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Thirty years ago, right about now, Margaret Thatcher realised she had to resign. A declassified memo by Andrew Turnbull, her PPS at the time, released earlier this year (and largely overlooked because of the pandemic) tells the story.
The poll tax was toxic. Chancellor Nigel Lawson and DPM Geoffrey Howe resigned, partly over Europe (the ERM). And her highhandedness appalled her cabinet colleagues, both friend and foe. Chris Patten recalled "equal opportunities abuse of her colleagues." https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b06mv5hm
Howe's resignation triggered Heseltine's challenge. She received the result - 204 MT to 152 MH, necessitating a 2nd ballot - at the embassy in Paris. That night her and Crawfie, her beloved PA, sat up ALL night drinking and talking. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/24/health.conservatives
From that point on, believed Crawfie, MT inwardly must have started to hold two beliefs - internally realising that the end could be near, and that she could fight through and win - simultaneously. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00jwqlg
After NO sleep, she returned to London the next day (today 30 years ago) 21st Nov for lunchtime meetings. Overnight Tebbit and the Chief Whip were tasked to see if her support was holding firm. It was not.
Tebbit urged her on, but warned of weakness amongst Cabinet Ministers. The Chief Whip said more MPs were switching away from her, but a better focussed campaign could still win. In front of her, the aim of the discussion began to elide from saving Thatcher to saving Thatcherism.
Who was best placed to beat Heseltine - her? Major? Hurd?
It was then that loyalist John Wakeham, her Energy Sec & fmr Chief Whip, made a fateful suggestion. Tebbit favoured a collective Cabinet, to face down the wavering. Wakeham believed she deserved honesty from a series of 1-2-1 meetings. Wakeham prevailed. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34673606
She ploughed on. Leaving the meeting she declared, “I fight on, I fight to win” to the waiting media. She phoned John Major, asking him to renominate her as a candidate, with Turnbull recording “a noticeable lack of enthusiasm” in his tone.
At 1730 Thatcher went to her weekly audience with the Queen where she informed her of her intention to stand in the 2nd ballot.
On her return to her office in the Commons, she then met her Cabinet. One on one. She asked each: Why should she resign when she had never been defeated, when she had the support of the party at large, and had never lost a vote of confidence in the House?
These two hours bring to mind the last scene in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, when it is revealed that every suspect stabbed the victim.
Michael Howard, left in tears after saying I “will support you and campaign vigorously for you but you cannot win.” Francis Maude, one the key players in the Thatcherite No Turning Back Group, left ‘visibly distressed’ after saying the same thing.
Thatcher recalled in her memoir “Almost to a man they used the same formula. This was that they themselves would back me, of course, but that regretfully they did not believe I could win.” https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/109189
Halfway through, Turnbull’s notetaking became laconic:
Halfway through, Turnbull’s notetaking became laconic:
Alan Clark, a waspish country house Thatcherite, not officially on the guest list, burst into the room to tell her to fight on, even though she would lose: “But what a way to go! Unbeaten in three elections, never rejected by the people. Brought down by nonentities!”
In her memoir Thatcher remembers the last meeting, a minister who, “though clearly nervous, just about managed to get out the agreed line. He did not think I could win, etc., etc. Nor, by now, did I…I had lost the Cabinet’s support…It was the end.”
John Whittingdale, her political secretary: “She genuinely expected that the vast majority of her cabinet would support her... I think she was genuinely both surprised, dismayed and horrified when that turned out not to be the case.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mv5hm
That night, she was visited at No 10 by Labour MP Frank Field. Turnbull describes the moment almost as a visit by a ghost in a Charles Dickens novel.
The next morning, the 22nd, Turnbull describes the scene as she came downstairs to Cabinet.
She resigned at about 0905.
In the British constitution there are some formal methods of losing power, and a few informal ways too. Losing the confidence of your Cabinet is one of them.
END/
In the British constitution there are some formal methods of losing power, and a few informal ways too. Losing the confidence of your Cabinet is one of them.
END/
PS. You can read the memo in full here: …https://baf19e1d5b4fb194dc95-545958dafb948ae0b64e1d53c082f3f1.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/901124%20Turnbull%20note%20MT%20RESIG%20THCR%201-9-18A-17%20f12.pdf
