AHC: UK Conservative Party leadership election, 1990

[RogueBeaver]

Poll incoming.

[Blackadder mk 2]

Who won the election 3 times? Who actually got rid of the nationalised industries? Who beat the unions? Are you going to just replace her with someone who is from the wets that led the Conservatives to be beaten by Wilson and the unions? I thought so.

[The Red]

Thatcher, let her run the Conservatives into the ground.

[Will Lucky]

Thatcher, she had a proven track record.

[Thande]

I was greatly confused by Michael Heseltine as a child because our local GP was also called Heseltine. I actually thought he moonlighted as a government minister with a Superman-style double identity (although one where he used his real name then - don't question kids' logic).

I would question whether people who want Labour to win in '92 think voting for Heseltine is the right idea; I think Kinnock would have stood a better chance against a Thatcher 'going on and on and on' than the Tories switching for fresh blood.

[The Red]

Originally Posted by Thande

I would question whether people who want Labour to win in '92 think voting for Heseltine is the right idea; I think Kinnock would have stood a better chance against a Thatcher 'going on and on and on' than the Tories switching for fresh blood.

Although I suppose one could also ask whether Labour supporters want Labour to win in 1992? Personally the hope that she'd wreck the Conservative Party beyond repair in that election is a good enough prospect, Kinnock would likely win such a large majority that he could hang on in 1997. It's debatable though.

[RogueBeaver]

I do think the '91 election was salvageable, mostly by it being a khaki election and with a sufficiently radical Cabinet shakeup like the last existential crisis in the summer of '81. BG and I posit this scenario in our TL. However the safest way is simply to avoid pledging the poll tax in '87: after all, she herself called it "the flagship of the Thatcher fleet." It was just as consequential as "Read my lips", because it was a central pledge. Alternatively she steps down in the summer of '89 without all the ugliness. But that's so out of character for her as to be highly implausible.

[FletcherofSaltoun]

Originally Posted by Thande

I was greatly confused by Michael Heseltine as a child because our local GP was also called Heseltine. I actually thought he moonlighted as a government minister with a Superman-style double identity (although one where he used his real name then - don't question kids' logic).

I would question whether people who want Labour to win in '92 think voting for Heseltine is the right idea; I think Kinnock would have stood a better chance against a Thatcher 'going on and on and on' than the Tories switching for fresh blood.

Had I been interested in politics in 1990, rather than Ghostbusters II, I would be celebrating anyone entering Downing Street, from any party to replace that woman. Sure from a Labour PoV, it would have been brilliant for her to stay on until 91-92, but her going was a huge thing.

[JN1]

Originally Posted by Blackadder mk 2

Who won the election 3 times? Who actually got rid of the nationalised industries? Who beat the unions? Are you going to just replace her with someone who is from the wets that led the Conservatives to be beaten by Wilson and the unions? I thought so.

Who turned the UK into a divided country? Who sold off the 'family silver' on the cheap? Who cut defence at the height of the Cold War? Who misunderstood Scotland so badly that Tory support north of the border (where they used to be in the majority) plummeted to almost zero? Who introduced probably the most unpopular tax in modern times? Who oversaw a higher level of unemployment than the worst years of the '70s?
Who turned public monopolies into private ones? Who got promoted climate change so she could build more nuclear and gas power stations? Who probably started the process that led to where we are now? Who made Britain a more selfish society?

Need I go on?

[Blackadder mk 2]

Originally Posted by JN1

Who turned the UK into a divided country? Who sold off the 'family silver' on the cheap? Who cut defence at the height of the Cold War? Who misunderstood Scotland so badly that Tory support north of the border (where they used to be in the majority) plummeted to almost zero? Who introduced probably the most unpopular tax in modern times? Who oversaw a higher level of unemployment than the worst years of the '70s?
Who turned public monopolies into private ones? Who got promoted climate change so she could build more nuclear and gas power stations? Who probably started the process that led to where we are now? Who made Britain a more selfish society?

Need I go on?

(Weren't we pretending to be Tories in 1990? If not then I feel very stupid right now)

[RogueBeaver]

In her memoirs she basically alternates between admitting that she was ideologically incompatible with Scots to saying "they don't know how good my economic policies made it for them with the new service sector." I don't think anyone disputes the ideological part. Then her biographers have all sorts of (IMO bigoted) psychobabble about a culture clash between a Middle Englander suburbanite and working-class Scots with a socialist dependency culture. *

*I'm paraphrasing John Campbell, before the Scots here go apeshit on me.

[RogueBeaver]

Originally Posted by Blackadder mk 2

(Weren't we pretending to be Tories in 1990? If not then I feel very stupid right now)

This is AHC, not a DBWI or RP. So basically a mixture of Chat and RP depending on your preference. I'd prefer RP before we get the "Demon Spawn who raped everything outside the M4" and "St. Margaret, and the poll tax was a good idea." Even I think the poll tax was a horrible idea both on the merits and in the horrible tactical defeat.

[abc123]

Thacher because she was the only real PM since Eden.

[JN1]

Originally Posted by Blackadder mk 2

(Weren't we pretending to be Tories in 1990? If not then I feel very stupid right now)

I could be a One Nation Tory in the Macmillan/Heath mold. That was where I took the 'family silver' jibe from.
Even a lot of Scots Tories didn't like Thatcher, her policies just didn't seem to be compatible with the Scottish political culture, even that of the right (we have to remember that as recent as the '50s most Scottish MPs were Tory). There's never really been a 'Middle Scotland' like 'Middle England' for Thatcherism to appeal to.

If I'm being fair she was badly advised by Scottish ministers and advisers who thought that the Community Charge aka Poll Tax would be popular up here and seen as fairer than the old Rates. They just didn't get that most Scots would see a tax in which some little old lady in a bungalow was paying the same as a millionaire in a mansion as utterly unfair and biased towards the wealthy. Introducing it a year earlier than the rest of Great Britain (it never reached Northern Ireland, IIRC) was also immensely unpopular. At least we didn't riot like the English did.
Thatcher also had a terrible habit of saying 'you in Scotland' as if it was some far away foreign land. Micheal Forsyth and Iain Lang pulled her up on this and she managed to make it worse by saying 'we in Scotland' in the next TV interview she did in Scotland (there is some priceless footage of Forsyth and Lang cringing when they heard her say this).

For some reason Thatcher's usually excellent judgement went out of the window when it came to Scotland. She genuinely didn't get us and we didn't get her.

[FletcherofSaltoun]

Originally Posted by RogueBeaver

I do think the '91 election was salvageable, mostly by it being a khaki election and with a sufficiently radical Cabinet shakeup like the last existential crisis in the summer of '81. BG and I posit this scenario in our TL. However the safest way is simply to avoid pledging the poll tax in '87: after all, she herself called it "the flagship of the Thatcher fleet." It was just as consequential as "Read my lips", because it was a central pledge. Alternatively she steps down in the summer of '89 without all the ugliness. But that's so out of character for her as to be highly implausible.

It really wasn't you know. She had gone mad by this stage, ignoring her own cabinet and believing herself to be infalible. She had lost the support of so much of her party that the infighting would have carried on into the next election, even more so if there was a radical cabinet shake-up. Getting rid of her was the Tories only chance.

In her memoirs she basically alternates between admitting that she was ideologically incompatible with Scots to saying "they don't know how good my economic policies made it for them with the new service sector." I don't think anyone disputes the ideological part. Then her biographers have all sorts of (IMO bigoted) psychobabble about a culture clash between a Middle Englander suburbanite and working-class Scots with a socialist dependency culture. *

*I'm paraphrasing John Campbell, before the Scots here go apeshit on me.

This is not to go apeshit at you, but that is so wrong it hurts. There was certainly an ideological difference, Scots tend to have more social consiense, even in the Tory party than Thatcher. As for the working-class, council house thing, well the Tories traditionally won the non, working-class seats in Scotland, in areas such as Ayr, Stirling, Perth, parts of Edinburgh and Aberdeen. What she did was to lose the Tory party its working class support in Scotland, either to Labour or the SNP, the middle class to the SNP and the Lib Dems. She was for the Tory Party north of the border a huge disaster.

Originally Posted by abc123

Thacher because she was the only real PM since Eden.

She was real something, certainly.

[Dunois]

To be fair for all her faults Maggie was a lot better than that snake Michael Heseltine devoid of principles!

The poll tax effects on the Conservative Party in Scotland are controversial one must not forget that in 1992 the Consevative share of the vote in Scotland increased slightly. Having said that "trialling" the whole thing on Scotland was a crass mistake as where some others.

[Lord Douglas]

Indeed.

Electorally Thatcher wasn't any worse for the Scottish Tories than Ted Heath (under whom they went from something like 37% of the vote in 1970 - 24% in October 1974) or John Major (25% in '92 to 17% in '97). Under Thatcher the Tory vote in Scotland rose to 31% in 1979 and fell to 24% in 1987.

I'm not disputing that the degree of dislike (to put it mildly) that many or most Scots had for her, but the Scottish Tory Party didn't lose all their seats until seven years after she left office - and even throughout her time in office they usually had a bit more than a handful. I'm not really sure how much better an alternative Tory leader carrying out similar policies would have done.