Thatcher leaves Tories red in the face

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MAY 23. With friends like Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, Tories don't need many Labour enemies. They wheedled her out on Tuesday to jig things up for the party chief, Mr. William Hague, whose popular ratings show no sign of picking up, but she ended up creating a huge embarrassment for him with her views on Europe that were clearly out of line with the party's official position.

Her remark at a party meeting in Plymouth that she would not ``never be prepared'' to give up the pound for a single European currency contradicted Mr. Hague's policy which opposes a single currency only for the next term of Parliament, leaving the party to reconsider its options later. Mr. Hague is reported to have pointedly told party candidates not to say `never' to the euro in their speeches on the plea that it is not a good idea to close its options forever.

In fact, the written speech of Lady Thatcher stuck to the official line, but she departed from the text to remark: ``I would never be prepared to give up our own currency.'' It came after she attacked Labour for leading Britain ``by the nose'' into a single currency regime.

``It was the second time in 24 hours that she had risked embarrassment for the leadership. In her only interview of the campaign she said she had no wish to see ''what they call a multicultural society``, The Times pointed out. It said the former Prime Minister was brought into the campaign to `galvanise' the party's core supporters as well as those who could defect to Labour, and Mr. Hague had personally persuaded her to make a speech.

Her remarks overshadowed her attack on Labour and her strong personal support for Mr. Hague, as TV channels and newspapers led with the fact that the Tories were hopelessly confused and split over Europe. Labour said her intervention had ''blown the cover`` of Conservative unity on the issue, and insisted that the only sensible course for Britain was to join the euro after getting people to give their opinion in a referendum.

Critics ridiculed the Tory argument that they were opposing euro only for one term of Parliament because they did not want to cramp their successors' options, and the Lib-Dem leader, Mr. Charles Kennedy, joked if the same line applied to the party's support for monarchy. ''Are they saying that they would support monarchy only for next Parliament as they don't want to commit their successors to it?`` he said.

Tories sought to put up a brave face arguing that what Lady Thatcher had said was her personal view and she was known to have ''very robust`` view on Europe. Mr. Hague pointed out that in fact her remarks were ''more restrained`` than what she what had been saying on the issue.

Observers noted that while Tories' euro-scepticism clearly had wide popular support, people were getting confused by contradictory statements. While Sir Edward Heath had spoken out strongly in favour of Europe, Lady Thatcher was dead against it and the official line was ambiguous - creating doubts in public mind where the party really stood on what is arguably one of the most emotive issues.

But for her contentious remark on Europe, Lady Thatcher's performance was quintessentially Thatcherite - and she demonstrated that she could laugh at herself. She said she knew that people of Plymouth were expecting her because ''on my way here I passed a cinema with a sign `The Mummy Returns'``.

And the return of the mummy, one commentator remarked, was seldom a good omen.

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