13 July 2107
Lost in Eden
Is Sir Anthony a fair comparison?
by J.R. Thomas
The Financial Times columnist Bruce Anderson recently penned a characteristically direct and unsparing (“vicious” would be another word) article on the premiership and personality of Theresa May, in which he called her the “least successful Tory leader since Anthony Eden…”. Steady on, Bruce; even allowing for several candidates for that prestigious position (we will name no names but invite readers to fill in the blanks themselves), such hyperbole is a gross traducing of Sir Anthony.
For our younger readers we may need to sketch out Eden’s career. He was born in 1897, the younger son of a County Durham landowner, and had an early interest in politics, being elected as a Conservative Member of the Commons in 1923 at the age of 26. He decided to specialise in foreign affairs (not an area of great expertise in the Conservative Party in the 1920’s), a decision richly rewarded in 1935 when he was made Foreign Secretary under Stanley Baldwin at the age of only 38. He retained the job under Neville Chamberlain who became Prime Minister in 1937, and was heavily tipped as a potential successor to Chamberlain. So far you might see a comparison with, perhaps, Anthony Charles Lysander Blair, or indeed David Owen. But in early 1938 Eden found himself resolutely unsympathetic to Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement towards the dictators of Germany and Italy, and resigned.
This was an act of very considerable political and personal bravery. Political because at the age of 41 he was back on the back benches, identified with a hugely unpopular cause (subsequent events should not blind us to the enormous support for appeasement at this time), and also not close to Winston Churchill, the most public of the Tory rebels. Eden tried to establish his own group of rebel backbenchers, including such socialites as Ronald Tree and Harold Nicholson, christened by their own party “the Glamour Boys”. Personal because Eden had fought in the Great War, and what he had gone through had made him profoundly opposed to such things ever happening again. His preference remained a very robust series of negotiations with, and alliances against, Hitler, unlike Churchill who already felt war to be inevitable. On the outbreak of war, Eden was immediately recalled to the government, and in 1940 was appointed Foreign Secretary by Churchill, becoming in 1951 the “Prime Minister in waiting” (he married Churchill’s niece Clarissa that year). In 1955 Churchill retired and Eden finally became Premier. He was hugely popular, seen as a man of great principles with an enviable record, melded with film star good looks and charm. What was not known was that he was also exhausted, partly from ten years as active understudy to Winston, but also because of a medical operation which had gone wrong. His first action on moving to 10 Downing Street was to call a general election to give him a personal mandate – remind you of anybody? – which increased the Conservative majority from 17 to 60. No point scoring, please.
One should never underestimate the effect of personal experience on political policy. That long period of inaction and appeasement in the 1930’s was largely driven by memories of the Great War; many of the men running the country were deeply scarred by what they had seen and experienced, only too well aware how many of their generation were lost. They were determined that this must never happen again, to an extent which blinded them to what might come. This was true of Eden, though he could see the growing threats of the European dictators and knew that there would be a reckoning unless the march of fascism could be stopped. (It was even true of Churchill, as the film now in cinemas relates. When it came to authorising the D-Day landings he could not rid his mind of the disaster of Gallipoli in 1915.)
Eden’s first great Prime Ministerial test was set by yet another dictator, Gamal Nasser of Egypt, who nationalised the Suez Canal, a vital artery for Britain’s oil supplies (and those of most of Europe). Eden’s first test turned into his last; a complex and mostly secret plan with Israel and France to seize the Canal by military means failed under American economic pressure to abort it. Not that the intended seizure was unpopular in Britain; Eden was most criticised for ceasing the military action before getting to the Canal. Amidst huge controversy (Clarissa Eden famously said that it she felt that “the Suez Canal was flowing through her drawing room”) Eden became ill again and went to the West Indies to recover. He returned to the UK determined to continue. The general view at the time was that his reputation and record were such that he could have done so; but he was warned by his doctors that his health was so damaged that he could not bear the burden of high office any further. Alas, from his point of view that understandable decision was very damaging to his long-term reputation; if the Canal flowed through the Eden drawing room, it continues to flow across his grave. He died in 1976, having published three volumes of detailed, dull and mostly ghost written autobiography which are only for the historians. But for those who might seek to understand him, and his generation, shortly before his death he wrote “Another World”, a short but powerful self-examination of his youth and the First World War which is fascinating and moving and well-worth seeking out.
Eden was not an earlier version of May, although there are similarities of personality which can be seen to create weaknesses which they share. Eden was shy and inclined to guard his privacy, not a man who was a habitué of the Commons tea rooms, not a builder of consensus. His strength within the party came from a long record of success – as Bruce Anderson says, if friendship is not there to fall back on, you must depend on success. He was also inclined to great volatility, particularly as his health deteriorated, but had in Clarissa (who is still living) a loyal and intelligent soul mate who gave him a secure hinterland.
It is too soon to say how history will judge Mrs May; not least because she may yet turn out to be the Come-Back Kid. Somehow, one doubts it, but when the world turns its bile on senior politicians the brickbats are just as absurd as the praise which was being lavished only weeks before. In Eden’s case, though, the judgement of history has pretty much been through the soup strainer by now, and it is truly unfair to see him as a failure in office. Certainly the Suez operation turned out to be a disaster, but Prime Ministers’ have withstood worse (Gallipoli), and up to then he had done a pretty good and efficient (and well regarded) job, including four years as a very active deputy to Winston. And if the recovery of the Canal had succeeded, the immediate judgements at least might have been very different.
How will history see the Blair government’s participation in the second Iraq invasion – which, just like Suez, and let us very clearly not forget, was supported widely by all parties? Mr Blair, like Sir Anthony Eden, has never had any doubts he did the right thing for the right reasons; maybe Mrs’s May’s true weakness is that her uncertainties as to what is right and best are only too obvious.
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