Margaret Thatcher’s ten most testing days
Margaret Thatcher's political life packed with confrontation, drama and incident. Here's our pick of the top ten most testing moments in her life – which reveal something of why, regardless of your views on her politics, she is receiving such plaudits today.
February 11th 1975 – Winning the Tory leadership
Margaret Thatcher had been steadily climbing up the greasy pole of life in the Conservative party before 1975, having won notoriety for her decision to scrap free milk for schoolchildren while serving as education secretary. Her sudden elevation to the top job came as a surprise to many – Edward Heath had wanted Willie Whitelaw to succeed him. But thanks to Conservative backbenchers her 'fresh start' pitch made a big difference. "To me", the Times quoted her as saying, "it is like a dream that the next name in the lists Macmillan, Home, and Heath, is Margaret Thatcher. Each has brought his own style of leadership and stamp of greatness to his task, and I shall take on the work with humility and dedication."
March 28th 1979 – Polishing off Callaghan's government
The historic vote of no confidence which finally finished Jim Callaghan's administration was a success which Thatcher deserved all the credit for. While the result couldn't have been closer – 310 MPs backed the government, and 311 rejected it – it was the moment which paved the way for the subsequent general election and Thatcher's victory, the culmination of years of chipping away at Callaghan's ailing government. "We shall take our case to the country," he complained grumpily. The country backed Margaret. It was the vote which ended Labour's time in power, it turned out, for a full 18 years.
October 10th 1980 – Sticking to Plan A
George Osborne could have taken Thatcher's correspondence course. When it comes to keeping the faith despite perilously deteriorating economic conditions, the chancellor has been following the lead of his former party leader. By the time of her second autumn conference in charge, the criticisms were beginning to mount. Thatcher's response was the first signal that she simply wouldn't budge. "To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the 'U-turn', I have only one thing to say: "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning."
April 10th 1981 – Rioting in Brixton
Britain was not a happy place in the spring of 1981. In particular relations between the police and the black community living in south London were boiling to a head until a familiar spark – police involvement with an apparent young victim of their ill-treatment – set Brixton alight. This was the first major test of Thatcher's premiership, and it was not one she met with great aplomb. When the possibility of spending more money to boost inner-city communities, she simply concluded that "money cannot buy either trust or racial harmony".
April 2nd 1982 – War leader
Thatcher had struggled in her first term, with an ailing economy providing eerie parallels with David Cameron's current travails. So when the Argentine junta headed by General Galtieri invaded the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic the woman subsequently described as Britain's greatest peacetime prime minister chose to go to war. The determination with which she defended Britain's sovereignty of this insignificant archipelago prompted global outrage and mass admiration at home, effectively winning her a second term. The Iron Lady had showed her mettle – in a political gamble which had paid off.
October 12th 1983 – Brighton bomb
At 02:54am Thatcher was busy working on her conference speech in Brighton's Grand Hotel when a bomb planted by the IRA in the building exploded. It killed five people and left many others injured. The aftermath provided a severe test of a leader whose party was being targeted in the most brutal fashion. British prime ministers are asked to deal with innumerable harrowing scenarios, but none before had faced an incident quite like this. She responded with great calmness and a steely resolve to remain unbowed in the face of terror.
July 19th 1984 – Taking on the miners
The military could be deployed against the Argentines, but the "enemy within" was a tougher challenge for Thatcher. Her battle against the miners' strike was perhaps the greatest test of her premiership. The National Union of Mineworkers had already finished Edward Heath's government thanks to the 1974 strike, and was now attempting the same against Thatcher. "The rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob," she declared grimly. July 19th 1984 saw her standing up in the Commons and finally laying down her determination to crush their opposition. The images of riot gear, police on horseback charging down protesters and officers hitting innocents with truncheons have lived long in the memory.
March 31st 1990 – Poll tax riot
It was arguably the single most significant individual policy that led to Margaret Thatcher's fall from power. The community charge – or 'poll tax' to you and me – triggered anger because of its inherently regressive nature: a flat rate levied on every adult regardless of their income. Local authority funding had to be sorted out somehow, but this solution was not going to win the Tory leader many votes. Barely ten per cent of voters supported the change. There were a series of protests up and down the country against the changes, but the biggest – dubbed the 'Battle of Trafalgar' by some – took place on March 31st 1990.
November 1st 1990 – Geoffrey Howe resignation
It was explosive. It was savage. Geoffrey Howe's resignation speech was a brutally delivered stab in the front from Thatcher's former right-hand man, and paved the way for Michael Heseltine to challenge the Iron Lady for the Conservative party leadership. Howe had been her first chancellor was probably her closest minister in terms of implementing Thatcherism. But her constant eurosceptic actions undermining his work in the Foreign Office had proved too much, and Howe's Commons speech made his views devastatingly clear.
November 28th 1990 – Leaving No 10
She had held back the tears for over a decade. But in the final test of her political career Thatcher's nerve finally failed her. Too late, the member for Finchley revealed a little of her humanity after being forced from office by her party. The Conservatives had returned to power and reshaped Britain under her leadership, but eventually turned on her with a determination even she was shocked by. "We're happy to leave the UK in a very much better state than when we came here," she declared. That sentiment was echoed by David Cameron today, when he observed: "She didn't just lead Britain – she saved Britain." It was the end of the longest British premiership since 1827. Now, as her life comes to a close, the extraordinary nature of her career is being sized up once more.
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