Michael Heseltine: A Biography

Michael Heseltine seems destined now to go down in history as the man who dragged down a Prime Minister, rather than for becoming PM himself. It has been a burning ambition since school, and, but for the odd misjudgement, he might so easily have made it to No. 10. But though often the darling of the Tory conference, he was never forgiven by the Thatcherites and never quite overcame the suspicions and distaste of the old-fashioned party grandees.Heseltine's has been a career littered with controversy and confrontation: from the question of how he managed to cut short his National Service, to the story of the Heseltine houses whose buyers besieged him with complaints; from the time his constituency almost dropped him for insulting the Royal Family, to accusations of lying to MPs; and then, of course, there were better-known incidents such as seizing the Commons Mace and walking out of Mrs Thatcher's Cabinet.In the most detailed examination yet published of Michael Heseltine's career, Crick assesses his sixteen years in some of the leading ministerial jobs, and explains why he has never made it to the very top. Telling the story of Heseltine the tycoon, he also examines how Heseltine almost went bankrupt but then recovered to make millions from a series of revolutionary publishing ventures and brilliant financial deals.