Editing Michael Heseltine (section)

==Electoral history and Parliamentary career==
===Gower 1959 and Coventry 1964===
Heseltine contested the safe Labour seat of [[Gower (UK Parliament constituency)|Gower]] at the [[1959 United Kingdom general election|October 1959 general election]].<ref>Michael Heseltine, ''Life in the Jungle'', Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, {{ISBN|0-340-73915-0}}, pp. 47–58.</ref> He had been the only applicant for the Conservative (technically, Conservative and [[National Liberal Party (UK, 1931)|National Liberal]]){{efn|The National Liberals had been a breakaway group under [[Sir John Simon]], who sat in coalition with the Conservatives between [[1931 United Kingdom general election|1931]] and [[1945 United Kingdom general election|1945]]. By the 1950s they had merged with the Conservatives for practical purposes, but the name was still used locally in some seats.}} candidacy. He would at times attend Labour meetings and attempt to heckle the speakers,<ref name=heseltine48/> including Aneurin Bevan and the Labour candidate [[Ifor Davies]], whom he kept trying to challenge to a debate. He obtained plenty of publicity in the local paper and obtained a swing to the Conservatives slightly better than the national average.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 88–9.</ref>

In 1961, Heseltine was one of 29 applicants—of whom half were interviewed—for the Conservative candidacy in the [[Marginal seat|marginal]] constituency of [[Coventry North (UK Parliament constituency)|Coventry North]]. He clinched the selection after bringing his fiancée Anne Williams to the meeting. He got on well with the incumbent Labour member [[Maurice Edelman]] (whose daughter was a friend of Anne Heseltine, as she became in 1962) and they met for dinner sometimes during the campaign.<ref name=crick113-116>Crick 1997, pp. 113–6.</ref> Many of his Oxford contemporaries had already entered Parliament, but, to his disappointment, in the [[1964 United Kingdom general election|1964 general election]] he was defeated by 3,530 votes.<ref>Michael Heseltine, ''Life in the Jungle'', Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, {{ISBN|0-340-73915-0}}, p. 96.</ref> The swing to Labour was slightly less than the national average.<ref name=crick113-116/>

===Selection for Tavistock===
In March 1965, Heseltine applied to be candidate for the safe Conservative seat of [[Tavistock (UK Parliament constituency)|Tavistock]] in Devon, where the incumbent MP had announced his retirement two months earlier.<ref name=heseltine97-99>Michael Heseltine, ''Life in the Jungle'', Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, {{ISBN|0-340-73915-0}}, pp. 97–99.</ref> Of the 51 applicants, 14 were considered, six of whom had local connections. Heseltine reached the final short list of three, the others being a dairy farmer in a senior position at the [[Milk Marketing Board]] (thought to be the favourite), and a local authority lawyer, who later recalled that on the train down from London Heseltine kept jumping out at every stop to check that his magazines were on display at the station newsagents. Heseltine had already spent several days driving round talking to locals and had ordered a year's worth of back copies of Tavistock's two weekly papers. Such effort is nowadays common in Parliamentary selections but was unusual at the time. He was selected by a clear majority of the Tavistock Conservative Association's Finance and General Purposes Committee (which contained between 100 and 120 people).<ref name=crick119-126>Crick 1997, pp. 119–26.</ref>

Heseltine was picked in part as a young, dynamic candidate who could face the challenge of the resurgent [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal Party]] in the [[West Country]], where [[Jeremy Thorpe]], [[Peter Bessell]] and [[Mark Bonham Carter]] had recently won seats.<ref name=heseltine97-99/> The Liberals had halved the Conservative majority at Tavistock in 1964.<ref name=crick127-129>Crick 1997, pp. 127–9.</ref>

Trouble then arose at his adoption by a full general meeting of the Conservative Association, which should have been a formality. Criticism arose that a person with farming links should have been chosen, for the bikini-clad girls on the cover of ''Town'' magazine, which were considered risqué at the time, and for jokes in the magazine at the expense of the Royal Family. He was selected after a stirring speech to around 540 assembled members of the local Conservative Association on Friday 26 March 1965.<ref name=crick119-126/><ref name=heseltine97-99/> Crick believes that this is a rare example in politics of a single speech determining a career. Only 27 members supported an amendment to refer the matter back to the selection committee and 14 opposed Heseltine's adoption altogether. Thereafter his name stopped appearing as "publisher" on his magazines. He had to learn about farming, an important issue in the seat, about which he knew almost nothing.<ref name=crick119-126/>

===MP for Tavistock: 1966–74===
In the [[1966 United Kingdom general election|March 1966 general election]] both the Conservative leader [[Edward Heath]] and Liberal leader [[Jo Grimond]] spoke at Tavistock. Heseltine stressed his agreement with Liberal principles and fought extremely hard, achieving a small swing to the Conservatives, bucking the national trend.<ref name=crick127-129/> He was elected [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for Tavistock.<ref name=heseltine97-99/>

Heseltine's liberal stance on race issues and his opposition to hanging (he felt it was barbaric and not an effective deterrent, although he later expressed openness to the idea of hanging terrorists) was unpopular with many of his constituents, as was his continued unease with agricultural issues, and his dressing as a city businessman in pale grey suits, kipper ties and driving a Jaguar. Despite the huge demands on his time as both an MP and running Haymarket Press, and the distance of the seat from London, he remained relatively active at constituency casework at weekends and during the late summer recess, touring rural areas in a caravan and using a small tape recorder (relatively new technology at the time) to dictate answers to constituents' problems in front of them.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 132–4, 136.</ref>

As soon as Heseltine was elected in March 1966, the seat of Tavistock was recommended for abolition by the [[Boundary commissions (United Kingdom)|Boundary Commission]], divided between the new seats of [[West Devon (UK Parliament constituency)|West Devon]] (effectively a rural seat, where Heseltine would have had to compete for the candidacy with the sitting MP [[Peter Mills (British politician)|Peter Mills]] who had a strong local following) and [[Plymouth Sutton]] (which had a strong [[Powellism|Powellite]]/[[Monday Club]] element—they eventually selected the right-winger [[Alan Clark]]).<ref name=crick134-136>Crick 1997, pp. 134–6.</ref> Several of his activists attempted to persuade him to apply for Plymouth Sutton, but he was not interested, wanting a seat nearer London.<ref name=crick164-166>Crick 1997, pp. 164–6.</ref>

In the event, the implementation of the Boundary Review was postponed for partisan reasons until after the next general election by [[Home Secretary]] [[James Callaghan]] (on the pretext of waiting until after the [[Redcliffe-Maud Report]] on local government reorganisation). Heseltine therefore defended Tavistock at the [[1970 United Kingdom general election|1970 general election]], achieving a better than average swing to the Conservatives.<ref name=crick134-136/>

===MP for Henley: 1974–2001===
Heseltine, by now a junior minister in the Heath government, was now forced to apply for a new candidacy, often in competition with other sitting Conservative MPs whose seats were also due for abolition. He applied for [[Mid Sussex (UK Parliament constituency)|Mid Sussex]] in competition with [[Ian Gilmour]], but they lost to [[Tim Renton]]. He also applied for [[Mid Oxfordshire (UK Parliament constituency)|Mid-Oxfordshire]] but lost to [[Douglas Hurd]].<ref name=crick164-166/>

In 1972, [[Edward Heath]] attempted to persuade Heseltine, a strong supporter of his, to challenge Powellite MP [[Ronald Bell (politician)|Ronald Bell]] for the Conservative nomination for the new seat of [[Beaconsfield (UK Parliament constituency)|Beaconsfield]].<ref name=gilson156>Geoffrey Gilson, ''The Hunt for Margaret Thatcher's Assassin'' (2014), p. 156.</ref> Heseltine wrote that he was "tempted" to enter the lists at Beaconsfield, but did not actually do so.<ref>Michael Heseltine, ''Life in the Jungle'', Hodder & Stoughton, 2000, {{ISBN|0-340-73915-0}}, pp. 105–6.</ref> Crick writes that he reached the final shortlist of four against Bell, before being "apparently persuaded" to withdraw.<ref name=crick164-166/> Bell's campaign within the local Conservative ranks was masterminded by Hugh Simmonds, chairman of the [[Young Conservatives (UK)|Young Conservatives]], and he narrowly won.<ref name=gilson156/>

Heseltine was one of 180 applicants for the safe Conservative seat of [[Henley (UK Parliament constituency)|Henley]] (the constituency association of which was known as North Oxfordshire), whose MP [[John Hay (Henley MP)|John Hay]] was stepping down. He reached the final shortlist of three along with two other sitting MPs, [[Bill Shelton (politician)|William Shelton]] and [[Norman Fowler]], and in September 1972 was selected as candidate with a clear majority at the first ballot. Part of the reason was that the Association wanted a wealthy MP who would not be distracted by the need to earn money in business as Hay had been. He maintained a constituency home in Crocker End, near [[Nettlebed]], and still maintained a London home at [[Wilton Crescent]].<ref name=crick164-166/> The constituency is around 40 miles west of central London, and has excellent transport links, making it a prime residential area for London-based professionals.

Heseltine was MP for Henley from [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|February 1974]] until his retirement from the House of Commons in [[2001 United Kingdom general election|2001]].<ref>Michael Heseltine, ''Life in the Jungle'', [[Hodder & Stoughton]], 2000, {{ISBN|0-340-73915-0}}, pp. 99–106.</ref>