Fate
Then, on 1 November 1990, came the first of a series of events which would spell the end of Margaret Thatcher's years of power. Sir Geoffrey Howe, the deputy prime minister, resigned from the cabinet over its European policy. He then blasted Thatcher, having once been one of her closest allies, for her hostility towards the European Community. On 14 November, former cabinet minister Michael Heseltine challenged Mrs Thatcher's leadership. Thatcher polled higher than him in the leadership challenge, but failed to gain an outright victory in the first round of voting.
On 22 November, Mrs Thatcher announced her resignation of prime minister and Tory leader after more than 11 years, making way for a leader more likely to win the next general election.
Her successor was the chancellor John Major, who was elected on 27 November 1990 and at 47 became the youngest British prime minister of the 20th century.
Read more about this topic: Conservative Government 1987-1990
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“I am no Poet here; my pen ‘s the spout,
Where the rain water of my eyes run out,
In pity of that name, whose fate wee see
Thus copied out in griefs Hydrography:
The Muses are not Mer-maids, though upon
His death the Ocean might turn Helicon”
—John Cleveland (1613–1658)
“The man who arrives young believes that he exercises his will because his star is shining. The man who only asserts himself at thirty has a balanced idea of what will power and fate have each contributed, the one who gets there at forty is liable to put the emphasis on will alone.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we’re absorbed in details, in all sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)