l4sfdrx

428 INTO THE THATCHER ERA
remain union members if they agreed not to engage in strike
activity.41
The fly in the ointment was Bernard Ingham, Margaret
Thatcher's Press Secretary. Howe captures Ingham's role perfectly
when he says that his strength lay in 'his ability to articulate
the Prime Minister's prejudices more crisply even than she could
herself'. Ingham told Thatcher that the press would see a
compromise as a sign of weakness - in effect a 'U-turn'. Lord
Gowrie, Minister for the Civil Service, and Thatcher'S Principal
Private Secretary, Sir Robin Butler, were also against compromise.
42 Accordingly, on 28 February there was a second meeting,
and the compromise was rejected. The unions then played into
Thatcher'S hands by calling a one-day strike. The TUC had given
a lot of ground, and Robert Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary,
had expected the compromise to be accepted. Indeed, he had
signalled as much to the unions, and was now embarrassed.
The Foreign Office later argued that the deal offered did not
provide 'sufficient guarantees'. In truth, it was rejected on a
prime ministerial whimY
John Somerville, who served as GCHQ's Principal
Establishment Officer throughout the 1970s, observed: 'When
the union put their teeth on the table in February 1984, I cannot
understand why the Prime Minister did not pick them Up.'44
Brian Tovey also told. the Employment Select Committee that
the no-strike deal offered by Len Murray during the talks at
Downing Street would have been much preferable to a ban on
union membershipY However, the Prime Minister was now
very much in the driving seat. Indeed, in setting up the new
Government Communications Staff Federation, which was
designed to replace the unions, Peter Marychurch was very
careful to refer back to London to identify the precise terms
under which this body would be acceptable to the government. 46
They included making its activities subject to veto by both the
Director of GCHQ and the Foreign Secretary.47
On 27 February 1984 an acrimonious House of Commons
debated the GCHQ ban. The nub of the issue was disruption,