Obituary: Jim Prior

Jim Prior was a key figure in Conservative administrations led by Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher, a friend and political ally of the former and a wary colleague of the latter. Indeed as a minister in Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinets between 1979 and 1984, he was perhaps the most tenacious critic of her economic policies. He lost this battle and saw his warnings of the political and electoral disasters which awaited the party confounded.

Tall, heavily built, with a florid complexion, white hair, twinkling eyes and deliberate in speech, Prior was redolent of the countryside. He was also in the One Nation tradition of Conservatism, with its emphasis on social cohesion and full employment and state provision of welfare.

Prior was born in Norwich in 1927 and retained a life-long connection with the Norolk area. His father was a director of Norwich Football Club and his son became a keen supporter of the club, playing for a spell for its amateur team. As a young man he bought and improved a 16th century rundown house and farm in Brampton and lived in it for the rest of his life. His father, a successful country lawyer, sent Jim to Charterhouse, where he was one of a small group of boys who kept pigs, with the support of the headmaster Robert Birley.

After military service, Prior went to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he took a first in Estate Management. It was almost by accident he found himself adopted for the Labour seat of Lowestoft, on the Suffolk coast. He won the seat in the 1959 general election and held it until 1983 when, following boundary changes, it was largely reorganised as Waveney.

In Parliament, Prior’s career prospects were changed significantly by his appointment in 1965 as PPS to the new Conservative leader Ted Heath. Heath was not a good mixer, had little small talk and was no great believer in awarding political honours to sustain support. There was surprise when Heath as Prime Minister appointed Prior (still his PPS) as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, with a seat in Cabinet in his new government in June 1970. Although Prior’s country squire appearance and his own farming background made him a natural for the department, it smacked of cronyism. In November 1972 he switched to become Leader of the House of Commons, with the sinecure post of Lord President of the Council; he also chaired a number of Cabinet committees. By now he was one of Heath’s inner group of colleagues and a central figure in the decisions of the government to begin the notorious policy U-turns – towards intervention in the economy and the adoption of a statutory prices and incomes policy.

As the party’s Deputy Chairman he was one of those who argued that Heath should call an early general election, in January 1974, to seek a fresh mandate in the face of the coal miners’ strike. Heath decided to delay in the hope of reaching a settlement and when he called an election for 28 February, he lost narrowly.

A second election defeat in October further depressed morale and made Heath’s continued leadership virtually impossible. Heath resisted Prior’s urgings to offer himself for re-election as leader immediately but eventually submitted himself for re-election and was eliminated on the first ballot by Margaret Thatcher in February 1975. Prior entered the second leadership ballot and did badly.

In opposition under Mrs Thatcher he was Shadow Spokesman on Employment. This was a high profile post, at a time of income policies and social contracts with the trade unions. He kept up his contacts with union leaders and was an influential voice on Conservative economic policy making. Whereas Mrs Thatcher wanted to break with some policies of the Heath government, Prior represented continuity.

In 1979 she appointed Prior to Employment but had her own supporters in the key economic posts. Prior favoured a modest measure (the ‘softly, softly’ approach) to strike a fairer balance between employers and trade unions and wanted to avoid a future confrontation with the unions. But he came under strong pressure from Thatcher and her advisers to take bolder steps. He resisted and was backed by his senior officials still retained the old Ministry of Labour belief in conciliation in industrial relations.

The radicals around Thatcher were determined to place a trade union’s funds at risk when it broke the law and more radical measures were introduced by Prior’s successor Norman Tebbit. Perhaps too scarred by the experiences of the 1970s he overestimated the power of the trade unions and underestimated the public’s willingness to support tough action against their excesses. His brand of politics was in decline.

Prior’s dissent from the government’s economic policy was well known. He protested over Sir Geoffrey Howe’s first budget in 1979, which doubled the rate of VAT on many items. The turning point for Thatcher, however, was Howe’s 1981 budget. This, unprecedently, cut the borrowing requirement during a steep recession; over two and a half million people were out of work and the figure was rising. He and two other Cabinet ministers briefly considered resignation. Thatcher got her budget but she was resolved on a far-reaching reshuffle in September 1981.

Prior had let it be known that he would resign (a Daily Mail interview was headlined “’ll fight like hell”) than be moved to the trailed post of Northern Ireland. When he finally acquiesced in a move to become Secretary of State of Northern Ireland his credibility was damaged and he was removed from the key economic decisions.

He took over during the IRA hunger strike and helped to bring it to an end after a few weeks. Prior hoped that his negotiating skills and personal warmth would help to bring Nationalist and Unionist politicians closer. He introduced a scheme for rolling devolution but lost some standing following escapes from the Maze prison. He also had to endure the heavy security presence for himself and his young family; he was a target for assassination. When he left the government in September 1984 his brand of Conservatism was no longer fashionable.

Jim Prior was never consumed by politics and left the House of Commons in 1987, to pursue other interests. He became chairman of GEC, succeeding Lord Carrington, recruited by Sir Arnold Weinstock. He amassed a number of directorships including Barclays, Sainsburys and United Biscuits and was Chairman of Allders (1989-94). He also took a life peerage as Prior of Brampton in Suffolk. In retirement he was no longer involved in Conservative party politics; he held fast to his political principles but ruefully acknowledged the gains made by many of Thatcher’s policies.

In 1986 Prior published A Balance of Power, an autobiography and statement of his political outlook. He remained a keen sportsman, particularly enjoying cricket and tennis, and enjoyed his farm and garden. Throughout his career he was sustained by the strong support of his wife Jane, whom he married in 1954; she died in 2015. They were a close family and had three sons and a daughter. One son, David, was a Conservative MP (1997 -2001) and is now a junior minister in the Lords.