98 Tories Desert Thatcher on Plan to Boost Pay of Top Officials

In one of the clearest indicators yet of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s slipping political dominance, 98 Conservatives staged a major revolt in Parliament on Wednesday by abstaining or voting against her plan to give top-level government and military officials large pay increases.

Although Thatcher’s plan eventually scraped through after a prolonged and often heated debate, the 17-vote margin of victory was a major embarrassment for a government that commands a 140-vote advantage in the 650-seat House of Commons.

It was the nearest her government has come to defeat on a major issue since she won reelection by a landslide in 1983. Forty-eight Tory members of Parliament voted against the government, while 50 others abstained.

Twenty-three opposition members of Parliament were absent when the vote was taken, including Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who is visiting drought-stricken areas of East Africa.

Thatcher’s government is in no imminent danger, with Parliament only a few days away from its summer recess and no elections scheduled before the summer of 1988. The vote, however, follows the release of two public opinion polls late last week that showed the Conservatives running third behind the Labor Party and the Liberal-Social Democratic alliance. The Conservatives also suffered a humiliating defeat in a parliamentary by-election in Wales earlier this month, finishing third in the race for the Brecon and Radner constituency, a seat won by Thatcher’s party in 1983.

Wednesday’s dispute was over the government’s recommendation of pay raises of as much as 46% for two dozen of the country’s most senior civil servants, which came as the government has steadfastly refused to offer more than 6% to striking schoolteachers. Thatcher’s decision to back the raises appeared to reinforce the growing negative image of her as an uncaring leader, insensitive to the problems of those at the middle and lower reaches of the economic scale.

“The government’s case is unfair,” said Conservative Patrick Thompson, who voted with the opposition.

The vote came on the only increase requiring parliamentary approval, a $15,000 raise in the salary of the leader of the House of Lords, Lord Hailsham, to the equivalent of about $109,000. The debate that preceded the vote, though, centered on all the pay raises.

Roy Hattersley, deputy Labor leader, led the attack against Thatcher, accusing her of arrogance and a lack of social justice. “She is prepared to subsidize extravagance for the rich and not justice for the poor,” he charged.

The Conservatives’ leader in the House of Commons, John Biffin, defended the increases as a government obligation, necessary to keep high-quality people in top civil service jobs. Other Conservatives noted that in 1978, the Labor government had voted 35% increases to senior government servants with little opposition.

A close aide to the prime minister said the revolt was triggered, in part, because many Conservative members of Parliament were not adequately briefed on the raises.

The aide stated that because of the unpopularity of the move, Thatcher was advised to grant the increases now rather than wait until elections were closer at hand.

There was also speculation that many of the rebel Conservatives, especially those who face difficult reelection campaigns, used the issue to demonstrate to their constituents a degree of independence from a prime minister whose personal style is seen by some as becoming a political liability.