T5 Political Flashcards by Alannah .

Thatcher’s personality and leadership style

Thatcher’s leadership style was problematic for her popularity both within the Party and in the country at large.
Thatcher tended to be quite dismissive of her ministers, and could be harsh and aggressive in cabinet meetings if they antagonized her – Geoffrey Howe was known to have had to put up with a lot of ‘abuse’ from Thatcher over the years.
Thatcher had also fallen out with Heseltine and many senior Conservatives she would have characterised as ‘wets’ earlier in her premiership.
In the wider country Thatcher’s controversial policies created some staunch opposition – such as her handling of the Miners’ Strike and her broader economic policies which came across as uncaring.
Thatcher did appear out of touch – at times her appearances in the media seemed quite bizarre – in one interview regarding the birth of her grandchild Thatcher referred to herself in the third person, ‘One has become a grandmother’ - this opened her up to mockery that she saw herself as a monarch.

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The Poll Tax (1989 - 1990)

Margaret Thatcher believed that the general public would continue to support her as she continued with her drive for more accountability in local government.
It was this thinking that led to the Community Charge (popularly called the Poll Tax), which was introduced into Scotland in 1989 and in England and Wales in 1990.
The Poll Tax has been called ‘a reform too far’.
Few issues in modern times have caused such widespread public anger.
Yet it was never intended to be a dramatic reform.
It was meant to rationalise the existing system of raising money through rates, which nearly
everybody agreed was unfair.
A pensioner living alone, for example, might well be charged the same rates as a household of
four wage-earners living in a property of equal value.
The plan was now to tax people rather than property.
The idea of a community charge or a poll tax in place of the rates system came from the rightwing and free-market think-tank called the ‘Adam Smith Institute’.
It suggested that since there would be 38 million poll-tax payers, compared to only 14 million ratepayers, payment for local services would be more evenly and justly spread.
Moreover, if everybody had to pay for local services then everybody would become more conscious of the quality of services they provided.
Impressed by this reasoning Thatcher judged that the Community Charge would make local authorities more answerable to their ‘customers’, who would be the people now paying for their services. Her hope was that local electors would embrace the poll tax and then go on to vote outhigh spending Labour-run local government councils and instead vote Conservative.
This was a serious miscalculation and the opposite happened.
The poll tax created fury in the country at large, provided a cause around which her opponents could rally and alienated some of the Conservative Party’s staunchest supporters. Opposition to the poll tax was immediate and organised with millions of people refused or
avoided paying it. Those most serious disturbances came with a violent anti-poll tax demonstration in London’s Trafalgar Square on 31st March 1990.
A further irony was that, owing to the resistance it aroused, the poll tax cost two-and-a-half times more to collect than the rates had.

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Conservative Divisions over Europe

Thatcher, despite signing the Single European Act in 1986, grew increasingly concerned about the direction of the EEC.
She gave a controversial speech in Bruges in 1988 where she criticised the drift towards federalism, bemoaning the loss of distinct national identify and sovereignty that would entail.
Thatcher claimed not to have realised the Single European Act would weaken nation states.
Thatcher approved of the single market from an economic standpoint, and wanted emphasis on EU being a trading rather than a political union.
Thatcher’s speech was intended to be constructive, but it angered EU leaders, while encouraging Euro-sceptic MPs (a ‘Bruges Group’ was soon formed to oppose European federalism).
Some in the Conservative Party such as Howe and Major believed Thatcher was going back on her position on Europe in the mid 1980’s, while others believed it was the EU leaders who deserved criticism for ‘changing the goal posts’.
Geoffrey Howe resigned over this issue, and gave a speech in the House of Commons that was seen as extremely damaging to Thatcher, as he criticised her leadership explicitly, which was all
the more serious coming from such a long-standing Thatcherite

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Thatcher’s Increasing Euroscepticism

Thatcher claimed that she had been misled into entering the ERM in 1990 by her former Chancellor of Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, and her Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe.
Both ministers were to play an important role in weakening Margaret Thatcher’s position as Prime Minister.
In 1989 Nigel Lawson had resigned when he found that the Prime Minister was taking the advice of Alan Walters, whom she had appointed as her special economic advisor, than she was from Lawson who was the Chancellor.
Geoffrey Howe, a pro-European, made a similar charge, claiming that the Prime Minister’s aggressive anti-European stance was distorting his attempts as Foreign Secretary to smooth Britain’s entry into the ERM.
On 31st October 1990, on Thatcher’s return from a top-level European meeting in Rome where she had openly declared that Britain would never join a European single-currency, she stated in the House of Commons: ‘The President of the Commission, M.Delores, said at this conference that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the community, he wanted the Commission to be the executive [government], and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No, No, No!’

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Geoffrey Howe’s Famous Resignation Speech (1990)

It was in the wake of Thatcher’s ‘No, No, No!’ speech that Geoffrey Howe, feeling his role in government was no longer possible, resigned.
In his resignation speech in the House of Commons on 13th November 1990, he revealed the serious divisions within the Conservative Party over Europe.
Read in Howe’s characteristically flat undertones, which expressed sorrow rather than anger, it amounted to a devasting criticism of Thatcher’s obstructive attitude to Europe and her undermining of his position.
In a cricketing metaphor he likened himself to a batsman arriving at the wicket only to find that his bat had been broken by the team captain.
Howe’s criticism of Thatcher proved devastating.
It was the prelude to a leadership struggle that led to her resignation.

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The Fall of Margaret Thatcher

Given the anger and disappointment aroused by the government’s poll tax policy, it was no
surprise that the Conservatives lost all four by-elections held in 1989 and 1990.
In April 1990, opinion polls showed that Labour had gained a 20% lead over the Conservatives.
The opinion polls also revealed that Thatcher’s personal popularity rating was lower than any time
in her eleven-year premiership.
Such developments led to a growing number of backbench Conservative MPs to question whether
she could win the next general election, for the Conservative Party, if she remained their leader.
This feeling was intensified by the disagreements over Europe and the economy, as evidenced by
the resignations Lawson in 1989 and Geoffrey Howe in 1990 with his devastating resignation
speech.
It was in this atmosphere that Michael Heseltine, who had been bitter towards the Prime Minister
ever since the 1986 Westland Affair, decided in November 1990 to mount an open challenge to
Thatcher for leadership of the Conservative Party.

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The Leadership Contest (1990)

Heseltine announced his candidacy for the leadership of the party. Although in the ensuing
contest Margaret Thatcher won the first ballot by 52 votes, which was less than the 15% majority
required by Conservative Party rules. Thatcher regarded the narrowness of the margin as
evidence that she had lost the confidence of two out of five of the Conservative MPs.
Thatcher took an individual sounding of her cabinet colleagues. With a few exceptions, they all
told her, some openly weeping, that her time was up. So, she withdrew from the second ballot
and announced she would resign as soon as her successor was chosen. By the time the second ballot was held John Major and Douglas Hurd had entered the leadership race. This ended Michael Heseltine’s leadership chances. He had gone a long way to removing Margaret Thatcher only to find that the majority of the Conservative Party did not really want him. The preferred John Major.

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John Major’s Appeal as Leader

In 1990 shortly after the resignation of Howe, Michael Heseltine announced a leadership
challenge.
Heseltine was a longstanding critic of Thatcher, having resigned from her government in 1986.
In the first ballot Thatcher got 204 votes to Heseltine’s 152.
This meant that a second ballot was required as Thatcher had not got a strong enough majority.
Thatcher had intended to fight on initially, but after meeting with her Cabinet members
individually she realised that most of them advised her against continuing.
Cabinet ministers Douglas Hurd and John Major then joined the race following Thatcher’s
resignation.
Major likely won the Conservative leadership election as Heseltine was not a uniting figure – and
Major was younger and more energetic than Hurd.
Major was supported by Thatcher, believing him to be ‘one of us’, although he would disappoint
Thatcher with many of his policies when in office.

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New Conservative Leadership (John Major’s Honeymoon)

The Conservatives had been re-elected in a landslide at the 1987 general election under the
leadership of Margaret Thatcher.
But her popularity and that of her government sharply declined due to internal divisions in the
party due to:
The unpopular Community Charge (also known as the ‘poll tax’).
The issue of Europe (especially since her 1988 Bruges Speech opposing a European federal
superstate).
Britain was sliding into recession in the run-up to her resignation in November 1990.
Thatcher’s overthrow and replacement by John Major provided the Conservative Party with a ‘new face’ enabling the Conservatives to rebrand themselves as a ‘fresh’ new force.
John Major was often depicted as a grey ‘boring’ character on the political satire Spitting Image.
But as a new Conservative leader Major had the benefit of a ‘honeymoon’ period with the British public.
In 1992 the public welcomed a more calming prime ministerial style to that of the often harsh,
provocative and combative approach taken by Thatcher to politics.
John Major was ideologically a Thatcherite when it came to economics, but was also pro-European unlike Thatcher.

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The End of the Poll Tax (1991)

The poll tax was abandoned in 1991 and replaced by the current ‘Council Tax’ by John Major.
This provided another boost in the polls for John Major as this was a major reason for the
unpopularity of Thatcher during the end of her premiership.
The Labour opposition made repeated calls for a general election to be held during 1991, but John
Major resisted these calls and waited until the following year for anger over the Poll Tax to
subside.

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Victory in the First Gulf War (1991)

On 16th January 1991, Operation Desert Storm began the 1st Gulf War (1990 - 1991).
Although the 1991 Gulf War was essentially an US-led war, Britain did provide the second largest
contingent of troops (approximately 50,000 British service personnel).
This was John Major’s first foreign affairs crisis and the quick and successful outcome on the
conflict led to a boost in opinion polls for Major, in spite of the deepening recession and rising
unemployment.

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Continuing Economic Recession:

As 1992 dawned, the recession had still not ended, unemployment now topped 2.5 million.
The election loomed, with most opinion polls suggested that the election would produce a hung
parliament or a narrow Labour majority.
Although the lead in the polls had shifted between Tory and Labour on several occasions since November 1990.

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Incorrect Opinion Polls

Until the week before polling day on 8th April 1992, it was generally assumed, even by some
Conservatives, that, after 13 years in power, the government would lose.
By April 1990, the Labour Party now had a 20% point lead over the Conservatives in opinion polls.
This was well received by the public; Labour lost some momentum as it reduced the impact of
their calls for ‘Time for a Change’.
The next general election was due in 1992 and many Conservative MPs began to fear they may
lose their seats to Labour.
Later it was to emerge that the opinion polls were inaccurate and that many people intending to
still vote Conservative were reluctant to admit it to pollsters.

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The Sheffield Rally (1992)

However, the Labour Party conducted by Neil Kinnock conducted a poorly judged campaign.
This was evident in an embarrassing and ill-conceived rally in Sheffield the week before the
election.
Copying the razzmatazz style of American politics, the Labour Party campaigners put on an
extravaganza with blaring music and announcements with spotlights picking out members of the
shadow cabinet who walked onto the platform through ranks of cheering admirers.
The climax came with Neil Kinnock bounding up the temperature and exchanging cries with the
audience of ‘Right… well all right… well all right!’ as if he were at an American political rally.
Kinnock later admitted that the triumphalism had been both premature and rather tasteless,
although he disputed that it had lost the Labour Party the election.
In fact, opinion poll analysis later showed that most people had already made up their minds
regarding their voting intentions and the television coverage of the Sheffield Rally had little impact
upon the election.

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Labour’s Promised Tax Rises

Labour still had the reputation for economic incompetence, while the Conservative Party had the
reputation for economic competence.
More seriously for the Labour Party, it got itself into a tangle by presenting a shadow budget that
seemed to threaten large increases in taxation.
John Major exploited that exploited this by literally standing on a soap-box and suggesting in a
homely way that only the Conservative Party could be trusted to responsibly run the economy.

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The Emergence of the Liberal Democrats

Prior to the 1992 General Election the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) merged
to form the Liberal Democrats (usually called the ‘Lib-Dems’) under the leadership of Paddy
Ashdown.
The Liberal Democrats share of the popular vote pulled many potential Labour voters thereby
splitting the Anti-Tory vote.
This gave the Conservative Party and electoral advantage given the first-past-the-post electoral
system.

‘It’s the Sun What Won it!’

Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun Newspaper was instrumental in its support for the Conservative Party.
At a time before the internet, The Sun, was by far the largest of all the newspapers in terms of its mass circulation and readership numbers.
The support of one the main leaders and shapers of popular opinion helped explain the late and decisive win of John Major.
On the day of the election, The Sun, headline read, ‘If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn the lights out’.
The following day when the Conservative election victory was apparent it ran the self-congratulatory headline, ‘It’s the Sun What Won It’.

Poll Tax change to the Community Charge

Major inherited the unpopular Poll Tax policy from Thatcher in 1990.
Major had to tread carefully to avoid dividing the Party – if he had immediately abolished the Poll Tax when he took over he would have angered loyal Thatcherites.
Major took his time and engaged in lengthy discussions and negotiations, before finally replacing the Poll Tax with Council Tax in November 1991.
This may have restored some popularity prior to the 1992 General Election.

The Back-to-Basics Campaign

John Major launched an attempt to revitalise traditional British values and decency in society with
a speech advocating a ‘Back to Basics’ approach.
Whilst Major himself didn’t intend this policy to be dealing with issues of personal morality, the
press picked up on comments from some other Tory backbenchers who were critical of single
mothers to portray ‘Back to Basics’ as a moral crusade.
When Conservative ministers were found to have been behaving in immoral ways themselves,
this left Major and the Conservatives open to being accused of hypocrisy, and the stories were
plastered all over the tabloid newspapers.
There were over a dozen sex scandals, two of which involved Cabinet ministers Tim Yeo and David
Mellor, both of whom were forced to resign.
Other scandals involved financial abuses and corruption. In 1994 the Scott Enquiry which had
been established by Major to investigate illegal arms dealing found that two Cabinet ministers
had been ‘economical with the truth’ when allowing the firm Matrix Churchill to supply weapon
components to Iran. Two leading Conservatives – Jonathan Aitkin and Jeffrey Archer – were
convicted of perjury.
Neil Hamilton, a Conservative MP, was accused of accepting ‘cash for questions’ for the owner of
Harrods – Al Fayed, and was financially ruined when he lost a libel case. To Major’s frustration
Hamilton refused to resign – so the issue rumbled on until the 1997 election.
The sexual misconduct and corruption began to be collectively referred to as ‘Tory sleaze’, and
this certainly cost Major and the Conservatives considerable popularity in the polls.
John Major was also a target for satire. Private Eye created a spoof ‘The Secret Diary of John Major
aged 47 and three quarters, while the puppeteers at Spitting Image presented Major as grey and
boring, and finally The Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell caricatured him as a grey superhero with
his Y Fronts on top of his trousers.
The satire wasn’t vicious, but it did create the impression of a nice but ineffective leader which
stuck to Major in the years ahead.

The Citizen’s Charter (1991)

Major introduced the Citizens Charter in 1991.
This policy attempted to public service users more power by giving them more information about
the standards of services they should expect companies to provide.
In education, there would be more testing, with league tables to allow parents to compare the
quality of schools.
Some aspects of the policy – such as the ‘Cones hotline’, where drivers could report lanes being
closed on motorways without any evidence of road works, were widely mocked and satirised.

Attempted Coal Pit Closures (1991)

Heseltine announced the scheduled closing of 31 unprofitable mining pits in 1991.
This was controversial, especially as it involved closing some pits in Nottinghamshire, an area that had not gone on strike in 1984 and so was seen by some Conservatives as deserving support.
The outcry and criticism forced Heseltine to temporarily halt the closures, although they went ahead in the end.

Continued Privatisation (1994 – 1996)

Major continued with privatisation, maintaining Thatcher’s policy.
The coal industry was privatised in 1994 and the railways in 1996.
The Major government was however forced to abandon their attempt to privatise the Post Office
after public concern.

The BSE Crisis (Mad Cow’s Disease)

The BSE crisis (better known as Mad Cow’s disease) also rocked the Major government.
This disease had first been identified in the mid 1980s, but was recognised as a potential threat
to human health in 1996.
This led to British beef being banned from export within the EEC.
The government did attempt to restore confidence in the safety of British beef, slightly
undermined by some high profile human cases of BSE.

The 1995 Conservative Leadership Contest

During the last years of Thatcher’s premiership, Conservative Party internal divisions, had become
more apparent.
While Thatcher was seen as an electoral asset these disagreements did not seem to matter, but
as her popularity weakened, they became more open.
Thatcher’s use of Professor Alan Walters as an economic advisor infuriated Nigel Lawson, who
resigned as her Chancellor in 1989.
Thatcher then alienated Geoffrey Howe by moving him from the Foreign Office to a lesser post
and he resigned in 1990 prompting the leadership contest that led to her downfall.
These two famous resignations were partly about Thatcher’s personality and style of leadership.
In his 1990 resignation speech in Parliament, Howe complained that Thatcher’s undermining of her own ministers over Europe was ‘rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, only to find, as the first bowls are being bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain’.

Continued Conservative Divisions under Major

* Despite Major’s best efforts to unify the Conservative Party, and despite the electoral success of the 1992 General Election, the divisions within the Conservative Party worsened. * Right-Wingers within the Conservative Party pushed for more radical social policies. * Politicians with leadership ambitions saw a chance to advance their leadership claims. * Eurosceptics saw a chance to push Major’s government to the edges of Europe and out of the EU altogether. * Like scandals and sleaze, these divisions had the effect of drowning out any government achievements.

John Major and the Maastricht Treaty

* In July 1993, rebels blocked Major’s attempt to get parliament to ratify the Maastricht Treaty. * Major won the vote by threatening a vote of no confidence which, if he had lost, would have led to the dissolution of parliament and a general election. * The Conservatives were far behind in the polls, so this threat made sure he got sufficient support. But it damaged Major’s authority and made him appear weak. * His inability to silence the rebels was shown when he was asked ‘off the record’ by a TV reporter why he did not sack them. * Thinking the microphone was off, Major replied: ‘Think from my perspective, a prime minister with a majority of eighteen. Do we want three more bastards out there?’ * The quote leaked to the Daily Mirror, became headline news, and made it harder for Major to position himself with the Eurosceptics.

Right-Wing Press Speculation

* Right-Wing press speculation continued about Major’s future and possible challengers for the Conservative Party leadership from disaffected cabinet ministers. * The names of Michael Portillo and John Redwood were frequently mentioned. * Comment pieces in the right-wing press was relentlessly hostile, openly calling for a stronger leader to replace Major to ‘save the party’ given the coming 1997 General Election.

‘Back Me or Sack Me!’

* By the Summer of 1995, John Major felt so insecure that he called for a Conservative Party leadership contest so that he could be re-elected to his own job and to put an end to all speculation about who would lead the Conservative Party in the future 1997 General Election. * It was a case of ‘put up or shut up’.

The 1995 Leadership Contest

* On 22nd June 1995 John Major initiated a Conservative Party leadership election to try to silence his critics and to re-establish his authority over the party and government. * Michael Portillo decided not to run so the main challenger was John Redwood, who was backed by the Thatcherites and Eurosceptics. * Before the ballot Major met with Heseltine and agreed that Heseltine would become the deputy prime minister. * Heseltine made sure that everybody knew that he had voted for John Major. * The result of the first ballot was decisive: 218 votes for Major and only 89 votes for Redwood. There was no need for a second ballot.

The 1995 Conservative Leadership Contest Consequences

* John Major’s authority as Prime Minister was greatly weakened in the eyes of the general public. * The Conservative Party continued to remain split of Europe and the infighting continued despite the 1995 Conservative Leaders Contest result. * In contrast the New Labour opposition under Tony Blair appeared strong and united as a party that was ready for future government. * Tony Blair would famously mocked John Major and Conservative divisions in parliament with the jibe: ‘I lead my party, he follows his!’

Continued Problems for Major

* However, despite this win Major faced problems. * Eighty-Nine Conservative MPs had voted against him, when his government had only a small parliamentary majority, and the attitude of the right-wing press remained as hostile as ever.

The Undermining Influence of Thatcher

* Adding fuel to the criticism of Major’s leadership was Thatcher. She encouraged the Conservative Eurosceptic rebels by demanding a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union. * Thatcher’s memoirs, published just after the Conservative Party Conference in 1993, were only lukewarm about Major as her successor. * She gave her support to John Redwood in his leadership challenge to Major during the 1995 leadership contest. * In the run-up to the 1997 General Election, her comments seemed to show more positive approval of Tony Blair than John Major.

Labour under Kinnock (1987 – 1992)

* Following Labour’s defeat in 1987 Kinnock sought to continue to reorganise the Labour Party and moved policies towards the centre. * Peter Mandelson masterminded the presentation of the party as Director of Communications in 1985. * John Smith became shadow Chancellor in 1987, giving the party a reassuring image of economic competence. * Following a policy review post 1987 most of the left wing 1983 manifesto had been ditched including more divisive issues like withdrawing from the EU and unilateral nuclear disarmament * Kinnock also signalled an intent to weaken links between the Party and trade unions by ending Labour’s support for closed shop union agreements in 1989. * While these measures certainly concerned left-wing Labour MPs, they made the party look more electable, and Labour’s position started to improve in the polls, with Labour looking in a strong position to win the 1992 election

Labour under John Smith (1992 – 1994)

* When Kinnock resigned following defeat in 1992, the Chancellor John Smith stepped up to become PM. * Smith presented as a serious politician who could be trusted on the economy. * He continued Kinnock’s lead on taking a tougher line with the Unions, moving to abolish the One Member, One Vote for Parliamentary candidates in 1993. * However, Smith surprisingly died of a heart attack in 1994, aged just 55.

Labour under Tony Blair (1994 – 1997)

* After Smith’s death, a divisive leadership contest was avoided when the two leading candidates, Blair and Brown, made a deal which led to Blair becoming leader, while Brown would become Chancellor. * The deal gave Brown unprecedented autonomy over economic policy, and became controversial later on as Brownites believed Blair had agreed to step aside to allow Brown to ‘have a go’ at PM in the future. * Tensions between Blair and Brown would intensify over the years, although they did achieve much together in government. * Both Blair and Brown were modernisers – with Blair being keen to remodel the Labour ‘brand’ * The message of ‘New Labour’ was marketed to try and distance Blair’s Labour from the left wing party of the early 1980’s that had so alienated voters. * In 1995 Blair persuaded the party to rewrite and effectively remove Clause IV from the constitution as a high profile demonstration of Labour’s move towards the centre. * Brown also worked hard to ensure Labour were not seen as the tax and spend party – which he did by promising to match Conservative spending plans in the run up to the 1997 election * Tony Blair was charismatic and presented well on TV, with the kind of establishment education more associated with the Tories, which appealed to Middle England. * The Labour Party had all-women shortlists and appeared fresh and vibrant, as opposed to the tired Tories. * Blair and his press secretary Alistair Campbell also managed to win the support of large sections of the press, including the Murdoch papers. * Labour’s spin machine ensured much more positive press coverage than Kinnock had every managed to achieve.