Geoffrey Howe (1926 - 2015) RIP

Just a week after the death of Denis Healey his successor as Chancellor, Geoffrey Howe, has died of a suspected heart attack at the age of 88.

He was Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving Cabinet minister, successively holding the posts of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, and finally Leader of the House of Commons, Deputy Prime Minister and Lord President of the Council. His resignation on 1 November 1990 is widely considered to have precipitated Thatcher's own downfall three weeks later.

Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe was born in Port Talbot in South Wales. He went to private school before doing his National Service as a Lieutenant with the Royal Corps of Signals in East Africa. Having declined an offer to remain in the army as a captain, he went up to Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge, where he read Law and was chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association, and on the committee of the Cambridge Union Society. He was called to the Bar in 1952 and was made a QC in 1965. He stood as the Conservative Party candidate in Aberavon at the 1955 and 1959 general elections, losing in a very safe Labour Party seat. He became chairman of the Bow Group, an internal Conservative think tank of 'young modernisers' in the 1960s, and edited its magazine Crossbow.

Howe represented Bebington in the House of Commons from 1964 to 1966, Reigate from 1970 to 1974, and East Surrey from 1974 to 1992. In 1970 he was knighted and appointed Solicitor General in Edward Heath's government, and in 1972 became Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, with a seat in the Cabinet, a post he held until Labour took power in March 1974.

In Opposition between 1974 and 1979, Howe contested the second ballot of the 1975 Conservative leadership election, in which Margaret Thatcher was elected, and then was appointed by Thatcher as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. He masterminded the development of new economic policies embodied in an Opposition mini-manifesto The Right Approach to the Economy. Labour Chancellor Denis Healey in 1978 claimed an attack from Howe was "like being savaged by a dead sheep". Nevertheless, when Healey was featured on This Is Your Life in 1989, Howe appeared and paid warm tribute to Healey. The two men were friends for many years.

With Conservative victory in the 1979 general election, Howe became Chancellor of the Exchequer. His tenure was characterised by radical policies to correct the public finances, reduce inflation and liberalise the economy. The shift from direct to indirect taxation, the development of a Medium-Term Financial Strategy, the abolition of exchange controls and the creation of tax-free enterprise zones were among the most important decisions of his Chancellorship. Howe's famous 1981 Budget defied conventional economic wisdom at the time by disinflating the economy at a time of recession. At the time, his decision was fiercely criticised by 364 academic economists in a letter to The Times, who contended that there was no place for de-stimulatory policies in the economic climate of the time, remarking the Budget had "no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence". Many signatories were prominent members of the academic sphere, including Mervyn King who later became the Governor of the Bank of England.

After the 1983 general election Thatcher appointed Howe Foreign Secretary, a post he held for six years. His tenure was made difficult by growing behind-the-scenes tensions with the Prime Minister on a number of issues, first on South Africa and then on Britain's relations with the European Community. In June 1989, Howe and his successor as Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, secretly threatened to both resign over Thatcher's opposition to British membership in the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System.

In the following month of July 1989, the then little-known John Major was unexpectedly appointed to replace Howe as Foreign Secretary, and the latter became Leader of the House of Commons, Lord President of the Council and Deputy Prime Minister. In the reshuffle, Howe was also offered, but turned down, the post of Home Secretary. Although attempts were made to belittle this aspect, Howe's move back to domestic politics was generally seen as a demotion, especially after Thatcher's press secretary Bernard Ingham belittled the significance of the Deputy Prime Minister appointment, saying that the title had no constitutional significance, at his lobby briefing the following morning

With pressures mounting on Thatcher, after the introduction of the Poll Tax, Howe resigned from the Cabinet on 1 November 1990, in the aftermath of the Prime Minister's position at the Rome European Council meeting the previous weekend, at which she had declared for the first time that Britain would never enter a single currency, and the next day after her famous "No. No. No." speech. Howe wrote a cautiously worded letter of resignation in which he criticised Thatcher's overall handling of UK relations with the European Community. After largely successful attempts by Number 10 to claim that there were differences only of style, rather than substance, in Howe's disagreement with Thatcher on Europe, Howe chose to send a powerful message of dissent. In a famous resignation speech in the Commons on 13 November, he attacked Thatcher for running increasingly serious risks for the future of the country and criticised her for undermining the policies on EMU proposed by her own Chancellor and Governor of the Bank of England. He offered a striking cricket simile for British negotiations on EMU in Europe: "It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, only for them to find, as the first balls are being bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain". He called on others to "consider their own response to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long".

This speech has widely come to be regarded as delivering a devastating blow to Thatcher's chances of survival, and just three days later Michael Heseltine launched a leadership challenge. Thatcher failed to win the required majority for an outright win on the first ballot and resigned, although to Hestletine's chagrin he himself lost the second ballot to John Major.

Howe retired from the Commons in 1992, accepted a peerage as Baron Howe of Aberavon and became a director of a number of companies. His wife, Elspeth Shand, held a peerage in her own right, having been Chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Commission (the forerunner of OFCOM!).

They were married for 62 years and had three children.

He was known as being one of Maggie's grey men.
But had the last laugh when he brought her down
RIP Geoffrey.

I remember that speech vividly.
It was one of the most remarkable speeches in House of Commons history for it's content, context and consequence.
R.I.P.

(10-10-2015 13:23 )snookered147 Wrote:  I remember that speech vividly.
It was one of the most remarkable speeches in House of Commons history for it's content, context and consequence.
R.I.P.

"like being savaged by a dead sheep" - one of the biggest stabs in the back in political history I'd have thought.

Funny, the Thatcherites laud him for the 1981 Budget, and her opponents laud him for the masterly "conflict of loyalty" speech that was the last nail in her coffin.

His autobiography was a great read, and he was likely a much jollier guy than most would ever have realised (although yes, if your community is being economically obliterated, it's not much comfort). His naïve conviction that he stood a serious chance of replacing Thatcher was a surprising lack of realpolitik, but he left a meteoric impact after all.

And 88 is a great age. He and Healey were cordial, if not exactly pals. RIP

Treacherous individual.

(10-10-2015 13:23 )snookered147 Wrote:  I remember that speech vividly.
It was one of the most remarkable speeches in House of Commons history for it's content, context and consequence.
R.I.P.

Yes - and there's been nothing like it since.