1990 – 1991: JOHN MAJOR - (CONSERVATIVE)
The first casualty
John Major’s rise to power was one of the quickest and most sudden of modern political history. Being elected to parliament in 1979 as Margaret Thatcher was swept to power he slowly rose through the ranks of political office, serving minor positions as Minister for State for Social Security and later Chief Secretary to the Treasury, before suddenly, in the final months of Thatcher’s eleven year premiership, jumping up to Foreign Secretary, Chancellor and ultimately Prime Minister. As Thatcher fell from office at the hands of her allies, Major had seemed an unusual choice for the office, he was quiet, unassuming, and not particularly charismatic. But, in the eyes of many he was a “safe pair of hands” and a unifying force within a much divided party.
As it was, by February 1991, not even a hundred days after taking office, John Major was very comfortable in his position. The economy was on the mend, the departure of Margaret Thatcher had provided much needed change for the government and had seen a reassuring increase in polling for the Tories, greatly improving since the dark days of the poll tax. Iraqi troops were close to being pushed out of Kuwait and an eventual coalition victory seemed increasingly likely.
However, on the 7th February 1991, fate intervened.
As the War Cabinet met to discuss the last conclusive stages of the Gulf War, an IRA mortar – by either luck or morbidly impressive accuracy – crashed through the roof of No.10 Downing Street and almost directly into the centre of the Cabinet Office.
The initial response was blurred, police and emergency services were called right away, rgw Downing Street staff was evacuated and steps were made to completely cordon off Whitehall. However, the confused orders of police and the army left Whitehall open until later that afternoon. As a result, Journalists who had heard the blast immediately began reporting “explosions in Whitehall” on live news channels. A handful of reporters even managed to reach the gates of Downing Street, where shocking images were taken of No.10 close to ruins, the windows smashed, the iconic door hanging on its hinges, and even one photographer took a now darkly iconic photograph of one body in the street, covered crudely with a policeman’s jacket.
Within an hour a statement was formally delivered that announced that the Prime Minister as well as all cabinet ministers at the meeting had been killed in the IRA attack. The other casualties included Douglas Hurd, David Mellor, Tom King, Peter Lilley and Norman Lamont.
The response of the public was both shock and anger. Wreaths and flowers were left at Whitehall and at his constituency home in Huntington, tributes were paid from across the political spectrum and Buckingham Palace’s flag flew at half-mast. Meanwhile in Northern Ireland; Loyalist paramilitaries unleashed a flurry of anger and violence against Republicans, causing notable riots on the streets of Belfast. As images of fires raging in the city that night were reported on the news, the public saw a terrifying image of what was to come.
Many would later describe the death of John Major as “Britain’s JFK”, but that now seems inaccurate. The country had not just lost a leader, but most of its senior government. The entire senior cabinet, bar one minister, had been killed in the explosion. The country found itself in a power vacuum, the government was gone and possible replacements proved difficult to agree on, both due to age as well as ideology and standing within the party. In the first few hours after the attack there were talks of the Queen sending for Neil Kinnock and Paddy Ashdown to form an emergency government, but it was quickly dispelled by senior advisors. As a new interim cabinet was drawn up that evening - made predominantly of deputy ministers taking on an “acting” of their late senior cabinet ministers - the parliamentary party quickly turned inwards, to find a new leader and Prime Minister.
