Forman was elected to the
House of Commons as
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Carshalton at its
by-election on 11 March 1976. He took the seat with a 10,000 majority over Labour, compared with Carr's 4,000 majority in October 1974. When the seat's boundaries were revised for the
1983 election it was renamed
Carshalton and Wallington. The seat, the eastern half of the
London Borough of Sutton, was socially mixed. In 1976 it had much social housing yet had streets of expensive detached houses and many middle class voters. All three major parties (Conservative, Labour and Liberal) had entrenched support and Forman's lead looked vulnerable to
tactical voting. The local Conservative leaders of the Council soon showed themselves to be resistant to concepts of modernisation that Forman espoused. Sutton was one of the few remaining councils in the UK that kept
selective education and council meetings were unusual in that Conservative councillors wore ceremonial robes to "give dignity" to them. Forman soon established himself as a bright and enthusiastic MP. During his first three months in the House he asked 64 formal questions of Ministers in the Labour government. His particular interests were nuclear power,
incomes policy, education policy and ministerial patronage. After the Conservatives returned to government in 1979, it was widely expected that Forman would soon obtain ministerial office. He served as
Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) first to
Lord Carrington in the Foreign Office and later to
Douglas Hurd in the Home Office. Forman soon became known as a moderate Conservative who differed with some of Thatcher's policies. In 1980 he spoke for greatly increasing child benefits and
James Prior’s attempt to have member votes bind trade unions through their voluntary agreement to do so. That year he was in the majorities who opposed reintroducing
capital punishment and limiting abortion rights. He also expressed alarm at mounting unemployment arising from the government’s economic and financial policies. He frequently called for a "one nation" approach in his speeches and writings. He disapproved of government policies which promoted London-bound internal migration and were socially divisive. He favoured closer integration of Britain with the
European Union. In February 1981, Labour MPs cheered him in the House when he asked the Chancellor (Howe) to act to halt the rise in unemployment. Forman advocated employment and economic policies which were broadly consistent with those pursued by the
Callaghan ministry. He was seen as a Conservative opponent of
Thatcherism. All this raised his profile in the House but it did not enhance his promotion prospects. In a 1983
Times piece senior Labour MP
Gerald Kaufman noted that Forman had been overlooked for promotion and that his obvious abilities were not being used. In 1984 Forman stood for chairman of the Conservative backbench finance committee, as a moderate "one nation" Tory – against incumbent right-winger Sir William Clark. Forman lost but had become clearly identified with "wets" and the
one-nation group of Tory MPs. In 1985, Forman published a pamphlet
Work to be done : employment policy for 1985 and beyond. This was deeply critical of government policy and advocated a package of measures to stimulate employment. Forman's progressive views did not endear him to his party's leaders in his local Council and association. Many of them regarded him as disloyal to Margaret Thatcher and a traitor. There were repeated attempts to deselect him. Matters came to a head in 1986 after the Liberal-SDP Alliance gained political control of the Council. Forman publicly attributed this to the shortcomings of the local Conservative leadership. The matter is described in the following extract from an article in
The Times on 21 May 1987:
“The Carshalton Conservative Association suffers from bigots and zealots who indulge in internecine warfare.” Not Labour smear tactics, nor Alliance innuendo, but the words of its Conservative MP, Mr Nigel Forman. Several attempts to deselect Mr Forman failed. But when the election was called last week, five of the seven senior officers took their revenge on the beleaguered MP by resigning. –
The Times, May 1987. However, Forman comfortably held his seat in the
1987 general election. His advocacy of redistributive but market-led policies was coupled with lack of a clear single Labour or Liberal/SDP opponent. This made Forman an acceptable candidate to many local voters who refrained from tactical voting to oust him. Forman won 54% of the vote, on high turnout, His political fortunes seemed to be in the ascendant.''“Has Chancellor Nigel Lawson gone soft? Yesterday he appointed as his PPS a Tory so wet he drips. As recently as last year, Nigel Forman, vice-chairman of the party's backbench finance committee, was publicly calling on the Chancellor to 'give top priority to the unemployment challenge'. The year before, in Mastering British Politics, he wrote: 'Occasionally, in the course of its long history, the Conservative party has been swept along on the wave of some particular ideology, but such periods have not usually lasted or brought enduring political success'.”
– "Rising Damp", The Times'', June 1987. The ideology Forman referred to was the then fashionable combination of
supply side economics,
monetarism,
deregulation and
privatisation known in the 1980s as
Thatcherism. After Mrs Thatcher was forced from office in late 1990 it was considered only a matter of time before Forman would be promoted. ==Later Parliamentary career==