“David Cameron is going to recapture it and, indeed, in a sense Cameron is the message.”
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Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine is a British politician. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket Media Group in 1957. Heseltine served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1966 to 2001. He was a prominent figure in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and served as Deputy Prime Minister an…
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business · British politician (born 1933) · horticulturist · politician · businessperson · autobiographer · publisher · also Michael Heseltine, Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, Heseltine
Born 21 March 1933 · Q332314
89 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 7 entries
“s The Week in Westminster. It is thought Eurosceptic MPs voted tactically to ensure Mr Clarke”
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“s grassroots members and choose someone else to lead them in Parliament. Michael Heseltine is a serial Conservative assasin Lord Tebbit Otherwise, he warns in a newspaper interview, the party will not have”
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“I am of a mind to do it. But I have only one bullet in my gun. I can”
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“not foresee ... circumstances”
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c-span: Michael Heseltine
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Yahoo: Michael Heseltine reveals his favourite snowdrops from his collection of 1,400 varieties
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2025· 1 entry
MutualArt.com: Sell Your Michael Heseltine
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2024· 1 entry
The Guardian: Much of Michael Heseltine’s advice to Angela Rayner is good, but he is wrong about local councils | Letter
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2023· 2 entries
The Guardian: Sunday with Michael Heseltine: ‘We see a lot of our children and our nine grandchildren’
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Heseltine appeared as the guest star in the first episode of The Rest Is Politics: Leading, a podcast hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart
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2019· 1 entry
Heseltine had the whip suspended after saying he would vote for the Liberal Democrats, rather than the Conservatives, at the 2019 European Parliament election
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2016· 4 entries
“At prep school, I started a birdwatching club called the Tit Club. Every member was named after a member of the tit family: the Marsh Tit, the Blue Tit. I was the Great Tit”
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– and since then have become even stronger in their views
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At the beginning of November 2016, drawing on an interview with Tatler magazine, it was reported that Heseltine had confessed to strangling his mother's Alsatian in 1964, after the animal had drawn blood, which was falsely interpreted as his having killed the dog.
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After the Brexit Referendum, comments that he and Heseltine later agreed that they had separately decided to give way because of the pressure Major was under, and that the referendum pledge "was the biggest single mistak
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2013· 1 entry
And Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms, but showed concerns over the legalisation of same-sex marriage
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2012· 1 entry
As part of The History of Parliament's oral history project
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2010· 1 entry
Was commissioned to draw up "Plan H" or "No Stone Left Unturned" to stimulate growth in local areas
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2008· 1 entry
Heseltine took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history
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2001· 2 entries
Career landmark: member of the House of Lords (2001).
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And has remained a vocal advocate of modernisation within the party
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1997· 4 entries
Awarded Companion of Honour (1997).
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Career landmark: member of the 52nd Parliament of the United Kingdom (1997–2001).
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Career landmark: Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade (1997–1997).
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Career landmark: Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1997–1997).
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1996· 1 entry
Heseltine was also one of the more hawkish ministers in urging non-cooperation with the European Community over the beef ban
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1995· 5 entries
Election won: 1995 leadership election.
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And was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State
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Career landmark: First Secretary of State (1995–1997).
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Career landmark: Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1995–1997).
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Campaign: 1995 leadership election.
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1994· 3 entries
Heseltine planned to privatise 40% of the Post Office, a move which the Conservatives had previously shied away from
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Re-emerged as a serious political player, beginning with his testimony for the Scott Report during the Arms-to-Iraq Inquiry (whose report eventually appeared in 1996)
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Chris Morris jokingly implied on BBC Radio 1 that Heseltine had died, and persuaded MP Jerry Hayes to broadcast an on-air tribute
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1992· 4 entries
Career landmark: Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (1992–1995).
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On grounds of national security) as demanded by the attorney-general Sir Nicholas Lyell, who advised him that ministers were obliged to sign such a certificate
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Was only with difficulty persuaded to refer Lloyds Bank's takeover bid for Midland Bank to the Office of Fair Trading
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Career landmark: member of the 51st Parliament of the United Kingdom (1992–1997).
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1990· 1 entry
Career landmark: Secretary of State for the Environment (1990–1992).
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1987· 1 entry
Career landmark: member of the 50th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1987–1992).
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1986· 3 entries
Over the Westland affair and returned to the backbenches, becoming a vocal critic of Thatcher, mostly because of her Eurosceptic views and confrontational approach in Parliament
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As he subsequently often wondered if he and Nigel Lawson might have been able to persuade Thatcher to abandon the tax
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And worried that Thatcher was unlikely to promote him further, was looking for an excuse for a resignation, which would put him in good stead to be elected party leader after, as seemed likely at the time, the Conservati
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1985· 3 entries
Accepting oil instead of cash (to the displeasure of Peter Walker, Energy Secretary) so that they would buy British rather than US aircraft
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Promoted his special adviser Peter Levene to be Chief of Defence Procurement; special arrangements had to be made to ensure that Levene did not make decisions affecting his own defence company United Scientific Holdin
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In The Observer, that from 1981 onwards and especially from 1983 she had been asked to pass on to DS19 (the propaganda unit at the Ministry of Defence) information obtained by wiretaps and by an MI5 mole in CID
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1984· 1 entry
(Jones arranged for the council to delegate the bid to the Merseyside Development Corporation, of which he was a director)
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1983· 3 entries
Local activists used a poster of Heseltine as a dartboard)
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Career landmark: member of the 49th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1983–1987).
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Career landmark: Secretary of State for Defence (1983–1986).
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1981· 1 entry
In which his junior minister Tom King personally spoke to every single backbench Conservative MP to canvass opinion about the various options
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1979· 6 entries
Career landmark: member of the 48th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1979–1983).
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Career landmark: Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom (1979).
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As the Conservatives were initially only proposing to denationalise the industries nationalised by Labour in the 1970s
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And opposed Geoffrey Howe's tight budget in 1981, suggesting a public sector pay freeze instead
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The Conservatives were strongly represented in local government, as a result of the unpopularity of the outgoing Labour government
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As Secretary of State for the Environment, where he promoted the "Right to Buy" campaign that allowed people to purchase their council houses
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1976· 1 entry
Career landmark: Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (1976–1979).
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1975· 4 entries
Election lost: 1975 leadership election.
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Campaign: 1975 leadership election.
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But he and Sir Harry Legge-Bourke, both of whom had distinguished war records, also deplored Heseltine's cutting short of his National Service and his brashness and new money
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And 1976 (where he likened Labour to a one-legged army marching "Left, left, left")
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1974· 5 entries
Career landmark: member of the 46th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1974–1974).
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(February or October) he would almost certainly have joined the Cabinet
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Career landmark: Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade (1974–1976).
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Career landmark: member of the 47th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1974–1979).
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Wanted him to campaign on council house sales (Heseltine offered up to 50% discounts for tenants who bought their homes) and reform of the rates, as she thought his predecessor Timothy Raison ineffective
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1973· 3 entries
Rumours began to circulate that the Tracked Hovercraft (known as the "Hovertrain"), a planned 300 mph floating train on which work had begun in 1967, was to be cancelled
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And 1979; in the event only 10 were ever sold, five each to British Airways (as BOAC had become in 1974) and Air France
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“Polluted rivers, filthy streets, bodies bedded down in doorways are no advertisement for a prosperous or caring society.”
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1972· 1 entry
Edward Heath attempted to persuade Heseltine, a strong supporter of his, to challenge Powellite MP Ronald Bell for the Conservative nomination for the new seat of Beaconsfield
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1971· 2 entries
Heseltine placed his shares in a trust controlled by his ministerial boss Peter Walker and by his solicitor Charles Corman
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And Heseltine, Masters and Tindall assembled a consortium of County Bank, Charterhouse Development, ICFC and Wren Investments to help buy out BPC's 60% stake for £1m, a very low price given that Haymarket had made over £
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1970· 2 entries
Career landmark: member of the 45th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1970–1974).
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Heseltine turned down the chance to invest £25,000 in the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi when it was set up (his former employee Maurice Saatchi said that he had learned a great deal from Heseltine's aggressive tec
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1969· 2 entries
When Barbara Castle had been replaced by Fred Mulley
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Although he continued as chairman of the board until he became a minister in 1970, at which point he resigned from the board altogether, whilst remaining a major shareholder
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1968· 2 entries
There were rumours that BPC was planning to sack Heseltine
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Margaret Thatcher became Heseltine's boss for a year; he found her "embarrassingly rude"
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1967· 1 entry
Peter Walker invited Heseltine to be opposition spokesman on transport (not a Shadow Cabinet-level position, but reporting to Walker), after he had arranged a successful speaking tour of the West Country for him
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1966· 1 entry
Career landmark: member of the 44th Parliament of the United Kingdom (1966–1970).
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1965· 1 entry
Heseltine's businesses had a turnover of around £700,000 per annum, and employed around 50 staff
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1962· 2 entries
Paid £10,000 for Topic, a weekly newspaper that had been launched the previous year by a group of entrepreneurs including the prime minister's son Maurice Macmillan, and which was now owned by Norman Mascall (a pyra
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As an Anglo-French project to try to get Britain into the EEC, although by the early 1970s Heath was already broaching cancellation with President Pompidou
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1961· 1 entry
Heseltine was one of 29 applicants—of whom half were interviewed—for the Conservative candidacy in the marginal constituency of Coventry North
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1960· 1 entry
Mainly looking after advertising and circulation for its Crossbow magazine (he does not seem to have written any articles or pamphlets himself)
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1958· 1 entry
Or Lord Carrington (Foreign Secretary) in 1982, Heseltine's junior ministers Norman Lamont and John Lee did not resign with him
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1933· 1 entry
Born 1933-03-21.
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