The ‘semi-detached’ member of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet

John Biffen was mentally ill. This is the outstanding revelation of Semi-Detached, a memoir which has been assembled from his diaries and from the autobiographical writings which he completed before his death in 2007. During the mid-1960s he tried psychotherapy, which he described as ‘lugubrious’, ‘painful’ and ‘not a cure’. He got far better treatment from a Harley Street specialist, Peter Dally, who regulated his lithium doses with blood tests and improved his health to the point where he felt able to join the shadow cabinet in 1976. He served as Trade Secretary under Mrs Thatcher and later as Leader of the House. Biffen loved gossip. He reports a lunch meeting between Lord Windlesham and Ted Heath shortly before the 1979 election, during which Heath revealed his expectations of a political comeback. He would accept the chancellorship, he conceded, but not the Foreign Office, which was beneath his dignity. His great hope was for a Conservative defeat which would pave the way for a second bout of his leadership.