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Whilst reading the Alan Clark Diaries, I noticed that Cecil Parkinson was being expected to be Thatcher's successor and would be expected to become Prime Minister by 1985 at the very earliest until the Sara Keays controversy came out in which he acted horrendously about and then Norman Tebbit was suspected as a candidate to rise up and become Prime Minister at a later time until the Brighton Bombing injured his wife and he chose to back out of front-line politics in favour of looking after her, although it was noted that he would have a hard time winning an election.

These two reasons seemed to be why Thatcher rejected Dennis' advice to resign in 1988 or 1989 and chose to carry on until 1990 where she then resigned as Prime Minister due to the Poll Tax and a leadership challenge from Michael Heseltine. So what I am asking is what if Cecil Parkinson never met Sarah Keays, meaning no affair or what if Margaret Tebbit was barely injured in the Brighton Bombing?

Cecil was apparently tipped for Foreign Secretary after a very successful campaign in the new Hertsmere constituency by Thatcher until she was told about 'developments' in his private life, without Keays to have these developments with, he gains the job. I think that Thatcher, if the Alan Clark Diaries were correct, would either resign in 1986 at the earliest to allow Cecil to be acquainted with the public and win an election on his own or resign after the 1987 election and allow Cecil to take charge a year later. What I'm wondering is what changes he would make as Prime Minister, whether he would abandon the Poll Tax or reshuffle the Cabinet, and how the public and Opposition would react to him, his time as Foreign Secretary would be far more supportive of Thatcher's ideals then Howe's were and could avoid the damage of having disagreements with both the Chancellor and Foreign Secretary, would Howe stay as Chancellor instead of Lawson succeeding him?

Onto Norman Tebbit, without Margaret seriously injured, albeit both are still affected in a minor way and his media profile being boosted with some type of fierce anti-IRA speech being made then Thatcher may be 'forced' to make him Home Secretary over the objections of Whitelaw. He would probably enact lots of populist 'law and order' acts against the IRA with early momentum allowing him to push them forward, while Whitelaw maybe threatens to resign as Deputy Prime Minister if Tebbit isn't stopped, his personal stock with the public rises as he is able to use the fact that he was a victim in his favour. In 1986 IOTL, it was supposed that Thatcher would resign and it would be a contest between Tebbit and Heseltine, Thatcher and Tebbit had disagreements during her time over Westland, Lybia and her choice in polling people so she could either resign in 1986 or 1988 leaving Tebbit to battle for control against Heseltine and win. Tebbit would be far more confrontational with some elements of the Cabinet, in my opinion, as he reshuffles and causes a split to emerge over Europe, I recall him saying that the Poll Tax was a good idea so perhaps he pushes onwards until he gets overthrown by Heseltine in 1991.

Neither would probably win 1992, Parkinson's chances with Keays are more friendly but Tebbit would either be running a divided government or Heseltine would be. I see the Good Friday Agreement being doomed away if Tebbit became PM due to far more bad blood between the two sides and it would take far longer to come to some type of accord to be reached.

What does AH.com think?
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