Big Ben History: Recent Episodes
Ben Monro-Davies
Ken Clarke was Margaret Thatcher’s Health Secretary. They had regular shouting matches over the future of the NHS - and at the end he told her to her face that she had to go.
There were only two women in the cabinet room when Margaret Thatcher resigned in November 1990. The Iron Lady herself - and her Private Secretary Caroline Slocock. She provides a unique perspective on her dramatic fall.
Chris Patten was appointed Environment Secretary with a brief to make the Conservative party look Green as well as blue. But also in the in-tray was a reform to taxation - known as the poll Tax. It was he says perhaps the most disastrous domestic policy ever - and the key to Thatcher’s fall from power.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind was Margaret Thatcher’s final Scottish Secretary - and in her words - her sharpest critic in the cabinet. He explains how he she failed to understand his homeland - and the tensions that caused between them
Peter Lilley was and is an ardent Thatcherite. And out of loyalty to her - he felt duty bound to tell her frankly that her time was up after she failed to avoid a second ballot in the Conservative leadership battle of November 1990. Here he recalls a painful experience.
Michael Howard was an ardent Thatcherite - and believes Thatcher could have won a fourth general election against Neil Kinnock. But after she’d lot the support of so many MPs in the first leadership ballot in November 1990, even he felt she had to resign. And he pins the blame for exit fully on Peter Morrison the MP who ran her hapless leadership campaign.
Andrew Turnbull, like other senior officials and her cabinet ministers, witnessed Margaret Thatcher tearfully read out her resignation statement to her colleagues in November 1990. He was also in the room for a series of one to one meetings beforehand where her colleagues told her the game was up. He recalls the events of her fall - and how the Prime minister had become incredibly preoccupied with foreign affairs - prompting the observation there was “more grandeur, less Grantham” - the town where she was born.
Normal Lamont considers himself a Thatcherite. He thought his leader was right on Europe - unlike most of his cabinet colleagues. But even ideological affinity and personal loyalty could not trump the numbers in November 1990 - when the results came in he had to tell her it was time to go.
Perhaps no-one has experienced as bewildering a month in politics as Wiliam Waldegrave in November 1990. He was running the diplomatic effort to oust Saddam from Kuwait when he was suddenly promoted to the cabinet. Then just weeks later he was advising Mrs Thatcher if she could stay on. She couldn’t and he had a new boss - John Major. All just in just over three weeks. I the last Big Ben History conversation on the Fall of Thatcher, he reflects on the longest month.
Lord Baker was Chairman of the Conservative Party at the time of Margaret Thatcher’s fall. He’d been given the job with specific aim of keeping in No 10 - and until November 1990 all seemed to be going fine. But Mrs Thatcher lost her temper with Geoffrey Howe in cabinet - he resigned - and gave a devastating speech to parliament calling for her to go. Even then he thinks she could have survived had she been willing to schmooze backbenchers, appoint a decent campaign manager, and face down her cabinet. Had she done so - her chairman thinks she would have gone on to an unprecedented fourth election victory
What was the most dramatic cabinet meeting ever? The gathering of November 23 1990 deserves consideration - when the most successful Prime Minister of the twentieth century sobbed her way through her resignation statement. What was it like to be there and watch history unfold in such traumatic fashion? This podcast endeavours to capture the emotion of that occasion as well as the reasons for the Iron Lady’s demise by talking to all the people in the room. In this episode Tom King shows how the job can get in the way of keeping your own troops on board - especially when the job is war. And Lord Mackay remembers his almost accidental role in the formalities of her departure.
Charles Powell was Margaret Thatcher’s foreign affairs adviser for most of her premiership. They remained friends after she left office. He was with her in Paris when she discovered she had failed to beat Michael Heseltine by the necessary number of votes to avoid a second ballot. He reflect on her exit as a “party coup” that was little short of “squalid.”
John Wakeham was summoned at the last minute to try and save Margaret Thatcher's premiership. He was in charge of her campaign for six hours - long enough to learn she was doomed. His main job was to make sure she knew exactly how bad things were. It was a difficult task - given the friendship between them partly caused by the Brighton Bomb, which killed is wife Roberta.
Malcom Rifkind was in Margaret Thatcher’s words, her “sharpest critic in the cabinet.” Here he remembers the events surrounding her fall from power.
John Gummer helped Margaret Thatcher write her no confidence speech shortly after she’d resigned to the cabinet. As a pro-European - she would often warn him to block his ears when she was about to launch into an anti-EU rant. But he’s convinced she would have vote remain in the 2016 referendum
Find out how Beethoven, Harrow school, Yes Minister all came into play during the final days of Margaret Thatcher - with the reminiscences of the man who perhaps has attended more cabinet meetings than any other, Lord Butler of Brockwell.
Dominic Morris and Barry Potter were Private Secretaries to Margaret Thatcher. They were in the room when she resigned and had dinner with her the night before she left Downing St. They remember the dramatic and traumatic end of Britain's first Prime Minister.