Retirement
Heseltine resigned his Henley-on-Thames constituency at the 2001 election, being succeeded by Spectator editor Boris Johnson, but remained outspoken on British politics. He was given a life peerage as Baron Heseltine, of Thenford in the County of Northamptonshire.
In December 2002, Heseltine controversially called for Iain Duncan Smith to be replaced as leader of the Conservatives by the "dream-ticket" of Clarke as leader and Michael Portillo as deputy. He suggested the party's MPs vote on the matter rather than party members as currently required by party rules. Without the replacement of Duncan Smith, the party "has not a ghost of a chance of winning the next election" he said. Duncan Smith was removed the following year. In the 2005 party leadership election, he backed young moderniser David Cameron.
Following Cameron's election to the leadership he set up a wide-ranging policy review. Chairmen of the various policy groups included ex-Chancellor Kenneth Clarke and other former cabinet ministers John Redwood, John Gummer, Stephen Dorrell and Michael Forsyth as well as ex-leader Iain Duncan Smith. Heseltine was appointed to head the cities task force having been responsible for urban policy twice as Environment Secretary under Thatcher and Major.
He was ranked 170th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2004 with an estimated wealth of £240 million. He is a keen gardener and arboriculturalist and his arboretum was featured in a one-off documentary on BBC Two in December 2005.
In 2008 Heseltine took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history.
In March 2011, he was asked to head up an audit of the UK's industrial performance for the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and HM Treasury, upon which, after 11 years as a Member of the House of Lords, he made his maiden speech to the chamber.
Read more about this topic: Michael Heseltine
Famous quotes containing the word retirement:
“Adultery itself in its principle is many times nothing but a curious inquisition after, and envy of another man’s enclosed pleasures: and there have been many who refused fairer objects that they might ravish an enclosed woman from her retirement and single possessor.”
—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)
“The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Douglas. Now remains a sweet reversion—
We may boldly spend, upon the hope
Of what is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hotspur. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)