TEDDY Taylor merits two mentions in Ted Heath’s memoirs, The Course of My Life. The first has Heath, when he formed a government, appointing the Cathcart MP - “at that time, a shining example of those European rebels who respected loyalty to the party” - as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. Taylor took the post but said he would quit if the government’s European policy developed beyond what he found acceptable. Heath accepted, “with regret”, Taylor’s subsequent resignation, on July 28, 1971, not long before Britain’s entry into the European Community - but, the former premier added, “there was none of the bitterness that became so depressingly familiar in the Conservative Party in the 1990s.” Once the dust was settled, Heath asked Taylor to rejoin his government.
The second reference dates from 1997, when Heath got into what one newspaper described as “ political battle of titanic proportions”with the billionaire financier, Sir James Goldsmith, when they “accused each other of lying about what Sir Edward did or did not know in 1960 about the future of the [European] community.” Heath records in his memoirs that he simply could not afford to sue Goldsmith for defamation of character, but he expresses his gratitude to Taylor for having written a public letter of support.
The photograph shows Heath visiting the Cathcart constituency prior to the February 1974 election; Taylor is half-hidden behind the PM.
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