Ousting Maggie or Black Wednesday - Which event hurt the Tories most?

A little question for you...

In the recent history of the Conservative Party there are two standout and, I believe, negative events: (1) The 1990 ousting of Margaret Thatcher and (2) The events of Black Wednesday 1992 when Britain was forced out of the ERM.

Which of those two events has done more to contribute to the difficulties we have had over the last fifteen or so years?

The ousting of Margaret Thatcher was the worst event in modern Tory history:  Many will, of course, say that the ousting of Margaret Thatcher was justified by the subsequent victory for John Major at the 1992 general election.  But the long-term consequences have been hugely destabilising for the party.  A party that could remove a sitting Prime Minister (who had transformed Britain and had won three elections) was capable of anything.  The party gained a reputation for being ruthless in the pursuit of its own interests.  A poison entered the bloodstream of the party in November 1990 and every Tory leader since Margaret Thatcher has been undermined by leadership speculation about their future.  The wiser course would have been for Margaret Thatcher to have gone to the country as party leader in 1992 and have been removed from Downing Street by the electorate.  The Thatcherites' sense of grievance would not then have existed and Neil Kinnock would have presided over Black Wednesday.

No, Black Wednesday was worse:  No political party can win elections if it's not seen as economically competent.  On Black Wednesday the Conservative reputation for superior economic management was lost and we've only just begun - almost exactly fifteen years later - to recover that reputation.  The exit came shortly after a series of 'Top Tory sex scandals' and this led The Sun of Thursday 17th September 1992 to declare: 'Now we've all been screwed by the Cabinet'.  Many in the party seemed indifferent to the misery of those recessionary years - some reportedly sang in the bath while homeowners sank into negative equity.  Black Wednesday also ignited the deepest divisions over Europe that raged until recently.

Discuss...

Comments

[Simon Denis]

Ousting Maggie and the ERM fiasco were all part of the Europhils' clever plan to keep power, improve the economy and influence events from "the heart of Europe". Currently, the conservatives are out of power, the economy has been blunted with Eurotape and Britain is still cold-shouldered by the Paris-Berlin axis. Indeed, this raft of policy choices had immediately disastrous consequences in which all the Europhils were heavily implicated. They have a constitutional genius for bungling. The community charge, for example, was apparently Lord Patten's idea; not that we heard much from him in its defence. The very name of Heath conjures visions of blundering not usually seen outside a circus. And so on. Their heirs are in charge today, posing and pouting like Diana wannabes and planning to do nothing about Chancellor Brown's profligacy. It's about time the old high and dry right were restored to power. Not the hangers or the floggers, nor the gay-bashers but the low-tax, law-and-order crowd - the classical liberals. They and they alone - like good old Maggie - have the mix of clarity and guts the country needs in its leaders.

[Nigel Syson]

Black Wednesday hurt us most. The ERM put a couple of million of people out of work in order to demonstrate our loyalty to the EU. Essentially we screwed home owners and small businesses - our natural suppporters. While the unemployment in 1979-81 was the price of sorting out economic inefficienty the unemployment caused by the ERM was the price of putting the interests of Europe before the interests of the UK. The job of the UK government in economic matters is to act in the interests of the UK. Failure to act in this way is unaccetable to the UK electorate. It is no surprise that John Major having inhertited 375 MPs from Mrs Thatcher left William Hague 165 MPs - a truely pathetic performance and we have lived with the results of the ERM for 15 years in terms of the number of Tory MPs.

[Ted Greenhalgh]

No one members Black Wednesday. We all remember Howe. He ended up with some good city appointment + metrification

[Frankland Macdonald Wood]

'Ousting Maggie' showed a lack of loyalty which was the main feature that the Party was known and respected for. It also implied a lack of guts over the very fair and sensible policy of the Community Charge and therefore that another key feature of the Party was weakening. Black Monday demonstrated why Maggie had been right over a tight policy towards EU monetary policy and that the then Chancellor had got it all wrong, meaning that the one absolute advantage of the party through fiscal probity and excellence was proved beyond doubt to be over. Then the terminal vacillations by the weak Major Administration over most things cemented the fate of the Party. The huge quantity of disloyalty shown to Major by the Eurosceptic Awkward Squad formed a series of factions within the Party that live on to this day poisoning all things that they touch. This internecine strife brought down at least two leaders and caused hundreds of thousands of supporters to quit. Then the acutely stupid support of the misconceived Iraq Adventure turned a glorious opportunity to harry the New Lab Government daily into the perdition it deserved into a pathetic rear-guard action of giving up ground, votes and integrity, until we find ourselves in the present position of a so-called 'Conservative Party' that looks like a Eurosceptic version of mainstream, wishy-washy liberalism. So it is unelectable for huge numbers of people like me who are neither Eurosceptic nor touchy-feely nor wishy-washy liberals.

[Brian Wilson]

Ousting Margaret Thatcher was definitely the more serious problem for the Tory Party. Black Wednesday would have happened to either political party as going into the ERM was the stupidist thing to do. This all stems from going along with the EU idea instead of standing firm and trying to determine what was/is best for the country.
The ousting led to a whole spate of acts of disloyalty that we have never recovered from. Those members who performed these disloyal acts should be ashamed of themselves for bringing down the party. Unfortunately, they all believe that they were correct in what they did. Wow! The latest group (who appear to have fallen for Wee Gordie's attraction) are just as silly and will live to regret not holding true to the party line. Maybe that is the problem, that there is no party line any more?

[John Barnes]

If we are talking electoral fortunes, there is absolutely no dfoubt at all. Black Wednesday was our single biggest disaster, although arguably Norman Lamont is right in thinking we went into the ERM at the right time and if only we had come out as a decision not an accident, we came out at the right moment also! But the shambles followed by PM and Chancellor staying on was a provable disaster. Maggie was not forced out, although she might well have been had she contested the second ballot. She resigned to stop Heseltine but the myths (I use the term in its proper sense) about her ousting have done party unity enormous harm. Winning in 1992 consolidated Thatcherism (a good thing), but I am with those who think that electorally it was a bad election to win.

[Simon Robinson]

The removal of Thatcher has a sort of beauty to it. It was unforgiveable of course, but it was in a sense what she would have wanted -to be stabbed in the back by faint-hearted wets on her own side, rather than ever having to face an electoral defeat as Prime Minister. It has left those who hate her bitterly and thoughtlessly without the satisfaction of ever seeing her lose, a fact which gives me immense satisfaction.

As others have said, we shouldn't have won in 1992; it's as simple as that.