1 00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:35,640 APPLAUSE 2 00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:37,480 In October 1989, 3 00:00:37,480 --> 00:00:41,480 the Conservative Party celebrated Margaret Thatcher's 64th birthday 4 00:00:41,480 --> 00:00:45,400 and her tenth anniversary as Prime Minister at the party conference... 5 00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:48,640 # Happy birthday, dear Margaret... # 6 00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:52,120 Yet, just over a year later, those same colleagues who clapped 7 00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:56,240 and cheered her in public would force her from office. 8 00:00:56,240 --> 00:01:00,640 For some time, many in the party had been wishing to get rid of her. 9 00:01:00,640 --> 00:01:03,320 They felt that Margaret Thatcher had lost her way, that she 10 00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:07,160 was dictatorial in Cabinet and out of touch with the country. 11 00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:10,640 They feared her policies, especially on the poll tax and Europe, 12 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,640 would lose them the next election. 13 00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:16,840 But Margaret Thatcher was determined that SHE would decide 14 00:01:16,840 --> 00:01:19,480 the timing and the manner of her going. 15 00:01:21,960 --> 00:01:24,960 MARGARET THATCHER: I knew that the time would come when I had to go. 16 00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:27,840 I felt that I should fight one more election 17 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:32,520 and then the time would be best about two years after that election. 18 00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:37,000 Also, I was really grooming several people to run for the leadership, 19 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:39,640 so it was really all worked out, but, of course, 20 00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:42,360 the best-laid plans "gang aft agley." 21 00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:48,200 Margaret correctly analysed the situation 22 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:51,520 that she was unpopular in the polls, 23 00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:54,000 that a large number of her colleagues were 24 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:57,320 frightened that she would lose an election or, 25 00:01:57,320 --> 00:02:00,760 more particularly, that they might lose their seats. 26 00:02:00,760 --> 00:02:04,160 But, after all, we'd been through that in '81 27 00:02:04,160 --> 00:02:08,680 and we'd been through it in '85-'86 28 00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:11,840 and on each occasion she'd shown her resilience 29 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:15,120 and her ability to come back and win an election. 30 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:17,400 So she was very confident. 31 00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:21,080 Perhaps she may have been overconfident because of that. 32 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:27,160 As Margaret Thatcher celebrated ten years with her closest admirers, 33 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:31,240 senior Conservatives began to plan a dignified departure for the leader. 34 00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:36,200 The men in grey suits had decided that the time had come 35 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:39,320 for a gracious handover, but it was not to be. 36 00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:45,640 LORD WHITELAW: I think probably her greatest mistake 37 00:02:45,640 --> 00:02:47,520 was not to make up her mind 38 00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:50,640 to give up before the 1992 election. 39 00:02:50,640 --> 00:02:53,960 I think ten years was a remarkable achievement 40 00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:58,840 and it would have been wise probably to have given up at that stage. 41 00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:01,200 Difficult but I think probably wise. 42 00:03:02,880 --> 00:03:06,560 Shortly after her tenth anniversary in power, Margaret Thatcher 43 00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:09,720 was invited to Bledlow, Lord Carrington's country seat. 44 00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:15,640 Carrington, a party grandee and a former Foreign Secretary, 45 00:03:15,640 --> 00:03:18,760 had taken on the difficult task of telling Margaret Thatcher 46 00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:20,880 the time had come for her to leave office. 47 00:03:22,080 --> 00:03:25,120 It was quite clear really that Peter wanted to talk to me 48 00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:28,460 about when I would go. 49 00:03:28,460 --> 00:03:32,140 Quite clear that I think he was speaking for other people too. 50 00:03:32,140 --> 00:03:36,020 That was the impression I got, that he thought the party wanted me to go. 51 00:03:36,020 --> 00:03:40,820 They wanted me to go at a time of my own choosing and with dignity... 52 00:03:40,820 --> 00:03:44,980 but that I had the impression that he wanted me 53 00:03:44,980 --> 00:03:48,140 to go rather sooner than had been in my mind. 54 00:03:48,140 --> 00:03:53,140 I think it happens to everybody. They stay too long. 55 00:03:54,700 --> 00:03:58,780 Particularly when you're in a position of that authority. 56 00:03:58,780 --> 00:04:01,780 You know so much more than your advisers know 57 00:04:01,780 --> 00:04:05,660 because if you've been there 11 years or 12 years maybe 58 00:04:05,660 --> 00:04:09,900 you've had three or four advisers and you think you know everything. 59 00:04:11,540 --> 00:04:14,180 There was alarm at the Prime Minister's tendency 60 00:04:14,180 --> 00:04:16,620 to appear regal in public. 61 00:04:16,620 --> 00:04:19,380 We have become a grandmother 62 00:04:19,380 --> 00:04:23,140 of a grandson called Michael. 63 00:04:23,140 --> 00:04:27,500 She was, I thought, starting to show some of the signs of metal fatigue. 64 00:04:27,500 --> 00:04:29,300 Not very surprising. 65 00:04:29,300 --> 00:04:33,940 She'd been in office as Prime Minster for a decade. 66 00:04:33,940 --> 00:04:38,940 She worked incredibly hard but I think she was starting to portray 67 00:04:38,940 --> 00:04:43,860 some signs of, um, tiredness 68 00:04:43,860 --> 00:04:46,580 and not always being on top of the subject. 69 00:04:48,380 --> 00:04:51,380 And many of Margaret Thatcher's colleagues were concerned that she 70 00:04:51,380 --> 00:04:53,380 was ignoring the advice of her Cabinet, 71 00:04:53,380 --> 00:04:55,220 whose support she needed above all, 72 00:04:55,220 --> 00:04:59,020 and was becoming dangerously self-sufficient. 73 00:04:59,020 --> 00:05:02,300 In 1988, she lost an important restraining influence 74 00:05:02,300 --> 00:05:05,380 when Willie Whitelaw retired as Deputy Prime Minister. 75 00:05:06,820 --> 00:05:10,020 NIGEL LAWSON: He was a tremendous stabilising force. 76 00:05:10,020 --> 00:05:11,500 A force for sanity. 77 00:05:11,500 --> 00:05:16,740 And it was a great loss when he went. 78 00:05:16,740 --> 00:05:19,420 Then there was really no restraint on her at all. 79 00:05:22,460 --> 00:05:25,180 From his retirement, Whitelaw cautioned 80 00:05:25,180 --> 00:05:28,980 the Prime Minister against provoking a split with her senior colleagues. 81 00:05:28,980 --> 00:05:31,420 He warned her that her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, 82 00:05:31,420 --> 00:05:35,300 and her Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe, were increasingly angered 83 00:05:35,300 --> 00:05:39,500 by her style and her policies, but the Prime Minister ignored him. 84 00:05:42,180 --> 00:05:48,460 I think I wasn't far wrong. I think that was a problem for her by then. 85 00:05:48,460 --> 00:05:52,460 I think it was a great problem that she wasn't getting on with Nigel 86 00:05:52,460 --> 00:05:55,980 by that stage and that, evidently, 87 00:05:55,980 --> 00:05:59,660 she wasn't getting on really with Geoffrey Howe either. 88 00:05:59,660 --> 00:06:02,900 But it had become bigger than that. 89 00:06:02,900 --> 00:06:06,020 The Prime Minster depended on the backing of her Foreign Secretary 90 00:06:06,020 --> 00:06:09,380 and her Chancellor for her authority in Cabinet. 91 00:06:09,380 --> 00:06:13,180 If she dared alienate these two torchbearers of Thatcherism, 92 00:06:13,180 --> 00:06:15,460 she risked everything. 93 00:06:15,460 --> 00:06:17,460 She did and she lost. 94 00:06:25,820 --> 00:06:28,060 In the early days of her government, Margaret Thatcher 95 00:06:28,060 --> 00:06:31,900 and Geoffrey Howe had been close allies on economic policy, 96 00:06:31,900 --> 00:06:35,540 but now, in Mrs Thatcher's view, Sir Geoffrey had become dangerously 97 00:06:35,540 --> 00:06:39,180 pro-European and had fallen under the influence of the community. 98 00:06:40,460 --> 00:06:43,740 I think Geoffrey was much more of a compromiser 99 00:06:43,740 --> 00:06:47,820 and a consensus man than I was so he, in fact, 100 00:06:47,820 --> 00:06:52,220 in negotiations would move more towards their position while I wanted 101 00:06:52,220 --> 00:06:56,100 to keep far more of the sovereignty as a matter of principle, 102 00:06:56,100 --> 00:06:58,260 and that really was the difference. 103 00:06:58,260 --> 00:07:01,180 Well, she'd never been lacking in egocentricity, 104 00:07:01,180 --> 00:07:05,900 and that may be attributed as a criticism, but when she became 105 00:07:05,900 --> 00:07:09,900 engaged in hand-to-hand combat, as it were, 106 00:07:09,900 --> 00:07:13,580 around the European Council table, I think 107 00:07:13,580 --> 00:07:18,260 her manner then became more strident than her colleagues liked 108 00:07:18,260 --> 00:07:20,740 and actually became counterproductive 109 00:07:20,740 --> 00:07:24,340 and led to our losing tricks that we might otherwise have won. 110 00:07:24,340 --> 00:07:26,420 MARGARET THATCHER: 'Now I did point out that we had 111 00:07:26,420 --> 00:07:27,780 'all foreign ministers here 112 00:07:27,780 --> 00:07:30,540 'and if they could agree in two or three weeks' time,' 113 00:07:30,540 --> 00:07:33,100 we could have had a special meeting here tonight 114 00:07:33,100 --> 00:07:35,380 so that they could have agreed then. 115 00:07:35,380 --> 00:07:39,940 This obvious factor did not escape them. They merely refused to have it. 116 00:07:39,940 --> 00:07:41,780 You were ready to go, weren't you? 117 00:07:41,780 --> 00:07:43,020 LAUGHTER 118 00:07:43,020 --> 00:07:46,860 Really, it's an absolutely... I can't tell you. 119 00:07:46,860 --> 00:07:50,940 Only a Frenchman could have done that. Absolutely unbelievable. 120 00:07:50,940 --> 00:07:54,780 She was completely confrontational with them on everything. 121 00:07:54,780 --> 00:07:57,620 The result was twofold. 122 00:07:57,620 --> 00:08:00,060 First of all, they were not prepared, 123 00:08:00,060 --> 00:08:02,900 after they realised what the game was that she was playing, 124 00:08:02,900 --> 00:08:07,180 they were not prepared to give her anything on any issue 125 00:08:07,180 --> 00:08:09,980 because they could see they would get nothing in return. 126 00:08:09,980 --> 00:08:12,660 So we achieved nothing as a nation. 127 00:08:12,660 --> 00:08:15,780 And what we did do 128 00:08:15,780 --> 00:08:18,980 was unite all the other Europeans 129 00:08:18,980 --> 00:08:21,380 in a way that was totally counterproductive 130 00:08:21,380 --> 00:08:25,060 because they were united against us, against Britain. 131 00:08:25,060 --> 00:08:29,180 No, Britain's interests were never damaged in my time. 132 00:08:29,180 --> 00:08:32,740 Don't forget, I took over a declining Britain, 133 00:08:32,740 --> 00:08:35,140 a Britain that was accepting decline, 134 00:08:35,140 --> 00:08:38,460 a Britain whose voice meant nothing in the world. 135 00:08:38,460 --> 00:08:41,820 And I finished up with a Britain whose voice meant 136 00:08:41,820 --> 00:08:43,500 something in Europe. 137 00:08:43,500 --> 00:08:45,580 And if they were against what I said, 138 00:08:45,580 --> 00:08:47,860 they should have done it by argument, 139 00:08:47,860 --> 00:08:50,620 not by the attempted bulldozer. 140 00:08:53,300 --> 00:08:56,820 Margaret Thatcher had come to rely on the advice of Charles Powell, 141 00:08:56,820 --> 00:08:58,420 her private secretary. 142 00:08:58,420 --> 00:09:00,580 He shared her hostility to Europe. 143 00:09:02,860 --> 00:09:05,780 But the pomp of state affairs brought the Foreign Secretary 144 00:09:05,780 --> 00:09:08,540 and the Prime Minister into frequent contact. 145 00:09:08,540 --> 00:09:11,340 Sir Geoffrey Howe had become one of the most influential 146 00:09:11,340 --> 00:09:15,100 opponents of Margaret Thatcher's stance on Europe. 147 00:09:15,100 --> 00:09:19,900 But the disagreement between the two politicians went far beyond policy. 148 00:09:19,900 --> 00:09:21,340 I think as the years wore on, 149 00:09:21,340 --> 00:09:24,500 they got on each other's nerves to an increasing degree. 150 00:09:24,500 --> 00:09:26,700 One of the problems seemed to me 151 00:09:26,700 --> 00:09:31,860 that Geoffrey Howe has a rather roundabout way of expressing things 152 00:09:31,860 --> 00:09:34,540 and when he came over to Number 10, 153 00:09:34,540 --> 00:09:37,100 he used very circumlocutory language. 154 00:09:37,100 --> 00:09:40,220 He would start from the middle, as it were, rather than the beginning. 155 00:09:40,220 --> 00:09:42,860 Most people know the one thing you have to do with Mrs Thatcher 156 00:09:42,860 --> 00:09:45,740 is to get to your point in the first half of the first sentence because 157 00:09:45,740 --> 00:09:50,180 that may well be the only sentence you're ever allowed to speak. 158 00:09:50,180 --> 00:09:53,420 GEOFFREY HOWE: 'We achieved that because we've been able, 159 00:09:53,420 --> 00:09:54,860 'during the two terms in office...' 160 00:09:54,860 --> 00:09:56,460 Even in public, 161 00:09:56,460 --> 00:09:59,300 Margaret Thatcher found it difficult to hide her impatience with 162 00:09:59,300 --> 00:10:02,740 Sir Geoffrey's determination to cover the ground thoroughly. 163 00:10:05,100 --> 00:10:08,140 MRS THATCHER: Geoffrey's personal style was very different from mine. 164 00:10:08,140 --> 00:10:11,340 He has a lovely speaking voice, quiet speaking voice. 165 00:10:11,340 --> 00:10:15,740 But at Cabinet we always reported on foreign affairs. 166 00:10:15,740 --> 00:10:16,860 This quiet voice was 167 00:10:16,860 --> 00:10:20,220 so quiet sometimes that people couldn't hear and I had to say, 168 00:10:20,220 --> 00:10:25,100 "Speak up." And then he gave it, in a way, which wasn't exactly 169 00:10:25,100 --> 00:10:29,380 scintillating, and foreign affairs, you know, are interesting. 170 00:10:29,380 --> 00:10:34,420 They affect everything that happens to our own way of life 171 00:10:34,420 --> 00:10:35,980 and they are exciting. 172 00:10:37,460 --> 00:10:39,460 And so we just diverged. 173 00:10:41,580 --> 00:10:45,220 From 1983, when Geoffrey Howe became Foreign Secretary, 174 00:10:45,220 --> 00:10:47,060 colleagues had been first embarrassed 175 00:10:47,060 --> 00:10:49,740 and later appalled by the Prime Minister's public 176 00:10:49,740 --> 00:10:53,420 humiliation of this senior politician. 177 00:10:53,420 --> 00:10:58,620 NIGEL LAWSON: I think because he is very polite and didn't answer back, 178 00:10:58,620 --> 00:11:01,620 it was almost as if he was being treated as a cross 179 00:11:01,620 --> 00:11:05,020 between a doormat and a punchbag. 180 00:11:05,020 --> 00:11:07,140 She would delight in front of others. 181 00:11:07,140 --> 00:11:10,020 What she said to him in private was her own business, but in front of 182 00:11:10,020 --> 00:11:13,460 others, in front of colleagues, she would, er, 183 00:11:13,460 --> 00:11:16,300 treat what he said in the most dismissive way, 184 00:11:16,300 --> 00:11:19,140 be extremely discourteous to him, trample all over him, 185 00:11:19,140 --> 00:11:23,820 and it was very embarrassing for others to witness. 186 00:11:25,060 --> 00:11:27,140 JOHN WHITTINGDALE: Mrs Thatcher would always be 187 00:11:27,140 --> 00:11:30,460 very critical of Geoffrey, sometimes almost rudely. 188 00:11:30,460 --> 00:11:32,900 I mean, I felt uncomfortable 189 00:11:32,900 --> 00:11:35,780 as a relatively junior member of her staff to be present 190 00:11:35,780 --> 00:11:39,260 to hear her talking pretty sternly to 191 00:11:39,260 --> 00:11:41,900 a minister as senior as Geoffrey Howe. 192 00:11:41,900 --> 00:11:45,940 I think one of the things that she had never fully absorbed is 193 00:11:45,940 --> 00:11:50,180 that it's bad management as well as bad manners 194 00:11:50,180 --> 00:11:54,660 to reproach, as it were, officers in front of other ranks. 195 00:11:54,660 --> 00:11:57,740 If you want to tick people off or have arguments with them, 196 00:11:57,740 --> 00:12:01,460 then you should, as a matter of courtesy, do it first in private. 197 00:12:01,460 --> 00:12:05,900 But I think that she had then become increasingly reckless, if you like, 198 00:12:05,900 --> 00:12:09,260 of the way in which she conducted personal relationships of that kind. 199 00:12:10,900 --> 00:12:13,340 I wish he'd come and said. 200 00:12:13,340 --> 00:12:15,140 Why not? 201 00:12:15,140 --> 00:12:19,260 Other people didn't fear to come and discuss, although I did have 202 00:12:19,260 --> 00:12:23,140 discussions with Geoffrey as Foreign Secretary, usually once a week. 203 00:12:24,540 --> 00:12:27,060 What a pity 204 00:12:27,060 --> 00:12:28,580 he didn't say. 205 00:12:30,980 --> 00:12:34,700 Margaret Thatcher was unable to get on with her Foreign Secretary. 206 00:12:34,700 --> 00:12:37,340 She came to find it almost unbearable to be with him 207 00:12:37,340 --> 00:12:41,180 in the same room. Her respect for the Chancellor was greater. 208 00:12:41,180 --> 00:12:44,660 She was said to fear his intellect, but the split with him was, 209 00:12:44,660 --> 00:12:48,100 if anything, more damaging and went to the heart of policy. 210 00:12:50,940 --> 00:12:53,580 For some time, Nigel Lawson and Margaret Thatcher had 211 00:12:53,580 --> 00:12:56,620 been at odds over the management of the economy. 212 00:12:56,620 --> 00:13:00,900 In 1985, both Lawson and Howe concluded that a stable pound 213 00:13:00,900 --> 00:13:03,740 with the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, the ERM, 214 00:13:03,740 --> 00:13:08,100 was the best way of controlling inflation and helping industry. 215 00:13:08,100 --> 00:13:09,780 The Prime Minister disagreed. 216 00:13:12,020 --> 00:13:15,220 But in 1987, Lawson decided that if she wouldn't let him 217 00:13:15,220 --> 00:13:19,580 join the ERM, he would at least peg sterling to the German currency, 218 00:13:19,580 --> 00:13:23,340 a policy called "Shadowing The Deutschmark." 219 00:13:23,340 --> 00:13:28,100 I first found out about that entirely by accident. 220 00:13:28,100 --> 00:13:30,980 I used to do an annual, more or less annual, 221 00:13:30,980 --> 00:13:34,180 interview with the Financial Times and one of the questions 222 00:13:34,180 --> 00:13:38,340 they put to me on that particular day when they came was, 223 00:13:38,340 --> 00:13:41,900 "Why are you shadowing the Deutschmark?" 224 00:13:41,900 --> 00:13:45,220 And I vigorously denied it. I said, "We're not." 225 00:13:45,220 --> 00:13:48,900 Not only is it absurd to suggest that 226 00:13:48,900 --> 00:13:52,620 I could have carried out that policy secretly 227 00:13:52,620 --> 00:13:55,820 when everybody in the markets, let alone the Prime Minister, knew 228 00:13:55,820 --> 00:14:00,460 it had been carried out, but she was given every day, every evening, 229 00:14:00,460 --> 00:14:04,300 a piece of paper which showed how much we had intervened, 230 00:14:04,300 --> 00:14:06,100 what the rate was and so on. 231 00:14:06,100 --> 00:14:10,180 And I spoke to her every week and discussed it with her every week. 232 00:14:10,180 --> 00:14:13,420 The Prime Minster always felt that Lawson was secretive. 233 00:14:13,420 --> 00:14:16,180 On many occasions, she'd been frustrated that he didn't 234 00:14:16,180 --> 00:14:20,140 inform her of the details of his budgets in advance. 235 00:14:20,140 --> 00:14:24,380 Indeed, by her own admission, she was forced to telephone spies in the 236 00:14:24,380 --> 00:14:27,940 Treasury and at the Bank of England to find out what he was doing. 237 00:14:27,940 --> 00:14:30,860 It was even rumoured that she had bugged Number 11. 238 00:14:32,340 --> 00:14:37,940 Nigel did play his own cards very much close to his chest 239 00:14:37,940 --> 00:14:41,260 and when I found out accidentally 240 00:14:41,260 --> 00:14:43,260 and then said to my own treasury secretary, 241 00:14:43,260 --> 00:14:46,740 "Look, find out what's going on," we rang up the Treasury and said, 242 00:14:46,740 --> 00:14:50,340 "If he's shadowing it, what's the range in which he's shadowing it?" 243 00:14:50,340 --> 00:14:53,020 They said, "We don't know." They couldn't tell us. 244 00:14:53,020 --> 00:14:59,020 She was slightly paranoid by that time and was, I think, 245 00:14:59,020 --> 00:15:01,500 afraid that I may be up to something that she didn't know about. 246 00:15:01,500 --> 00:15:03,580 In fact, that was never the case. 247 00:15:03,580 --> 00:15:06,620 Although we had a disagreement on exchange rate policy, 248 00:15:06,620 --> 00:15:09,020 that was always entirely open. 249 00:15:09,020 --> 00:15:11,060 I was always completely open with her 250 00:15:11,060 --> 00:15:12,940 throughout my time as Chancellor. 251 00:15:14,660 --> 00:15:16,380 As First Lord of the Treasury, 252 00:15:16,380 --> 00:15:19,820 the Prime Minister was responsible for economic policy. 253 00:15:19,820 --> 00:15:24,220 In March 1988, she ordered Lawson to stop shadowing the Deutschmark. 254 00:15:24,220 --> 00:15:25,620 Reluctantly, he obeyed. 255 00:15:27,140 --> 00:15:30,380 But an unbridgeable gulf had opened up between the Prime Minister 256 00:15:30,380 --> 00:15:33,420 and her neighbour next door in Downing Street. 257 00:15:33,420 --> 00:15:36,500 Policy drifted, inflation climbed. 258 00:15:36,500 --> 00:15:39,780 Each side blamed the other for the return of economic malaise. 259 00:15:43,180 --> 00:15:45,380 Inevitably, Conservative backbenchers 260 00:15:45,380 --> 00:15:47,020 became aware of the schism. 261 00:15:48,460 --> 00:15:51,900 Certainly I realised that the split between Nigel Lawson 262 00:15:51,900 --> 00:15:54,140 and Mrs Thatcher was irreparable. 263 00:15:54,140 --> 00:15:57,780 No bridge could be flung across that chasm and I saw in it 264 00:15:57,780 --> 00:16:01,300 the seeds of ultimate destruction of her leadership. 265 00:16:04,940 --> 00:16:08,980 On 24th June 1989, Margaret Thatcher was at Chequers 266 00:16:08,980 --> 00:16:12,460 preparing for a European summit in Madrid. 267 00:16:12,460 --> 00:16:15,900 The economy was now overheating and inflation was rising 268 00:16:15,900 --> 00:16:18,300 but the Prime Minister still could not agree with her 269 00:16:18,300 --> 00:16:21,380 Chancellor about economic policy. 270 00:16:21,380 --> 00:16:23,900 She was also at loggerheads with Geoffrey Howe, who, 271 00:16:23,900 --> 00:16:28,100 with Nigel Lawson, had long been urging Britain's entry into the ERM. 272 00:16:31,140 --> 00:16:36,660 MARGARET THATCHER: I was at Chequers for the Saturday working on my speech 273 00:16:36,660 --> 00:16:37,860 for the Madrid summit. 274 00:16:37,860 --> 00:16:40,900 I suddenly received a message from Number 10 - 275 00:16:40,900 --> 00:16:43,500 "Both Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson want to see you together 276 00:16:43,500 --> 00:16:45,460 "before you go to Madrid." 277 00:16:45,460 --> 00:16:48,820 And I was pretty cross. I had so much work to do. 278 00:16:48,820 --> 00:16:51,420 And so I said, "All right, they can do it at 11.15 tonight 279 00:16:51,420 --> 00:16:53,460 "or at 8.15 tomorrow morning." 280 00:16:53,460 --> 00:16:55,420 They chose 8.15 Sunday morning. 281 00:16:55,420 --> 00:16:57,220 I returned to Number 10. 282 00:16:59,980 --> 00:17:02,300 Early on Sunday, 25th June, 283 00:17:02,300 --> 00:17:04,700 the Foreign Secretary went to Downing Street to meet 284 00:17:04,700 --> 00:17:06,300 the Chancellor and with him 285 00:17:06,300 --> 00:17:10,500 demand the Prime Minister set a date for entry to the ERM. 286 00:17:10,500 --> 00:17:13,820 The Prime Minister had banned the matter from Cabinet discussion. 287 00:17:15,820 --> 00:17:18,220 LORD RIDLEY: I thought it was absolutely disgraceful. 288 00:17:18,220 --> 00:17:19,260 I was horrified. 289 00:17:19,260 --> 00:17:22,540 They did it behind the backs of the colleagues in the Cabinet. 290 00:17:22,540 --> 00:17:25,780 We had no idea that anything of this sort was going on. 291 00:17:25,780 --> 00:17:30,260 The ERM wasn't on the agenda for the Madrid summit and I just don't 292 00:17:30,260 --> 00:17:32,820 think these are the tactics you should use however strongly 293 00:17:32,820 --> 00:17:34,700 you feel about something. 294 00:17:35,900 --> 00:17:39,940 NIGEL LAWSON: If a prime minister is about to go to a major international 295 00:17:39,940 --> 00:17:45,740 meeting to discuss with heads of government from other countries 296 00:17:45,740 --> 00:17:48,620 the monetary affairs of Europe, 297 00:17:48,620 --> 00:17:51,260 you would think that she would want to have a meeting with her 298 00:17:51,260 --> 00:17:53,820 Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, even if 299 00:17:53,820 --> 00:17:55,420 she doesn't want to take their advice. 300 00:17:55,420 --> 00:17:59,060 She regarded this request for a meeting as, itself, 301 00:17:59,060 --> 00:18:01,340 almost an act of treachery. 302 00:18:02,940 --> 00:18:05,620 I was the minister to be with her at the Madrid summit. 303 00:18:05,620 --> 00:18:08,620 Nigel Lawson was the minister in charge of economic policy. 304 00:18:08,620 --> 00:18:11,380 If we had not had that meeting with her then what should history 305 00:18:11,380 --> 00:18:14,060 have said then? It was our duty. 306 00:18:14,060 --> 00:18:16,780 I should have welcomed the chance to present the same 307 00:18:16,780 --> 00:18:20,180 case in the context of a larger group of ministers because we should 308 00:18:20,180 --> 00:18:23,060 once again have secured the support of the larger group. 309 00:18:23,060 --> 00:18:25,740 The fact that we were arguing at two-to-one was 310 00:18:25,740 --> 00:18:28,060 because we were not able to mobilise a larger army. 311 00:18:28,060 --> 00:18:30,180 That wasn't our choice. 312 00:18:30,180 --> 00:18:33,820 They both came in in a rather self-conscious way, 313 00:18:33,820 --> 00:18:38,860 but, um, clearly just a little bit pleased with themselves, holding 314 00:18:38,860 --> 00:18:44,780 a document and they sat down opposite me, the other side of the fire. 315 00:18:44,780 --> 00:18:47,380 Geoffrey started 316 00:18:47,380 --> 00:18:51,860 and said he and Nigel had decided, 317 00:18:51,860 --> 00:18:53,380 both of them, 318 00:18:53,380 --> 00:18:58,100 they were not going merely to ask me to set a date 319 00:18:58,100 --> 00:19:00,580 and specify a date at Madrid as to when we'd go into the 320 00:19:00,580 --> 00:19:06,260 Exchange Rate Mechanism, but if I did not do so, they would resign. 321 00:19:07,740 --> 00:19:12,060 Geoffrey Howe reiterated what we had suggested in our paper 322 00:19:12,060 --> 00:19:16,260 and said, you know, that... 323 00:19:16,260 --> 00:19:21,740 if you're not prepared to accept my advice, 324 00:19:21,740 --> 00:19:27,100 then I will have to consider my position, or whatever... 325 00:19:29,700 --> 00:19:33,500 ..the appropriate formulation is for saying that he'd have to resign. 326 00:19:34,740 --> 00:19:37,980 And, er, so I said, 327 00:19:37,980 --> 00:19:41,140 I did say at that meeting, 328 00:19:41,140 --> 00:19:44,740 a much shorter meeting, that you should know, Prime Minister, 329 00:19:44,740 --> 00:19:47,580 that if Geoffrey goes I would have to go too. 330 00:19:47,580 --> 00:19:50,860 They got up looking rather smug... 331 00:19:52,620 --> 00:19:54,220 ..and left. 332 00:19:54,220 --> 00:19:57,980 It had been a grubby little meeting. 333 00:20:01,380 --> 00:20:03,820 On the plane journey to the Madrid summit, 334 00:20:03,820 --> 00:20:07,620 Margaret Thatcher and Geoffrey Howe maintained an icy silence. 335 00:20:09,700 --> 00:20:12,540 Their relationship was permanently damaged. 336 00:20:12,540 --> 00:20:16,060 That Sunday afternoon, the Prime Minister and Charles Powell 337 00:20:16,060 --> 00:20:17,420 set to work on her response 338 00:20:17,420 --> 00:20:20,780 to Lawson and Howe's ultimatum on the ERM. 339 00:20:21,900 --> 00:20:25,020 Later, Margaret Thatcher announced for the first time 340 00:20:25,020 --> 00:20:27,140 specific conditions for Britain's entry, 341 00:20:27,140 --> 00:20:29,580 most importantly, the reduction of domestic inflation. 342 00:20:29,580 --> 00:20:31,180 No date was set. 343 00:20:32,980 --> 00:20:34,460 But Geoffrey Howe was convinced 344 00:20:34,460 --> 00:20:36,980 that Margaret Thatcher had bowed to his wishes 345 00:20:36,980 --> 00:20:40,060 by setting out conditions for Britain's joining the ERM. 346 00:20:41,940 --> 00:20:44,500 Although Margaret Thatcher had set no date for entry, 347 00:20:44,500 --> 00:20:46,020 he did not resign. 348 00:20:47,020 --> 00:20:48,540 We achieved our objective, 349 00:20:48,540 --> 00:20:51,820 which was Britain remaining part of the continuing debate 350 00:20:51,820 --> 00:20:55,180 on the future of the European Monetary System. 351 00:20:55,180 --> 00:20:57,540 We were perceived to have achieved our objective 352 00:20:57,540 --> 00:21:01,260 by the press, by Parliament and by our partners in Europe. 353 00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:03,500 It would have been entirely futile to resign 354 00:21:03,500 --> 00:21:05,540 having achieved an important advance. 355 00:21:06,940 --> 00:21:09,420 Strangely enough, the briefing I saw, 356 00:21:09,420 --> 00:21:12,020 which had been given to the press, not from us, 357 00:21:12,020 --> 00:21:15,180 can only have come from Geoffrey or from Nigel, 358 00:21:15,180 --> 00:21:17,300 was they had had a great victory. 359 00:21:17,300 --> 00:21:20,580 In fact, it had a great defeat. 360 00:21:20,580 --> 00:21:22,780 Such is presentation. 361 00:21:22,780 --> 00:21:24,380 How different from reality. 362 00:21:24,380 --> 00:21:26,460 She called their bluff. 363 00:21:26,460 --> 00:21:31,140 And then the most despicable thing of all was that when she got back, 364 00:21:31,140 --> 00:21:33,340 and it was all over, they didn't resign. 365 00:21:33,340 --> 00:21:37,020 Having threatened to resign and not got what they wanted, 366 00:21:37,020 --> 00:21:38,300 they didn't resign. 367 00:21:39,700 --> 00:21:43,540 The following day, Margaret Thatcher confronted her colleagues. 368 00:21:43,540 --> 00:21:47,380 Normally, I'm just sitting in my place in the Cabinet room 369 00:21:47,380 --> 00:21:50,620 and they all come in and take their places. 370 00:21:50,620 --> 00:21:53,500 In view of what they had attempted to do to me 371 00:21:53,500 --> 00:21:57,140 on the Sunday, I went to the door of the Cabinet room, 372 00:21:57,140 --> 00:22:00,860 saw each minister in, just waited as they passed me. 373 00:22:00,860 --> 00:22:03,540 Geoffrey came and went straight past. 374 00:22:03,540 --> 00:22:05,020 Nigel came... 375 00:22:06,660 --> 00:22:07,660 ..and he said... 376 00:22:09,740 --> 00:22:13,700 ..in his rather nice way, "Went rather well, didn't it?" 377 00:22:13,700 --> 00:22:15,460 I said, "Yes, no date." 378 00:22:16,940 --> 00:22:17,980 And that was that. 379 00:22:19,980 --> 00:22:23,940 Oh, I think that that was one of those little things 380 00:22:23,940 --> 00:22:26,460 which was characteristic of her. 381 00:22:26,460 --> 00:22:28,700 I don't think I took that very seriously. 382 00:22:28,700 --> 00:22:33,700 What I was much more concerned about was the bad blood that 383 00:22:33,700 --> 00:22:38,620 that occasion had created. 384 00:22:38,620 --> 00:22:43,340 And there's no doubt about it, it had created very bad blood 385 00:22:43,340 --> 00:22:46,900 between us and, of course, between Geoffrey and herself. 386 00:22:51,380 --> 00:22:53,980 Margaret Thatcher had won a battle with her colleagues 387 00:22:53,980 --> 00:22:56,220 but she'd not won the war. 388 00:22:56,220 --> 00:22:59,100 Her enmity with Lawson and Howe persisted. 389 00:22:59,100 --> 00:23:01,220 It was to poison her last year in office. 390 00:23:02,300 --> 00:23:05,580 Now she decided that Sir Geoffrey Howe must be punished. 391 00:23:10,140 --> 00:23:14,620 It seemed as if he felt he had a right to anything he wanted. 392 00:23:14,620 --> 00:23:18,260 And he seemed as if he felt he should be Foreign Secretary for ever 393 00:23:18,260 --> 00:23:24,060 and I think perhaps he had come to enjoy the trappings of office. 394 00:23:24,060 --> 00:23:26,140 Always, perhaps, a fatal temptation. 395 00:23:26,140 --> 00:23:28,900 The trappings of office never appealed to me at all. 396 00:23:30,380 --> 00:23:33,900 In July 1989, Margaret Thatcher had her revenge 397 00:23:33,900 --> 00:23:36,020 and demoted Sir Geoffrey Howe. 398 00:23:36,020 --> 00:23:37,900 Although he remained in the Cabinet, 399 00:23:37,900 --> 00:23:42,140 she gave him the junior post of Leader of the House of Commons. 400 00:23:42,140 --> 00:23:47,340 For a change of that kind to happen, as it were, out of the blue 401 00:23:47,340 --> 00:23:52,300 and thought through with such apparently careful thought 402 00:23:52,300 --> 00:23:56,300 did come as an immense shock, as a great thunderbolt. 403 00:23:56,300 --> 00:23:59,420 No doubt Prime Ministers are entitled to proceed like that 404 00:23:59,420 --> 00:24:02,820 and if they do approach decisions in that way, 405 00:24:02,820 --> 00:24:05,100 it says something about relationships. 406 00:24:05,100 --> 00:24:07,580 It's very difficult to suddenly ask somebody 407 00:24:07,580 --> 00:24:10,580 to give up being Foreign Secretary all of a sudden. 408 00:24:10,580 --> 00:24:12,460 It undoubtedly was all of a sudden 409 00:24:12,460 --> 00:24:14,860 that he was asked to give up being Foreign Secretary. 410 00:24:14,860 --> 00:24:17,180 And I think he'd done a very considerable job 411 00:24:17,180 --> 00:24:20,540 and I don't think he had any idea that that was going to happen. 412 00:24:20,540 --> 00:24:24,020 So, I suppose, if you have no idea it's going to happen, 413 00:24:24,020 --> 00:24:26,380 in a way you must feel humiliated, mustn't you? 414 00:24:28,860 --> 00:24:32,140 John Major replaced Sir Geoffrey Howe as Foreign Secretary. 415 00:24:32,140 --> 00:24:35,060 What would you like me to do? INDISTINCT RESPONSE 416 00:24:35,060 --> 00:24:37,140 Major's lack of experience and the fact 417 00:24:37,140 --> 00:24:40,940 that he was nearly 20 years younger than the outgoing Foreign Secretary 418 00:24:40,940 --> 00:24:43,700 seems to have compounded Sir Geoffrey's humiliation. 419 00:24:45,420 --> 00:24:49,860 Clearly he felt that obviously John's experience 420 00:24:49,860 --> 00:24:52,300 was nothing like his, which was true. 421 00:24:53,460 --> 00:24:56,020 I think there was really something else, 422 00:24:56,020 --> 00:24:58,300 again which one could understand. 423 00:24:58,300 --> 00:25:02,580 All of a sudden, it came to him 424 00:25:02,580 --> 00:25:06,060 that the possibility of being Prime Minister 425 00:25:06,060 --> 00:25:08,300 was slipping from his grasp 426 00:25:08,300 --> 00:25:11,780 as others came up and would rival his claim. 427 00:25:13,820 --> 00:25:15,140 Still in Cabinet, 428 00:25:15,140 --> 00:25:17,540 with the courtesy title of Deputy Prime Minister, 429 00:25:17,540 --> 00:25:19,660 Sir Geoffrey brooded on his treatment 430 00:25:19,660 --> 00:25:23,780 and became ever more incensed at the Prime Minister's attitude to Europe. 431 00:25:27,140 --> 00:25:31,020 Despite the celebration of ten glorious years, 432 00:25:31,020 --> 00:25:33,860 the party conference of 1989 was held in an atmosphere of gloom 433 00:25:33,860 --> 00:25:35,460 and recrimination. 434 00:25:35,460 --> 00:25:39,540 Inflation and interest rates were high. Recession loomed. 435 00:25:39,540 --> 00:25:42,020 While Lawson and Howe dutifully clapped their leader, 436 00:25:42,020 --> 00:25:44,820 the intensity of her look betrayed for an instant 437 00:25:44,820 --> 00:25:46,140 their mutual mistrust. 438 00:25:49,820 --> 00:25:53,180 The Prime Minister's breach with her Chancellor was beyond repair. 439 00:25:53,180 --> 00:25:55,020 Despite a public show of unity, 440 00:25:55,020 --> 00:25:58,940 she now openly blamed Lawson for the return of inflation. 441 00:25:58,940 --> 00:26:02,060 And she turned once more to her adviser Alan Walters, who, 442 00:26:02,060 --> 00:26:05,980 like her, had little faith in Nigel Lawson or the ERM. 443 00:26:08,020 --> 00:26:10,900 It's like that immortal line of Dickens', 444 00:26:10,900 --> 00:26:14,700 he was the best of chancellors and the worst of chancellors. 445 00:26:14,700 --> 00:26:17,700 Er... 446 00:26:17,700 --> 00:26:20,980 As a person, he was intelligent... 447 00:26:22,980 --> 00:26:27,260 ..hard-working, devoted and so on. 448 00:26:28,700 --> 00:26:31,940 But he was also arrogant... 449 00:26:33,180 --> 00:26:34,620 ..self-centred, 450 00:26:34,620 --> 00:26:39,500 completely convinced that there was nobody cleverer than he was. 451 00:26:39,500 --> 00:26:43,140 And alas, there was somebody cleverer than he was, 452 00:26:43,140 --> 00:26:44,140 Mrs Thatcher. 453 00:26:45,700 --> 00:26:48,820 Alan Walters was a frequent visitor to Number Ten, 454 00:26:48,820 --> 00:26:51,860 where, in contrast to Nigel Lawson, his views were welcomed. 455 00:26:51,860 --> 00:26:55,500 His opposition to the Chancellor's policy soon became public. 456 00:26:56,700 --> 00:26:58,980 In October 1989, the Financial Times 457 00:26:58,980 --> 00:27:01,060 published an article about Alan Walters 458 00:27:01,060 --> 00:27:03,260 which repeated Walters' view 459 00:27:03,260 --> 00:27:06,500 that the Exchange Rate Mechanism was half-baked. 460 00:27:06,500 --> 00:27:10,220 For the beleaguered Chancellor, this was too much. 461 00:27:10,220 --> 00:27:13,780 I felt really that it is quite impossible for me 462 00:27:13,780 --> 00:27:17,060 to carry on my job... 463 00:27:18,220 --> 00:27:19,700 ..effectively. 464 00:27:19,700 --> 00:27:23,780 Impossible for any Chancellor to carry on the job effectively 465 00:27:23,780 --> 00:27:27,220 if his authority is being undermined all the time, 466 00:27:27,220 --> 00:27:29,340 in the way that mine was being undermined, 467 00:27:29,340 --> 00:27:31,980 apparently with the authority of the Prime Minister. 468 00:27:31,980 --> 00:27:35,380 He came on very sensitive, I must say. 469 00:27:35,380 --> 00:27:38,580 I was never expected to be sensitive but all of the rest of them were. 470 00:27:38,580 --> 00:27:40,380 There was only one woman in the Cabinet. 471 00:27:40,380 --> 00:27:43,020 Believe you me, there were a lot more prima donnas than that. 472 00:27:43,020 --> 00:27:45,460 Oh, they came round. Goodness me, their reputation. 473 00:27:45,460 --> 00:27:47,100 Never mind about mine, 474 00:27:47,100 --> 00:27:49,340 never mind all the briefing that was going on 475 00:27:49,340 --> 00:27:51,340 against my viewpoint, in the background. 476 00:27:51,340 --> 00:27:53,340 Goodness me, they were touchy. 477 00:27:53,340 --> 00:27:55,300 Oh, you had to smooth them down. 478 00:27:56,900 --> 00:28:00,140 As the economy deteriorated, the Daily Mail accused Lawson 479 00:28:00,140 --> 00:28:03,140 of betraying his party and the people of Britain. 480 00:28:03,140 --> 00:28:06,700 It reflected Mrs Thatcher's views. 481 00:28:06,700 --> 00:28:09,060 The Chancellor retreated to his country home, 482 00:28:09,060 --> 00:28:11,500 where he was besieged by journalists. 483 00:28:11,500 --> 00:28:13,900 With the return of inflation and interest rates high, 484 00:28:13,900 --> 00:28:15,940 his position had become precarious. 485 00:28:15,940 --> 00:28:17,780 JOURNALIST: ..ask about your speech? 486 00:28:17,780 --> 00:28:20,780 Are you considering another rise in interest rates, Mr Lawson? 487 00:28:20,780 --> 00:28:22,540 As the Chancellor fled back to London, 488 00:28:22,540 --> 00:28:24,700 he decided he could no longer tolerate 489 00:28:24,700 --> 00:28:27,100 Mrs Thatcher's preference for Alan Walters. 490 00:28:32,220 --> 00:28:34,460 Early in the morning, on the 26th of October, 491 00:28:34,460 --> 00:28:37,900 Nigel Lawson came to Number Ten to confront the Prime Minister. 492 00:28:39,540 --> 00:28:43,220 He told her that if she didn't sack Alan Walters, he would resign. 493 00:28:45,420 --> 00:28:48,340 Now, you could have knocked me down with a feather. 494 00:28:48,340 --> 00:28:50,700 The Chancellor of the Exchequer, 495 00:28:50,700 --> 00:28:56,740 with all of the importance and reputation of that position, 496 00:28:56,740 --> 00:28:59,220 to come to me and say, 497 00:28:59,220 --> 00:29:04,900 "Unless you sack one of your most loyal advisers, I will resign." 498 00:29:04,900 --> 00:29:06,940 I couldn't believe it. 499 00:29:06,940 --> 00:29:11,700 She said, "Well, if Alan goes, that would destroy my authority." 500 00:29:11,700 --> 00:29:13,860 So I said, "That is nonsense, Prime Minister. 501 00:29:13,860 --> 00:29:16,900 "Your authority is in no way dependent on Alan Walters. 502 00:29:16,900 --> 00:29:21,980 "It would not be destroyed. But I realise that it... 503 00:29:23,900 --> 00:29:29,180 "..you might well want the current hullabaloo to die down. 504 00:29:29,180 --> 00:29:31,540 "And then I could carry on, 505 00:29:31,540 --> 00:29:35,980 "certainly carry on as your Chancellor if you wish me to, 506 00:29:35,980 --> 00:29:39,660 "provided he goes at the end of the year." 507 00:29:39,660 --> 00:29:42,140 And she refused even that. 508 00:29:43,540 --> 00:29:47,540 The Prime Minister ignored Lawson's warning that he intended to resign. 509 00:29:49,700 --> 00:29:51,460 At 2.30 that afternoon, 510 00:29:51,460 --> 00:29:54,820 she went across to the Commons to prepare for Question Time. 511 00:29:54,820 --> 00:29:58,940 As she did so, Nigel Lawson sent a message, repeating his ultimatum. 512 00:30:00,980 --> 00:30:03,380 Now, it was a pretty nasty thing 513 00:30:03,380 --> 00:30:05,620 to have to go into the House of Commons... 514 00:30:05,620 --> 00:30:07,260 It reminded me, I suppose, 515 00:30:07,260 --> 00:30:10,780 of the things they had tried to do to me 516 00:30:10,780 --> 00:30:12,980 just before going to the Madrid summit. 517 00:30:12,980 --> 00:30:17,620 In retrospect, I think Nigel was looking for an excuse to resign 518 00:30:17,620 --> 00:30:21,060 because of the inflation he had created. 519 00:30:21,060 --> 00:30:24,540 And I think he was pestering me to get the information out... 520 00:30:25,980 --> 00:30:30,060 ..because he feared that I might otherwise ring up Alan 521 00:30:30,060 --> 00:30:33,020 and Alan would say, "Well, of course I will go." 522 00:30:33,020 --> 00:30:36,340 And then his excuse would have been no longer valid 523 00:30:36,340 --> 00:30:38,940 and he would have had to have stayed on 524 00:30:38,940 --> 00:30:41,260 and deal with the inflation himself. 525 00:30:41,260 --> 00:30:42,820 To suggest that I resigned 526 00:30:42,820 --> 00:30:45,060 because the economy was in a desperate state 527 00:30:45,060 --> 00:30:47,500 and I couldn't face the responsibility is ludicrous. 528 00:30:47,500 --> 00:30:50,300 First of all, although the economy was going through a bad patch 529 00:30:50,300 --> 00:30:52,260 it wasn't in a desperate state. 530 00:30:52,260 --> 00:30:57,100 And I knew perfectly well that my resigning would inevitably 531 00:30:57,100 --> 00:31:01,780 cause me to be made the scapegoat for whatever happened afterwards. 532 00:31:04,740 --> 00:31:07,220 By this time, it was nearly seven. 533 00:31:07,220 --> 00:31:11,860 I thought, "The press are going to get on to Alan. I must tell him." 534 00:31:11,860 --> 00:31:15,700 And I telephoned him. He was utterly dismayed. 535 00:31:17,980 --> 00:31:21,420 All he'd done was to give sound advice. 536 00:31:21,420 --> 00:31:24,060 And said...I said, "You're not going, Alan. 537 00:31:25,340 --> 00:31:27,100 "You've been absolutely wonderful." 538 00:31:27,100 --> 00:31:29,100 He said, "But I am in an intolerable position. 539 00:31:29,100 --> 00:31:30,300 "I will have to go." 540 00:31:32,140 --> 00:31:34,020 And he decided to go. 541 00:31:34,020 --> 00:31:39,620 But I had stayed loyal to someone who'd been loyal to me. 542 00:31:39,620 --> 00:31:42,780 And again, I wasn't going to be blackmailed 543 00:31:42,780 --> 00:31:44,940 by such appalling tactics. 544 00:31:46,340 --> 00:31:49,020 I had not been disloyal to her at any time. 545 00:31:49,020 --> 00:31:51,100 I had been extremely loyal to her. 546 00:31:51,100 --> 00:31:55,340 In fact, one of the problems with Margaret Thatcher towards the end 547 00:31:55,340 --> 00:31:58,620 was that she saw loyalty as a one-way street. 548 00:31:58,620 --> 00:32:01,500 I mean, she expected all her ministers to be totally loyal to her 549 00:32:01,500 --> 00:32:04,220 and by and large they were. 550 00:32:04,220 --> 00:32:08,100 She didn't feel a similar obligation to be loyal to them. 551 00:32:09,940 --> 00:32:13,020 Nigel Lawson's resignation damaged the Prime Minister 552 00:32:13,020 --> 00:32:15,180 and made her vulnerable in Parliament. 553 00:32:15,180 --> 00:32:18,180 She'd lost the support of the two men, Lawson and Howe, 554 00:32:18,180 --> 00:32:22,380 who many regarded as her standard-bearers. 555 00:32:22,380 --> 00:32:25,380 And the manner of Lawson's departure triggered a backbench challenge 556 00:32:25,380 --> 00:32:27,220 to Mrs Thatcher's leadership. 557 00:32:29,260 --> 00:32:32,700 Sir Anthony Meyer, a pro-European Conservative MP, 558 00:32:32,700 --> 00:32:34,900 stood against Margaret Thatcher in November 1989 559 00:32:34,900 --> 00:32:36,900 as a stalking-horse, 560 00:32:36,900 --> 00:32:40,420 in the vain hope that a more substantial candidate would emerge. 561 00:32:42,260 --> 00:32:44,580 Even so, in the secret leadership ballot, 562 00:32:44,580 --> 00:32:47,940 33 Conservative MPs voted for Sir Anthony Meyer, 563 00:32:47,940 --> 00:32:49,500 27 abstained. 564 00:32:50,980 --> 00:32:52,940 The party managers were worried, 565 00:32:52,940 --> 00:32:56,580 despite the Prime Minister's confidence in her party's backing. 566 00:32:56,580 --> 00:32:59,740 Ladies and gentlemen, just a brief word. 567 00:32:59,740 --> 00:33:02,980 I'd like to say how very pleased I am with this result 568 00:33:02,980 --> 00:33:06,420 and very pleased I am to have had the overwhelming support 569 00:33:06,420 --> 00:33:08,420 of my colleagues in the House 570 00:33:08,420 --> 00:33:10,900 and of people from the party, in the country. 571 00:33:16,180 --> 00:33:18,500 Late one evening, following the Meyer challenge, 572 00:33:18,500 --> 00:33:22,180 the Deputy Chief Whip paid a secret visit to Downing Street. 573 00:33:22,180 --> 00:33:24,900 He warned the Prime Minister that many of her backbenchers 574 00:33:24,900 --> 00:33:27,460 felt she'd become regal and isolated. 575 00:33:27,460 --> 00:33:28,940 They were out for her blood. 576 00:33:31,420 --> 00:33:34,900 Using the rather, sort of, graphic imagery that I do, I said, 577 00:33:34,900 --> 00:33:37,060 "Look, there are about 100 more people," 578 00:33:37,060 --> 00:33:40,300 that is in addition to those who had abstained 579 00:33:40,300 --> 00:33:42,180 or voted against, at Meyer. 580 00:33:42,180 --> 00:33:45,460 "They're lurking in the bushes, they've got daggers in their hands 581 00:33:45,460 --> 00:33:48,340 "and they want to engage in the daylight assassination 582 00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:50,060 "of a sitting prime minister." 583 00:33:52,340 --> 00:33:54,780 After the Meyer challenge, 584 00:33:54,780 --> 00:33:58,820 one of the messages which came back from her campaign team was 585 00:33:58,820 --> 00:34:02,460 that there was great dissatisfaction among the backbenchers. 586 00:34:02,460 --> 00:34:04,900 And that was something which certainly we recognised 587 00:34:04,900 --> 00:34:06,180 had to be put right. 588 00:34:06,180 --> 00:34:07,940 And so after the Meyer challenge, 589 00:34:07,940 --> 00:34:10,980 we set up a series of meetings with backbenchers 590 00:34:10,980 --> 00:34:13,620 to allow them to come in, in groups, 591 00:34:13,620 --> 00:34:16,780 and to tell her, raise with her, anything which they wished to do so. 592 00:34:18,820 --> 00:34:22,100 During one of those meetings, one backbench MP said, 593 00:34:22,100 --> 00:34:25,020 "Don't you think, Mrs Thatcher, it's time for you to go?" 594 00:34:25,020 --> 00:34:28,660 And I didn't, I still had so much to do. 595 00:34:28,660 --> 00:34:31,100 And I felt that at that time we had 596 00:34:31,100 --> 00:34:33,780 changed president in the United States, as well. 597 00:34:33,780 --> 00:34:36,580 And I felt that at that time, 598 00:34:36,580 --> 00:34:40,340 to get the continuity of policy and to go forward 599 00:34:40,340 --> 00:34:44,660 and to reap the full benefit of the changes we had brought about, 600 00:34:44,660 --> 00:34:47,100 both at home and overseas, 601 00:34:47,100 --> 00:34:50,980 I still was the person to complete that task. 602 00:34:54,020 --> 00:34:56,300 Like many powerful leaders before her, 603 00:34:56,300 --> 00:34:59,100 Margaret Thatcher could see no suitable successor. 604 00:34:59,100 --> 00:35:00,740 She was grooming John Major, 605 00:35:00,740 --> 00:35:03,100 whom she'd rapidly promoted to Chancellor. 606 00:35:03,100 --> 00:35:07,020 But even he, she began to think, had his drawbacks. 607 00:35:07,020 --> 00:35:09,140 He came up very quickly. 608 00:35:09,140 --> 00:35:12,740 After all, to jump from being Chief Secretary to Foreign Secretary 609 00:35:12,740 --> 00:35:15,580 and then back to Chancellor of the Exchequer 610 00:35:15,580 --> 00:35:20,140 meant that there were several years' experience missing 611 00:35:20,140 --> 00:35:23,100 and I think that was probably the difference between us. 612 00:35:23,100 --> 00:35:27,380 Don't forget, I came into the House of Commons in 1959. 613 00:35:27,380 --> 00:35:30,660 So, there are a number of things, John, that come out of the... 614 00:35:30,660 --> 00:35:33,020 The Prime Minister became suspicious of what she saw 615 00:35:33,020 --> 00:35:35,460 as Major's yielding nature. 616 00:35:35,460 --> 00:35:37,260 In private, she said that John Major 617 00:35:37,260 --> 00:35:39,260 had an India rubber attitude to Europe 618 00:35:39,260 --> 00:35:41,860 and that he played the same cracked record as Lawson 619 00:35:41,860 --> 00:35:43,260 on exchange rates. 620 00:35:44,620 --> 00:35:49,460 John is much more a consensus man and will much more compromise. 621 00:35:49,460 --> 00:35:51,860 That seems to be very agreeable. 622 00:35:51,860 --> 00:35:55,340 I had noticed that perhaps he tended to go with the crowd 623 00:35:55,340 --> 00:35:56,780 and the conventional wisdom. 624 00:35:56,780 --> 00:35:59,020 But therefore he needed to be tested 625 00:35:59,020 --> 00:36:02,460 to see how he would perform in other roles. 626 00:36:04,740 --> 00:36:07,180 And she came to think that he lacked both the vision 627 00:36:07,180 --> 00:36:10,820 and the mental agility necessary for a senior politician. 628 00:36:12,300 --> 00:36:16,700 If you don't have a really great intellectual background, 629 00:36:16,700 --> 00:36:18,380 you can acquire that. 630 00:36:18,380 --> 00:36:21,580 But what is important is that you require 631 00:36:21,580 --> 00:36:24,460 a political instinct for what the people think. 632 00:36:24,460 --> 00:36:28,220 Now, people liked John very much. You couldn't not like John. 633 00:36:28,220 --> 00:36:31,540 But it's quite different from liking a person 634 00:36:31,540 --> 00:36:35,180 from having a political instinct of the right direction 635 00:36:35,180 --> 00:36:37,020 in which to go, in the long run. 636 00:36:37,020 --> 00:36:41,100 Perhaps I had developed that over the years. 637 00:36:41,100 --> 00:36:43,340 There was no doubt that Margaret Thatcher promoted 638 00:36:43,340 --> 00:36:47,180 John Major to be Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer 639 00:36:47,180 --> 00:36:51,180 because she'd identified him as her successor. 640 00:36:51,180 --> 00:36:55,820 If she had believed then what she now says she believed about him 641 00:36:55,820 --> 00:36:57,740 she would not have promoted him. 642 00:36:57,740 --> 00:37:00,780 She promoted him, identified him as the heir 643 00:37:00,780 --> 00:37:03,020 and gave him her wholehearted support 644 00:37:03,020 --> 00:37:05,260 when he stood for the leadership. 645 00:37:05,260 --> 00:37:08,540 Anything else, I'm afraid, is a change of recollection 646 00:37:08,540 --> 00:37:11,180 that's come from looking back over those events, 647 00:37:11,180 --> 00:37:13,580 which I have no doubt Margaret has. 648 00:37:15,300 --> 00:37:17,260 There were few others whom she considered 649 00:37:17,260 --> 00:37:19,540 might take her chair in the Cabinet. 650 00:37:19,540 --> 00:37:22,940 She'd either sacked, lost or sidelined those senior politicians 651 00:37:22,940 --> 00:37:25,740 who shared her experience and political outlook. 652 00:37:26,820 --> 00:37:29,980 Like a medieval monarch, as a colleague once observed, 653 00:37:29,980 --> 00:37:33,140 she wondered fearfully who might have eyes on her crown. 654 00:37:34,740 --> 00:37:37,180 I think that's one of the weaknesses that 655 00:37:37,180 --> 00:37:40,860 shadowed the Government as the years went by - 656 00:37:40,860 --> 00:37:44,020 that older statesmen, for one reason or another, 657 00:37:44,020 --> 00:37:46,060 fell by the wayside. 658 00:37:46,060 --> 00:37:48,540 And it increasingly became a Cabinet 659 00:37:48,540 --> 00:37:51,700 with the Prime Minister towering above people who were younger than, 660 00:37:51,700 --> 00:37:53,580 less experienced than herself. 661 00:37:53,580 --> 00:37:55,180 I think it would have been better, 662 00:37:55,180 --> 00:37:57,580 from her point of view and the country's point of view, 663 00:37:57,580 --> 00:38:01,860 had she retained a broader band of equally mature colleagues. 664 00:38:07,980 --> 00:38:10,060 NORMAN TEBBIT: Over a period of time, 665 00:38:10,060 --> 00:38:14,300 she found fewer and fewer people in her government 666 00:38:14,300 --> 00:38:16,540 who were of her view. 667 00:38:20,620 --> 00:38:23,060 That was what happened to Margaret Thatcher. 668 00:38:23,060 --> 00:38:26,900 And progressively, after 1987, in consequence, 669 00:38:26,900 --> 00:38:29,340 she lost control of her Cabinet. 670 00:38:29,340 --> 00:38:31,620 SHOUTING 671 00:38:31,620 --> 00:38:34,060 The Prime Minister was further isolated by 672 00:38:34,060 --> 00:38:36,340 her dogged attachment to the poll tax. 673 00:38:36,340 --> 00:38:38,420 It was almost universally unpopular 674 00:38:38,420 --> 00:38:41,940 and led to some of the worst rioting witnessed on the streets of London. 675 00:38:42,980 --> 00:38:44,540 Conservative backbenchers, 676 00:38:44,540 --> 00:38:47,620 fearing the community charge might lose them their seats, 677 00:38:47,620 --> 00:38:49,780 talked openly about a change of leader. 678 00:38:49,780 --> 00:38:52,340 But it was simply not in Mrs Thatcher's character 679 00:38:52,340 --> 00:38:54,940 to change policy, even in the face of disaster. 680 00:38:55,980 --> 00:38:59,220 What one picked up very quickly was that 681 00:38:59,220 --> 00:39:03,300 some of those who were suggesting that it was time for me to go 682 00:39:03,300 --> 00:39:07,340 wanted to relax the very policies that had been successful. 683 00:39:07,340 --> 00:39:11,380 In Truman's phrase, they couldn't stand the heat in the kitchen. 684 00:39:12,420 --> 00:39:15,260 I, of course, was used to the heat in the kitchen. 685 00:39:18,820 --> 00:39:21,340 The Prime Minister seemed curiously out of step 686 00:39:21,340 --> 00:39:23,020 with the tide of world events. 687 00:39:23,020 --> 00:39:27,220 When the Berlin Wall came down and German reunification became inevitable, 688 00:39:27,220 --> 00:39:29,620 hers was a lone voice in opposition. 689 00:39:35,580 --> 00:39:38,020 Even Saddam Hussein's invasion of the Gulf 690 00:39:38,020 --> 00:39:41,060 failed to revive her fortunes as a war leader. 691 00:39:41,060 --> 00:39:43,300 The Conservative Party remained consistently 692 00:39:43,300 --> 00:39:45,300 ten points behind Labour in the polls. 693 00:39:47,740 --> 00:39:49,060 After years of resistance, 694 00:39:49,060 --> 00:39:52,020 Margaret Thatcher did finally give way on one matter, 695 00:39:52,020 --> 00:39:53,660 she bowed to John Major and agreed 696 00:39:53,660 --> 00:39:57,420 that Britain should join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. 697 00:39:57,420 --> 00:40:00,460 But by now, inflation was rising to 10% 698 00:40:00,460 --> 00:40:02,580 and interest rates were punitively high. 699 00:40:06,060 --> 00:40:09,180 But the concession of sterling's entry into the ERM 700 00:40:09,180 --> 00:40:13,340 seemed to make her more, not less, hostile to the community. 701 00:40:13,340 --> 00:40:17,140 At a summit in Rome, late in October 1990, she hit out 702 00:40:17,140 --> 00:40:21,140 at her Italian hosts, accusing them of living in cloud cuckoo land. 703 00:40:23,580 --> 00:40:26,980 On her return to London, she departed from a neutral statement 704 00:40:26,980 --> 00:40:29,860 to denounce the European Commission and its president. 705 00:40:33,260 --> 00:40:36,340 The chairman or the president of the Commission, Mr Delors, 706 00:40:36,340 --> 00:40:39,420 said at a press conference the other day that he wanted 707 00:40:39,420 --> 00:40:43,380 the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, 708 00:40:43,380 --> 00:40:46,060 he wanted the Commission to be the Executive 709 00:40:46,060 --> 00:40:48,660 and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. 710 00:40:48,660 --> 00:40:51,300 No. No. No. 711 00:40:53,140 --> 00:40:55,660 Or... Or... 712 00:40:55,660 --> 00:41:01,820 Well, I thought that "No. No. No." had a stridency about it 713 00:41:01,820 --> 00:41:04,700 that was not calculated to 714 00:41:04,700 --> 00:41:08,620 impress our partners, with whom we had to live for the rest of time, 715 00:41:08,620 --> 00:41:11,060 it was the language of the battlefield, 716 00:41:11,060 --> 00:41:13,580 rather than the language of the partnership. 717 00:41:15,700 --> 00:41:18,340 Criticising the mood she'd struck on Europe, 718 00:41:18,340 --> 00:41:21,820 Sir Geoffrey resigned from the Cabinet on 1st November 1990. 719 00:41:23,060 --> 00:41:25,940 Having lost his voice, he was unable to speak out, 720 00:41:25,940 --> 00:41:29,340 but he bided his time and when the power of speech returned 721 00:41:29,340 --> 00:41:33,540 a few days later, he was to use it to devastating effect. 722 00:41:33,540 --> 00:41:36,620 Margaret Thatcher had now lost the man who ten years before 723 00:41:36,620 --> 00:41:38,380 had been her most loyal ally. 724 00:41:39,700 --> 00:41:42,020 Geoffrey had been a believer, right from the beginning, 725 00:41:42,020 --> 00:41:43,540 and so had Nigel Lawson, 726 00:41:43,540 --> 00:41:45,980 and my trouble was the believers had fallen away. 727 00:41:45,980 --> 00:41:49,620 They hadn't had the perseverance and the persistence to take it through, 728 00:41:49,620 --> 00:41:51,260 and it's not whether you start a task, 729 00:41:51,260 --> 00:41:54,700 it's whether you can take it through to completion. 730 00:41:54,700 --> 00:41:57,540 On 13th November, Sir Geoffrey came to the House to 731 00:41:57,540 --> 00:41:59,020 explain his resignation. 732 00:41:59,020 --> 00:42:01,420 Not since Neville Chamberlain, 50 years before, 733 00:42:01,420 --> 00:42:03,860 had a sitting Prime Minister been subjected to such 734 00:42:03,860 --> 00:42:06,980 an attack by a senior member of the same party. 735 00:42:06,980 --> 00:42:11,660 Order. I remind the House that a resignation statement is 736 00:42:11,660 --> 00:42:15,380 heard in silence and without interruption. Sir Geoffrey Howe. 737 00:42:17,620 --> 00:42:21,260 Mr Speaker, Sir, I find to my astonishment that 738 00:42:21,260 --> 00:42:23,140 a quarter of a century has passed 739 00:42:23,140 --> 00:42:26,660 since I last spoke from one of these backbenches. 740 00:42:26,660 --> 00:42:31,140 'I clearly was wrestling with a conflict of conscience which was' 741 00:42:31,140 --> 00:42:34,140 very difficult and very important. 742 00:42:34,140 --> 00:42:36,140 I had to get that view across quite clearly 743 00:42:36,140 --> 00:42:39,540 and explain why I was doing it, to convince people it wasn't just 744 00:42:39,540 --> 00:42:42,900 personal bitterness, that it was for real reasons of substance. 745 00:42:42,900 --> 00:42:44,580 And I suppose the only judgment 746 00:42:44,580 --> 00:42:47,700 I made was that a speech of that kind could either be 747 00:42:47,700 --> 00:42:52,020 a damp squib or could make an impact that it deserved to make. 748 00:42:52,020 --> 00:42:54,220 And I was anxious that it shouldn't be a damp squib 749 00:42:54,220 --> 00:42:56,060 and I seem to have succeeded in that. 750 00:42:56,060 --> 00:42:57,260 I have to say, Mr Speaker, 751 00:42:57,260 --> 00:43:01,140 that I find Winston Churchill's perception a good deal more 752 00:43:01,140 --> 00:43:05,620 convincing and more encouraging for the interests of our nation than the 753 00:43:05,620 --> 00:43:09,020 nightmare image sometimes conjured up by my Right Honourable Friend, 754 00:43:09,020 --> 00:43:14,780 who seems sometimes to look out upon a continent that is 755 00:43:14,780 --> 00:43:17,580 positively teeming with ill-intentioned people, scheming, 756 00:43:17,580 --> 00:43:20,540 in her words, to extinguish democracy. 757 00:43:20,540 --> 00:43:23,060 'I was just amazed' 758 00:43:23,060 --> 00:43:26,900 at the mixture of bile and treachery 759 00:43:26,900 --> 00:43:30,780 that poured out in a speech, every word of which 760 00:43:30,780 --> 00:43:34,860 had clearly been carefully drafted 761 00:43:34,860 --> 00:43:37,700 and in a speech which he delivered, if I might say so, 762 00:43:37,700 --> 00:43:40,740 better than any other speech I'd ever heard him deliver. 763 00:43:41,860 --> 00:43:44,860 This perhaps was his feeling coming to the fore. 764 00:43:46,620 --> 00:43:48,860 Mr Speaker, I believe that both the Chancellor 765 00:43:48,860 --> 00:43:52,260 and the Governor are cricketing enthusiasts. 766 00:43:52,260 --> 00:43:55,580 So I hope there's no monopoly of cricketing metaphors. 767 00:43:55,580 --> 00:43:59,020 It's rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, 768 00:43:59,020 --> 00:44:03,140 only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, 769 00:44:03,140 --> 00:44:06,940 that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain. 770 00:44:06,940 --> 00:44:09,220 LAUGHTER 771 00:44:09,220 --> 00:44:14,260 I had to sit, my back to him. I could turn around and see him, 772 00:44:14,260 --> 00:44:16,300 but I didn't particularly wish to, 773 00:44:16,300 --> 00:44:19,740 and I knew that the press were facing me in the gallery opposite. 774 00:44:19,740 --> 00:44:26,060 I knew therefore that I must keep my features very much composed and calm. 775 00:44:26,060 --> 00:44:29,900 At the same time, I was trying to assess the effect that that 776 00:44:29,900 --> 00:44:35,860 speech would have, because I knew by this time some of the discussion 777 00:44:35,860 --> 00:44:37,580 and rumours that were taking place. 778 00:44:40,100 --> 00:44:43,460 It was an experience I would not wish to go through again. 779 00:44:44,980 --> 00:44:47,740 The tragedy is, and it is for me, 780 00:44:47,740 --> 00:44:52,460 personally, for my party, for our whole people 781 00:44:52,460 --> 00:44:56,580 and for my Right Honourable Friend herself, a very real tragedy, 782 00:44:56,580 --> 00:44:59,580 that the Prime Minister's perceived attitude towards Europe is 783 00:44:59,580 --> 00:45:03,580 running increasingly serious risks for the future of our nation. 784 00:45:03,580 --> 00:45:05,500 The wielding the knife. 785 00:45:07,660 --> 00:45:10,660 Cleverly. So very cleverly. 786 00:45:13,220 --> 00:45:15,340 Too cleverly. 787 00:45:15,340 --> 00:45:20,660 Because, in the end, it was not my record it assassinated. 788 00:45:23,100 --> 00:45:25,820 He assassinated his own character. 789 00:45:25,820 --> 00:45:30,620 I've done what I believe to be right for my party and my country. 790 00:45:30,620 --> 00:45:34,220 The time has come for others to consider their own response 791 00:45:34,220 --> 00:45:36,740 to the tragic conflict of loyalties with which 792 00:45:36,740 --> 00:45:38,980 I have myself wrestled for perhaps too long. 793 00:45:42,820 --> 00:45:45,900 The idea that anyone should take the decisions that 794 00:45:45,900 --> 00:45:50,500 I took or make the speech that I made for grounds of personal bitterness 795 00:45:50,500 --> 00:45:52,780 is quite frankly grotesque. 796 00:45:52,780 --> 00:45:56,220 I devoted a large chunk of my adult life to membership 797 00:45:56,220 --> 00:45:58,660 of the House of Commons - to membership of Ted Heath's 798 00:45:58,660 --> 00:46:00,380 and Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet - 799 00:46:00,380 --> 00:46:04,340 to support of our economic and foreign policies and I was 800 00:46:04,340 --> 00:46:07,220 deeply dismayed to see that going awry, 801 00:46:07,220 --> 00:46:10,180 that I felt the time had come when I could no longer suppress 802 00:46:10,180 --> 00:46:13,900 those anxieties, and I expressed them and it was plain, from what 803 00:46:13,900 --> 00:46:16,940 happened subsequently, that I was far from being alone. 804 00:46:18,620 --> 00:46:21,980 'Quite obviously, someone would be standing against me 805 00:46:21,980 --> 00:46:24,020 'in the leadership stakes. 806 00:46:24,020 --> 00:46:25,500 'Quite obviously, 807 00:46:25,500 --> 00:46:29,740 'his speech was an open invitation to Michael Heseltine to stand.' 808 00:46:29,740 --> 00:46:32,780 And therefore I realised we were in for a rough ride. 809 00:46:34,620 --> 00:46:39,900 I have accordingly informed the Chief Whip and the Chairman of the 1922 Committee 810 00:46:39,900 --> 00:46:42,540 that I intend to let my name go forward. 811 00:46:43,940 --> 00:46:45,540 Thank you very much. 812 00:46:45,540 --> 00:46:48,900 Michael Heseltine's high-profile campaign began immediately. 813 00:46:48,900 --> 00:46:53,740 By contrast, Margaret Thatcher's team seemed overcome by inertia. 814 00:46:53,740 --> 00:46:57,500 People speak of a Margaret Thatcher campaign. 815 00:46:57,500 --> 00:47:00,420 In truth, there was no campaign. 816 00:47:00,420 --> 00:47:03,220 Only one person was running a campaign 817 00:47:03,220 --> 00:47:05,340 and that was Michael Heseltine. 818 00:47:05,340 --> 00:47:07,580 And it was a very good campaign. 819 00:47:07,580 --> 00:47:11,180 He'd been building up to it for a long time, he had made 820 00:47:11,180 --> 00:47:16,860 friends with a lot of backbenchers and he pursued people. I mean, 821 00:47:16,860 --> 00:47:21,340 I had friends who were rung up in their bath by Michael Heseltine. 822 00:47:21,340 --> 00:47:23,580 It was a very, very busy period 823 00:47:23,580 --> 00:47:26,980 and we agreed right at the beginning that it really wouldn't be 824 00:47:26,980 --> 00:47:29,860 right for me to go around and canvas people myself, 825 00:47:29,860 --> 00:47:32,940 to go through the tea rooms and say, "Please, will you support me?" 826 00:47:32,940 --> 00:47:36,340 If, by the time you've been eleven and a half years as Prime Minister, 827 00:47:36,340 --> 00:47:37,820 they don't know what you've done 828 00:47:37,820 --> 00:47:40,980 and what wouldn't have happened unless you'd been there... 829 00:47:40,980 --> 00:47:44,220 I didn't feel it would make that much difference to say, 830 00:47:44,220 --> 00:47:45,900 "Will you support me?" 831 00:47:47,100 --> 00:47:50,820 On Sunday 18th November, Mrs Thatcher travelled to France to 832 00:47:50,820 --> 00:47:54,420 join world leaders formally celebrating the end of the Cold War. 833 00:47:55,500 --> 00:47:58,740 The Prime Minister herself was beginning to feel the strain. 834 00:47:58,740 --> 00:48:02,460 And, in her absence, her support in Parliament continued to fall away. 835 00:48:02,460 --> 00:48:05,180 But her team, as if paralysed, did nothing. 836 00:48:09,900 --> 00:48:12,700 Early in the evening on Tuesday 20th November, 837 00:48:12,700 --> 00:48:15,700 the Prime Minister hurried back to the British Embassy. 838 00:48:15,700 --> 00:48:19,020 As press and television gathered in the courtyard, Mrs Thatcher 839 00:48:19,020 --> 00:48:22,860 and her staff, closeted inside, awaited the results of the first ballot. 840 00:48:27,900 --> 00:48:32,020 Under the leadership election rules, the winner had to have a majority 841 00:48:32,020 --> 00:48:36,580 plus 15% of the MPs' votes cast to prevent a second ballot. 842 00:48:38,620 --> 00:48:42,780 The ambassador had made ready a room with a telephone 843 00:48:42,780 --> 00:48:45,180 so that I could be there to receive the telephone call, and 844 00:48:45,180 --> 00:48:46,980 Peter Morrison had come over. 845 00:48:46,980 --> 00:48:50,100 Charles Powell was there and Crawfie was with me, as always. 846 00:48:50,100 --> 00:48:53,340 So that we would take the telephone call in that room. 847 00:48:54,340 --> 00:48:56,060 We did. 848 00:48:57,180 --> 00:48:59,060 Peter took it. 849 00:49:01,900 --> 00:49:08,100 And he wrote it down on a piece of paper and said to me, 850 00:49:08,100 --> 00:49:10,620 "Not quite as good as we'd hoped." 851 00:49:10,620 --> 00:49:12,500 I looked quickly and said, 852 00:49:12,500 --> 00:49:15,620 "We haven't got enough to be through the first ballot." 853 00:49:17,140 --> 00:49:20,580 I felt at that moment that it was all over. 854 00:49:20,580 --> 00:49:23,220 I don't say that just with hindsight, it's very easy to invent 855 00:49:23,220 --> 00:49:25,220 that sort of thing after the event. 856 00:49:25,220 --> 00:49:27,140 I'd gone over it in my mind so many times - 857 00:49:27,140 --> 00:49:29,940 I felt that this was it. 858 00:49:29,940 --> 00:49:32,140 Looking at her eyes and her expression, 859 00:49:32,140 --> 00:49:34,180 I think she knew, as well. 860 00:49:34,180 --> 00:49:38,860 Of course, as is Mrs Thatcher's wont, when she has a job to do, 861 00:49:38,860 --> 00:49:41,740 she does it and doesn't stop for anything. 862 00:49:41,740 --> 00:49:43,540 And she charged out 863 00:49:43,540 --> 00:49:46,700 and I charged down and tried to rescue the central microphone. 864 00:49:46,700 --> 00:49:49,980 Mrs Thatcher, could I ask you to comment? Good evening. Good evening. 865 00:49:49,980 --> 00:49:52,460 Where's the microphone? It's here, this is the microphone. 866 00:49:52,460 --> 00:49:55,700 I'm actually very pleased that I got more than half 867 00:49:55,700 --> 00:49:57,340 the parliamentary party 868 00:49:57,340 --> 00:50:01,140 and disappointed that it's not quite enough to win on the first ballot. 869 00:50:01,140 --> 00:50:04,260 So, I confirm it is my intention to let my name go forward 870 00:50:04,260 --> 00:50:06,860 for the second ballot. Isn't the..? Isn't the...? 871 00:50:06,860 --> 00:50:13,380 'I think she'd been pretty badly advised during the first ballot.' 872 00:50:13,380 --> 00:50:16,060 And in the run-up to that, 873 00:50:16,060 --> 00:50:20,900 I don't think she'd campaigned as she should have done. 874 00:50:20,900 --> 00:50:23,340 And, I think, if I thought at the time that if that 875 00:50:23,340 --> 00:50:26,900 statement reflected advice that she was getting, 876 00:50:26,900 --> 00:50:30,460 it wasn't very sensible advice, it would have been at least, 877 00:50:30,460 --> 00:50:34,460 I think, better to have come back to London before saying anything. 878 00:50:34,460 --> 00:50:36,140 It didn't seem to me 879 00:50:36,140 --> 00:50:39,980 that an extra two or three votes were that difficult to obtain. 880 00:50:39,980 --> 00:50:47,900 And we might, on a second round, have got more, a lot more than that. 881 00:50:47,900 --> 00:50:52,540 What really went wrong was I was away when the vote was announced 882 00:50:52,540 --> 00:50:55,020 and not therefore able to say to people, 883 00:50:55,020 --> 00:50:58,300 "Now, come on, we must go out and campaign and get those extra... 884 00:50:58,300 --> 00:51:00,940 "I want an extra 10 to 20 votes before the next count. 885 00:51:00,940 --> 00:51:02,900 "Go out and start tonight." 886 00:51:02,900 --> 00:51:04,580 I was away. 887 00:51:04,580 --> 00:51:07,820 And it was while I was away, 888 00:51:07,820 --> 00:51:11,060 in those few hours 889 00:51:11,060 --> 00:51:16,140 and overnight, that I think people lost their nerve. 890 00:51:16,140 --> 00:51:18,100 And the plotting began. 891 00:51:22,860 --> 00:51:26,500 At 8.30 in the evening, Margaret Thatcher left the British Embassy. 892 00:51:30,580 --> 00:51:33,580 Her failure to prevent a second ballot was a severe, 893 00:51:33,580 --> 00:51:34,700 if not mortal, blow. 894 00:51:37,700 --> 00:51:40,100 The result of the ballot had made her untypically late 895 00:51:40,100 --> 00:51:42,140 for the ballet and dinner at Versailles 896 00:51:42,140 --> 00:51:44,540 with her fellow world leaders. 897 00:51:44,540 --> 00:51:47,220 By that time, all the other heads of government had been 898 00:51:47,220 --> 00:51:50,260 out at the ballet for a long time. 899 00:51:50,260 --> 00:51:53,140 And then I got there, the last to arrive, 900 00:51:53,140 --> 00:51:56,380 and President Mitterrand was still waiting for me in the reception. 901 00:51:56,380 --> 00:52:01,460 I said, "I'm so sorry, I did send a message not to wait." 902 00:52:01,460 --> 00:52:05,180 He said, "We wouldn't have dreamed of starting without you. 903 00:52:05,180 --> 00:52:06,700 "Now, how are you?" 904 00:52:08,460 --> 00:52:11,780 Isn't it nice that when you were going back to face people who were 905 00:52:11,780 --> 00:52:15,340 far from kind or thoughtful that we had some friends at the top 906 00:52:15,340 --> 00:52:18,060 who knew what life at the top was like 907 00:52:18,060 --> 00:52:19,460 and felt for you? 908 00:52:30,020 --> 00:52:32,740 While Mrs Thatcher endured the ballet in Versailles, 909 00:52:32,740 --> 00:52:35,780 a group of Cabinet colleagues, ministers and backbenchers 910 00:52:35,780 --> 00:52:38,180 had gathered in the Westminster home of a former whip. 911 00:52:40,220 --> 00:52:44,100 The consensus was clear - the Prime Minister was finished by 912 00:52:44,100 --> 00:52:46,580 her poor showing in the first ballot. 913 00:52:46,580 --> 00:52:50,020 The conclusion was arrived at before the meeting began, 914 00:52:50,020 --> 00:52:53,580 because everybody came to the meeting, carrying on their backs 915 00:52:53,580 --> 00:52:55,260 their experiences of being 916 00:52:55,260 --> 00:52:57,940 in the House that afternoon and that evening. 917 00:52:57,940 --> 00:53:01,020 So, there was very little discussion about 918 00:53:01,020 --> 00:53:03,420 whether the position was sustainable. 919 00:53:03,420 --> 00:53:07,660 I think that conclusion was arrived at more or less on arrival. 920 00:53:07,660 --> 00:53:12,340 There was every sort of objective evidence that she was 921 00:53:12,340 --> 00:53:15,700 unlikely to win a second ballot, 922 00:53:15,700 --> 00:53:21,700 that if she did win a second ballot, it would be after a huge shedding 923 00:53:21,700 --> 00:53:27,500 of blood and by a margin so narrow that it would be difficult, 924 00:53:27,500 --> 00:53:32,460 subsequently, for her or the Government to regain its authority. 925 00:53:32,460 --> 00:53:36,260 And I've never heard a convincing argument against that. 926 00:53:37,660 --> 00:53:40,420 Still in Paris at nine o'clock the following morning, 927 00:53:40,420 --> 00:53:42,380 Wednesday 21st November, 928 00:53:42,380 --> 00:53:46,060 Margaret Thatcher signed a treaty ending the Cold War. 929 00:53:46,060 --> 00:53:49,540 She was unaware at this stage that most of her Cabinet colleagues 930 00:53:49,540 --> 00:53:51,540 had decided that her career was over. 931 00:53:53,580 --> 00:53:56,980 Mrs Thatcher had the first hint of the gravity of her position 932 00:53:56,980 --> 00:54:00,460 as she travelled to the airport to fly home. 933 00:54:00,460 --> 00:54:03,300 She asked her staff whether her protege Peter Lilley, 934 00:54:03,300 --> 00:54:05,260 the Trade and Industry Secretary, 935 00:54:05,260 --> 00:54:07,500 had agreed to help a Parliamentary speech. 936 00:54:09,620 --> 00:54:13,260 I just said, "Charles, did you get on to Peter?" 937 00:54:14,940 --> 00:54:17,340 He said, "Yes." 938 00:54:17,340 --> 00:54:20,940 Something in his tone which made me say, 939 00:54:20,940 --> 00:54:22,620 "Is he going to do the speech?" 940 00:54:24,660 --> 00:54:29,500 He said, "Peter said, 'There's no point. She's finished.'" 941 00:54:34,580 --> 00:54:38,460 That turned a knife in my heart. 942 00:54:38,460 --> 00:54:40,620 Peter was a real friend. 943 00:54:40,620 --> 00:54:42,060 He was a believer. 944 00:54:43,540 --> 00:54:51,020 And I think that was the first real inkling I had 945 00:54:51,020 --> 00:54:53,460 that all was far from well. 946 00:54:55,700 --> 00:54:57,500 At twelve o'clock in the morning, 947 00:54:57,500 --> 00:54:59,540 Margaret Thatcher arrived back in London. 948 00:54:59,540 --> 00:55:02,580 She was still determined to stand in the second ballot as she sped 949 00:55:02,580 --> 00:55:03,820 home to Downing Street. 950 00:55:05,100 --> 00:55:07,620 And we went in 951 00:55:07,620 --> 00:55:11,740 and Denis was waiting, just standing by the fireplace... 952 00:55:13,380 --> 00:55:20,060 And he just said, almost before I had spoken, "Don't go on, love. 953 00:55:20,060 --> 00:55:21,540 "Don't go on." 954 00:55:23,140 --> 00:55:27,300 I think he was more, even more hurt, than I was. 955 00:55:28,420 --> 00:55:31,860 I went down to my study, where Norman Tebbit 956 00:55:31,860 --> 00:55:35,540 and John Wakeham were waiting for me. 957 00:55:35,540 --> 00:55:38,460 And we discussed things together. 958 00:55:38,460 --> 00:55:42,020 Norman said he thought that the support on the backbenches 959 00:55:42,020 --> 00:55:44,060 was good enough to get through 960 00:55:44,060 --> 00:55:47,900 and that we could win and we'd have to fight for it. 961 00:55:47,900 --> 00:55:52,420 John Wakeham said he thought the area of weakest support 962 00:55:52,420 --> 00:55:54,620 was my own Cabinet. 963 00:55:54,620 --> 00:55:56,540 Which was a bit of a shaker. 964 00:55:56,540 --> 00:55:58,180 At 2.30 in the afternoon, 965 00:55:58,180 --> 00:56:01,140 Mrs Thatcher left Downing Street to go to the House of Commons. 966 00:56:01,140 --> 00:56:05,260 Despite her husband's advice, she was still determined to carry on. 967 00:56:05,260 --> 00:56:08,220 I fight on. I fight to win. 968 00:56:10,380 --> 00:56:13,740 John Wakeham, her new campaign manager, had counselled her to meet 969 00:56:13,740 --> 00:56:17,780 her Cabinet colleagues one by one that evening to gauge their support. 970 00:56:21,140 --> 00:56:22,460 At Question Time, 971 00:56:22,460 --> 00:56:27,140 she responded with typical gusto to taunts about her waning career. 972 00:56:27,140 --> 00:56:29,740 The first eleven and a half years haven't been so bad 973 00:56:29,740 --> 00:56:33,220 and with regard to twilight, please remember there are 24 hours in a day. 974 00:56:36,220 --> 00:56:39,700 At four o'clock, she swallowed her pride and canvassed the votes of her 975 00:56:39,700 --> 00:56:42,260 backbenchers in the parliamentary tea rooms. 976 00:56:45,220 --> 00:56:49,460 And as I went through, I saw so many of one's loyal supporters. 977 00:56:50,660 --> 00:56:52,540 And even they said to me, 978 00:56:52,540 --> 00:56:56,340 "Look, Mike Heseltine's been and asked us for our votes 979 00:56:56,340 --> 00:56:58,220 "three times. 980 00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:02,220 "This is the first time you've been to ask us." 981 00:57:02,220 --> 00:57:04,700 And I was a bit upset about that. 982 00:57:04,700 --> 00:57:09,580 And gradually, as I got this message, it dawned on me that what they 983 00:57:09,580 --> 00:57:13,980 were saying was, "Look, why haven't you had a vigorous enough campaign? 984 00:57:13,980 --> 00:57:17,300 "We're concerned for you, we're concerned that you haven't." 985 00:57:17,300 --> 00:57:20,620 And I began then to realise the magnitude of the task 986 00:57:20,620 --> 00:57:26,060 and how much I would need, not only a few helpers, but need to 987 00:57:26,060 --> 00:57:30,340 mobilise all of Cabinet to be the spearhead of the attack. 988 00:57:33,180 --> 00:57:35,980 The chastened Prime Minister immediately approached 989 00:57:35,980 --> 00:57:38,220 those colleagues whom she thought most loyal. 990 00:57:38,220 --> 00:57:40,060 She started with John Major, 991 00:57:40,060 --> 00:57:43,700 who was recovering from dental treatment at home in Huntingdon. 992 00:57:45,940 --> 00:57:49,180 There must have been things going on that I didn't know of. 993 00:57:51,020 --> 00:57:56,820 And I rang John and said, "I have decided to stand again." 994 00:57:56,820 --> 00:58:02,180 And Douglas was going to sign my nomination paper. Would he second it? 995 00:58:04,580 --> 00:58:07,740 And there was a moment's silence 996 00:58:07,740 --> 00:58:11,140 and you're super sensitive in these circumstances. 997 00:58:11,140 --> 00:58:14,580 However, I assumed that he might be in some pain 998 00:58:14,580 --> 00:58:17,660 from the dental treatment. 999 00:58:17,660 --> 00:58:20,860 And he said, "Yes, if that's what you want." 1000 00:58:24,940 --> 00:58:27,940 At six o'clock in the evening, the Prime Minister was in her 1001 00:58:27,940 --> 00:58:31,940 rooms in the House of Commons, waiting to see her colleagues. 1002 00:58:31,940 --> 00:58:33,900 She was badly rattled. 1003 00:58:33,900 --> 00:58:37,740 Even John Major, the man who in her view owed her everything, 1004 00:58:37,740 --> 00:58:40,180 seemed to be lukewarm in his support. 1005 00:58:41,820 --> 00:58:45,780 At half past six, the Cabinet parade began. 1006 00:58:45,780 --> 00:58:48,340 That evening, only four Cabinet colleagues 1007 00:58:48,340 --> 00:58:50,820 offered their unqualified support. 1008 00:58:50,820 --> 00:58:53,700 The rest advised her that she was unlikely to win. 1009 00:58:55,020 --> 00:59:00,500 Ken Clarke came in in his usual robust, rather bruising, style, 1010 00:59:00,500 --> 00:59:05,100 sat down and said, "The whole process was farcical," 1011 00:59:05,100 --> 00:59:09,020 that he personally could support me for another five or ten years. 1012 00:59:09,020 --> 00:59:12,100 But most of the Cabinet thought I would lose 1013 00:59:12,100 --> 00:59:19,140 and therefore I should stand down and let John Major or Douglas Hurd stand, 1014 00:59:19,140 --> 00:59:22,180 either of whom had a better chance of winning than I did. 1015 00:59:30,460 --> 00:59:33,580 After that, Peter Lilley came in. 1016 00:59:35,820 --> 00:59:40,140 I already had had an inkling of what he would say. 1017 00:59:40,140 --> 00:59:43,660 He came in clearly uncomfortable 1018 00:59:43,660 --> 00:59:46,020 and spoke very carefully. 1019 00:59:47,620 --> 00:59:52,300 Yes, if I chose to stand, he would support me. 1020 00:59:52,300 --> 00:59:55,940 But it was inconceivable that I would win. 1021 00:59:57,860 --> 01:00:03,180 And if I lost, everything I'd achieved would be put at risk. 1022 01:00:03,180 --> 01:00:05,300 Therefore, I should stand down. 1023 01:00:10,140 --> 01:00:13,420 Then Chris Patten, the same message. 1024 01:00:13,420 --> 01:00:19,300 And I somehow thought that Chris would have some different formula, 1025 01:00:19,300 --> 01:00:23,540 some greater insight, some magical words. 1026 01:00:24,780 --> 01:00:26,980 No. 1027 01:00:28,860 --> 01:00:32,620 "If you wish to stand, I will support you. 1028 01:00:32,620 --> 01:00:34,860 "But I don't think you can win." 1029 01:00:37,940 --> 01:00:41,500 The most difficult of all was Malcolm Rifkind. 1030 01:00:43,260 --> 01:00:46,300 Again, very much on the left of the party. 1031 01:00:48,300 --> 01:00:50,980 And I'd had problems with Malcolm before. 1032 01:00:52,620 --> 01:00:56,620 He came in, didn't think I could possibly win, 1033 01:00:56,620 --> 01:00:59,060 and therefore I should stand down. 1034 01:00:59,060 --> 01:01:01,180 And I said to him, 1035 01:01:01,180 --> 01:01:06,180 "Malcolm, if I choose to stand, will you support me?" 1036 01:01:08,300 --> 01:01:12,140 He turned his eyes away and said he would have to think about that. 1037 01:01:13,740 --> 01:01:16,460 But he wouldn't campaign against me. 1038 01:01:17,820 --> 01:01:21,580 By that time, I was thankful for small mercies. 1039 01:01:29,540 --> 01:01:31,540 The candid friend, Ken Clarke. 1040 01:01:34,020 --> 01:01:39,340 Candid minister, Malcolm Rifkind. 1041 01:01:41,660 --> 01:01:45,220 The candid, loyal friends. 1042 01:01:45,220 --> 01:01:48,020 All with the same message. 1043 01:01:50,700 --> 01:01:56,060 What hurt most of all was that this was treachery while 1044 01:01:56,060 --> 01:02:01,060 I had been away at an international conference, 1045 01:02:01,060 --> 01:02:06,140 signing treaties on behalf of my country for the end of the Cold War. 1046 01:02:09,940 --> 01:02:14,540 It was treachery with a smile on its face. 1047 01:02:16,700 --> 01:02:19,060 Perhaps that was the worst thing of all. 1048 01:02:27,300 --> 01:02:30,540 There was no treachery against her, there was a pattern of events which 1049 01:02:30,540 --> 01:02:35,180 was what it appeared to be, and a Cabinet that was prepared to 1050 01:02:35,180 --> 01:02:39,660 support her gave her wholly sensible advice - that she had 1051 01:02:39,660 --> 01:02:44,500 been defeated, that she must now withdraw. That was good advice. 1052 01:02:44,500 --> 01:02:46,220 She had been defeated. 1053 01:02:46,220 --> 01:02:49,220 She had no chance of winning in the second ballot 1054 01:02:49,220 --> 01:02:51,260 and that was nothing to do with the Cabinet. 1055 01:02:51,260 --> 01:02:54,700 It was the parliamentary party where she'd suffered the defeat. 1056 01:02:54,700 --> 01:02:58,220 By 8.30 in the evening, the Prime Minister knew that without 1057 01:02:58,220 --> 01:03:00,860 Cabinet support, she could not continue. 1058 01:03:00,860 --> 01:03:04,580 The meetings with colleagues had left her emotionally devastated. 1059 01:03:06,380 --> 01:03:08,620 I came into the room 1060 01:03:08,620 --> 01:03:14,260 and she broke down in tears. 1061 01:03:14,260 --> 01:03:17,660 I said "Good luck, we're all with you." 1062 01:03:17,660 --> 01:03:22,100 And she said, "I'm afraid it's all drifting away." 1063 01:03:22,100 --> 01:03:24,580 And so I tried to reassure her. 1064 01:03:24,580 --> 01:03:27,940 I squeezed her arm and said, "Well, look, don't worry, we're behind you." 1065 01:03:27,940 --> 01:03:29,740 You know, just trying to be helpful. 1066 01:03:31,260 --> 01:03:35,940 That really summed up the unreal world, to me, 1067 01:03:35,940 --> 01:03:40,860 of the Number 10 court or the Number 10 bunker, 1068 01:03:40,860 --> 01:03:44,140 the idea that she didn't need to worry 1069 01:03:44,140 --> 01:03:47,260 about her parliamentary colleagues, about the party... 1070 01:03:47,260 --> 01:03:49,700 that somehow all that mattered was 1071 01:03:49,700 --> 01:03:53,420 the court and the courtiers remaining loyal to her and 1072 01:03:53,420 --> 01:03:57,060 that this could be any comfort to her was... 1073 01:03:57,060 --> 01:04:00,620 It seemed to me to epitomise the state in which 1074 01:04:00,620 --> 01:04:03,340 she'd allowed herself to become. 1075 01:04:07,420 --> 01:04:13,300 You wouldn't have believed it could have happened, but it had. 1076 01:04:16,500 --> 01:04:22,140 And I knew that I would have to decide, finally, 1077 01:04:22,140 --> 01:04:27,700 the next morning, as I always do, but at that moment, 1078 01:04:27,700 --> 01:04:31,660 I dictated a statement that I would make, 1079 01:04:31,660 --> 01:04:35,260 if the following morning I had decided to go. 1080 01:04:37,940 --> 01:04:42,940 At nine o'clock the next morning, Thursday 22nd November 1990, 1081 01:04:42,940 --> 01:04:46,420 Margaret Thatcher's colleagues arrived for her last Cabinet. 1082 01:04:46,420 --> 01:04:48,700 She'd now decided finally to resign. 1083 01:04:52,260 --> 01:04:55,740 My study was upstairs, I came down the stairs 1084 01:04:55,740 --> 01:04:58,180 and all members of the Cabinet usually would have been 1085 01:04:58,180 --> 01:05:02,220 scattered around the anteroom and I would have just gone through them 1086 01:05:02,220 --> 01:05:03,500 and walked in. 1087 01:05:03,500 --> 01:05:10,260 They were all, kind of, over the far side and not meeting my eyes. 1088 01:05:10,260 --> 01:05:14,820 And I just walked past and went in. And they followed me in. 1089 01:05:14,820 --> 01:05:17,660 She was sitting at the table, she was clearly upset. 1090 01:05:17,660 --> 01:05:20,260 She clearly had been crying. 1091 01:05:20,260 --> 01:05:23,820 But she was all right at that moment. 1092 01:05:23,820 --> 01:05:29,940 And she said, "Before Cabinet begins, 1093 01:05:29,940 --> 01:05:36,780 "I want to read you a statement which will be issued to the public 1094 01:05:36,780 --> 01:05:39,380 "at the end of Cabinet." 1095 01:05:39,380 --> 01:05:41,420 And she started to read the statement, 1096 01:05:41,420 --> 01:05:43,460 saying that she was going to resign. 1097 01:05:44,700 --> 01:05:47,140 And after reading a few words, 1098 01:05:47,140 --> 01:05:54,060 she broke down and then she started again and she broke down. 1099 01:05:54,060 --> 01:05:55,940 Because I looked at them all. 1100 01:05:57,660 --> 01:05:59,700 They had brought it about. 1101 01:06:01,780 --> 01:06:04,820 They looked a bit sheepish, some of them, and that was the time, 1102 01:06:04,820 --> 01:06:07,620 I'm afraid, when I did break down, because I realised then, 1103 01:06:07,620 --> 01:06:10,020 for the first time, 1104 01:06:10,020 --> 01:06:12,940 the full impact of what I was doing. 1105 01:06:12,940 --> 01:06:17,220 And I said, "Oh, for God's sake, James," meaning James Mackay, 1106 01:06:17,220 --> 01:06:19,820 the Chancellor, who sat next to her. 1107 01:06:19,820 --> 01:06:21,660 "You read it." 1108 01:06:21,660 --> 01:06:26,380 And there was a bit of an argument and people said, "No, no, no." 1109 01:06:26,380 --> 01:06:30,140 It only took seconds, but in those seconds, 1110 01:06:30,140 --> 01:06:35,700 she recovered her composure and she read the statement out 1111 01:06:35,700 --> 01:06:42,420 and then one or two people started to say nice things about her. 1112 01:06:42,420 --> 01:06:48,460 And she said something like, "I'm much better at handling 1113 01:06:48,460 --> 01:06:50,900 "business than sympathy. 1114 01:06:50,900 --> 01:06:52,740 "Let's get on with the Cabinet." 1115 01:06:54,180 --> 01:06:59,380 And after it was over, there was a look on their faces, 1116 01:06:59,380 --> 01:07:01,740 some of them, 1117 01:07:01,740 --> 01:07:03,900 "What have we done?" 1118 01:07:03,900 --> 01:07:07,540 But it had been done. There was no turning back. 1119 01:07:11,300 --> 01:07:15,100 Margaret Thatcher left office reluctantly and unhappily. 1120 01:07:15,100 --> 01:07:18,940 She remains bitter about her downfall to this day. 1121 01:07:18,940 --> 01:07:20,380 In her 11 years in office, 1122 01:07:20,380 --> 01:07:23,820 she grew in stature and became enormously powerful. 1123 01:07:23,820 --> 01:07:26,420 Her impact on Britain was undeniable. 1124 01:07:28,500 --> 01:07:32,380 Now it's time for a new chapter to open 1125 01:07:32,380 --> 01:07:36,580 and I wish John Major all the luck in the world. 1126 01:07:36,580 --> 01:07:40,060 He'll be splendidly served and he has the makings 1127 01:07:40,060 --> 01:07:42,220 of a great prime minister, 1128 01:07:42,220 --> 01:07:45,540 which I'm sure he'll be in very short time. 1129 01:07:45,540 --> 01:07:47,780 Thank you very much. Goodbye. 1130 01:07:49,820 --> 01:07:52,300 In her going, she discovered, to her cost, 1131 01:07:52,300 --> 01:07:55,140 that a British prime minister cannot govern without the consent 1132 01:07:55,140 --> 01:07:57,900 and support of colleagues and that her downfall 1133 01:07:57,900 --> 01:08:01,780 was the inevitable result of a tragic sense of self-sufficiency. 1134 01:08:04,740 --> 01:08:07,900 As the political philosopher Edmund Burke wrote, 1135 01:08:07,900 --> 01:08:11,020 "Those who've been once intoxicated with power 1136 01:08:11,020 --> 01:08:12,740 "can never willingly abandon it." 1137 01:08:23,940 --> 01:08:27,380 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd