Relationship With Thatcher
Sherman was critical of Ted Heath's Conservative government because of its public spending and its failure to implement free market policies. In 1974 he co-founded the Centre for Policy Studies with Sir Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher. Sherman was subsequently Director of the CPS and a member of the Conservative Philosophy Group. The CPS was the real launching pad for Margaret Thatcher, gradually transforming her from the untried party leader of 1974 into a prime-minister-in-waiting. More than any one man, Sherman provided her with the strategy for capturing the leadership of the Party and winning the general election of 1979.
In her memoirs, Lady Thatcher herself paid tribute to Sherman's "brilliance", the "force and clarity of his mind", his "breadth of reading and his skills as a ruthless polemicist". She credits him with a central role in her achievements, especially as Leader of the Opposition but also after she became Prime Minister: in July 2005 she declared, "We could have never defeated socialism if it hadn't been for Sir Alfred". But his unwillingness to make compromises with the establishmentarian consensus never enabled him to fit into the clubbable world of British politics.
Sherman's star shone briefly after Thatcher became prime minister. His breadth and depth of vision and willingness to say the unsayable provided a vital stimulus to her, giving her the intellectual confidence to proclaim her radical free-market vision in her early years at the helm.
By 1982, the latent strains in his relationship with Mrs. Thatcher became fully apparent. She complained that he was dismissive of the obstacles she was encountering in dismantling the legacy of decades of socialism, while he berated her for betraying the promise of her early years. (In the 1990s he said of her, "Lady Thatcher is great theatre as long as someone else is writing her lines; she hasn't got a clue".) After his exclusion from her inner circle she nevertheless continued to regard him with "exasperated affection", and rewarded him with a knighthood in 1983. In July 2005 they were reunited at a reception marking the publication of Sherman's last book with a revealing title, Paradoxes of Power: Reflections on the Thatcher Interlude.
From about 1986 he and his son Gideon were members of Western Goals (UK), Gideon serving on the Directorate.
Read more about this topic: Alfred Sherman
Famous quotes containing the words relationship with, relationship and/or thatcher:
“Christianity as an organized religion has not always had a harmonious relationship with the family. Unlike Judaism, it kept almost no rituals that took place in private homes. The esteem that monasticism and priestly celibacy enjoyed implied a denigration of marriage and parenthood.”
—Beatrice Gottlieb, U.S. historian. The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age, ch. 12, Oxford University Press (1993)
“The relationship between mother and professional has not been a partnership in which both work together on behalf of the child, in which the expert helps the mother achieve her own goals for her child. Instead, professionals often behave as if they alone are advocates for the child; as if they are the guardians of the child’s needs; as if the mother left to her own devices will surely damage the child and only the professional can rescue him.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.”
—Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925)