Fight On!

In his memoirs, John Major comments (referring to the 1987 reshuffle in which he joined Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury):

"It is tempting to reflect on how events might have turned out if I had become chief whip[...] If that had been so[...]I would have been chief whip during Margaret's leadership contest[...]I have often wondered if I would have been able to obtain for her the few extra votes that would have enabled her to win on the first ballot."
(Chapter 5 - Into Cabinet)

Inspired by that comment, I wrote the first chapter of a timeline, the very first entry of which is below.

Fight On!


[FONT=&quot]From [/FONT][FONT=&quot]John Major – The Autobiography[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]…[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]After the [1987] election, I was amongst those tipped to be promoted to Cabinet. There were two possibilities that I could think of that I might be offered; Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Chief Whip. Of these, Chief Whip seemed the most likely given my previous experience in the Whips’ Office, and so it would turn out to be. Although Nigel had tried to talk Margaret into moving me to the Treasury, she, with the backing of Willie Whitelaw, decided otherwise, promoting the Financial Secretary, Norman Lamont and appointing me as Chief Whip.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]…[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I have often wondered what might have occurred had Nigel’s view prevailed and I been moved to the Treasury. It seems likely I would have remained in the role for a couple of years, before being moved to a departmental position, perhaps to the Department of Trade and Industry. I would not, therefore, have been Margaret’s Chief Whip during the leadership election that so destroyed her political career. Could another have done better? Perhaps, although one wonders whether this would have made much difference in the long run. Indeed, perhaps the only interesting outcome to this diversion might have been that I might have been a candidate for Chancellor, which had long been my ambition, following Nigel’s resignation.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]…

[/FONT]

I have the rest of Chapter One written, which takes us up to the post-leadership reshuffle, and am starting on Chapter Two at the moment. If anyone is interested in where things go from there, I shall continue to post. If not, I shan't. My, how simple! If only all life were so straightforward!

So, continue?

 
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Hmmm.... someone's been reading my plans..... maybe....

I'll be honest, I have planned this out only as far as 1992 so far, but King is definitely going to have a more prominent career ITTL than OTL. (Spitting Image, of course, will have to find a new joke for him.)

[FONT=&quot]—[/FONT]Chapter One[FONT=&quot]—[/FONT]

From
John Major – The Autobiography
[…]

After the [1987] election, I was amongst those tipped to be promoted to Cabinet. There were two possibilities that I could think of that I might be offered; Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Chief Whip. Of these, Chief Whip seemed the most likely given my previous experience in the Whips’ Office, and so it would turn out to be. Although Nigel had tried to talk Margaret into moving me to the Treasury, she, with the backing of Willie Whitelaw, decided otherwise, promoting the Financial Secretary, Norman Lamont and appointing me as Chief Whip.

[…]

I have often wondered what might have occurred had Nigel’s view prevailed and I been moved to the Treasury. It seems likely I would have remained in the role for a couple of years, before being moved to a departmental position, perhaps to the Department of Trade and Industry. I would not, therefore, have been Margaret’s Chief Whip during the leadership election that so destroyed her political career. Could another have done better? Perhaps, although one wonders whether this would have made much difference in the long run. Indeed, perhaps the only interesting outcome to this diversion might have been that I might have been a candidate for Chancellor, which had long been my ambition, following Nigel’s resignation.

[…]


From
Grantham to Westminster: The Life of Margaret Thatcher
[…]

By 1989, the Thatcher premiership was clearly in dire straits. The poll tax, which Conservative conferences had been crying out for for years was becoming an electoral liability, and ministers were desperately searching for a way out of the hole they had dug for themselves. The prime minister herself was losing touch with the senior figures in her Cabinet; despite the best efforts of the Chief Whip, John Major, Thatcher’s relations with her Chancellor, Lawson, and her Foreign Secretary, Howe, were clearly deteriorating. Labour were ahead in the opinion polls, and the backbenches were starting to wonder the unthinkable; could they replace Thatcher?

[…]

So where did the Thatcher premiership go so wrong? The answer lies at least partly, with the prime minister’s sometimes forceful character. Whilst it is always tempting to view prime ministers as unitary figures, in reality they depend very much upon their key lieutenants. Such is certainly true of Thatcher. Her early successes were founded on her strong relationship with her Chancellors, Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe, but after the 1987 election, it became very obvious that her relations with both were deteriorating. Howe had been hurt when he had been moved from the Treasury, but he had grown to enjoy the Foreign Office, and he remained as supportive of the prime minister as ever. Thatcher, however, began to take him very much for granted, often cutting him off or overruling him in Cabinet, and the effect was obvious to all, and clearly damaging to Howe’s credibility.

[…]


From
John Major – The Autobiography
[…]

The beginning of the end came when in June of 1989, Margaret told Geoffrey she was moving him from the Foreign Office he so loved and appointing him as Leader of the House. In my view, this was a mistake; I had told her that such a move would be too obvious a demotion to disguise, and that the conciliatory title of “Deputy Prime Minister” would not be sufficient to veil it. Nevertheless, she pressed on, appointing as the centrepiece of her reshuffle Tom King as the new Foreign Secretary.

Geoffrey was not a natural rebel, and I’m sure it pained him as much as it did Margaret to refuse, but refuse he did. The demotion was simply too much and too obvious to accept. Instead, he asked to leave the Cabinet. Margaret asked him to reconsider, but the battlelines had been drawn. Geoffrey could not accept a move from the Foreign Office with his pride intact; Margaret could not reconsider without damaging her credibility.

[…]

Cabinet discussions became ever more difficult. British entry to the ERM, a policy that Nigel and Geoffrey had championed, was opposed by the prime minister, who felt outmanoeuvred by her Chancellor and Foreign Secretary in being forced to agree to the Madrid Conditions; in short, that Britain would enter “when the time was right”. She had tried to deal with Geoffrey in an unfortunately direct style, and had lost him from the Cabinet. Tragically, she tried to isolate Nigel with the same lack of tact. The return of Alan Waters, who was known to oppose the ERM, as an economic advisor, started off a fresh wave of problems, the publication of an article describing the policy as “half-baked” proved to be the flash point. Nigel could not accept being publically undermined. He offered Margaret an ultimatum; either Alan was sacked, or he would resign. Once again, the battlelines had been drawn, and neither side could back down without a huge loss of face.

[…]


From
The Daily Telegraph
[…]

LAWSON RESIGNS – HURD NEW CHANCELLOR

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson has resigned over disagreements in economic policy with the prime minister and her economic advisor. Mr Lawson is one of the longest serving members of the Cabinet, having served first as Energy Secretary from 1981 to 1983 and then as Chancellor from 1983 to the present day, and his loss will no doubt be felt keenly in the government.

It has been announced that the Home Secretary, Mr Douglas Hurd, will be appointed as the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that Paul Channon, the Transport Secretary, will replace Mr Hurd at the Home Office.

[…]


From
Grantham to Westminster: The Life of Margaret Thatcher
[…]

If there was a single point where the situation became irreparable, it was Lawson’s resignation. Thatcher tried to carry on and dismiss the resignations as mere trivialities, reminiscent of Macmillan’s famous dismissal of the resignation of his Chancellor as a bit of “local difficulties”. But this proved increasingly difficult. Two of the principle architects of Thatcherism, Lawson and Howe, were gone, replaced by Hurd and King, and the backbenches knew that the situation was at crisis point. William Whitelaw, who so often had been the force for calm and stability in the Thatcher government was gone, and there was now no-one to act as a brake on the prime minister. In Michael Heseltine, the former Defence Secretary who had left the Cabinet five years earlier, the plotters had a plausible alternative. Now, all they needed was a “stalking horse”; someone to set the contest in motion. This, they found in Conservative backbencher Sir Anthony Meyer.

Meyer was a classic “wet”; aristocratic, socially liberal and pro-European. He had been outraged by Thatcher’s increasingly shrill stance on Europe and with the party’s popularity on the wane and Lawson’s resignation sending shockwaves through the party, Meyer scented blood in the water. He announced that unless the prime minister were to step down, he would challenge her for the party leadership. Meyer himself would not be a serious candidate, but by challenging a sitting prime minister himself, he hoped to draw more senior pro-Europeans, such as Michael Heseltine and Sir Ian Gilmour into the contest.

[…]


From
The Daily Telegraph
HESELTINE ENTERS THE FRAY

[…]

The former Defence Secretary, Michael Heseltine, has announced that he will contest the Conservative Party leadership election. Mr Heseltine has stated that he admires Mrs Thatcher for her achievements, but feels that he has a better chance of leading the Conservative Party to a fourth electoral victory. The election, triggered by backbencher Sir Anthony Meyer’s challenge to sitting prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is to take place on the 5th December.

[…]


From
Grantham to Westminster: The Life of Margaret Thatcher
[…]

Having started the contest, Meyer soon withdrew, leaving it as a straight fight between Heseltine and Thatcher. It quickly became clear that Heseltine would draw a significant following; too many Conservative MPs felt a change of leadership was needed, even if that change wasn’t to Heseltine, and his promise to abolish the poll tax won him a good deal of support. Indeed, the Chief Whip, John Major, privately warned the prime minister that it was not impossible that she would fail to win on the first ballot; an event that would shatter her authority.

[…]


Conservative Party leadership election, 1989

Margaret Thatcher 217

Michael Heseltine 145
Abstentions 4
Spoilt 13
Result: Thatcher elected


From
Grantham to Westminster: The Life of Margaret Thatcher
[…]

Just as Major had feared, the leadership contest exposed deep divisions within the Conservative ranks. Thatcher had won on the first ballot, and Heseltine had grudgingly endorsed her as the party leader, but the damage done to her authority would be slow, if indeed it ever was, to heal. The Thatcher premiership limped onwards, but it did not recover its previous form. The question amongst Conservative backbenchers of when Thatcher would retire became more immediate; “before, or after the election?”

[…]


From
John Major – The Autobiography
[…]

Despite my warnings, I knew that Margaret had been hurt by the scale of the vote for Heseltine, and I knew that it was vital that she reassert her authority as soon as possible. A false reconciliation with Michael and a cautious programme was neither Margaret’s style, nor likely to work. She had to be decisive, or she would fail. In her post-election reshuffle, Margaret made a number of changes, including appointing Norman Tebbit, who had headed her campaign, as Education Secretary, moving Nick Ridley to the position of Party Chairman and Ken Baker to become Leader of the House. Norman was reluctant to make a Cabinet return, but was convinced that the government and prime minister needed him if it were to make an effective recovery. I myself was pleased with the position of Secretary of State for Health, returning to the department where I had first joined government, whilst David Waddington took over as Chief Whip. There were plenty of new faces around the Cabinet table too; Margaret’s policy unit protégé John Redwood as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Peter Lilley as Environment Secretary. It was impossible to pretend that nothing had happened; the loss of Geoffrey and Nigel was a difficult one to bear, and it certainly weakened our position, but in the circumstances, I should call it as good a recovery as could have been expected.

[…]

One unfortunate casualty of the reshuffle was Chris Patten; Chris had argued against the poll tax, and made it clear that he did not wish to stay on unless he could begin the process of its dismantlement. In time, and in the freedom of the backbenches, Chris was to be one of the government’s harshest critics on the subject, something to which he would later ascribe his narrow victory in his seat of Bath.

[…]


The Cabinet, January 1990


Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher

Lord Chancellor: Lord Mackay of Clashfern
Leader of the Lords: Lord Belstead
Leader of the Commons: Kenneth Baker

Chancellor of the Exchequer: Douglas Hurd
Chief Secretary to the Treasury: John Redwood
Foreign Secretary: Tom King
Home Secretary: Paul Channon
Minister of Ag., Fish. and Food: John Gummer
Secretary of State for Defence: Malcolm Rifkind
Secretary of State for Education and Science: Norman Tebbit
Secretary of State for Employment: Norman Lamont
Secretary of State for Energy: John Wakeham
Secretary of State for the Environment: Peter Lilley
Secretary of State for Health: John Major
Secretary of State for Social Security: Tony Newton
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry: Kenneth Clarke
Secretary of State for Transport: Cecil Parkinson

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: Peter Brooke
Secretary of State for Scotland: Ian Lang
Secretary of State for Wales: Peter Walker

Party Chair (Duchy of Lancaster): Nicholas Ridley
Chief Whip: David Waddington
 
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Sounds interesting, but Tom King doesn't sound familiar.

He wouldn't. Even though he was in charge of Defence, Northern Ireland and Employment all being big points he was unnoticed by the media which Spitting Image made a joke/song about called 'Invisible Man' about his invisibility in the media.
 
Any chance you coul increase the size of the font, as it's a little hard to read at them moment, please.:)

Sorry! I made a fetish of small font sizes during my last year at college, and as a consequence learned to read in 10pt quite comfortably. It still seems a tad difficult to read tho' - I assure you in looked better in the Word document I copied it from...... :S

EDIT: Have axed the italics - it seems to read better now. :D

Incidentally, the commentary track:

The resignation of Geoffrey Howe
Here, we see Howe resigning a year early, in 1989 over his removal from the Foreign Office rather than in 1990 over European policy. In OTL, Major said he would not have been surprised had Howe done so, such was the slap in the face of being moved from Foreign Secretary to Leader of the House (and then mocked by Bernard Ingham on the courtesy title of "Deputy Prime Minister"). Here, Howe does resign, and though he does not make the damaging speech that he did in 1990, it weakens Thatcher's position a tad more.

The resignation of Nigel Lawson
Lawson's resignation is exactly as OTL, except that he is replaced by Douglas Hurd instead of by John Major (who is, of course, Chief Whip)

Sir Anthony Meyer's challenge
Sir Anthony Meyer's challenge is OTL. Here, the loss of Geoffrey Howe means that the prime minister looks more vulnerable, and Heseltine decides to seize the moment and throw his hat into the ring, meaning the Heseltine/Thatcher showdown is almost a full year early (the very end of 1989, rather than late 1990).

The leadership contest
In December 1989, the full horrors of the poll tax haven't quite hit home, and Thatcher's anti-European rhetoric isn't turned to 11, so she does a tad better in this leadership election than the later one of OTL. The upshot of which is, of course, she wins on the first ballot.

On the narrative
You may be wondering why, if Thatcher survives, the texts keep talking about "the end" of the Thatcher age and a "crisis point". There is an analysis ITTL that the Thatcher premiership never recovered from the would-be assasination, and that she was a dead woman walking from then on. Actually, this ignores some events from Chapter 2, but memory can be so fickle. For narrative reasons, it was done to make Thatcher's survival in question as the text was read.

The reshuffle
This is a fairly radical reshuffle, but Major has convinced Thatcher that she needs one if she's going to put the past behind her. OTL, Tebbit was offered Education Secretary in the earlier reshuffle and turned it down, preferring to care for his wife. Here, he decides the nation and the PM need him, and agrees to join.
 
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Sorry! I made a fetish of small font sizes during my last year at college, and as a consequence learned to read in 10pt quite comfortably. It still seems a tad difficult to read tho' - I assure you in looked better in the Word document I copied it from...... :S

EDIT: Have axed the italics - it seems to read better now. :D

Thanks, a very enjoyable read, not quite sure if the Tory's are going to win the next election...but to be honest I like not knowing as it mans what I'm reading isn't predictable. Well done, I look forward to Chapter 2.:)
 
Please do continue. As your Sig elsewhere says, yes, there may be two others on the go, but certainly this seems a lot better than 'Thatcher's Last Stand'.
 
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