Sorry Mrs May, but you’re no Mrs Thatcher

The political downfall of the Iron Lady cannot be compared to that of the current Prime Minister

The pitiful sight of a prime minister being brought down by her own party has revived memories of the downfall of Margaret Thatcher. The fact that Mrs Thatcher announced her resignation 28 years ago this week has been taken by some as a sign that history is in danger of repeating itself. But there is not much that the two events have in common and the comparison flatters Mrs May without good reason.

A short history lesson is in order. Mrs Thatcher defeated Labour’s incumbent of No 10, Jim Callaghan, in 1979, and then faced the challenges posed by the invasion of the Falkland Islands by the fascist dictatorship of Argentina and the attempt by the miners’ leader, Arthur Scargill, to overthrow her government. She defeated them both before being re-elected in 1983, and then escaped uninjured from the bombing of the Grand Hotel Brighton by IRA/SINN Fein terrorists in October 1984.

Despite the high levels of unemployment during the shakeout of labour from the manufacturing industry, Mrs Thatcher’s 1987 election was another triumph. After eight years in office, her campaign saw her returned with more votes than at her first victory in 1979 and a majority of just over 100 seats.

Mrs May’s record hardly compares. After the resignation of David Cameron, the other candidates to succeed him all withdrew, having messed up their own campaigns, thus gifting her the job by default. Not content to make good use of her good fortune, she called a general election to increase her majority and, after a deplorably incompetent campaign, finished up losing it instead, thereby becoming dependent on the votes of Democratic Unionist MPS.

Furthermore, the downfall of Mrs Thatcher did not come at the hands of the electors, nor mainly over errors of policy (although entrusting the introduction of the Community Charge to Chris Patten ensured its failure), but to the inexorable parliamentary arithmetic of a long premiership and the vainglorious ambition of Michael Heseltine.

Gradually, over the years, the benches behind a long-serving prime minister become inhabited by more and more MPS who have risen to serve a spell as minister but have then been dropped, alongside those who have never been given a chance at all, and fewer and fewer who still have hopes of gaining preferment. Indeed, the parliamentary system has an inbuilt mechanism to limit the maximum continuous tenure at No 10 to about 10 years. All that is then needed to unseat an incumbent is an ambitious challenger. In Mrs Thatcher’s case that was Heseltine, who struck from outside, not so much over differences in policy, although he was perfectly ready to make up some of those, but out of ambition to become PM.

Today, the Conservative benches are riven by differences of view over that most fundamental political issue of all: whether the UK should return to its centuries of parliamentary selfgovernment or remain a member of the EU, whose leadership believes it is destined to become a single state.

There are no Brexiteers anxious to become prime minister of a United Kingdom (still less of a dis-united kingdom) subservient to Brussels. Nor are there any Remainers who would want to be leader of a United Kingdom determined to remain the united, independent nation it once was. If Mrs May falls, it will be over principle, not personality.

There is a further potential difference. When, in November 1990, Heseltine triggered a ballot on the Conservative Party leadership, Mrs Thatcher polled 204 votes against his 152 – four short of the total needed to win outright. Although she was entitled to a re-run, after consulting the Cabinet, she resigned both as Conservative leader and prime minister. I told her I could not go back on my undertaking to my wife and would not stand. Mrs Thatcher then backed John Major, who won.

Would Mrs May bow out gracefully if she narrowly won a vote of confidence, but was left with her authority undermined and was asked to go by her Cabinet? What then if Labour tabled a motion of no confidence in the Government? Would the Tories vote against Mrs May and precipitate a general election and near-certain defeat? Oh, what a tangled web we weave.