15 Votes from Victory

WI Thatcher won decisively in the 1990 leadership ballot? I'd say she wins a narrow victory in June 1991, with Major's OTL margin or thereabouts, and retires in 1994-5. The Tories obviously lose the next election, but how would UK politics develop from there?
 
She only needed only two people to switch and she would have won in November 90.
She would have gone with a June 91 election, and probably would have won with a narrow win between 5-10 seats, I think.
She would have gone by 1993 I think. Major probably would have got the leadership then.
Beyond that it gets into guesswork.
 
If Thatcher's majority in June 1991 had been roughly the same as Major's was in April 1992 in OTL, then Neil Kinnock would probably have resigned as leader of the Labour Party. John Smith would have been elected leader. After his death in May 1994 (as in OTL), Tony Blair would have become Labour leader and Prime Minister after the Labour landslide in the general election of June 1996. The Tories are so behind in the polls and doing disastrously at by-elections, that they hold on as long as possible. Labour are re-elected by a large majority, perhaps even a landslide in May 2000. The general election having been held on the same day as the local elections. Tony Blair does not call a general election until May 2005, which Labour wins as in OTL. Alternatively the Tories win that election.
 
She would have lost in '91.

I say this with a few factors in mind.

She was personally unpopular with the electorate at this stage and there would be a divided cabinet over issues as diverse as the poll tax to europe. She was deadlining in the polls. To say she would have won is akin to someone in twenty years time saying Brown could have won in 2010, should he resign today.

Majors style initially saved the Tories.
 
If Thatcher's majority in June 1991 had been roughly the same as Major's was in April 1992 in OTL, then Neil Kinnock would probably have resigned as leader of the Labour Party. John Smith would have been elected leader. After his death in May 1994 (as in OTL), Tony Blair would have become Labour leader and Prime Minister after the Labour landslide in the general election of June 1996. The Tories are so behind in the polls and doing disastrously at by-elections, that they hold on as long as possible. Labour are re-elected by a large majority, perhaps even a landslide in May 2000. The general election having been held on the same day as the local elections. Tony Blair does not call a general election until May 2005, which Labour wins as in OTL. Alternatively the Tories win that election.

Note the term limit is FIVE years so if the Tories think they are going to lose, then they will do as Major did in OTL and hang on til 97

If elected, Labour can choose 2000 or 2001 for re-election.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Note the term limit is FIVE years so if the Tories think they are going to lose, then they will do as Major did in OTL and hang on til 97

If elected, Labour can choose 2000 or 2001 for re-election.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

But the Thatcher election would have been in the summer of 1991. I suspect she'd have resigned in the summer of 1994, after fifteen years as Prime Minister. As for Major succeeding her, I'm not so sure. I can still see a Europhile/Eurosceptic contest, but personally, I've always thought Malcolm Rifkind would have made a good Prime Minister and a good compromise candidate. I doubt John Major would become PM, after five years at the Treasury, I suspect he'd be seen as being too weak. John Redwood could go for it perhaps? Hezza is finished after being defeated conclusively in 1990. William Hague would be too young, though I suspect Thatcher will promote him to the Cabinet perhaps in 1993- Francis Maude maybe? Ken Clarke? Norman Lamont?
 
As Fletcher says, it's all pretty academic wish-fantasy. She was more or less stuffed after '87, (IMO) after that it was only a matter of how and when. On a '91 election, as I said the last time this came up:

It's hard to discern from the polling numbers what would happen after Gulf - Major's personal popularity went skyrocketing, but the Tories' numbers as a party were really no better from the point he'd taken over. (I.E, small-to-insignificant lead over Labour) And bear in mind that Major was riding on a wave of being the new boy, the unknown who people could project onto. Thatcher won't have that.

I seriously doubt Thatcher would have won a '91 election. Gulf might have mitigated the defeat, but it would only be a slight mitigation. Labour would certainly have a working majority - you can't come back from '97 style poll defecits to win, it's just impossible. Also, someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but the UK didn't enter recession until the back end of '91 - that would heavily chip away at the 'I'm too poor to vote Labour' tendency which is suspected of being in operation in '92.

There was absolutely no chance of her winning 'decisively' in 1990 - she'd had sixty people failing to support her the year before, when things were not half as bad, and in the face of a challenge from a political nonentity. She could have scraped it with an even half-decent campaign, but it would only have been that. Anything less than fifty/forty votes over Heseltine (which was never going to happen) would have been interpreted by a willing media as 'bad.'
 
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Well, let's take a 1986 POD. What she needs to do is bury that bloody poll tax. Then we'll be fine. Not to mention exiling Hessie to the backbenches or expelling him from caucus.
 
Uh, Heseltine was on the backbenches from '86 onwards. (early January '86 at that)

I'm of a rather deterministic mindset in respect of the poll tax. Something like it was probably going to come along sooner or later. The idea had it's genesis in at least the early eighties, probably earlier. (Although it's worth pointing out that the first time it was considered as a serious policy option, in the early 80's it was reportedly laughed at by the committee examining it.) People think of it as a '89-'90 phenomenon, but it was already in train before the '87 election.

Maybe if you had a very determined, sensible, loyal Environment Secretary, who really had her ear, in place of Baker, Ridley etc maybe he would have been able to scupper it. But I can't really think of such a person. (Casting around randomly, but anyone know what Gow's views on the poll tax were?)
 
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Well, let's take a 1986 POD. What she needs to do is bury that bloody poll tax. Then we'll be fine. Not to mention exiling Hessie to the backbenches or expelling him from caucus.
On the contrary, I think she had more chance of surviving if she kept Hessletine in the cabinet, indeed she should have promoted him. Always better when they are in the tent pissing out than out the tent pissing in.

As for the poll tax, it was her sheer bloody mindedness(sp?) that kept the poll tax in place despite the riots. To get rid of it, you would have to find some other formula to replace it with, which she doesn't think is wrong. Also, if you could get rid of the Brugge speech, then that would be handy.

In addition to all of this, despite it would lead to loss in '96-97, if you could get her to sign up to the ERM, then she would gain even more support from the cabinet initially.

After a decade as Prime Minister you make a lot of enemies though, so maybe it was just her time either way, but I fel this would be her best chance of winning in '91-92.
 
Two points you are missing about a General Election in June 1991.
1. The Gulf War- That would have given her a boost no dobut.
2. Neil Kinnock-Everyone may say she was hated by 91 etc, but floating voters did not like the "Welsh windbag" as he was called. Hence why he lost to Major in 92.
I still think in a June 91 election, it would have been a narrow majority for the Tories between 5-10 seats as best, at the worst a hung parliament with the Tories the largest party.
 

Hendryk

Banned
If Thatcher's majority in June 1991 had been roughly the same as Major's was in April 1992 in OTL, then Neil Kinnock would probably have resigned as leader of the Labour Party. John Smith would have been elected leader. After his death in May 1994 (as in OTL), Tony Blair would have become Labour leader and Prime Minister after the Labour landslide in the general election of June 1996.
Would it have been possible for Thatcher's victory to result in John Smith replacing Kinnock in time for the following general election? IMHO he would have had better chances to carry Labour to a majority; and even if he only got to be PM for 3 years before dying as in OTL, that would have been enough to keep Tony Blair from later turning the party into a hollow PR machine. In fact couldn't it have preempted Tony Blair's premiership altogether?
 
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