Although Hastings claimed to have been invited to join Edward Heath's administration, his stance on Rhodesia effectively rendered him ineligible for office. Even Margaret Thatcher, whom he counted as an ally, kept him on the backbenches, though she recommended him for a knighthood in 1983. In his latter years at his Cambridgeshire home, Stibbington House, the only person whose photographs were displayed in more than one room (apart from those of his beloved late wife, Elizabeth Anne) were those of Smith.