Tory concern over denunciation

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 6

Tory concern over denunciation

NZPA-PA London Tory business managers were yesterday calculating the damage they fear the former British Foreign Secretary, Mr Francis Pym, may have done to the party with his bitter denunciation of the Government’s economic performance. Many Conservative members of Parliament, from all wings of the party, view with alarm the emergence of the Conservative Centre Forward group with its own internal organisation. They see it not merely as posing a challenge to the Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, but as the Tory version of the militant tendency which has bedevilled the Labour Party for years.

The ferocity of Mr Pym’s onslaught, in which he accused the Government of

having no industrial strategy and of insulting the intelligence of the nation with slogans, surprised even his closest supporters. They fear that the prospect of open rebellion in the party could disenchant the thousands of first-time Tory voters who helped Mrs Thatcher to her huge majority in 1983. Already one member of Parliament has resigned from the group, which is still only four days old. Mr Tony Baldry, the member of Parliament for Banbury, asked how they could preach a “one-nation” philosophy while still not achieving one party. Tory Right-wingers predict that Mr Baldry will be the first of several to resign. Mr Pym has insisted throughout that he is not in the business of challenging

Mrs Thatcher’s authority and that he and his colleagues support her objectives unreservedly. However, at Westminster, Centre Forward is seen as a potentially divisive influence which could engulf the Tories in the kind of internal squabbling that has beset Labour.

Tory Right-wingers were swift to attack Mr Pym, accusing him of griping and saying that if he bolds these views he should have resigned from the Cabinet without waiting to be sacked. Mrs Thatcher herself remains unmoved. She was said to be “relaxed” when she heard of the formation of the new group and fully expected its chairman, Mr Pym, whom she sacked from the Cabinet in 1983, to deliver a speech of this character.