The Course of My Life by Edward Heath, Hodder & Stoughton, 736pp, £25 in UK
It is almost a quarter of a century since Ted Heath left Downing Street for the last time as Prime Minister. The election of February 1974 was mistimed; had polling day been a week earlier or later, then the course of history would have been very different. Mrs Margaret Thatcher would have ended her days the "chair" of the Girls' Public Day School Trust, Norman Tebbit would have rusted quietly away on the Government backbenches and "Euroscepticism", the curse of the modern Tory Party, would not have lost us the last election. William Hague would have been the games master at an Essex comprehensive school.
Ted ("Teddy" to his friends) was the unluckiest British Prime Minister since Spencer Perceval. In 1966 he was thrown in at the deep end against Harold Wilson; in 1974, thanks to the hike in oil prices and to mis-timing the date of polling day, he lost two elections. The Tory Party can forgive almost anything save electoral defeat. Victory in 1970 was not, of itself, enough. Yet Ted Heath was responsible for the single most important government initiative to be taken since the end of Hitler's War - he took Britain into Europe. His legacy has been in large part spoilt by his successors, and we remain a Virgin Bride, a toe poised above the choppy grey waters of the English Channel.
Ted Heath brought a degree of intelligence to the governance of Britain rivalled only by the old actor manager himself, his mentor, Harold Macmillan. Ted has also written a better book than Harold's; it is witty, at times leisurely, and - given the reputation foisted upon him by his many enemies from Conrad Black to Rupert Murdoch, two imperial adventurers - a charitable book that does not lambast Mrs Thatcher (who betrayed him) or rake unnecessarily over ancient quarrels. He is a great all-rounder: a world-class yachtsman, and a very considerable musician. All he lacked, or so said his enemies, was a wife.
In a recent BBC Television interview with him, Michael Cockerell kept harping on the fact that Ted has never married. To every impertinent question, Heath quietly played a straight bat. Yes, he had been in love, but the women concerned did not love him. His answers to the questions were largely monosyllabic, but they were delivered with a twinkle in his eyes. Who cares whether Ted married or not? Conjugal bliss does not, of itself, guarantee political success. What marriage might have done is to soften his occasional asperities, for Heath is essentially a shy, reserved man, never at his best when making small talk.
In his book, Ted does not recount the story of Sarah Morrison, who had been appointed a vice chairman of the party with a brief - or so said the wags - of turning Ted into a human being. At an agents' dinner, held on the evening preceding some Tory Party conference, Sarah, who was sitting at the back of the hall, noticed that Ted, who was sandwiched between two dull wives, was not engaging them in conversation. Sarah promptly wrote on her napkin: "For God's sake say something", folded it and had it passed along the diners to the Prime Minister. Ted opened it, and wrote: "I have", folded it, and solemnly passed it back.
As with most autobiographies, the best part of this one is probably the beginning, where Ted tells of his humble upbringing in the Kentish seaside resort of Broadstairs. His love for his beautiful mother (who served for a time as a ladies' maid), his single-mindedness at Chatham House School, and his success at Balliol College, Oxford, where he became President of the Oxford Union, and an arch enemy of appeasement. He was a slightly priggish young man; something of a working-class fish out of the lake at Brideshead, but he had already developed his formidable personality. He had a "good" war in the Royal Artillery, and confesses his horror at being ordered to conduct a firing squad obliged to shoot a Polish soldier found guilty of rape. Throughout his long career (Ted is now "Father" of the House of Commons"), he has set his face resolutely against the reintroduction of capital punishment.
Margaret Thatcher was cast by the press as his bitter enemy. It is strange how much the two of them had in common. Socially, Margaret was a notch or two above Ted; they both went to Oxford where the differences between them began to become more obvious. Oxford made Ted; for Margaret it was water off a duck's back. The real difference between them was ideological. Ted Heath is a One Nation Tory, a moderate in all things and a passionate supporter of Britain in Europe. Margaret was, and remains, a Manchester Liberal whose uniform consisted of something blue and something borrowed from the American monetarist academics of the so-called Chicago School.
In 1975, she stood against Ted for the leadership of the party, and beat him. Ted's other Cabinet colleagues were more than reluctant to throw their hats into the ring. Ted's enemies accused him of sulking, but he could hardly have welcomed her challenge and his consequent humiliation. But he who laughs last . . . Ted had the infinite pleasure of watching Margaret's defenestration in 1990, when her Cabinet gave her cards, and she departed with ill grace. He has also written a far better book than she has.
Julian Critchley was a Tory MP for thirty-one years