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:
“And though in tinsel chain and popcorn rope
My tree, a captive in your window bay,
Has lost its footing on my mountain slope
And lost the stars of heaven, may, oh, may
The symbol star it lifts against your ceiling
Help me accept its fate with Christmas feeling.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Narcotics have been systematically scapegoated and demonized. The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is an anathema to these idiots. I predict that in the near future, right wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.”
—Gus Van Sant, U.S. screenwriter and director, and Dan Yost. Father Tom Murphy (William S. Burroughs)
“Slowly ... the truth is dawning upon women, and still more slowly upon men, that woman is no stepchild of nature, no Cinderella of fate to be dowered only by fairies and the Prince; but that for her and in her, as truly as for and in man, life has wrought its great experiences, its master attainments, its supreme human revelations of the stuff of which worlds are made.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)