• As a rule, upsetting Margaret Thatcher is not a
Page 40
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
recipe for success. (Ask David Howell, among many others). But there are a few exceptions to that rule. Among this select band is John Steele, the EEC Commission's transport director-general, who retires next week.
It is rumoured that Steele got the job because in 1980, when he was a senior Whitehall official, the PM asked him a question. As he did not know the answer he replied, "I don't know, Prime Minister". Mrs T thought he should have known. So she banished him to Brussels. a place she regards with as much distaste as Department of Transport officials do the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Centre at Swansea.
Whether the PM realised that this meant that Steele would earn a lot more than she does is not clear. What she could not have foreseen was that, during Steele's sixyear stint, the Common Transport Policy would at last start to take shape. (Not everyone likes that shape, but that is the fault of the Treaty of Rome.) So Steele has done well on both counts. Now he is retiring early, with a very generous golden handshake based on his large salary, to make way for a Spanish diplomat. Will this stiniulate more civil servants to parade their ignorance before the PM?