A safe pair of hands | 7 April 2012

Michael Spicer is too honourable to be a brilliant diarist. As he himself says, ‘I eschew tittle-tattle or small talk.’ These diaries cannot be read, as Chips Channon’s or Alan Clark’s can be, because they offer a joyful cascade of indiscretions. When Clark dies in September 1999, Spicer writes of his fellow Tory MP: ‘We never really hit it off. I thought he was untrustworthy.’

Spicer’s father was a soldier, and these diaries read like the history of a regiment written by one of its most loyal officers. A few pages are devoted to Spicer’s hotheaded youth, in which he sets up Pest (‘Pressure for Economic and Social Toryism’) and calls for the resignation of Sir Alec Douglas-Home — a cry magnified by William Rees-Mogg.

But Spicer is soon advising Edward Heath on the use of computers, and even takes the chance, on New Year’s Eve 1973, to tell the Prime Minister: ‘The main thing is not to call a general election in the present atmosphere.’ Heath appears to agree, but goes on to call and lose the election, in which Spicer is elected to one of the Worcestershire seats, a county he will represent for the next 36 years.

Under Margaret Thatcher, for whose politics he feels considerable admiration, Spicer becomes a junior minister, but is never given the promotion which he feels he deserves. On one occasion he ventures, uncharacteristically, to offer his services as party chairman, and is summoned to Downing Street: ‘Terrible shock to hear they will be appointing John Selwyn Gummer as chairman.’ One gains a growing sense that people are taking Spicer for granted, because they know he will not make a fuss. Repeated setbacks are borne with admirable fortitude, though he is also frustrated by Thatcher’s failure to promote the Tories who actually support her policies.