Margaret Thatcher's political downfall - a plot or not?

[@philmathieu1017]

In the end she fell because this lady "was never for turning" and that's a sign of someone who's stopped believing that the job wasn't about HER.

[@hjyigo4759]

What is overlooked a bit is the wet versus dry nature of her cabinet in 1990. Her biggest supporters from the early to mid 1980s had departed the scene. Ken Baker mentions Tebbit, but in 1990 he had long since departed the cabinet. Willie Whitelaw had retired in 1988. Cecil Parkinson, whilst back in government, was not the figure he had been before 1983. Howe and Lawson had both fallen out with her and left, so the cabinet's power was now much more in the hands of the wets or at least Thatcherite agnostics like Clarke, Hurd, Rifkind, Patten, Gummer, Major etc. Her 1990 cabinet was more like the 1979-1983 cabinet where she faced lots of opposition from the likes of Carrington and Prior.

[@MarbleWhornets]

She would have been so much better at negotiating Brexit than May is at the moment.

[@wonjubhoy]

I hated her but Thatcher stood up to Europe even to the extent of the Europeans giving Britain a full rebate. That is such a contrast with May's Brexit in name only deal.

[@TT_1221]

She would never have held a referendum on it!

[@TheBasher-_-]

Well no one could have negotiated Brexit well as Britain hasn't much to offer that it already hadn't committed. That's why Brexit ended up being so bad and Britain basically begging Europe etc. For help with better trade deals. But unfortunately for the UK at the moment there is little incentive.

[@MrDaiseymay]

She was anti EU, a TRUE PATRIOT, unlike those treacherous bastards who plotted againster her

[@SiVlog1989]

Actually, as others have pointed out, she wouldn't have wanted Brexit, let alone campaigned or negotiated about it. She felt that it was better to influence Europe from within, rather than be on the outside looking in, with no say on what was happening that directly affected Britain. Geoffrey Howe, in his November 1990 resignation speech, put it best: "(...) the threat is not imposition, but isolation. The real threat is of leaving ourselves with no say in Europe. We've payed heavily in the past for late starts squandered opportunities in Europe... we must be seen to be part of that process, not to retreat into a ghetto of sentimentality about our past,"

[@johnurquhart4614]

"They had brought it about," she said. In other words, she never admitted to any fault, and that was why she had to go.

[@chrispalmer7893]

People who spend their whole lives banging on about other people taking personal responsibility almost always fail when it comes to applying it to themselves.

[@Derrako]

Everything has its day. Including people. What made her believe she was excluded from that?

[@Miguel195211]

The problem with some politicians is they think they own the position.

[@MrCaerbannog]

Thatcher should really have started identifying a successor after the 1987 election, and then agreed a timeline to hand over power a year or two later. Instead, she seemed to do the exact opposite and try to shore up her position so that she could be essentially PM for life.

[@TT_1221]

Correct, in her own words she wanted to fight the next election as PM ('92) with a view to departing around '94. However, without sufficient support from her parliamentary party and her cabinet and with growing public opposition to her that was impossible. In 1990 (after the departure of Lawson in late '89), she should have announced her own departure date and installed a new party leader/PM in late '90 prior to the '92 election.

[@ilferrari]

Facing a general election every four years is not being "PM for life". The people elected her and they could remove her. It's not for you to call time on her, or politicians playing their own game.

[@julievaldez2062]

​@@TT_1221 k

[@TT_1221]

@@ilferrari I think she was treated badly but she lost sight of the fact that you serve as party leader and therefore PM only with the support of the parliamentary party and the cabinet. The PM is not directly elected by the people but having won 3 elections she should not have been forced out. When she lost Lawson and Howe there was a new political reality and throw the poll tax into that and she should have recognized it was time to go before she was pushed.

[@nudisco300]

Had it not been for her crazy poll tax obsession she would have made it to 1992 and I still can't see her losing to Kinnock. If only she'd listened on that one policy, it's not even a very Conservative type policy anyway. The old rates system wasn't even a searing issue at the time, so I don't understand the idea of messing around with something that wasn't broken. I think it was her natural end -she'd sleighed all of Britains biggest dragons that had haunted us since the war, now all that was left was to tinker about. I bet she was bored .

[@brianclough]

The thing is called Collective Responsibility by the Cabinet. Why shouldn't they be allowe dto speak their mind. Loyalty should be to country, then party, then leader. Not the other way round. If she emotionally blackmailed them into supporting her, or bullied them as before, she would get humiliated by Heseltine in the 2nd round. An ignominious end

[@wilba1964]

The tory party have always been a party of the elite looking after the elite, and at the end of the day, the elites rejected her after she had watered and fed them

[@splinterbyrd]

She was the best man in England, and the only man in the Tory Party

[@wokeeye6441]

At least someone admits the truth about her actual gender.

[@Loverboy19691]

She just couldn't accept defeat !! This reminds me of a scene from Doctor Who ''Genesis of the Daleks'' (1975) when those who opposed Davros gathered in one room and said that they didn't like his policies.

[@freddyparkinson6559]

ken clarke was a back stabber

[@thepanel2935]

No plot, unless the 'plot' was Thatcher being complicit in her own downfall. LOL. She was a divisive character at the best of times and had stopped listening to her own party. Did you see her interview in Scotland near election time with the female TV journalist? Thatcher was so out-of-touch in terms of 'reading' the public that it bordered on the bizarre. Get better advisors next time.

[@monizdm]

"It was treachery with a smile on its face". Well, well. Self pity is not attractive. It's politics in a democracy. Get used to it.

[@Pearcity]

Today everyone knows how treacherous her cabinet was in her downfall. Their names are long forgotten.

[@chrispalmer7893]

Firstly, it's worth remembering that she herself became leader by standing against the previous leader having been a member of his Cabinet in government and whilst still holding a Shadow post. Was that treachery too? Does it really make that much difference that Heath had just lost an election whereas she was just about to (the Tories couldn't possibly have won in 1992 without ditching the Poll Tax, and if Thatcher had stayed they'd never have done that)? Also worth noting that as PM she valued loyalty very highly, but showed remarkably little in return. Countless ministers found her quietly encouraging backbenchers to give them a hard time and she had quite the habit of distancing herself from her own government's policies. Not to mention her first Cabinet sacking being of the one man in that cabinet, Norman St. John Stevas, who had actually voted for her in the leadership election. And why did she sack him? Not because he'd done anything wrong, but because she needed to put the wets on notice that she was prepared to wield the knife. I see little reason for her to expect any great loyalty to be shown to her (I'd also argue that we don't want politicians to remain loyal to a leader who they think is not performing; it's very odd that we prize loyalty over the hard-headed judgment that sometimes it's better for the country for the current PM to go...) In so many ways she brought it on herself. She ignored the warning signs when Sir Anthony Meyer stood for the leadership the year before, she didn't campaign at all for the first ballot, and, of course, she caused the various discontents that put her leadership in doubt. She was pretty much the only person in the whole party who in November 1990 thought the Poll Tax was workable, let alone being a good idea. She badly misjudged the parliamentary party on Europe (she was arguably ahead of her time; the 1992 election saw the retirement of a lot of pro-Europe Tories and the election of a lot more Euroskeptics, but the 87 - 92 parliamentary Tory party was very strongly pro-Europe). And after years of constant humiliation can we really begrudge Geoffery Howe the satisfaction of repaying her in her own coin? I suspect she was starting to age and tire, because early Thatcher knew better than to make most of those mistakes (apart from humiliating Geoffery Howe, she just couldn't seem to stop herself doing that). She knew because she'd become leader of the party as a result of Heath's failure in very similar terms, particularly when it comes to having a poor relationship with her Cabinet and the backbenches. To be fair, she was badly let down by Charles Powell, Bernard Ingham and Peter Morrison (although it has to be said that her selection of Morrison to be her PPS was itself a pretty sure sign that she was losing her grip); the circle around her shielded her from messages they didn't want her to hear.

[@JayBenjamin9214]

Yes, she might have clung onto power for, say, another year maybe but this was always an inevitability. She was a necessary leader but a relic of older times and attitudes.

[@wesosborne3520]

Hesletine still a snake

[@christopheroshea9799]

That's very insulting to snakes

[@melgrant7404]

Tarzan

[@yesterday1396]

Terrible people backstabbing terrible people.

[@donmorris99]

Was there not Two small identical men in grey suits that had words with her on the 11th hour ?

[@robin231176]

Ken Baker's memory of this is faulty - Norman Tebbit was no longer in the cabinet.

[@samwharton7313]

Ken Clarke has had a second career jumping in front of any microphone he can find and telling everyone how clever he was in playing his part. So many men seething at being eclipsed by Mrs. Thatcher.

[@yiannismcaughrey9160]

That her would be great for Brexit talks

[@zaqvoir4856]

her time had come and gone Dictator Maggie didn't get it.

[@yiannismcaughrey9160]

A great prime minister

[@jessran70]

No, she wasn't.

[@johncronin9540]

Yiannis McAughrey Great, perhaps. Certainly historical. The question is, was she a GOOD Prime Minister, a very different question. What bothers me is the maudlin self-pity with her “Treachery with a smile.” She treated some of her top allies with extreme rudeness, and over 12 years her successes fed her arrogance and refusal to listen to political advice. She was ruthless with those who opposed her even within her own party, and she thought that asking her party MPs was somehow beneath her. She had also completely lost any ability to read the public mood, with opposition to the poll tax causing people to go as far as rioting. All the Cabinet saw was the handwriting on the wall, and knew it was time for a change. The only one Thatcher really has to blame is herself. It’s ironic that she quotes US President Harry Truman’s “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” But didn’t seem to understand it, or thought it only applied to her underlings in the party and Cabinet.

[@carlrs15]

@@johncronin9540 i'm a yank, and was only born in 1986 - but it seems her political successes numbed her to to the political basics of maintaining the support of those who'd helped her along over the years

[@wokeeye6441]

Margaret Thacher was apple of the billionaire's eye, the toast of the yacht galas and country clubs...

[@wokeeye6441]

@@johncronin9540 "successes" lol. The indoctrination is strong in this one. Her arrogance was always with her. It is an inherent trait in free market fanatics of the "there is no alternative" stripe.

[@abcac2274]

Ken Clark has two faced.

[@samjones3167]

God what I would have given to be in that room and see her crying

[@englanduk3811]

Grow up!

[@samjones3167]

@@englanduk3811 Nah im happy being young

[@englanduk3811]

@@samjones3167 well tell your brain to grow at least....

[@samjones3167]

@@englanduk3811 I'll tell it later

[@wokeeye6441]

Thumbs up!!

[@deedee-tc4fh]

Ken Clarke..hhmmmm

[@CARLIN4737]

Thatcher was and will always be a legend.

[@wokeeye6441]

She is the apple in the billionaire's eye. The toast of the country clubs and yacht galas.

[@wokeeye6441]

"I shan't be the same" Said Lady Morebucks " without dear Maggie in Downing." She swirled the champagne in her glass while pouting at her friend "dear Mimi" across the pool. The servants who stood watching would have cracked a smile at the whole affair had they not been forced to stand by with the umbrella for hours without a bathroom break.

[@theworldphilosopher2003]

There is an argument suggesting that Thatcher's whole life depended on the state, despite her later efforts to reduce the role of government in society. This argument is based on the fact that Thatcher, like many people of her generation, benefited from the post-war welfare state that provided access to education, healthcare, and other social services unavailable to previous generations. Another criticism of Margaret Thatcher's personal life is that she married a wealthy businessman and did not work for several years while raising their children, which people could argue is no different from single mother benefits. This has led some to question her commitment to hard work and individual responsibility that she espoused in her political career. Critics have argued that Thatcher's personal life contradicts her political message, as she could rely on her husband's wealth and status to support her and her family during the early years of her marriage, which has led to accusations of hypocrisy and privilege, as Thatcher was able to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle without having to work outside the home. Additionally, some have argued that Thatcher's experience as a housewife and mother may have contributed to her narrow view of gender roles and limited understanding of the challenges faced by working-class families, particularly single mothers and those struggling to make ends meet. Thatcher benefited from free education, including attending Oxford University on a scholarship, and her early political career was built on a foundation of support for the National Health Service and other social services. Critics of Thatcher argue that her later efforts to reduce the role of government in society were hypocritical. Critics have pointed out that Margaret Thatcher's personal life contradicts her political message of individual responsibility and hard work. Thatcher relied on state support, and later on, her marriage to a wealthy businessman allowed her to not work for several years while raising their children. Some argue that this calls into question her claims of self-reliance and individualism, as her success was partly due to the opportunities and support provided by the state and her husband's wealth. Furthermore, some argue that Thatcher's emphasis on individual responsibility and hard work was a PR stunt to appeal to the newly emerging white-collar working class in the western world after the 60s boomer generation. Her circumstances suggest that her success was not solely a result of her own hard work but also due to the external factors of being born in the UK at that time

[@stevebbuk9557]

I think that's a bit harsh. She stood for parliament in 1950 before she met Denis. She stuck to her moral principles by not having affairs. She trained as a barrister after Oxford, at a time when it was still hard for professional women. Didn't she also decorate a room for her daughter? She attempted too much, not too little, which is why I believe her faculties slowly declined.

[@goldengalsclazy]

I would counter her critics' opinions by arguing PM Thatcher knew all about hardwork. She excelled academically to get a scholarship into Oxford and she did work extremely hard as a research chemist upon graduating from Oxford and later, became a barrister. That's not the definition of someone lacking in ambition. I think her critics are cherry picking and not looking at the entire picture. TLDR; Simply because she married into $ & was a housewife for a time doesn't discount her past hardwork and career.

[@goldengalsclazy]

@@stevebbuk9557 Agreed!

[@evankant277]

Little people.

[@markgrunzweig6377]

Glad she's long gone and I'm just an American, lol.

[@htimsxam]

Visions of Joe Biden…

[@fisnikkrasniqi6814]

You don't wanna f..k with the Queen