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Edward Heath: Robert Pearce attempts to put the Prime Minister of 1970-74 into historical perspective.

Article Excerpt
In almost all assessments of twentieth-century Prime Ministers, Edward Heath (PM in 1970-74) comes way down the list of high-achievers. Yet on what criteria are sucia judgements based?

Electoral approval is clearly important in any democracy. By this yardstick, Heath was surely a failure. He met Labour's Harold Wilson in four general elections, and managed to win only once. We may also be tempted to divide those we like from those we dislike. Whereas the telegenic Wilson seemed self-assured and witty, and brilliant at repartee, Heath had few devoted admirers and seemed cold and humourless, often overbearing and at times pompous. Harold appeared a 'man of the people', Ted a typical Tory, marked by an insufferable upper-class accent. Moreover he seemed a union-bashing class warrior. There were two arch-extremists in Britain, said Wilson in January 1974, the communist Mick McGahey, of the National Union of Mineworkers, and Ted Heath. Undoubtedly Wilson was the more assured political performer. If shrewdness is a criterion for success, Wilson was undoubtedly Heath's superior. Wilson's footwork, noted the TV journalist Robin Day on one occasion, 'was dazzling ... his twisting and turning was worthy of the Great Houdini'. In contrast Heath appeared flat-footed it not positively lame.

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Yet there is another way of assessing a Prime Minister. Robin Day classified premiers into two sorts: those who make a real difference and those who do not. He placed Heath in the first category, Wilson in the second. Heath was Prime Minister for only four years, and yet 'by the force of his personality and the strength of his willpower' he achieved his primary objective: he secured Britain's entry into the European Economic Community (the EEC, or 'Gommon Market', the forerunner of today's European Union). In so doing, he fundamentally changed the history of his nation.

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Rise of a Meritocrat

Many assumed that Heath had a typical Tory background. They were quite wrong. He was born on 9 July 1916 in Broadstairs in Kent, the son of a skilled carpenter and a former maid. There was little privilege in his background, and for a time his family had to take in lodgers to make ends meet. Yet neither was his upbringing in any way deprived. In particular, this rather solitary boy received an excellent education. At the age of ten he won a scholarship to a grammar school in Ramsgate, and in 1935 he won a place at Balliol College in Oxford.

He gained a solid Second-Class Honours in PPE (philosophy, politics and economics). In addition, he lost his Kentish burr and acquired a more acceptable accent for Oxford (complete with what his biographer John Campbell calls 'tortured and artificial vowel sounds'). He also visited Germany and Spain and became an ardent anti-appeaser, even accusing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of 'turning all four cheeks to Hitler'. He supported the independent against the official Conservative candidate in the famous Oxford by-election of October 1938 and the following month was himself elected President of the Oxford Union. He won a scholarship to read for the bar, a traditional route into politics, but the Second World War interrupted his plans.

Heath spent most of the war in England, his major enemy being tedium rather than Nazism. Nevertheless he became an Adjutant in March 1942, acquiring a reputation for efficiency and skill at organisation, and saw action after D-Day,...

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