The Guardian view on Michael Heseltine: he was right to rebel
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Version 0 of 1. Michael Heseltine has had one of the longest governmental careers in modern British politics. He was first made a minister by Edward Heath in 1970, and served in every Conservative government until 1997, with a dramatic hiatus after he resigned over the Westland affair in 1986. In 1990 he nearly became Margaret Thatcher’s successor, a political might-have-been that would have changed Tory history, for good or ill. Now, nearly 47 years after his first appointment, Theresa May has fired him as a government adviser on industrial strategy and urban regeneration. The pro-European’s offence was to support Tuesday’s Lords amendment to the article 50 bill, which would give parliament a decisive role in the Brexit process that Lord Heseltine so laments. At 83, Lord Heseltine is a political lion in winter. Inevitably, he has lost a little of his touch, as he showed on Wednesday when, on International Women’s Day, he made the mistake of saying Mrs May has a “man-sized” job to do, for which his interviewer rightly upbraided him. Yet in an age of too-short political careers, his consistency and sustained engagement are an example to others to stay the course. He has pursued his crusade for business and localism with huge energy ever since David Cameron got him to draw up a regional growth strategy in the No Stone Unturned review in 2012. If he hadn’t been sacked, Lord Heseltine would have been in his home town of Swansea to promote a new initiative there today. It is hard to believe that he has swung through the British political jungle for the last time – and we hope he has not done so. The irony of Lord Heseltine’s sacking is that, with the major exception of Europe, he is one of all too few senior Tories in the post-Thatcher years who grasps the strategic importance of government in the same way that Mrs May does. Lady Thatcher bequeathed a toxic political legacy to her party in the shape of a conviction that government was the problem and that markets could solve all economic and social issues if left to themselves. By contrast Lord Heseltine is the last active representative of a long era of Conservative politicians whose commitment to the one-nation Tory tradition meant they never felt the need or pressure to compromise with Lady Thatcher’s possessive individualism. For Lord Heseltine, government is an irreplaceable enabler. To her credit, Mrs May shares that view too. On Europe, though, their views are polar opposites. By firing Lord Heseltine, Mrs May presumably wishes to send a signal to pro-remain Tory MPs that they will suffer if they vote to keep the Lords amendments in the bill next week. She may succeed, especially given the less than inspiring performance of almost all pro-European Tory MPs thus far. It is very important that she fails. The country needs our parliament to stand up against the hard Brexit that Mrs May is seeking. Mrs May’s parting of the ways with Lord Heseltine also sends a larger message. She wants to drive down the middle of the political road towards a more cohesive Britain “that works for all”. But Brexit always pulls her steering wheel to the right. It threatens lasting fractures between regions, classes and communities and over values. These undermine the cohesion she seeks. That’s because Brexit and one-nation goals are not compatible. Hopefully not for the last time in his career, Lord Heseltine has got it right. |