Mrs. Thatcher steps down on 10th anniversary (May 1989)

[BossMan]

To put forward some thoughts my father has expressed occasionally: he reckons Mrs. Thatcher would have been much more revered had she dropped a bombshell on her 10th anniversary by announcing she was going to quit. Willie Whitelaw said it would have been wiser, with the benefit of hindsight, to have given up at that stage.
She would have avoided defeat at the European Parliament elections the following month, the leadership challenge of Sir Anthony Meyer, the resignation of Nigel Lawson, the "poll tax" riots, and the resignation of Sir Geoffrey Howe - and, ultimately - her own forced resignation.

Who would have been best placed to take over? Almost certainly not Chief Secretary to the Treasury John Major. Would her successor have run into the same difficulties she was to face in reality? What would have been the likely impact on the 1991/2 general election?

[mondialito]

Douglas Hurd? Thatcher going before she and the party are hit by the troubles you mention makes a challenge by Heseltine less viable I'd imagine.

[johnr]

I'd assume that if she stepped down voluntarily, Heseltine would still have run - and not had the black mark of having challenged the Leaderene.

[johnloony]

Probably Douglas Hurd would have won. The 1992 election would still have been won, the split over European issues would still have been just as bad. Labour would still have won in 1997. The main difference is that Thatcher's reputation as a person would have been less tarnished.

I sometimes imagine the opposite scenario: Mrs Thatcher gets the extra 4 votes she needs in the leadership election in 1990, avoids a second round, and stays on as leader. Half the Cabinet resigns, and are replaced by Thatcherite hard-right yes-men. Thatcher is too stubborn to realise what is happening, and prefers to go down fighting rather than risk being replaced by a wet. Infighting is bitter until the 1992 election. What happened in 1997 is brought forward to 1992, and Thatcher loses her own seat in Finchley as part of the Labour landslide.

[The Bishop]

Yes, I have always found it hard to understand the reasoning of those who claim Thatcher would have won in 1992 had she stayed on.

Let's not forget in those circumstances, the poll tax would still have been fully in place as well.....

[Foggy]

Feb 5, 2017 10:30:26 GMT johnloony said:

I sometimes imagine the opposite scenario: Mrs Thatcher gets the extra 4 votes she needs in the leadership election in 1990, avoids a second round, and stays on as leader. Half the Cabinet resigns, and are replaced by Thatcherite hard-right yes-men. Thatcher is too stubborn to realise what is happening, and prefers to go down fighting rather than risk being replaced by a wet. Infighting is bitter until the 1992 election. What happened in 1997 is brought forward to 1992, and Thatcher loses her own seat in Finchley as part of the Labour landslide.

I can certainly see the Tories losing power to a Labour majority government in this scenario, but the scale of the defeat would not have been as severe with Kinnock as the Labour leader and without the anger over the 'cash for questions' sleaze and other scandals that only emerged later. The internal splits over Europe had not been brought to the fore yet either, since the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty were not yet in effect.

[johnloony]

Feb 5, 2017 23:11:30 GMT Foggy said:

Feb 5, 2017 10:30:26 GMT johnloony said:

I sometimes imagine the opposite scenario: Mrs Thatcher gets the extra 4 votes she needs in the leadership election in 1990, avoids a second round, and stays on as leader. Half the Cabinet resigns, and are replaced by Thatcherite hard-right yes-men. Thatcher is too stubborn to realise what is happening, and prefers to go down fighting rather than risk being replaced by a wet. Infighting is bitter until the 1992 election. What happened in 1997 is brought forward to 1992, and Thatcher loses her own seat in Finchley as part of the Labour landslide.

I can certainly see the Tories losing power to a Labour majority government in this scenario, but the scale of the defeat would not have been as severe with Kinnock as the Labour leader and without the anger over the 'cash for questions' sleaze and other scandals that only emerged later. The internal splits over Europe had not been brought to the fore yet either, since the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty were not yet in effect.

I think that what I am imagining is that the situation in 1992 would be equally desperate as it was in the real 1997, but for slightly different reasons. The common theme of Thatcher's leadership in 1989-90 was that she had lost her judgement in being able to judge how far and how fast to go with European issues, the poll tax, etc. In this fantasy scenario, she becomes so protective of her own legacy that she prefers to go down with the ship rather than compromise. In November 1990, most of her cabinet told her to resign. In this scenario, most of them resign, and Thatcher has to stumble on for another 18 months with lots of disgruntled ex-colleagues. Perhaps my fantasy scenario also requires a bit of dramatic licence in terms of how rapid her mental decline was.

[Foggy]

You do realise that you, as a Conservative activist, have devised a "fantasy scenario" in which Neil Kinnock ends up commanding a parliamentary majority of more than 170 seats?

[johnloony]

Feb 6, 2017 21:21:47 GMT Foggy said:

You do realise that you, as a Conservative activist, have devised a "fantasy scenario" in which Neil Kinnock ends up commanding a parliamentary majority of more than 170 seats?

It might not necessarily have been Kinnock.

[Foggy]

Well now I'm intrigued! What would've persuaded Labour to replace their leader between November 1990 and April 1992 if it were clear that things were going so spectacularly wrong for the Tories?

[johnloony]

Feb 7, 2017 21:27:18 GMT Foggy said:

Well now I'm intrigued! What would've persuaded Labour to replace their leader between November 1990 and April 1992 if it were clear that things were going so spectacularly wrong for the Tories?

Neil Kinnock dying of a heart attack and being replaced by John Smith. Or Tony Blair. Or the Thatcher government being in such a desperate state of Götterdämmerung that people vote for Kinnock's Labour anyway.

[Foggy]

Feb 7, 2017 22:57:17 GMT johnloony said:

Feb 7, 2017 21:27:18 GMT Foggy said:

Well now I'm intrigued! What would've persuaded Labour to replace their leader between November 1990 and April 1992 if it were clear that things were going so spectacularly wrong for the Tories?

Neil Kinnock dying of a heart attack and being replaced by John Smith. Or Tony Blair. Or the Thatcher government being in such a desperate state of Götterdämmerung that people vote for Kinnock's Labour anyway.

Given that the Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty remains very much alive, the first scenario has to go down as unlikely. I fail to see why Labour members would have anointed the then-Shadow Employment Secretary as party leader in such an event, or that he'd have done a particularly good (and brief) job as Leader of the Opposition at that stage of his career.

[johnloony]

Feb 7, 2017 23:35:32 GMT Foggy said:

Feb 7, 2017 22:57:17 GMT johnloony said:

Neil Kinnock dying of a heart attack and being replaced by John Smith. Or Tony Blair. Or the Thatcher government being in such a desperate state of Götterdämmerung that people vote for Kinnock's Labour anyway.

Given that the Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty remains very much alive, the first scenario has to go down as unlikely. I fail to see why Labour members would have anointed the then-Shadow Employment Secretary as party leader in such an event, or that he'd have done a particularly good (and brief) job as Leader of the Opposition at that stage of his career.

Who said anything about "likely"?

[slon]

Feb 4, 2017 17:17:38 GMT BossMan said:

To put forward some thoughts my father has expressed occasionally: he reckons Mrs. Thatcher would have been much more revered had she dropped a bombshell on her 10th anniversary by announcing she was going to quit. Willie Whitelaw said it would have been wiser, with the benefit of hindsight, to have given up at that stage.
She would have avoided defeat at the European Parliament elections the following month, the leadership challenge of Sir Anthony Meyer, the resignation of Nigel Lawson, the "poll tax" riots, and the resignation of Sir Geoffrey Howe - and, ultimately - her own forced resignation.

Who would have been best placed to take over? Almost certainly not Chief Secretary to the Treasury John Major. Would her successor have run into the same difficulties she was to face in reality? What would have been the likely impact on the 1991/2 general election?

A significant problem for Thatcher and her style of government was her poor judgment when it came to the choice of ministers and advisors. Take away Willie Whitelaw, Keith Joseph and perhaps on a good day Norman Tebbit the rest were a bunch of the worst sort of self serving chancers with no great ability and no greater ambition than to do each other (and Thatcher) down in the quest to climb the greasy pole.
When Thatcher went, whether in May 89 or as was in November 90 the same destructive cycle would have ensued with the crowning of the 'least bad' compromise candidate and the rest sharpening the knives and plotting the selected failure of government policy for which they cold not be directly blamed.

[Foggy]

Feb 8, 2017 11:56:31 GMT johnloony said:

Feb 7, 2017 23:35:32 GMT Foggy said:

Given that the Baron Kinnock of Bedwellty remains very much alive, the first scenario has to go down as unlikely. I fail to see why Labour members would have anointed the then-Shadow Employment Secretary as party leader in such an event, or that he'd have done a particularly good (and brief) job as Leader of the Opposition at that stage of his career.

Who said anything about "likely"?

Well, up to that point your scenario had actually been quite realistic!