Britain: Blackpool Blues

Maggie loses a minister

Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!" The old hymn thundered from 3,000 throats in the seaside town of Blackpool last week as Britain's Conservative Party opened its annual conference. And why not rejoice? It was the first gathering of the Tory clans since their historic election victory last June. There was even a dollop of frosting on the political cake in the form of two important Tory birthdays: the party's 100th and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's 58th. It was, then, an occasion for especially lusty renditions of God Save the Queen and Land of Hope and Glory. Above all, it was a moment of sweet triumph for Thatcher.

As it turned out, it was also a tune of deep embarrassment. Hours before her keynote speech on Friday, Thatcher accepted "with regret" the eye-catching resignation of Trade and Industry Secretary Cecil Parkinson, architect of the election landslide and one of her closest political advisers. Parkinson, 52, fell from grace two weeks ago when he announced that Sara Keays, his private secretary and longtime lover, would soon bear his child. He added that he would not divorce his wife of 26 years to marry Keays, although he admitted that he had promised to do so. The disclosure prompted a number of Tories to call for Parkinson's head, but Thatcher characteristically decided to see the crisis through. She even asked conference organizers to arrange a warm welcome for him at Blackpool.

That, apparently, was too much for hitherto silent Keays. In a surprise statement in Friday's London Times, she gave her side of the story and abruptly demolished what remained of Parkinson's political career. "My baby was conceived in a longstanding, loving relationship which I had allowed to continue because I believed in our eventual marriage," Keays declared. "It has been suggested that Mr. Parkinson only asked me to marry him after I became pregnant, when in fact he first did so in 1979. In May, when I knew of my pregnancy, Mr. Parkinson decided he no longer wished to marry me."

Parkinson and Thatcher learned of the interview in the predawn hours Friday. The resignation was announced at 9:45 a.m. Said a senior Tory minister: "At some point, someone in this affair lied." In the messiest possible way, Thatcher had lost a close personal protege and left herself open to questions about her judgment of people and events.

The Parkinson affair was merely the most visible of Thatcher's concerns last week. Indeed, even before Blackpool, she was on the defensive against, of all things, accusations of aimless drift and indecision. The most serious charge: that she has failed to turn the policies of her first term into a clear blueprint for her second. Increasingly, the criticism has come from her own party. The most serious challenge was on the economic front. Last June, Thatcher campaigned on a hastily drafted manifesto calling for, among other things, reductions in taxes and government spending. Last week John Biffen, a leader in the House of Commons, publicly criticized the policy. In a television interview, he cast doubt on the government's ability to cut taxes, and made it clear that he was utterly opposed to doing so at the expense of social welfare programs.