Challenge: Tory Heaven

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to keep Thatcher until 1993:D or 1994, or somehow have Major win a minority in 1997:p (majority is ASB unless Smith doesn't die)
 
Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to keep Thatcher until 1993:D or 1994, or somehow have Major win a minority in 1997:p (majority is ASB unless Smith doesn't die)
Major did win a minority in 1997. Shortly therafter, he learned that that meant that he lost.:rolleyes:
 
Hmmm. Some outside event for Major to utilise and spin, no 'Third Way' rubbish from Labour. Maybe a different Labour leader from the traditional wing of the party.

Major might jsut scrape in.

However I believe he would have to do a SuperMac and have a 'night of the long knives' and completely redo the majority of his cabfinet.
 

hammo1j

Donor
OTL, the big Tory disasters were the Poll Tax and the ERM. Prevent those and have Thatcher crush Heseltine in a 1990's run off and you could have protege Major taking over in 1994.

John Smith's heart problems are resolved and he runs with the ever popular Gordon Brown as chancellor with smoothie Tony Blair nowhere to be seen. After 16 years of growth the voters are not ready for change yet and Major gets in through a pact with the Lib Dems and minority NI parties.
 
I think that if you have a minority government then events happen in a pattern similar to 1974, with a new election being called soon (maybe december 1974?), with the winner of that probably being whoever had the better showing during the first round.

Any minority government works in favor of the smaller parties, at least in the short term. Expect the Lib-Dems to become the power broker, with regional parties (Ulster unionists and SNP being the biggest) also having undue power. Come to think of it, for all these parties (but especially the Liberal-democrats), this represents a prime opportunity to push through their agendas and, for the LDs, show that they can govern.
 
For Thatcher to stay on you have to have her winning the leadership ballot in 1990, which it would only take two of the absetations to switch to her and she would have won, although by the slimest margins.
The Gulf War goes as OTL , and she calls an election in June 1991 which she said later that was her plan, she could have a won a narrow majority, most likely smaller than the one Major won in 1992, say between 10-15 seats.
She also said she did plan to retire in 1993, in which the Premiership would have passed to Major. If Smith does not die in 1994, Major might surive a 1997 election wipeout , he might go down to a narrow defeat, or even a hung parliament.
 
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