Word: heath
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...Macmillan's constituency, which had voted Labor by 1,851 votes in a 1946 by-election. Shy, shaggy Kentishman Heath immediately captured the Tory matrons' vote. Says one: "When he flashed that smile of his, he won our hearts. From then on, we all called him Teddy among ourselves...
...Parliament. Unlike most Conservative candidates, Heath had no outside income. Staking his savings on an election that was still three years distant, he built one of the country's strongest Tory organizations, canvassed every house in town, held special meetings for professional people who are normally the backbone of the party-and played the national anthem on the piano. His name helped: to most Britons even today, the Ted Heath (no kin) is a bandleader, and young voters occasionally attended his rallies under the impression that there would be dancing. In the 1950 election Heath squeaked...
After his election to Parliament, "Teddy" Heath trimmed a syllable from his first name and several inches from his haircut. With help from a Savile Row tailor, the spruce new member for Bexley looked the very image of the up-and-coming New Conservative...
...election he was promoted to assistant whip, one of a band of Commons corporals charged with enforcing party discipline. Most ambitious young politicians shun the role, since whips are so heavily burdened with party duties that they have little chance to make their mark in the House, Heath leaped at the job, which he saw as a unique opportunity to master the subtle inner mechanisms of Parliament and party. Thanks to a natural and sometimes ruthless flair for handling men and anticipating trouble, he rose rapidly through the whips' ranks until, in 1955, he was elected chief whip...
When he had been in that post less than a year, Ted Heath's reputation was put to the test in the ordeal of the Suez crisis. For weeks a top-to-bottom split in Tory ranks threatened to topple the government. In night after night of impassioned debate, Ted Heath's plump, pink face bobbed up wherever, as one M.P. says, "there was a soul to be saved." Convinced that it was too perilous a time for a general election, he averted that disaster almost singlehanded...