, in the 1970 general election. He was a director of the London Municipal Society between 1952 and 1955. After initially declining office, he accepted in 1955 the post of parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and two years later was promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

One year after taking up the post, he resigned – along with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Peter Thorneycroft, and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Nigel Birch, over the Cabinet’s failure to support cuts in public expenditure. The following year, he declined a junior post in the Ministry of Education (because nothing had been offered to Thorneycroft) but returned to government in 1960 as Minister of Health and in 1962 was advanced to the Cabinet. His Cabinet career was short lived. Along with Iain Macleod, he refused to serve in 1963 under Sir Alec Douglas-Home, believing that his support for Rab Butler made it too dishonourable to accept office in Douglas-Home’s government. Powell also believed that the way in which the outgoing premier, Harold Macmillan, had engineered the succession was essentially dishonest. When Douglas-Home resigned the party leadership in 1965, and new rules were introduced for the election of the leader, Powell put himself forward as a candidate, garnering fifteen votes. He served under the new leader, Edward Heath, as shadow Defence Secretary.

On 20 April 1968 he addressed a meeting of the West Midlands Conservative Political Centre, of which he was president – his speech was circulated in advance by the West Midlands CPC and not the party Central Office – and delivered an attack on unchecked immigration from the Commonwealth to the United Kingdom. He used a classical allusion to Virgil, declaring, ‘Like the Roman, I seem to see “the river Tiber foaming with much blood”.’ Though the script, typed by his wife, had the quotation in Latin, he delivered it in English and it was soon dubbed the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. It was immediately denounced in the media and by party leaders: Heath sacked him from the shadow Cabinet. However, there were marches by workers in support of his stance, and opinion polls showed majority support for his views. It was a speech that both made him and destroyed him. Overnight, he became a national figure and a political pariah. He never held office again but spent the rest of his life as one of the nation’s most controversial politicians. During the 1970–74 parliament, Powell was the leading Conservative critic of the Heath government, voting against it on 115 occasions.

He opposed especially the U-turns on the economy and industry in 1971 and the European Communities Bill 1972, seeing the bill as a betrayal of British sovereignty. He was one of fifteen Tory MPs to vote against the government in 1972 in a vote of confidence on the second reading of the bill. The party leadership considered withdrawing the party whip from him, but concluded that this would simply give him added publicity as well as be counter-productive, given that he was so well entrenched in his constituency. He declined to seek re-election in the February 1974 general election, regarding the premature election as ‘essentially fraudulent’, and recommended that voters give their support to whatever party had committed itself to renegotiating the Treaty of Rome and submitting it to the British people: in effect, the Labour Party. Having been credited with contributing to, or even being responsible for, the Conservative Party’s surprise win in the 1970 general election, he was now credited with helping defeat it in 1974. A dedicated Unionist, he was adopted as the Ulster Unionist candidate for South Down and was elected in the general election of October 1974.

He held the seat until 1987, narrowly holding on in the by-election in 1986, triggered when Unionist MPs resigned to force and fight by-elections in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. He lost the seat by 731 votes in 1987. His time as an Ulster Unionist MP was somewhat fraught, the integrationist Powell clashing at times with his devolutionist Ulster colleagues. The loss of his seat left him with no clear sense of purpose and no dedicated routine. He worked on a book on St Matthew’s Gospel, The Evolution of the Gospel, which appeared in 1994, and began work on a study of St John’s Gospel. He continued in public life with a range of speeches and articles – especially on the issue of European integration – but in 1992 was diagnosed as suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Towards the end of his life, he suffered a number of falls. He died on 8 February 1998. A distinguished academic and soldier, Powell was an outstanding debater. His speeches were honed and compelling.

His speech, delivered in the early hours of 28 July 1959, on the deaths of Mau Mau detainees in the Hola camp in Kenya, was one of the most outstanding delivered in the House of Commons in the latter half of the twentieth century. Denis Healey described it as ‘the greatest parliamentary speech I have ever heard’. His reputation after he returned to the back benches in 1968 was such that MPs would fill the chamber to hear his speeches. He was noted for taking an independent line, even when in the shadow Cabinet. He opposed holding nuclear weapons and maintaining a presence east of Suez. His views were distinctive, at times verging on the extreme: his acute distrust of the USA, acquired during the war, led him to see the hand of the CIA in the death of Lord Mountbatten; he believed the Earl of Oxford penned the works of Shakespeare. Though he advanced powerful arguments in support of his beliefs, he made no effort to craft a body of supporters. He relied on eloquence rather than organisation. Though he drew other Conservative MPs into the lobby with him on most occasions that he opposed the Heath government, he never generated a coherent political philosophy.

There were Powellites – MPs who agreed with him on a good many (though not all) issues – but no Powellism. He was, in essence, a Tory neo-liberal, wedded to institutions but believing in economic and social freedom. His advocacy, not least of the free market, influenced others (including Margaret Thatcher), but he had few political achievements to his name. His greatest was in joining with Michael Foot to frustrate and eventually destroy the Parliament (No. 2) Bill in 1969 to reform the House of Lords. Powell – who co-authored The House of Lords in the Middle Ages – was a passionate supporter of the Upper House, the product of prescription. Though a great parliamentarian, he recognised his limitations as a politician. He admired the skills of Margaret Thatcher and her ability ‘to put up with things and go along with them, even though she doesn’t agree with them, until the time comes when they can be dealt with. Now not possessing that quality myself – having the loquacity which always impels me to say “I don’t agree” – I admire this.’ It made Thatcher, in his view, a superb politician.

As Simon Heffer observed, Powell occupied the place of a philosopher rather than a practitioner, ‘a role for which baser skills are required’. Enoch Powell operated on a different plane. Lord Norton - an extract from 'Enoch at 100' © The J. Enoch Powell Literary Trust.

Question: Later holding a cabinet post, who finished second to Edward Heath in the 1965 Conservative Party Leadership Election?
Answer: Reginald Maudling