First Among Equals Read online

  “She certainly has enough of them,” said Elizabeth.

  It amused Andrew and Raymond to watch the Tory party leadership struggle while they got on with their respective jobs. Raymond would have dismissed Thatcher’s chances if Kate hadn’t reminded him that the Tories had been the first party to choose a Jewish leader, and also the first to select a bachelor.

  “So why shouldn’t they be the first to elect a woman?” she demanded. He would have continued to argue with her but the damn woman had proved to be right so often in the past. “Let’s wait and see,” was all he said.

  The 1922 Committee announced that the election for leader would take place on 4 February 1975.

  At a press conference in early January at the House of Commons Margaret Thatcher announced she would allow her name to go forward to contest the leadership. Simon immediately spent his time exhorting his colleagues to support “The Lady” and joined a small committee under Airey Neave that was formed for the purpose. Charles Seymour warned his friends that the party could never hope to win a general election with a woman leading them. As the days passed, nothing became clearer than the uncertainty of the outcome.

  At four o’clock on a particularly wet and windy day the chairman of the 1922 Committee announced the figures:

  Margaret Thatcher 130

  Edward Heath 119

  Hugh Fraser 16

  According to the 1922 Committee rules, the winner needed a fifteen percent majority and so a second round was necessary. “It will be held in seven days’ time,” the Chief Whip announced. Three former Cabinet ministers immediately declared they were candidates, while Ted Heath, having been warned that he would get fewer votes a second time round, withdrew from the ballot.

  They were the longest days in Simon’s life. He did everything in his power to hold Thatcher’s supporters together. Charles meanwhile decided to play the second round very low-key. When the time came to vote he put his cross on the ballot paper next to the former Secretary of State he had served under at Trade and Industry. “A man we can all trust,” he told Fiona.

  When the votes had been counted and confirmed the chairman of the 1922 Committee announced that Margaret Thatcher was the outright winner with a vote of 146 to 79 from her nearest challenger.

  Simon was delighted while Elizabeth hoped he had forgotten about the promise to eat her hat. Charles was dumbfounded. They both wrote to their new leader immediately.

  11 February 1975

  Dear Margaret,

  Many congratulations on your victory as the first woman leader of our party. I was proud to have played a small part in your triumph and will continue to work for your success at the next election.

  Yours,

  Simon.

  27 Eaton Square,

  London, SW 1

  11 February 1975

  Dear Margaret,

  I made no secret of backing Ted Heath in the first round of the leadership contest having had the privilege of serving in his administration. I was delighted to have supported you on the second ballot. It illustrates how progressive our party is that we have chosen a woman who will undoubtedly be Britain’s next Prime Minister.

  Be assured of my loyalty.

  Yours,

  Charles.

  Margaret Thatcher answered all her colleagues’ letters within the week. Simon received a handwritten letter inviting him to join the new Shadow team as number two in the Education Department. Charles received a typed note thanking him for his letter of support.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SEYMOUR’S BANK HAD weathered the Great War, the thirties’ crash, and then the Second World War. Charles had no intention of being the chairman who presided over its demise in the seventies. Soon after taking over from Derek Spencer—at the board’s unanimous insistence—he had discovered that being chairman wasn’t quite the relaxed job he expected, and while he remained confident that the bank could ride the storm he still wasn’t taking any risks. The business sections of the newspapers were full of stories of the Bank of England acting as a “lifeboat” and having to step in to assist ailing financial institutions, along with daily reports of the collapse of yet another property company. The time when property values and rents automatically increased each year had become a thing of the past.

  When he had accepted the board’s offer, Charles insisted that a chief executive be appointed to carry out the day-to-day business while he remained the man with whom other City chairmen dealt. He interviewed several people for the position but he did not find anyone suitable. Head-hunting seemed to be the next move, the expense of which was saved when he overheard a conversation at the next table at White’s that the newly appointed chief executive of the 1st Bank of America was sick of having to report to the board in Chicago every time he wanted to use a first-class stamp.

  Charles immediately invited the chief executive to lunch at the House of Commons. Clive Reynolds had come from a similar background to Derek Spencer: London School of Economics, followed by the Harvard Business School and a series of successful appointments which had culminated in his becoming chief executive of the 1st Bank of America. This similarity did not worry Charles, as he made it clear to Mr. Reynolds that the appointee would be the chairman’s man.

  When Reynolds was offered the appointment he drove a hard bargain and Charles looked forward to his doing the same on behalf of Seymour’s. Reynolds ended up with £50,000 a year and enough of a profit incentive to ensure that he didn’t deal for himself or encourage any other headhunters to invite him to join their particular jungle.

  “He’s not the sort of fellow we could invite to dinner,” Charles told Fiona, “but his appointment will enable me to sleep at night knowing the bank is in safe hands.”

  Charles’s choice was rubber-stamped by the board at their next meeting, and as the months passed it became obvious that the 1st Bank of America had lost one of its prime assets well below the market value.

  Clive Reynolds was a conservative by nature, but when he did take what Charles described as a risk—and Reynolds called a “hunch”—over fifty percent of them paid off. While Seymour’s kept its reputation for caution and good husbandry, they managed a few quite spectacular coups thanks to their new chief executive.

  Reynolds had enough sense to treat his new chairman with respect without ever showing deference while their relationship remained at all times strictly professional.

  One of Reynolds’s first innovations had been to suggest they check on every customer account over £250,000 and Charles had approved.

  “When you’ve handled the account of a company for many years,” Reynolds pointed out, “it sometimes is not apparent when one of your traditional customers is heading for trouble as it would be to a newcomer. If there are any ‘lame ducks’ let’s discover them before they hit the ground”—a simile that Charles repeated at several weekend parties.

  Charles enjoyed his morning meetings with Clive Reynolds as he picked up a great deal about a profession to which he had previously only brought gut feeling and common sense. In a very short time he learned enough from his new tutor to make him sound like David Rockefeller when he rose to speak in a finance debate on the floor of the House, an unexpected bonus.

  Charles knew little of Reynolds’s private life except what was on file. He was forty-one, unmarried, and lived in Esher, wherever that was. All Charles cared about was that Reynolds arrived each morning at least an hour before him, and left after him every night, even when the House was in recess.

  Charles had studied fourteen of the confidential reports on customers with loans over £250,000. Clive Reynolds had already picked out two companies with whom he felt the bank should revise their current position.

  Charles still had three more reports to consider before he presented a full assessment to the board.

  The quiet knock on the door, however, meant that it was ten o’clock and Reynolds had arrived to make his daily report. Rumors were circulating in the City that the bank rate woul