The fall of Thatcher

Question 1

When was the single European act introduced?

Answer 1

1986

Question 2

When was Thatcher’s Bruges speech?

Answer 2

1988

Question 3

Election victory of Labour and Blair?

Answer 3

1997

Question 4

When does Tony Blair become Labour leader?

Answer 4

1994

Question 5

When did John Major win his second Tory party leadership election?

Answer 5

1995

Question 6

When was the Euro rebellion over the ratification of the Maastricht treaty?

Answer 6

1993

Question 7

When was the UK withdrawal from the ERM?

Answer 7

1992

Question 8

When was the leadership challenge of Anthony Meyer defeated?

Answer 8

1989

Question 9

When was the Poll Tax introduced?

Answer 9

1990

Question 10

When did Maggie Thatcher resign?

Answer 10

1990

Question 11

When was Geoffrey Howe’s resignation and his famous resignation speech?

Answer 11

1990

Question 12

When was the citizen’s charter?

Answer 12

1991

Question 13

When did coalition forces liberate Kuwait?

Answer 13

1991

Question 15

What were the reasons for the weak Thatcher’s position

Answer 15

-Opinion polls showed growing unpopularity following the poll tax

-Disputes over the economy = Lawson’s resignation

-Disputes over Europe = Howe’s resignation

Question 16

What huge problem occurred in 1987 within Thatcher’s cabinet/Government?

Answer 16

The resignation of the avuncular advice of Willie Whitelaw, the deputy Prime minister who retired in 1987 after suffering from a stroke

Question 17

What did Thatcher say about Willie Whitelaw?

Answer 17

Thatcher once said in all innocence that ‘every prime minister needs a willie’. She was referring to the valuable common sense that Whitelaw applied to all issues

Question 18

What is the poll tax?

Answer 18

A flat rate levy to fund local services, to be paid by all the adults resident in the local area not just the owners of property

Question 19

When was the poll tax introduced?

Answer 19

Introduced into Scotland in 1989 and England/Wales in 1990.

Question 20

What was the reasoning for the poll tax?

Answer 20

There would be 38 million poll-tax payers compared with only 14 million ratepayers, payment for local services would be more evenly and justly spread out. Moreover, if everybody would become much more conscious of the quality of the services they provided then it increases the accountability of local councils and government.

Question 21

Who came up with the idea of the poll tax?

Answer 21

Thought up by the Conservative Right-Wing think tank the Adam Smith institute.

Question 22

What was Thatcher’s reasoning for the poll tax?

Answer 22

Thatcher judged that the poll tax would help make local authorities answerable to their ‘customers’ who would now help the local services by paying for local services. Her hope was that local electors would embrace the poll tax and vote out high spending labour councils and vote in responsible conservative ones.

Question 23

Who was hit hardest by the poll tax?

Answer 23

The tax hit the poorest the hardest as it left them with even left disposable income and due to it being a flat fee the richest in society paid the same as everyone else.

Question 24

Why was the poll tax a serious miscalculation?

Answer 24

This was a serious miscalculation and led to labour gaining serious amount of support and Thatcher even alienated members of her own party, the ‘one-nation’ conservatives.

Question 25

What was the opposition like to the poll tax?

Answer 25

Opposition to the charge was widespread and millions of people refused or avoided payments in total.

More disturbing though for Thatcher was the opposition from her own party and especially the reaction of the middle class voters who usually had her back. This was due to the fact that when the tax was introduced to England in 1990 it was double what it was first estimated. All together this led to the most serious disturbance, which was a violent anti-poll tax demonstration in London’s Trafalgar Square.

Question 26

Which left wing group renamed itself as the All-Britain Anti-Poll tax federation?

Answer 26

The far left group that had plagued the labour party in the 1980s called militant Tendency

Question 27

How much did the tax cost to collect?

Answer 27

A further irony to the tax was that it cost two-and-a-half times more to collect than the rates had

Question 28

What did the conservatives do in an effort to keep down poll tax levels?

Answer 28

The government ‘charge-capped’ a number of authorities [mostly labour but also conservative].

Question 29

What did Charge capping involve?

Answer 29

This involved compelling them to reduce their budgets even if it meant cutting services, a result that stood on its head the original notion of improving local government services in the interest of the ‘customer’.

Question 30

How did critics respond to the charge capping?

Answer 30

Critics had strong grounds for asserting that the whole exercise had been aimed at imposing the will of the central government on the local government.

Question 31

How did the loss of Press support affect Thatcher?

Answer 31

The press switched sides from Thatcher and the Tories to New Labour and Blair, the press brought with it the troubles of the conservative cabinet post 1992 which included many affairs and wrongdoings at the hands of Tory ministers.