Fall of Thatcher and rise of Major

• • Economic: stock marker crashes in 1987 following the 'Big Bang' which was the deregulation of the City in 1986. There was also the 'Lawson boom' in 1988 which lead to a balance of payments problem.
  • By 1990, inflation had risen to 10.9% which was a problem as Thatcher promised to keep it low.
  • Why was Thatcher's decline in popularity traced back to 1987
• • Political: Conservative MPs feared defeat in the next election
  • Red flag: the less of an ultra-safe seat in Eastbourne to the Liberals in the by-election of October 1990.
  • Conservatives believed that if they could lose that seat, they could lose everything 


  Why was Thatcher's decline in popularity traced back to 1987
• • This was very unpopular amongst voters and Thatcher was advised to drop it but she didn't
  • After March 1990, opinion polls fell sharply after a poll tax riot.

  Poll tax:
• • Heightened divisions within conservatives over economic policies, Europe and her style of leadership.
  • Ministers started to resign, the beginning of this was Howe's resignation.
  • Rise of Labour's rise
  • Heseltine, who was still salty after the Westland affair, started a leadership challenge against Thatcher to which she responded with resigning after losing the first ballot.

  What effects did these problems have for Thatcher
• She had definitely had an influential impact on Britain and British politics forever. When she resigned she promised 'to be a very good back seat driver'.

  Thatcher's legacy
• She thought that he was 'one of them' but it is safe to say that she was slightly off in her judgement.

  Why did Thatcher chose Major to be her successor?
• He wanted to unify it which was difficult as Heseltine was still hostile and there was a sense of revenge that people wanted from those who had 'betrayed Maggie'.


  What was Major's first targets for the conservative party
• • jump in opinion polls
  • national press was very positive
  • looked better than the unpopular Thatcher

  What was the 'honeymoon effect' on Major's government
• She undoubtedly changed Britain and it's politics. Even when she left she was still very vocal and promised to be a 'very good backseat driver'. Her premiership also affected the formation of the Labour Party.

  What was Thatcher's legacy?
• • In the first ballot she got 204 votes against Heseltine's 152 votes. Under conservative party rules, this was no sufficient enough and there was a need for a re-match.
  • At first she wanted to run for the second election but after speaking to her cabinet ministers one on one they advised her against it so she allowed Major and Douglas Hurd to run against Heseltine and they could only do so with her permission to not seem disloyal. 


  Thatcher's fall
• • She saw him as 'one of them'
  • In reality he was quite the opposite and he wanted to unify the party more than anything which is difficult as on of the one hand you have hostility towards Heseltine and a desire for some of the party members to get revenge against those who 'betrayed Maggie'. 


  Why did Thatcher chose Major?
• • Foreign affairs and Europe in terms of the first gulf war which ended in 1991 as well as outlining his aims of Europe in a speech which was to make Britain to be 'at the very heart of Europe'
  • Major also needed to deal with the very unpopular poll tax and many wanted him to scrap it ASAP but this would risk splitting the party so only in November 1991, the poll tax was scarpped after long discussions.

  What was Major's first big task?
• • Major called it at the very last possible moment of the 5 year parliamentary term.
  • Opinion polls: conservatives had 29%, Labour 41% and Liberals 15% so many predicted a labour victory. 


  What was unusual about the 1992 election?
• • Ran a good campaign as Major won a lot of respect for rhis old-fashioned 'soapbox politics' making speeches in cities like Luton standing on said soapbox.
  • Although people blamed the conservative party for the economic issues of the time, the country still trusted the conservative party more in terms of day-to-day running.
  • Many voters felt like Labour had not reformed enough.

  Reasons for the conservative win in the 1992 election
• The inherited economic state was a difficult one as the British economy was suffering from a declining manufacturing output, high interest rates, steep rise in unemployment and a stump on house prices. 


  State of economy during this time
• • unemployment rose to 1.6 million to 2.6 million from mid 1991 to 1992.
  • many homeowners stook in 'negative equity' (having to repay mortgages that were higher than the value of their own home) and some homes even being repossessed.
  • Unlike in the 1990s where it hit the working class and northern communities, this time this affected the conservative party vote. 


  Economic developments before 1992
• • Happened within a few months of general election and was a severe crisis in which Britain was forced to leave the Exchange Rate Mechanism which was joined in 1990 under the premise that it would help Britain to combat inflation.
  • The ERM required Britain to keep a fixed exchange rate (2.95 German marks to the pound) with no wiggle room.
  • By September British currency was under a lot of pressure but the government wanted to stay in the ERM and avoid devaluation. Despite all their efforts the pound began to sink. 


  What was Black Wednesday
• • Norman Lamont announced the decision to leave the ERM on TV
  • So the government then tried to get foreign investors to buy the pound by increasing interest rates (which were 10%, increasing to 12% then 15%)
  • The effects of BW weren't as bad as people thought they would be as the economy stabilised shortly but this had long-lasting political effects.
  • The trust of the conservative party to deal with the economy was taken away, opinion polls dropping and newspapers describing this as 'the beginning of the end'. 


  Black Wednesday
• • Stabilised pretty quickly as it prevented Britain from having to keep high interest rates to protect stability of the sterling and allowed exchange rates to float downwards.
  • Unemployment rates slowed down and housing market picked up again as well as people benefitting from financial deregulation introduced in Thatcher's government.
  • However, the 'feel good factor' was missing. 


  How was the economy after BW
• • The scandals and Tory Sleaze as there was more than a dozen of sex scandals during this time of MPs having extramarital affairs including David Mellor and Tim Yeo who were forced to resign.
  • Other scandals included corruption such as the 1994 Scott enquiry set up by Major to investigate illegal arms dealing, proving that gov' ministers broken rules and had been 'economical with the truth' in enabling company Matrix Churchill to supply arms to Iraq. 


  What resulted in the continuation of the bad reputation of the conservatives?
• • Arose when Neil Hamilton and other MPs had admitted to accepting money in return for lobbying on behalf of a controversial owners of Harrods, Mohammed Al Fayed.
  • Hamilton was ruined by a public libel case but refused to resign
  • He was eventually defeated by an independent former BBC journalist Martin Bell who made 'sleave' a keynote of his campaign which was dripped in throughout the period until the 1997 election. 


  Cash for questions
• • Spitting Image presented Major as dull and boring
  • The Guardian cartoonist portrayed him as a grey super-hero
  • He remained popular in comparison to this party overall but by no means was presented as an adequate leader.

  Satire
• • continuation of privatisation, coal industry was privatised in 1994 and railways in 1996. It tried to do the same for the Post Office but had to stop due to public concern and opposition from other parties.
  • Introduction of PFI's
  • Citizens Charter 1991: attempt to give public service users more power over its quality by providing info on the standards that they expect. 


  Controversial policies in the conservative party
• This worker for education as more testing was flagged up which meant more results were published but there were also some unsuccessful elements such as the Cones Hotline which was a hotline in which people could call motorists to see if a lane would be closed in the event of no signs being present.

  Citizens Charter 1991
• • Continuation of pit closures, 31 in 1991 in Nottinghamshire which is where Scargill led his strikes so it did lead to a short-term U-turn but eventually the pit closures went ahead.
  • BSE ('mad cow disease') recognised as a potential threat to human life in 1996 which led to the banning of British beef in Europe
  • None of these events alone could undermine the reputation of the government but combined it did exacerbate the image of the government being incompetent. 


  More political policies
• • Thatcher was a hate figure for many in Northern Ireland
  • Government banned organisations which were believed to support terrorist activities from broadcasting in Britain but they got around this by employing other people to read out what they wanted them to.

  What situation with Northern Ireland did Major inherit
• • GF jailed in 1975 for life for bombing 2 Guildford pubs and killing 5 people.
  • Verdict was overturned in 1989
  • In a 1993 film 'In the name of the Father' told the story of these wrongful convictions.
  • Birmingham Six jailed in 1975 for life for bombing 2 pubs, killed 21 people and it was overturned in 1991.

  The Birmingham Six and Guildford Four
• • Mar 1988: Milltown cemetery attack - 3 people killed at a funeral for Gibraltar loyalist, Michael Stone
  • Jul 89: London stock exchange bombed by IRA
  • Fen 91: 3 mortar shells fired at Downing Street
  • Jan 92 - 93 : IRA continued to attack and bomb places, killing innocent people. 


  Events in the Troubles 1987-93
• • From 1993, the government received secret messages hinting that Sinn Fein was ready to discuss a peace agreement.
  • Unionists were fearful that they would be 'sold out by the British' as there was still a deep-rooted hostility towards the British.
  • Major had a good working relationship with Irish PM Taoiseach and they went public in 1993 with their joint Downing Street Declaration. 


  Political breakthrough in NI
• • First ceasefire in 1994 and loyalist paramilitaries matched this with a ceasefire of their own
  • Strong sense of war-weariness on both sides of the conflict
  • Eamon Collins wrote in his memoir in 1997: 'I like to think that both sides looked down into a Bosnian-style abyss; gulped and then stepped back' 


  Steps towards peace in NI
• • Unionists did not believe in the IRA's commitment to peace and the IRA got impatient and resulted back to violent methods
  • Bomb attacks destroyed financial districts such as Canary Wharf and the centre of Manchester in 1996. 


  WHy was it so difficult to get a peace agreement
• What did Major inherit in terms of divisions in the party
• Despite the electoral success divisions were still apparent:

  • Right: pushed for more radical social policy, Eurosceptics wanted to push Britain out of Europe
  • Press continued to speculate leadership challenges and names like Portillo and Redwood were mentioned a few times.
  • Right-wing press was hostile and calling for a strong leader to replace Major 'save the party'
  • By 1995, Major called a re-election with a 'back me or sack me' campaign. 


  Divisions under Major
• • Major called this in 1995 to silence his critics and re-establish his authority
  • The main contender against him was John Redwood, backed by Thatcherites and Eurosceptics
  • Before election, Major promised Heseltine that he would be deputy PM to which after that he made it very clear that he could vote for Major.
  • Outcome: 218 for Major and 89 for Redwood 


  Re-election of Major
• • 89 conservatives still voted against Major which was a problem because the government of the time had a small majority and press remained hostile.
  • At Question Time, Blair mocked Major and said 'I lead my party. You follow yours.' 


  Why were there still problems after the re-election
• • She encouraged Eurosceptic rebels by demanding a referendum on Europe
  • She backed Redwood in his challenge in 1995 and seemed to be more in favour of Blair than Major by the time it was 1997 election. 


  How did Thatcher make this worse?
• • A pro-European backbencher who stood behind her in 1989.
  • 33 MPs voted against her and 25 abstained which suggested to some such as Heseltine that her popularity was waning and someone like Heseltine had a shot at winning. 


  Anthony Meyer
• • abandoning consensus politics
  • replacing Keynesianism with free market
  • reducing the power of state and giving people the opportunity to live their lives without gov intervention.
  • Limiting the power of the unions
  • making local gov answer more directly to people's needs
  • restoring social accountability (effort should be rewarded and lack of effort penalised)


  Key Thatcherite ideas:
• • Reputation through its cartoons, comments and selected news items for mocking public figures or exposing their behaviour.
  • Most of their targets were politicians. 


  Private Eye 1961
• • ITV's spitting image: puppet show which presented leading political leaders in distorted characters. Major was portrayed as a grey figure as well as portraying Thatcher
  • It ran from 1984 to 1996.

  TV programmes: