PM Thatcher: in 1977

Let's say one of the many non-confidence motions passes and Callaghan pulls the plug for a summer 1977 election. If Thatcher wins, will her economic program still work? Butterflies down the road?
 
It will be worse than in OTL.

North Sea Oil did not start flowing into the coffers until the eighties, and there would be no Falklands effect.

Taken together, you have unemployment soaring with no distraction, massive strikes, possibly bigger than happened in OTL and, I suspect a return to Labour in 81-82.
 
It will be worse than in OTL.

North Sea Oil did not start flowing into the coffers until the eighties, and there would be no Falklands effect.

Taken together, you have unemployment soaring with no distraction, massive strikes, possibly bigger than happened in OTL and, I suspect a return to Labour in 81-82.

This is really misunderstanding what actually went wrong for Thatcher in the early years.

North Sea oil was bad news, it pushed up the value of sterling after the removal of exchange controls. The inflow of capital went into banks, the deposits of which were filling up because of Thatcher's microeconomic finance reforms, which ended the practice of people distorting their balance sheets instead.

North Sea oil money was already coming in by this stage anyway, but its pre Iranian Revolution oil shock, so the situation will be nowhere near as difficult.

The bigger issue is that there has not been a winter of discontent, and public appetite for taming the unions is not as pronounced.
 
This is really misunderstanding what actually went wrong for Thatcher in the early years.

North Sea oil was bad news, it pushed up the value of sterling after the removal of exchange controls. The inflow of capital went into banks, the deposits of which were filling up because of Thatcher's microeconomic finance reforms, which ended the practice of people distorting their balance sheets instead.

North Sea oil money was already coming in by this stage anyway, but its pre Iranian Revolution oil shock, so the situation will be nowhere near as difficult.

The bigger issue is that there has not been a winter of discontent, and public appetite for taming the unions is not as pronounced.
North Sea Oil money never started flowing into the coffers of the UK Government until the costs of setting up the rigs had been paid for. Money only started flowing to the treasury in 1980(or thereabouts, without checking I'm not 100% sure). It was one of Ted Heaths more stupid decisions.

As such, if you take the income from oil away, under the assumption that a Thatcher Government would run the same path. You don't think its a loss then?
 
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