Sir Geoffrey Howe became the third senior
Conservative minister to resign from the Cabinet,
in his case incensed by Thatcher’s handling of rela-
tions with the European Community, she knew
she had a real fight on her hands if she was to
remain leader of the party. Although she gained a
majority and almost made it on the first ballot, her
majority under the party’s rules was not quite large
enough to assure her of outright victory. Her
Cabinet colleagues now warned her that she would
lose the second round to Michael Heseltine. On
22 November 1990 she resigned and threw her
support behind John Major, the chancellor of the
exchequer, in a determined bid to stop Heseltine.
Major was elected and healed party divisions by
immediately asking Heseltine to join the Cabinet.
The trend in Britain in the early 1990s, as in
the US, was to present a more caring social
image. The Conservative Party had dropped the
longest-serving prime minister in the twentieth
century, winner of three elections. Despite
obvious flaws as a politician, Margaret Thatcher
succeeded in changing the course of British
politics. When in 1979 she entered Downing
Street it was by no means widely accepted that
state socialism was a dismal failure – she altered
the political agenda. An impoverished country,
after all, cannot care for those in need. The right
balance has to be struck between wealth-creation
and the provision of health and social services for
all those who have a right to expect it.
Fundamentally Thatcherism was about the
rejection of socialism in all its manifestations,
from the public ownership of industry to curing
the problems of poverty through welfare.
Margaret Thatcher destroyed trade union power
and the cartel restrictions of labour, and poured
scorn on the ideal that the care of the individual
from ‘cradle to grave’ was the responsibility of
society. She set out to stop the centre of politics
swinging every few years a bit more to the left.
In socialism’s place she held out a different vision,
of the able-bodied individuals being masters of
their own fate, making their own provision
instead of relying on a welfare state. Welfare was
to be restricted to those who could not help
themselves. The British people were to recapture
the spirit of enterprise, the urge to advance their
own fortunes. Inequalities of wealth were to be
welcomed, as a necessary consequence of motiva-
tion. Conservative governments would therefore
lower direct taxation and seek to reduce govern-
ment expenditure as a proportion of the country’s
wealth. They proclaimed that people should be
able to spend their money themselves and not
have the government spend it for them. The free-
market economy was the way forward for the
country, not state planning and intervention.
In practice many of Mrs Thatcher’s policies
were modified during the course of her own three
administrations. The British people collectively
were opposed to any significant tampering with
free state education, social security and universal
health provision. Spending for these sectors from
1978 to 1990 increased substantially to cope with
high unemployment and an ageing population
with growing expectations of care. The British on
the whole are not given to ideological extremes.
In the face of the electorate’s suspicions of their
aims, Conservative governments, including John
Major’s since 1990, have attempted through
reorganisation and by creating an element of
competition, to achieve better value or money in
the state sector. Health treatment remains uni-
versally free for every patient, while the cost of
medicines and ancillary services have been raised
for wage-earners. Beveridge’s vision of a welfare
state is intact. British society has turned against
Marxist economic organisation, but socialist
ideals of equal opportunity, of a classless society,
of progressive taxation, of help for the disadvan-
taged and the poor continue to permeate all polit-
ical parties.
The enterprise culture had some successes for a
time, especially in the establishment of a record
number of small businesses. House ownership
rose from just over half to 66 per cent of the pop-
ulation, the highest in Western Europe. The deep
recession which began in 1990 dented these
achievements, but the trend of increased home
ownership over the decade continued. The same is
true of small businesses, although a record num-
ber failed during the recession of the early 1990s.
Margaret Thatcher also succeeded in increas-
ing inequality. The higher-rate tax of 40 per cent
benefited most the very rich, who now paid the