Tory minister who ended Thatcher’s career

Geoffrey Howe: December 20th, 1926 - October 9th, 2015

It is an irony of his long Westminster career that the political legacy of Geoffrey Howe, who has died aged 88, will not be the 20 years he spent on the Conservative front bench and the two great British offices of state he occupied but the manner of his departure from government, precipitating, as he intended, the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher in 1990.

Howe used his own resignation to make unquestionably the most powerful speech of his career, drawing attention to the "tragic conflict of loyalties" that existed within the government over its approach to Europe and effectively inviting the challenge to the leadership that would lead within two weeks to the election of John Major.

In her memoirs, Thatcher wrote: “This quiet, gentle, but deeply ambitious man – with whom my relations had become progressively worse, as my exasperation at his insatiable appetite for compromise led me sometimes to lash out at him in front of others – was now out to make trouble for me if he possibly could.”

Howe had been the longest-serving minister in her government and won something of a reputation as a great survivor. He was wont in later years to compare their relationship to that of a couple in a stormy marriage, a simile that would certainly not have appealed to his own fiercely strong-minded wife, Elspeth, who notoriously did not get on with Thatcher.

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Monetarist

It was Howe’s low-key, patient, loyal determination that provided the underpinning that enabled Thatcher successfully to pursue the radical monetarist financial policies that marked her administration.In a series of budgets, he oversaw a shift from direct to indirect taxation, the abolition of exchange controls and and the wholesale privatisation of utilities.

While Howe was disparaged by some on the left of the Conservative Party, he did not become personally unpopular and was justified in retaining some hopes of eventually succeeding to the leadership.

He was also a powerful foreign secretary, who successfully pursued detente with the communist world and encouraged the emergent democracies of eastern Europe.He had a good relationship with US secretary of state George Shultz, reflecting that of Thatcher with Ronald Reagan, and he was intimately involved in the negotiations with China over the future of Hong Kong.

But it was his passionate belief in Britain's future within an integrated European Union and the moves towards economic and monetary union at the Madrid summit in 1988 which increasingly brought him, and Nigel Lawson, his successor as chancellor, into conflict with Thatcher and ultimately led to the end of three careers.

Howe's political progress was certainly hampered by his ineffably dull speaking style. He was nicknamed Mogadon man after a sleeping pill of the day, while Denis Healey, who also died this month, memorably likened an attack on him by Howe in 1978 to "being savaged by a dead sheep".

Despite their antipathy across the floor of the Commons, however, Howe and Healey and their wives were actually close friends, sharing an enthusiasm for music. Both couples had been married in the same church and dined together discreetly on a regular basis.

Though Howe had a lugubrious appearance and manner, he was in fact a profoundly funny man. He had a quirky sense of humour, was an excellent anecdotalist, and was warm, unpretentious and unfailingly courteous.

Labour traditions

He was born in Aberavon, Glamorganshire, into a comfortable professional household, his Welsh-speaking father, Edward, a lawyer whose family political traditions were Liberal and Labour.

After school and national service he read law at Cambridge and joined the university Conservative Association.

In 1970 he won the safe Tory seat of Reigate. Edward Heath immediately appointed him solicitor general and awarded him a knighthood.

Howe did not contest the first round of the leadership election in 1975, out of loyalty to Heath. He stood in the second round, however, when Heath had dropped out, coming equal third with James Prior, with 19 votes each after William Whitelaw in second place and Thatcher, elected party leader.

In his campaign he urged strict control of public spending, monetary restraint, a government dialogue with industry on wages and indexation of benefits. Thatcher named him as her treasury spokesman.

Howe retired from the Commons in 1992 and was made a life peer as Baron Howe of Aberavon. In May 2015, he announced his retirement from the Lords. He is survived by Elspeth and their three children, Caroline (Cary), and twins Amanda and Alec.