The Downing Street Years

4 ideas

1. Retreat in 1981, victory over miners 1985

   In February 1981 the government withdrew a pit-closure programme when the National Union of Mineworkers threatened to strike, because coal stocks at power stations were too low to outlast one. It then spent the next three years building stockpiles, converting some power stations to oil, and preparing police coordination. When Arthur Scargill's strike came in 1984, it ran for a year without causing power cuts and ended in March 1985 with the miners returning to work without a settlement.

2. Governing through a small inner group

   Facing a full cabinet with many members opposed to her monetarist policy, Thatcher moved key economic decisions into small ministerial committees and informal groups packed with allies. Policy was settled there with the Treasury and her own advisers, and the full cabinet was presented with conclusions it would have to reopen collectively to overturn. Controlling the agenda and the membership of the deciding room substituted for a majority she lacked in the larger one.

3. Win cabinet control by personnel, not persuasion

   Thatcher argues that a leader cannot argue a hostile cabinet into agreement and must change who sits in it. After holding to the deflationary 1981 budget despite a public letter from 364 economists against it, she used the September 1981 reshuffle to remove leading 'wets' such as Ian Gilmour and Christopher Soames and to promote loyal 'dries' into the economic departments.

4. Four votes short: the November 1990 fall

   After Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech, Michael Heseltine challenged Thatcher for the party leadership. On 20 November 1990 she won the first ballot 204 to 152 but fell four votes short of the margin the rules required. She announced her withdrawal on 22 November, having counted the votes as she had before every earlier fight and found she no longer had them.

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