Conservative Party (UK) - History - Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher won her party's leadership election in 1975 and led them to subsequent victory in the 1979 general election. In the years preceding her election, the UK had experienced sustained inflation (above 20% by the time of the election, and rarely below 10%), rising unemployment and the "Winter of Discontent" in which the UK was blighted by a series of strikes.

As prime minister, Thatcher focused on establishing a political ideology that became known as the "New Right" or Thatcherism, based on social and economic ideas from the United States. Thatcher believed that too much social-democratic-orientated government policy was leading to a long term decline in the British economy. As a result, her government pursued a programme of economic liberalism, adopting a free-market approach to public services based on the sale of publicly-owned industries and utilities, as well as a reduction in trade union power. She held the belief that the existing trend of Unions was bringing economic progress to a standstill by enforcing "wildcat" strikes, keeping wages artificially high and forcing unprofitable industries to stay open.

Thatcher led the Conservatives to two further election victories with landslide majorities in 1983 and 1987. She was greatly admired by her supporters for her leadership in the Falklands War of 1982 - which coincided with a dramatic boost in her popularity — and for policies such as giving the right to council house tenants to buy their council house at a discount on market value. However, she was also deeply unpopular in certain sections of society due to unemployment, which reached its highest level since the 1930s, peaking at over 3 million following her economic reforms, and her response to the miners' strike. While unemployment had doubled between 1979 and 1982, this was largely due to Mrs Thatcher's committed battle against the inflation which had ravaged the British economy throughout the 1970s. At the time of the 1979 election, inflation was at a modern day high of 27%; but it had fallen to 4% by the start of 1983.

However, the period of unpopularity of the Conservatives in the early 1980s coincided with a crisis in the Labour Party which now formed the opposition. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) was formed in 1981 and consisted of more than 20 breakaway Labour MPs, who quickly formed the SDP-Liberal Alliance with the Liberal Party. By the turn of 1982, the SDP-Liberal Alliance was ahead of the Conservatives in the opinion polls, but the Falklands triumph in June that year, along with the recovering British economy, saw the Conservatives returning quickly to the top of the opinion polls and winning the 1983 General Election with a landslide majority, due to a split opposition vote.

Thatcher now faced, arguably, her most serious rival yet after the 1983 election, when Michael Foot resigned as Labour leader and was succeeded by Neil Kinnock. With a new leader at the helm, Labour were clearly determined to topple the Conservatives at the next election and for virtually the entirety of Mrs Thatcher's second government it was looking a very serious possibility, as the lead in the opinion polls constantly saw a change in leadership from the Conservatives to Labour, with the Alliance occasionally scraping into first place.

By the time of the election in June 1987, however, the economy was stronger, with lower inflation and falling unemployment and Mrs Thatcher secured her third successive election victory with a second, though smaller, landslide majority.

The introduction of the Community Charge (known by its opponents as the poll tax) in 1989 is often cited as contributing to her political downfall. The summer of 1989 saw her fall behind Neil Kinnock's Labour in the opinion polls for the first time since 1986, and her party's fall in popularity continued into 1990. By the autumn of that year, opinion polls were showing that Labour had a lead of up to 16 points over the Conservatives and they faced a tough 18 months ahead of them if they were to prevent Neil Kinnock's ambition to be prime minister from being realised. At the same time, the economy was sliding into another recession.

Internal party tensions led to a leadership challenge by the Conservative MP Michael Heseltine, and after months of speculation about her future as prime minister she finally resigned on 22 November 1990, making way for a new Conservative leader more likely to win the next general election in the interests of party unity.