Editing Michael Heseltine (section)

====Transport and Local Government====
Following the Conservative victory in the [[1970 United Kingdom general election|1970 general election]], new Prime Minister [[Edward Heath]] appointed Heseltine a junior minister at the [[Department for Transport|Department of Transport]]. Transport had been demoted from a Cabinet position in 1969, when Barbara Castle had been replaced by [[Fred Mulley]]. To his disappointment Heseltine, who had been principal spokesman in opposition, was appointed a Parliamentary Under-Secretary, the lowest rung on the ministerial ladder, to [[John Peyton, Baron Peyton of Yeovil|John Peyton]] (himself only a Minister of State rather than a Cabinet Minister). Officials found him brash, arrogant and overbearing, with a very limited attention span for paperwork, although quick to complain if he was not told about things (the trick, they found, was to submit the two-page summaries on each topic which he demanded, but with extensive background documents). He complained to [[George Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe|Lord Jellicoe]], Minister for the Civil Service, about being given inexperienced civil servants fresh out of university to work in his office. "Pussy – that's what they called us. The scum of the earth, tolerated by civil servants" he told the ''Sunday Times'' (1 May 1983). One of his first duties was to open the [[Westway, London|Westway A40 (M)]], and he also opened the stretch of the [[Westway (London)|M4]] west of Maidenhead, on which he was shortly afterwards fined £20 for speeding. He insisted on being shown maps' of where protesters lived, so that he could see the reasons for public concerns at new roads and motorways.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 158–60.</ref>

After four months Transport was absorbed into the new "monster ministry" of the [[Secretary of State for the Environment|Department for the Environment]], under Heseltine's ally [[Peter Walker, Baron Walker of Worcester|Peter Walker]]. Heseltine was still responsible for transport, but also for local government reform, covered in the [[Local Government Act 1972]]. Redcliffe-Maude's proposals for unitary councils (i.e. merging the two layers of county and borough/district councils) were abandoned. Many historic counties were abolished. Large Metropolitan counties were created around the big cities, but many smaller cities lost their county borough status. One such was Plymouth, the eastern suburbs of which lay in Heseltine's seat of Tavistock. Plymouth opinion was particularly angry that education was now to be run by Devon County Council in Exeter, 40 miles away. Heseltine declined to support a campaign by Plymouth MP Dame [[Joan Vickers]] to create a [[River Tamar|Tamarside]] Metropolitan county, and was rebuked by Sir [[Henry Studholme]], his predecessor as MP for Tavistock, for declining to support (on the grounds that as minister he might have to adjudicate any dispute) Plymouth Council's attempt to buy more land near Sparkwell to develop light industry under its control.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 160–4.</ref>