John Moore, Baron Moore of Lower Marsh - Cabinet Career

Cabinet Career

He joined Mrs Thatcher's Cabinet in 1986 as Secretary of State for Transport. His tenure of office at Transport was brief but coincided with the completion of major developments such as the M25 London orbital motorway and the privatisation of British Airways. The capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise car ferry outside Zeebrugge harbour on 6 March 1987 gave Moore considerable media exposure. These events served to raise Moore's profile even further and he played a prominent campaign role in the 1987 general election.

... what probably clinched his promotion to the DHSS yesterday was his TV performance in the party political broadcast that attacked the loony left. It was Thatcher herself who suggested that Moore be used on it. The broadcast was, according to one observer, considered "sharp, nasty - and effective".

By now, Moore was being widely spoken of as a future Prime Minister. The commentator Brian Walden wrote "... he has future Tory leader written all over him". After the 1987 election he was appointed as Secretary of State for Social Services. In this capacity he was responsible for the National Health Service's £66 billion annual spend and the payment of over £50 billion annually in the form of social security benefits. These were highly sensitive portfolios which were intended be very much at the centre of policy initiatives in the 1987 government.

However, there were some early misgivings about the appointment. Julian Critchley described Moore's earlier career in government as "The script had been written for him, and he had only to learn his lines". Other commentators noted that his previous experience had been in implementing policy rather than in creating policy.

Once established in his new job, Moore delivered a series of speeches on policy in the social services. These speeches appeared to indicate a move to a healthcare system based on private insurance along the American model. Specific proposals included making private healthcare insurance contributions tax deductible and allowing nurses' wage rates to be established by local bargaining rather than by central negotiation. Moore quickly encountered opposition from various interest groups including the Royal College of Physicians. Many Conservative backbench MPs had misgivings about what was being proposed. Furthermore, some of the speeches suggested that Moore was positioning himself to be leader of the Conservative Party. During a visit to the US in October 1987, he delivered a speech to the Mont Pelerin Society in which he appeared to suggest that he had been the prime mover behind privatisation in the UK. This displeased his fellow Ministers and other senior Party figures.

Moore did not seem to engage comfortably in the public estimate procedures by which departmental spending budgets were set. The then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, John Major, was reported to have found Moore to be "a soft touch". The then Health Minister, Edwina Currie, is reported to have described Moore as being "useless". An entry in her diary dated January 1988 reads "It became apparent during the first ten days ... that Moore just didn't know what to do". Moore found difficulties in his relationships with senior civil servants. Not all the latter were comfortable with a working day that started at 7 a.m. Moore's wife (and political adviser) Sheila had clashes with civil servants and Moore was privately warned that she did not understand the British way of doing things. It is believed that Sheila may have drafted some of Moore's more controversial speeches.

In November 1987 Moore was struck down with bacterial pneumonia. He initially tried to ignore the illness and attended a cabinet meeting before he had recovered. During the meeting he became unconscious. He was subsequently admitted to the Parkside Hospital in Wimbledon. The fact that this was a private clinic owned by a German healthcare company (reportedly charging patients up to £2,000 per day) attracted bad publicity. Union leader Rodney Bickerstaffe stated "How can a social services secretary claim to care about the National Health Service when he does not even trust his own health care to an NHS hospital?".