SENIOR government ministers urged former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to abandon Liverpool in the wake of the Toxteth riots, secret cabinet papers released for the first time today reveal.
The documents – released under the 30-year rule – show former Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Geoffrey Howe – himself MP for Bebington in the mid-1960s – advocating “managing the decline” of the city following the 1981 unrest.
But so potentially explosive was the idea that he stressed the term should not be used, even privately amongst ministers, because it was “much too negative”.
When the Daily Post contacted Sir Geoffrey – now Lord Howe of Aberavon – he said he had no recollection of the remark.
Around 300 pages of typed and hand-written notes, memos and reports – most marked strictly confidential – show the struggles behind the scenes between senior ministers and the then environment secretary Michael Heseltine, who had ambitious plans to regenerate the city.
But Sir Geoffrey warned Mrs Thatcher against the plans of the man who would come to be known as “minister for Merseyside”.
Sir Geoffrey wrote: “I fear that Merseyside is going to be much the hardest nut to crack. We do not want to find ourselves concentrating all the limited cash that may have to be made available into Liverpool and having nothing left for possibly more promising areas such as the West Midlands or, even, the North East.
“It would be even more regrettable if some of the brighter ideas for renewing economic activity were to be sown only on the relatively stony ground on the banks of the Mersey.
“I cannot help feeling that the option of managed decline is one which we should not forget altogether. We must not expend all our limited resources in trying to make water flow up-hill.”
But the now Lord Heseltine, who wanted a budget of around £100m a year to regenerate the city, argued that “there is no point in thinking for one moment that the exercise would be anything other than a disaster if I was not empowered to take real decisions on my own responsibility whilst I am there”.
Lord Heseltine – who was last year commissioned by Prime Minister David Cameron to write a report outlining how to draw more investment to Merseyside – wrote to Mrs Thatcher that there were key priorities which must be addressed, including “the need to back the maintenance of law and order, without giving the impression that this is the only issue involved”.
He added: “The need to deal with the particularly acute problems of Merseyside without raising demand elsewhere – and particularly without giving the impression that local communities can secure for their areas expenditure with riots.”
