Editing Michael Heseltine (section)

===Westland Affair===
{{Further|Westland affair}}

====Background====
In spring 1985 Heseltine displayed little interest in Westland helicopters when approached by Tebbit (then [[Secretary of State for Trade and Industry]]) at the time of [[Alan Bristow]]'s bid for the company, as plenty of American helicopters were available to meet Britain's defence requirements. He attended two meetings about the company's future in June 1985, chaired by Thatcher. Heseltine, who had a poor opinion of Westland's management, was willing to inject £30 million, provided the Treasury contributed half. The idea was not approved.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 275–6.</ref>

Heseltine took against the new chairman Sir John Cuckney's plan that Westland merge with [[United Technologies Corporation]], of which the US company [[Sikorsky Aircraft|Sikorsky]] was a subsidiary, after realising that Westland would probably become responsible for assembling the [[Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk]] helicopter, which the Ministry of Defence would then be under great pressure to buy, whereas he preferred Westland to go into receivership so that [[General Electric Company|GEC]] and [[British Aerospace]] could buy the viable parts of the business.<ref>Crick 1997, p. 276.</ref>

In mid-October Heseltine suggested a European consortium (which would include French [[Aérospatiale]], German [[Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm|MBB]] and Italian [[Agusta]]). The new Trade and Industry Secretary [[Leon Brittan]] at first urged Thatcher to consider a European option (Heseltine later said Brittan ''preferred'' this option, although Brittan denied this). The Government was officially neutral (i.e. arguing that it was a matter for Westland directors and shareholders) but by November Heseltine was pushing the European option hard. In late November Peter Levene, Chief of Procurement, had a meeting at the Ministry of Defence with his French, German and Italian counterparts (the National Armaments Directors) and the representatives of the consortium, and agreed to "buy European" for certain classes of helicopters, although Heseltine was not actually present. The meeting was later praised by the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. Thatcher, who only learned of the meeting through Cuckney, was displeased, as were Brittan and the Treasury, who thought the US option might be cheaper.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 277–8.</ref>

====The cancelled meeting====
In early December Thatcher had two ''ad hoc'' meetings with Heseltine, Brittan, Tebbit, [[William Whitelaw]] (Deputy Prime Minister), [[Geoffrey Howe]] (Foreign Secretary) and [[Nigel Lawson]] (Chancellor of the Exchequer). Howe and Tebbit were not unsympathetic to Heseltine's proposed consortium, and the decision was deferred to the Cabinet Economic Affairs Committee (E(A)) on Monday 9 December 1985. After that meeting Thatcher, who complained that three hours had been spent discussing a company with a market capitalisation of only £30m (a tiny amount in government terms), allowed Heseltine until 4pm on Friday 13 December to submit a viable proposal for a European deal. He did (with British Aerospace and GEC now part of his consortium), but Westland's directors rejected it. Heseltine had expected that there would be a second meeting of E(A) to discuss his consortium, but no such meeting was called; Thatcher later stated that the Monday meeting had agreed to leave the decision to Westland to take, but it later emerged that Ridley and Lord Young ''had'' placed such a meeting in their diaries and had been told by Number Ten that it had been cancelled. Heseltine threatened resignation for the first time.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 278–80.</ref>

Heseltine raised his concerns with Tebbit, Whitelaw and [[John Wakeham]] (Chief Whip). At Cabinet on Thursday 12 December he had an angry exchange with Thatcher about the cancelled meeting, but Westland was not on the agenda for the meeting and Thatcher refused to permit a discussion on the matter, arguing that Cabinet could not do so without the necessary papers. Heseltine asked for his dissent to be minuted, and this was not done, although [[Cabinet Secretary (United Kingdom)|Cabinet Secretary]] [[Robert Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Ilminster|Robert Armstrong]] stated that this had been an error and added it himself. On Monday 16 December Heseltine sat on the front bench with obvious disapproval when Brittan told the House that it was up to Westland to decide; on Wednesday 18 December he won the backing of the Commons Defence Committee for the European Consortium. On Thursday 19 December the matter was discussed at Cabinet for ten minutes: Cabinet approved leaving the decision to Westland and Heseltine was ordered to cease campaigning for the European option. Heseltine had failed to drum up enough support among possible allies like Tebbit, Howe, Walker, Norman Fowler and Tom King. A ministerial colleague at the time described him as "absolutely looney, completely hyped up with the thing" and of having a "persecution mania".<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 280–2.</ref>

====Mayhew's leaked letter====
By now the political row was being discussed in the media, partly because of the lack of other news in December. Cuckney wrote to Thatcher, at her behest, asking for reassurance that the Sikorsky deal would not damage Westland's business prospects in Europe. Heseltine was not satisfied with Thatcher's draft reply when he saw it and consulted Sir [[Patrick Mayhew]] ([[Solicitor General for England and Wales|Solicitor-General]] and acting [[Attorney General for England and Wales|Attorney-General]] as Sir [[Michael Havers]] was ill) on the grounds that the government might be legally liable for any incorrect advice. Heseltine supplied extra material about the risk of losing European business, which Thatcher did not include in her reply to Cuckney. Heseltine then wrote to David Horne of [[Lloyds Bank|Lloyds Merchant Bank]], who was advising the European consortium (in reply to planted questions from Horne which had been dictated to him over the phone by one of Heseltine's staff), giving him the advice which Thatcher had declined to include in her letter to Cuckney (that the Sikorsky deal would be "incompatible with participation" in European helicopter projects). Heseltine's letter was also leaked to the press. This was a blatant challenge to Thatcher's authority as Heseltine had not consulted Downing Street, the Department of Trade and Industry or Mayhew before writing to Horne.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 282–3.</ref>

Thatcher discussed sacking Heseltine with close colleagues over Christmas; but, as she later admitted in her memoir, refrained from doing so as he was too popular and important as a political figure.<ref>{{cite book|author=Margaret Thatcher|title=The Downing Street Years|year=2012|publisher=HarperPress|isbn=978-0-00-745663-5|page=436}}</ref> She also decided against sending him a letter threatening him with the sack, which had been drafted. Instead she asked Mayhew to write to Heseltine complaining of what he thought were "material inaccuracies" in his letter to Horne, and asking Heseltine to write to Horne again, correcting them.<ref>{{cite book|author=John Campbell|title=Margaret Thatcher Volume Two: The Iron Lady|date=30 April 2011|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-1-4464-2008-9|page=487}}</ref> Mayhew's letter of rebuke to Heseltine – marked "Confidential" – reached Heseltine at lunchtime on Monday 6 January and was immediately leaked to the press by [[Colette Bowe]], an information officer at the Department of Trade and Industry, at Brittan's request (some years later he admitted that he acted on the "express" instructions of [[Charles Powell, Baron Powell of Bayswater|Charles Powell]] and [[Bernard Ingham]], Thatcher's two senior advisers). Heseltine was able to produce extra documents which Mayhew accepted as backing up his letter to Horne, but not before ''[[The Sun (United Kingdom)|The Sun]]'' had called Heseltine "You Liar!" on its front page (the newspaper was later required to make a donation to charity in lieu of libel damages).<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 283–5.</ref>

====Resignation====
Cabinet met on the morning of Thursday 9 January, with Thatcher already having agreed her position with close colleagues at Chequers that weekend, and arranged that Scottish Secretary [[George Younger]] should take over as Defence Secretary if Heseltine resigned. Westland was first on the agenda, and Heseltine and Brittan were permitted to put their cases. Heseltine had won the moral high ground over the leaking saga, but Lawson recorded that he seemed obsessive at Cabinet and attracted little sympathy. Thatcher then reiterated her position, which had already been endorsed by the Cabinet, that Westland's future was a matter for Westland to decide, and announced that on grounds of [[Collective responsibility]] all answers to questions about Westland must in be cleared through the Cabinet Office. In response to a question by Nicholas Ridley (a friend of Heseltine) she confirmed that this also applied to statements which had ''already'' been made. After further questions from Heseltine, and another summing up by Thatcher, Heseltine protested that there had been no collective responsibility, gathered up his papers and left the Cabinet Room. Eyewitness accounts differ as to his exact words, or even whether he explicitly resigned.<ref name=crick285-288>Crick 1997, pp. 285–8.</ref> By one account he declared, "I can no longer be a member of this Cabinet".<ref name=jenkins192>Peter Jenkins, ''Mrs Thatcher's Revolution: The Ending of the Socialist Era'' (Pan, 1989), p. 192.</ref> Having allegedly paid a quick visit to the lavatory to straighten his hair and his Guards tie, Heseltine announced his resignation to the waiting press outside Number Ten, the first Cabinet minister to resign from a Cabinet meeting since [[Joseph Chamberlain]] in 1886. Some ministers (for example [[Peter Walker, Baron Walker of Worcester|Peter Walker]]) and civil servants believed Heseltine could have been persuaded to return had it not been for the public announcement.<ref name=crick285-288/>

At 4pm that day Heseltine delivered a 3,000 word, 22 minute resignation statement at the Ministry of Defence (rather than waiting to make a statement to the House of Commons when it resumed four days later). He may well have prepared this earlier, although his private secretary Richard Mottram says not. To Thatcher's fury Defence officials had helped him throughout the crisis and in preparing this document.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 288–9.</ref> His statement denounced Thatcher's managerial style and suggested she was a liar who lacked integrity.<ref name=jenkins192/> Thatcher later said during a television interview that she had not sacked him or called him to order before the incident because, “Had I done that, I know exactly what the press would have said: there you are, old bossyboots at it again.”<ref>{{cite book|author1=R. Biddiss|author2=Kenneth R. Minogue|title=Thatcherism: Personality and Politics|date=12 June 1987|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|isbn=978-1-349-18687-7|page=58}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=John Campbell|title=Margaret Thatcher Volume Two: The Iron Lady|date=30 April 2011|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-1-4464-2008-9|page=489}}</ref>

====Fallout from the affair====
Unlike when [[Peter Thorneycroft]] (Chancellor of the Exchequer) resigned in 1958 or [[Lord Carrington]] (Foreign Secretary) in 1982, Heseltine's junior ministers [[Norman Lamont]] and [[John Lee, Baron Lee of Trafford|John Lee]] did not resign with him. Heseltine was portrayed by ''[[Spitting Image]]'' as a swivel-eyed lunatic holding a toy helicopter.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 295–6.</ref>

Brittan had to resign, partly as a result of fallout from the leak of the Mayhew letter, and partly because of his failure to give an entirely truthful answer to the House of Commons about Heseltine's accusation that he had pressured British Aerospace to withdraw from the European Consortium. Thatcher survived the Westland debate on 27 January, aided by a poor and long-winded speech by Opposition Leader [[Neil Kinnock]]. Sikorsky bought Westland.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 293–4.</ref>

Up until Westland, Thatcher had approved of most of what Heseltine had done, even though their politics were rather different. Heseltine and Thatcher had quarrelled openly over a question of relations between Britain and the European Community (as it then was).<ref>Crick 1997, p. 267.</ref> Apart from the clash of personalities, and the escalation of small issues into bigger issues, it has been suggested that Heseltine, concerned at impending Defence cuts in 1986, and worried that Thatcher was unlikely to promote him further, was looking for an excuse for a resignation, which would put him in good stead to be elected party leader after, as seemed likely at the time, the Conservatives would lose the next election due by summer 1988.<ref>Crick 1997, pp. 289–92.</ref>