258. Major’s bastards and Labour’s deal
By winning the 1992 general election, John Major had gained his own mandate to form a government, instead of imply inheriting Margaret Thatcher’s. He’d shown himself capable of leading the Conservativ...
31 Aug 202514min
257. Iron Lady out, Grey Man in
With the poll tax, Thatcher took one bad decision to many. From the point of view of orthodox Thatcherite thought, it sounded like a good idea. She’d been working for years to shrink the state but, wh...
24 Aug 202514min
256. Maggie losing it
Having looked last week at how Maggie Thatcher was running out of options for how to carve out a new role for Britain on the world stage, this week we look at how things were going at home. After all,...
17 Aug 202514min
255. Maggie: lioness or poodle?
Maggie Thatcher in 1987 pulled off a trick that had eluded all other British Prime Ministers of the twentieth century: she won three general elections in a row. Even more, she won a second Commons lan...
10 Aug 202514min
254. Maggie reaching the top
Thatcher’s victories, including a general election landslide and breaking the miners’ strike, emboldened her to launch another phase in the reduction of the role of the state in the British economy. N...
3 Aug 202514min
253. The Enemy Within
What had converted Maggie Thatcher from something of a lame duck into a front runner for the next British general election?While the economy had begun to pick up, that had been patchy at best, with so...
27 Jul 202514min
252. Iron Lady
Mrs Thatcher’s first term in office was one of the great get out of jail events. She came into office intent on braking with the Keynesianism and social democracy of the postwar consensus. She drew on...
20 Jul 202514min
251. Unlucky Jim
In 1976, Jim Callaghan took over from Harold Wilson as leader of the Labour Party and British Prime Minister. He was a competent politician, though not an outstanding one. He did his job well, but he ...
13 Jul 202514min
