The Spectator magazine has noted that Kemi Badenoch regards Airey Neave as her hero. Alistair Lexden gave his reaction in a letter published in the magazine on 22 February.
Sir: Is Kemi Badenoch right to make a hero of Airey Neave (Politics, 15 February)? His wartime bravery and skill as an intelligence officer should always command unstinting admiration. Political dissimulation, at which Neave excelled (as he showed during the Thatcher leadership campaign fifty years ago), is a quality every successful leader needs, as long as it is deployed with care and thought. But he was never remotely interested in political ideas. He supported Mrs Thatcher to the hilt without ever engaging in economic or social arguments, and was handicapped by being acutely sensitive to media criticism, which irritated his colleagues.
After 1975, he largely confined himself to his shadow cabinet responsibities for Northern Ireland, but in calling for tough new measures against the IRA he was rather overshadowed by Labour’s pugnacious Northern Ireland Secretary, Roy Mason, who implemented them. He formulated a plan to make Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom much stronger, but after his murder in 1979 Mrs Thatcher ditched the policy in favour of power-sharing between Unionist and Nationalist parties, which Ted Heath had introduced and which has carried the day ever since. It is hard to see how Airey Neave’s work can greatly assist Mrs Badenoch’s success.
Alistair Lexden
(Political Adviser to Airey Neave 1977-79)
House of Lords, London SW1
