DBWI: The UK Tories win the 1992 General Election

What if the 1992 UK General Election had resulted in a fourth consecutive Conservative victory, rather than a Labour victory with an overall majority of 33?
 

AndyC

Donor
Probably Labour's salvation - the ERM debacle would have happened under the Tories who set it up, and they'd have (rightly) carried the can for it.

Poor old Kinnock and Smith - they were even busily negotiating a revaluation of sterling's position in the ERM at the time (over French objections which might have still aborted the idea, to be fair: they'd pointed out how the exchange rate had changed in the preceding three years and asked quite sarcastically which exchange rate would have been valid for the longer term after all, then - higher (as it had been) or lower (as it turned out we needed).
 
Not So Sure...

Up to a point, yes, but the ERM debacle (BLack Wednesday, White Wednesday, whatever you want to call it) did lead to lower interest rates and a sustained period of growth.

The Conservatives of course weren't immune to the consequences and the whole European issue blew up in Clarke's face in 1995. He tried to face down the anti-Europeans led by that oaf Duncan-Smith and his ilk and that only made them look divided especially when five of his MPs defected to UKIP following the failure of the confidence motion against Clarke.

The real winners from all this were Paddy Ashdown's Liberal Democrats who hoovered up Labour and Conservative Council seats - the Tories lost 1,500 seats in 1995 and a further 400 in 1996, mostly to the Lib Dems.

Following John Smith's tragic death, Gordon Brown became Chancellor with Tony Blair Foreign Secretary but the Government struggled to recover from ERM while the Tories struggled with their own divisions over Europe.

That led of course to the May 1997 election and the breakthrough Ashdown had long predicted - the party won 57 seats, Labour got 286 and the Conservatives 275 and we all know what happened after that....
 

AndyC

Donor
Stodge - a Lib Dem mistyping a Lib Dem score ... We all know that the Lib Dems got 67 seats, not 57!

(Checking Wikipedia, Con up 12 to 275, Lab down 56 to 286, LD up 45 to 67 - which of course masks noticeable churn of Con->LD and Lab->Con)
 
Clarke, of course, then formed a Coalition with Ashdown's Liberal Democrats. That didn't surprise me much. I could never imagine Ashdown having a joint press conference with Kinnock outside 10 Downing Street.

Then, of course, Peter Mandelson became Labour Leader after a heated contest with Gordon Brown. Brown won both the MPs/MEPs and affiliated sections, but Mandelson won easily among rank-and-file party members.

I remember that AV referendum campaign in 1998 as if it were yesterday. Mandelson encouraging a "Yes" vote to punish Clarke and the Tories. Brown, Prescott, and Blunkett encouraged a "No" vote as they believed that it might end the Coalition. The "No" campaign was victorious in the end, though only by a slim margin (50.4% to 49.6%).

Ken Clarke mantained his personal popularity, but the government itself became highly unpopular in the middle of it's term, mainly due to divisions and several personal scandals. Several more Tory right-wingers, unhappy with the government's pro-EU stance and it's Keynesian approach to the economy, defected to UKIP in 1999.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the history lesson, guys. Isn't this thread supposed to be about what MIGHT have happened if the Tories won in 1992?

((;)))

I don't know too much about it but I can't see it being particularly pleasant for Major. White Wednesday would have destroyed the party from within, as everything from Europe to Economics tore them apart. Come 1996 (or they might wait until 1997) they'd be destroyed by Mandelson. If the behaviour of the Tores in opposition is anything to go by, they'd be so sleazy and discredited that combine with the economic problems, Labour would get a 1945 level landslide, surely.

A stronger Mandelson government in the late 1990s is an interesting idea. A cleaner break with the past. It would also mean the Lib Dems wouldn't 'have' to go into Coalition with the Tories, and might therefore today have more than 4 seats. That by-election in Sutton the other week, did they even stand a candidate?
 
I guess we wouldn't have had the Conservative evolution if Major had the confidence to stay on and the creation of Clarke's 'cosy' Capitalism would allow the UK to look as if it was leading the new world economy after Gore announced plans along rather similar lines. I'd still argue Mandelson's narrow victory in 2002 was more down to the personal unpopularity of the coalition and, of course, the collapse of the Liberal Democrats.

Odle enough, things might have turned out better for the SNP as well, Salmond might have been able to stay on if he didn't have two Parliamentary defeats on his conscience, the Red-Green alliance might also have been butterflied away if there was a viable centre-left independence party.
 
Last edited:

AndyC

Donor
Actually, that's a good point - the Greens might well not have broken into Parliament the way they did. There's plenty of polling data supporting the contention that it was disillusioned ex-Lib-Dems who comprised the big chunk of their 2002 breakthrough.

Understandable, really - all those who believed Labour to be untrustworthy on economic grounds, the Tories on social grounds and the Lib Dems because they propped up the Tories and (in my opinion, their fatal mistake) let it be widely known that they'd be willing to prop up Mandleson if he'd fallen just short) ... where else would they go? Well, apart from UKIP, but their appeal was strictly limited and the precedent of the SDP in the Eighties provided a clue that they'd drop from the 20-odd created by defections to their bare handful today.

To be honest, I think that the "4 seats" for the Lib Dems is rather glossing over the Free Democrats and the Greens - yes, the Lib Dems are the continuation Party, but all nine Free Democrats and at least twelve of the Greens were first elected as Lib Dems in 1997.

I agree with Meadow that it would have been absolutely horrible for the Tories - certainly they'd not have returned to power in 1997 even in Coalition - they might even be out of power as late as today. That said, it's looking more an more like 1992 could have provided the last true majority Government - Mandleson relied on the Greens (and the rump Lib Dems in 2007 - and that was still a minority!) and the Tories still needed the Free Democrats to get over the line in 2009, even after the Great Financial Crash*

*Question - would the Great Financial Crash have been butterflied away in an AH where the Tories won the 1992 election? Or maybe even worse?
 
Top