Francis Pym has died. He was one of the leading Conservative politicians of the 1970s and early 1980s, ending up as Margaret Thatcher's Foreign Secretary following the Falklands War, a position he held until the 1983 General Election. It is true to say that he was never 'one of us' and was seen as one of the leading Tory wets. A chivalrous man, he could never quite bring himself to say what he really thought about Margaret Thatcher's brand of politics, and this was never more true than when he launched his Centre Forward pressure group after his departure from office.His heyday was under Ted Heath when he was Chief Whip and Northern Ireland Secretary. From 1979-81 he held the post of Defence Secretary. He never really recovered from a gaffe on BBC's Question Time in 1983 when he said that large majorities were a bad thing and led to bad government. When Margaret Thatcher said she thought she would be able to cope with a large majority, it signalled the end of Francis Pym's cabinet career. John Biffen was to suffer a similar fate a few years later.
Pym's memoirs were a slim volume and very disappointing. He was a decorated war hero, serving in North Africa and Italy during the war and he was awarded the Military Cross. He entered Parliament in 1961 at a by-election and served as MP for Cambridgeshire, and then South East Cambridgeshire until 1987.
He died today, at the age of 86, after a lengthy illness.
29 comments:
I once herd a joke, which probably captured the atmosphere well. At a cocktail party Maggie thatched was once aced "What's your poison" to which she replied "Pym’s Number 1!"
Wasn't he a descendant of John Pym?
http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/biog/pym.htm
If the experience of the last ten years shows anything, it's that he was exactly right. Large majorities do lead to bad government.
Whether he should have actually said it is another matter. But then them's the games.
Well Pym has certainly been proved right with regard to large majorities.
Pym and Prior were the epitomy of the Tory "wet", aka spineless politician in the grocer Heath mold, who fought a rearguard action against Mrs T and her new broom policies at the time.
Thankfully they were relegated to obscurity on the backbenches sooner rather than later.
Sorry Francis has gone, but I am busy reading Lord Archer's book and it is brilliant.
BBC did "Not a Penny" and that was excellent ..
TV Drama should be bidding or even a feature film producer
Great piece of work
I think you are rather ungenerous to Francis Pym who was a great gentleman, a decorated war hero and a much loved constituency MP in Cambridgeshire for over 25 years.
The fact that he didn't agree with your brand of conservatism and made a rather accurate comment about the effect that large majorities have on the democratic process should not detract from (and in fact in my view rather adds to) his great human qualities
The spirit of Heath still lives in Nick Clegg .
gaullimaufry- yes he was from the same family
Iain you should writs his memoires!
Everyone seems to have wilfully forgotten this afternoon that he was NOT sacked solely because of that remark about landslides, or because of a lack of willingness to say what he thought about Thatcherism. In actual fact, about three days before his Question Time remark, he had said privately "We've got a corporal at the top, not a cavalry officer." Thatcher heard about it and was for some inexplicable reason absolutely furious. The Question Time gaffe (in which he was actually quite right - Wilson 1966, Thatcher 1987 and Blair 1997/2001 anybody?) compounding the felony, was merely the last straw.
If he'd had the gumption to say something like that in public after he was sacked, fair enough. If he'd refused to serve under Thatcher on the grounds that she was a lightweight, also fair enough. To take her pay and then make rude remarks in private while hoping to keep his job - there's a word for that, starting with "h", and it isn't a pretty one.
Anonymous 2:43 - thank you for your reasoned response to my posts. You ask: "What does it achieve?"
Nothing.
I don't expect to achieve anything. I was born in Britain and loved my country - although I have spent a lot of time overseas - until I watched in dismay as the British give it away. To the EU. And most recently to the fascists.
Even if the Conservatives get back in, it's only David Cameron, of the Chris Patten, Ken Clark tendency. He won't rescue Britain. He'll go with the programme for the sake of his own advancement in Europe.
Three million islamics in Britain. How many French came over in the years after the Norman invasion. Does anyone know?
"Pym's memoirs were a slim volume and very disappointing."
Iain was there any need to mention that, I know you probably didn't like the guy and I can see where you are coming from, but still...
An honourable man. But essentially soggy nonetheless. But for all that in stark contrast to the shysters in today's H of C.
An honourable man but with a very soggy centre.
But in marked contrast to the shysters, place-seekers and greasy-pole merchants who inhabit today's H of C.
I was only a child when the Heath and Wilson Governments were in power in the 1970s.
At the time I had great difficulty in understanding what the difference was between them. Whoever was in power there seemed to be strikes all the time!
It was Michael Portillo's programme the other day that opened my eyes. The Wilson and Heath Governments were BOTH distinctly socialist and the so called 'wets' were really just socialists in Tory clothing.
Margaret Thatcher was not just fighting Labour socialism but also Tory socialism. No wonder she hated the whole concept of the EU so much....just another brand of socialism.
Francis Pym had a lot more influence than 'official' Conservative Party history is saying today.
In those dark days, for the many who did not 'get' the Thatcher government he stood out as unique and brave. Behind the scenes (as well as publicly) he was a significant influence, which was why he was eventually sacked.
Shame that some comments aren't more respectful.
"Pym's memoirs were a slim volume and very disappointing."
As was his contribution to the Conservative Party outside of his own constituency.
I don't wish to appear to speak ill of the dead but the 1980's wets were wrong then, are wrong still and it is desperately wrong that they seem to have gained, by deceit, the upper hand in our party once again.
I was at a Guildhall dinner the night that Thatcher resigned. Pym was the speaker. His schadenfreude at the Lady's sad fate was quite evident (wasn't he the first minister she fired?) He proceeded to celebrate royally.
I think it's fair to say he was not merely wet but militantly so.
Verity said...
Anonymous 2:43 - thank you for your reasoned response to my posts. You ask: "What does it achieve?"
Nothing.
You are on the wrong post Miss Piggy.
Pym's not an "old rascal". He's a sleazy traitor and always has been. A traitor to the Conservative Party, and a traitor to Britain. Cut from the same cloth as Edward Heath.
Paddy Briggs, maintaining his record for being wrong about absolutely everything, writes: "Whatever you say about Francis he does and says what he believes to be right." So did Napoleon. Napoleon believed it was right to march on Moscow in the winter.
He's an amusing fellow, but treacherous.
When Pym set up Centre Forward it was dubbed Centre Backward by The Times because of its hankering for the old failed corporatist policies of the past.
"Wasn't he a descendant of John Pym?"
He was indeed, but not the equivalent of Winston Churchill to John Churchill.
Francis Pym is a pimple on a footnote to Conservative history.
Oh dear, seems that Verity has been “on the sauce” again. I am a bit unclear why Francis Pym is to be indicted as a sleazy traitor. I shall adopt a judicial stance and ask Verity to write a full indictment on the blog or keep quiet
I didn’t know Francis Pym and never met him. I can’t tell if the cavalry officer quip was correct. If it is then he probably died happy, as the NCOs have been cleared out of the Conservative Party leadership and replaced by a traditional cavalry officer and his chums. Lance/Corporal Major et al having ensured that NCO leadership would be discredited for the foreseeable future.
Old fashioned snobbery aside, it is clear that large electoral majorities are a disaster for the nation and , ultimately, for the party which obtains one. However, it shows astonishing political naivety for a politician to actually say this in public, for a large majority is the lifeblood of a domineering Prime Minister in our elective dictatorship.
P.S. It may seem unfair to ‘dear old’ Sir John Major K.G. to describe him as a Lance/Corporal but I had the impression that he has the NCO’s deference for rank. I was once standing in line to be presented to him. My neighbour was a hereditary peer. Lord X and I were happily discussing county matters when Sir John loomed into view. Sir John was obsequious to Lord X and incredibly off hand with me. My opinion of Sir John has never recovered
Harriet Hamster has used the death of Francis Pym to “plug“ Jeffrey Archer‘s latest tome.
I have read the first fifty two pages downloaded from the internet. Its all a bit “Janet and John” but Archer is clearly fascinated by the trial process. He could have made a little bit more “play” with the defendant’s perspective which is always different from the advocates perspective. Oddly, Archer looks at things much more from the advocates point of view.
Unfortunately, there are one or two mistakes in the first 52 pages. Archer obviously paid for Nicholas Purnell QC to represent him at his own trial. Nicholas Purnell QC no longer does Legal Aid work. However, the likes of Danny Cartwright and , for that matter, you and I would get Legal Aid. Legal Aid still being automatic in the Crown Court and on a murder charge, Thus, he would not have a “green” junior barrister, such as Alex Redmayne but a full QC and junior. Picking a QC is an art, constrained by availability, so a poor QC could have made the same mistakes as Redmayne.
In addition, Beth Wilson would not give evidence first for the defence unless the judge had specifically allowed it. Danny would be the first to give evidence because he is the defendant.
Also, Davenport was Pearson’s witness, so he would not “cross-examine” him but “examine him in chief”.
I am being pedantic, as accuracy has never stood in the way of Lord Archer's story telling ability, even in the witness box.
I’ll never forget reading Michael Crick’s biography of Archer. Mr Anorak Crick got his claws well into Archer and this was before the Archer trial. Unfortunately, I left the book on a bus in Bulgaria and so I am unable to quote from it.
I regularly walked past Nicholas Purnell’s Chambers, at 23 Essex Street, just before the Archer trial. Archer’s BMW 7 series was invariably parked right outside on the yellow lines. His rather thuggish looking chauffeur standing guard. The need to park right outside his barrister’s chambers, even if it was illegal to do so, seemed to sum up Lord Archer. The “Mr Toad” of our political universe.
The uppers, like Pym were always more socialist at heart than the lowers - Thatcher.
They had no love for the new kinds of people who were becoming successful and wealthy - business folk etc. They liked the old world where class was defined by education and birth, not by bank balance.
Whatever their preferences, it's all old hat now. If we don't succeed in business, and get the running of our society right, others will leapfrog our position. We've wasted countless decades fighting a pointless class war. Enough is enough.
Thank god it's mostly over, although how else can you explain the hopeless state Gordon Brown has got so many things into - the Armed Forces, the Bank of England, immigration - unless he's either stunningly thick, or still motivated to destroy any vestiges of the earlier upper class-dominated world, that he probably still detests.
Pym was extraordinarily brave, and he should be remembered with affection for who he was, not for which side he played on. I remember him around the time of the Falklands, being reassuringly able to cope with the situation which was absolutely terrifying to watch each day as it unfolded. I will always be grateful for the leadership he gave at that time.
@ M. Hristov
Sorry yes I was a bit of a sneaky hamster with the plug on Archer's book but interesting you quote Anorak Crick who has himself been the subject of a Newspapaer story about his own conduct !
What goes around eh ?
Francis Pym: one of the very last tory (or any) M.P.s not to hate ordinary English people.
Verity at 5.56pm on 7 March -
It is usually said that 10,000 Normans managed to subjugate one-and-a-half million Saxons.
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