Ramblings

(From the New Statesman, 25 March 1983)

While I was building my career in the City, my brother Rob was building his in a very different area: journalism, largely focused on environmental and nuclear issues. One quiet day I was struck by the exotic nature of the advertisements on the covers of the dull but useful Stock Exchange Daily Official List, and posted Rob some of the covers, thinking it might be the basis for a humorous article on the lifestyle of City workers.

And so it proved. Soon afterwards a small item entitled High livers appeared in the New Statesman’s Miscellany feature. Although I was pleased that the story had landed, I felt a little uneasy that alcohol addiction was being used as a punchline – no matter how privileged and wealthy the sufferers might be.

But when I came across the clipping again recently, after a wry smile at “exclusive riverside flats in London for up to £300,000 each” it was the adjacent story, Wandering Hands (not written by Rob) which caught my attention. Of course much has changed in the last forty years, but the jocular tone of a story concerning sexual abuse – one of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet ministers making sudden lunges at women in his office – is jarring. A second thought then took hold: assuming the story to be true, was the culprit ever identified and held to account?

This was Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet in March 1983:

• Margaret Thatcher – Prime Minister
• William Whitelaw – Home Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister
• John Biffen – Lord President of the Council
• The Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone – Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain
• Sir Geoffrey Howe – Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Francis Pym – Foreign Secretary
• Baroness Young – Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
• Leon Brittan – Chief Secretary to the Treasury
• Peter Walker – Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
• Michael Heseltine – Secretary of State for Defence
• Keith Joseph – Secretary of State for Education
• Norman Tebbit – Secretary of State for Employment
• Nigel Lawson – Secretary of State for Energy
• Tom King – Secretary of State for the Environment
• Norman Fowler – Secretary of State for Health and Social Security
• Patrick Jenkin – Secretary of State for Industry
• Cecil Parkinson – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Paymaster General
• James Prior – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
• George Younger – Secretary of State for Scotland
• Lord Cockfield – Secretary of State for Trade and President of the Board of Trade
• David Howell – Secretary of State for Transport
• Nicholas Edwards – Secretary of State for Wales

Those names takes me back. Some are dead and some are living: the five still living in September 2024 are Michael Heseltine (91), Norman Tebbit (93), Tom King (91), Norman Fowler (86) and David Howell (88). Thatcher was not a great promoter of women to high office, but Baroness Young managed to make the cut.

There are twenty names above, after eliminating Thatcher and Baroness Young. As far as I can tell, the culprit has never been named and shamed. Perhaps someone who worked in parliament in 1983 can spill the beans?