Tory elder urges P.M. to have deputy

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 11

Tory elder urges P.M. to have deputy

NZPA-Reuter London A senior member of Britain’s governing Conservative Party publicly told the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, today that she needed a deputy. The call by Edward du Cann coincided with reports of unrest in the Cabinet over what some Conservatives see as Mrs Thatcher’s increasingly autocratic style.

Mr du Cann, aged 59, one of the party’s most influential figures in Parliament, said in a television interview that , Mrs Thatcher needed a deputy to ease her work-load. She should make clear to the party and the country the direction of Government strategy, he said. Such pointed advice from a party elder, signalling growing unease in the party over her style of leadership, would be an embarrassment to Mrs Thatcher, political sources said..

National newspapers reported yesterday that several Ministers had told her at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday that she was becoming “too bossy.” They had complained that decisions were being taken by a tiny group of Ministers, often with damaging results. The reports said that the row had been brought to a head by a decision to ban unions from the country’s main Intelligence-gathering centre and a controversy over the business interests of Mrs Thatcher’s son, Mark.

Mr du Cann said that the slew of “banana skins” on which the Government had slipped since its landslide re-election victory in June had been mostly self-in-flicted wounds. “There have been too many, without a shadow of a doubt,” he said.

Mrs Thatcher’s friends were “begging” her to work less and he would say unhesitatingly that she

should have a deputy. The latest opinion poll gives the Conservative Party its worst rating against the Opposition Labour Party since the Falklands' war. AntiThatcher newspapers said that she was facing a party crisis.

“Some Cabinet poodles,” said the “Sunday Mirror,” “are at last daring to bite back at the empress.” One party critic was quoted as saying: “If Mrs Napoleon tries to win all her battles single-handed she will soon meet her Waterloo.”